Revelation 9:10 describes the locusts released from the bottomless pit as having stings in their tails, and it says they are given power to harm people for five months. The verse is part of John’s vision of judgment, and the description is vivid on purpose. It is spoken by John, the author of Revelation, who records what he saw in the vision and who is writing to seven churches in the Roman province of Asia.
They have tails like those of scorpions, and stings. In their tails they have power to harm men for five months.
Revelation 9:10 (WEB)
What Revelation 9:10 Means
The verse begins by comparing the tails of these locusts to scorpion tails. A scorpion’s sting is painful and feared, so the image tells the reader that these creatures are dangerous in a way ordinary insects are not. The stings are the point. Their harm lies in the tail, not in their bite or their size.
The phrase “power to harm men” tells us that the locusts do not act on their own authority. Someone grants them this power. The text goes on to say the power lasts “for five months,” a fixed and limited span. John is describing an agent given real capacity to hurt, but within a boundary set by God’s larger purposes.
What the verse does not do is give us a detailed calendar or a literal insect plague to match against history. It does not tell us exactly who the “men” are or how the harm will look. It describes a judgment that is painful and real while being bounded in time. Readers who come to it expecting precise predictions often miss what the image is doing, which is to show that even terrifying forces operate under limits.
The Context of Revelation 9:10
Revelation was written by John, traditionally identified as the apostle, during a time when Christians in Asia Minor faced pressure, suspicion, and sometimes persecution from Roman society. The book is shaped as a letter to seven real congregations, and it uses symbolic language drawn largely from the Old Testament prophets, especially Ezekiel and Joel, to speak of God’s justice and the vindication of his people.
The verses just before and after set the scene. In Revelation 9:7 to 9, the locusts are described as warhorses with human-like faces and iron breastplates, and they sound like chariots charging into battle. Right after verse 10, the text names their king, the angel of the abyss, and then announces that the first woe has passed while two more are still coming. Read this way, the scorpion tails are part of a sequence of escalating judgments, and the verse tells us that even this frightening stage has been permitted and timed.
Key Phrases in Revelation 9:10
Joel 2:11
The LORD thunders his voice before his army; for his forces are very great; for he is strong who obeys his command; for the day of the LORD is great and very awesome, and who can endure it?
(WEB)
Joel describes a day of the Lord and an army that comes as locusts do, which is one of the Old Testament sources behind John’s imagery. Reading Joel alongside Revelation shows how the prophets used swarming locusts to speak of God’s judgment, and how that judgment always has a purpose beyond destruction.
Revelation 7:3
Saying, “Don’t harm the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, until we have sealed the bondservants of our God on their foreheads!”
(WEB)
This verse shows an angel holding back winds of harm until God’s servants are sealed. It reinforces the theme found in Revelation 9:10 that destructive forces are restrained and directed by God, and that his people are protected within the larger pattern of judgment.
