How shall we understand the Bible verses about "the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever"?
Often the last card of the hell-believers, those who believe that the Bible teaches eternal hell for the unbelievers after death, are Rev. 14:11 and Rev. 20:10:
"And the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever. Day and night there is no rest for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name.” (Rev. 14:11)
"And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever." (Rev. 20:10)
I remember that my first insight into the fact that these verses do not teach eternal torment, was a comment to one of them in the famous nineteenth century Baptist Bible translator, classical scholar and philologist Richard Francis Weymouth's (1822-1902) wellknown translation of the New Testament. Weymouth said that those verses did not imply eternal torment.
But I never really understood why these verses do not teach eternal torment. I knew too little.
Weymouth knew more. Let me tell you something about him.
Weymouth was 80 years old when he died. His translation of the New Testament was published one year after his death. It was the fruits of a long life of study and classical learning, especially of the Bible. He was first an academic student of classical Greek (i.e. he was a classical scholar first, see this article. He earned a M.A. degree in classics from London University). Then he studied English literature (he was for many years a philologist working with English literature), and then, later in his life, somewhere in the 1870:s or 1880:s, I think, he became a scholar of New Testament Greek and an ardent Bible student. This gave him extraordinary abilities to understand the New Testament, based on classical studies and a very good all-round education. Usually very educated people, people with so broad education that the heart is also educated, do not except the hell doctrine.
If Weymouth said this, it must be true. What lovely news for all who love knowledge, light and love, love towards all beings.
And why did Weymouth believe this? What was the basis for his comment in his translation?
Recently I read this article by a Christian conditionalist and annihilationist, and then I finally understood those disputed verses in the Book of Revelation. They have much to do with Old Testament symbolism and hyperbole (a form of poetic-symbolic exaggeration), and the precursor to these verses is Isaiah 34:10:
"It will not be quenched night or day; its smoke will rise forever. From generation to generation it will lie desolate; no one will ever pass through it again."
Isaiah spoke here about Edom, an ancient kingdom in Transjordan (contained in present-day Jordan). We know from history that Edom was destroyed in the time of the Old Testament, some time after Isaiah spoke these words, in the 6th century BC. Is there a burning pit at the place where Edom was built, today? No. The annihilationist article above puts it this way:
"Whatever the case, Isaiah was not saying that Edom would be burning forever because, again, there is no continually smoking pit in the middle east from where the smoke could have been rising forever. Therefore, we have an example in the Bible of smoke that rises forever that does not speak of continual burning, but of the destruction of what was burned."
But, maybe you will object (almost as if you want eternal hell for the unbelievers to be true), the Revelation 14:11 passage speaks of the smoke of torment that rises forever and ever. Shouldn't it then be eternal torment? It does not speak about burning. But, I would answer, if the "smoke of eternal burning" in Isaiah was hyperbole, wouldn't it be reasonable to think that the "smoke of eternal torment" in Revelation, which builds upon the verse in Isaiah, also would be hyperbole? Maybe Isaiah had been able to use the word torment also about the kingdom of Edom, without it meaning literally eternal hell for its inhabitants?
The Annihilationist article above explains this in the text below the subtitle "1. Revelation Says Smoke “of Their Torment” So It Is Different", if you scroll down a bit.
Isn't all this reasonable, when we think about the fact that the Book of Revelation is full of symbols, that it is almost impossible to be read literally, at any point? And the fact that the book builds almost entirely upon the Old Testament and its symbols?
This article is also valuable. It says:
"The language of endlessness here (fire never quenched, smoke rising forever), therefore, does not portray eternal misery. Rather, the “smoke will go up forever” is parallel to “none will pass through it forever,” symbolizing the permanence of Edom’s destruction."
