What Does Revelation 14:16 Mean?
And the one who sits upon the cloud throws his sickle upon the earth, and the earth is reaped.
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 that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped.THE KEY
The earth itself becomes the harvest: what has grown across it is now cut and gathered.
THE MEANING
The whole earth is within the sickle’s reach: the one on the cloud thrusts it in, and the earth is reaped. What has grown across the earth reaches the moment of cutting and gathering.
THE ROOT
ἐθερίσθη
etherísthē
GROWS FROM
θεριζ-
theriz-
To reap or harvest: to cut down a crop and gather it.
“reaped” in this verse is etherísthē. The verb is passive: the earth receives the reaping and is itself the field and crop in the image. Its word family holds the act, the harvest, and the reaper together, bringing cutting and gathering into one scene.
ALSO GROWS
therismós: harvest
θερισμός
The harvest names the gathering that the verse’s reaping brings about.
theristḗs: reaper
θεριστής
The reaper is the one who carries out the act placed upon the earth in this verse.
THE PATTERN
Harvest language marks the point when growth becomes gathering or consequence.
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.Do not be led astray. God is not sneered at. For whatever a person sows, that also he reaps.THE THREAD
But when the fruit is handed over, straightway he sends out the sickle, because the harvest is standing here.Revelation’s word for “reaped” and Mark’s word for “harvest” share the Greek root θεριζ- (theriz-), meaning to reap or harvest. Mark makes the movement from growth to gathering explicit: when the fruit appears, the sickle enters.
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