I GOT ANOTHER SURPRISE yesterday, while paraphrasing Revelation for the Casual English Bible.

Most Bibles say that the massive end-time army from somewhere east of what is now Israel will tally 200 million soldiers (Revelation 9:16).

These are the bad guys. Some Bible scholars call them a Demon Army (Revelation 9:17). Whatever they are, they seem to be playing on the same team as the ugly critters that some call the Demon Locusts, which swarm the planet and terrorize people (Revelation 9:3).

The original Greek language of Revelation doesn’t say “200 million” soldiers would come from the east.

It  sounds worse.

In the Greek original language, it’s literally: myrias dismyrias.

Myrias is where we get the English word “myriad,” meaning more than we can count.

In English, the number wouldn’t be a number. It would be “myriad times double myriad.”

Some put numbers to the innumerable: 10,000. So, they multiply 10,000 times 20,000. And they get an army of 200 million.

By the end of the first century, the Roman army under Emperor Trajan had almost 400,000 soldiers.

That would mean the demons outnumbered the Romans 500 to one.

That’s if there were only 200 million demon soldiers.

In the Casual English Bible, I’m thinking of paraphrasing Revelation 9:16 this way:

“I heard someone say how many mounted soldiers were in their army: uncountable times double uncountable.”

Then I’d add a footnote with the info I’ve put in this short blog.

What do you think?

I got to go because there’s a lightning storm, and it’s getting worse. Tornado watch, too. I want to watch it from the basement.

Casual English Bible
Bible Gateway