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Revelation 9:1-12 - The Fifth Trumpet and the Abyss

13 min read

Revelation 8 closes with three cries of woe. The fifth trumpet now brings the first of them, and the vision is terrifying: smoke darkens the air, a swarm rises from the abyss, and human beings long for death. Yet the passage keeps interrupting terror with limits. The key is given. Authority is given. A target is set. Killing is forbidden. Five months are appointed. The abyss fills the scene, but it never occupies the throne. Revelation teaches the Church to recognize evil by its fruit, to refuse both fascination and panic, and to remain with Christ, the life-giving King.

The Abyss Is Opened under Limits (Revelation 9:1-4)

1 Then the fifth angel sounded: And I saw a star fallen from heaven to the earth. To him was given the key to the bottomless pit. 2 And he opened the bottomless pit, and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. So the sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke of the pit. 3 Then out of the smoke locusts came upon the earth. And to them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. 4 They were commanded not to harm the grass of the earth, or any green thing, or any tree, but only those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.

John sees a star already “fallen from heaven.” The Greek participle presents the figure in a fallen state, but neither the grammar nor this vision settles his exact identity. The clearer point is what happens next: the key is given to him. Even a fallen heavenly agent cannot open the abyss by independent right.1

The smoke resembles a great furnace and darkens the sun and air. The imagery recalls the darkness of the Exodus plagues and the locust army of Joel, but Revelation introduces a deliberate reversal. Natural locusts consume vegetation; these agents are commanded to leave grass, green growth, and trees untouched. Their scorpion-like authority is directed toward people. John is showing a visionary judgment, not describing an ordinary swarm or hiding a diagram of modern military hardware inside the text.2

The command in verse 4 distinguishes people by the seal of God. Revelation 7 has already shown God’s servants sealed before the trumpet judgments. The seal first declares belonging: God knows His own. Its protection here is exact and limited to this plague; elsewhere in Revelation, faithful witnesses still suffer and may be killed. Grace is not a charm against every wound. It is the Lord’s claim upon His servants, which no abyss can cancel.

For the Church, that belonging becomes a sober call to remain in Christ through faith, repentance, prayer, and communion with Him. It also forbids a cruel conclusion: another person’s illness, anguish, addiction, persecution, or trauma is not proof that he or she is “unsealed.” Verse 4 gives courage to God’s servants; it does not give them permission to judge the wounded.

Language insight

The NKJV’s “bottomless pit” translates the phrase to phrear tēs abyssou. Phrear is the shaft, well, or opening; abyssos is the abyss. The image is an opened access point into a depth of confinement, not a geographical location that can be plotted on a map.1

More important than locating the abyss is hearing the repeated grammar of restraint. In verses 1, 3, and 5, the key or authority “was given”; in verse 4, a command “was said” to the swarm. These passives do not answer every question about divine providence and demonic agency, but they do establish the vision’s pattern: destructive power is delegated and bounded. Evil acts terribly, yet never as a second god.

Gems from the Fathers 💎

St. Athanasius does not comment directly on Revelation 9 in the passage used here, but his Life of St. Antony gives a closely related pastoral reading of demonic power. Recalling Job, he writes of the devil, “Certainly he had no power to do anything, but he asked, and having received it, he has wrought what he did.” He also points to the demons who had to ask permission before entering the swine. Athanasius uses this truth to free Christians from panic and to strengthen faith in Christ, not to deny the reality of suffering.3

Earlier in the same work, Athanasius says that “faith in our Lord is a seal and a wall of safety to us.” This is a thematic parallel rather than a lexical definition of Revelation 9:4. Its value is spiritual: safety begins with belonging to the Lord, not with mastering the anatomy of what rises from the abyss.

Torment Is Terrible but Bounded (Revelation 9:5-10)

5 And they were not given authority to kill them, but to torment them for five months. Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man. 6 In those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will desire to die, and death will flee from them. 7 The shape of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle. On their heads were crowns of something like gold, and their faces were like the faces of men. 8 They had hair like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth. 9 And they had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots with many horses running into battle. 10 They had tails like scorpions, and there were stings in their tails. Their power was to hurt men five months.

Verse 5 joins permission to prohibition. The agents receive authority to torment, but they are forbidden to kill. Their term is repeated at the beginning and end of the description: five months. Ancient readers knew locust swarms as seasonal terrors, and one ancient-background explanation connects the five months with a locust’s normal life span. John does not tell us whether to treat the number as literal, symbolic, or layered. Its unmistakable force within this passage is limitation. The anguish is severe; its duration is not self-determined.2

Verse 6 gives that anguish a human voice: people seek death, desire it, and cannot find it. A teacher should let the horror remain horror. The verse neither romanticizes self-destruction nor gives believers grounds to shame a person who longs to die. If someone recognizes his or her present life in these words, the Christian response is immediate presence, practical protection, qualified help, prayer, and pastoral care. Christ receives the tormented with mercy. The Church must do the same.

John then describes the swarm through a chain of comparisons. The figures are like horses prepared for battle; their crowns are something like gold; their faces, hair, teeth, breastplates, sound, tails, and stings are each compared to something familiar. Together the images communicate disciplined menace, apparent triumph, intelligence, predatory violence, armor, overwhelming noise, and concealed pain. The repeated “like” and “as” govern the reading. John gives a cumulative portrait of terror, not a one-to-one code in which each body part must become a weapon, nation, ethnicity, technology, or modern event.4

The description also exposes evil’s fraud. The crowns only resemble gold. The faces suggest human intelligence, while the teeth and tails reveal predation and pain. The swarm looks organized and crowned, but it cannot produce a kingdom of life. Much of sin works this way. Resentment can feel like strength, occult curiosity like privileged knowledge, domination like safety, and addiction like relief. Their promised crown is thin; their fruit is bondage.

The comparison to women’s hair belongs to the same composite chain. It cannot be isolated to mock women, femininity, men with long hair, or anyone’s appearance. The spiritual warning lies in the whole figure: attraction and terror, intelligence and brutality, splendor and torment are bound together in a single deceptive power.

Gems from the Fathers 💎

Bede the Venerable comments directly on verse 7: “But these have crowns like gold, as pretending to false triumphs from an empty victory.” His words do not make “counterfeit” the lexical meaning of crown; they interpret John’s careful phrase “something like gold.” Bede helps the reader see why the vision’s splendor should not be trusted. A victory that leaves people tormented is empty, however brightly it presents itself.5

The Destroyer Is Named (Revelation 9:11-12)

11 And they had as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, but in Greek he has the name Apollyon. 12 One woe is past. Behold, still two more woes are coming after these things.

The swarm’s king is “the angel of the bottomless pit.” John gives his name in Hebrew and Greek: Abaddon and Apollyon. The names carry the force of destruction and destroyer. The text names the fruit of his rule without resolving his identity more precisely; an equation with Satan, a historical ruler, or a present-day figure would go beyond what this passage establishes.6

This naming is a judgment in itself. The swarm’s crowns, armor, and battle noise can intimidate the eye and ear, but its king’s name tells the truth. Whatever destroys worship, freedom, love of neighbor, and hope in God belongs to a kingdom whose destination is already disclosed. Christ’s kingship is different in kind. The Lamb was slain and stands alive; He gathers servants, receives their prayers, and leads them toward life. Revelation does not leave the Church between two equal thrones.

“One woe is past” closes the fifth trumpet, but the warning remains open: two woes are still coming. Relief would be premature, and speculation would miss the mercy of the announcement. The proper response to a woe is repentance while there is still time, faithful worship while pressure continues, and hope fixed on the Lamb whose kingdom outlasts every destroyer.

Spiritual Fruit 🍇

Bring fear back under the words of the passage. When anxiety makes darkness feel limitless, pray through the verbs: the key was given, the target was restricted, killing was forbidden, and the time was bounded. This does not make suffering small. It places real suffering before the greater sovereignty of Christ.

Examine every promise of power by its fruit. Resentment may promise protection, control may promise security, occult curiosity may promise knowledge, and addiction may promise relief. Ask what each one is making of your freedom, prayer, love, and attention. Bring the bondage into confession and seek concrete help before its false crown becomes familiar.

Receive God’s seal as belonging, not as a charm. Remain in Christ through daily prayer, repentance, the sacramental life of the Church, and obedience in ordinary duties. Refuse the temptation to interpret another person’s suffering as evidence against his or her faith. The sealed servants belong to God even when discipleship passes through suffering.

Stand near the tormented. Verse 6 trains the Church to hear unbearable anguish without ridicule or easy spiritual diagnoses. If someone speaks of wanting death, listen, stay present, help secure immediate safety and qualified care, involve trusted pastoral support, and pray with the person. Mercy is not a departure from the text; it is fidelity to Christ in the presence of pain.

Let the woe become repentance rather than fascination. Turn from whatever darkens prayer, feeds secret cruelty, or makes destruction entertaining. The passage has done its work when the abyss loses its glamour, sin is named honestly, and the heart returns to the Lamb who was slain and lives.

Footnotes

  1. SBLGNT Revelation 9:1-5, https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Faithlife/SBLGNT/master/data/sblgnt/text/Rev.txt; secondary morphology and interlinear checks at https://biblehub.com/interlinear/revelation/9-1.htm, https://biblehub.com/interlinear/revelation/9-3.htm, https://biblehub.com/interlinear/revelation/9-4.htm, and https://biblehub.com/interlinear/revelation/9-5.htm. ↩ ↩2

  2. Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Locust,” https://www.britannica.com/animal/locust-insect; USCCB, Revelation 9 notes, https://bible.usccb.org/bible/revelation/9. The natural-history association explains possible background; it does not determine whether John’s five months are literal or symbolic. ↩ ↩2

  3. St. Athanasius of Alexandria, Life of St. Antony §§9, 29, trans. H. Ellershaw, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2811.htm. These are thematic parallels, not direct commentary on Revelation 9. ↩

  4. SBLGNT Revelation 9:7-10, https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Faithlife/SBLGNT/master/data/sblgnt/text/Rev.txt; see also the interlinear presentation at https://biblehub.com/interlinear/revelation/9-7.htm. ↩

  5. Bede the Venerable, The Explanation of the Apocalypse, Book II, on Revelation 9:7, trans. Edward Marshall (1878), https://www.ecatholic2000.com/bede/untitled-15.shtml#on-chapter-9; edition record at https://archive.org/details/explanationapoc00bedegoog. ↩

  6. SBLGNT Revelation 9:11, https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Faithlife/SBLGNT/master/data/sblgnt/text/Rev.txt; Hebrew Abaddon lexical entry, https://biblehub.com/hebrew/11.htm; Greek Apollyon lexical entry, https://biblehub.com/greek/623.htm. ↩

  7. Fr. Jacob B. Nadian, comp., The Rites of the Holy Pascha Week, “Apocalypse Night,” revised November 2011, Revelation 9 on printed pages 220-224, https://saintbishoy.ca/wp-content/uploads/Rites_Pascha_Book_6-Apocalypse_Night.pdf. The checked research establishes the full chapter’s presence in this service book; exact local part numbering and uniform diocesan practice remain uncertain. ↩

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