What Does Revelation 8:11 Mean?
And the name of the star is called Wormwood; and the third part of the waters becomes wormwood, and many among humankind die from the waters, because they are made bitter.
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 name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.THE KEY
The star’s name becomes the waters’ nature: a third of what sustains life turns bitter and brings death to many.
THE MEANING
The verse holds the bitter source and its consequence together: the star is named Wormwood, a third of the waters take on its bitterness, and many die from those waters. What should sustain life becomes deadly when bitterness spreads through it.
THE ROOT
ἐπικράνθησαν
epikranthēsan
GROWS FROM
πικρ-
pikr-
Bitter, with the sharpness of a bitter taste
“made bitter” in this verse is epikranthēsan. The Greek word for “became bitter” belongs to the same family as words for bitter taste and bitterness of heart. The language keeps the taste of the waters and the harm that spreads from bitterness connected.
ALSO GROWS
pikros: Bitter, sharp to the taste
πικρός
James 3:11 uses this word for bitter water from a fountain, joining the quality of the water to what its source sends out.
pikria: Bitterness
πικρία
Hebrews 12:15 speaks of a root of bitterness that springs up and defiles many, echoing how bitterness here reaches beyond its source.
pikrainō: Make bitter or become bitter
πικραίνω
This verb names the change in the waters: they take on the bitter quality associated with Wormwood.
ὄνομα
onoma
GROWS FROM
ὀνομ-
onom-
Name; what someone or something is called
The verse names the star Wormwood before describing the waters becoming wormwood. The name gathers the star’s bitter nature into a word, then shows that quality spreading into the waters.
ALSO GROWS
onomazō: Name or call
ὀνομάζω
The verse says the star “is called” Wormwood, making the act of naming central to how its nature is revealed.
onomastos: Named or renowned
ὀνομαστός
The related word preserves the link between a name and the character by which someone or something is known.
THE PATTERN
A bitter root or source does not remain private; it alters what a community receives.
Lest there be among you a man or a woman, a family or a tribe, whose heart turns away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of those nations. Lest there be among you a root bearing poison and wormwood.Keeping watch, lest any fall short of the favor of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up crowd you, and through it the many be stained.Does the same spring gush from the same opening, the sweet and the bitter?THE THREAD
Does the same spring gush from the same opening, the sweet and the bitter?James uses πικρόν (pikron, “bitter”) for water from a fountain; Revelation uses a word from the same πικρ- family for waters that become bitter. The shared root links a source to what its waters carry, and Revelation shows that bitterness reaching many with lethal force.
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