StrongerBible

basanismos

βασανισμός

GreekG0929“torment”

Appears 6 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Rev 9:5 (2×)Rev 14:11Rev 18:7Rev 18:10Rev 18:15
Word studybah-sah-nis-MOSSnoun

What basanismos means

torment: severe suffering as it is being inflicted on someone, and the anguish of undergoing it

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

This word names torment as something being done to someone. It comes from the verb βασανίζω, "to torment," and it keeps that active edge: it points to the tormenting itself rather than to a settled condition. The closely related noun βάσανος can name torment as a state, or even the place where torment is endured; this word names the suffering as it is being handed out and felt. It appears only in Revelation, six times across five verses.

Revelation puts it to work in three quite different settings.

  • In the fifth trumpet it is a stinging pain inflicted on people for a fixed span of five months, compared to a scorpion strike and deliberately kept short of killing anyone.
  • In the fall of Babylon it is the ruin of a great city and the anguish that comes with it, watched from a safe distance by merchants and rulers who are afraid of being caught in it.
  • In the warning against worshiping the beast it is the suffering of the final judgment, its smoke going up without pause.

The family this word belongs to has a long backstory that is easy to misuse. It began with the name of a dark stone that goldsmiths rubbed metal against to check whether it was genuine, and then with the questioning of slaves under torture in Greek courts. By the first century that older idea of testing had dropped away completely, and the family simply meant pain. Set beside κόλασις, which names the sentence handed down against a wrongdoer, this word names the suffering that sentence produces. Set beside πόνος, which Revelation uses for the raw pain of sores and for the pain finally wiped away, this word keeps the sense of suffering that someone has deliberately brought about.

Nuances

1aa sharp, stinging pain inflicted on people within history, severe but limited and not fatal
TranslatabilityDirect
Rev 9:5 (2×)
1bthe ruin of a great city brought down in judgment, together with the anguish and grief that go with it
TranslatabilityPartial
Rev 18:7Rev 18:10Rev 18:15
1cthe suffering of the final judgment on those who worship the beast
Rev 14:11
Rev 14:11

What the rising smoke of the torment in Revelation 14:11 implies about the suffering it pictures.

  • majorityThe verse describes conscious suffering that never ends, since those who undergo it are said to have no rest day or night, and the same phrase for endless duration is used elsewhere in Revelation of God himself.; G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (NIGTC; Eerdmans, 1999), 762-63; G. Osborne, Revelation (BECNT; Baker, 2002), 541-42; R. Mounce, The Book of Revelation (rev. ed., NICNT; Eerdmans, 1998), 275-77
  • minorityThe image is drawn from Isaiah 34 and Genesis 19, where rising smoke marks a destruction already finished, so it pictures ruin that cannot be reversed rather than suffering that goes on forever.; E. W. Fudge, The Fire That Consumes (3rd ed.; Cascade, 2011), 258-61; R. G. Bowles, "Does Revelation 14:11 Teach Eternal Torment? Examining a Proof-text on Hell," Evangelical Quarterly 73.1 (2001) 21-36; I. Paul, Revelation (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries; IVP, 2018), ad loc.
  • contestedImagery of this kind belongs to a settled apocalyptic vocabulary and is meant to warn rather than to describe, so it should not be pressed into a timetable at all.; D. E. Aune, Revelation 6-16 (WBC 52B; Nelson, 1998), 528-30; C. R. Koester, Revelation (Anchor Yale Bible 38A; Yale, 2014), 622-27; R. Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation (Cambridge University Press, 1993), 102-4

What scholars say about basanismos

βασανισμός is the abstract noun of action formed from βασανίζω, and in the NT it is confined to Revelation, where it occurs six times in five verses (9:5 twice; 14:11; 18:7, 10, 15). The lexica treat it within the βασαν- word group: BDAG 168; LSJ s.v.; Louw-Nida 24.87-90 and 38.13; Büchsel, TDNT 1:561-63; Silva, NIDNTTE s.v. βασανίζω; Spicq, TLNT 1:261-63. All agree that the classical senses of the base noun βάσανος ("touchstone," then the judicial πρόκλησις εἰς βάσανον, the interrogation of slaves under torture) had disappeared from Koine by the first century, leaving only punitive or acute suffering; NIDNTTE, following Barr, warns explicitly against reintroducing the touchstone etymology. The Septuagint reserves βασανίζω for punitive suffering rather than for refining or proving (πυρόω, δοκιμάζω, πειράζω render those), and the word group is anchored above all by 4 Maccabees, whose martyrological usage (deSilva; van Henten) and by Wisdom 3:1 supply the NT background. The Revelation occurrences fall into three groups in the commentary tradition. At 9:5 Aune, Osborne, and Mounce read a symbolic, pre-eschatological and non-lethal scourge aimed at repentance, with Beale (496-97) taking the suffering as primarily spiritual and psychological. At 18:7, 10, 15 Bauckham's economic reading of Babylon's fall (Climax of Prophecy, 338-83), followed by Kraybill, Schüssler Fiorenza, and Witherington, takes the βασανισμός as the collapse of an imperial-commercial order; Beale himself concedes (900-905) that here it is essentially synonymous with the emotional pain of weeping and mourning. At 14:11 the word stands at the center of the modern debate over final punishment, with the traditional reading (Beale, Osborne, Mounce, Keener), the conditionalist reading resting on the Isaiah 34 and Genesis 19 intertexts (Fudge, Bowles, Ian Paul), and a genre-sensitive refusal to derive a systematic eschatology from apocalyptic topoi (Aune, Koester, Bauckham, Yarbro Collins). The lexical question is not what is at stake: the lexica are unanimous that the word denotes real, experienced suffering, and the disagreement turns on genre, intertextuality, and the force of εἰς αἰῶνας αἰώνων.

Sources

  • BDAG (3rd ed., 2000), 168, s.v. βασανισμόςlexicon
  • Liddell-Scott-Jones, Greek-English Lexicon (9th ed.), s.v. βασανισμός, βάσανοςlexicon
  • Louw-Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains (2nd ed.), 24.87-90, 38.13lexicon
  • F. Büchsel, "βάσανος, βασανίζω, βασανισμός, βασανιστής," in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT) 1:561-63theological-dictionary
  • M. Silva, ed., New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and Exegesis (NIDNTTE), vol. 1, s.v. βασανίζωtheological-dictionary
  • C. Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, vol. 1, 261-63lexicon
  • D. E. Aune, Revelation 6-16 (WBC 52B; Nelson, 1998), 527-30commentary
  • G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (NIGTC; Eerdmans, 1999), 496-97, 762-63, 900-905commentary
  • C. R. Koester, Revelation (Anchor Yale Bible 38A; Yale, 2014), 460-63, 622-27commentary
  • G. Osborne, Revelation (BECNT; Baker, 2002), 364-71, 541-42commentary
  • R. Bauckham, The Climax of Prophecy (T&T Clark, 1993), 338-83monograph
  • E. W. Fudge, The Fire That Consumes (3rd ed.; Cascade, 2011), 258-61monograph
  • R. G. Bowles, "Does Revelation 14:11 Teach Eternal Torment? Examining a Proof-text on Hell," Evangelical Quarterly 73.1 (2001) 21-36article
  • D. A. deSilva, 4 Maccabees: Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text in Codex Sinaiticus (Brill, 2006)monograph

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of βασανισμός

genitive m s

βασανισμοῦ

Rev 14:11, Rev 18:10, Rev 18:15

nominative m s

βασανισμὸς

Rev 9:5, Rev 9:5

accusative m s

βασανισμὸν

Rev 18:7