Lexicon

G5020 - tartaroo

Strong's: G5020 · BLB lookup Pronunciation: tar-tar-O-o Part of speech: verb (denominative, derived from the noun Tartaros) NT occurrences: 1, a hapax legomenon at 2 Peter 2:4 (tartarōsas, aorist active participle, "having cast into Tartarus") Root: denominative from Tartaros (Τάρταρος), the Greek-mythological underworld-abyss situated below Hades, the deepest pit, where the Titans were imprisoned in the Hesiodic-Homeric tradition (Iliad 8.13-16; Hesiod, Theogony 717-735)

Semantic range

The verb names the action of consigning to Tartaros, the deepest-imaginable abyss of punitive confinement. Across its narrow attestation, Hellenistic-Jewish, NT, and patristic, it functions in a single bandwidth:

To cast / consign / hurl into Tartaros, the literal verbal sense; the act of confining a being to the abyss reserved for the most-wicked. Used in classical-Greek myth for the Olympian binding of the Titans; in Hellenistic-Jewish literature (1 Enoch; Philo) for the divine binding of the fallen Watchers; in NT-Greek by Peter for the divine binding of the fallen angels awaiting judgment.
To consign to the deepest-prison reserved for the worst offenders (extended sense). The verb's force is not simply "send to a place of the dead" (that is [[G0086 - hades|Hades]]) and not the eschatological-final hell (that is [[G1067 - geenna|Geenna]]); it names a holding-cell at the deepest stratum of the cosmos, a pre-judgment custodial confinement in the deepest darkness.

Theological force

Peter's lone deployment is dense. The Greek noun Tartaros is mythological, a god-pit from the Hesiodic tradition, and Peter's verbal form (rare even in pagan Greek) is the most deliberate possible lexical choice. He is not importing Greek mythology into Christian doctrine; he is appropriating the deepest pit-language his Hellenistic-Jewish audience would already recognize from the Septuagint (Job 40:20 LXX; 41:24 LXX; Prov 30:16 LXX; the 1 Enoch tradition) and applying it to a specific revelatory claim: the fallen angels of Genesis 6 / Jude 6 are currently bound in the deepest abyss, awaiting the final judgment.

Distinguish: Tartaros / Hades / Geenna / Abyssos

NT-Greek deploys four distinct underworld-vocabulary terms with distinct functions in the eschatological economy:

[[G0086 - hades|Hades]] (ᾅδης), the general realm of the dead (LXX rendering of Hebrew sheol). The intermediate state. Both righteous (pre-resurrection) and unrighteous dead inhabit Hades; Luke 16:23 distinguishes "Abraham's bosom" from the "place of torment" within Hades. Hades will itself be cast into the Lake of Fire at the final judgment (Rev 20:14).
[[G1067 - geenna|Geenna]] (γέεννα), the eschatological final hell; the Lake of Fire (Rev 20:14-15); the place of final punishment after the resurrection-of-judgment (Matt 10:28; Mk 9:43-48). The post-judgment terminus.
Tartaros (G5020 verbal tartaroō; noun is implied), the deepest-pre-judgment holding cell specifically for the fallen angels; named only obliquely in NT (via the verb in 2 Pet 2:4 and the parallel-concept "eternal bonds under darkness" in Jude 6).
Abyssos (G0012, ἄβυσσος, "abyss / bottomless pit"), the pit where demonic spirits are confined or to which they are consigned (Luke 8:31, the demons begging not to be sent to the abyssos; Rev 9:1-2, 11; 20:1-3, the binding of Satan).

Tartaros and the abyssos overlap conceptually, both name a pre-judgment custodial confinement of disobedient spiritual beings, but the lexical choice is distinct: tartaros draws on the Hellenistic-Jewish deepest-pit tradition; abyssos draws on the LXX-cosmogonic deep (Gen 1:2 LXX; Ps 71:20 LXX). Peter's tartaroō names a specific confinement of the specific angels who sinned at a specific point, the Genesis 6 fallen Watchers in the 1 Enoch / Jude 6 tradition.

The Genesis 6 / 1 Enoch / Jude 6 / 2 Peter 2:4 chain

The 2 Pet 2:4 reference rides a tradition-bridge that links four texts:

Genesis 6.1-4, "the sons of God saw the daughters of men... and they bore children to them". The bĕnê hāʾĕlōhîm ("sons of God") who took human wives. Two main interpretive streams, the fallen-angels reading (Second-Temple Jewish, 1 Enoch 6-7, dominant in patristic-pre-Augustine readings) and the Sethite reading (Augustine, Calvin, much-of-the-Reformed tradition).
1 Enoch 6-21 (extracanonical), the elaborate retelling of Gen 6 where the Watchers (heavenly beings) descend, take human wives, teach forbidden arts, and are bound in the deepest pit by the archangels Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel until the final judgment. 1 Enoch uses tartaros-language for the binding-place (1 Enoch 20:2 LXX-translation).
Jude 6, "the angels who kept not their own principality, but left their proper habitation, he hath kept in everlasting bonds under darkness unto the judgment of the great day". Jude explicitly cites 1 Enoch in 1:14-15 and his angelology assumes the 1 Enoch / fallen-Watcher tradition.
2 Peter 2:4, "if God spared not angels when they sinned, but cast them down to hell [tartarōsas], and committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment". Peter compresses Jude 6 (literarily-dependent on Jude or sharing a common source) and adds the tartarōsas verb. The substance is identical: a specific subset of angels sinned at a specific point, was bound by God, and is currently held in the deepest abyss-prison awaiting the final judgment.

The patristic mainstream, Justin (1 Apol. 5; 2 Apol. 5), Athenagoras (Legatio 24-25), Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. 4.36.4), Tertullian (Apol. 22), Clement of Alexandria (Strom. 5.1; Eclogae 53.4), reads the chain straightforwardly: the Gen 6 bĕnê hāʾĕlōhîm are the fallen angels; 1 Enoch preserves the tradition; Jude and 2 Peter affirm it canonically; Tartaros / "eternal bonds under darkness" is their pre-judgment confinement. Augustine (De Civ. Dei 15.23) shifted to the Sethite reading on philosophical-anthropological grounds (angels do not procreate, Matt 22:30), and his reading dominated the medieval and much of the Reformation tradition. Modern evangelical scholarship (Wenham, Hamilton, Heiser) has substantially recovered the fallen-Watcher reading, treating 2 Pet 2:4 + Jude 6 as decisive canonical witnesses.

Holding cell, not final judgment

The most pastorally and exegetically important point: tartaroō names a pre-judgment confinement, not the final punishment. Peter is explicit, the bound angels are "reserved unto judgment" (eis krisin tēroumenous). The final-judgment moment is the casting of the devil into the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20.10) at the end of the millennial reign, after the binding of Satan (Rev 20:1-3, the abyssos-binding) and after the brief release-and-final-rebellion. The Tartaros confinement is the deepest prison; the Lake of Fire is the final eschatological destination.

This three-stage angelology, current binding (Tartaros, the abyss) → brief release (Satan, Rev 20:7-9) → final consignment (Lake of Fire, Rev 20:10), is the canonical-Christian framework for the fate of the fallen spiritual beings. The pattern parallels the human-eschatological framework, current intermediate state ([[G0086 - hades|Hades]] / paradise) → resurrection-and-judgment → final destination ([[G1067 - geenna|Geenna]] or the New Heavens and New Earth), at the angelic level.

Peter's rhetorical argument from prior judgments

The 2 Peter 2 deployment is part of a tightly-structured argument-from-precedent. Peter is countering scoffers who deny the coming Day of the Lord (2 Pet 3:3-4). His Chapter 2 response is a triad of prior judgments that warrant the future judgment:

The angels who sinned (2:4, tartarōsas, the Tartaros confinement)
The ancient world / Noah's flood (2:5)
Sodom and Gomorrah (2:6-8)

Each prior judgment functions as a proof of God's character and a type of the coming judgment. The argument-structure is: "if God did not spare A, B, and C, He will not spare the present scoffers either." The Tartaros-binding of the fallen angels is the strongest link in the chain, angels are higher than humans, and even they did not escape. The Petrine logic is a fortiori: how much less will the human scoffers escape (cf. Heb 2:2-3, the same a fortiori structure).

Notable verses

The single direct occurrence

2 Peter 2.4, "if God spared not angels when they sinned, but cast them down to hell [tartarōsas]...", the lone NT use of the verb.

Parallel-concept passages

Jude 6, "angels that kept not their own principality... he hath kept in everlasting bonds under darkness unto the judgment of the great day", the parallel binding, near-identical concept, different vocabulary.
Genesis 6.1-4, the OT-substrate: the bĕnê hāʾĕlōhîm / sons of God taking human wives; the originating sin that occasioned the Tartaros-confinement.
1 Peter 3.18-19, "in which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison", Peter's other reference to the bound spiritual beings; the en phylakē "in prison" likely names the same custodial confinement (one major patristic + Reformed reading; alternative readings engage Christ's descent and proclamation differently).
Ephesians 6.12, "our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places", the broader Pauline angelology naming the unbound demonic forces still operative in the world.

Eschatological parallels (final judgment of spiritual beings)

Revelation 20.10, "the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where are also the beast and the false prophet; and they shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever", the final eschatological consignment of the chief spiritual rebel.
Revelation 20:1-3, the binding of Satan in the abyssos, the millennial-precursor binding (parallel-structure to the Tartaros binding of the fallen angels at the earlier moment).

Patristic / scholarly note

The verb's lone NT attestation has generated a substantial exegetical and historical-theological literature. The Greek-patristic reading is remarkably uniform across the first four centuries: Justin Martyr (2 Apol. 5), Athenagoras (Legatio 24-25), Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. 4.36.4; 1.10.3), Tertullian (Apol. 22; De Cultu Feminarum 1.2-3), Clement of Alexandria (Stromata 5.1.10; Eclogae 53.4), Origen (Contra Celsum 5.55; Hom. Num. 28.2), and Cyril of Jerusalem (Catech. 2.4) all assume the 1 Enoch / fallen-Watcher tradition and read 2 Pet 2:4 within it. The verb's mythological derivation troubled none of them; the divine-revelatory appropriation of pagan vocabulary was a familiar canonical move (Acts 17:28, Paul citing Aratus and Epimenides).

Augustine's shift. Augustine (De Civitate Dei 15.23; De Genesi ad Litteram 3.10) re-read Gen 6's bĕnê hāʾĕlōhîm as the Sethite line on philosophical-anthropological grounds, primarily the worry that angels do not have the procreative capacity (Matt 22:30). The shift dominated medieval theology, was carried into Reformation exegesis (Luther; Calvin, Commentary on Genesis 6:2), and remained the Protestant default until late-20th-century recovery of the patristic reading.

Modern recovery. Twentieth-century critical scholarship (R. H. Charles's edition of 1 Enoch, 1912; Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, WBC 1983; J. T. Milik's Aramaic Enoch fragments from Qumran, 1976) re-grounded the fallen-Watcher reading in its Second-Temple-Jewish context. Evangelical scholarship has substantially followed: Michael Heiser (The Unseen Realm, 2015; Reversing Hermon, 2017), Daniel Hamilton, Gordon Wenham (Genesis 1-15, WBC 1987, leans Sethite but acknowledges the patristic reading's exegetical force), and the broader Divine Council literature have re-centered the canonical-tradition reading.

The Tartaros-doctrine in systematic theology. Reformed (Berkhof, Systematic Theology 148-150) and Catholic systematics (CCC §§391-395) both retain the current binding of (a subset of) fallen angels alongside the operative-in-the-world status of (other) demonic forces. The two-tier angelology, bound-in-Tartaros and active-in-the-world, is the canonical-mainstream reading; the Reformed and Catholic systematics agree on substance, differ in detail.

Verses in this codex

2 Peter 2.4, the lone direct occurrence; the load-bearing passage for the doctrine
Jude 6, the parallel "eternal bonds under darkness"; the closest semantic parallel
Genesis 6.1-4, the OT-substrate; the originating sin
1 Peter 3.18-19, Peter's other reference to "the spirits in prison"
Ephesians 6.12, the broader angelological context
Revelation 20.10, the final-judgment terminus