The abode of the dead especially as a place of eternal punishment for unbelievers. Hell is an Anglo-Saxon word used to translate one Hebrew word and three Greek words in the King James Version of the Old and New Testaments. The Hebrew word that “hell” translated was Sheol. The word Sheol occurs sixty-five times in the Hebrew Bible.
Sheol is a Hebrew word that has taken on the properties of a proper name. The Old Testament uses the word to refer to a place in the depths of the earth. The expressions “go down” or “brought down” are used twenty times in connection with Sheol. The “depths of Sheol” are mentioned six times (Deut. 32:22; Ps. 86:13; Prov. 9:18; 15:24; Isa. 7:11; 14:15). Four times Sheol is described as the farthest point from heaven (Job 11:8; Ps. 139:8; Isa. 7:11; Amos 9:2). Often Sheol is parallel with the “pit” (Job 17:13-14; 33:18; Ps. 30:3; 88:3-4; Prov. 1:12; Isa. 14:15; 38:18; Ezek. 31:14-17). Nine times it is parallel with death (2 Sam. 22:6; Ps. 18:4-5; 49:14; 89:48; 116:3; Prov. 5:5; Isa. 28:15, 18; Hos. 13:14; Hab. 2:5). Sheol is described in terms of overwhelming floods, water, or waves (Jonah 2:2-6). Sometimes, Sheol is pictured as a hunter setting snares for its victim, binding them with cords, snatching them from the land of the living (2 Sam 22:6; Job 24:19; Ps. 116:3); Sheol is a prison with bars, a place of no return (Job 7:9; 10:21; 16:22; 21:13; Ps. 49:14; Isa. 38:10). People could go to Sheol alive (Num. 16:30, 33; Ps. 55:15; Prov. 1:12). With rare exceptions, such as Elijah (2 Kings 2:1-12), all people were believed to go to Sheol when they die (Job 3:11-19; Ps. 89:48).
The three Greek words often translated “hell” are hades, gehenna, and tartaroo. Hades was the name of the Greek god of the underworld and the name of the underworld itself. The Septuagint (the earliest Greek translation of the Old Testament) used hades to translate the Hebrew word Sheol. Whereas in the Old Testament, the distinction in the fates of the righteous and the wicked was not always clear, in the New Testament hades refers to a place of torment opposed to heaven as the place of Abraham’s bosom (Luke 16:23; Acts 2:27, 31). In Matt. 16:18 hades is not simply a place of the dead but represents the power of the underworld. Jesus said the gates of hades would not prevail against His church.
Gehenna is the Greek form of two Hebrew words ge hinnom meaning “valley of Hinnom.” The term originally referred to a ravine on the south side of Jerusalem where pagan deities were worshiped (2 Kings 23:10; Jer. 7:32; 2 Chron. 28:3; 33:6). It became a garbage dump and a place of abomination where fire burned continuously (2 Kings 23:10; compare Matt. 18:9; Mark 9:43, 45, 47; Jas. 3:6). Gehenna became synonymous with “a place of burning.”
One time the Greek word tartaroo “cast into hell” appears in the New Testament (2 Pet. 2:4). The word appears in classical Greek to refer to a subterranean region, doleful and dark, regarded by the ancient Greeks as the abode of the wicked dead. It was thought of as a place of punishment. In the sole use of the word in the New Testament it refers to the place of punishment for rebellious angels.
Punishment for sin is taught in the Old Testament, but it is mainly punishment in this life. The New Testament teaches the idea of punishment for sin before and after death. The expressions “the lake of fire” and “second death” indicate the awfulness of the fate of the impenitent. Some insist that the fire spoken of must be literal fire, so to interpret the language as figurative means to do away with the reality of future punishment. One can, however, maintain this position only if they see no reality expressed by a figure of speech. Jesus spoke of a place of punishment as “outer darkness” (Matt. 8:12; 22:13; 25:30). Can a place have both literal fire and literal darkness? What reason does one have for taking one expression as literal and not taking the other as literal? Literal fire would destroy a body cast into it.
Language about hell seeks to describe for humans the most awful punishment human language can describe to warn unbelievers before it is too late. Earthly experience would lead us to believe that the nature of punishment will fit the nature of the sin. Certainly, no one wants to suffer the punishment of hell, and through God’s grace the way for all is open to avoid hell and know the blessings of eternal life through Christ.
Ralph L. Smith
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