Topic

Sheol

The Hebrew word for the realm of the dead in the Old Testament. Both the righteous and the wicked are said to go there, and English versions render it grave, pit and hell inconsistently.

Also called: sheol, the pit, the grave

Sheol is where the dead are. Jacob expects to go down to Sheol mourning for his son. Job asks to be hidden there. The Psalms both fear it and hope for rescue from it. It is not presented as the destination of the wicked alone, and it is not the sentence handed down at the last judgment.

The Greek Old Testament usually renders Sheol as Hades, which is how the two terms come to overlap in New Testament usage. Reading Hades correctly therefore depends on reading Sheol correctly first.

What Sheol is not: it is not Gehenna, which belongs to the Gospels and to final judgment; it is not the lake of fire, which is an image in Revelation; and it is not a synonym for the English word hell. A version that renders Sheol as hell in one verse and grave in the next has made an interpretive decision on the reader’s behalf.

What this is not

Terms in this dispute are routinely collapsed into one another. These distinctions are what keep the argument honest.

Sheol receives the righteous as well as the wicked, which no doctrine of hell allows.
Sheol is not Gehenna. The words belong to different languages, Testaments and topics.
Sheol is not the lake of fire, an image that appears only in Revelation.
Rendering Sheol as hell imports a later meaning the Hebrew text does not carry.

Principal passages

Genesis 37:35Listed in the Scripture index
Job 14:13Listed in the Scripture index
Psalms 16:10Listed in the Scripture index
Psalms 49:15Listed in the Scripture index
Ecclesiastes 9:10Listed in the Scripture index

Where this is argued in the case

S05 The Rich Man and LazarusWhy this passage describes the intermediate state rather than final punishment, and why it therefore supports neither view directly.
S09 Why Final Judgment Is DelayedWhy continued existence before judgment is evidence of God sustaining, not of inherent immortality.

Sources for this topic

Joseph Dear. The Bible Teaches Annihilationism. 1st edition, PDF version. 2016. approximately 590 pages View original of The Bible Teaches Annihilationism (opens in a new tab) Details

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