Hell and Other Terms for the Place and State of the Dead

     A number of terms are used in Scripture for the place of the dead.  The broad term used in OT Hebrew is Sheol.  It can mean the grave, but often refers to the nether world of departed spirits.  In the NT, Sheol is replaced by the Greek term Hades.  Hades also was a broad general term for the abode of all the dead.  In Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19 ff.), his hearers would have understood that both men were in Sheol/Hades, not just the rich man.  But they were separated by a great Chasm.  The faithful were with Abraham in the place of the blessed (which Jesus called Paradise in Luke 23:43), while the rich man was in the place of torment.

     The thing to remember is that the meaning of words can change with time, which can lead to confusion.  The English of the KJV uses the word hell more broadly than we now do to translate Sheol and Hades, as well as for the exclusive meaning it now has as a place of torment.  The KJV and most modern translations use the word hell to translate the two NT terms for the place of torment:  Tartarus (used only in 2 Pet. 2:4); and Gehenna.  Gehenna was a metaphoric use of the name of a valley outside Jerusalem (the valley of Hinnom).  This was where child sacrifice to Molech occurred in the OT, and was an unclean place where the dead animals and garbage were burned in NT times (“where the worm never dies and the fire never goes out”).

     The use of the word hell in its obsolete sense to translate both the broad terms Sheol and Hades as well as the narrow terms for the place of torment confuses us also in the Apostles’ Creed.  When the Creed says that after Jesus was crucified, dead, and buried, he descended into hell, we assume the place of torment, but that cannot be so.  What must be meant is that he went to the place of departed spirits while his body lay in the grave, for on the cross he told the repentant robber, “Today you shall be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43).  His place of torment was the cross, where he took upon himself the burden and suffering due us for our sins.  That was the hell of hells.