“SHEOL” IDENTIFIED

In the Catholic Douay Version, the first mention of “hell” is found at Genesis 37:35, which quotes the patriarch Jacob as saying respecting Joseph, whom he believed to be dead: “I will go down to my son into hell, mourning.” Clearly Jacob was not expressing the idea of joining his son in a place of torment. Even the footnote on this verse in the Douay Version (published by the Douay Bible House, New York, 1941) does not put such an interpretation on the text. It says:

“Into hell. That is, into limbo, the place where the souls of the just were received before the death of our Redeemer. . . . [It] certainly meant the place of rest where he believed his soul to be.”

However, nowhere does the Bible itself refer to such a place as “limbo.” Nor does it support the idea of a special resting-place for the soul as something distinctly separate from the body. As acknowledged in the glossary of a modern Catholic translation, The New American Bible (published by P. J. Kenedy & Sons, New York, 1970): “There is no opposition or difference between soul and body; they are merely different ways of describing the one, concrete reality.”

What, then, is the “hell” in which Jacob thought he would join his son? The correct answer to this question lies in getting the proper sense of the original-language word for “hell,” namely, sh^e’ohlʹ, which is transliterated “Sheol.” This term, also translated as “grave,” “pit,” “abode of the dead” and “nether world,” appears sixty-six timesa (in the New World Translation) in the thirty-nine books of the Hebrew Scriptures (commonly called the “Old Testament”), but it is never associated with life, activity or torment. To the contrary, it is often linked with death and inactivity. A few examples are:

“For in death there is no mention of you [Jehovah]; in Sheol [the grave, Authorized Version; hell, Douay Version] who will laud you?”​—Psalm 6:5 (6:6, Douay Version).

“All that your hand finds to do, do with your very power, for there is no work nor devising nor knowledge nor wisdom in Sheol [the grave, Authorized Version; hell, Douay Version], the place to which you are going.”​—Ecclesiastes 9:10.

“For it is not Sheol [the grave, Authorized Version; hell, Douay Version] that can laud you [Jehovah]; death itself cannot praise you. Those going down into the pit cannot look hopefully to your trueness. The living, the living, he is the one that can laud you, just as I can this day.”​—Isaiah 38:18, 19.

Hence, Sheol is obviously the place to which the dead go. It is not an individual grave but the common grave of dead mankind in general, where all conscious activity ceases. This is also what the New Catholic Encyclopedia acknowledges to be the Biblical significance of Sheol, saying:

“In the Bible it designates the place of complete inertia that one goes down to when one dies whether one be just or wicked, rich or poor.”​—Vol. 13, p. 170.

HADES THE SAME AS SHEOL

Yet someone might ask, Did not the coming of Jesus Christ to this earth change matters? No, God does not change his personality or his righteous standards. By means of his prophet Malachi, he stated: “I am Jehovah; I have not changed.” (Malachi 3:6) Jehovah has not changed the penalty for disobedience. He is patient with people so that they might be able to escape, not torment, but destruction. As the apostle Peter wrote to fellow believers: “Jehovah is not slow respecting his promise, as some people consider slowness, but he is patient with you because he does not desire any to be destroyed but desires all to attain to repentance.”​—2 Peter 3:9.

In keeping with the fact that the penalty for disobedience has continued to be death, the place to which the Christian Greek Scriptures (commonly called the “New Testament”) describe the dead as going does not differ from the Sheol of the Hebrew Scriptures. (Romans 6:23) This is evident from a comparison of the Hebrew Scriptures with the Christian Greek Scriptures. In its ten occurrences, the Greek word haiʹdes, which is transliterated “Hades,” basically conveys the same meaning as the Hebrew word sh^e’ohlʹ. (Matthew 11:23; 16:18; Luke 10:15; 16:23;b Acts 2:27, 31; Revelation 1:18; 6:8; 20:13, 14 [If the translation you are using does not read “hell” or “Hades” in all these texts, you will, nevertheless, note that the terms used instead give no hint of a place of torment.]) Consider the following example:

At Psalm 16:10 (15:10, Douay Version) we read: “For you [Jehovah] will not leave my soul in Sheol [hell]. You will not allow your loyal one to see the pit.” In a discourse given by the apostle Peter, this psalm was shown to have a prophetic application. Said Peter: “Because [David] was a prophet and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath that he would seat one from the fruitage of his loins upon his throne, he saw beforehand and spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that neither was he forsaken in Hades [hell] nor did his flesh see corruption.” (Acts 2:30, 31) Note that the Greek word haiʹdes was used for the Hebrew word sh^e’ohlʹ. Thus Sheol and Hades are seen to be corresponding terms.

Observes the glossary of the French Bible Society’s Nouvelle Version, under the expression “Abode of the dead”:

“This expression translates the Greek word Hades, which corresponds to the Hebrew Sheol. It is the place where the dead are located between [the time of] their decease and their resurrection (Luke 16:23; Acts 2:27, 31; Rev. 20:13, 14). Certain translations have wrongly rendered this word as hell.”