The 200 Million is NOT China and it is NOT a Literal Number

The 200 Million is NOT China and it is NOT a Literal Number

The Sixth Trumpet—200 Million Horsemen

There are two very serious misconceptions about the sixth trumpet of the seventh seal. The first misconception is that the 200 million horsemen are from China. The second is that 200 million is a literal number. We will talk about both misconceptions in this video.

Here are the verses in Revelation chapter 9:

¹³ Then the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, ¹⁴ one saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” ¹⁵ And the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released, so that they would kill a third of mankind. ¹⁶ The number of the armies of the horsemen was two hundred million; I heard the number of them. Revelation 9:13-16

I’ve been taught since I was a kid that these 200 million horsemen are from China. This teaching is based on several false assumptions which are not in the Bible.

First False Assumption – The Cold War

First, going back to the fifties and sixties, during the height of the Cold War, everyone was convinced that the beast system of the last days was communism. The Soviet Union and Red China were going to conquer the world and establish communism as the new world government and religion. Everyone lived in fear of nuclear World War III. If you were around back then, you remember seeing all the Fallout Shelter signs on just about any large building with a basement. So, of course, it was assumed that the 200 million was communist China.

Second False Assumption – Only China Can Field an Army of 200 Million

Since China was the most populus country in the world, only China could field an army this large. (India has surpassed China now.) This was nothing more than a myth perpetrated by Bible prophecy teachers during the cold war.

China has never said it could field a 200 million–man army. Modern data confirms:

• Today, China’s total military personnel is 2.3 million (active + reserve + paramilitary)
• No Chinese government document, speech, or military white paper has ever claimed anything close to 200 million.

Even in total war, China could not field anything close to 200 million soldiers — the logistics, training, equipment, and age distribution make it impossible.

Third False Assumption – The 200 Million is a Literal Number

This is the most intriguing false assumption. Let’s look at the original Greek.

Revelation 9:16 (Greek):

“The number of the armies of the cavalry was two myriads of myriads; I heard the number of them.”

A myriad is 10,000.

• myriad = 10,000
• two myriads of myriads = 2 × 10,000 × 10,000 = 200,000,000

But in apocalyptic literature, this is a symbolic idiom, not a number.

In ancient Hebrew and Greek, 10,000 was the largest number that existed. In Hebrew it is revavah. In Greek it is myriad.

10,000 was the biggest number in both Hebrew and Greek. The term “million” hadn’t been invented yet! The translators are using a word that didn’t exist back then.

The word million first appears in Old French (late 1200s) as million. It enters English in the 14th century. Before that, even advanced civilizations did not have a single word for 1,000,000.

I don’t think John had a calculator, so he would never have written 200 million as a literal number. The translators should have stayed with the original Greek myriad.

When you see, “myriads of myriads,” in the Bible, it means “countless multitudes.” It’s the ancient equivalent of saying “millions upon millions” or “innumerable hosts.” It’s not a literal number. It’s an idiom.

Look at this verse in Daniel 7:10:

“A river of fire was flowing
And coming out from before Him;
Thousands upon thousands were attending Him,
And myriads upon myriads were standing before Him.

This verse in Daniel uses the same language to express a countless number of heavenly hosts. It is not a literal number. It is an idiom meaning too many to count.

Now look at Revelation 5:11

Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands.

John uses the same idiom in this verse to express an uncountable number of angels around the throne. Once again, it is not a literal number.

So, in Revelation 9, when John says twice myriads of myriads, it is not a literal number. It is the same idiom. All we know is that it’s a vast number, too big to comprehend.

In another chapter we will find out who this vast army is that kills one third of mankind. There is a good reason it’s called the ‘second woe’.

Fourth False Assumption – The 200 Million Are the Kings of the East

This post is an introduction to the next post where we will talk about the difference between the releasing of the 200 million horsemen at the Euphrates River and the drying up of the Euphrates River to make way for the kings of east. I wanted to do this post first to establish a foundation for the next post.