Sheol, Hades, GehennaThe Bible’s Words for the Grave and Hell

One English Word, Four Bible Words

A reader of the King James Version meets the word hell fifty-four times. Behind those fifty-four stand four different words. Thirty-one of them are the Hebrew Sheol¹, the Old Testament's name for the place of the dead. Ten are the Greek Hades², the New Testament's word for the same place. Twelve are Gehenna³, a word taken from a valley outside Jerusalem and used almost only by Jesus. One is a verb, cast down to Tartarus⁴, used once by Peter of the angels that sinned. Revelation adds a fifth name for the end of it all, the lake of fire.

The Bible's own words are not interchangeable, and a reader who can tell them apart will read many verses more clearly. A psalm that cries out from hell may be speaking of the grave; a warning from Jesus about hell fire is speaking of the final judgment. What follows takes each word in turn: where it is used, what it names there, and how the words fit together.

Sheol: Where the Dead Go Down

Sheol occurs sixty-five times in the Hebrew Old Testament, in sixty-three verses. The King James translators rendered it three ways: thirty-one times hell, thirty-one times grave and three times pit. They chose by context, and the same word stands behind very different English. When Jacob refused to be comforted for Joseph he said, "I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning" (Genesis 37:35). When the psalmist warns that "The wicked shall be turned into hell" (Psalm 9:17), the Hebrew word is the same.

Sheol is where all men go down at death: "What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave?" (Psalm 89:48). Hezekiah, sick to the point of death, said "I shall go to the gates of the grave" (Isaiah 38:10). Job asked God to hide him there until His wrath was past (Job 14:13). The Preacher counsels work while there is time, because there is no work or wisdom in the grave (Ecclesiastes 9:10). Seen from the land of the living, Sheol is silent; no praise rises from it among the living (Psalm 6:5).

Yet Sheol is never outside the reach or the rule of God. "Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering" (Job 26:6). The LORD "bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up" (1 Samuel 2:6). David knew there was no depth where God was absent.

If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

Psalms 139:8
KJV

For the wicked, Sheol is bound up with God's anger: "a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell" (Deuteronomy 32:22). For the godly it is a place God will not leave them: "But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave: for he shall receive me" (Psalm 49:15). Through Hosea the LORD made Sheol a promise that Paul would later sing back: "O grave, I will be thy destruction" (Hosea 13:14).

One caution for the English reader: not every grave or pit in the KJV is Sheol. In Psalm 30:3, "thou hast brought up my soul from the grave" is Sheol, but "that I should not go down to the pit" is a different word, bôr⁵, a pit or cistern. A concordance shows which word stands behind each English one.

Hades: The Unseen Place

Hades is the New Testament's word for Sheol, and Scripture makes the identification itself. At Pentecost Peter quoted David's psalm, and where David wrote Sheol, Peter's sermon as Luke records it has Hades: "thou wilt not leave my soul in hell" (Acts 2:27). Peter explained that David spoke of the resurrection of Christ, whose soul was not left there and whose flesh did not see corruption (Acts 2:31).

In the Greek text the King James translators used, Hades stands in eleven verses. Ten times they rendered it hell. Once, in 1 Corinthians 15:55, they rendered it grave: "O grave, where is thy victory?", where Paul answers Hosea's promise (the Greek text behind most modern versions reads death in that line). Jesus said that Capernaum, exalted unto heaven, would be brought down to Hades (Matthew 11:23), and that "the gates of hell shall not prevail" against His church (Matthew 16:18). In John's vision, Hades follows Death on the pale horse (Revelation 6:8).

Hades is not the final state. It holds the dead until the judgment; then it gives them up, and is itself cast into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:13-14).

The rich man and Lazarus

The fullest picture of Hades comes from the lips of Jesus. In Luke 16:19-31 He tells of a rich man who fared sumptuously every day and a beggar named Lazarus laid at his gate. Matthew Henry observed that this account is unlike Christ's other parables, because "here the spiritual things themselves are represented in a narrative or description of the different state of good and bad in this world and the other." Whatever is said of its form, it is the Lord's own teaching about what lies beyond death, and its truths are His.

And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.

Luke 16:22-26
KJV

The passage teaches several things plainly. Both men are conscious after death. The rich man sees, speaks, feels and remembers; Abraham tells him, "Son, remember." One is comforted and the other is tormented, and the difference is already settled. A great gulf is fixed, and no one passes over it. Henry drew the lesson: "The soul, as soon as it leaves the body, goes either to heaven or hell, to comfort or torment, immediately, and does not sleep, or go into purgatory." Bede (735) wrote that "Abraham's bosom is the rest of the blessed poor, of whom is the kingdom of heaven, to which they are received after this life." For the whole account, see The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.

Faithful Christians have read the geography of the passage in two ways. Many hold that before Christ's resurrection Hades had two regions, Abraham's bosom or paradise for the righteous and a place of torment for the wicked, and that Christ led the waiting saints out when He "led captivity captive" (Ephesians 4:8-10). Others hold that the righteous went to God at death, and that Hades in Luke 16 names the rich man's place alone. The reading followed here is Matthew Henry's. He took Hades here as "the state of separate souls" and the rich man's place in it as torment, while Lazarus is carried to heaven: "Rich saints and poor meet in heaven." It keeps closest to the words of the text, which put the rich man "in hell" and Abraham "afar off." Both readings agree on the point that matters for every believer now, as the articles Did Old Testament Saints Go to Heaven When They Died? and Where Was Jesus for the Three Days? set out.

Gehenna: The Valley That Named Hell

Gehenna has a different history. It is a place name. Strong's traces it to the Hebrew for the valley of Hinnom⁶, a gorge adjoining Jerusalem. In the days of the kings it became a place of the worst idolatry in Judah. Ahaz burnt his children in the fire there (2 Chronicles 28:3), and Manasseh caused his children to pass through the fire in the same valley (2 Chronicles 33:6). Its high place was called Tophet⁷. Through Jeremiah the LORD condemned it and renamed it.

And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart. Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter: for they shall bury in Tophet, till there be no place.

Jeremiah 7:31-32
KJV

Josiah, the reforming king, made the place unclean so that it could never be used for that worship again.

And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech.

2 Kings 23:10
KJV

A valley of fire, of slaughter and of the dead became the name for the place of final judgment. Jerome (420) wrote that "The name Gehenna is not found in the old books, but is first mentioned by the Savior," and concluded: "Therefore, the future punishments and eternal torments by which sinners are tormented are denoted by the name of this place." Matthew Henry said the same on Jeremiah: "In allusion to this valley, hell is in the New Testament called Gehenna - the valley of Hinnom." Scripture records the valley's history and Jesus' use of its name; it does not describe the valley in His day, and nothing more needs to be added to explain the word.

Jesus' own warnings

Gehenna stands in twelve verses of the New Testament. Eleven of them are words of Jesus, in Matthew, Mark and Luke; the twelfth is in James 3:6. The KJV renders it every time as hell or hell fire. Apart from James, the word is found only on the lips of the Lord who came to save from it.

And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

Matthew 10:28
KJV

This verse shows how Gehenna differs from Hades. Men can kill the body, and the soul goes on; but God can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. It is the place of the whole man after the resurrection, not of the soul alone after death. Tertullian (220) argued from this verse that "unless it were raised again, it would be impossible for the flesh to be 'killed in hell.'" Some readers take destroy here to mean that the lost cease to exist. Matthew Henry answered: "Hell is the destruction both of soul and body; not of the being of either, but the well-being of both; it is the ruin of the whole man."

And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

Mark 9:43-48
KJV

Jesus takes the closing line of the prophet Isaiah, where the worm shall not die and the fire shall not be quenched (Isaiah 66:24), and the KJV prints it three times in the passage. Henry wrote: "With what an emphasis of terror are those words repeated three times here." He read the undying worm as "the reflections and reproaches of the sinner's own conscience," and the unquenched fire as "the wrath of God fastening upon a guilty and polluted conscience." The warning is given to be heeded. Jesus' command is to cut off whatever leads into sin, because, in Henry's words, "either sin must die, or we must die."

Tartarus: The Prison of the Angels

Peter uses a word found nowhere else in the Bible. Strong's describes the verb as derived from Tartarus, "the deepest abyss of Hades," and defines it as "to incarcerate in eternal torment." The KJV renders it "cast them down to hell." Peter uses it only of the angels that sinned.

For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;

2 Peter 2:4
KJV

Jude says the same of the angels "which kept not their first estate," held "in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day" (Jude 6). Scripture says no more about the place than this, and nothing more should be guessed. Its point is the point Peter draws: if God spared not angels, He will not spare the ungodly, and He knows how to deliver the godly (2 Peter 2:9). Matthew Henry noted that their sentence is not yet complete: "The sinning angels, though in hell already, are yet reserved to the judgment of the great day." On their fall, see The Fall of the Angels.

The Lake of Fire: The Last Word

The lake⁸ of fire appears in five verses, all in Revelation. The beast and the false prophet are cast alive into it (Revelation 19:20), then the devil, to be "tormented day and night for ever and ever" (Revelation 20:10). Then the dead stand before the great white throne.

And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

Revelation 20:13-15
KJV

Here the Bible's words for the grave and hell meet. The sea and Hades give up their dead for the judgment, and Hades, the holding place, comes to an end: it is cast into the lake. What remains is the final state, and John gives it its own name, the second death (Revelation 21:8). Jesus spoke of the same end when He said the King will send the cursed "into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matthew 25:41). Matthew Henry wrote that the redeemed then enter eternal life, "having nothing more to fear from death, or hell, or wicked men; for these are all destroyed together." On the judgment itself, see The Final Judgment (The Great White Throne).

Everlasting Punishment

The historic Christian teaching, from Jerome and Gregory to Matthew Henry, is that the judgment of the lost is conscious and has no end. It rests on the Lord's own words at the close of His teaching on the sheep and the goats.

And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

Matthew 25:46
KJV

The word for punishment⁹ is a word for penalty, rendered elsewhere torment. The same Greek adjective, everlasting¹⁰, describes both the punishment and the life, and the KJV renders it "everlasting" in the first clause and "eternal" in the second. As long as the life of the righteous lasts, so long the punishment lasts. Jerome put it in one sentence: "Let the thoughtful reader observe that punishments are eternal, and that that continuing life has thenceforward no fear of fall." Revelation says the same of the devil's torment, "for ever and ever." Those who read destroy in Matthew 10:28 as an end of existence must set it beside this verse, and the reading of the church is followed here because the Lord made the two clauses equal.

This doctrine is to be held with sobriety, not with relish. God has said, "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live" (Ezekiel 33:11). Gregory the Great (604) wrote that "Almighty God, seeing He is good, does not delight in the torments of the wretched; but forasmuch as He is righteous, He ceases not from taking vengeance on the wicked." Every warning about Gehenna was spoken while there was still time to heed it, by the One who went to the cross to bear the sins of those who would believe. Abraham's answer to the rich man still stands for his brothers and for every reader: "They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them" (Luke 16:29). For the doctrine at greater length, see The Doctrine of Hell.

The Keys in Christ's Hand

When John fell at the feet of the risen Christ on Patmos, the Lord laid His right hand on him and spoke.

And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.

Revelation 1:17-18
KJV

Here the word is Hades. The place of the dead is not a kingdom ruled by the devil; its keys are in the hand of the Lord who died and rose. Bede wrote of this verse: "He says, not only have I conquered death by resurrection; but I also have dominion over death itself." Matthew Henry called it "a sovereign dominion in and over the invisible world." The Christ who holds those keys is the One who will judge, and the One who saves.

For those who belong to Him, death is no longer a going down into the dark. Jesus told the dying thief, "To day shalt thou be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43). Paul, facing death in prison, could not choose between living and dying, because both were Christ.

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not. For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better:

Philippians 1:21-23
KJV

Paul wrote elsewhere that to be absent from the body is "to be present with the Lord" (2 Corinthians 5:8). Ambrose of Milan (397) described the believer's death as the moment "while the soul for its part is turned toward its rest and made free, if it be faithful, 'to be with Christ'". The body waits for the resurrection, and on that day Hosea's promise and Paul's song are fulfilled together: "O grave, where is thy victory?" For more on what happens between death and that day, see The Intermediate State: What Happens When We Die? and The Christian's Hope in Death.

Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, Tartarus and the lake of fire are all words for places a believer will never need to fear. The Lord who spoke the warnings also holds the keys, and He has gone through death and come out alive for evermore.