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Echoes of Revelation
Revelation never quotes the Old Testament outright, yet no New Testament book refers to it more. See both texts side by side, why they don’t match, and what John does with them.
Revelation 9:11, Abaddon and Apollyon
The king of the locusts bears the Hebrew name Abaddon, the place of destruction that the Old Testament sets beside the grave, and a Greek name, Apollyon, the Destroyer.
Revelation 9:11, in every translation this tool compares.
A gang that names its boss after the morgue is telling you what it does. The locusts have a king. He is the angel of the Abyss, and his Hebrew name is Abaddon, a word Job, the Psalms and Proverbs use for the place of the dead beside Sheol. In Greek he is Apollyon, the Destroyer. John turns a place of ruin into a person who rules over ruin.
The word itself. Abaddon is the Hebrew for destruction, the realm of the dead set beside Sheol in Job 26:6 and Proverbs 15:11 and beside the grave in Psalm 88:11. John spells it in Greek letters, Abaddon, and says the name is Hebrew.
In the Old Testament Abaddon is a place. John makes it a person, an angel and a king. He then gives a Greek name of his own, Apollyon, the Destroyer, which the Greek translation never uses. Where the Hebrew has Abaddon, the Greek translation of these verses has apoleia, destruction, from the same verb as Apollyon, a link drawn here.
Real locusts have no king, as Proverbs 30:27 says and Beale notes. These do, and their king is the angel of the pit of ruin. Beale reads him as Satan or one of his servants, working to bring people to death and ruin. Even this king rules only by God's leave.
Not a sure jab at Apollo. Some hear the god Apollo in the name. Keener says the link is not clear. Beale and the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible give it as a maybe.
Beale says Abaddon transliterates the Hebrew for destruction, which the Old Testament sometimes equates with Sheol or death (Job 26:6; 28:22; Psalm 88:11; Proverbs 15:11; 27:20), and Apollyon is Greek for destroyer. The Hebrew of Psalm 88:12 (88:11 in English) reads baavaddon, in Abaddon, beside the grave; the vault's Septuagint of Psalm 88:11 has en te apoleia, and Proverbs 15:11 hades kai apoleia. John's Apollyon is the present participle of apollymi, the verb behind apoleia. Beale adds that at Qumran Abaddon is the home of Belial, that Exodus 12:23 calls the angel of the firstborn plague the destroyer, and that Amos 7:1 in Greek has a locust army led by king Gog. Both names stand in the nominative, he notes, as titles. Keener and the CSB Study Bible add Job 31:12 and Proverbs 27:20, and the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible links the word with death and the realm of the dead. The grade is drawn here: the name is the Hebrew word itself and could come from nowhere else.
Heiser reads Aune: the angel named Abaddon or Apollyon in 9:11 is a different figure from the star of 9:1. The name occurs only here in the Bible and in a Dead Sea Scroll, 4Q280, where it is another way to name Belial. Abaddon, Aune says, is a Hebrew term for the realm of the dead, a poetic parallel to Sheol. Heiser leaves open whether this king is Satan. The Apollo pun the study guide credits to him is not in the lecture.
Who is the king? Beale and the ESV Study Bible say Satan, or Satan's agent, and Beale takes him to be the star of 9:1 as well. Aune, as Heiser reports, keeps him distinct from that star and doubts he is Satan, since John names Satan elsewhere with other titles. On Apollyon, Beale, Keener and the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible report a possible jab at Apollo, whom emperors such as Domitian claimed to embody; Keener says the allusion is not clear. MacArthur reads a high leader among Satan's forces, perhaps Satan himself, since demons have ranks as holy angels do.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 9:11
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 9:11
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Revelation 9:11
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 9:11
- ESV Study Bible, note on Revelation 9:11
- CSB Study Bible, note and cross-references on Revelation 9:11
- Septuagint, Psalm 88:11 and Proverbs 15:11, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- Hebrew text of Psalm 88:12, Miqra according to the Masorah (Sefaria)
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 9:11
- Michael S. Heiser, Revelation 9: The Fifth and Sixth Trumpet Judgments, video lecture (Naked Bible Revelation series)
- John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on Revelation 9:11
