Revelation 9:6

[tlharvey7]

Hi everyone... i have been pondering this passage for awhile...

"And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them."

i remember reading Chuck Smith's interpetation saying that people will shoot themselves, jump off buildings, ect. and not be able to die. i now believe that to be a ridiculous interpetation. i would love to pick the brains of my fellow Puritans....

 

[Bill The Baptist]

It could be just referring to painful diseases that do not kill, they just inflict incredible pain. Or if you are Dispensational, then the passage of course refers to actual locusts who will torment the earth but not actually kill anyone.

 

[Peairtach]

It depends on whether you take a

(a)Preterist
(b)Historicist
(c)Futurist
(d)Idealist

approach to Revelation 5 to 19 or a combination thereof.

I tend to believe - although take it with a pinch of salt, because Revelation isn't an easy book - that the Seals and Trumpets are to do with events in the First Century in connection with the end of the Old Testament Church and the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.

Therefore the locusts are the Roman army sent to destroy Jerusalem, and the five months is connected with that. See Josephus and Kenneth Gentry's commentary on Revelation.

Armies are sometimes referred to as locusts in the OT, and there are other indications that point to this interpretation.

 

[au5t1n]

Many Historicists hold that Revelation 9 describes the rise of Islam and its invasions. Luther and Calvin held this view.