Abaddon / Apollyon

Revelation gives both the Hebrew and the Greek, the angel of the abyss and king of the locusts, and does that nowhere else at this length. In the Old Testament the word names a place, paired with Sheol. DDD (M. Hutter) is careful about how thin the demonic reading is in the Hebrew Bible. In most of its six Old Testament occurrences Abaddon is simply a place, "place of destruction," with no personification (Job 31:12 is purely topographical). DDD makes Job 28:22 the turning point, where Abaddon and Death together are personified beings who "hear" a report, with a slighter hint in Proverbs 27:20, where Abaddon is never satisfied. Apocalyptic tradition then turns the place into an angel: Apocalypse of Zephaniah 10:3 and 1 Enoch 20:2 both feature an angel over the underworld comparable to Revelation's Abaddon. The Greek name Apollyon is a translation and also a pun, since ancient readers already connected apollymi, "destroy," with Apollo, a god of plague and destruction as early as Aeschylus, so John's readers likely heard a jab at Apollo behind the angel's Greek name.