πύρωσις

From the study of 1 Peter 4:12

Range of meaning

A burning or fiery heat. It can mean the burning of a city (Revelation 18:9, 18, Babylon's burning), crop-scorching blight (LXX Amos 4:9), or the smelting and refining of metal in a furnace. From the verb pyroō, 'to set on fire; to refine by fire' (LXX Psalm 65[66]:10, 'you tried us as silver is tried'; Zechariah 13:9).

Against the English

'Fiery trial' (KJV, BSB, ESV, WEB) and 'fiery ordeal' (NIV, NASB) give the intensity but tend to mean simply 'a terrible experience'. They lose the metalworker's picture of a crucible whose heat proves and purifies.

How it drifted

'Fiery trial' became a set phrase in English for any severe hardship. Its link to the refiner's furnace, which the context makes plain (1:7), has largely dropped out of hearing.

Used elsewhere in the period

LXX Proverbs 27:21: 'the test for silver and gold is pyrōsis (the furnace-burning)'. Sirach 2:1–5 tells one who comes to serve the Lord to 'prepare your soul for testing … for gold is tested in fire'. Wisdom 3:6 says God tested the righteous 'like gold in the furnace'. Malachi 3:2–3 describes the Lord as a refiner purifying the priests. Didache 16:5, an early Christian text, speaks of all humanity coming 'into the pyrōsis of testing' at the end, using the same pairing of burning and testing.

From the study of Revelation 18:18

Range of meaning

A burning or blaze. It can also mean heating in a furnace to refine or test metal, or (in the Greek Old Testament) scorching blight on crops. Its meaning runs from literal destroying fire to the image of a test by fire.

Against the English

'Burning' (KJV, WEB, YLT) is accurate. BSB's 'the fire that consumes her' brings out that the fire is destroying her, which is right in context.

Used elsewhere in the period

In the NT only here, Rev 18:9, and 1 Pet 4:12 ('the fiery trial among you'), where it is the refining sense. Greek OT: Prov 27:21 (furnace for testing gold), Amos 4:9 (blight). Didache 16:5 speaks of 'the fire of testing' at the end of the age.

From the study of Revelation 18:9

Range of meaning

Burning, setting on fire, conflagration. By extension, a fiery ordeal or testing (1 Pet 4:12).

Against the English

'Her burning' (KJV, WEB, YLT) is literal. The BSB's 'the fire that consumes her' brings out the sense of total destruction.

Used elsewhere in the period

Used in the Greek Old Testament of fire and of smelting (Prov 27:21 LXX). In the New Testament it appears only here, in 18:18 and in 1 Pet 4:12. The burning of conquered cities was a familiar sight in Roman warfare, Jerusalem in AD 70 being the obvious case. Rome's own great fire of AD 64 also shaped later memory.