What Does Revelation 9:5 Mean?
And it is given to them that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months, and their torment is as the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man.
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 to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.THE KEY
The verse measures cruelty by the limit attached to it: scorpion-like torment is permitted, but death is withheld and the span is fixed at five months.
THE MEANING
This verse presents torment as real bodily pain, measured against a scorpion’s strike. It also states the limit plainly: the afflicted are not killed, and the torment runs for five months. The image holds both truths together, violent suffering and a boundary on what it can do.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that whatever can cause pain has unlimited power: here torment is permitted, but killing is withheld and the duration is specified.
THE ROOT
βασανισθῶσιν
basanisthōsin
GROWS FROM
βασαν-
The βασαν- word family means torment or torture in New Testament usage; the related noun βάσανος can also mean a touchstone used to test metal.
“tormented” in this verse is basanisthōsin. The verb names imposed torment, and the noun βασανισμός repeats the same word family when the verse compares one torment with another. The touchstone sense belongs to the wider word history, but this verse directly describes affliction, not metaphorical testing.
ALSO GROWS
basanos: Touchstone; torment or torture
βάσανος
The related noun appears in the verse’s repeated word for torment, making the scorpion’s strike the measure of the inflicted pain.
basanistēs: Tormentor or torturer
βασανιστής
Matthew 18:34 uses this cognate for the people who impose torment, showing that the same word family names both the suffering and its agent.
THE PATTERN
Harmful power is shown with a stated boundary: the ordeal remains real, while its reach or duration is limited.
And the LORD said to the Adversary, Behold, he is in your hand; only guard his living soul.No test has seized you except what is common to humankind. God is steady, and he will not let you be tested beyond what you are able to carry, but with the test he will also make the way out, so that you can carry it.THE THREAD
And the sound of him went out through all Syria, and they carried to him all who were ill, held by many-colored sicknesses and torments, and those gripped by demons, and those struck by the moon, and those who were paralyzed, and he healed them.The word translated torments in Matthew belongs to the same βασαν- family as Revelation’s word for being tormented. Matthew names afflictions brought to Jesus and says he heals them; the shared word connects the scenes without changing the violence Revelation describes.
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