What Does Revelation 9:18 Mean?
By these three is the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which comes out of their mouths.
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
By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.THE KEY
The mouths are depicted as outlets of lethal force, making their source part of the violence itself.
THE MEANING
The verse describes a third of humanity being killed through fire, smoke, and brimstone issuing from the mouths. The violence is explicit, bodily, and immense.
THE ROOT
ἐκπορευομένου
ekporeuomenou
GROWS FROM
πορεύομαι
poreuomai
to go, travel, or journey
“comes out” in this verse is ekporeuomenou. The Greek verb pictures a going forth: most directly, the brimstone is described as proceeding from the mouths, while fire, smoke, and brimstone are grouped as the agents of death. The same verb appears in Matthew’s phrase for what “proceeds out” of the mouth, linking this verse’s image to a wider pattern of outward movement.
ALSO GROWS
poreuomai: go, travel
πορεύομαι
The base verb frames the action as movement, not simply as a substance being present.
ekporeuomai: go out, proceed
ἐκπορεύομαι
This compound names movement outward and is used for what proceeds from a mouth in Matthew 15:18.
στόματα
stomata
GROWS FROM
στόμα
stoma
mouth; also an opening or outlet
Greek στόμα can mean both a mouth and an opening. Here, the mouths are not merely where words might be spoken: they are the depicted outlets of deadly substances.
ALSO GROWS
stomion: mouthpiece, bit, or small opening
στόμιον
This related form keeps the sense of a passage or outlet through which something can move.
stomatikos: pertaining to the mouth; oral
στοματικός
This derivative retains the word’s bodily sense, grounding the verse’s image in an actual mouth.
πυρός
pyros
GROWS FROM
πῦρ
pyr
fire; burning heat
The Greek family links outward flame with heat within the body: the same seed appears in πυρετός (pyretos), meaning fever. In this verse, fire is one of the stated means by which people are killed.
ALSO GROWS
pyroō: burn, set ablaze
πυρόω
This verb carries the root’s active force of burning.
pyretos: fever
πυρετός
The shared root connects flame outside the body with heat within it.
THE PATTERN
The mouth can be a point where destructive force moves outward and reaches others.
And if anyone wishes to harm them, fire journeys out of their mouth and devours their enemies, and if anyone wishes to harm them, he must in this way be killed.And the tongue is fire, a world of crookedness. It is set among our limbs, staining the whole body and setting the wheel of becoming ablaze, and it is lit by Gehenna.Death and life are in the hand of the tongue, and those who love it eat its fruit.THE THREAD
But what comes out of the mouth comes forth from the heart, and that makes a person common.Matthew uses ἐκπορεύομαι (ekporeuomai, “proceed out”) with στόμα (stoma, “mouth”) for what comes from the mouth, then locates its source in the heart. Revelation shares the mouth-and-outflow language while depicting the emerging force as fire, smoke, and brimstone.
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