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ABADDON

Volume 1 · 159 words · 1815 Edition

is the name which St John in the Revelation gives to the king of the locusts, the angel of the bottomless pit. The inspired writer says, this word is Hebrew, and in Greek signifies Απάλλων, i.e., a destroyer. That angel-king is thought to be Satan or the devil: but Mr le Clerc thinks with Dr Hammond, that by the locusts which came out of the abyss, may be understood the zealots and robbers, who miserably afflicted the land of Judea, and laid it in a manner waste, before Jerusalem was taken by the Romans; and that Abaddon, the king of the locusts, may be John of Gischala, who having treacherously left that town a little before it was surrendered to Titus, came to Jerusalem, where he soon headed part of the zealots, who acknowledged him as their king, whilst the rest would not submit to him. This subdivision of the zealot party brought a thousand calamities on the Jews.