What Does Revelation 14:15 Mean?
And another messenger comes out from the temple, shouting with a loud voice to the one who sits upon the cloud, Send your sickle and reap, for the hour has come for you to reap, for the harvest of the earth has dried.
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 another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.THE KEY
The earth is ready when its crop has dried to maturity, so the sickle answers a completed season, not an impatient impulse.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks of a threshold: the appointed hour has arrived because the earth’s harvest has reached maturity. Reaping follows that readiness, cutting the field into a gathered result.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that reaping comes arbitrarily or prematurely: the verse names both the appointed hour and the crop’s completed maturity.
THE ROOT
θερίσαι
therísai
GROWS FROM
θερίζω
therízō
To reap or harvest a crop.
“reap / harvest” in this verse is therísai. The Greek words for “reap” and “harvest” share the same word family: the act and the harvest season belong together. The appointed time arrives as the harvest itself reaches readiness.
ALSO GROWS
therismós: Harvest, reaping
θερισμός
Names the harvest with the same stem as the act of reaping.
theristḗs: Reaper
θεριστής
Names the one who reaps from that same word family.
ἐξηράνθη
exēranthē
GROWS FROM
ξηραίνω
xerainō
To dry up or wither.
Where English says “ripe,” the Greek pictures the crop as having dried out. The harvest’s readiness appears as a completed change in the field itself, not merely a date on a calendar.
ALSO GROWS
xēros: Dry
ξηρός
The adjective shares the dry quality pictured by the crop’s readiness.
xerainō: Dry up, wither
ξηραίνω
The verb names the drying process behind the verse’s word for “ripe.”
THE PATTERN
Across scripture, harvest marks the appointed threshold when growth is cut from the field and gathered.
Stretch out the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, tread, for the winepress is full. The vats overflow, for their evil is great.But when the fruit is handed over, straightway he sends out the sickle, because the harvest is standing here.The enemy who sowed them is the Slanderer; the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are messengers.THE THREAD
But when the fruit is handed over, straightway he sends out the sickle, because the harvest is standing here.Mark uses the same Greek harvest word, θερισμός (therismós), and links its arrival directly to the sickle’s entry. The shared word family makes the timing visible: when the harvest has come, reaping begins.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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