Greek word · G5020
ταρταρόω
tartaroō
to condemn
'To consign to Tartarus' or 'to imprison in Tartarus'. The verb comes from Tartarus, the lowest region of the Greek universe. This was a prison-pit far below Hades (the ordinary realm of the dead), where defeated rebel gods (the Titans) were held in chains.
Appears once in the Greek New Testament. ·
What it means
ταρταρόω, -ῶ
(Τάρταρος, a Greek name for the underworld, esp. the abode of the damned),
to cast into hell: 2 Peter 2:4 (see Mayor, in l).†
(AS)
From G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
- Range of meaning
'To consign to Tartarus' or 'to imprison in Tartarus'. The verb comes from Tartarus, the lowest region of the Greek universe. This was a prison-pit far below Hades (the ordinary realm of the dead), where defeated rebel gods (the Titans) were held in chains. The verb is very rare and is otherwise found mostly in Greek writing about myth.
- Against the English
KJV, BSB, NIV, ESV and NASB render it 'hell' ('cast down to hell', 'cast them deep into hell'). WEB keeps 'Tartarus', and ESV notes 'Greek Tartarus' in its margin. BSB's 'deep into' rightly hints at Tartarus being the lowest place, but 'hell' merges three different ideas into one English word: Tartarus, Hades (the realm of the dead) and Gehenna (the place of final punishment).
- How it drifted
Older English used 'hell' for the whole unseen underworld. In modern English it means the final place of eternal punishment for the damned, which Satan is often imagined to rule. Tartarus here is something else: a holding prison for rebel heavenly beings, with the judgment still ahead of them.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Hesiod, Theogony 713–735: the Titans are bound in Tartarus, as far below the earth as heaven is above it, in 'murky gloom' (ζόφῳ ἠερόεντι). Homer, Iliad 8.13–16: Zeus threatens to hurl rebel gods into 'misty Tartarus', with gates of iron. Jewish writers had already borrowed the word. The Greek Septuagint uses τάρταρος at Job 40:20, Job 41:24 and Proverbs 30:16. Greek 1 Enoch 20:2 calls the archangel Uriel the one 'over the world and over Tartarus'. Philo and the Sibylline Oracles also use it, and Josephus (Against Apion 2.240) mentions it while criticising Greek myths about gods in chains.
Where it appears
2 Peter · 1
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2 Peter 2:4 ταρταρώσας to Tartarus
For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them deep into hell, placing them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment;
Here: 'Having thrown them into Tartarus'. This word appears only here in the New Testament. Tartarus was known as the deepest prison of the cosmos, below even the realm of the dead, where rebel divine beings were locked away.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.