What Does Revelation 9:2 Mean?
And he opens the bottomless pit, and smoke rises out of the pit as the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air are darkened by the smoke of the pit.
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 he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.THE KEY
The smoke does not put out the sun; it fills the world with what keeps the light from being seen.
THE MEANING
When the abyss opens, smoke rises until both sun and air are darkened. The verse speaks now to how what rises from the deep can cloud both the light above and the space around you. It describes light obscured by smoke, not a sun extinguished.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
When light is no longer visible, it has not necessarily ceased to exist; smoke can obscure the source without destroying it.
THE ROOT
ἀβύσσου
abyssou
GROWS FROM
ἀ- + βυσσ-
A Greek formation with the privative prefix ἀ-: depth without a bottom, unfathomable.
“bottomless” in this verse is abyssou. The Greek names an unfathomable depth, yet the verse describes it as having a shaft that can be opened. What emerges from that depth does not stay below: its smoke reaches upward and darkens the world above.
ALSO GROWS
byssos: Depth or deepest part.
βυσσός
This depth-word is the seed of the image that ἀ- makes bottomless.
abyssos: Abyss; unfathomable depth.
ἄβυσσος
The same word names the pit whose smoke rises into the visible world.
ἐσκοτώθη
eskotōthē
GROWS FROM
σκότ-
Darkness or obscurity.
“darkened” in this verse is eskotōthē. The verb describes what happens to the sun and air because of the smoke: they are obscured. The source of light remains in the sentence; what changes is whether it can be seen.
ALSO GROWS
skotos: Darkness.
σκότος
It names the condition produced when smoke obscures the sun and air.
skotia: Darkness or obscurity.
σκοτία
This related form carries the same movement from visible light into concealment.
skoteinos: Dark or obscure.
σκοτεινός
It describes the quality the smoke gives to the light and air.
THE PATTERN
Darkness can cover the field of sight while light remains present.
And the earth was unshaped and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the breath of God was fluttering over the face of the waters.No one saw his brother, and no one rose from beneath him for three days. But all the children of Israel had light where they settled.And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not take hold of it.THE THREAD
And I see a messenger come down from heaven, holding the key of the pit without floor and a great chain in his hand.The pit is named with the same Greek word, ἄβυσσος. Here a key and chain frame that unfathomable depth as something that can be opened and restrained.
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