New Testament
In the New Testament, the noun Tartarus does not occur but tartaroo (ταρταρόω, "throw to Tartarus"), a shortened form of the classical Greek verb kata-tartaroo ("throw down to Tartarus"), does appear in 2 Peter 2:4. Liddell Scott provides other sources for the shortened form of this verb, including Acusilaus (5th century BC), Joannes Laurentius Lydus (4th century AD) and the Scholiast on Aeschylus, Eumenides, who cites Pindar relating how the earth tried to tartaro "cast down" Apollo after he overcame the Python. In classical texts, the longer form kata-tartaroo is often related to the throwing of the Titans down to Tartarus.
The ESV is one of several English versions that gives the Greek reading Tartarus as a footnote:
- For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment;"
- Footnotes 2:4 Greek Tartarus
Adam Clarke reasoned that Peter's use of language relating to the Titans was an indication that the ancient Greeks had heard of a Biblical punishment of fallen angels. Some Evangelical Christian commentaries distinguish Tartarus as a place for wicked angels and Gehenna as a place for wicked humans on the basis of this verse. Other Evangelical commentaries, in reconciling that some fallen angels are chained in Tartarus, yet some not, attempt to distinguish between one type of fallen angel and another.
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