What Does Revelation 9:16 Mean in the King James?
And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them.
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
John hears the cavalry counted in “myriads of myriads,” so its overwhelming scale arrives as a spoken number.
THE MEANING
The vision places before you a cavalry force counted at two hundred million. Its scale is immense, yet the number is heard and stated rather than left indefinite.
THE ROOT
ἀριθμός
arithmos
GROWS FROM
ἀριθμ-
arithm-
To count, reckon, or number.
The verse uses ἀριθμός twice: John hears the number, then names it again as their number. The same Greek stem also forms words for counting and for what cannot be numbered, holding measure and vastness together.
ALSO GROWS
arithmeō: To count or enumerate.
ἀριθμέω
This counting verb makes explicit the act contained in the verse’s repeated word for number.
anarithmētos: Unnumbered or innumerable.
ἀναρίθμητος
Built from the same counting stem, this word shows how Greek can describe a multitude as beyond numbering; here, even an immense force is given a stated count.
δισμυριάδες μυριάδων
dismyriades myriadōn
GROWS FROM
μυριάς
myrias
Ten thousand; by extension, a very great multitude.
The Greek expression repeats the myrias word-family: “myriads of myriads,” rendered in the KJV as “two hundred thousand thousand.” It gives the huge total a repeated scale-word that appears elsewhere for vast companies.
ALSO GROWS
myriads: Myriads, or tens of thousands.
μυριάδες
Revelation 5:11 uses the word-family for the multitude around the throne, linking immense scale with a voiced count.
myriads: Myriads; the plural form used with “angels.”
μυριάσιν
Hebrews 12:22 renders this as “an innumerable company,” preserving the sense of vastness while the Greek echoes the word-family heard here.
THE PATTERN
Scripture gives immense multitudes a form through counting, even when their scale strains ordinary comprehension.
And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands;THE THREAD
But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,The Greek phrase is μυριάσιν ἀγγέλων (myriasin angelōn), literally “myriads of angels,” from the same myrias word-family as “myriads of myriads” here. The KJV’s “innumerable company” and this verse’s immense cavalry count share that scale-word, even as they appear in sharply different scenes.
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