Robertson Word Pictures - Revelation 9:7 - 9:7

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Robertson Word Pictures - Revelation 9:7 - 9:7


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

The shapes (ta homoiōmata). Old word from homoioō, to make like (from homoios, like), likeness, in N.T. only here, Rom 5:14; Phi 2:7, “the likenesses were like” (homoia). Homoiōma is “midway between morphē and schēma” (Lightfoot).

Unto horses (hippois). Associative-instrumental case, as is the rule with homoios (Rev 1:15; Rev 2:18; Rev 4:6.; Rev 9:10, Rev 9:19; Rev 11:1; Rev 13:2, Rev 13:11), but with the accusative in Rev 1:13; Rev 14:14. So also homoioi chrusōi (like gold) in this same verse.

Prepared for war (hētoimasmenois eis polemon). Perfect passive participle of hetoimazō. This imagery of war-horses is like that in Joe 2:4. “The likeness of a locust to a horse, especially to a horse equipped with armour, is so striking that the insect is named in German heupferd (hay horse), and in Italian cavalett a little horse” (Vincent).

As it were crowns (hos stephanoi). Not actual crowns, but what looked like crowns of gold, as conquerors, as indeed they were (Rev 4:4; Rev 6:2; Rev 12:1; Rev 14:14). These locusts of the abyss have another peculiar feature.

As men’s faces (hōs prosōpa anthrōpōn). Human-looking faces in these demonic locusts to give added terror, “suggesting the intelligence and capacity of man” (Swete). Vincent actually sees “a distinct resemblance to the human countenance in the face of the locust.”