Reading: Hades, Sheol and Gehenna (ISBE Article)

Hades and Sheol

hā´dēz ( Αἵδης , Haı́dēs , ᾅδης , haı́dēs , "not to be seen"): Hades, Greek originally Haidou , in genitive, "the house of Hades," then, as nominative, designation of the abode of the dead itself. The word occurs in the New Testament in around five to ten verses depending on the version.

1. In Old Testament: Sheol

In the Septuagint Hades is the standing equivalent for Sheol, but also translates into other terms associated with death and the state after it. The Greek conception of Hades was that of a locality receiving into itself all the dead but divided into two regions, one a place of torment, the other of blessedness. This conception should not be rashly transferred to the New Testament. For the latter stands not under the influence of Greek pagan belief, but gives a teaching and reflects a belief which models the idea of Hades upon the Old Testament through the Septuagint. The Old Testament Sheol, while formally resembling the Greek Hades in that it is the common receptacle of all the dead, differs from it. On the one hand, it differs by the absence of a clearly defined division into two parts. On the other hand, it differs from the emphasis placed on its association with death and the grave as abnormal facts following in the wake of sin. The Old Testament thus concentrates the partial light it throws on the state after death on the negative, undesirable side of the prospect apart from redemption. When in the progress of Old Testament revelation the state after death begins to assume more definite features and becomes more sharply differentiated through dependence on the religious and moral issue of the present life. This is not accomplished in the canonical writings by dividing Sheol into two compartments, but by holding forth to the righteous the promise of deliverance from Sheol, so that the latter becomes more definitely outlined as a place of evil and punishment.

2. In the New Testament: Hades

The New Testament passages mark a distinct stage in this process, and there is, accordingly, a true basis in Scripture for the identification in a certain aspect of Sheol - Hades - with hell as reflected in the King James Version. The theory according to which Hades is still in the New Testament the undifferentiated provisional abode of all the dead until the day of judgment, with the possibility of ultimate salvation even for those of its inmates who have not been saved in this life, is neither in harmony with the above development nor borne out by the facts of New Testament usage. That dead believers abide in a local Hades cannot be proven from 1 Thessalonians 4:16; 1 Corinthians 15:23, for these passages refer to the grave and the body, not to a gathering-place of the dead. On the other hand, Luke 23:43; 2 Corinthians 5:6-8; Philippians 1:23; Revelation 6:9; Revelation 7:9; Revelation 15:2 teach that the abode of believers immediately after death is with Christ and God.

3. Acts 2:27 and Acts 2:31

It is, of course, a different matter, when Hades, as already in the Old Testament Sheol, designates not the place of the dead but the state of death or disembodied existence. In this sense even Jesus was in Hades according' to Peter's statement (Acts 2:27, Acts 2:31 - on the basis of Psalm 16:10). Here the abstract sense is determined by the parallel expression, "to see corruption". None the less from a comparatively early date this passage has been quoted in support of the doctrine of a local descent of Christ into Hades.

4. Revelation 20:13,14; Revelation 6:8; Revelation 1:18

The same abstract meaning is indicated for Revelation 20:13. Death and Hades are here represented as delivering up the dead on the eve of the final judgment. If this is more than a poetic duplication of terms, Hades will stand for the personified state of death, death for the personified cause of this state. The personification appears plainly from Revelation 20:14: "Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire." In the number of these "dead" delivered up by Hades, believers are included, because not all the saints share in the first resurrection, but only those "beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God," i.e. the martyrs. A similar personifying combination of Death and Hades occurs in Revelation 6:8 ("a pale horse: and he that sat upon him his name was Death; and Hades followed with him"). In Revelation 1:18, on the other hand, death and Hades are represented as prisons from which Christ, in virtue of His own resurrection, has the power to deliver, a representation which again implies that in some, not necessarily local, sense believers also are kept in Hades.

5. Luke 16:23

In distinction from these passages when the abstract meaning prevails and the local conception is inactive, the remaining references are more or less locally conceived. Of these Luke 16:23 is the only passage which might seem to teach that recipients of salvation enter after death into Hades as a place of abode. It has been held that Hades is here the comprehensive designation of the locality where the dead reside. Here it is divided into two regions, "the bosom of Abraham" and the place of torment, a representation for which Jewish parallels can be quoted, aside from its resemblance to the Greek bisection of Hades. Against this view, however, it may be urged, that if "the bosom of Abraham" were conceived as one of the two divisions of Hades, the other division would have been named with equal concreteness in connection with the rich man. In point of fact, the distinction is not between "the bosom of Abraham" and another place, as both are included in Hades, but between "the bosom of Abraham" and Hades as antithetical and exclusive shown by the "great chasm" between them. The very form of the description of the experience of the rich man: "In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment," leads us to associate Hades with pain and punishment. The passage, therefore, does not prove that the saved are after death in Hades. In further estimating its bearing upon the problem of the local conditions of the disembodied life after death, the parabolic character of the representation must be taken into account. The parable is certainly not intended to give us topographical information about the realm of the dead, although it presupposes that there is a distinct place of abode for the righteous and wicked respectively.

6. Matthew 11:23

The two other passages where Hades occurs in the teaching of our Lord (Matthew 11:23 parallel Luke 10:15; and Matthew 16:18 ) make a metaphorical use of the conception, which, however, is based on the local sense. In the former utterance it is predicted of Capernaum that it shall in punishment for its unbelief "go down unto Hades." As in the Old Testament Sheol is a figure for the greatest depths known (Deuteronomy 32:22; Isaiah 7:11; Isaiah 57:9; Job 11:8; Job 26:6 ), this seems to be a figure for the extreme of humiliation to which that city was to be reduced in the course of history. It is true, Matthew 11:24, with its mention of the day of judgment, might seem to favor an eschatological reference to the ultimate doom of the unbelieving inhabitants, but the usual restriction of Hades to the punishment of the intermediate state (see below) is against this.

7. Matthew 16:18

In the other passage, Matthew 16:18, Jesus declares that the gates of Hades shall not katischúein the church He intends to build. The verb katischuein may be rendered, "to overpower" or "to surpass." If the former be adopted, the figure implied is that of Hades as a stronghold of the power of evil or death from which warriors stream forth to assail the church as the realm of life. On the other rendering there is no reference to any conflict between Hades and the church, the point of comparison being merely the strength of the church, the gates of Hades, i.e. the realm of death, serving in common parlance as a figure of the greatest conceivable strength, because they never allow to escape what has once entered through them.

The above survey of the passages tends to show that Hades, where it is locally conceived, is not a provisional receptacle for all the dead, but plainly associated with the punishment of the wicked. Where it comes under consideration for the righteous there is nothing to indicate a local sense.

8. Not a Final State

The element of truth in the theory of the provisional character of Hades lies in this, that the New Testament never employs it in connection with the final state of punishment, as subsequent to the last judgment. This is also shown in 1 Peter 3:19 and 1 Peter 4:6 when Jesus "preached to the spirits in prison". For the final place of punishment after the last judgment GEHENNA (see below) and other terms are used. The rich man is represented as being in Hades immediately after his death while his brethren are still in this present life. Whether the implied differentiation between stages of punishment, depending obviously on the difference between the disembodied and reëmbodied state of the lost, also carries with itself a distinction between two places of punishment, in other words whether Hades and Gehenna are locally distinct, the evidence is scarcely sufficient to determine. The New Testament places the emphasis on the eschatological developments at the end, and leaves many things connected with the intermediate state in darkness.

Gehenna 

gē̇ - hen´a ( γεέννα, geénna (see Grimm-Thayer, under the word)): Gehenna is a transliteration from the Aramaic form of the Hebrew gē -hinnōm, "valley of Hinnom." This latter form, however, is rare in the Old Testament, the prevailing name being "the valley of the son of Hinnom." Septuagint usually translates; where it transliterates the form is different from Gehenna and varies. In the New Testament, the correct form is Geénna with the accent on the penult, not Géenna'. There is no reason to assume that Hinnom is other than a plain patronymic, although it has been proposed to find in it the corruption of the name of an idol (EB, II, 2071). In the New Testament (King James Version margin) Gehenna occurs in Matthew 5:22, Matthew 5:29, Matthew 5:30; Matthew 10:28; Matthew 18:9; Matthew 23:15; Matthew 23:33; Mark 9:43; Mark 9:15; Mark 9:47; Luke 12:5; James 3:6. In all of these it designates the place of eternal punishment of the wicked, generally in connection with the final judgment. It is associated with fire as the source of torment. Both body and soul are cast into it. This is not to be explained on the principle that the New Testament speaks metaphorically of the state after death in terms of the body; it presupposes the resurrection. In the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American), Gehenna is rendered by "hell". That "the valley of Hinnom" became the technical designation for the place of final punishment was due to two causes. In the first place, the valley had been the seat of the idolatrous worship of Molech, to whom children were sacrificed by fire (2 Chronicles 28:3; 2 Chronicles 33:6 ). Secondly, on account of these practices the place was defiled by King Josiah (2 Kings 23:10 ), and became in consequence associated in prophecy with the judgment to be visited upon the people (Jeremiah 7:32). The fact, also, that the city's offal was collected there may have helped to render the name synonymous with extreme defilement. Topographically the identification of the valley of Hinnom is still uncertain. It has been in turn identified with the depression on the western and southern side of Jerusalem, with the middle valley, and with the valley to the east.

Bibliography Information
Orr, James, M.A., D.D. General Editor. Entry for 'Hades'. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. 1915.