What Does Revelation 11:18 Mean?
The nations swell, and your anger comes, and the season of the dead comes to be judged, and to give the wage to your servants the prophets, and to the set-apart ones, and to those who stand in awe of your nature, small and great, and to rot those who rot the earth.
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 the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.THE KEY
The destroyers and their destruction are named with the same Greek root: the ruin they bring is the ruin that meets them.
THE MEANING
This verse holds the nations’ anger beside God’s wrath and places the dead, the prophets, the set-apart ones, and all who stand in awe of God’s nature, small and great, within judgment and reward. Those who destroy the earth meet destruction themselves, while God’s servants receive their reward.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that those who devastate the earth can remain untouched by their devastation is undone: the verse uses the same root for their act and their destruction.
THE ROOT
διαφθεῖραι
diaphtherein
GROWS FROM
φθείρω
to spoil, corrupt, ruin, or bring to decay
“destroy ... destroy” in this verse is diaphtherein. The verse names both the destroyers and their destruction with forms of the same Greek word-family. That root also carries the sense of corruption and decay, so the ruin includes the spoiling process as well as its end.
ALSO GROWS
phthora: corruption, decay, ruin
φθορά
It shows the decay contained within the verse’s language of destruction.
phthartos: perishable, subject to corruption
φθαρτός
It carries the same root into the condition of what can be ruined.
ὠργίσθησαν
ōrgisthēsan
GROWS FROM
ὀργ-
anger or wrath
“were angry ... wrath” in this verse is ōrgisthēsan. English uses “angry” for the nations and “wrath” for God, while Greek places both in the same word-family. The shared root joins the two forms of anger, while the verse keeps their agents and outcomes distinct.
ALSO GROWS
orgizomai: to become angry
ὀργίζομαι
This is the verb form behind the nations’ anger.
orgē: anger, wrath
ὀργή
This is the noun used for the wrath that has come.
THE PATTERN
The damage people inflict on what is entrusted to them is joined to the consequence that returns upon them.
The earth also was ruined before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and look, it was ruined, for all flesh had ruined its way upon the earth. And God said to Noah, The end of all flesh has come before my face, for the earth is filled with violence from their faces, and look, I will spoil them along with the earth.If anyone ruins the temple of God, God will ruin him, for God's temple is set apart, and you are that temple.Do not be led astray. God is not sneered at. For whatever a person sows, that also he reaps.THE THREAD
If anyone ruins the temple of God, God will ruin him, for God's temple is set apart, and you are that temple.Both verses use the same Greek root for the harm and the consequence: to corrupt is to be corrupted. Revelation applies that root to those who ruin the earth; Corinthians makes the same word-link visible through the temple.
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