What Does Revelation 18:23 Mean?
And the light of a lamp shall shine no more at all in you; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in you; for your traders were the great ones of the earth; for by your potions all nations were made to wander.
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 light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.THE KEY
The city’s vanished light and wedding voices expose a world whose celebrated greatness stands beside a sorcery that leads whole nations astray.
THE MEANING
The verse shows a world losing the signs of ordinary life: its lamp goes dark, and the voices of a wedding fall silent. Its merchants are its great ones, while its sorceries lead nations off course.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Prosperity proves that a society is flourishing and its influence is trustworthy.
THE ROOT
πλανήθησαν
planēthēsan
GROWS FROM
πλαν-
To wander, or to cause someone to wander; to lead astray.
“made to wander” in this verse is planēthēsan. The Greek word makes deception directional: it is being led off course, not merely receiving a false fact. Here, whole nations are carried away together.
ALSO GROWS
planē: Wandering; error or deception.
πλάνη
The same word family holds both straying and the error that results, making deception a course nations are pulled onto.
planētēs: Wanderer; a wandering star or planet.
πλανήτης
The word preserves the root’s sense of motion, echoing the image of nations led away from their course.
φαρμακείᾳ
pharmakeia
GROWS FROM
φαρμακ-
The Greek word family of potions or drugs, and practices of magic or sorcery.
This family reaches from potions and drugs to the practice called sorcery. That gives the word a sense of influence that acts on perception; the verse names the result as nations being led astray.
ALSO GROWS
pharmakon: A drug, remedy, or poison.
φάρμακον
This related word shows the family’s association with substances that can alter or affect a person.
pharmakeus: A sorcerer or practitioner of magic.
φαρμακεύς
This names the practitioner of the magic called pharmakeia, linking the practice to the people who wield it.
THE PATTERN
When an order comes under judgment, its collapse is heard in the disappearance of ordinary shared life: music, work, light, and weddings.
Moreover, I will take from them the voice of leaping, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the lamp.The leaping of the tambourines rests, the roar of those who leap is stilled, the joy of the lyre rests.And the sound of those who pluck the harp, and of the makers of song, and of those who blow the pipe, and of those who sound the trumpet, shall be heard no more at all in you; and no hand of any craft shall be found in you any longer; and the sound of the grinding stone shall be heard no more at all in you;THE THREAD
And the great dragon is thrown down, that ancient serpent, called the Slanderer and the Adversary, who leads the whole inhabited world astray. He is flung into the earth, and his messengers are thrown down with him.The same Greek word family appears in both verses: here nations are led astray, and there the dragon is the one leading the whole world astray. The shared root connects the city’s sorceries to a wider pattern of deception.
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