This note is interpretation, not translation, and the reading in it is Jon’s. It follows one sentence of Jesus across the book: I will build my assembly, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18). Jon reads it as a battle at the gates of a spiritual place. The assembly goes at them, Jesus holds the keys, the battle is won, the dead in the Anointed are raised, and Death and Hades are thrown into the lake of fire. The note sets out what the text gives for each step, and says where the text stops and the reading goes on. Hades is the Greek name for the unseen place of the dead; this translation renders it “the grave.”
The sentence.Kai pylai Hadou ou katischysousin autēs. The verb is katischyō, to have the strength to overpower. It is three words in the New Testament (Matthew 16:18, Luke 21:36, 23:23) and none in Revelation. Autēs, “it,” is feminine, as both petra (rock) and ekklēsia (assembly) are; the nearer of the two is the assembly, and this note follows it. The gates of death are already in the Hebrew scriptures: Job 38:17, Psalms 9:13 and 107:18, and Isaiah 38:10, be-sha’arei She’ol, which Swete’s Greek renders en pylais Hadou, the two words Matthew uses. The echo note at 1:18 sets those out. Revelation never uses the phrase “gates of Hades.”
A gate is something you come to. In the Hebrew scriptures a gate is where a city is held and where it is taken. The offspring will possess the gate of its enemies (Genesis 22:17; 24:60, ve-yirash zar’akha et sha’ar oyevav; Swete’s Greek writes “cities” in both, so the picture of the gate is the Hebrew’s). Psalm 107 has both gates in one passage: those sitting in darkness and the shadow of death (107:10) drew near the gates of death (107:18), and the same psalm says of God, he shattered doors of bronze and cut through bars of iron (107:16). Isaiah says it of Cyrus: I will break doors of bronze and cut through bars of iron, and gates will not be shut before him (45:1–2). In each of them someone goes to the gate and the gate does not hold. Matthew’s sentence says only what the gates will not do.
Who holds the keys.Kai echō tas kleis tou thanatou kai tou Hadou, “and I hold the keys of death and of the grave” (1:18). The only places in the New Testament where Hades and a key stand within two verses of each other are Matthew 16:18–19 and Revelation 1:18, counted in Nestle 1904. Kleis is six words in six verses: Matthew 16:19, Luke 11:52 (the key of knowledge), and in this book 1:18, 3:7, 9:1 and 20:1. At 3:7 it is the key of David — who opens and nobody will shut, who shuts and nobody opens, from Isaiah 22:22. At 9:1 and 20:1 it is the key of the bottomless place, which the text does not equate with Hades. At 1:18 the speaker says He holds the keys of death and of the grave, and the verse does not say they are given to anyone. Beside it, at the same verse, stands Hosea 13:14, said by God: from the hand of Sheol I will ransom them, from death I will redeem them (mi-yad She’ol efdem, mi-mavet ge’alem). Matthew 16:19 speaks of keys of the kingdom of the heavens, not of death, and this note does not take up that verse.
The one who went in. The one who holds the keys is the one who became dead (1:18, egenomēn nekros) and is alive into the ages. In Acts 2 Peter says God raised Him up, loosing the pangs of death, since it was not possible for him to be held by it (2:24), and quotes David that His soul was not left in Hades (2:27, 31; Psalm 16:10). Hebrews says He shared flesh and blood so that through death He would nullify the one who has the power of death, that is, the slanderer (2:14), and set free those who were slaves all their lives to the fear of it (2:15). He appeared to loose the works of the slanderer (1 John 3:8).
The dead in the Anointed.The Lord himself … will come down from the sky, and the dead in the Anointed will rise first (1 Thessalonians 4:16). Paul gives an order: the Anointed the firstfruit, then those who belong to the Anointed at his coming, then the end … the last enemy to be nullified is death (1 Corinthians 15:23–26). He quotes Isaiah 25:8, death was swallowed up into victory, and gives thanks to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus the Anointed (15:54, 57). The word is nikos, the noun of nikaō, the verb of this book’s “the one who conquers.” In Revelation the first resurrection is of those who had been beheaded because of the testimony of Jesus and of those who did not bow to the animal, and they came to life and reigned with the Anointed (20:4); the rest of the dead did not live until the thousand years were finished (20:5), and the second death has no authority over those of the first (20:6). John 5:25 says the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live, and 5:28–29 says all in the tombs will hear His voice and come out. He had done it once already, in front of a crowd: after saying egō eimi hē anastasis kai hē zōē, “I am the resurrection and the life” (11:25), He called out phōnē megalē, with a loud voice, Lazare, deuro exō, “Lazarus, here, out!” (11:43). There is no verb in the Greek, only deuro, “here,” and exō, “out.” And exēlthen ho tethnēkōs, “the dead man came out” (11:44). The name Lazarus is the Greek form of Eleazar, El’azar, “God has helped.” That is the usual explanation of the name, not something the Gospel says; the root is the one Exodus 18:4 explains in be’ezri, “my help.” This note does not say whether 1 Thessalonians 4, 1 Corinthians 15 and Revelation 20 describe one event or more, or when; it keeps the rule of the note on the thousand years.
What winning looks like at the gates. The book’s word for prevailing is nikaō, seventeen words in fifteen verses, and it cuts both ways. The animal conquers the witnesses (11:7) and God’s people (13:7); and they conquered him through the blood of the Lamb and through the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives, even to death (12:11). To the one who conquers at Smyrna: will not be harmed by the second death (2:11). So in this book winning is not the absence of dying, and the ones raised at 20:4 are ones who were killed. The nearest the book comes to Matthew’s verb is the plain form at 12:8, ouk ischysan, “they did not prevail,” of the dragon and his messengers in the war in the sky. The root is shared; the word is not.
Death and the grave. They come in together at the fourth seal (6:8): the rider is named Death, and the grave was following along behind him, and authority was given to them over a quarter of the earth (edothē). At 20:13 the sea gives up its dead, and death and the grave gave up the dead in them (edōkan), and each is judged by what they had done (20:12, with the book of life). Then death and the grave were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death (20:14), and death will be no more (21:4; Isaiah 25:8, billa ha-mavet la-netsach). That is Paul’s last enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26) in the book’s own picture. Beside it there are gates that stay open: its gates will never be shut (21:25, kleisthōsin), the verb that is at 3:7 for what the one with the key does to a door nobody else can shut or open.
The powers first, and death last. Paul gives the believers’ struggle four ranks: pros tas archas, pros tas exousias, pros tous kosmokratoras tou skotous toutou, pros ta pneumatika tēs ponērias en tois epouraniois, “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual things of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). He calls it a fight in so many words: agōnizou ton kalon agōna tēs pisteōs, “fight the good fight of the faith” (1 Timothy 6:12); ton kalon agōna ēgōnismai, “I have fought the good fight” (2 Timothy 4:7); strateuē tēn kalēn strateian, “wage the good warfare” (1 Timothy 1:18); and ou kata sarka strateuometha, “we do not wage war by the flesh,” with weapons dynata tō Theō pros kathairesin ochyrōmatōn, powerful to God for pulling down strongholds (2 Corinthians 10:3–5). And he gives the end of the same powers: when the Anointed katargēsē pasan archēn kai pasan exousian kai dynamin, “abolishes every rule and every authority and power,” and thē pantas tous echthrous hypo tous podas autou, “puts all the enemies under his feet,” then eschatos echthros katargeitai ho thanatos, “the last enemy to be nullified is death” (1 Corinthians 15:24–26). Revelation’s order is the same. The animal and the false prophet are thrown into the lake of fire first (19:20), then the slanderer (20:10), then Death and the grave (20:14), and after them anyone not found written in the book of life (20:15). Of the powers, Death and the grave come last. Colossians 2:15 has Him stripping the rulers and the authorities, and Hebrews 2:14 has the one with the power of death nullified through death. Revelation also names spirits at work: three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, of the animal and of the false prophet (16:13), and they are pneumata daimoniōn poiounta sēmeia, “spirits of demons performing signs,” that go out to the kings of the whole inhabited world to gather them for the war (16:14).
Jon’s reading, in order. (1) The assembly’s fight is the one Ephesians 6:12 describes, not against flesh and blood but against the powers, and the gates of Hades are among them, with death, the last enemy, coming last (1 Corinthians 15:26). (2) The assembly’s fight is the good fight of the faith, and Jesus holds the keys. (3) The battle is won, and the dead in the Anointed rise and come out at His voice, as Lazarus did (John 11:43–44). (4) Death and Hades are thrown into the lake of fire (20:14, a passive verb that names no one who throws them). Each step rests on the text above except where flagged below.
Red flag That the gates of Hades in Matthew 16:18 are among the powers of Ephesians 6:12. Ephesians says the believers’ struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual things of wickedness in the heavenly places, and that is stated. Matthew says the gates of Hades will not prevail against the assembly, and that is stated. No verse joins the two. Jon’s reading is that Hades is one of the spiritual things of wickedness Paul names, and that a fight with it is the kind Paul describes. The nearest texts: Paul puts death in the powers’ company. In 1 Corinthians 15:24–26 the same verb, katargeō, “abolish, nullify,” is used of every rule, authority and power (15:24) and of death (15:26), which he calls the last enemy. Romans 8:38–39 lists death beside angels, rulers (archai) and powers (dynameis). Hebrews 2:14 says the slanderer has the power of death. And Death and the grave are given authority (edothē autois exousia, 6:8), the word Paul uses of the powers (tas exousias, Ephesians 6:12; Colossians 2:15). What no verse does is name Hades itself among them or put it in the heavenly places; Jesus sets Hades below, opposite heaven (Matthew 11:23). So the join rests on death, and on the book’s pairing of death with the grave (6:8; 20:13–14), and is Jon’s opinion.
Another reading of “gates.” A gate is also where a city’s elders sit and judge (Ruth 4:1; Deuteronomy 21:19, to the elders of his city and to the gate of his place). On that reading the gates of Hades are the rule of death, and “will not prevail” means that rule does not hold against those who belong to Jesus. The Greek does not choose between the two, and the note’s reading is the first.
The rock — Jon’s reading. Jon reads the rock in Matthew 16:18 as Jesus. The text does not say so in so many words; this is Jon’s case, made from the texts below, and the Greek of the verse itself does not decide it.
The sentence before it. Peter says Sy ei ho Christos ho Huios tou Theou tou zōntos, “You are the Anointed, the Son of the living God” (16:16). Jesus blesses him (16:17) and goes on, kagō de soi legō, “and I tell you” (16:18). The rock comes straight after a confession about who He is.
Two different words. The sentence has two Greek words, not one: Petros, masculine, the name Jesus gives Simon, and petra, feminine, the rock the assembly is built on. Jesus does not say epi toutō tō Petrō, “on this Peter”; He says epi tautē tē petra, “on this rock.” Elsewhere the New Testament uses petra of a person only of Christ (1 Corinthians 10:4; Romans 9:33), and Peter uses the word once in his letters, of Christ: petra skandalou, “a rock of offence” (1 Peter 2:8). Peter, who was given the name Petros, calls Jesus the petra. The two words are close, and a wordplay on a name can still point at the man, so the Greek does not settle it; but what Peter himself did with the word is the closest evidence there is of how he understood it.
Jesus’ own use of the two words. In the Sermon on the Mount the wise man ōkodomēsen autou tēn oikian epi tēn petran, “built his house on the rock,” and it did not fall, tethemeliōto gar epi tēn petran, “for it had been founded on the rock” (Matthew 7:24–25). That is the verb and the noun of 16:18, oikodomeō and petra. The parable does not name the rock, but the man who builds on it is the one who hears mou tous logous toutous, “these words of mine,” and does them, and the one who builds on sand is the one who hears them and does not (7:24, 26).
What Paul and Peter say the rock is.Hē petra de ēn ho Christos, “the rock was the Anointed” (1 Corinthians 10:4). On building, Paul says themelion ethēka, allos de epoikodomei, “I laid a foundation, and another builds on it” (3:10), and then themelion gar allon oudeis dynatai theinai para ton keimenon, hos estin Iēsous Christos, “no one can lay another foundation than the one laid, which is Jesus the Anointed” (3:11). Peter, the one addressed in Matthew 16:18, writes of Christ as lithon zōnta, a living stone, chosen and precious (1 Peter 2:4); of his readers as lithoi zōntes, living stones, who oikodomeisthe, “are being built up” into a spiritual house (2:5); of the stone hon apedokimasan hoi oikodomountes, “that the builders rejected,” which became the head of the corner (2:7); and of lithos proskommatos kai petra skandalou, “a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence” (2:8), which is Isaiah 8:14. In Peter’s own letter the stone, the rock, is Christ, and the people are what is built on Him.
The foundations in the city. The wall of the city has twelve foundations, kai ep’ autōn dōdeka onomata tōn dōdeka apostolōn tou Arniou, “and on them twelve names, of the twelve apostles of the Lamb” (21:14). All twelve names are on the foundations, and the text gives none of them.
Red flag That the rock of Matthew 16:18 is Jesus. No verse says so. The nearest texts for the reading are the ones above, where the rock, the foundation and the stone are the Anointed (1 Corinthians 10:4; 3:11; 1 Peter 2:6–8), where Peter calls Jesus the petra, and Matthew 7:24–25, where a man builds on a rock. The sentence also contains Peter’s name, in a different form of the word, and the note on Rome sets out the other readings that allows.
Where this stops. This note does not say who the assembly is beyond Jesus’ own phrase, “my assembly,” and names no institution. It does not say the Greek of Matthew 16:18 settles what the rock is; the section on the rock is Jon’s reading from the other texts, and the note on Rome sets out the readings the verse allows. It does not date the resurrection of the dead in the Anointed, or say whether Hades and the bottomless place are one. And it does not say the Greek of Matthew 16:18 contains a verb of attacking; it does not.
How sure I am — Jon. I am not fully confident of the readings flagged above. They are my best explanation of what I have studied here. If I learn otherwise, I will take them down, and my email is on the About page of this site if you want to show me.