Revelation 9:6

In those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, but death will escape them.

Berean Standard Bible

Study note

Setting — John records a vision during the fifth trumpet judgment, immediately following the command that locusts torment humanity for five months without killing them. The statement describes the desperate condition of people subjected to this specific divine scourge.

The words — ζητήσουσιν (zētēsousin) literally means "will seek" [G2212], paired with ἄνθρωποι (anthrōpoi) for "men" [G444]. These terms frame an active, ongoing pursuit of an escape that remains perpetually out of reach.

The thread — The motif of futile death-seeking appears in Jeremiah 8:3, where the exiled remnant chooses death over life, and in Luke 23:30 alongside Revelation 6:16, where the terrified call for mountains to fall mirrors the desire to escape divine judgment.

Why it lands — The text demands recognition that unrepentant humanity cannot escape the consequences of rebellion, even when existence itself becomes unbearable. It confronts the reader with the reality of inescapable judgment and the futility of self-delusion.

Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.

The Greek words

King James Version

And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

Cross-references

Jeremiah 8:3 And wherever I have banished them, the remnant of this evil family will choose death over life,” declares the LORD of Hosts.
Luke 23:30 At that time ‘they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!”’
Revelation 6:16 And they said to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the One seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.
Isaiah 2:19 Men will flee to caves in the rocks and holes in the ground, away from the terror of the LORD and from the splendor of His majesty, when He rises to shake the earth.
Hosea 10:8 The high places of Aven will be destroyed—it is the sin of Israel; thorns and thistles will overgrow their altars. Then they will say to the mountains, “Cover us!” and to the hills, “Fall on us!”
Job 7:15 so that I would prefer strangling and death over my life in this body.
Job 3:20 Why is light given to the miserable, and life to the bitter of soul,
2 Samuel 1:9 Then he begged me, ‘Stand over me and kill me, for agony has seized me, but my life still lingers.’
John 4:8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)