What are the Three Evil Spirits in Revelation 16:13-14?

Revelation 16:13-14 contains one of the stranger images in the whole book: three evil spirits come out of the mouth of the dragon, beast, and false prophet. These three demons look like frogs and perform miracles and gather the kings of the whole world for battle on the great day of God Almighty. What are these “demon frogs”?

Between the sixth and seventh seal and trumpet there was a lengthy interlude. Many commentaries consider Revelation 16:13-16 to be an interlude between the sixth and seventh bowls. Following Robert Mounce, Robert Thomas disagrees. He considers these verses as a “topical commentary” on the sixth seal explaining why the kings of the earth gathered in Armageddon (2:263).

There is one additional problem in verse 13. The verb “coming out” (ESV) is not in verse 13. “Out of the mouth of” appears three times, but John has omitted the verb so most translations supply “coming out.” Emerged or even “breathed out” are possibilities as well.

This is the first time this satanic trinity is mentioned together explicitly for the first time although all three appear separately in Revelation 13, and they will appear again in 19:20 and 20:10. The dragon was identified as Satan in Revelation 12:9. The beast is the government lead by a parody of Jesus, the antichrist (the beast from the sea, Rev 13:1-10). The false prophet is the religious support for the kingdom of the beast, doing miracles like an anti-Holy Spirit (the beast from the earth, Rev 13:11-18).  David Aune draws attention to similar passage in 1 John 4:1-3 (see this post on 1 John 4:1 and deceptive miracles). John says some spirits are false prophets (4:1) and the spirit that does not confess Jesus came in the flesh is the spirit of antichrist (4:3).

Why are the Three Evil Spirits Described “Like a Frog”?

There is nothing quite like the three evil spirits in Second Temple literature. Josephus describes a Jewish exorcist who “put a ring that had a root of one of those sorts mentioned by Solomon to the nostrils of the demoniac, after which he drew out the demon through his nostrils” (Ant. 8.47). This fits well with the frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, beast and false prophet, but there is nothing in other literature describing demons “like frogs.”

There are several possibilities for the image of a frog for evil spirits in Revelation 16:13. First, these are unclean spirits, so the image of a frog may have been prompted the fact frogs are unclean (see Leviticus 11:10). Second, Beale suggests the image was chosen “partly because of their characteristic croaking, which is loud but meaningless” (revelation 832). Third, since there are many other allusions to the Exodus in this chapter, John may be alluding the plague of frogs (Exod 8:2-11). Finally, perhaps all that is meant this adverbial phrase is the spirits “leapt like frogs out of their mouths.” Since the verb is missing, the adverb is not modifying anything. In either case, the demons do not look like frogs (despite medieval illustrations of this scene or weird online Christian digital art).

These unclean spirits do miracles deceive the kings of the earth to gather for a final battle against God Almighty. John uses the title pantokrater, (παντοκράτωρ), a title used to describe Roman emperors. Although it refers to Trajan, see this post for the combination of pantokrater, earth and sea at Pergamum. These demons set up the ultimate confrontation between the one who claims to be all mighty and the God who is the All Mighty.