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  • The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah’s Kingdom—1982
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The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah’s Kingdom—1982
w82 10/15 pp. 16-17

God’s Word Is Alive

Where Are the Dead?

THE man here who is crying is Jacob. He is very sad because he believes his beloved son Joseph has been killed. That long garment covered with blood that Jacob is holding belongs to Joseph. “A vicious wild beast must have devoured him!” cries Jacob. “Joseph is surely torn to pieces!”​—Genesis 37:33.

The people gathered around Jacob are his other children. They are trying to comfort their father. However, as the Catholic Douay Version of the Bible explains: “He would not receive comfort, but said: I will go down to my son into hell, mourning.”​—Genesis 37:35.

Where did Jacob believe Joseph to be? Did he believe that Joseph went to a place of torment to spend eternity there, and did Jacob want to go there and meet him? Or, rather, was it that Jacob merely thought that his beloved son was dead and in the grave and that Jacob himself wanted to die?

Look at this man who is suffering great pain. He is faithful Job. In his distress he prays to God: “Who will grant me this, that thou mayst protect me in hell, and hide me till thy wrath pass, and appoint me a time when thou wilt remember me?”​—Job 14:13, Douay Version.

It is clear that Job wants to die to escape his suffering and pain. So what does he believe will be his condition when he dies? Where are the dead? Job does not believe that he will be alive in a place called hell when he dies, nor that he will be tormented there in fire. Job knows that when a person goes to what this Catholic Bible calls hell, he simply goes to his grave where there is no consciousness and hence no suffering. (Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10) The original Hebrew word for this place of the dead is Sheol, and it means the common grave of mankind. So, in the scriptures quoted here, some other Bibles, such as the Authorized Version, read “grave” instead of “hell.”

Is there any hope for those unconscious in the grave? Can they live again? Yes, the Bible says: “Death and hell [margin, “the grave”] delivered up the dead which were in them.” (Revelation 20:13, 14, Authorized Version) What good news this is! God will bring back to life persons who have died, fulfilling the hope of persons such as Job who believed in the resurrection.​—Job 14:14, 15.

[Picture on page 16]

When Jacob tells his family that his son is in hell, what does he mean?

[Picture on page 17]

Hell​—why would Job pray to go there?

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