a sinister desolation

In “a sinister desolation” Jefferson Vann sheds some Old Testament light on an often misunderstood New Testament text.

It is time for another fascinating Hebrew word study. Stay with me on this one and I promise an interesting surprise at the end.

Holladay’s Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon contains this short listing for the word shemamah (שְׁמָמָה): noun common feminine singular absolute: an area deserted and thus arousing awe or terror, sinister desolation Ex 23:29 (pg 376).

I followed Holladay’s advice and chose “a sinister desolation” as my preferred gloss for shemamah. Here are some significant examples:

• Exodus 23:29 I will not drive them out from before you in one year, or else the land will become a sinister desolation and the wild animals increase against you.

• Leviticus 26:31-33 And I will lay your cities waste and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your soothing aromas. And I myself will devastate the land so that your enemies who end up staying in it will be appalled at it. And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you, and your land will be a sinister desolation, and your cities will be a waste.

• Joshua 8:28 Joshua burned Ai and left it a permanent mound of ruins, still a sinister desolation today.

• Isaiah 6:11-12 Then I asked, Until when, Lord? And he said, until cities lie ruined without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a sinister desolation, and Yahveh sends the people far away, and the desertion is great in the midst of the land.

• Isaiah 64:10 Your holy cities have become an open country, Zion has become an open country, Jerusalem a sinister desolation.

• Jeremiah 6:8 Be corrected, Jerusalem, or I will turn away from you; I will make you a sinister desolation, a land without inhabitants.

• Jeremiah 9:11 I will make Jerusalem a heap of rubble, a jackals' den. I will make the cities of Judah a sinister desolation, an uninhabited place.

• Jeremiah 10:22 Notice! A noise – it is coming – a great commotion from the land to the north. The cities of Judah will be made a sinister desolation, a jackals' den.

• Jeremiah 25:12 When the seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation' – this is what Yahveh declares – 'the land of the Chaldeans, for their violation, and I will make it a permanent sinister desolation.

• Jeremiah 49:33 Hazor will become a jackals' den, a permanent sinister desolation. No one will live there; no human being will stay in it even temporarily.

• Jeremiah 51:24-26 "Before your very eyes, I will repay Babylon and all the residents of Chaldea for all their evil they have done in Zion." This is what Yahveh declares. Look, I am against you, devastating mountain. This is what Yahveh declares. You devastate the whole land. I will stretch out my hand against you, roll you down from the cliffs, and turn you into a charred mountain. No one will be able to retrieve a cornerstone or a foundation stone from you, because you will become a permanent sinister desolation. This is what Yahveh declares.

• Ezekiel 14:14-16 Even if these three men -- Noah, Daniel, and Job -- were in it, they would rescue only themselves by their righteousness." This is the declaration of the Lord Yahveh. "Suppose I allow dangerous animals to pass through the land and depopulate it so that it becomes a sinister desolation, with no one passing through it for fear of the animals. Even if these three men were in it, as I live"-- the declaration of the Lord Yahveh-- "they could not rescue their sons or daughters. They alone would be rescued, but the land would be a sinister desolation.

• Ezekiel 29:9-12 The land of Egypt will be a sinister desolation and a ruin. Then they will know that I am Yahveh. Because you said, "The Nile is my own; I made it," therefore, notice I am against you and your Nile. I will turn the land of Egypt into ruins, a sinister desolation from Migdol to Syene, as far as the border of Cush. No human foot will pass through it, and no animal foot will pass through it. It will be uninhabited for forty years. I will make the land of Egypt a sinister desolation among desolate lands, and its cities will be a sinister desolation among ruined cities for forty years. I will disperse the Egyptians among the nations and scatter them throughout the lands.

• Ezekiel 35:9 I will make you [Edom] a permanent sinister desolation; your cities will not be inhabited. Then you will know that I am Yahveh.

• Ezekiel 36:34 The land that had been a sinister desolation will be cultivated instead of lying desolate in the sight of everyone who passes by.

• Joel 2:3 A fire consumes in front of them, and behind them a flame devours. The land in front of them is like the garden of Eden, but behind them, it is like an open sinister desolation; there is no escape from them.

• Zephaniah 2:9 Therefore, as I live – this is the declaration of Yahveh of Armies, the God of Israel – Moab will be like Sodom and the Ammonites like Gomorrah: a place overgrown with weeds, a salt pit, and a permanent sinister desolation. The remnant of my people will plunder them; the remainder of my nation will dispossess them.

Numerous Greek words used in the Septuagint to translate shemamah:

• erēmos (ἔρημος) – an abandoned, unpopulated Region (Exodus 23:29; Leviticus 26:33; Isaiah 6:11).

• erēmia (ἐρημία) – a desert (Ezekiel 35:9).

• katara (κατάρα) – something accursed (Isaiah 64:10).

• abatos (ἄβατος) – a place where no one walks (Jeremiah 6:8; 49:33).

• afanizō (ἀφανίζω) – disappear (Ezekiel 36:34).

• afanismos (ἀφανισμός) – a disappearance (Jeremiah 9:11; 10:22; 25:12; Ezekiel 14:15; Joel 2:3; Zephaniah 2:9).

• olethros (ὄλεθρος) – destruction (Ezekiel 14:16).

• apōleia (ἀπώλεια) – destruction (Ezekiel 29:9, 10, 12).

A desolate place is completely empty, destroyed, barren of any human life.

As it regard the question of the fate of the lost in the eschaton, it should be noted that the final two Greek words used to translate shemamah are also used by Paul to describe hell.

In fact, the most definite statement from Paul regarding hell is that it will involve olethron aiōnion (ὄλεθρον αἰώνιον) (2 Thessalonians 1:9). That phrase does not appear elsewhere in the New Testament, nor in the Septuagint. But its Hebrew equivalent is found in several of these passages.

• leshimmot ‘olam (‎לְשִֽׁמְמ֥וֹת עוֹלָֽם) (Jeremiah 25:12).

• shemamah ‘ad-’olam (‎שְׁמָמָ֖ה עַד־עוֹלָ֑ם) (Jeremiah 49:33; Zephaniah 2:9).

• shimmot ‘olam (שִֽׁמְמ֥וֹת עוֹלָֽם) (Jeremiah 51:62; Ezekiel 35:9).

My point is this: the Old Testament has already given us numerous clear descriptions of what olethron aiōnion means. We need not speculate on the question of what it means to disappear, becoming desolate of life for eternity. These Old Testament passages already provide adequate visual aids for that fate. No one would have guessed that when the prophets described Edom or Babylon as having been permanently made desolate of life that what the prophet really meant was that they would suffer perpetually. No, because suffering eternally requires the one thing that a desolation does not have by definition: life.