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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - Revelation 9:9 - 9:9
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
As it were breastplates of iron (hōs thōrakas siderous). The thōrax was originally the breast (from the neck to the navel), then the breastplate, only N.T. usage (Rev 9:9, Rev 9:17; 1Th 5:8; Eph 6:14). The armour for the breastplate was usually of iron (siderous, Rev 2:27), but with the locusts it only seemed to be so (hōs). However, the scaly backs and flanks of the locusts do resemble coats of mail. “The locusts of the Abyss may be the memories of the past brought home at times of Divine visitation” (Swete).
The sound of their wings (hē phōnē tōn pterugōn). Graphic picture of the onrush of the swarms of demonic locusts and the hopelessness of resisting them.
As the sound of chariots, of many horses rushing to war (hōs phōnē harmatōn hippōn pollōn trechontōn eis polemon). Both metaphors here, the clatter and clangour of the chariot wheels and the prancing of the horses are found in Joe 2:4. Trechontōn is present active predicate participle of trechō, to run. Cf. 2Ki 7:6; Jer 47:3.