Abbadon is a Hebrew word meaning ‘destruction’ , from the Hebrew verb ‘destroy’ or ‘perish’. It occurs 5 times in the Hebrew Old Testament : Job 26:6 , 28:22, 31:12, Psalms 88:12, Proverbs 15:11, 27:20. In Job 26:6 and Proverbs 15:11 it is another word for Sheol, the pit or the grave .
Job 26:6 Sheol is naked before him, and Abaddon has no covering.
Job 28:22 Destruction and Death say, We have heard the fame thereof with our ears.
Job 31:12 For it is a fire that consumes to destruction, and would root out all my increase.
Psalm 88:11 Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in Abaddon?
Proverbs 15:11 Sheol and Abaddon are before the LORD: how much more then the hearts of the children of men?
In the New Testament it occurs once, in a vision in Revelation 9:11 transliterated into Greek, as the name of a fictional angel-prince, Destruction – which in Greek would be Apollyon:
10 They have tails and stings like scorpions, and their power to hurt people for five months is in their tails. 11 They have as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he is called Apollyon (Revelation 9:10-11)
This was evidently never meant to be taken literally.
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