*Editor’s Note: The views expressed in this series are not intended as an official statement of CBTS or a uniform position of its faculty. This material is offered in the spirit of faith seeking understanding and to encourage further theological reflection. As more installments of this series are released, they will be linked here.
Introduction
This is the first in a series of blog posts discussing the biblical words sometimes translated hell, as well as a few close synonyms. The series will conclude with a discussion of whether Christ descended to the netherworld between his crucifixion and his resurrection. My goal throughout these discussions is biblical clarity in response to current doctrinal trends among conservative and confessional Christians. These trends, which aim to retrieve aspects of creedal doctrine, biblical supernaturalism, and ancient cosmology, revolve around the ancient idea of limbus patrum (the Limbo of the Fathers) and Christ’s descent there to free the righteous dead once he himself had died. I myself am persuaded that, notwithstanding its ancient pedigree and its array of proof texts, neither the doctrine of limbus patrum nor the connected view of Christ’s descent to such a place are warranted—either by holy scripture or by a systematic theology arising from scripture. I will begin to explain this persuasion of mine by examining the Hebrew word sheol.
When we read our English Bibles, we must remember that the word hell is one English word used to translate various Hebrew and Greek words. One such term is the Hebrew word sheol, sometimes translated in the Old Testament as hell. The word sheol is used in the Old Testament of a place to which, in some sense, both the righteous and the wicked descend at death. In light of this fact, let us consider two contrasting explanations of this word’s use in the Old Testament. Both of these explanations have shortcomings. Each explanation seems to fit some instances of the word sheol, but not others.
First Explanation of Sheol: A Picturesque Word for Physical Death and the Grave
Admittedly, Sheol can easily be interpreted (and should be in certain contexts) as a general (and sometimes picturesque) word for the state of physical death and the grave. When Jacob believes his favorite son Joseph to be devoured by a wild animal, he refuses to be comforted in his grief, declaring “No, I shall go down to Sheol to my son, mourning.” (Genesis 37:35)[1] This can be understood as Jacob’s determination to mourn Joseph’s demise until he himself goes to the grave, joining Joseph in death. Some insist that Sheol is here presented as the literal abode of departed spirits, where Jacob expected to join Joseph in the afterlife, but such a text as this does not require that understanding.
Sheol makes another notable appearance in Numbers 16, where Moses warns the Israelites to get away from the tents of the rebellious Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Those who fail to heed the warning are swallowed by the earth and perish from the camp of Israel.
28 And Moses said, “Hereby you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these works, and that it has not been of my own accord. 29 If these men die as all men die, or if they are visited by the fate of all mankind, then the Lord has not sent me. 30 But if the Lord creates something new, and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into Sheol, then you shall know that these men have despised the Lord.”
31 And as soon as he had finished speaking all these words, the ground under them split apart. 32 And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the people who belonged to Korah and all their goods. 33 So they and all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol, and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly. 34 And all Israel who were around them fled at their cry, for they said, “Lest the earth swallow us up!” (Numbers 16:28–34)
Regarding verse 30 (where the rebels with Dathan and Abiram are prophesied to “go down alive into Sheol [kjv: the pit]”), Matthew Poole’s commentary appropriately comments: “Into the pit, i.e. into the grave which God thereby makes. The Hebrew word scheol sometimes signifies hell, and sometimes the grave…”[2] As will be seen, I agree that Sheol can have more than one connotation. Some, however, see only one clear reference of the word Sheol throughout the Old Testament, a reference to physical death and the grave.
The word Sheol is further used in Hebrew parallelism where it is synonymous with the basic concept of death. The psalmist David (in a psalm pointing forward to Jesus’ own betrayal by Judas Iscariot) prays that traitors against the Lord’s anointed would experience the sort of judgments recorded in the five books of Moses. He prays that their tongues be divided (as happened to the rebels at Babel): “Destroy, O Lord, divide their tongues; for I see violence and strife in the city.” (Psalm 55:9) He also prays that these traitors die as Dathan and Abiram, the rebels in the wilderness, suddenly perished. “Let death steal over them; let them go down to Sheol alive; for evil is in their dwelling place and in their heart.” (Psalm 55:15) A similar thought appears in verse 23 of the same psalm: “But you, O God, will cast them down into the pit of destruction; men of blood and treachery shall not live out half their days.” The pit is a frequent Old Testament synonym for Sheol.
Reflecting on his previous illness (because of which he had initially been told to expect an early death), King Hezekiah of Judah wrote a piece of Hebrew poetry in which the concepts of death, Sheol, and the pit of destruction are all parallel.
9 A writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, after he had been sick and had recovered from his sickness:
10 I said, In the middle of my days
I must depart;
I am consigned to the gates of Sheol [lxx: πύλαις ᾅδου, “the gates of Hades”]
for the rest of my years.
11 I said, I shall not see the Lord,
the Lord in the land of the living;
I shall look on man no more
among the inhabitants of the world.17 Behold, it was for my welfare
that I had great bitterness;
but in love you have delivered my life
from the pit of destruction,
for you have cast all my sins
behind your back.
18 For Sheol does not thank you;
death does not praise you;
those who go down to the pit do not hope
for your faithfulness.
19 The living, the living, he thanks you,
as I do this day;
the father makes known to the children
your faithfulness.(Isaiah 38:9–11, 17–19)
In much of Hebrew poetry, parallelism states the same concept more than once to make the same point with more color. Sometimes the restatement goes a little beyond the first statement, but the concepts still overlap. In the Old Testament, particularly in poetic contexts, Sheol often parallels the idea of the dust, to which man’s body returns in death, and the worm, which feeds on that decaying corpse in the ground.
13 If I hope for Sheol as my house,
if I make my bed in darkness,
14 if I say to the pit, ‘You are my father,’
and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’
15 where then is my hope?
Who will see my hope?
16 Will it go down to the bars of Sheol?
Shall we descend together into the dust?(Job 17:13–16)
19 Drought and heat snatch away the snow waters;
so does Sheol those who have sinned.
20 The womb forgets them;
the worm finds them sweet;
they are no longer remembered,
so wickedness is broken like a tree.(Job 24:19–20)
Notice also Isaiah 14 (a poetic response to the king of Babylon’s death), where Sheol is described as a grave-bed where the worm consumes the corpse:
9 Sheol beneath is stirred up
to meet you when you come;
it rouses the shades to greet you,
all who were leaders of the earth;
it raises from their thrones
all who were kings of the nations.10 All of them will answer
and say to you:
‘You too have become as weak as we!
You have become like us!’
11 Your pomp is brought down to Sheol,
the sound of your harps;
maggots are laid as a bed beneath you,
and worms are your covers.(Isaiah 14:9–11)
A similar text in Ezekiel 32 again pictures Sheol as a place of graves where those slain in battle are “laid to rest” and “lie still,” with their weapons “laid under their heads.” This imagery clearly emphasizes the sleep of the body in the grave, and not so much the conscious confinement of departed spirits. This picturesque “world below” is a depiction of the earth as a mass grave, to which all the dead must go; no longer can the dead “spread terror in the land of the living.”
17 In the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me: 18 “Son of man, wail over the multitude of Egypt, and send them down, her and the daughters of majestic nations, to the world below, to those who have gone down to the pit:
19 ‘Whom do you surpass in beauty?
Go down and be laid to rest with the uncircumcised.’20 They shall fall amid those who are slain by the sword. Egypt is delivered to the sword; drag her away, and all her multitudes. 21 The mighty chiefs shall speak of them, with their helpers, out of the midst of Sheol: ‘They have come down, they lie still, the uncircumcised, slain by the sword.’
22 “Assyria is there, and all her company, its graves all around it, all of them slain, fallen by the sword, 23 whose graves are set in the uttermost parts of the pit; and her company is all around her grave, all of them slain, fallen by the sword, who spread terror in the land of the living.
24 “Elam is there, and all her multitude around her grave; all of them slain, fallen by the sword, who went down uncircumcised into the world below, who spread their terror in the land of the living; and they bear their shame with those who go down to the pit. 25 They have made her a bed among the slain with all her multitude, her graves all around it, all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword; for terror of them was spread in the land of the living, and they bear their shame with those who go down to the pit; they are placed among the slain.
26 “Meshech-Tubal is there, and all her multitude, her graves all around it, all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword; for they spread their terror in the land of the living. 27 And they do not lie with the mighty, the fallen from among the uncircumcised, who went down to Sheol with their weapons of war, whose swords were laid under their heads, and whose iniquities are upon their bones; for the terror of the mighty men was in the land of the living. 28 But as for you, you shall be broken and lie among the uncircumcised, with those who are slain by the sword.
(Ezekiel 32:17–28)
In Psalm 16:9–10, the psalmist David parallels Sheol with the “corruption” of the body: “Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure. For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol [lxx: εἰς ᾅδην, “to Hades”], or let your holy one see corruption.” It is helpful to remember that the Hebrew word for soul often pertains to one’s person, not just the immaterial spirit of a person. On Pentecost Sunday, this text from the Psalms is interpreted by the apostle Peter as a prophecy that the greater Son of David would not find himself abandoned to death or his body to decay in the grave.
24 “God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. 25 For David says concerning him,
“‘I saw the Lord always before me,
for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken;
26 therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced;
my flesh also will dwell in hope.
27 For you will not abandon my soul to Hades,
or let your Holy One see corruption.
28 You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’29 “Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. 30 Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, 31 he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.
(Acts 2:24–31)
Peter’s whole point is that David could not have been speaking of himself as escaping Hades (the Greek translation of the Hebrew sheol), restated in Hebrew parallelism as corruption, the decay of the body (though some understand Hades here as the disembodied state of a departed spirit). The Jews know this. They know that David himself had remained in Hades. How do they know this? They know this simply by seeing David’s tomb there in their own day. The whole point is about physical death, not the unseen place where a departed spirit has gone.
Notwithstanding the evidence presented so far, various interpreters throughout church history have understood Sheol in the Old Testament as often or even primarily referring to a place of confinement for departed spirits. Before Christ’s death and resurrection, this place supposedly held the spirits of all the dead, both the righteous and the wicked. This concept will be our next topic.
[1] Unless otherwise noted, all scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version.
[2] Matthew Poole, A Commentary on the Whole Bible, Volume 1: Genesis – Job (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1962), 297.
