In today’s world, we hear hell referenced in many different ways, such as, “The hell with you,” “Go to hell,” and “I’ll see you in hell.” We tend to think of heaven as the blessed area where godly people go after leaving this natural life, while we imagine hell as an area in eternity where bad people and unbelievers go.
What is hell? Hell is said to be a place of agony where burning fire and demons torment its residents. Do the Hebrew Scriptures acknowledge our concept of hell? How is hell mentioned in the Old Testament?
Understanding Biblical Translation
If we only look at our translated Bibles, much insight can be missed. Today’s tools allow us to look behind our translations to see what Scripture actually says. By examining the original Hebrew and Greek words Scripture was written in, we can discover more precisely what God intends for us to understand.
While most agree that Scripture is the Word of God, our Bible translations tend to hide some of the intent found in a few passages. Let’s examine where the word “hell” appears in the Old Testament to see if our Bibles line up with the actual account of Scripture.
This blog and the next three will condense many years of research into how hell became a Christian belief. While we usually quote from the NASB version of the Bible, this blog will quote from the King James Version (KJV) to compare the Hebrew and Greek of Scripture with the Bible and examine this sensitive subject in a simple and clarifying way.
Many people do not realize what historical records actually confirm. In 500 AD, religious authorities removed from public access everything considered to be sacred writings. For the next 1000 years, written Scripture was only available to appointed officials and priests. People of faith were taught to believe official doctrines and that it was the only way to worship or go to heaven.
For many generations the central religious system largely maintained control over the doctrines that were taught in Europe and around the Mediterranean area. This enabled the introduction of new ideas that became official doctrines. Many of them were to help keep people in submission.
Some of the most unscriptural ideas introduced were:
- Penance – continual confessions to a priest to obtain God’s forgiveness
- Purgatory – a place where everyone goes before entering the blessings of eternity
- Indulgences – money paid to get loved ones out of Purgatory
- The Greek Myth of a tormenting hell after death
Surprisingly, Hell was not an official doctrine before 1274 AD.
If we only look at our translated Bibles, much insight can be missed.
Defining “Sheol”
During the Reformation of the 1500’s, Scripture began to be translated into different languages. As Bibles were distributed, the control of the central system began to dissolve. All but one of the doctrines listed above were eliminated. Since theologians and translators strongly believed in a hell after death, they maintained the idea and inserted the word and concept into the Bible.
The Hebrew word sheol appears 65 times in the Old Testament Scriptures. It means “place of the unseen,” i.e. the grave. The KJV translates sheol as “grave” 31 times, “pit” 3 times, and as “hell” 31 times. Note these examples from the KJV translating sheol as grave:
David said “Our bones are scattered at 
the grave’s mouth.” (a) [see endnotes for Scriptures] David also said God would “redeem” and “deliver” his soul from “the grave.” (b) When God spoke through the prophet Hosea, He said “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O grave, I will be thy destruction (undoing).” (c)
During the wilderness journey, the rebellious Korah and his followers fell into an early grave when “the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up…they went down alive into the pit.” (d) Of the 31 times sheol is translated “grave” in the Old Testament, 11 times the verse includes “down to” or “down into.”
Each time sheol is translated correctly as grave and pit, it is so obvious it means a burial site that the real meaning had to be maintained. The “grave” is where everyone goes as this life comes to an end. This includes all of this world’s good, bad, evil, and righteous participants. (e)
Since there is no Hebrew word that carries the idea of hell, translators inserted hell for grave 31 times. The Hebrew word sheol clearly means grave and not the hell we have been led to believe.
The Hebrew word sheol clearly means grave and not the hell we have been led to believe.
Old Testament Translation
The warning of an after-death hell was never mentioned in the Old Testament Scriptures. The caution of a hell in eternity was not even given to the worst of people:
- Cain – the first murderer
- The multitudes guilty of the wickedness that led to the destructive Great Flood
- The people of Sodom and Gomorrah
- Pharaoh – enslaved people of faith and repeatedly defied God
When people or nations were condemned to sheol it signaled an end of their active participation and existence in this natural world. They were sentenced to the inactivity of this world’s grave.
An eternal hell was not mentioned to or by Adam, Noah, Abraham, Lot, Job, Moses, David, or Solomon. In Old Testament times, people were warned about the need to repent and change their attitudes and bad behavior, so they would avoid suffering in this life or cutting their life short.
There is no passage in the Hebrew Scriptures that announced the penalty for sin was changed from death to an eternal hell. There is no record of any Hebrew prophet ever saying anything about punishment after death. Prophets only warned that a damaging end comes to lifestyles that contrast the ways of God. The hell we believe in today was not mentioned in the Old Testament.
More recent English translations correct the KJV error. The NASB is considered to be the most literal of modern translations. Rather than contrast the strong belief in an eternal hell, the NASB simply transcribed (copied) sheol in each of its 65 occurrences, instead of the grave or hell.
Our English word hell is not even in the Old Testament of the NASB, the NIV (best-selling Bible), the NABRE (Catholic Bible), the HCSB (Southern Baptist version), and others.
David said “If I make my bed in hell (sheol), behold You art there.” (f) The ancients knew our conscious awareness continued beyond the grave even though details about that reality are absent. Scripture reminds us to focus on the maturing qualities available to us in this life. (g)
God continually reaches out to us with His embracing love and inspirational insight, to guide us through this temporal life. Rather than fear the possibility of hell, we are invited to partake of God’s love and light in our day. (h)
Stay tuned, as our next blog will look at the fourteen times Jesus appears to speak of hell in the New Testament.
The hell we believe in today was not mentioned in the Old Testament.
a) Psalm 141:7; b) Psalm 49:15; 89:48; c) Hosea 13:14; d) Numbers 16:32-34; e) Genesis 37:35; Numbers 16:30; f) Psalms 139:8; g) 2 Timothy 3:16; h) 1 John 1:5; 4:16
Keith Carroll, “The Relationship Guy”
Relational Gospel Founder