Tartarus in the Bible: A Verb, Not a Place?
Updated: 6 days ago
I do love the slightly unusual and odd corners of the Bible, and 2 Peter 2:4 is one of them. Tartarus in the Bible is a rarity: a form of the word appears only here, in the entire New Testament.
Look at these three translations and notice how each one renders the verse:
“For if God spared not angels when they sinned, but cast them down to hell, and committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;” (ASV)
“For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;” (KJV)
“For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but delivered them, drawn down by infernal ropes to the lower hell, unto torments, to be reserved unto judgment:” (DRA)
Now look at the original Greek.
What Does Tartarus in the Bible Actually Mean?
Peter did not write Tartarus. He wrote tartarōsas, which is a verb, not a noun. It comes from the root tartaroō, which Bible Hub glosses as “to cast into Tartarus, to confine in hell.” When we read “to confine in hell,” we picture a physical event, someone thrown into a place, and we rarely ask whether the verb carries more than that.
We must keep in mind that we are translating from a different language, culture, and time period. Peter’s world worked with different concepts, sentence structures, myths, and assumptions about how the world was ordered than ours does. We also need to look at what a verb can express. A verb does not only describe an action. It can also describe a state of being, and that is the dimension we miss in this verse.
Tartarōsas is not a place. Tartarus is the place.
Bill Mounce’s Greek New Testament Dictionary defines tartaroō as “to send to hell, hold captive in Tartarus.” It is a derivative of the noun Tartarus, which Mounce describes as a place of torment lower than Hades in Greek and Jewish apocalyptic writing, and he notes that the noun does not appear in the New Testament. The phrase “hold captive in Tartarus” also appears in Thayer’s lexicon, which Bible Hub reproduces.
I want to be clear about what this does and does not show. The standard definition assumes a destination, so the traditional reading, that God cast these angels into a place, has real support. But notice the phrase “hold captive.” Captivity describes a condition as well as a location, and Peter used the verb, not the noun.
Bible Hub’s word study takes the traditional view, reading the verb as a reference to the netherworld, “the place of punishment fit only for demons.” That is the strongest case against what I am about to propose, and you should see it.
The form Peter used, an aorist participle, describes a completed act, so I am not arguing that the tense itself carries a state. The main verb of the sentence is paredōken, “delivered,” and Peter then adds tēroumenous, a present participle meaning “being kept.” The casting is finished, but the keeping is ongoing. That continuing keeping, in chains of darkness and reserved for judgment, is the condition I am talking about. Being kept does not settle by itself whether that keeping happens in a place, but it does show where Peter puts his emphasis: on the continuing condition, not on the moment of casting.
So I want to propose, as a possible way to read this verse and not as settled fact, that Peter was describing what God did to these angels more than where they are. Rather than a physical, bodily imprisonment, it may be a spiritual restraint, a “state of being” that the verb can express. I like to say that they had their wings clipped.
Where Are the Fallen Angels in the Bible Now?
Revelation 12:8 to 9 adds another piece: “They didn’t prevail. No place was found for them any more in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down, the old serpent, he who is called the devil and satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.”
Notice where they land. Not in a pit beneath the earth, but on the earth. Whatever Peter meant by tartarōsas, this passage places the dragon and his angels here, which fits a restraint God has placed on them better than a bodily prison.
Scripture also describes what they do from here. Paul writes, “But the Spirit says expressly that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons” (1 Timothy 4:1). He warns the Galatians, “But even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you any ‘good news’ other than that which we preached to you, let him be cursed” (Galatians 1:8).
Paul does not put an angel in that sentence for funzies. He treats a false gospel from an angelic source as a real possibility, serious enough to warrant a curse.
Still Here, With Their Wings Clipped
If every fallen being were simply locked away, the New Testament’s warnings about active deceivers would have no one to point to. And Peter does not leave the fallen angels of verse 4 standing alone. In the very next verse he turns to Noah and the ancient world, which takes us back to Genesis 6 and the corruption that spread before the flood.
Here is the possibility I want to leave you with. The angels who helped bring that corruption are not sealed in a pit beneath the earth. They are here, restrained by God, with their wings clipped. A clipped bird is still a bird. They cannot do everything they once did, but restraint is not surrender, and it does not mean they have stopped trying. Revelation 12 shows the dragon thrown down to the earth with his angels, and it says he came down in great wrath because he knows his time is short. Beings in that position do not give up. They get desperate.
Peter chose a verb for what God did to them. Whether it also involves a place is for you to think on. But if tartarōsas describes a restraint and not a cell, then the same beings who corrupted the world in Noah’s day are still here, still trying to do it again, and the question is whether we know enough Scripture to recognize them.
Related reading: The Five ‘Hells’ in Scripture: A Biblical Breakdown looks at Gehenna, Sheol, Hades, Tartarus, and the Lake of Fire, and why one English word covers several different places in Scripture.
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