What Does Revelation 21:8 Mean?
But the timid, the ones who will not trust, the foul, murderers, the sexually immoral, the potion-makers, the image-servers, and all liars, have their portion in the lake burning with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.THE KEY
“Unbelieving” names failed trust, placing distrust beside murder, idolatry, and deceit under the same verdict.
THE MEANING
This verse addresses you now with a severe future verdict: the fearful, the abominable, murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars have their share in the lake of fire, which it names the second death. Its list places distrust and deceit beside murder, so the judgment reaches beyond physical violence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that only physical violence belongs under judgment: the verse also names failed trust, idolatry, and lying.
THE ROOT
ἄπιστος
apistos
GROWS FROM
πιστ-
pist-
Trust and reliability; being worthy of trust.
“the ones who will not trust” in this verse is apistos. ἄπιστος (apistos, without trust or faithless) reaches beyond an idea someone accepts to the trust they place their weight on. In this list, failed trust stands beside actions that harm and deceive.
ALSO GROWS
pistis: Trust, reliance
πίστις
This is the noun related to the verse’s word for one without trust.
pistos: Trustworthy, reliable
πιστός
This form names the reliability associated with the same root.
ψευδέσιν
pseudesin
GROWS FROM
ψευδ-
pseud-
Falsehood and deception.
The root links the liar with the falsehood itself. By including all liars beside murderers, the verse places deceit within the same severe verdict as bodily violence.
ALSO GROWS
pseudomai: To lie or speak falsely
ψεύδομαι
This verb names the act behind the verse’s word for liars.
pseudos: A lie or falsehood
ψεῦδος
This noun names what the liar produces: falsehood.
THE PATTERN
The text binds falsehood and violence to death’s domain rather than treating them as separate worlds.
Lying lips make the LORD recoil, but those who work in trust are his delight.You are from your father, the Slanderer, and you will do the cravings of your father. He was a manslayer from the beginning, and has not stood in the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own, for he is a liar and the father of it.Everyone who hates his brother is a human-slayer. And you know that no human-slayer has the life of the ages remaining in him.THE THREAD
And death and the unseen are thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death.Both verses use θάνατος (thanatos, death) in the phrase “the second death,” beside the lake of fire. Revelation 20:14 names death and hell cast into the lake; Revelation 21:8 names those who have their share there.
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