Who is Abaddon or Apollyon?
Question 8017
Revelation 9:11 introduces a figure who stands in sharp contrast to the named holy angels of Scripture: the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in both Hebrew and Greek means one thing — Destroyer. His appearance belongs to the judgements of the Tribulation, and his name defines his function with a directness Scripture rarely employs.
The Name in Its Context
The name appears in the context of the fifth trumpet judgement of Revelation 9. A star fallen from heaven opens the shaft of the bottomless pit (verse 1), and out of the pit come locusts with scorpion-like power, commanded not to harm vegetation but to torment those without the seal of God for five months (verses 3-5). The torment is described as so severe that those affected seek death and cannot find it (verse 6). Over these locusts is a king — “the angel of the bottomless pit.” John provides both the Hebrew name (Abaddon) and the Greek (Apollyon), each meaning the same thing: Destroyer.
The name Abaddon already appears in the Old Testament as a term for the realm of the dead or destruction: Job 26:6, 28:22, 31:12; Psalm 88:11; Proverbs 15:11 and 27:20 all use it as a place-name parallel to Sheol. Its application in Revelation to a personal being is therefore striking: this figure is so thoroughly identified with destruction and death that he carries the name of the abyss itself as his own.
Identity: Who Is This Being?
Abaddon/Apollyon is a powerful fallen angel, a ruler-class demonic entity, who has been confined in the bottomless pit and is released under divine permission at the time of the fifth trumpet. Several things follow from the text. His prior confinement in the abyss is consistent with the category of imprisoned demonic beings described elsewhere in Scripture (2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6). His release is not an act of liberation from God’s authority; the key to the shaft of the pit is held by the fallen star (verse 1), and the release is part of God’s judicial programme for the Tribulation period.
Whether Abaddon should be identified with Satan himself is debated. The case against identification is reasonably strong. Satan in Revelation operates as the dragon, active on earth and exercising delegated authority to the Beast; his binding in the abyss comes later, in Revelation 20, rather than being his starting condition at the opening of the Tribulation. The Abaddon figure is released from the abyss, suggesting prior confinement rather than prior freedom. A more coherent reading is that Abaddon is a high-ranking fallen angel of particularly destructive character, held under divine restraint and released at a precise moment to execute a specific and terrible judgement.
The Army Under His Command
The locusts he commands bear a description that defies ordinary entomology (verses 7-10): they have faces like men, hair like women, teeth like lions, and breastplates like iron. Their sound is the sound of charging horses and chariots. They are not natural creatures but agents of supernatural torment operating under supernatural command. Their five-month limitation on the torment they inflict (verses 5, 10) is a further indicator that even this terrible release operates within boundaries set by God. Abaddon commands them, but God commands Abaddon’s moment.
So, now what?
The judgements of Revelation are not arbitrary chaos. Even the release of Abaddon is a controlled event: the loosing of a specific agent at a specific time for a specific purpose, all within God’s ordering of the end-times. The seal that protects believers from the locusts’ torment (verse 4) is the seal of the living God. In the midst of unprecedented judgement, God knows and marks his own. The Destroyer has a moment and a measure. He has neither an unlimited mandate nor an unlimited duration.
“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 9:11