What Does Revelation 9:11 Mean?
And they have over them a king, the messenger of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue he has the name Apollyon.
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
And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.THE KEY
The abyss’s king is named in both tongues by the same outcome: perishing and loss.
THE MEANING
The verse places a king over the swarm and identifies him as the messenger of the bottomless pit. His Hebrew name evokes perishing; his Greek name means the one who causes others to perish. Together, the names disclose the nature of the power that rules there.
THE ROOT
Ἀπολλύων
Apollyōn
GROWS FROM
ἀπόλλυμι
To perish or be lost; to cause to perish or be lost.
“Apollyon” in this verse is Apollyōn. Apollyōn is formed from the Greek verb ἀπόλλυμι, which can describe both causing ruin and being lost. The name identifies the pit’s ruler with the movement into loss itself.
ALSO GROWS
apōleia: Loss, ruin, destruction.
ἀπώλεια
This noun names the ruin associated with the pit and echoes the name’s word-family.
apolōlos: One who has been lost or has perished.
ἀπολωλός
This form describes the condition of being lost, showing that the same Greek word-family names both the force that destroys and what is lost.
אֲבַדּוֹן
Abaddon
GROWS FROM
אבד
To perish, be lost, or bring to ruin.
Abaddon is formed from the Hebrew root אבד, “to perish” or “be lost”; Proverbs uses this very noun for “destruction.” Beside the Greek Apollyon, it names the same field of perishing and loss in another tongue.
ALSO GROWS
ʾoved: Perishing; one who is lost.
אֹבֵד
This form keeps the Hebrew name connected to the state of perishing.
ʾavedah: Loss; something lost.
אֲבֵדָה
This noun names the result of the root’s action, echoing the loss carried in Abaddon’s name.
ἄγγελος
Angelos
GROWS FROM
ἀγγελ-
To announce or carry a message.
The Greek noun ἄγγελος means messenger, with the sense of announcing carried in its word-family. Here the title identifies the king as the pit’s messenger, and the names that follow disclose what his domain communicates.
ALSO GROWS
angellō: To announce or report.
ἀγγέλλω
This verb makes the messenger’s role audible in the same Greek word-family.
angelia: A message or report.
ἀγγελία
This noun links the title to what is carried from the pit.
THE PATTERN
Scripture identifies destructive power by the loss it causes, while the same word-family can name those left lost.
Sheol and the place of perishing are never filled, and the eyes of man are never filled.The thief comes only to steal, and to slaughter, and to make perish. I came that they might have life, and have it overflowing.For the Son of Man has come to seek and to deliver that which had lost its way.THE THREAD
Sheol is bare before him, and perishing has no covering.The word translated “destruction” is the Hebrew Abaddon, the same name Revelation gives to the pit’s king. Here Abaddon has no covering before God: the domain named by the verse is exposed to divine sight.
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