Wormwood in Revelation 8: Asteroid, Chernobyl or Something Else?

Q: Is wormwood a real plant?

Yes. Wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) is a shrub-like herb known for its intense bitterness. It has long been used in medicine and to flavour drinks such as absinthe and vermouth. Taken in large amounts, it can be toxic. In the Bible, its bitterness made it a natural picture of sorrow, sin and judgement.

Q: Why is the junior devil in The Screwtape Letters called Wormwood?

In C. S. Lewis’s 1942 book The Screwtape Letters, a senior demon named Screwtape writes letters to his nephew Wormwood, a young tempter assigned to lead a man away from God. Lewis chose names that sounded unpleasant, and ‘Wormwood’ fits perfectly: the name of a bitter, poisonous plant for a spirit whose job is to make human lives bitter.

In April 1986, a reactor exploded at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Soviet Ukraine. Radiation spread across Europe. Rivers and groundwater were poisoned, and thousands of people were forced from their homes for ever.

Within months, a strange claim began to spread. The name ‘Chernobyl’, people said, means ‘wormwood’. And the Bible had predicted it. In Revelation 8, a star called Wormwood falls from heaven and poisons a third of the earth’s rivers.

Since then, Wormwood has been linked to nuclear war, killer asteroids and passing comets. Every few years a video goes viral announcing that Wormwood is on its way. So what is Wormwood in Revelation? Is it a space rock heading for earth? Was it Chernobyl? Or is John showing us something deeper?

THE SHORT ANSWER

Wormwood is the name of a falling star in the third trumpet judgement of Revelation 8:10–11. Wormwood is a real, very bitter plant, and the Old Testament uses it again and again as a picture of the bitterness of sin and God’s judgement on idolatry.

The vision is best read as a symbol of real judgements that God sends throughout history to warn a rebellious world, not as a coded forecast of one event such as Chernobyl or an asteroid strike. Its message is urgent: sin poisons life, and only Christ gives living water.

Here is the passage itself:

‘The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many people died from the water, because it had been made bitter.’
Revelation 8:10–11

Where Wormwood Fits in Revelation

Revelation describes three series of seven judgements: seven seals (chapter 6), seven trumpets (chapters 8–11) and seven bowls (chapter 16). Wormwood comes with the third trumpet.

In the Bible, trumpets were blown to sound an alarm, to gather God’s people and to announce that God was at work (Numbers 10:9; Joel 2:1). So the trumpets in Revelation are warnings. Notice how limited they are: again and again, only ‘a third’ is struck. These are not yet the final judgement. They are a loud call to turn back to God before it is too late.

Sadly, the world does not listen. After the sixth trumpet, John writes that ‘the rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshipping demons and idols’ (Revelation 9:20).

The trumpets also echo something older. Read them alongside the book of Exodus and you will hear the plagues of Egypt again:

Trumpet	What happens in Revelation	Echo from Exodus
1st (8:7)	Hail and fire mixed with blood fall on the earth	The seventh plague: hail and fire (Exodus 9:23–25)
2nd (8:8–9)	A third of the sea becomes blood	The first plague: the Nile turned to blood (Exodus 7:20–21)
3rd (8:10–11)	Wormwood makes a third of the waters bitter	The Nile undrinkable (Exodus 7:24); the bitter waters of Marah (Exodus 15:23)
4th (8:12)	A third of the sun, moon and stars darkened	The ninth plague: darkness over Egypt (Exodus 10:21–23)
5th (9:1–11)	Locusts rise from the bottomless pit	The eighth plague: locusts (Exodus 10:12–15)
6th (9:13–19)	A vast army kills a third of mankind	The tenth plague: death in the land (Exodus 12:29–30)
7th (11:15)	‘The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord’	The exodus itself: God’s people set free

This pattern matters. In Exodus, the plagues fell on a nation that worshipped false gods and held God’s people captive. In Revelation, the same kinds of judgement fall on a world that does the same. And just as God brought his people safely out of Egypt, he will bring his church safely through to the new creation.

What Is Wormwood?

Wormwood is a real plant. Its scientific name is Artemisia absinthium, and it grows across Europe, Asia and the Middle East. It is famous for one thing: it is extremely bitter. Its Greek name, apsinthos, gives us the word ‘absinthe’, the strong green drink once flavoured with it. In large amounts, wormwood can be poisonous.

For the first readers of Revelation, though, the word carried a long history. The Hebrew word for wormwood, la’anah, appears several times in the Old Testament, almost always as a picture of bitterness that comes from sin and judgement.

WORMWOOD IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

Deuteronomy 29:18: Moses warns against anyone who turns from the Lord to serve other gods, ‘a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit’ (in Hebrew, ‘gall and wormwood’).
Proverbs 5:4: The adulteress seems sweet at first, ‘but in the end she is bitter as wormwood’.
Jeremiah 9:15: Because Israel followed idols, God says, ‘I will feed this people with bitter food (wormwood), and give them poisonous water to drink.’
Jeremiah 23:15: The same judgement falls on false prophets, ‘for from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has gone out into all the land’.
Lamentations 3:15, 19: After Jerusalem falls, the prophet mourns, ‘he has sated me with wormwood’.
Amos 5:7: God condemns those ‘who turn justice to wormwood’.

Notice the pattern: idolatry, false teaching and injustice all lead to bitterness. And twice in Jeremiah, wormwood comes together with poisoned water, exactly as in Revelation 8.

John was steeped in the Old Testament. When he names the star ‘Wormwood’, he is not giving us an astronomer’s label. He is reaching back to Jeremiah. The message is clear: those who drink from the poisoned wells of idolatry will taste its bitterness.

Four Ways Christians Read the Third Trumpet

Christians have read the book of Revelation in four main ways. Each one handles Wormwood differently.

View	How it reads Revelation	What Wormwood means
Futurist	Most of the book describes events just before Christ returns	A literal asteroid or comet that will strike the earth in a future tribulation
Preterist	Most of the book was fulfilled in the first century, around the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70	God’s judgement on unfaithful Israel, echoing Jeremiah 9:15
Historicist	The book maps out church history in sequence	A specific historical disaster; some older writers linked it to the invasion of Attila the Hun
Idealist	The book shows the spiritual pattern of history between Christ’s first and second comings	A recurring judgement: God letting sin’s bitterness poison human life and society

Many Reformed teachers combine the best of these readings. Revelation was written to real first-century churches (Revelation 1:4), so it meant something to them. It describes the whole age between the cross and the return of Christ, so it means something to us. And it ends with real future events: the return of Christ, the final judgement and the new creation.

On this reading, the seals, trumpets and bowls are not one long timeline. They are like three views of the same age, each one growing more intense, rather like a piece of music that repeats its theme louder each time. William Hendriksen set out this approach in his classic More Than Conquerors, and Kim Riddlebarger and others have defended it since. (See What Is Amillennialism? A Biblical Assessment.)

Did Chernobyl Fulfil Revelation 8?

The Chernobyl story is one of the most famous examples of ‘newspaper exegesis’, reading the Bible through today’s headlines. It does not hold up well.

The plant is different. The town is named after chornobyl, the Ukrainian word for mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris). Mugwort is a close relative of wormwood, but it is not the same plant. The Ukrainian Bible uses a different word, polyn, for wormwood in Revelation 8.
The name is centuries old. The town of Chernobyl had borne its name for hundreds of years before anyone built a power station there.
The details do not match. John sees a star falling from heaven and striking a third of the world’s rivers and springs. Chernobyl was a terrible accident on the ground, and its contamination, though serious, was regional.
The method is risky. If Revelation 8 had to wait until 1986 to make sense, it meant nothing to the seven churches who first received it, and Revelation was written to bless those who ‘hear’ and ‘keep’ it (Revelation 1:3).

None of this makes Chernobyl less tragic. Disasters like it are real reminders that we live in a broken world under God’s judgement. But we should be humble about announcing that any single event ‘is’ Wormwood. Christians have made that mistake many times, and it has done harm to their witness. (See End of the World: What Science and the Bible Predict.)

Could Wormwood Be an Asteroid?

Many futurist teachers believe Wormwood will be a real asteroid or comet. Space rocks do strike the earth, and they have caused great damage in the past. Space agencies take the threat seriously. In 2022, NASA’s DART spacecraft deliberately crashed into a small asteroid called Dimorphos and successfully changed its path. In April 2029, an asteroid named Apophis will pass very close to the earth, though scientists say it will not hit us.

So could God use an asteroid in judgement? Of course. God rules over every rock in space, and he has used natural events such as hail, earthquakes and floods to judge the wicked before.

But there are good reasons to think John is not describing a literal asteroid here:

Stars in Revelation are often symbols. Jesus himself explains that ‘the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches’ (Revelation 1:20). In the very next trumpet, a ‘star fallen from heaven’ is handed a key and opens a pit (Revelation 9:1). That star is clearly a person, not a rock.
A literal reading creates impossibilities. The fourth trumpet strikes ‘a third of the sun’ and ‘a third of the stars’ (Revelation 8:12). Any one star is far larger than the earth. The language is meant to be pictured, not plotted on a star chart.
The name points back to Scripture. A star named Wormwood is a deliberate echo of Jeremiah, where wormwood was the bitter result of idolatry and false prophecy.

For these reasons, many interpreters, including G. K. Beale in his major commentary on Revelation, see the falling star as an angelic figure connected with a sinful people, and the poisoned waters as the deadly results of idolatry. Whatever the exact details, the point is not ‘watch the skies’. It is ‘watch your heart’.

What Wormwood Means for Us

If Wormwood is a symbol, it is not a toothless one. It describes something real that we can see all around us.

Sin Always Turns Bitter

Sin promises sweetness. Proverbs says the forbidden woman’s lips ‘drip honey’, but ‘in the end she is bitter as wormwood’ (Proverbs 5:3–4). Every idol, whether money, pleasure, power or self, works the same way. It tastes sweet at first and bitter at the end. Part of God’s judgement is simply to let us drink what we have chosen (Romans 1:24).

False Teaching Poisons the Springs

In Jeremiah 23, wormwood is God’s judgement on false prophets, because their lies poisoned the whole land. Rivers and springs were the lifeblood of ancient towns. When the springs are poisoned, everyone downstream suffers. The same is true when churches abandon God’s Word. Whole communities lose the water of life.

The Warnings Are Mercy

The trumpets strike only ‘a third’. God holds back. He warns before he finishes. Peter tells us why: ‘The Lord is not slow to fulfil his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance’ (2 Peter 3:9). Every disaster in this broken world is a trumpet blast calling us to turn to God while there is still time (Luke 13:1–5).

Living Water for a Poisoned World

There is a beautiful story in Exodus. Soon after leaving Egypt, Israel came to a place called Marah, which means ‘bitter’. The water there was undrinkable. Moses cried to the Lord, and ‘the LORD showed him a log, and he threw the log into the water, and the water became sweet’ (Exodus 15:25).

Many Christians since the early church have seen in this a picture of the cross. Our sin has poisoned the waters of human life. Only the wood of the cross can make them sweet again. Jesus bore the bitter cup of God’s judgement himself (Matthew 26:39), so that we might drink from a very different spring:

‘Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’
John 4:14

Revelation itself ends not with poisoned rivers but with ‘the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb’ (Revelation 22:1). And its last invitation is for everyone: ‘let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price’ (Revelation 22:17).

Conclusion: Don’t Watch the Skies, Come to the Spring

Wormwood is not a secret code for a power station or a timetable for an asteroid. It is God’s vivid warning that sin and false religion turn life bitter, and that judgement is real. The third trumpet calls the world to repent while the judgements are still partial.

But Revelation never leaves us with bitterness alone. The same book that shows a star poisoning the rivers shows the Lamb leading his people ‘to springs of living water’ (Revelation 7:17). The question is not whether Wormwood will appear in tomorrow’s news. The question is which water you are drinking today.

Tough Questions, Honest Answers

Is wormwood a real plant?

Yes. Wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) is a shrub-like herb known for its intense bitterness. It has long been used in medicine and to flavour drinks such as absinthe and vermouth. Taken in large amounts, it can be toxic. In the Bible, its bitterness made it a natural picture of sorrow, sin and judgement.

Is Chernobyl mentioned in the Bible?

No. The idea comes from a belief that ‘Chernobyl’ means ‘wormwood’. In fact, the town is named after a related plant, mugwort, and the name is centuries old. Revelation 8 was written to first-century Christians and describes a pattern of judgement, not a coded reference to a 1986 nuclear accident.

Will an asteroid hit the earth before Jesus returns?

The Bible does not say. Scientists track thousands of near-earth objects, and none is currently known to be on course to strike the earth in the coming decades. More importantly, God has promised that ‘while the earth remains, seedtime and harvest … shall not cease’ (Genesis 8:22). The world will end when Christ returns, at the time God has set, not by an accident in space.

Why is the junior devil in The Screwtape Letters called Wormwood?

In C. S. Lewis’s 1942 book The Screwtape Letters, a senior demon named Screwtape writes letters to his nephew Wormwood, a young tempter assigned to lead a man away from God. Lewis chose names that sounded unpleasant, and ‘Wormwood’ fits perfectly: the name of a bitter, poisonous plant for a spirit whose job is to make human lives bitter.

Have the seven trumpets already happened?

It depends on how you read Revelation. Preterists believe they were mainly fulfilled in the first century. Futurists believe they are still to come. Many Reformed interpreters believe the trumpets describe the kinds of judgements that happen throughout the whole age between Christ’s first and second comings, growing in intensity until the end. On that view, the trumpets are both already happening and still to be completed.

What does ‘a third’ mean in Revelation 8?

The repeated ‘third’ shows that these judgements are real but limited. They are serious, but not yet final. Two-thirds are spared, which leaves room for repentance. By contrast, the later bowl judgements in Revelation 16 are complete. The fractions are not meant to be measured precisely; they show God’s patience mixed with his justice.

Are the trumpet and bowl judgements the same?

They are closely related. Both series follow the same order: earth, sea, rivers, sun, darkness, the Euphrates and a final climax. Many interpreters believe they describe the same period from different angles, with the trumpets showing partial judgement as a warning and the bowls showing God’s final, complete judgement on those who refuse to repent.