Questions From Readers
● Deuteronomy 30:13 is referred to on page 117, paragraph 14, of the book You May Survive Armageddon into God’s New World. What is the full application of that scripture to the paragraph?—P. S., United States.
The paragraph in question, which deals with the condition of Jehovah’s people in 1918, reads, in part: “And when they have finished their witnessing [thus in sackcloth], the wild beast [Satan’s visible organization of nations] that ascends out of the abyss [the sea] will make war with them and conquer them and kill them.” “(Revelation 11:7-10; 13:1; Romans 10:7, NW; Deuteronomy 30:13)”
To appreciate why Deuteronomy 30:13 is cited we must first note how Revelation 13:1 (NW) reads: “And I saw a wild beast ascending out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, and upon its horns ten diadems, but upon its heads blasphemous names.” The context of this prophecy indicates that this wild beast and the sea out of which it came are the same as the wild beast and the abyss mentioned at Revelation 11:7 and quoted in the preceding paragraph.
Deuteronomy 30:13 and Romans 10:7 are cited because the latter, by the apostle Paul, quotes from the former but uses the term “abyss” instead of “sea.” Thus these two scriptures support the fact that the “abyss” and the “sea” are the same and are cited for that purpose. McClintock and Strong’s Cyclopædia shows that these two terms were used interchangeably because it was thought that the seas or oceans were without a bottom, which is the literal meaning of abyss. The Septuagint uses the Greek word abyssos at Genesis 1:2 in referring to the primeval ocean or the “surging waters” of the New World Translation. See footnote c. So Deuteronomy 30:13 and Romans 10:7 combine to prove the correctness of the paragraph in using “the sea” and “the abyss” interchangeably.