What Does Revelation 17:15 Mean in the King James?
And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The waters beneath the woman are humanity gathered into peoples, crowds, nations, and languages.
THE MEANING
The verse names what surrounds the woman in the vision: a vast human collectivity, gathered as peoples, multitudes, nations, and languages. The image speaks now wherever power is pictured as riding on the scale and reach of populations. The waters remain the symbol; the people are what the symbol holds.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The waters are not only a literal sea; the verse itself identifies them with human populations.
THE ROOT
ὕδατα
hydata
GROWS FROM
ὕδωρ
hydōr
water
The plural keeps the water image while the verse names its human referent: peoples, crowds, nations, and languages. The image holds both at once, a mass of waters that is also a multitude of people.
ALSO GROWS
hydría: water jar
ὑδρία
This water word names a vessel that holds water; here the vision names what its waters hold: human populations.
hydrophoros: water-carrier
ὑδροφόρος
This branch presents water as something carried; the verse reveals the human collectivity carried within the vision’s water image.
THE PATTERN
Prophetic waters can carry the sound and force of gathered peoples.
Woe to the multitude of many people, which make a noise like the noise of the seas; and to the rushing of nations, that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters!Which stilleth the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves, and the tumult of the people.And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters:THE THREAD
And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters:The opening vision shows the woman sitting on many waters; this verse gives those waters a human referent. The shared water word holds the image together as its meaning comes into view.
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