What is the “second death” in the book of Revelation?

We don’t talk a lot about the “second death” in church, I know. At least, not in our church. I ended up down this rabbit hole—really, a small dead-end off the sprawling warren of New Testament apocalyptic thought—thanks to some helpful comments about the use of the expression in the Aramaic Targums. I’ve relied on Aune’s commentary mostly for the wider context. He considers the Hellenistic background first, suggests an Egyptian origin for the idea, then looks at the Jewish material.1

The “second death” in Hellenistic writings

These texts can be reviewed rather briefly. They are less useful than Aune seems to think.

• In Plutarch, De Facie in orbe lunae 942F, there is a “second death” of the soul after the death of the body, by which the mind is liberated to ascend to a celestial existence, losing its individuality and personhood.
• According to Macrobius, the followers of Pythagoras and Plato declared that, after the death of the body, the soul dies before being assigned to another mortal body (Comm. in Somn. Scip. 1.11.12; 1.13.5–6).
• Odysseus is said to be “twice dead” (disthanēs) because he made a trip to Hades, from which he returned, and then would die a normal physical death (Homer, Odyssey 12.22).
• Menippus says to thirsty Tantalus in Hades: “Are you afraid of dying for lack of drink? I can’t see another Hades after this one, or a death hereafter taking us elsewhere” (Lucian, Dial. mort. 7.2).
• Aune thinks that in Rewards 1:70 Philo “speaks of two kinds of death, death itself and existence in a continued state of dying.”

The source of the idea of a second death is to be found in the Egyptian expression “to die the second death,” referring to ‘the total destruction of the ba, “soul,” after bodily death.’ According to Aune, this also accounts for the connection with the “lake of fire” in Revelation:

The ultimate Egyptian origin of this concept in Greek, Christian, and Jewish literature is supported by the pairing of the notions of the second death and the lake of fire in Rev 20:14 and 21:8, which also occurs in Egyptian texts….2

So it appears that there was some speculation in the non-Jewish ancient world about a death after death, on the assumption that the soul survives the death of the body and then may either die as the body died or not die.

The evidence cited, however, is not wholly convincing. Odysseus’ visit to Hades is not a death for him—any more than a trip to Ireland (I’m in Dublin airport at the moment) makes me Irish. The idea of a second Hades or second death in Lucian is mooted only hypothetically as an escape from the peculiar torment suffered by Tantalus. Philo’s distinction is between death (and “being dead”) and the protracted experience of dying while being alive. He is discussing the punishment of Cain.

But we may perhaps assume that the expression “second death” would have been understood to signify—on Hellenistic terms—the final and complete destruction of the person, who is both body and soul.

The “second death” in the Targums

The notion of a “second death” is not found in Jewish literature before the New Testament, but it is a surprisingly well established and unexplained motif in the Aramaic Targums, conceivably reflecting traditions that go back to the first century. We may imagine that the idea was in limited circulation in ancient cultures as a way of dealing with certain metaphysical-theological problems. The passages are provided here with the corresponding Hebrew text.

Tg. Deuteronomy 33:6

May Reuben live in eternal life, and may he not die the second death, and may his children receive their inheritance according to their numbers. (Tg. Onq.)

Let Reuben live in this world, nor die the second death which the wicked die in the world to come…. (Tg. Ps.-J.)

“Let Reuben live, and not die, but let his men be few.” (MT)

Tg. Isaiah 22:14

The prophet said: I was hearing in my ears when this was decreed from before the Lord of Hosts, “This sin will not be forgiven you until you die the second death,” said the Lord God of Hosts.

The LORD of hosts has revealed himself in my ears: “Surely this iniquity will not be atoned for you until you die,” says the Lord GOD of hosts. (MT)

Tg. Isaiah 65:5-6

These things, their anger is like smoke before Me. Their retribution is in Gehenna in which the fire burns all the day. Behold, it is written before Me: I will not give to them a respite in life, but I will repay them retribution for their sins, and I will hand over their bodies to the second death.

Behold, it is written before me: “I will not keep silent, but I will repay; I will indeed repay into their lap… (Is. 65:6 MT)

Tg. Isaiah 65:14-15

Behold, My righteous servants will praise from goodness of heart, but you will cry out from pain of heart, and you will lament from a broken spirit. And you will leave your name as an oath for My chosen ones, and the Lord God will kill you with the second death, but His righteous servants will be called by another name.

You shall leave your name to my chosen for a curse, and the Lord GOD will put you to death… (Is. 65:15 MT)

Tg. Jeremiah 51:37-39

And Babylon will become heaps (of rubble), a dwelling for jackals, a desolation and a horror, without inhabitant. They will roar like lions, and will lift up their voice like young lions. Bring distress upon them, and they shall be like drunkards so as not to be strong. And they shall die the second death, and shall not live for the world to come, says the Lord.

While they are inflamed I will prepare them a feast and make them drunk, that they may become merry, then sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake, declares the LORD. (Jer. 51:39 MT)

Tg. Jeremiah 51:56-57

For plunderers have come against her, against Babylon, and her warriors were seized, their bows were broken, for God is the Lord of recompenses. He will indeed repay them their recompense. And I will make her princes and her wise men, her rulers and her tyrants and her warriors drunk, and they will die the second death and will not live for the world to come, says the King, the Lord of Hosts is His name.

I will make drunk her officials and her wise men, her governors, her commanders, and her warriors; they shall sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake, declares the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts. (Jer. 51:57 MT)

Whereas in Hellenistic thought the second death was something experienced by the individual soul, in Jewish thought it is a collective, if not corporate, phenomenon, part of the prophetic critique of Israel or the nations.

Moses prays that the tribe of Reuben will experience the life of the age to come and not die again after the eschatological transition. Decadent Jerusalem will die the second death. The bodies of rebellious and idolatrous Israel will be handed over to the second death. Unrepentant Israelites will be killed with the second death and will not have a share in the new Jerusalem, the new heaven and new earth (Tg. Is. 65:15-18). In Tg. Jeremiah 51, it is the citizens of Babylon who will “die the second death,” in the context of the destruction of the city, and be excluded from the life of the world to come.

The “second death” translates Hebrew expressions that speak only of the death and destruction faced by specific people groups. It’s possible, of course, that a novel idea is introduced in the Targums, but there is no mention of a “first death” or intermediate state or resurrection, so it seems more likely that the idiom simply asserts the finality of death and destruction with respect to the age to come. It could perhaps be seen as an extension of the Hellenistic notion from the personal life of the individual to the historical experience of the community.

The second death and Gehenna

My argument about Gehenna in the Synoptic Gospels is that Jesus has taken over from Jeremiah the vivid image of the bodies of the dead thrown into the Valley of the Son of Hinnom during the siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in order to express the horror of the coming judgment against the city.

In the Targum on Isaiah 65:5-6 Gehenna is the place of the second death, where unrighteous Israelites suffer retribution for their sins. In the Hebrew text the smoke rising from the “fire that burns all the day” is the provocation of their idolatrous activities. It precedes death. In the Targum the fire has been separated from the smoke and now burns “all the day” in Gehenna, but there is no indication that the wicked are consciously suffering.

There is another reference to Gehenna, however, right at the end of the Targum:

And they will come out and see the bodies of the sinful men who rebelled against My Memra, for their breaths will not die, and their fire will not be extinguished, and they will be judging the wicked in Gehenna until the righteous say to them, “We have seen enough.” (Tg. Is. 66:24)

And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh. (Is. 66:24 MT)

In the Hebrew the picture is of the dead bodies of slaughtered Israelites, permanently on display to the visiting nations as a reminder of judgment. The meaning of the Targum is less clear, but “their breaths will not die”—in the place of “their worm shall not die”—rather suggests that they are still in some sense “alive,” either as embodied corpses outside the walls of Jerusalem or as disembodied “souls” in a subterranean Gehenna.

The second death and resurrection in Jewish thought

There is no reference to resurrection in the Targumim in connection with the second death. Israel undergoes a traumatic transition from the present age to the age to come. The righteous live through the transition, but the wicked—idiomatically—“die the second death.” Again, since nothing is said about a “first death,” the “second death” probably signifies only the non-participation of the unrighteous dead in the age to come.

This may also be the point of the distinction between dying and perishing in Pseudo-Philo—rather than the idea of a second death as such. The righteous die but will be brought to life, the wicked die and there is nothing more for them:

Because the Lord kills in judgment, and brings to life in mercy. For them who are wicked in this world [he kills], and he brings the just to life when he wishes. Now the wicked he will shut up in darkness, but he will save his light for the just. And when the wicked have died, then they will perish. And when the just go to sleep, then they will be freed. (LAB 51:5)

In an 8th/9th century midrash on Deuteronomy 32:39 (“See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand”), Rabbi Eliezer says:

Every nation who say that there is a second God, I will slay them as with a second death which has no resurrection; and every nation who say that there is no second God, I will quicken them for the eternal life. And in the future I will slay those (first mentioned) and quicken these, therefore it is said, “I kill, and I make alive”…. I have wounded Jerusalem and her people on the day of My anger, and in great mercy I will heal them, therefore it is said, “I have wounded, and I will heal”…. Neither any angel nor any seraph will deliver the wicked from the judgment of Gehinnom, as it is said, “And there is none that can deliver out of my hand”…. (Pirqe R. El. 34:1)

In this case, as I read it, only those who deny a second God will be resurrected and attain the life of the age to come. Those nations which say that there is a second God—that is, a god beside YHWH—will be consigned to Gehinnom or the grave, which is a second death and not a place of torment. But this must be too late to have any bearing on New Testament interpretation.

Aune’s conclusion is that “second death” has two possible meanings in ancient Judaism: exclusion from the resurrection or assignment to eternal damnation.3 I would say rather that it means exclusion from the age to come, without reference to resurrection; and I would add that the torment in Tg. Isaiah is not eternal but serves a limited monitory purpose: ‘until the righteous say to them, “We have seen enough.”’

The second death in the book of Revelation

The phrase occurs four times in the book of Revelation, in two contexts.

First, it is said that the second death does not have authority or power over the martyrs who reign with Christ throughout the thousand years. They have come to life in the first resurrection and will not be excluded from the long period of Christ’s heavenly reign over the nations.

• The believer who suffers persecution and is martyred will not be “hurt by the second death” (Rev. 2:10-11).
• The martyrs executed by Rome came to life and had “a part (meros) in the first resurrection” to reign with Christ for a thousand years. The “second death” has no “authority” or “power” (exousian) over them (20:4-6*).

Secondly, it is identified with the “lake of fire” and constitutes the final destruction both of death and Hades and of the wicked.

• After the judgment of all the dead, death and Hades are “thrown into the lake of fire.” “This is the second death, the lake of fire.” Anyone whose name is not found in the book of life is also thrown into the lake of fire (20:14-15).
• The cowardly, et al., will not share in the “heritage” of those who conquer but will have a “part (meros) in the lake burning with fire and sulphur, which is the second death” (21:8).

The beast and the false prophet are “thrown living into the lake of fire that burns with sulphur”; but the kings of the earth and their armies, which have gathered to make war against the “King of kings and Lord of lords,” are slain by the sword issuing from his mouth (19:20-21).

Similarly, the nations which make war against the camp of the saints at the end of the thousand years are consumed by fire from heaven, but “the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulphur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (20:10).

So metaphysical or symbolic agents (beast, false prophet, devil) are tormented forever, but there is no explicit reference to the torment of human opponents or of the cowardly, et al.

So what have we learned from this?

It seems that the second death was a known concept in the ancient world, perhaps used quite widely in some Jewish circles to speak emphatically of the non-participation of some Jews and gentiles in the age to come.

John has made use of the idea to affirm, on the one hand, the inviolability of the reign of the martyrs with Christ in the thousand years following judgment against pagan Rome and, on the other, the exclusion of the wickedness that prevailed under Roman rule from the new heaven and new earth.

• 1

  David E. Aune, Revelation 17-22 (1998), 1091-93.

• 2

  Aune, Revelation 17-22, 1092.

• 3

  Aune, Revelation 17-22, 1093.