From the Mouth

Four times Revelation refers to the sword that comes from the mouth of Jesus, twice at the beginning of the book (1:16; 2:16) and twice at the end (19:15, 21). Jesus’ mouth-sword frames the book, and the four uses hint at His universal conquest: Jesus will extend the reign of His Word to the four corners.

No one else has a mouth-sword, but various characters in Revelation have other things coming from their mouths. The basic pattern is: Jesus’ allies spew fire, Jesus’ enemies spew water and blasphemy.

The horses in the army of the sixth trumpet breath fire (9:17-19), and so do the two witnesses (11:5). Together with Jesus, these fulfill a cherubim function. Together, the breathe out fire and sword, like the fiery sword of the guardians of Eden.

By contrast, the dragon vomits water from his mouth to drown the mother (12:15-16), and later the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet all breathe out unclean amphibious frog spirits (16:13). More literally, the sea beast’s mouth is full of blasphemy (13:2, 5, 6). (stoma, “mouth,” is used seven times of the mouth of the dragon and the beast in chapters 12-13.)

John is the only one in the book to put something into his mouth, the little scroll that is sweet to his taste but makes him sick to the stomach (10:9-10). The book in the mouth and stomach gives him power to prophesy (10:11). We don’t actually see John breathing fire, but I suspect we’re supposed to take that hint. By eating the book, he becomes more like Jesus, more like the witnesses, who prophesies by the fire and sword that come from his mouth.

We don’t see Jesus eating anything, but in 3:16 He warns the Laodiceans that He will spew them from His mouth unless they repent. So He must have been eating them. And here we have a little biblical hint of the tradition of Eucharistic mysticism that sees the Eucharist as a mutual consumption – I in thee, thou in me. Jesus eats the bread that is His body that is us.

And can we refrain from observing that stoma appears 22 times in Revelation – the number of the Hebrew alphabet that gives form to the words that come from the mouth.