Does Revelation 14:11 Teach Endless Torment?

Certainly not. “Forever and ever”—or, literally in Dutch, “in all eternities”—is a thoroughly misleading translation. “In” should be: into. The word for “all” is absent from the underlying text, and “eternities” is not there either. Instead, there is a double plural of eons: “eons of the eons.” The literal rendering is: “into the eons of the eons.” From the Hebrew, this is a familiar superlative, comparable to the King of kings, the Holy of Holies, the heaven of heavens, the Song of songs, etc. “The eons of the eons” are the most surpassing eons, because they are the eons (world ages) in which Christ will reign (Rev. 11:15). He does not reign endlessly, but until death, as the last enemy, shall be abolished (1 Cor. 15:26).

Keep in mind that it is not said that their torment continues “into the eons of the eons,” but that “the smoke of their torment rises into the eons of the eons.” It is called “the smoke of their torment” because the smoke recalls their torment. When fire and sulfur rained upon the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (cf. Rev. 14:10), the smoke of this calamity also continued to rise for quite some time (Gen. 14:24–28). The unrest and torment themselves last at least a twenty-four-hour period, for it says: “they have no rest, day and night, who worship the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.”

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