The expression “ ‘to destroy those who destroy the earth’ ”1 in Revelation 11:18 has been popularly interpreted by Christian environmentalists in connection with ecological concerns and climate change. The assumption is that the text teaches that those who have abused and ruined the natural environment through exploitation are the object of God’s wrath and will thus be held accountable on Judgment Day. Does Revelation 11:18 actually address such ecological concerns?
While the environment is not the topic of this article, we must keep in mind that God Himself issued the mandate to care for the natural environment (Gen. 2:15). As humans are still under that divine directive, Christians in particular must set an example in environmental responsibilities. But, were environmental abuse and exploitation of the earth’s resources primarily on the mind of John, the inspired author, when he wrote Revelation 11:18? This article seeks to answer that question.
Resist the norm
As the French commentator Pierre Prigent observed, it is hard for Bible readers to resist imposing contemporary concerns on the biblical text instead of letting it speak for itself.2 In endeavoring to establish the meaning intended by the passage, we must remember three things: First, any understanding must not be defined by current concerns and events but rather by biblical evidence. The Bible is its best interpreter.
Second, a responsible interpretation arises from the text (exegesis) rather than from our imposing the meaning upon the text (eisegesis).
Finally, it has been generally recognized that most of Revelation’s language derives from the Old Testament. It is the Old Testament background texts that will give us insight into the meaning of the statement “to destroy those who destroy the earth.”
The literary context of Revelation 11:18
Revelation 11:18 serves as the bridge between the historical (Rev. 1:9–11:17) and eschatological (Rev. 11:19–22:5) halves of the book. As such, it functions as what is known as the springboard text. A characteristic of this literary feature of Revelation is that the springboard text concludes the previous section, while at the same time it introduces the following section. Almost every major section of Revelation is organized in this way.
Thus, Revelation 11:18 is such a springboard text. A closer look at verse 18 shows that it outlines the events elaborated upon in the second half of the book:
“The nations were enraged.” Such rage is the manifestation of the anger of Satan (Rev. 12:17) and his two allies, the sea beast and the earth beast, as they gather the world’s nations for the eschatological battle of Armageddon.
“Your wrath came” points to God’s response to the rage of the nations with His own wrath in terms of the seven last plagues (cf. Rev. 15:1; 16:1).
“The time for the dead to be judged” (ESV) points to Revelation 20:11–15, where the resurrected dead stand before God’s throne and are being judged. This judgment includes both positive and negative aspects:
• The positive aspect of the judgment is stated as “ ‘rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints, and those who fear your name, both small and great’ ” (Rev. 11:18, ESV). Chapters 21 and 22 describe the actual reward.
• The author portrays the negative aspect as “ ‘to destroy those who destroy the earth’ ” (Rev. 11:18). The annihilation of Satan and his associates is the final act in the great controversy between good and evil (Rev. 19:11–20:15).
It will be observed that the negative side of God’s judgment, the destruction of the destroyers of the earth as a pouring out of His eschatological wrath, is set in contrast to the rewarding of God’s servants portrayed in the final two chapters of the book.
The meaning of “destroying the earth”
In announcing the eschatological judgment, John the Revelator uses a play on words: those who destroy the earth will themselves be destroyed (Rev. 11:18). It reflects the principle of lex talionis, in which the punishment matches the crime committed (Rev. 18:6, 7).3 The concept is rooted in the “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth” pattern of the ancient Near Eastern judicial system (cf. Exod. 21:24). Revelation 11:18 mirrors this ancient norm.
The words translated as destroy both in Hebrew and Greek mean basically “to destroy,” although they are frequently translated in the sense of “to ruin” or “to corrupt” either physically or morally.4 Thus, for instance, Psalm 14:1 speaks of a foolish man “destroying” (shakhath) himself by saying that there is no God. While the New Testament primarily uses the word for physical destruction (Luke 12:33; Rev. 8:9; 11:18), Paul employs it in 1 Timothy 6 with reference to the corruption of the mind (v. 5). In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul states that the destroyers of the temple of God will themselves be destroyed (v. 17). However, the Greek word in Revelation 11:18 (diaphtheirō) has an intensive force meaning “to destroy utterly/completely.” 5
At this point, the question arises as to what sense the earth is being destroyed in Revelation 11:18. For one thing, it appears that the phrase “to destroy those who destroy the earth” derives from two Old Testament texts. It appears that John the revelator patterned the expression after the Flood account in Genesis 6:11–13 as they appear both in the Hebrew (vv. 11–13) and Septuagint (vv. 12–14, LXX) texts. Thus, both the Hebrew and Greek (Septuagint) of Genesis 6 employ the same play on words:
Now the earth was corrupt [destroyed] in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt [destroyed]; for humanity had corrupted [destroyed] its way upon the earth.
Then God said to Noah: “The end of all humanity has come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence because of people; and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth” (vv. 11–13).
The parallels in the wording between Genesis 6 and Revelation 11 are obvious. Genesis 6 specifies that the antediluvians were destroying/corrupting the earth by filling it with “violence” (in the Hebrew) or “iniquity” (in the Septuagint). Their iniquity is further explicated in terms that “the wickedness of mankind was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually” so that the Lord “was sorry that He had made mankind on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart” (vv. 5, 6).
Thus, Genesis 6:11–13 gives us the clue to the meaning of the destruction of the earth referred to in Revelation 11:18. It appears that by drawing the phrasing from the Genesis pre-Flood account, John wanted to show that the end-time destroyers will be destroying the earth in the manner of the antediluvians who were filling the earth with iniquity and violence. Just as the antediluvian destroyers had to be destroyed with the earth, so will be the fate of the earth’s end-time destroyers.
The end-time destroyers of the earth
Who are the end-time destroyers of the earth referred to in Revelation 11:18? Revelation 19:2 shows that this refers to the end-time Babylon—“the great prostitute who was corrupting [destroying] the earth with her sexual immorality”—in alliance with those who have sided with the end-time apostate religious system (Rev. 17:2). Here the reference to the end-time Babylon as the destroyer of the earth is patterned after Jeremiah’s announcement of the judgment of ancient Babylon: “Behold, I am against you, the destroying mountain that destroys the whole earth” (Jer. 51:25 [28:25, LXX]; author’s translation). Thus, it is evident that Jeremiah’s prophecy about ancient Babylon as the destroyer of the whole earth is an obvious source from which the author of Revelation has drawn the image of the end-time Babylon as the destroyer of the earth in Revelation 19:2.6
Babylon in Revelation is the end-time ungodly system comprising the dragon (Rev. 12:17), the sea beast (Rev. 13:1–8), and the land beast (vv. 12–17), the latter entity later referred to as the false prophet (Rev. 16:13; 19:20; 20:10). This Satanic triumvirate displays the arrogance and oppression of the historical Babylon portrayed in the Old Testament prophetic books. The end-time Babylon is said to have filled the earth with sins that have “piled up as high as heaven” and that “God has remembered her offenses” (Rev. 18:5), which mirrors the activities of the antediluvians in Genesis 6:11–13.
Like the historical Babylon (Jer. 51:25), this end-time ungodly system is described in Revelation as the destroyers of the earth (cf. Rev. 19:2), where the author uses the “earth” as a metonymy for “the people of the earth.”7 In alliance with the world’s governing secular and political leaders (Rev. 17:2; 18:3, 9, 23), this end-time ungodly system is presented as the aggressor that unjustly exploits people on the earth for personal benefit and gain,8 thus destroying the lives of many (cf. Rev. 18:3, 9–19). Just as God held ancient Babylon responsible for the crimes against His people, so the end-time Babylon is portrayed as the adversary of God’s people and is guilty of shedding the blood of Christ’s witnesses (Rev. 17:6; 18:24).
This end-time ungodly system will be judged as much as ancient Babylon was to be judged (Jer. 51:25). The book of Revelation shows that the judgment of the end-time Babylon and rebellious humanity is to take place at the end of history (Rev. 19:19–21) and will conclude after the millennium (Rev. 20:10).
Great controversy ends
A careful analysis of Revelation 11:18 shows that the phrase “to destroy those who destroy the earth” does not refer to environmental degradation and exploitation by modern technology, a frequent contemporary view. Rather, it points to the activities of the end-time Babylon, which, in the manner of the antediluvians described in Genesis 6, fills the earth with sins that will have “accumulated unto heaven” so that “God has remembered her unrighteous acts” (Rev. 18:5, author’s translation). This end-time system bears all the characteristics of its ancient counterpart Babylon that Jeremiah labeled as the destroyer of the earth (Jer. 51:25).
The destroyers of the earth—the end-time Babylon and those who associated themselves with it—have led people away from God (Rev. 19:2). Revelation presents them as powerful ungodly forces (Rev. 17:2) that contribute to widespread corruption, violence, and oppression (as well as environmental devastation by their wicked actions) rather than a literal physical annihilation of the earth, earth here serving as a metonymy. They are the object of God’s wrath and, as such, are themselves to be destroyed with the earth. Thus, the punishment they receive fits the crimes they committed. The judgment on this end-time Satanic system will mark the conclusion of the great controversy between the forces of good and evil.
- Unless otherwise noted, Scripture is from the New American Standard Version.
- Pierre Prigent, Commentary on the Apocalypse of St. John (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2009), 364.
- David E. Aune, Revelation 6–16, Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 52B (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1998), 646.
- Walter Bauer, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2000), 239.
- Aune, Revelation 6–16, 646.
- Craig S. Keener, Revelation, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000), 306.
- Aune, Revelation 6–16, 645.
- Keener, Revelation, 309.
