Sulphur
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The Greek noun theîon means sulfur, traditionally called brimstone. In the New Testament it occurs once in Jesus' reference to the destruction of Sodom and six times in Revelation's visions of plague and final judgment.
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Full entry for θεῖον (G2303) · Open the biblical lexicon
The Greek noun theîon means sulfur, traditionally called brimstone. In the New Testament it occurs once in Jesus' reference to the destruction of Sodom and six times in Revelation's visions of plague and final judgment.
The BSB source-word alignment has 7 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include sulfur (7).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Luke 17:29. Its strongest book concentrations include Revelation (6), Luke (1).
The Greek noun theîon means sulfur, traditionally called brimstone. In the New Testament it occurs once in Jesus' reference to the destruction of Sodom and six times in Revelation's visions of plague and final judgment. Sulfur belongs there with fire, smoke, divine wrath, the defeat of deceiving powers, and the lake called the second death. The word names a concrete burning substance within forceful biblical imagery; it is not a hidden code for a modern weapon, chemical event, nation, disease, or individual tragedy.
Nor does lexical study by itself settle every question about the physical form, sequence, or duration of Revelation's visions. The passages use sulfur to communicate the terror, justice, and finality of judgment. Responsible teaching should let those texts warn against idolatry, deception, violence, and rebellion while also following their own calls to faithful endurance and worship.
It must not use the imagery to frighten vulnerable people into manipulation, pronounce particular disaster victims condemned, or indulge curiosity that eclipses repentance and hope in Christ.
Theîon appears only in explicit judgment scenes: Jesus recalls Sodom, and Revelation places sulfur within visions of destructive plague and the final defeat of evil. The noun contributes burning and choking force to those scenes without functioning as a timetable or modern identification key.
But on the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.
Jesus recalls Sodom's sudden destruction while warning disciples not to cling to ordinary life and possessions when the Son of Man is revealed.
Now the horses and riders in my vision looked like this: The riders had breastplates the colors of fire, sapphire, and sulfur. The heads of the horses were like the heads of lions, and out of their mouths proceeded fire, smoke, and sulfur.
John reports visionary cavalry whose colors and deadly breath combine sulfur with fire and smoke, marking the scene as terrifying plague imagery rather than ordinary warfare description.
A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke, and sulfur that proceeded from their mouths.
The following verse identifies fire, smoke, and sulfur as three plagues and records their immense human toll within the sixth trumpet vision.
He too will drink the wine of God’s anger, poured undiluted into the cup of His wrath. And he will be tormented in fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb.
The third angel warns those who worship the beast and receive its mark, connecting sulfur with divine wrath against idolatrous allegiance.
But the beast was captured along with the false prophet, who on its behalf had performed signs deceiving those who had the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. Both the beast and the false prophet were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur.
The beast and false prophet meet judgment after deception and false worship, locating the fiery lake within Revelation's defeat of oppressive powers.
But to the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and sexually immoral and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. This is the second death.”
At the threshold of the new creation, the burning lake is named as the second death and contrasted with the inheritance promised to those who overcome.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. sulphur
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
7 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
brimstone, sulfur
Read versebrimstone, sulfur
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Read versebrimstone, sulfur
Read versebrimstone, sulfur
Read versebrimstone, sulfur
Read versebrimstone, sulfur
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 4 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
θεῖον is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Theîon intensifies the New Testament's most severe judgment scenes. Jesus uses Sodom's fire and sulfur to emphasize the sudden exposure of misplaced attachment when the Son of Man is revealed. Revelation then gathers sulfur with fire and smoke in trumpet plague imagery, with the warning against worshiping the beast, and with the final removal of the beast, false prophet, devil, death, and unrepentant evil.
The word does not invite teachers to map headlines onto the vision. Its canonical work is moral and theological: God will not allow deception, oppressive worship, murder, idolatry, and rebellion to reign forever. That warning should be preached without softening its seriousness, yet never as a tool for coercion or pleasure in another person's ruin. Revelation gives these scenes to churches called to patient faithfulness, truthful witness, and worship of God and the Lamb.
Teaching should therefore hold judgment beside the book's promises: evil is defeated, tears are wiped away, death is removed, and God dwells with His people. Speculation that crowds out those purposes has missed the force of the image.
Luke.17.29
Theîon is a neuter Greek noun rendered sulfur in the BSB and brimstone in older English. Its seven New Testament verses use nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative forms, but the referent remains the burning substance. Similar spelling to words connected with divinity does not authorize an etymological theology; usage in Luke and Revelation controls the study.
Jesus' reference to Sodom draws on Genesis 19, where fire and sulfur mark a historical act of divine judgment. Revelation carries that inherited image into apocalyptic visions that expose idolatrous empire, deception, and the final destiny of evil. The connection is explicit at the level of judgment imagery, but it does not make every Old Testament burning scene an apocalypse code or every present fire a replay of Sodom.
The New Testament's final horizon also includes the Lamb's victory, resurrection judgment, the removal of death, and the new Jerusalem, so sulfur belongs inside a larger canonical movement from rebellion and judgment to the unopposed dwelling of God with His redeemed people.