BIBLE STUDY – SHORT NOTES:
WHAT IS THE BOTTOMLESS PIT?
THE BIBLE TALKS ABOUT A “BOTTOMLESS PIT” OR
ABYSS. WHAT IS IT? IS IT LITERAL, HISTORICAL OR METAPHORICAL?
Version 1.1
Assembled by Craig M White
1. VARIETY OF MEANINGS
· Historical
· Literal
dwelling place of demons
· Symbol of
evil
· Prophetic
of armies in the Day of the Lord
2. Revelation structure
·
1st SEAL:
white horse (the false religion)
·
2nd SEAL:
red horse (war and Tribulation)
·
3rd SEAL:
black horse (famine)
·
4th SEAL:
pale horse (disease epidemics)
·
5th SEAL:
souls under the altar (martyrdom)
·
6th SEAL:
signs in the heavens (earthquake, the sun darkened, meteorites, moon appears
blood red. The 144,000 are after the sixth seal, but before the seventh.
·
7th SEAL
o 1st Trumpet
o 2nd Trumpet
o 3rd Trumpet
o 4th Trumpet
o 5th Trumpet (1st Woe): The Bottomless Pit (Abyss)
is opened
o 6th Trumpet (2nd Woe): one third of mankind is slain
o 7th Trumpet (3rd Woe): Christ, the Messiah, returns to earth.
3. RELEVANT SCRIPTURES
And
the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and
to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.
And
he opened the bottomless pit;
and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and
the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.
And
there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given
power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.
And
it was commanded them that they should not hurt the
grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those
men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.
And
to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be
tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a
scorpion, when he striketh a man.
And
in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to
die, and death shall flee from them.
And
the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle;
and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were
as the faces of men.
And
they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of
lions.
And
they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their
wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.
And
they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and
their power was to hurt men five months.
And
they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is
Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon. {Apollyon:
that is to say, A destroyer}
One
woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes
more hereafter. (Rev 9:1-12)
From the above
we see that armies ascend out of this pit. These appear to be demons that are released and which empower the Beast Power. As such, this
prophecy is probably dual in scope representing demons and the armies of the
Beast they inspire (and its awesome weaponry).
Note: the Beast comes out of this metaphoric abyss.
These
have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and
have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all
plagues, as often as they will.
And
when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill
them. (Rev 11:6-7)
A further
scripture refers to the Beast arising out of the bottomless pit:
And
the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I
will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.
The
beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless
pit, and go into perdition: and they
that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book
of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was,
and is not, and yet is. (Rev 17:7-8)
So, the end-time
Beast comes out of the bottomless pit. This may symbolise the following:
·
That it is
influenced by demons
·
It is
restored from a condition of relative little influence
and a sort of underground existence
·
Its
sudden appearance takes the world by storm
Satan’s
fate is also related to the pit:
And
I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of
the bottomless pit and a
great chain in his hand.
And
he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan,
and bound him a thousand years,
And
cast him into the bottomless pit,
and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no
more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be
loosed a little season. (Rev 20:1-2)
Satan is put away into the bottomless pit. Apparently the same one
that the 200 million ascend from and that the Beast also ascends from.
Notice what is said about the demons’ fate:
And
Jesus asked him, saying, What is thy name? And he
said, Legion: because many devils were entered into him.
And
they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep.
And
there was there an herd of many swine feeding on the
mountain: and they besought him that he would suffer them to enter into them.
And he suffered them.
Then
went the devils out of the man, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently
down a steep place into the lake, and were choked. (Luke 8:30-33)
For
if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell,
and delivered them into chains of
darkness, to be reserved unto judgment (IIPet 2:4)
And
the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he
hath reserved in everlasting chains under
darkness unto the judgment of the great day. (Jude 6)
It is interesting that in Jude – which is describing false
ministers in a maritime setting – also mentions fallen angels.
The letter must be dual and has inference to this abyss.
So this pit must represent something very evil – a place where
evil springs. Is it a literal place and symbolic – is it dual in meaning?
That would seem to be the case and represents the way Scripture is often
written, particularly in prophetic books.
Who has the key to the abyss? We are told that it is Apollyon or the
destroyer – Satan the great deceiver. God Himself is also a destroyer
– of that which is wicked and evil – see James 4:12:
There
is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest
another? [cp ICor 10:10; Ex 12:23; IChron 21:12]
The Greek for
destroy is apollumi
according to Strong’s:
622
avpo,llumi apollumi {ap-ol'-loo-mee}
Meaning:
1)
to destroy 1a) to put out of the way entirely, abolish, put an end to ruin 1b)
render useless 1c) to kill 1d) to declare that one must be put to death 1e)
metaph. to devote or give over to eternal misery in hell 1f) to perish, to be
lost, ruined, destroyed 2) to destroy 2a) to lose
In the Old
Testament the Hebrew tehom,
'the primeval ocean' (Gen. 1:2; Ps. 24:2; etc.), is equivalent to 'abyss'.
Note also the springs of the deep at the time of Noah’s flood where the
same Hebrew word tehom
is used:
“In the six
hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the
month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the
windows of heaven were opened.” (Gen 7:11)
So the bottomless pit is deep in the sea or a very specific region
within it. It appears to be like the dark, cavernous areas that some divers
venture into.
4. ORIGINAL
GREEK
The Oxford Dictionary online
(http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/abyss?q=abyss)
explains this word as follows:
Pronunciation:/əˈbɪs/
noun
·
a deep or seemingly bottomless
chasm: a rope led
down into the dark abyss
·
a wide or profound difference between people; a gulf: the abyss between the two nations
·
the regions of hell conceived of as a bottomless pit: Satan’s dark abyss
·
(the abyss) a
catastrophic situation seen as likely to occur: teetering
on the edge of the abyss of a total political wipeout
Origin:
late Middle English (in the sense 'infernal pit'):
via late Latin from Greek abussos 'bottomless', from a- 'without'
+ bussos'
depth'
The definition of “a deep or seemingly bottomless chasm”
mirrors the Scriptural meaning of the term.
The Greek for “bottomless pit” or “the deep”
in Rev 9:1 is 'abussos which
became translated as abyss.
Strong’s Concordance renders it thus:
12
a;bussoj abussos {ab'-us-sos}
Meaning:
1)
bottomless 2) unbounded 3) the abyss 3a) the pit 3b) the immeasurable depth 3c)
of Orcus, a very deep gulf or chasm in the lowest parts of the earth used as
the common receptacle of the dead and especially as the abode of demons
Origin:
from
1 (as a negative particle) and a variation of 1037; TDNT - 1:9,2; n f
Usage:
AV
- bottomless pit 5, deep 2, bottomless 2; 9
The
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia;
ABYSS
a-bis', (he abussos):
In
classical Greek the word is always an adjective, and is used
1. literally, "very deep," "bottomless";
2. figuratively, "unfathomable," "boundless."
"Abyss" does not occur in the King James Version
but the Revised Version (British and American) so transliterates abussos in
each case. The the King James Version renders the
Greek by "the deep" in two passages (Luke 8:31; Romans 10:7). In Revelation the King James
Version renders by "the bottomless pit" (Revelation 9:1,2,11; 11:7; 17:8;20:1,3). In the Septuagint abussos is the
rendering of the Hebrew word tehom. According to
primitive Semitic cosmogony the earth was supposed to rest on a vast body of
water which was the source of all springs of water and rivers (Genesis 1:2; Deuteronomy 8:7;Psalms 24:2; 136:6). This subterranean ocean is
sometimes described as "the water under the earth" (Exodus 20:4; Deuteronomy 5:8). According to Job 41:32tehom is the home of the
leviathan in which he plows his hoary path of foam.
The Septuagint never uses abussos as a rendering of sheol (= Sheol = Hades) and
probably tehom never meant the "abode of the
dead" which was the ordinary meaning of Sheol. In Psalms 71:20 tehom
is used figuratively, and denotes "many and sore troubles" through
which the psalmist has passed (compare Jonah 2:5). But in the New Testament the
word abussos means the "abode of demons." InLuke 8:31 the King James Version renders
"into the deep" (Weymouth and The Twentieth Century New Testament =
"into the bottomless pit"). The demons do not wish to be sent to
their place of punishment before their destined time. Mark simply says "out of the country" (Luke 5:10). In Romans 10:7 the word is equivalent to
Hades, the abode of the dead. In Revelation (where the King James Version
renders invariably "the bottomless pit") abussos denotes the abode of
evil spirits, but not the place of final punishment; it is therefore to be
distinguished from the "lake of fire and brimstone" where the beast
and the false prophet are, and into which the Devil is to be finally cast (Revelation 19:20;20:10).
5. ANCIENT TRADITIONS & MYTHOLOGY
In mythology,
the Abyss refers to a bottomless pit – the deepest
portion of the sea and underworld.
According to Wikipedia
(article “Abyzou”):
A.A. Barb connected Abyzou
and similar female demons to the Sumerian myth of
primeval Sea. Barb argued that although the name “Abyzou”
appears to be a corrupted form of the Greek word abyssos
("the abyss"), the Greek itself was borrowed from Assyrian Apsu or
Sumerian Abzu,
the undifferentiated sea from which the world was created in the Sumerian
belief system, equivalent Babylonian Tiamat,[4] or Hebrew Tehom in the Book of Genesis. The
entity Sea was originally bi- or asexual, later dividing into male Abzu (fresh water) and female Tiamat (salt water). The female demons among whom Lilith is the
best-known are often said to have come from the primeval sea. In classical Greece, female sea monsters that combine allure and
deadliness may also derive from this tradition, including the Gorgons (who were
daughters of the old sea god Phorcys), Sirens, Harpies, and even water nymphs and Nereids.
In the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Hebrew scriptures, the word Abyssos is
treated as a noun of feminine grammatical gender, even
though Greek nouns ending in -os are
typically masculine. Abyssos is
equivalent in meaning to Mesopotamian Abzu as the dark chaotic sea before Creation. The word also appears in the Christian scriptures, occurring six times in the Book of Revelation, where
it is conventionally translated not as “the deep” but as “the bottomless pit” of Hell.
Barb argues that in essence the Sumerian Abzu is the “grandmother”
of the Christian Devil.
Wikipedia (article “Abzu”) states:
The abzu (Cuneiform:, ZU.AB; Sumerian: abzu; Akkadian: apsû) also
called engur, (Cuneiform:𒇉,
LAGAB×HAL; Sumerian: engur; Akkadian: engurru)
literally, ab='ocean' zu='to
know'[1] or 'deep' was the name for fresh water from
underground aquifers that was given a religious quality in Sumerian and Akkadian mythology. Lakes,
springs, rivers, wells, and other sources of fresh water were thought to draw
their water from the abzu.
In
Sumerian culture
In the
city Eridu, Enki's temple was known as E2-abzu (house of
the cosmic waters) and was located at the edge of a swamp, an abzu.[2] Certain
tanks of holy water in Babylonian and Assyrian temple courtyards were also called abzu (apsû).[3] Typical
in religious washing, these tanks were similar to the washing pools of Islamic mosques,
or the baptismal font in Christian churches.
[edit]In
Sumerian cosmology
The Sumerian god Enki (Ea in the Akkadian language) was believed to have lived in the abzu since before human beings were created. His wifeDamgalnuna, his mother Nammu,
his advisor Isimud and
a variety of subservient creatures, such as the gatekeeper Lahmu, also lived in the abzu.
As a
deity
Abzu (apsû) is depicted as a deity only
in the Babylonian creation epic, the Enûma Elish,
taken from the library of Assurbanipal (c 630 BCE) but which is about 500 years
older. In this story, he was a primal being
made of fresh water and a lover to another primal deity, Tiamat,
who was a creature of salt water. The Enuma Elish begins:
When
above the heavens did not yet exist nor the earth below, Apsu
the freshwater ocean was there, the first, the begetter, and Tiamat, the
saltwater sea, she who bore them all; they were still mixing their waters, and
no pasture land had yet been formed, nor even a reed
marsh...
The above is of some
interest and may assist in understanding the abyss concept.
6. FINAL COMMENTS
From the
Scriptures (with some information taken from tradition) we can see that the
abyss or very deep pit is:
· Symbolic of a place of evil which Abaddon or
Satan is the leader of
· Is the dwelling place of many demons waiting for
their judgment day
· The Beast of Revelation ascends from the pit, symbolically
· At the 5th Trumpet of the 7th
Seal, a horde of 200 million comprising the armies of the East arise –
here the pit seems metaphorical unless it is dual in nature – ie a
literal army of 200 million and demons that inspire them
· It is where Satan will be confined to for 1,000
years from where he is released for a short time afterward and finally
defeated.
APPENDIX:
ARTICLE EXTRACT
“What will Christ do after the defeat of the human
armies in the decisive battle in the Kidron Valley, just outside
Jerusalem?” Church of the Eternal God newsletter, Update 528 for the Week ending February
10th, 2012
“The removal of Satan is described in Revelation 20:1–3:
‘Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the
bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. He [the angel, pictured by the
suitable man who took the Azazel goat into the wilderness] laid hold of the
dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan [pictured by the Azazel
goat], and bound him for a thousand years; and cast him into the bottomless
pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the
nations no more till the thousand years were finished. [This is pictured by the
fact that the Azazel goat was not killed, but placed alive in the wilderness,
far away from the camp of Israel.]’”
What exactly is that bottomless pit, mentioned in Revelation 20:1-3,
where Satan and his demons will be bound? It is not a mystical fiery
“hell” way down under the surface of the earth—such a
“hell” simply does not exist, and nowhere in the Bible is it
remotely mentioned. Even the lake of fire in which Satan and his demons will be
cast before the Great White Throne Judgment begins, will be ON the
earth—not UNDER the earth.
Now note again the reference to modern Babylon in Revelation 18:2:
“And he [an angel] cried mightily with a loud voice, saying ‘Babylon
the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a dwelling place of DEMONS, a
prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated
bird.”
In this passage, Satan is also included as the highest demon and the
ruler over the demons.
What, then, is the relationship between the bottomless pit or the abyss
and the wilderness of the modern city of Babylon, which is built on seven
hills?
We write the following in chapter 7 of our free booklet, “The
Book of Zechariah—Prophecies for Today,” on pages 55-56,
when addressing Zechariah’s seventh vision, pertaining to a wicked woman
in a basket, which pictures the modern system and city of Babylon (please read
the entire chapter 7):
“Some commentaries identify the woman in the basket [in Zechariah
5:5-11] as the woman or harlot riding the beast, as described in the book of
Revelation. There, she is called ‘Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother
of harlots and abominations of the earth’ (Revelation 17:5). She is also
described as a religious city built on seven hills (Revelation 17:9, 18, New
International Version, Living Bible)—in other words, Babylon the great,
in the book of Revelation, signifies a false religious, political, military and
economic system…
“We read that the woman, personifying worldwide wickedness or
iniquity, is confined to a basket or container, but she is trying,
unsuccessfully, to escape from her prison (verses 7–8). This gives us the
time setting of Zechariah’s vision—it describes the woman’s
future judgment—which will occur when Jesus Christ returns. The modern
CITY of Babylon the great—as well as the SYSTEM which it
represents—will be destroyed with fire (Revelation 18:8, 21; 19:3).
Depending on the translation, it will become a ‘dwelling place’ or
a ‘habitation’ or a ‘house’… or a
‘home’ (New International Version) of ‘demons, a prison for
every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird’
(Revelation 18:2).
“This fact explains why two women with wings of a stork (Zechariah
5:9)—perhaps angels—carry the imprisoned woman to the land of
[Shinar or] Babylon, to build a house or dwelling place for her (verse
11)… The two women will assist in removing ‘wickedness’—the
wicked system—from this earth… wickedness will be placed
‘forever in Babylon’ (compare Geneva Study Bible); that is, the
burned and destroyed location and area of the modern city of Babylon will
become a ‘house’ for demons during the time of the
Millennium…”
We see, then, that the abyss or the bottomless pit, where Satan and his
demons will be shut up, describes the destroyed areas where currently the
modern city of Babylon is situated. We read that the modern city of Babylon
will never be rebuilt and inhabited again (Isaiah 13:19-22).
After Satan and his demons are confined to the bottomless pit or abyss
of the wilderness of modern Babylon, unable to deceive the nations anymore
during the time of the Millennium, Jesus Christ will proceed with freeing the
enslaved peoples of the modern houses of Israel and Judah. We will address
these events in more detail in a subsequent Q&A.
Lead Writer: Norbert Link
©Friends of the Sabbath
Used with permission.