The fifth trumpet: torment from the Abyss
Revelation · Draft · BSB
Content revision: 7d86f4a36e2f486a · No editorial review date recorded
Date: Revelation 9 · reading sequence. This is the order of the book. It does not assign a calendar date to a vision or choose one scheme of fulfillment.
The fifth trumpet opens the Abyss and releases locustlike creatures that torment people without God’s seal. Their power and duration are limited, and their king is named Abaddon or Apollyon.
The creatures combine locust, horse, human, lion and scorpion features. They are specifically forbidden to harm vegetation, so they do not function as an ordinary agricultural swarm. The five-month period belongs to the vision, not an independently dated prediction. The passage describes terrible suffering while repeatedly stating restraints on what the creatures may do. Its composite imagery should not be converted into confident identifications of military technology or peoples.
Primary Scripture
9:1 Then the fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from heaven to earth, and it was given the key to the pit of the Abyss.
9:2 The star opened the pit of the Abyss, and smoke rose out of it like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the pit.
9:3 And out of the smoke, locusts descended on the earth, and they were given power like that of the scorpions of the earth.
9:4 They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads.
9:5 The locusts were not given power to kill them, but only to torment them for five months, and their torment was like the stinging of a scorpion.
9:6 In those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, but death will escape them.
9:7 And the locusts looked like horses prepared for battle, with something like crowns of gold on their heads; and their faces were like the faces of men.
9:8 They had hair like that of women, and teeth like those of lions.
9:9 They also had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the roar of many horses and chariots rushing into battle.
9:10 They had tails with stingers like scorpions, which had the power to injure people for five months.
9:11 They were ruled by a king, the angel of the Abyss. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek it is Apollyon.
9:12 The first woe has passed. Behold, two woes are still to follow.
Related Scripture
These readings illuminate biblical language and themes. Connections do not by themselves settle the timing or every interpretation of the vision.
Joel’s locustlike army, darkness and alarm supply a comparison for the trumpet’s imagery.
Location evidence
Visionary setting; no geographic pin or route. The background map shows the historical recipients in western Asia Minor, not the location of this vision.
No event map marker is assigned. Do not infer an exact venue from related places.
For the class
What is the effect of describing such frightening power together with explicit limits?
Interpretation and reuse
Narrative order is a reading arrangement, not a proven chronology. Dates retain their stated uncertainty. An identified locality does not establish the exact venue or prove an event. Region extents and routes are illustrative, not surveyed boundaries or ancient roads. Draft material has not completed editorial review.
Record source: editorial (content/authored/revelation.json)
Place coordinates from OpenBible.info Bible Geocoding Data, CC BY 4.0.
Teaching stops, summaries and regional extents are original editorial content of this atlas.
Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain. https://berean.bible/licensing.htm