9. What battle instructions did the locusts receive?

⁹ What battle instructions did those locusts receive? John reports: “And they were told to harm no vegetation of the earth nor any green thing nor any tree, but only those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. And it was granted the locusts, not to kill them, but that these should be tormented five months, and the torment upon them was as torment by a scorpion when it strikes a man. And in those days the men will seek death but will by no means find it, and they will desire to die but death keeps fleeing from them.”​—Revelation 9:4-6.

11. (a) How long are the locusts authorized to torment God’s enemies, and why is that not really a short time? (b) How severe is the torment?

¹¹ The torment lasts for five months. Is that a relatively short time? Not from the point of view of a literal locust. Five months describes the normal life span of one of these insects. Therefore, it is for as long as they live that the modern-day locusts keep stinging God’s enemies. Moreover, the torment is so severe that men seek to die. True, we have no record that any of those who were stung by the locusts actually tried to kill themselves. But the expression helps us to picture the intensity of the torment​—as though by the relentless assault of scorpions. It is like the suffering foreseen by Jeremiah for those unfaithful Israelites who would be scattered by the Babylonian conquerors and for whom death would be preferable to life.​—Jeremiah 8:3; see also Ecclesiastes 4:2, 3.