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.
I watched something that said these frogs are words that the Dragon false prophet and beast spew out. Notice they come out of their mouths. The frogs represent evil wrongful teaching that leads people astray.
Something similar with the water the Dragon spews out to kill the women the true church and the earth, or the wilderness hid for a period of time! Words the dragon spewed words false teachings etc to kill the women. These frogs are again words that they all three spew out to hurt and kill Gods people, or try.
In light of a lot of information being passed around nowadays. Is it possible that what John describes in Revelation 13, what the world passes off as an extra-terrestrial? Really… since John didn’t have access to movies like ET and Mars Attacks and stuff that normalizes ETs as entertainment, that bipedal frogs are what John perceived these demons to look like? Think about it. If they haven’t already, ETs will be described by the Pentagon or US govt. I bet they look like bipedal frogs for the traditional Martian. Oval head, huge binocular eyes, bipedal…
So which faith has got it right.
Jesus/God is the only king of all 3 faiths, it was written above his head on the cross of Calvary in all their languages, Hebrew for the Jews-Judaism & the false prophet-Islam (Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to Aramaic and Hebrew), Greek for the common people, and Latin for-Catholicism/ Papal Rome
John 19:20
(20) This title then read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin.
Frogs are coming out of the 3 faiths of this world.
Revelation 16:13-15
(13) And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, (Judaism) and out of the mouth of the beast, (Catholicism-the papal system) and out of the mouth of the false prophet. (Islam)
John 8:44 – Jesus addressing the Jews
(44) Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
(14) For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.
(15) Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.
Matthew 22:11-14
(11) And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment:
(12) And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless.
(13) Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
(14) For many are called, but few are chosen.
God says to this world the people captured by this world and its many many faiths, (religions) let the people come serve me, all those who want to serve me. Put on the correct garment
The only other place the Bible talks about frogs is in Exodus and God explains the meaning of what frogs do and cause problems about
Exodus 8:1-4
(1) And the LORD spake unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Let my people go, that they may serve me.
(2) And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs:
(3) And the river (the pseudo river of life Revelation 22:1 And he shewed me a pure river of water of life…) shall bring forth frogs abundantly, (so many other ways so many other faiths and ways to serve God so many spirits occupying the hearts of man) which shall go up and come into thine house, and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thine ovens, and into thy kneadingtroughs:
(4) And the frogs shall come up both on thee, and upon thy people, and upon all thy servants.
The frogs are other spirits in place of where the real spirit/faith/Gospel based church should be. They get in everywhere in the house, bedroom, in the ovens and kneading troughs, destroying the oven and kneading process, bread not cooked properly – corrupting the bread and kneading process, The mana / Gods word being tainted with leaven / other doctrines of men. This world is simply not getting Gods Word delivered in its pure form; people aren’t getting their piece of proper mana/daily bread, the frogs other spirits/religions have got in the way of the baking process.
Read your Bible for the truth, don’t trust what religion and the big churches are telling you, the frogs are spewing out their mouths, other ways of getting the real spirit of God in your life.
Nicely put.
When looking at these different metaphors within the book of revelation, there are always weird and difficult metaphors to understand. This idea of the three different evil spirits in Revelation 16 is definitely a weird one because of the image of these ‘demon frogs’ that they take the form of. The ambiguity of how they enter from the mouth of the dragon, beast and false prophet is an interesting dilemma because there are many different ways in which we can interpret how these spirits manifest into our physical world. I love the imagery in revelation of the demonic trinity and all of the examples of differences and for lack of a better term ‘yin and yang’ creatures in the fight between good and evil. It is interesting how this is the only mention of frog-like demonic creatures. Within the rest of scriptures there are many different analogies and they all (mainly the ones using other animals) use them for specific purposes, tying them to different ancient meanings to be understood.
The three evil spirits found in Revelation are unique to any other evil spirits found within the Bible. These spirits seem to be formed for this purpose, to bring the rulers of the earth to come together (Revelation 16:13-14). They have one simple goal in this. Now the biggest question I struggle with is why are they coming out of the mouths of this unholy trinity? Do they truly come from within the three or is it imagery like is commonly found within Revelation. One way that I might argue this being imagery is found from your comments on why the evil spirits are described as frogs. These demon frogs may not be frogs at all but instead might just be spirits that leapt out of the mouths of the evil trinity (Long, 2020). If this is the case, then maybe they are just simply spirits that the three send to coax those rulers of the times. Maybe the importance of the passage of scripture is more on the way for its being there, than what these frogs are. If so then it seems a great explanation of what is going on within the sixth seal and deemed a “topical commentary” by Robert Thomas (Long, 2020). In my opinion the section of scripture here is more if an explanation of what is unfolding in the sixth seal. This does not seem too far-fetched, if the sixth seal was left ending in verse 12 the seal would almost feel incomplete. From my perspective this section of scripture is merely an explanation to the sixth seal and the frogs were merely symbolic of how they came out of the mouths of the evil trinity.
This passage is such a very curious passage, with mention of these three evil spirits that look like frogs that are coming from the mouths of the dragon, beast, and a false prophet. These frogs are performing miracles and bringing the kings of the world together for a final showdown. I enjoyed how there was a discussion that was brought up in the blog post about whether it is an interlude or a topical commentary. This helps me to make sense of how these events that take place fit into a wider and bigger narrative of Revelation. The image of the frogs as demotic spirits is very interesting, the blog post dives into the symbolism that is behind this, these frogs are represented as uncleanness to the bigger picture of the plague of frogs in Exodus, which helps with the understanding to the deeper meaning of the text. This idea is that these kinds of spirits can deceive the kings of the earth, making them battle against God Almighty, this is something that you can see out of a cosmic showdown. This is a very firm reminder of the spiritual warfare that is engaged with in Revelation and the big clash between the powers of the earth and the sovereignty of God.
Revelation 16:13-14 starts off by telling us that three evil spirits come out of the mouths of the dragon, beast, and false prophet. It is important to know that these demons looked like frogs that were coming out of the mouths of these three creatures. These three spirits were told they looked like frogs coming out of the mouths for a couple of different reasons. The first is that these evil spirits are unclean just like a frog would be and I think that this is a great representation of these evil spirits. The second was because of the frogs croaking, which is something that can be loud and distracting yet meaningless. I think it is important to understand why these evil spirits were given the title of frogs, because they are not meant to have a lot of attention towards them, rather just ignore them. Frogs are creatures that humans often look past a lot and are the right mindset that we should have with these three evil spirits that appear in Revelation 16:13-14. I think having the mindset of these evil spirits of being very dirty, unclean creatures is the perfect way to describe them and a perfect interpretation of the three evil spirits because to us, they should not mean very much.
Revelation 16:13-14 describes one of the strangest scenes in the Book of Revelation, following the six bowls of judgment, but coming before the final bowl is a depiction of three unclean spirits, who are portrayed as being like frogs, coming out of the mouth of the beast. These three figures go to the kings of the world and perform false signs and miracles, bringing all the kings under the domain of the beast, assembling them for the battle of Armageddon against the Lord (Rev 16:14). Yet, who are these three unclean spirits? Within the structure of the chapter, many commentators consider verses Revelation 16:13-16 an interlude between the sixth and seventh bowls of judgment (Long, 2020). It serves as an explanation for why these rebellious characters gather in Armageddon for the great battle, as it was the three unclean spirits who deceived them and led them to destruction. The only other place within the text that mentions this satanic ‘trinity’ is Revelation 13, although they are all separately recognized since they all appear at different times. Following Revelation 16, they also appear in Revelation 19 and 20, depicting them as being judged and thrown into the lake of fire. The dragon has been recognized as Satan (Rev 12:9), the beast is a governmental entity, perhaps the Roman Empire, and the antichrist is the beast from the sea (Rev 13:1-10). These three unclean spirits, serving as false prophets, support the beast and promulgate his evil kingdom, which Satan is the head of. Within Second Temple Jewish Literature, there are not many references to frogs, making it difficult to understand its usage by John (Long, 2020). Some suggest it is because there are unclean animals (Lev 11:10), others because of the croaking noise that frogs make, which is useless like the prophets, with other suggestions being present as well. Overall, we cannot be completely sure who these three unclean spirits are beyond that they are false prophets. Perhaps John himself did not know the identity of these figures, simply recounting the vision. From a preterist perspective, this could be some governmental entity or people, or perhaps a particular individual. We must remain humble in our interpretation of these figures since we simply do not know.
Reading Revelation 16:13 came as a bit of a shock to me, because when the three unclean spirits emerged out of the mouths of the satanic trinity I expected them to be described as anything but frogs. This is interesting because frogs are not exactly prominent images throughout the Bible. Frogs are technically unclean according to Leviticus 11:10, but that verse is not focused only on frogs. The most likely connection does seem to be the second plague in Exodus. The second plague consists of frogs throughout the entirety of the land of Egypt (Ex. 8:2-3). These frogs were eventually taken away by God (Ex. 8:13). The purpose of the frogs in Exodus and the unclean spirits in Revelation are completely different. The frogs are sent by God to persuade Pharaoh to let Israel go (Ex. 8:1-2). The three unclean spirits will assemble the kings of the world and lead them to battle against the lamb (Rev. 13-16). How these two passages are connected and if there are even any connections is subject to debate. “However, the way these exodus-like plagues function theologically and serve John’s redemptive vision remains open to question” (Wold, 2019, p. 131). The exact details of the unclean spirits are subject to speculation because scripture does not include many details. Perhaps the best thing we can do is gain principles from these verses, rather than speculate over the exact details of the unclean spirits.