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John 17:12, (DRB):
While I was with them, I kept them in thy name. Those whom thou gavest me have I kept; and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition, that the scripture may be fulfilled.
Does John mean by the singular "Son" the plural "Sons" in John 17:12?
i.e: Son of perdition=Sons of perdition.
The operative Greek phrase in John 17:12 is ὁ υἱὸς τῆς ἀπωλείας = the son of destruction.
The word υἱὸς (huios) is singular.
The word "perdition" or "destruction" translates ἀπωλείας and is used as a proper name for Satan in Rev 9:11. Thus, "son of destruction" would refer to someone who follows Satan and his ways - see John 8:44.
Most understand this phrase to refer to Judas who betrayed Jesus and then suicided. Ellicott observes:
The term, "son of perdition," is a well-known Hebrew idiom, by which the lack of qualitative adjectives is supplied by the use of the abstract substantives, which express that quality. A disobedient child is, e.g., "a son of disobedience;" other common instances are "children of light," "children of darkness." A "son of perdition" is one in whose nature there is the quality expressed by "perdition." The phrase is used in Isaiah 57:4 to express the apostacy of the Israelites (in English version, "children of transgression"). It occurs once again in 2Thessalonians 2:3, of the "man of sin."
Barnes observes:
But the son of perdition … The term son was given by the Hebrews to those who possessed the character described by the word or name following. Thus, sons of Belial - those who possessed his character; children of wisdom those who were wise, Matthew 11:19. Thus Judas is called a son of perdition because he had the character of a destroyer. He was a traitor and a murderer. And this shows that he who knew the heart regarded his character as that of a wicked man one whose appropriate name was that of a son of perdition.
