Footnote

b No one can cite Psalm 116:3 as a proof that there is torture of souls in Sheol, Haʹdes or hell, even though it reads: “The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow.” Here other Bible versions read: “the pains of Sheol” (AS), “the tortures of Sheol” (AT); “the perils of hell” (Dy); and Monsignor Knox’s translation reads: “the terrors of the grave.” (Ps. 114:3, Knox) The pains, tortures, were not in Sheol or hell itself; but the psalmist was in peril and in terror of going into Sheol, hell or the grave. The psalmist here foreshadowed Jesus Christ in his agony in the garden of Gethsemane on the night he was betrayed. Was Jesus in danger of pains and tortures in hell? No; he was the chief of God’s saints or loyal ones, deserving of the loving-kindness of God. (Ps. 16;10; 2 Sam. 22:6) Jesus went to hell, but not into everlasting torment in literal fire and brimstone at the center of the earth. His soul or life was not left in hell, but was resurrected out of hell on the third day after he died.