ABADDON. — A Hebrew term (perdition, from abhad, “to perish”), occurring in the wisdom literature of the Old Testament (6 times) and in Apoc. 9:11.
The primitive general sense (preserved in Iob 31:12) is usually replaced by the metonymic meaning “abode of the dead, feol”: Iob 26:6 and Prov. 15:11; 27:20 (parallel with feol); Ps. 88:11 (with “grave”). A. in the sense of feol (hell) remained common: cf. Enoch etiope 10:18; 90; Salmo di Salomone 14; Ascensione d’Isaia 10; Apoc. d’Abramo 21; etc. In the rabbinic period it would designate the lowest place in Gehenna (Midra Tehillim 97:2; Qohéleth Rabbá 5:9). In Iob 28:22 the term (joined with “death”) is personified (as “Ciclo” in Dan. 4:23 and “Hades” in Apoc. 6:8; 20:14). The Septuagint always translates it as ἀπώλεια (except Iob 31:12, where they read a text differing from the Masoretic).
In Apoc. 9:11 it is the proper name of the king of hell (“angel of the abyss”), at the head of the demons that pour forth from the pit, symbolized by monstrous locusts resembling fierce centaur-scorpions. It is translated Ἀπολύων (“destroyer”; Volgata: exterminans), perhaps with a sarcastic allusion to Apollo (Ἀπόλλων). In the Talmud (Šabath, 55ᵃ), A. is set over (with death, cf. Apoc. 20:14) the six “angels of destruction.” It seems that A. is to be identified with the fallen star of Apoc. 9:1, perhaps also with the beast from the abyss (Apoc. 11:7), the dragon (Apoc. 12:3–4), and Satan (Apoc. 20:7). A similar personification occurs in Sap. 18:25 (ὁ Ὀλοβρεών; cf. I Cor. 10:10).
Asmodeo (v.), “destroyer,” Hebr. Almedai (from famad, “to destroy”), who in the Talmudic-cabbalistic tradition is the prince of demons, is equivalent to A. In the Apocalisse, A. is the prince of the death-dealing powers, implicitly opposed to the “Saviour.”
In Judeo-Christian legends A. appears as a devil (Fr. Barret, The Magus, London 1802) or as an angel (Abaddona, in Klopstock’s Messiade).
Charles and O. C. Whitehouse, in Hastings, Dict. of the Bible, I (1898), pp. 3, 125; H. Gressma, Ursprung der israel.-jüdischen Eschatologie, Göttingen 1905, p. 188; B. Allo, L'Apocalypse, 3rd ed., Paris 1933, pp. 128, 132, 319.