What Does Revelation 13:5 Mean?
And a mouth is given to him, speaking great things and wounding speech, and authority is given to him to work out for forty and two months.
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 there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.THE KEY
The beast’s terror is real, but its mouth and its reach are both given, and its time is counted.
THE MEANING
The beast speaks blasphemy and exercises real authority, yet neither originates in itself. The repeated “was given” places both its voice and its reach within a limit, and forty-two months gives that reach a measured span. The verse names domination as force with a boundary.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a force becomes ultimate simply because it is loud or powerful, or that domination controls how long it lasts.
THE ROOT
ἐδόθη
edothē
GROWS FROM
δίδωμι
didōmi
To give, grant, or hand over.
“given” in this verse is edothē. English can make the two grants sound like incidental setup, but Greek repeats ἐδόθη (edothē), from δίδωμι (didōmi), for both the mouth and the authority. The beast’s defining voice and its capacity to act are both received; the word makes dependence part of the image, while forty-two months makes its duration countable.
ALSO GROWS
metadidōmi: To share or impart.
μεταδίδωμι
This compound shows giving as something passed on; the beast’s capacity is received, not self-originating.
paradidōmi: To hand over or deliver.
παραδίδωμι
This compound makes the transfer explicit, echoing the verse’s picture of authority as something granted.
apodidōmi: To give back or repay.
ἀποδίδωμι
This compound can describe what is returned or rendered, keeping the root’s sense of something given within a relationship of limits.
THE PATTERN
Scripture depicts earthly power as received or bounded, never as self-originating.
And the LORD said to the Adversary, Look, all that he has is in your hand; only toward him do not stretch out your hand. So the Adversary went out from the face of the LORD.After this I saw, and look, another, like a leopard, which had upon its back four wings of a bird. The living one also had four heads, and dominion was given to it.Let every living soul place itself under the authorities that hold above. For there is no authority except under God, and the ones that are have been arranged under God.THE THREAD
Jesus answered, You would have no authority at all against me, unless it had been given you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you has a greater shortcoming.John uses the same word for authority, ἐξουσία (exousia), and the same giving-root, δίδωμι (didōmi): power exists because it is given. Even “delivered” comes from παραδίδωμι (paradidōmi), a compound of that same root, tracing both authority and handing over to the language of transfer.
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