What Does Revelation 1:16 Mean?
He holds in his right hand seven stars, and from his mouth comes a sharp, two-edged sword, and his face is like the sun shining in its power.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.THE KEY
The “twoedged” sword is literally called “two-mouthed,” joining the blade that leaves his mouth to the mouth itself.
THE MEANING
This image meets you now: the figure holds the seven stars, a sharp blade comes from his mouth, and his face shines with the sun’s full force. His speech appears as something with an edge, and his presence as light at full strength.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that spoken words are only sound without force: here, the spoken word is pictured as a blade.
THE ROOT
δίστομος
distomos
GROWS FROM
στόμα
stoma
Mouth; also an opening and, in weapon imagery, an edge.
“two-edged” in this verse is distomos. The Greek word translated “twoedged” literally means “two-mouthed.” The blade that comes from the mouth is named with the very word for mouth, so the image binds speech and cutting edge together.
ALSO GROWS
stoma: Mouth; also an opening or the edge of a weapon.
στόμα
This root is inside “two-mouthed,” making the mouth and the blade’s edge part of the same word-picture.
stomion: A small mouth or an instrument placed in the mouth, such as a bit.
στόμιον
A mouthpiece channels force through the mouth; this branch echoes how the verse pictures the mouth as the source of a blade.
THE PATTERN
The word that comes from the mouth is pictured as an active blade that reaches and cuts.
He has set my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand he has hidden me, and set me as a polished arrow; in his quiver he has hidden me.For the word of God is living and working, and sharper than any two-edged sword, reaching through even to the dividing of living soul and breath, of joints and marrow, and it separates the inward movements and thoughts of the heart.And from his mouth goes out a sharp sword, so that with it he strikes the nations, and he shepherds them with a rod of iron, and he treads the winepress of the seething and swelling anger of God the all-ruling.THE THREAD
For the word of God is living and working, and sharper than any two-edged sword, reaching through even to the dividing of living soul and breath, of joints and marrow, and it separates the inward movements and thoughts of the heart.Both verses use δίστομος (distomos, “two-mouthed” or “two-edged”). Revelation locates that double edge at the speaker’s mouth; Hebrews shows the same image piercing and discerning inwardly.
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