2 thess 1:9 means that the sinners will suffer eternal destruction from the Presence / face of Lord ?Or it means the sinner will eternal destruction away from, separated from, shut out from the Presence / face of Lord?
The Greek allows both interpretations of
olethron aionion apo prosopou tou Kyriou ('eternal destruction from the face of the Lord'):
1) separative Genitive: "away from the face of the Lord".
2) as a Genitive of agent: it is the very 'face of the Lord' and 'the glory of his might' that cause the 'eternal destruction' (Heb.
abadon 'olam).
This is clearly Semitic thought in Greek expression: when they spoke of God, they used such traditional anthropomorphic expressions like "face", "hand/arm" or "mouth" of Yahweh. Also, the image of God's glorious warrior-like appearance (
doxa/parousia/epiphaneia) in the "Day of the Lord" is attributed to Christ.
I'd go for the second interpretation, especially since in the next chapter, there's an analogous passage about the destruction of the Antichrist with almost the same parallelism. Compare:
2 Thess. 1, 9:
hoitines diken tisousin olethron aionion apo prosopou Kyriou "who will undergo as punishment eternal destruction
from (by) the face of the Lord"
kai apo tes doxes tes ischyos autou "and
from (by) the glory of his might, [when he (Jesus) will come to be glorified...]"
to:
2 Thess. 2, 8:
hon ho Kyrios (Iesous) aneilei to pneumati tou stomatos autou "whom the Lord (Jesus) will slay
with the breath of his mouth"
2 Thess. 2, 9:
kai katargesei te epiphaneia tes parousias autou "and destroy
by the appearance of his coming (presence)".
The Genitive of agent in the first instance would thus appear as equivalent to the instrumental Dative in the second.
