Abaddon

Also Abbadon. Abaddon is, according to Revelation, the angel of the bottomless pit, and is the angel that binds Satan for one thousand years. The angel's name is often used as the name for the bottomless pit that he is lord over, and some have his name as the origin of the word "abyss". Abaddon is also known as a demon or an angel of evil and destruction in later works, but this may be due to a confusion with Abbadona rather than a common origin.

When cross-referenced with other scriptures another explanation presents itself - that Abaddon, the angel who will bind Satan for one thousand years, is none other than the arch-angel himself, Jesus Christ. "You're crazed!" you all scream. "It cannot be!" Observe:

Revelation 9:11 speaks of Abaddon as being the angel of the abyss, then later in Revelation 20:1 we see the angel with the key to the abyss binding Satan and throwing him in. This we already know, but Hebrews 2:14 tells us that Jesus himself will "destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil." That he is capable of doing so is evidenced by the well-known account documented at Luke 8:30,31 which tells of Legion, the man possessed by many demons, who implore Jesus not to send them into the abyss.

It isn't just me who thinks Abaddon is a goodie either; the Interpreter's Bible says: "Abaddon, however, is an angel not of Satan but of God, performing his work of destruction at God's bidding."

Who'da thunk it?

'abaddon is the Hebrew word for 'destruction', from the verb 'abêd 'he destroyed'. It begins with the consonant aleph.

I have never heard of the angel Abbadona but it looks like it contains the (Aramaic) word 'abba 'father' (which gives our 'abbot'). However, I don't know.

The angel Abdiel meaning 'servant of God', contains the element &abd- from &ebed 'servant', the same as in Arabic names such as Abdullah. It begins with the consonant ayin (I'm writing that '&') and cannot be related to words beginning with aleph; not within the one language, at least.

Apollyon is from Greek roots, literary 'looser-off', i.e destroyer.

The Greek god Apollo is unrelated to any of these; it is not in fact a recognizable Greek name in origin; and there was a proposal in the controversial book Black Athena that it was an Egyptian divine name brought into Greek via Phoenician.

The Greek word abyss (or abysm) comes from Mesopotamian languages: the word is Apsu in Babylonian, and Abzu in Sumerian. He was the sweet water under the earth, the primaeval god, the first to be mentioned in the Babylonian Epic of Creation: so this name at least is considerably older than all the previous.

No doubt it was just as easy to confuse these in ancient languages, and that was done, as it is in their English transliterations.

A Hebrew word signifying:

• ruin, destruction (Job 31:12);
• place of destruction; the Abyss, realm of the dead (Job 26:6; Proverbs 15:11);
• it occurs personified (Apocalypse 9:11) as Abaddon and is rendered in Greek by Apollyon, denoting the angel-prince of hell, the minister of death and author of havoc on earth. The Vulgate renders the Greek Apollyon by the Latin Exterminans (that is, "Destroyer"). The identity of Abaddon with Asmodeus, the demon of impurity, has been asserted, but not proved.

A.J. MAAS

The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

this wu is public domain

a-bad'-on ('abhaddon, "ruin," "perdition," "destruction"):

Though "destruction" is commonly used in translating 'abhaddon, the stem idea is intransitive rather than passive - the idea of perishing, going to ruin, being in a ruined state, rather than that of being ruined, being destroyed.

The word occurs six times in the Old Testament, always as a place name in the sense in which Sheol is a place name. It denotes, in certain aspects, the world of the dead as constructed in the Hebrew imagination. It is a common mistake to understand such expressions in a too mechanical way. Like ourselves, the men of the earlier ages had to use picture language when they spoke of the conditions that existed after death, however their picturing of the matter may have differed from ours. In three instances Abaddon is parallel with Sheol (Job 26:6; Proverbs 15:11; 27:20). In one instance it is parallel with death, in one with the grave and in the remaining instance the parallel phrase is "root out all mine increase" (Job 28:22; Psalms 88:11; Job 31:12). In this last passage the place idea comes nearer to vanishing in an abstract conception than in the other passages.

Abaddon belongs to the realm of the mysterious. Only God understands it (Job 26:6; Proverbs 15:11). It is the world of the dead in its utterly dismal, destructive, dreadful aspect, not in those more cheerful aspects in which activities are conceived of as in progress there. In Abaddon there are no declarations of God's lovingkindness (Psalms 88:11).

In a slight degree the Old Testament presentations personalize Abaddon. It is a synonym for insatiableness (Proverbs 27:20). It has possibilities of information mediate between those of "all living" and those of God (Job 28:22).

In the New Testament the word occurs once (Revelation 9:11), the personalization becoming sharp. Abaddon is here not the world of the dead, but the angel who reigns over it. The Greek equivalent of his name is given as Apollyon. Under this name Bunyan presents him in The Pilgrim's Progress, and Christendom has doubtless been more interested in this presentation of the matter than in any other.

In some treatments Abaddon is connected with the evil spirit Asmodeus of Tobit (e.g. 3:8), and with the destroyer mentioned in The Wisdom of Solomon (18:25; compare 22), and through these with a large body of rabbinical folklore; but these efforts are simply groundless. See APOLLYON .

A*bad"don (#), n. [Heb. abaddon destruction, abyss, fr. abad to be lost, to perish.]

1.

The destroyer, or angel of the bottomless pit; -- the same as Apollyon and Asmodeus.

2.

Hell; the bottomless pit.

In all her gates, Abaddon rues Thy bold attempt. Milton.

© Webster 1913.