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Abaddon
ABADDON (a-băd'ŭn, Heb. ’ăvaddôn, ruin, perdition, destruction). The term is found once in the NT (
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915)
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 (
Abaddon belongs to the realm of the mysterious. Only God understands it (
In a slight degree the Old Testament presentations personalize Abaddon. It is a synonym for insatiableness (
In the New Testament the word occurs once (
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 . Willis J. Beecher