And out of the smoke came forth locusts on the earth, and power was given to them as the scorpions of the earth have power;
The fifth trumpet brings a swarm out of the smoke of the pit, armed not for crops but with the sting of scorpions. Where do these creatures come from, and what power do they receive?
The text is careful about origins. One writer begins with who holds the keys:
Christ has "the keys of Death and Hades" (Revelation 1:18). We cannot imagine that He would hand over any part of His own authority to an apostate, whether man or spirit… In fact, the text does not even say that the locusts come out of the pit. Nothing comes out of it but the smoke that darkens the sun and the air. The locusts come out of the smoke… The smoke here is not the smoke of torment, as it is elsewhere. It is the fumes of harmful spiritual influences that darken the air and the supreme source of light itself. We can easily understand that the locusts are bred out of that darkness.
The strongest argument against real insects lies in the command that follows the verse:
The locusts that come out of the smoke are a picture of aggressive robbers, and they are clothed with a remarkable power of torment, like the scorpions of the earth. The command given shows very plainly, I think, the error of those who take the locusts literally. They were not to hurt the grass of the earth, and so on — that is, their natural food, if real locusts were meant.
Everything turns on the creature chosen for the comparison:
The intense anguish caused by these hordes of satanic instruments and agents is like the torment of a scorpion's poisonous sting. The scorpion shuns the light, and the native peoples of Africa and the Arab tribes of Asia rightly dread it. The sting is not often fatal, but the suffering is dreadful… In Luke 10:19 the Lord connects serpents, scorpions, and the power of the enemy with the fall of Satan. Here, in the same way, scorpions are linked with the fallen star.
The verse says the power was given to them. Walter Scott takes that word strictly: these agents are "powerless, unless authority is given them to act." Another writer compares this plague with the four that came before:
If the four earlier judgments were providential, though inflicted judicially by God, this one, while still under God's control, is diabolical in its origin and nature.
The swarm is limited twice over — in what it may eat, and in whom it may reach:
Their power fits their origin: it is pictured as the power of the scorpions of the earth — that is, their poisonous sting. Their difference from natural locusts shows here. They do not touch the locusts' food. They are a plague only on men, and only on the unsealed among them. Since it is in Israel that the sealing is found, the fair inference is that these unsealed ones are Israelites, and the place of this plague is in the east.
One writer names what the locusts stand for, and where their poison lands:
This evil teaching is pictured as a swarm of locusts that sweeps everything before it with irresistible power, leaving misery in its trail. Natural locusts would destroy the grass and every green thing, and strip the trees. But the evil influence set out by these symbolic locusts will not touch people's circumstances in life, or even their bodies. It poisons their minds, just as a scorpion poisons the body.
- Source — nothing comes out of the pit but smoke. The locusts are bred from that smoke, the fumes of harmful spiritual influence that blot out the light.
- Symbol — these are not insects. They are forbidden the grass and green things that real locusts live to eat.
- Sting — the picture is a scorpion, not a killer. Its sting is rarely fatal, but the suffering is dreadful.
- Sanction — the power is given; the agents are diabolical in nature yet act only within limits God sets.
- Scope — they may reach only those without the seal of God, which is the one shelter in the whole scene.
and it was said to them, that they should not injure the grass of the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree, but the men who have not the seal of God on their foreheads
The fifth trumpet lets loose a swarm like no swarm ever seen. It ignores every green thing and goes straight for people. One line is drawn across the whole scene: a mark on the forehead. Everything in this judgment turns on who has it and who does not.
Real locusts strip a land bare. These are forbidden to touch the very thing locusts live on. Commentators read that ban as the key to the whole picture.
The command given shows, I think very plainly, the error of those who take the locusts in a literal way. They were not to hurt the grass of the earth, and so on — that is, their natural food, if real locusts were meant. Men were to be the objects of these symbolic raiders — men, except God's sealed ones.
Another writer gives a second reason for sparing the fields.
The whole description shows that the locust army is a symbolic picture of judgment of a superhuman kind. So does the ban on injuring the grass and trees, their natural food. There is a further reason why the plant world was to be spared. The grass, "any green plant," and trees point to a general state of prosperity in men's circumstances and position.
Read this command together with chapter 7, and the target of the plague comes into focus.
Their power is limited. This command settles two things. First, as already said, these are moral, not real, locusts. Natural locusts ravage exactly the plants and trees of the earth. Second, the target of this dreadful visitation is apostate Jews. Revelation 7 tells us that the servants of God, sealed on their foreheads, are the elect of the twelve tribes. So those not sealed would be Jews outside that elect number. Later parts of this book make it clear that these unsealed Jews will be, mostly if not entirely, in Jerusalem and Palestine. That fixes both the sphere and the character of the judgment.
Commentators differ on how far the plague reaches. One reads the double name in the chapter as a hint of wider scope:
Perhaps the double name in Hebrew and Greek shows that their power will be over Jews and Gentiles.
So what does this seal do for the person who carries it?
With the seal we have the idea of God's property, His ownership, and it also carries the meaning of security. If God has put His seal on a man, everyone can see it, because it is on the forehead. Then even these evil powers will not touch him. This mark is the exact opposite of the mark of the beast. People will accept the mark of the beast in order to survive, and that is the opposite of faith.
The seal carries one more promise, and leaves one question open:
"The seal of the living God" implies safety from death. The seal on the forehead is a public, open acknowledgment that those sealed belong to God. What the seal is, we are not told.
The sealing in chapter 7 happens first, and the judgment waits for it. One writer draws out what that order shows about God's rule.
We learn, second, that God governs the world with His people in view. The angel coming up from the east told the four angels not to hurt the earth, the sea, or the trees, "until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads." It was the same when judgment was about to fall on Jerusalem. The Lord had a mark set on the foreheads of the men who sighed and cried over all the detestable things done in it. He kept this faithful remnant safe while the punishment swept through.
The unsealed are not killed. One writer describes what they suffer instead, and for how long.
These locusts have the poison of scorpions. The natural locust feeds on every green thing, but these were only to afflict the unsealed among men. Their torment is like the sting of a scorpion, which is very sharp but does not usually kill. There is a limit to the length of this affliction — five months.
- Sealed first. God holds judgment back until He has marked His servants. He did the same in Jerusalem, marking those who grieved over its sins before the blow fell.
- Sealed means owned. The mark on the forehead is public. It declares who a person belongs to, and it is the exact opposite of the mark of the beast. What the seal looks like, we are never told.
- Sealed means spared. Ownership brings security. Even these evil powers may not touch a sealed man.
- Unsealed means exposed. Most writers name the victims as Israelites outside the sealed number. One sees the reach going wider, to Gentiles too.
- Unsealed means tormented. The plague spares the grass and strikes people. It brings five months of anguish that stops short of death.
and it was given to them 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 it strikes a man.
The fifth trumpet releases a swarm out of the bottomless pit, and the striking thing about it is what it is not allowed to do. They may torment but not kill, and even the torment is capped at five months — so who sets the limit, and what kind of pain is this?
The verse turns on one word: the locusts were "allowed." Someone above them fixes how far they can go. One writer finds the same pattern in the book of Job.
Second, we have the extent to which the judgment can go. Satan was allowed to persecute Job, but not to take his life. In the same way these symbolic locusts, these agents from the bottomless pit, are not allowed to take the lives of their victims. They may only put them through such extreme torture for a limited period (five months) that their victims will long for death and not get it.
Another writer ties the scorpion image to satanic power, then names the limit on these agents:
In Luke 10:19 the Lord connects serpents, scorpions, and the power of the enemy with the fall of Satan. But these hellish instruments of vengeance, let loose on guilty Israel, have no power unless they are given authority to act.
A scorpion's sting brings agony, but it does not usually kill. That is the shape of this judgment.
They do not kill, just as the scorpion in general does not. They inflict torment so bad that death would be better. Their power lasts five months.
Ordinary locusts eat grass and trees. These are banned from touching them, and one writer reads that as proof they are a symbol.
The whole description shows that this locust army is a symbol of judgment of a superhuman kind. So does the ban on injuring the grass and trees (v. 4), their natural food.
Not everyone is a target. One writer traces the seal that spares some back to an earlier chapter.
These had the poison of scorpions. The natural locust preys on every green thing, but these were only to afflict people who had no seal. This points us back to the opening verses of Revelation 7. There we find that those who were sealed were the servants of God out of the tribes of Israel.
The verse does not say where this pain is felt. One writer admits that, then draws a conclusion from what these locusts are.
The next two verses (vv. 5, 6) give the nature, duration, and effect of this judgment. The "locusts" were not permitted to kill, only to torment... We are not told what kind of torment this is, whether mental or otherwise. But if, as we conclude, these "locusts" are demonic agents, the seat of the torment would be the soul rather than the body.
Read that way, the sting poisons the mind, not the body.
The evil influence pictured by these symbolic locusts will not affect the circumstances of life, or even the bodies of men. It poisons the minds of men just as a scorpion poisons the body. Men will fall into such mental misery that they will seek death and not find it.
Why five months? One writer ties the number to the life-span of the natural locust, and reads it as a short, limited stretch.
We believe that the "five months" of torment points back to the ravages of the natural locust, which usually last five months. A limited and brief period is meant, one that may not go beyond five months.
One long-standing reading counts each day as a year. One writer sets out that view and rejects it:
Those who apply this prophecy to the Saracens have to adopt the "year-day" theory to explain the five months. Take a day to stand for a year, and the five months stretch out to one hundred and fifty years. That, they claim, matches the length of Saracen rule. Unfortunately for those who hold this view, the year-day theory finds no support whatever in this book.
- Permission — the locusts act only on authority given from above. Like Satan with Job, they may not take life.
- Restraint — they may torment but not kill; their victims long for death, and it is kept from them.
- Target — the plague falls on the unsealed. One writer links the sealed to the tribes of Israel in Revelation 7; those marked by God are passed over.
- Torment — a scorpion's sting brings agony without killing. Writers who read these locusts as demonic agents put the wound in the mind and soul, not the body.
- Term — five months, the span of a locust's ravages and a short, limited period. It is not to be stretched into 150 years by a year-day scheme.
And in those days shall men seek death, and shall in no way find it; and shall desire to die, and death flees from them.
Under the fifth trumpet a swarm of scorpion-like tormentors is let loose on the earth. The strangest detail is that they may not kill. So the one exit men have always counted on is shut. Why does God hold death back, and who is left to suffer?
The limit on these tormentors is deliberate. They may inflict agony, but they cannot end a life — and their victims cannot end it either.
The "locusts" were not permitted to kill, only to torment, and this for the space of five months. The torment makes those who suffer it weary of their lives. They want to die, but death flees from them. Death would be a relief from their agony. But they suffer by God's appointment, and however much they long for death, they are not permitted to find it.
The verse names no wound and no weapon. What makes life unbearable here is suffering inside a person.
Death would be a welcome release from the torment — the anguish of soul these servants of Satan inflict. But that last refuge of despair is denied them: "death will flee from them." The gnawing anguish and horrible torment of a guilty and sin-defiled conscience is beyond all telling. Only those enduring it can weigh and measure it.
These creatures carry their power in their tails. One writer finds the key to that image in Isaiah, where the tail stands for a teacher of falsehood.
Isaiah 9:15 throws light, we believe, on this statement: "the prophet who teaches lies is the tail." So the sting in the tail, we believe, is the twisting of truth by these demonic agents. It produces such anguish of spirit in those affected that life becomes unbearable.
Not everyone alive goes through this. One writer traces the limit back to who carries God's seal, and draws a narrow boundary around the sufferers.
They resemble locusts in their overwhelming numbers and power, but they have stings like scorpions. Their torment is so dreadful that men desire death. Death, however, "will flee from them," for this is not a plague of slaughter and destruction, but only of intense suffering. The people harmed are "only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads." Since the sealing was not for people outside Israel, but only for a select number from the twelve tribes, we may infer that it is only the unbelieving part of Israel who suffer the dreadful, though not fatal, anguish inflicted by this army of tormentors from the bottomless pit.
Today death is the thing people run from. Here that fear turns inside out.
You know how people fear death now, if they are not saved. They would run away from it if they could. But a dreadful time is coming, when the Lord comes to punish people who would not obey the gospel. Then men will be so tormented that they will beg for death. But they shall not die; death will depart from them.
The torment does not soften anyone. Suffering on this scale still produces no change of heart.
What a solemn picture of how hardened man's heart can become against God! Even this dreadful visitation produces no good effect. They are given up to "a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false." Those who once despised God in His grace will at last despise Him in His government. Each new stroke of His judgment will only make them more callous and defiant, until at last, like Pharaoh, they walk blindfolded into the very flood that swallows them up. Such is man. How marvellous the grace that could stoop to the fallen state of creatures so degraded and ruined, and buy them for glory at so priceless a cost!
- Death withheld. The tormentors are not allowed to kill. Men look for death and cannot find it — God's appointment, not chance, keeps that release from them.
- Death as refuge. Dying has always been man's last escape hatch from unbearable pain. Here that final refuge closes, and the sufferers have nowhere to run.
- Death inside. The verse pictures a scorpion's sting, and the power sits in the tail — lies taught, truth twisted, a guilty conscience with no relief.
- Death targeted. This plague touches only those who lack God's seal. It passes over the sealed number out of the twelve tribes of Israel.
- Death that teaches nothing. Even this does not bend anyone to repentance. Those who once brushed aside God's grace end by defying His government. So grace, offered now, is the thing to take now.