Sheol was not a torture chamber. It was the grave, the silent place of the dead where Jacob, David and the wicked all went. Here is what the word means, why English Bibles blurred it, and the hope Jesus opened.
The Sheol meaning is simple: Sheol is the Hebrew word for the grave, the place of the dead. In the Old Testament everyone goes there, the righteous and the wicked alike. It is silent and dark, but it is never described as a place where people are tortured.
Sheol is not Gehenna. The Greek word for Sheol is Hades, and the New Testament shows Jesus holding its keys and, in the end, Death and Hades themselves thrown into the lake of fire.
A lot of fear has been built on this one word, mostly because of how it was translated four hundred years ago. When you let Sheol mean what it meant to the people who wrote it, the Old Testament reads more honestly, and the good news of Jesus reads even better.
The Hebrew word is she'ol. It appears 65 times in the Hebrew Old Testament, by the count in Strong's concordance. The lexicon at Blue Letter Bible defines it as “Hades or the world of the dead (as if a subterranean retreat).” Where the word itself comes from is debated, and we will not pretend to settle it.
The grave, the world of the dead. Where a person goes when they die, pictured as down, below the ground.
Everyone. A grieving father, a despairing psalmist, a wise teacher and the wicked are all headed to the same place.
Silence, darkness and stillness. No work, no plans, no praise. The dead are cut off from the life they knew.
A place of fire, demons or punishment. The Old Testament never describes anyone being tortured in Sheol.
Start with Jacob. When his sons bring home Joseph's bloody coat, he refuses every comfort. He is a man of faith, the father of Israel, and here is where he expects to end up.
“All his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted and said, ‘No, I shall go down to Sheol to my son, mourning.’ Thus his father wept for him.”
Genesis 37:35Jacob is not afraid of punishment. He simply knows he will die grieving and join his son among the dead. You can read more of his story in Jacob in the Bible.
“For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol.” The darkest psalm in the Bible, prayed by someone who still trusts God enough to complain to Him.
The dead are “like those whom you remember no more, for they are cut off from your hand.” That is the fear in Sheol: silence and separation, not flames.
“There is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.” So do what is in front of you now, with all your strength.
“If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!” Even the place of the dead is not outside God's reach.
If Sheol is that clear, why do so many people think it means a place of fire? Largely because of the King James Version. Its translators rendered the same Hebrew word three different ways. By the Strong's count, Sheol became “grave” 31 times, “hell” 31 times and “pit” 3 times.
By 1611 the English word hell already carried centuries of medieval imagery. So an English reader met the same Hebrew place as a quiet grave in one verse and a fiery prison in the next, with no way of knowing it was one word. Watch how it plays out.
Jacob: “For I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning” (Genesis 37:35). Nobody reading that imagines Jacob in torment.
David: “For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell” (Psalm 16:10). Same Hebrew word. Readers heard fire where David meant the grave.
It happens again and again. Jonah prays “out of the belly of hell” (Jonah 2:2, KJV) from inside a fish, where the Hebrew says Sheol. Korah's rebels go “down alive into the pit” (Numbers 16:33, KJV), and the pit is Sheol again. Most modern translations now leave the word as Sheol or render it “the grave,” which is a real improvement.
We are grateful for the King James Bible. But on this word it created confusion that pulpits have repeated for four centuries. We walk through every one of these words in is hell in the Bible.
When an older English Bible says hell in the Old Testament, the Hebrew almost always says Sheol, and Sheol means the grave.
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Manage My Giving"Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."2 Corinthians 9:7
Two or three centuries before Jesus, Jewish scholars translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. That translation, the Septuagint, was the Bible most of the first Christians read, and it reached for the Greek word Hades to carry Sheol. You can see the swap happen in the New Testament itself. At Pentecost Peter quotes Psalm 16:10, and where David had written Sheol, Peter's Greek says Hades.
“For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption.”
Acts 2:27, quoting Psalm 16:10In Greek mythology Hades was also the name of a god who ruled the underworld. The Bible borrowed the word, not the mythology. In Scripture Hades is simply Sheol in Greek clothing: the grave, the world of the dead.
Gehenna is a different word entirely, and mixing it up with Sheol is where most of the damage has been done.
The grave, the place of all the dead. Righteous and wicked alike go there. It is silent, not a place of punishment.
The Greek word for Sheol, used by the Septuagint and the New Testament. Jesus holds its keys (Revelation 1:18), and in the end it is thrown into the lake of fire.
The valley of Hinnom outside Jerusalem, a real place with a dark history. Jesus used it as His picture of destruction, of a life that refuses God and perishes. We explain it in what Gehenna really is.
So when Jesus warns about Gehenna, He is not talking about Sheol. And when Jacob expects to go down to Sheol, he is not expecting Gehenna. Keep the three words separate and a great deal of confusion clears up on its own.
When Peter quotes Psalm 16:10 in Acts 2:27, what Greek word stands where the psalm has Sheol?
Hades. The Greek Bible used Hades for Sheol, so the grave in Hebrew and Hades in Greek are the same idea. Gehenna, the valley Jesus used as His picture of destruction, is a different word with a different meaning.
The Old Testament does not leave Sheol as the last word. Revelation comes progressively, and you can watch the hope grow. The same psalmists who feared the silence of the grave began to say that God would not leave them there.
“But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me. Selah”
Psalm 49:15That is a bold line from a songwriter who had no clear picture of resurrection. He simply trusted that God was stronger than the grave. The New Testament shows what he was reaching for.
Jacob expects to go down to Sheol to his son (Genesis 37:35). The grave is the end of every story, faithful or not.
“You will not abandon my soul to Sheol” (Psalm 16:10). “God will ransom my soul” (Psalm 49:15). Trust starts to push against the grave.
Jesus dies and is buried. On the third day God raises Him. The grave could not hold Him, and His body did not see corruption.
Peter says David was speaking about the resurrection of the Messiah (Acts 2:27 to 31). Psalm 16 was always pointing to Jesus.
Jesus holds the keys of Death and Hades (Revelation 1:18). Then Death and Hades give up their dead and are thrown into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:13 and 14).
Read that last scene carefully. The lake does not keep Hades going. It swallows it. John was writing to seven real churches in first-century Asia, and he told them the time was near. The grave, the old waiting place of the dead, is itself done away with. We explain what that means for someone who dies today in what happens when you die.
Maybe you came to this page because someone you love has died, and you are quietly wondering where they are. Jacob's words about going down mourning were written by people who knew that ache. The Bible does not scold grief. It sits with it.
Here is what you can hold onto. Jesus went into the grave and came out holding its keys. The place that frightened the psalmists is not in charge anymore. If you would like someone to pray with you, reach out for prayer.
One popular teaching says Sheol had two compartments: a comfortable side called Abraham's bosom for the righteous, and a side of torment for the wicked. When Jesus died, the teaching goes, He went down and led the righteous out. Its best support is real. Luke 16 sets the rich man in Hades across a chasm from Lazarus, and later Jewish writings did describe the dead being separated.
But the case rests almost entirely on a parable. The Old Testament never divides Sheol into rooms, and in Luke 16 Jesus is telling a story to Pharisees who loved money (Luke 16:14), borrowing the picture of the underworld His hearers already carried. Parables are not maps. We look at that story closely in Lazarus and the rich man, and at where Jesus went between the cross and the empty tomb.
Sound of Heaven teaches that Sheol means the grave, the place of the dead, and nothing more. It is not a place of punishment, and it is not Gehenna. Reading eternal torment into Sheol is wrong. It comes from a translation choice, not from the Hebrew.
We teach annihilationism. The wicked are not kept alive forever to suffer. They perish, and it is final. God alone is immortal (1 Timothy 6:16), and eternal life is His gift through Jesus. Nobody is born with a life that cannot die, as we explain in what a soul is.
We teach fulfilled eschatology, so we read Revelation 20:13 and 14 as what God did at the covenant climax of the first century. Death and Hades gave up their dead and were done away with. The old waiting place is closed, and a believer who dies now goes into the presence of Christ.
We refuse the opposite error too. Sheol being the grave does not mean death is nothing. Jesus meant His warnings, and a life that refuses God's life is truly lost. What stays open is the texture of what the dead experience. Scripture says less than we would like, and we will not invent details to fill that silence.
Sheol is the grave, Gehenna is destruction, and Jesus holds the keys to the first and warned about the second.
It all comes back to Jesus. The psalmists stood at the edge of Sheol and said, in faith, that God would not leave them there. Jesus is the proof they were right. He walked into the grave, and it could not keep Him.
That changes how you stand at a graveside in Commack or Deer Park. Death is still real, and grief is still grief. But the silent place Jacob went down to is not the end of anyone who belongs to Jesus. He has the keys, and He has used them.
For related reading, see what the resurrection is, the valley of the shadow of death and what we believe.
Sheol is the Hebrew word for the grave where all the dead went, not a place of torment, and Jesus went into it, came out holding its keys, and brought it to an end.
Tell us who you are missing or what you have been afraid of. Someone at Sound of Heaven will pray with you and walk through your questions.
Sheol is the Hebrew word for the grave, the place of the dead. It appears 65 times in the Old Testament by the Strong's count. Everyone goes there, the righteous and the wicked alike, from Jacob grieving Joseph to the wicked in the Psalms. It is described as silent and dark, a place with no work, thought or knowledge, but never as a place of torture. The New Testament uses the Greek word Hades for the same idea.
No. The King James Version translated Sheol as hell 31 times, as grave 31 times and as pit 3 times, so English readers met one Hebrew word in three different forms. Sheol means the grave. Gehenna, the valley outside Jerusalem that Jesus used as His picture of destruction, is a different word. Sound of Heaven teaches that the wicked perish rather than suffer forever, and that Sheol was never a place of punishment.
Yes. In the Old Testament the righteous go to Sheol just like everyone else. Jacob, a man of faith, expected to go down to Sheol to his son in mourning (Genesis 37:35). The psalmists feared its silence. Sheol was not a verdict on a person's life. It was simply where the dead went. What grew over time was the hope that God would not leave His people there, as in Psalm 16:10 and Psalm 49:15.
There is no real difference in meaning. Sheol is the Hebrew word and Hades is the Greek word used to translate it. The Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament the first Christians read, used Hades for Sheol, and in Acts 2:27 Peter quotes Psalm 16:10 with Hades where David wrote Sheol. The name came from Greek mythology, but the Bible borrowed the word, not the myth. Both mean the grave.
Jesus went into the grave and God raised Him, so Sheol could not hold Him. Peter says Psalm 16 was about the Messiah's resurrection. In Revelation 1:18 Jesus holds the keys of Death and Hades, and in Revelation 20:13 and 14 Death and Hades give up their dead and are thrown into the lake of fire. Sound of Heaven reads that as fulfilled in the first century. The old waiting place is closed, and believers who die now are with Christ.