What Does Revelation 6:6 Mean?
And I hear a voice in the midst of the four living creatures, saying, A measure of wheat for a denarius, and three measures of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and the wine.
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 I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.THE KEY
Scarcity is selective: grain is measured against a penny, while oil and wine are explicitly shielded from harm.
THE MEANING
The voice prices a measure of wheat and three measures of barley at a penny each, while placing a boundary around the oil and wine. The pressure falls on staple grain, but the damage does not reach everything named here.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the idea that scarcity falls evenly: grain is under pressure while oil and wine are specifically protected.
THE ROOT
ἀδικήσῃς
adikēsēs
GROWS FROM
δικ (dik), in δίκη (dikē)
Right or justice; with the negating prefix ἀ- (a-), adikeō means to wrong or injure.
“do not harm” in this verse is adikēsēs. The word translated “hurt” carries the sense of doing wrong or inflicting injury, not just causing an effect. That gives the command a sharp boundary: the grain remains under pressure, but oil and wine are named as goods the harm must not reach.
ALSO GROWS
dikē: right, justice, or judgment
δίκη
The harm-word is built around what is right; its use here frames injury to the oil and wine as something forbidden.
adikia: injustice or wrongdoing
ἀδικία
This related noun names wrongdoing more broadly, while the verse draws a specific limit against injuring the oil and wine.
THE PATTERN
The measure and price of grain expose how scarcity and control shape an economy.
Saying, When will the new moon cross over, that we may sell the grain? And the Sabbath, that we may open out the wheat? Making the measure small and the shekel great, and tilting the scales of deceit?Then Elisha said, Hear and respond to the word of the LORD. Thus says the LORD, About this time tomorrow a measure of fine flour will be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria.And cinnamon, and fragrances, and incense, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and bodies, and living souls of humankind.THE THREAD
Look, I give you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the strength of the enemy, and nothing will by any means injure you.The Greek verb behind “hurt” here also appears in Jesus’ words, “nothing shall by any means hurt you.” The shared word for injury makes the command in Revelation read as a boundary placed on harm, even while the grain price signals pressure.
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