Bible Study The word 'destroy' in the Bible

[guibox]

FineLinen in representing our URist brethren mentioned that the word 'destroy' or 'to be destroyed', has many different meanings. He said 20. Young's Concordance gives 54. This is what they say:

Old Testament

abad - to destroy
asaph - to gather (in its context means to group together to face their fate 1 Samuel 15:6)
ashem - to make or declare guilty or desolate
bala - to swallow up
garar - to catch, draw, drag (used in its context to imply corruption by something Proverbs 21:7)
dabar - to speak (Youngs makes a note that this is an error in the Hebrew text - 2 Chronicles 22:10)
daka - to bruise
damah - to cut off
hum - to move, destroy
hamam - to move, trouble, crush
harag - to kill
haras - to break or throw down
chabal - to destroy, act wickedly, corrupt
chareb - to make dry, waste
yanah - to oppress, break, thrust out
yarash - to dispossess, take as possession (used in Exodus 15:9)
kalah - to cut off or down
kathath - to beat down or out
megar - to cast down
mul - to end off
muth - to be put to death
machah - to blot out, wipe away
mashchith - destroying, corrupting
nasach - to pull down or away
naqaph - to go or set around , compass (used in its context as worms enveloping Job's body - Job 19:26)
nasham - to blow, destroy, made desolate
nathats - to break down
nathash - to pluck up
saphah - to end, consume
sethar - to hide, destroy
tsamath - to cut off, destroy
qur - to dig down, destroy
shabar - to break, shiver, destroy
shadad - to destroy, to spoil
shoah - wasting, desolation
shachath - to mar, corrupt, destroy
shakol - to bereave
shamad - to destroy, cut off, waste
shamem - to make desolate
charem - to devote to God or destruction
kalah - to finish, consume

New Testament

appolu - to lose off, away, destroy
diaph - to mar or corrupt thoroughly
exolothreuo - to destroy utterly
kathaireo - to take down
kataluo - to loose down
katargeo - to make of none effect
luo - to loose
olothreuo - to destroy
portheo - to lay waste
phtheiro - to mar, corrupt
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But our UR brethren will take words like
asaph - to gather,
garar - to draw,
yarash -to take as possession and
katargeo - to make of none effect
charam - to devote to God or destruction

and make their case that to destroy means all of these things to 'bring sinners back to God'. Unfortunately, they ignore the context in which these words are used (not in relation to God and the wicked) and the myriad of other texts that say otherwise.

Tradtionalists will take the words:
katargeo - to make of none effect
phtheiro - to mar, corrupt
and the use of the word for' destruction' that in its one instant means 'to ruin'

and make their case that to 'destroy' means to 'grant eternal life in conscious torment'. Unfortunately, they ignore the context in which these words are used, and ignore the nature of the wicked man, and the myriad of texts that say otherwise.

If you want to believe something bad enough you will twist what you can to make it fit.

When God says that the wicked will be destroyed, He means it. Rather than take the plain word of God at its face value, both tradtionalist and URist would rather make 'destroy' mean 'reconciliation' or 'eternal, conscious torment'.

 

[Bob10]

http://bible.crosswalk.com/InterlinearBible/


http://studylight.org/


http://biblegateway.net/

 

[FineLinen]

FineLinen in representing our URist brethren mentioned that the word 'destroy' or 'to be destroyed', has many different meanings. He said 20. Young's Concordance gives 54.

Not quite, my friend! I posted that in the Old Covenant there are over 20 distinct words for destruction. Shall I pull up my quote, or will you?

 

[stovebolts]

Tradtionalists will take the words:
katargeo - to make of none effect
phtheiro - to mar, corrupt
and the use of the word for' destruction' that in its one instant means 'to ruin'

and make their case that to 'destroy' means to 'grant eternal life in conscious torment'. Unfortunately, they ignore the context in which these words are used, and ignore the nature of the wicked man, and the myriad of texts that say otherwise.

If you want to believe something bad enough you will twist what you can to make it fit.

Why must we label ourselves? Am I a traditionalist (first time I've ever heard the word) because I understand scripture to mean what I believe it says?

Destroy is to destroy is to destroy in any language. It denotes something that isn't very pleasing plain and simple.

eternal is eternal is eternal. It simply means what supports the other words that are around it. We can get fancy with other words that mean, without beginning or end. Or we can play around with words that mean having a beginning but no end, or having an end without a beginning. But for our purpose, do we really need to delve that hard into what is written into our Bibles?

So, if something says eternal destruction? Is it not safe to say that the adj. describes the noun as a complement? Do we use definition #1 and #3 to say that scripture contradicts itself. Or do we lean towards #2 and #4?
Heck, wouldn't it be nice if it could simply be #5 and leave it at that?

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=eternal
I think, that if we THINK too hard about it, the truth will elude all of us.

 

[guibox]

So, if something says eternal destruction? Is it not safe to say that the adj. describes the noun as a complement? Do we use definition #1 and #3 to say that scripture contradicts itself. Or do we lean towards #2 and #4?
Heck, wouldn't it be nice if it could simply be #5 and leave it at that?

If you take 'eternal destruction' for what it means and cross reference it to other descriptions...yes, we can. The adjective describes the noun. Eternal describes destruction. Destruction is not a verb. It is not a process. Therefore eternal cannot be describing duration here. Is there anywhere in the bible to help explain the use of 'eternal'? Yes there is and that is where we must let the bible interpret itself.

Isaiah 34:10 and Jude 7 show that 'eternal' is used to describe results and not duration (especially in regards to the fate of the wicked). Couple that with the contrast to the righteous (eternal life, everlasting life) and we get a proper definition of what exactly 'everlasting destruction' is.

We don't have to get too linguistic, SteveBolts (like our dear friend FineLinen must do to support universalism) but we must let the Bible interpret itself by context and cross referencing.

 

[stovebolts]

We don't have to get too linguistic, St0veBolts (like our dear friend FineLinen must do to support universalism) but we must let the Bible interpret itself by context and cross referencing.

I believe that the Bible must support itself in context as a whole. There isn't any scripture that directly contradicts another. I also believe that we need to keep in context who the author was, and who the audience was and why the letter etc. was written in the first place. When we start to cross reference scripture, we need to take these things into heavy consideration else we can easily create our own message...
An example might be on eldership... At first glance, one might think that the Bible is in total contradiction of itself... Over here, it says X. Over there, it says Y. It would be dangerous to cross reference the two to meet our expectations...