What Does Revelation 6:17 Mean?
For the great day of their anger comes, and who is able to stand?
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
For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?THE KEY
The verse exposes that no one can assume they will remain established when the day of judgment arrives.
THE MEANING
The question meets you at the arrival of the day: when divine anger is present, who can remain standing before it? The verse leaves human capacity uncertain rather than granting anyone an assumed place.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It breaks the confidence that personal strength or composure alone guarantees a person can stand before judgment.
THE ROOT
σταθῆναι
stathēnai
GROWS FROM
στα-/στη- (sta-/stē-)
To stand, or be set in place.
The word translated “stand” is stathēnai, from ἵστημι (histēmi), which can mean to stand or set in place. The question reaches beyond posture: who can remain established before this day?
ALSO GROWS
stasis: Standing, position; also a faction.
στάσις
This branch makes standing a position that can be held or lost, sharpening the verse’s question about who can remain in place.
anastasis: Rising, resurrection.
ἀνάστασις
The same stand-family can name rising, linking the question of who can stand with the possibility of being raised.
ὀργῆς
orgēs
GROWS FROM
ὀργ-
org-
Anger or indignation.
The KJV’s “wrath” renders ὀργή (orgē), meaning anger or indignation. The verse places the question of standing directly in the presence of this anger, whose day has arrived.
ALSO GROWS
orgizō: To be angry.
ὀργίζω
This verb shares the anger-family of orgē, keeping the force of the verse personal and active rather than abstract.
orgilos: Prone to anger.
ὀργίλος
This related word carries the same anger-root into a description of character, underscoring the shared word-family.
THE PATTERN
A person’s standing before judgment is exposed as uncertain, while scripture places the power to uphold in God.
Therefore the wicked do not stand in the judgment, nor those who miss the mark in the assembly of the aligned.But who can hold the day of his coming? And who will stand when he is seen? For he is like the fire of the refiner, and like the lye of those who tread cloth.Who are you to judge another's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will be held upright, for God is able to make him stand.THE THREAD
After this I see, and look, a great crowd that no one can number, from every nation and tribe and people and tongue, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, wrapped in white robes, with palm branches in their hands.The same Greek stand-family turns the question into a scene: after asking who can stand, Revelation shows a multitude standing before the throne and the Lamb. The unanswered cry becomes an image of those who are there.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us