TR: ʼâbad → apóllymi (Perish / Destroy)¶
The Chain¶
Hebrew OT LXX (Greek OT) Greek NT
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אָבַד (ʼâbad) → ἀπόλλυμι (apóllymi) → ἀπόλλυμι (apóllymi)
H6, 174x in OT 141x as translation 86x in NT
"perish, be lost, of ʼâbad (primary "perish, destroy,
be destroyed" LXX equivalent) lose"
Bridge strength: PMI 30.45 — one of the strongest Hebrew → Greek verb alignments in the LXX. apóllymi is the default Greek rendering of ʼâbad, and the semantic ranges of the two verbs track each other with unusual precision.
OT Usage (Hebrew)¶
| Strong's | Word | Occurrences | Primary Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| H6 | אָבַד (ʼâbad) | 174 | to wander away, be lost, perish, be destroyed (Qal); to destroy, cause to perish (Piel/Hiphil) |
| H7 | אֲבַד (ʼăbad) | 7 | (Aramaic) corresponding to H6 — destroy, perish |
| H8 | אֹבֵד (ʼôbêd) | 1 | "wretched, ready to perish" (participle as noun) |
| H10 | אֲבַדֹּה (ʼăbaddôh) | 1 | destruction (abstract noun) |
Canonical word study: H6-abad.md
Key OT passages¶
- Deut 4:26 — "ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land" (covenant sanction)
- Deut 26:5 — "A Syrian ready to perish was my father" (Jacob as wanderer)
- Psalm 1:6 — "the way of the ungodly shall perish"
- Psalm 119:176 — "I have gone astray like a lost sheep"
- Ecc 3:6 — "a time to get, and a time to lose"
- Jer 50:6 — "My people hath been lost sheep"
- Ezek 34:4, 16 — the Lord seeking "that which was lost" among his flock
Two voice-driven senses dominate: (1) Qal middle — wandering off, being lost, perishing (sheep, people, nations, hope); (2) Piel/Hiphil active — causing to perish, destroying (enemies, idols, cities).
LXX Bridge¶
| Hebrew | Greek Translation | Co-occurrences | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| ʼâbad (H6) | ἀπόλλυμι (G622) | 141 | Primary equivalent — dominant rendering across Pentateuch, Prophets, Writings |
| ʼâbad (H6) | ἀπώλεια (G684) | 11 | Nominal form where Hebrew uses verb substantivally |
| ʼâbad (H6) | ἐλπίς (G1680) | 6 | Rendering "hope" in idiom ʼâbdâh tiqvah / ʼâbdâh ʼabədât ("hope perished") |
| ʼâbad (H6) | ἀσεβής (G765) | 9 | Where ʼâbad describes the wicked |
| ʼâbad (H6) | ἐπιλανθάνομαι (G1950) | 6 | "Forget" overlap with "be lost to memory" |
| ʼâbad (H6) | Ἰουδαῖος (G2453) | 7 | Overlap driven by Jer 50:6 "lost sheep" / Judahite identity idioms |
Semantic continuity: The Hebrew middle/active voice split maps almost perfectly onto Greek. ʼâbad Qal → apóllymi middle/passive ("perish, be lost"); ʼâbad Piel/Hiphil → apóllymi active ("destroy"). The LXX translators did not need to disambiguate — the two verbs share the same voice logic.
Minor shifts: The Hebrew includes a "wandering" nuance (cognate with straying) that the Greek loses; in Greek, loss tends to focus on the end-state (ruin) rather than the process (straying). Parable contexts in the NT (lost sheep, lost coin) partially reconstruct the "wandering" sense by narrative framing.
NT Usage (Greek)¶
| Strong's | Word | Occurrences | Primary Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| G622 | ἀπόλλυμι (apóllymi) | 86 | perish, destroy, lose, be lost |
| G684 | ἀπώλεια (apṓleia) | 18 | destruction, perdition, waste (result-noun) |
| G4881 | συναπόλλυμι (synapóllymi) | 1 | perish together with (Heb 11:31) |
| G623 | Ἀπολλύων (Apollyon) | 1 | "Destroyer" — titular use (Rev 9:11) |
Canonical word study: G622-apollymi.md
Key NT passages¶
- Joh 3:16 — "whosoever believeth in him should not perish (apóllymi), but have everlasting life" — the programmatic eternal-life-vs-perishing antithesis
- Luk 15:4, 6, 8, 9, 24, 32 — lost-sheep / lost-coin / lost-son parables (direct echo of ʼâbad in Ezek 34 and Jer 50)
- Luk 19:10 — "the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost (apolōlós)" — self-conscious reversal of Ezek 34:4 LXX
- Mat 10:6 / 15:24 — "lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Jer 50:6 / Ezek 34 in one phrase)
- 2 Pet 3:9 — "not willing that any should perish" — covenant-framing echo of Deut 30
- Mat 10:28 — "able to destroy both soul and body in hell"
Direct OT → NT Echoes¶
| NT Passage | OT Source | Shared Word | Significance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mat 10:6 / 15:24 | Jer 50:6 (LXX) | "lost sheep" (πρόβατα ἀπολωλότα) | Jesus applies Jeremiah's lament idiom to Israel's condition |
| Luk 15; 19:10 | Ezek 34:4, 16 (LXX) | "the lost" (τὸ ἀπολωλός) | Jesus' mission explicitly reverses the bad-shepherd verdict; he is the shepherd Ezekiel promised |
| Joh 3:16; Joh 10:28 | Deut 30:15–19 (life vs perishing) | perish / eternal life | Johannine eternal-life schema reuses the Deuteronomic covenant-sanction frame |
| 1 Cor 1:19 | Isa 29:14 (LXX) | "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise" (ἀπολῶ) | Direct LXX quotation |
| Rom 2:12 | Deut 4:26; 8:19–20 | "perish without law" | Pauline reuse of Deuteronomic perish-oracle vocabulary |
Continuity and Shifts¶
What stays the same across testaments: - Voice-driven active/middle semantic split (destroy vs perish/be lost) - Tight pairing with a "save" antonym (Hebrew yāshaʻ / Greek sōzō), often in the same clause - Eschatological framing: perishing is the covenant sanction in Deut; the eternal-destiny sanction in NT - Pastoral imagery (lost sheep) carries from Jer 50 / Ezek 34 into the Synoptic parables and Jesus' mission statements
What shifts: - From temporal to eternal: In the OT, perishing typically names a this-life / this-generation event (exile, battlefield death, covenant curse). In the NT, it is increasingly framed as eschatological — eternal loss contrasted with eternal life (John, Paul, 2 Peter). - Universalizing scope: OT "perish" targets individuals, tribes, or nations under covenant-specific curses. NT "perish" expands to "whosoever" / "all" / "the world" — anyone outside Christ. - Mission reversal: In the OT, God destroys the wicked; in the NT, the Son of Man comes to save that which was lost — the same vocabulary is repurposed as a rescue verb. - "Wandering" nuance fades: The Hebrew verb's root sense of straying/wandering survives mainly in parable imagery; the bare verb in Paul and John focuses on the end-state of ruin.
Generated from: gather_trace_data.py, search_strongs.py (lxx-map, hebrew-source) Last updated: 2026-04-18