FOUR WORDS TRANSLATED HELL
In the Bible four words are translated Hell:
the Hebrew word Sheol, in the original Old testament; its equivalent, the
Greek word Hadees, in the Septuagint; and in the New Testament, Hadees,
Gehenna and Tartarus.
The Hebrew Old Testament, some three hundred
years before the Christian era, was translated into Greek, but of the
sixty-four instances where Sheol occurs in the Hebrew, it is rendered
Hadees in the Greek sixty times, so that either word is the equivalent of
the other. But neither of these words is ever used in the Bible to signify
punishment after death, nor should the word Hell ever be used as the
rendering of Sheol or Hadees for neither word denotes post-mortem torment.
According to the Old Testament the words Sheol, Hadees primarily signify
only the place, or state of the dead. The character of those who departed
thither did not affect their situation in Sheol, for all went into the
same state. The word cannot be translated by the term Hell, for that would
make Jacob expect to go to a place of torment, and prove that the Savior
of the world, David, Jonah, etc., were once sufferers in the prison-house
of the damned. In every instance in the Old Testament, the word grave
might be substituted for the term hell, either in a literal or figurative
sense. The word being a proper name should always have been left
untranslated. Had it been carried into the Greek Septuagint, and thence
into the English, untranslated, Sheol, a world of misconception would have
been avoided, for when it is rendered Hadees, all the materialism of the
heathen mythology is suggested to the mind, and when rendered Hell, the
medieval monstrosities of a Christianity corrupted by heathen
adulterations is suggested. Had the word been permitted to travel
untranslated, no one would give to it the meaning now so often applied to
it. Sheol, primarily, literally, the grave, or death, secondarily and
figuratively the political, social, moral or spiritual consequences of
wickedness in the present world, is the precise force of the term,
wherever found.
Sheol occurs exactly sixty-four times and is
translated hell thirty-two times, pit three times, and grave twenty-nine
times. Dr. George Campbell, a celebrated critic, says that "Sheol
signifies the state of the dead in general, without regard to the goodness
or badness of the persons, their happiness or misery."
Professor Stuart (orthodox Congregational)
only dares claim five out of the sixty-four passages as affording any
proof that the word means a place of punishment after death. "These," he
says, "may designate the future world of woe." "They spend their days in
wealth, and in a moment go down to Sheol." "The wicked shall be turned
into Sheol, and all the nations that forget God." "Her feet go down to
death, her steps take hold of Sheol." "But he knoweth that the ghosts are
there, and that her guests are in the depths of Sheol." "Thou shalt beat
him with a rod, and shall deliver his soul from Sheol. He observes: "The
meaning will be a good one, if we suppose Sheol to designate future
punishment." "I concede, to interpret all the texts which exhibit Sheol as
having reference merely to the grave, is possible; and therefore it is
possible to interpret" them "as designating a death violent and premature,
inflicted by the hand of Heaven."
An examination shows that these five passages
agree with the rest in their meaning:
Ps. 9:17: "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that
forget God." The wicked here are "the heathen," "mine enemies," i.e.; they
are not individuals, but "the nations that forget God," that is,
neighboring nations, the heathen. They will be turned into Sheol, death,
die as nations, for their wickedness. Individual sinners are not meant.
Professor Alexander, of the Theological
Seminary, Princeton, thus presents the correct translation of Ps. 9:17,
the only passage containing the word usually quoted from the Old Testament
to convey the idea of post-mortem punishment. "The wicked shall turn back,
even to hell, to death or to the grave, all nations forgetful of God. The
enemies of God and of his people shall not only be thwarted and repulsed,
but driven to destruction, and that not merely individuals, but nations."
Dr. Allen, of Bowdoin College says of this text: "The punishment expressed
in this passage is cutting off from life, destroying from the earth by
some special judgment, and removing to the invisible state of the dead.
The Hebrew term translated hell in the text does not seem to mean, with
any certainty, anything more than the state of the dead in their deep
abode." Professor Stuart: "It means a violent and premature death
inflicted by the hand of heaven." Job 21:13: "They spend their days in
wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave."
It would seem that no one could claim this
text as a threat of after-death punishment. It is a mere declaration of
sudden death. This is evident when we remember that it was uttered to a
people who, according to all authorities, believed in no punishment after
death.
Proverbs 5: 5: "her feet go down to death;
her steps take hold on hell." This language, making death and Sheol
parallel, announces that the strange woman walks in paths of swift and
inevitable sorrow and death. And so does Prov. 9:18: "But he knoweth not
that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell."
Sheol is here used as a figure of emblem of the horrible condition and
fate of those who follow the ways of sin. They are dead while they live.
They are already in Sheol or the kingdom of death.
Proverbs 23: 13-14: "Withhold not correction
from the child; for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.
Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell."
Sheol is here used as the grave, to denote the death that rebellious
children experience early, or it may mean that moral condition of the soul
which Sheol, the realm of death signifies. But in no case is it supposable
that it means a place or condition of after-death punishment in which, as
all scholars agree, Solomon was not a believer.
The real meaning of the word Stuart concedes
to be the under-world, the religion of the dead, the grave, the sepulcher,
the region of ghosts or departed spirits. (Ex. Ess.): "It was considered
as a vast and wide dominion or region, of which the grave seems to have
been as it were only a part or a kind of entrance-way. It appears to have
been regarded as extending deep down into the earth, even to its lowest
abysses. . . . . In this boundless region lived and moved at times, the
names of departed friends."
But these five passages teach no such
doctrine as he thinks they may teach. The unrighteous possessor of wealth
goes down to death; the nations that forget God are destroyed as nations;
lewd women's steps lead downward to death; their guests are on the
downward road; the rod that wisely corrects the unruly child, saves him
from the destruction of sin. There is no hint of an endless hell, nor of a
post-mortem hell in these passages, and if not in these five then it is
conceded it is in no passage containing the word.
That the Hebrew Sheol never designates a
place of punishment in a future state of existence, we have the testimony
of the most learned of scholars, even among the so-called orthodox. We
quote the testimony of a few:
Rev. Dr. Whitby: "Sheol throughout the Old
Testament, signifies not a place of punishment for the souls of bad men
only, but the grave, or place of death." Dr Chapman: "Sheol, in itself
considered has no connection with future punishment." Dr. Allen: "The term
Sheol itself, does not seem to mean anything more than the state of the
dead in their dark abode." Dr. Firbairn, of the College of Glasgow:
"Beyond doubt, Sheol, like Hades, was regarded as the abode after death,
alike of the good and the bad." Edward Leigh, who says Horne's,
"Introduction," was "one of the most learned understanding of the original
languages of the Scriptures," observes that "all learned Hebrew scholars
know the Hebrews have no proper word for hell, as we take hell."
Prof. Stuart: "There can be no reasonable
doubt that Sheol does most generally mean the underworld, the grave or
sepulchre, the world of the dead. It is very clear that there are many
passages where no other meaning can reasonably be assigned to it.
Accordingly, our English translators have rendered the word Sheol grave in
thirty instances out of the whole sixty-four instances in which it
occurs."
Dr. Thayer in his Theology of Universalism
quotes as follows: Dr. Whitby says that Hell "throughout the Old Testament
signifies the grave only or the place of death." Archbishop Whately: "As
for a future state of retribution in another world, Moses said nothing to
the Israelites about that." Milman says that Moses "maintains a profound
silence on the rewards and punishments of another life." Bishop Warburton
testifies that, "In the Jewish Republic, both the rewards and punishments
promised by Heaven were temporal only-such as health, long life, peace,
plenty and dominion, etc., diseases, premature death, war, famine, want,
subjections, captivity, etc. And in no one place of the Mosaic Institutes
is there the least mention, or any intelligible hint, of the rewards and
punishments of another life." Paley declares that the Mosaic dispensation
"dealt in temporal rewards and punishments. The blessings consisted
altogether of worldly benefits, and the curses of worldly punishments.
Prof. Mayer says, that "the rewards promised the righteous, and the
punishments threatened the wicked, are such only as are awarded in the
present state of being." Jahn, whose work is the textbook of the Andover
Theological Seminary, says, "We have no authority, therefore, decidedly to
say, that any other motives were held out to the ancient Hebrews to pursue
good and avoid evil, than those which were derived from the rewards and
punishments of this life." To the same important fact testify Prof. Wines,
Bush, Arnauld, and other distinguished theologians and scholars. "All
learned Hebrew scholars know that the Hebrews have no word proper for
hell, as we take hell."
[Footnote: Encyc. Britan.,
vol. 1. Dis. 3 Whateley's "Peculiarities of the Christian Religion," p.44,
2d edition, and his "Scripture Revelations of a Future State," pp. 18, 19,
American edition. MILMAN'S "Hist. of Jews," vol. 1, 117. "Divine
Legation," vol. 3, pp. 1, 2 & c. 10th London edition. PALEY'S works, vol.
5. p. 110, Sermon 13. Jahn's "Archaeology," 324. Lee, in his
"Eschatology," says: "It should be remembered that the rewards and
punishments of the Mosaic Institutes were exclusively temporal. Not an
allusion is found, in the case of either individuals or communities, in
which reference is made to the good or evil of a future state as motive to
obedience."]
Dr. Muenscher, author of a Dogmatic History
in German, says: "The souls or shades of the dead wander in Sheol, the
realm or kingdom of death, an abode deep under the earth. Thither go all
men, without distinction, and hope for no return. There ceases all pain
and anguish; there reigns an unbroken silence; there all is powerless and
still; and even the praise of God is heard no more." Von Coelln: "Sheol
itself is described as the house appointed for all living, which receives
into its bosom all mankind, without distinction of rank, wealth or moral
character. It is only in the mode of death, and not in the condition after
death, that the good are distinguished above the evil. The just, for
instance, die in peace, and are gently borne away before the evil comes;
while a bitter death breaks the wicked like as a tree."
Consult the passages in which the word is
rendered grave, and substitute the original word Sheol, and it will be
seen that the meaning is far better preserved: Gen. 37: 34-35: "And Jacob
rent his clothes, and put sack-cloth upon his loins, and mourned for his
son many days. And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort
him; but he refused to be comforted; and he said, For I will go down into
the grave unto my son mourning. Thus his father wept for him." It was not
into the literal grave, but into the realm of the dead, where Jacob
supposed his son to have gone, into which he wished to go, namely, to
Sheol.
Gen. 42:38 and 44: 31, are to the same
purport: "And he said, My son shall not go down with you; for his brother
is dead, and he is left alone: if mischief befall him by the way in the
which ye go, then shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the
grave." "It shall come to pass, when he seeth that the lad is not with us,
that he will die: and thy servants shall bring down the gray hairs of thy
servant our father with sorrow to the grave." The literal grave may be
meant here, but had Sheol remained untranslated, any reader would have
understood the sense intended.
I Samuel 2: 6: "The Lord killeth, and maketh
alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up." I Kings 2: 6-9:
"Do therefore according to thy wisdom, and let not his hoar head go down
to the grave in peace. Now therefore hold him not guiltless: for thou art
a wise man, and knowest what thou oughtest to do unto him; but his hoar
head bring thou down to the grave with blood." Job 7: 9: "As the cloud is
consumed and vanisheth away: so he that goeth down to the grave shall come
up no more." Job 14: 13: "Oh that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that
thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest
appoint me a set time, and remember me."
Of Korah and his company, it is said, "They
and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the
earth closed over them, and they perished from among the
congregation."-Num. 16: 33. Job 17: 13-14: "If I wait, the grave is mine
house: I have made my bed in the darkness. I have said to corruption, Thou
art my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister." Job 21:
13: "They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the
grave." Job 33: 21-22: "His flesh is consumed away, that it cannot be
seen: and his bones that were not seen stick out. Yea, his soul draweth
near unto the grave, and his lie to the destroyers." Ps. 6: 5: "In the
grave who shall give thee thanks?" Ps. 30: 3: "O Lord, thou hast brought
up my soul from the grave: thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go
down to the pit." Ps. 88: 3: "For my soul is full of troubles, and my soul
draweth nigh to the grave." Prov. 1: 12: "Let us swallow them up alive as
the grave." Ps. 20: 3: "In the grave who shall give thee thanks?" Ps. 141:
7: "Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth." Song Sol. 8: 6:
"Jealousy is cruel as the grave." Ecc. 9: 10: "There is no work, nor
device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest." Isa.
38: 18: "For the grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee:
they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth." Hos. 14: 14: "I
will ransom them from the power of the grave-O grave, I will be thy
destruction." Job 33: 22: "His soul (man's) draweth near unto the grave."
I Kings 2: 9: "But his hoar head bring thou down to the grave with blood."
Job 24: 19: "Drought and heat consume the snow-waters; so doth the grave
those which have sinned." Psalm 6: 5: "For in death there is no
remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks." Psalm 31:
17: "Let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave."
Psalm 89: 48: "What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? shall
he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave? Prov. 30:16: "The grave;
and the barren womb; the earth that is not filled with water; and the fire
that saith not. It is enough." Isa. 14: 11: "Thy pomp is brought down to
the grave, and the noise of thy viols; the worm is spread under thee, and
the worms cover thee." On Isa. 38: 18: "For the Grave (Sheol, Hadees)
cannot praise thee; death cannot celebrate thee; they that go down into
the pit cannot hope for thy truth." Prof. Stuart says: "I regard the
simple meaning of this controverted place (and of others like it, e.g.,
Ps. 6: 5; 30: 9; 88: 11; 115: 7; Comp. 118: 17) as being this namely, "The
dead can no more give thanks to God nor celebrate his praise among the
living on earth, etc." And he properly observes (pp. 113-14): "It is to be
regretted that our English translation has given occasion to the remark
that those who made it have intended to impose on their readers in any
case a sense different from that of the original Hebrew. The inconstancy
with which they have rendered the word Sheol even in cases of the same
nature, must obviously afford some apparent ground for this objection
against their version of it."
Why the word should have been rendered grave
and pit in the foregoing passages, and hell in the rest, cannot be
explained. Why it is not grave or hell, or better still Sheol or Hadees in
all cases, no one can explain, for there is no valid reason.
The first time the word is found translated
Hell in the Bible is in Deut. 32: 22-26: "For a fire is kindled in mine
anger, and shall burn unto the lowest Hell, Sheol-Hadees, and shall
consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of
the mountains. I will heap mishiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows
upon them. They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning
heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts
upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust. The sword without and
terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the
suckling also with the man of gray hairs. I said, I would scatter them
into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among
men."
Thus the lowest Hell is on earth, and its
torments consist in such pains as are only possible in this life:
"hunger," "the teeth of beasts," "the poison of serpents," "the sword,"
etc.; and not only are real offenders to suffer them, but even "sucklings"
are to be involved in the calamity. If endless torment is denoted by the
word, infant damnation follows, for into this hell "the suckling and the
man of gray hairs go," side by side. The scattering and destruction of the
Israelites, in this world, is the meaning of fire in the lowest hell, as
any reader can see by carefully consulting the chapter containing this
first instance of the use of the word.
Similar to this are the teachings wherever
the word occurs in the Old Testament: "For thou wilt not leave my soul in
Hell nor suffer thine holy one to see corruption." Ps. 16:10. Here
"corruption" is placed parallel with Sheol, or death.
"Though they dig into Hell, thence shall my
hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them
down." Amos 9:2. "If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my
bed in Hell, behold, thou art there." Ps. 139: 8. "It is as high as
heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than Hell; what canst thou know." Job
11:8 The sky and the depths of the earth are here placed in opposition, to
represent height and depth. A place of torment after death was never
thought of by any of those who use the word in the Old Testament.
If the word means a place of endless
punishment, then David was a monster. Ps. 55:15: "Let death seize upon
them, and let them go down quick into Sheol-Hadees!"
Job desired to go there. 14:13: "Oh, that
thou wouldst hide me in Sheol-Hadees.
Hezekiah expected to go there.-Isa 38:10: "I
said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of
Sheol-Hadees.
Korah, Dathan and Abiram (Numbers 16: 30-33)
not only went there "but their houses, and goods, and all that they
owned," "and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up, and their
houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods.
They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into Sheol-Hadees,
and the earth closed upon them; and they perished from among the
congregation." It is in the dust-Job 17: 16: "They shall go down to the
bars of Sheol-Hadees, when our rest together is in the dust."
It has a mouth, is in fact the grave, see Ps.
141: 7: "Our bones are scattered at Sheol's-Hadees' mouth , as when one
cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth."
It has gray hairs, Gen. 42: 38: "And he said,
my son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he is left
alone: if mischief befall him by the way in which ye go, then shall ye
bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol-Hadees."
The overthrow of the King of Babylon is
called Hell.-Isa. 14: 9-15, 22-23: "Hell, Sheol-Hadees, from beneath is
moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming; it stirreth up the dead for
thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their
thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall speak and say unto
thee, art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us? Thy
pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols; the worm is
spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. For I will rise up against
them saith the Lord of hosts, and cut off from Babylon the name, and
remnant, and son, and nephew, saith the Lord. I will also make it a
possession for the bittern, and pools of water; and I will sweep it with
the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of hosts." All this imagery
demonstrates temporal calamity, a national overthrow as the signification
of the word Hell.
The captivity of the Jews is called Hell.-Isa.
5: 13-14: "Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have
no knowledge; and their honorable men are famished, and their multitude
dried up with thirst. Therefore Sheol- Hadees, hath enlarged herself, and
opened her mouth without measure; and their glory, and their multitude,
and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it.
Temporal overthrow is called Hell.-Ps. 49:
14: "Likesheep they are laid in the grave, death shall feed on them; and
the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty
shall consume in Sheol-Hadees, from their dwelling." Ezek. 32: 26-27: "And
they shall not lie with the mighty that are fallen of the uncircumcised,
which are gone down to Sheol-Hadees with their weapons of war, and they
have laid their swords under their heads." Men are in hell with their
swords under their heads. This cannot mean a state of conscious suffering.
Hell is to be destroyed. Hos. 13: 14: "Oh
grave I will be thy destruction." I Cor. 15: 55: "Oh grave I will be thy
destruction." Rev. 20: 13,14: "And death and Hell delivered up the dead
which were in them, and death and Hell were cast into the lake of fire."
Sheol is precisely the same word as Saul. If
it meant Hell, would any Hebrew parent have called his child Sheol? Think
of calling a boy Sheol (Hell)!
Nowhere in the Old Testament does the word
Sheol, or its Greek equivalent, Hadees, ever denote a place or condition
of suffering after death; it either means literal death or temporal
calamity. This is clear as we consult the usage.
Hence David, after having been in Hell was
delivered from it: Ps. 18: 5; 30: 3: "O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul
from the grave; thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the
pit. When the waves of death compassed me the floods of ungodly men made
me afraid." "The sorrows of Hell, Sheol-Hadees compassed me about; the
snares of death prevented me," so that there is escape from Hell."
Jonah was in a fish only seventy hours, and
declared he was in hell forever. He escaped from Hell. Jon. 2: 2, 6: "Out
of the belly of Hell (Sheol-Hadees) cried I, and thou heardest my voice,
earth with her bars was about me forever." Even an eternal Hell lasted but
three days.
It is a place where God is and therefore must
be an instrumentality of mercy. Ps. 139: 8: "If I make my bed In Hell (Sheol-Hadees),
behold thou art there."
Men having gone into it are redeemed from it.
I Sam. 2: 6: "The Lord killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the
grave (Sheol-Hadees) and bringeth up."
Jacob wished to go there.-Gen. 37: 35: "I
will go down into the grave Hades unto my son mourning."
Besides the passages already given, we now
record all the other places in which the word Sheol-Hadees, occurs. It is
translated Hell in the following passages: Ps. 86: 13: "Thou hast
delivered my soul from the lowest Hell." Ps. 156: 3: "The pains of Hell
got hold on me: I found trouble and sorrow." Prov. 15: 11, 24: "Hell and
destruction are before the Lord. The way of life is above to the wise,
that he may depart from Hell beneath." Prov. 23: 14: "Thou shalt beat him,
and deliver his soul from Hell." Prov. 27: 20: "Hell and destruction are
never full; so the eyes of man are never satisfied." Isa. 28: 15, 18:
"Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with Hell
are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it
shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under
falsehood have we hid ourselves. And your covenant with death shall be
disannulled, and your agreement with Hell shall not stand; when the
overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by
it." Isaiah 57: 9: "Thou didst debase thyself even unto hell." Ezek. 31:
16-17: "I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast
him down to Hell with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of
Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, shall be
comforted in the nether parts of the earth. They also went down into Hell
with him, unto them that be slain with the sword; and they that were his
arm, that dwelt under his shadow in the midst of the heathen." Jonah says,
"Out of the belly of Hell cried I, and thou heardest me."-Jon. 2: 2. Hab.
2: 5: "Yea, also because he transgresseth by wine, he is a proud man
neither keepeth at home, who enlargeth his desire as Hell and is as death,
and cannot be satisfied."
We believe we have recorded every passage in
which the word Sheol-Hadees occurs. Suppose the original word stood, and
we read Sheol or Hadees in all the passages instead of Hell, would any
unbiassed reader regard the word as conveying the idea of a place or state
of endless torment after death, such as the English word Hell is so
generally supposed to denote? Such a doctrine was never held by the
ancient Jews, until after the Babylonish captivity, during which they
acquired it of the heathen. All scholars agree that Moses never taught it,
and that it is not contained in the Old Testament.
Thus not one of the sixty-four passages
containing the only word rendered Hell in the entire Old Testament,
teaches any such thought as is commonly supposed to be contained in the
English word Hell. It should have stood the proper name of the realm of
death, Sheol.
-
Men in
the Bible are said to be in hell, Sheol-Hadees, and in "The lowest
hell," while on earth. Deut. 32: 22; Jon. 2: 2; Rev. 6: 8.
-
Men
have been in Hell, Sheol-Hadees, and yet have escaped from it. Ps. 18:
5, 6; II Sam. ; Jon 2: 2; Ps. 116: 3; 86: 12-13. Ps. 30: 3; Rev. 20: 13.
-
God
delivers men from Hell, Sheol-Hadees. I Sam. 2: 6.
-
All men
are to go there. No one can escape the Bible Hell, Sheol-Hadees. Ps. 89:
48.
-
There
can be no evil there for there is no kind of work there. Eccl. 9: 10.
-
Christ's soul was said to be in Hell, Sheol-Hadees. Acts 2: 27-28.
-
No one
in the Bible ever speaks of Hell, Sheol-Hadees as a place of punishment
after death.
-
It is a
way of escape from punishment. Amos 9: 2.
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The
inhabitants of Hell, Sheol-Hadees are eaten of worms, vanish and are
consumed away. Job 7: 9, 21; Ps. 49: 14.
-
Hell,
Sheol-Hadees is a place of rest. Job 17: 16.
-
It is a
realm of unconsciousness. Ps. 6: 5; Is. 38: 18; Eccl. 9: 10.
-
All men
will be delivered from this Hell. Hos. 13: 14.
-
Hell,
Sheol-Hadees, will be destroyed. Hos. 13: 14; I Cor. 15: 55; Rev. 20:
14.
At the time these declarations were made, and
universally accepted by the Hebrews, the surrounding nations all held
entirely different doctrines. Egypt, Greece, Rome, taught that after death
there is a fate in store for the wicked that exactly resembles that taught
by so-called orthodox Christians. But the entire Old testament is utterly
silent on the subject, teaching nothing of the sort as the sixty-four
passages we have quoted show and as the critics of all churches admit. And
yet "Moses was learned in all the wisdom in all the wisdom of the
Egyptians" (Acts 7: 22) who believed in a world of torment after death. If
Moses knew all about this Egyptian doctrine, and did not teach it to his
followers, what is the unavoidable inference?
Dr. Strong says, that not only Moses, but
"every Israelite who came out of Egypt, must have been fully acquainted
with the universally recognized doctrine of future rewards and
punishments." And yet Moses is utterly silent on the subject.
Dr. Thayer remarks: "Is it possible to
imagine a more conclusive proof against the divine origin of the doctrine?
If he had believed it to be of God, if he had believed in endless torments
as the doom of the wicked after death, and had received this as a
revelation from heaven, could he have passed it over in silence? Would he
have dared to conceal it, or treat so terrible a subject with such marked
contempt? And what motive could he have had for doing this? I cannot
conceive of a more striking evidence of the fact that the doctrine is not
of God. He knew whence the monstrous dogma came, and he had seen enough of
Egypt already, and would have no more of her cruel superstitions; and so
he casts this out, with her abominable idolatries, as false and unclean
things."
So that while the Old Testament talks of ten
thousand things of small importance, it has not a syllable nor a whisper
of what ought to have been told first of all and most of all and
continually. No one is said to have gone to such a place as is now denoted
by the word Hell, or to be going to it, or saved from it, or exposed to
it. To say that the Hell taught by partialist Christians existed before
Christ, is to accuse God of having permitted his children for four
thousand years to tumble into it by millions, without a word of warning
from him. Earth was a flowery path, concealing pitfalls into infinite
burnings, and God never told one of his children a word about it. For four
thousand years then the race got on with no knowledge of a place of
torment after death. When was the fact first made known? And if it was not
necessary to the wickedest people the world ever knew, when did it become
necessary?
The future world as revealed in the Old
Testament is a conscious existence never described as a place or state of
punishment. Prof. Stuart well calls it "the region of umbra or ghosts. It
was considered as a vast and wide domain or region of which the grave was
only a part or a kind of entrance-way. It appears to have been regarded as
extending deep down into the earth, even to the lowest abysses. In this
boundless region lived and moved at times the manes (or ghosts) of
departed friends."
Bishop Lowth: "In the under-world of the
Hebrews there is something peculiarly grand and awful. It was an immense
region, a vast subterranean kingdom, involved in thick darkness filled
with deep valleys, and shut up with strong gates; and from it there was no
possibility of escape. Thither whole hosts of men went down at once;
heroes and armies with their trophies of victory; kings and their people
were found there where they had a shadowy sort of existence as manes or
ghosts neither entirely spiritual nor entirely material, engaged in the
employments of their earthly life though destitute of strength and
physical substance." All was shadowy and unreal beyond death until Christ
came and brought immortality to light through his Gospel.
Whitby on Acts 2: 27: "That Sheol throughout
the Old Testament, and Hadees in the Septuagint, answering to it, signify
not the place of punishment, or of the souls of bad men only, but the
grave only, or the place of death appears, first, from the root of it,
Sheol, which signifies to ask, to crave and require. Second, because it is
the place to which the good as well as the bad go, etc."
During all the time that generations
following generations of Jews were entertaining the ideas taught in these
sixty-four passages, the surrounding heathen believed in future, endless
torment. The literature is full of it. Says Good in his "Book of Nature":
"It was believed in most countries 'that this Hell, Hadees, or invisible
world, is divided into two very distinct and opposite regions, by a broad
and impassable gulf; that the one is a seat of happiness, a paradise or
elysium, and the other a seat of misery, a Gehenna or Tartarus; and that
there is a supreme magistrate and an impartial tribunal belonging to the
infernal shades, before which the ghosts must appear, and by which they
are sentenced to the one or the other, according to the deeds done in the
body. Egypt is said to have been the inventress of this important and
valuable part of the tradition; and undoubtedly it is to be found in the
earliest records of Egyptian history.' [It should be observed that Gehenna
was not used before Christ, or until 150 A. D. to denote a place of future
punishment."]
Homer sings:
"Here in a
lonely land, and gloomy cells, The dusky nation of Cimmeria dwells; The
sun ne'er views the uncomfortable seats, When radiant he advances or
retreats. Unhappy race! whom endless night invades, Clouds the dull air,
and wraps them round in shades."
Virgil says:
"The gates
of Hell are open night and day; Smooth the descent, and easy is the way."
Just in the gate, and in the jaws of Hell, Revengeful Cares and sullen
Sorrows dwell, And pale Diseases, and repining Age, Want, Fear, and
Famine's unresisted rage; Here Toils, and Death, and Death's half-brother
Sleep Forms terrible to view, their sentry keep; With anxious pleasures of
a guilty mind, Deep Frauds before, and open Force behind; The Furies' iron
beds; and Strife, that shakes Her hissing tresses, and unfolds her snakes.
Full in the midst of this infernal road, An elm displays her dusky arms
abroad;-- The god of sleep there bides his heavy head; And empty dreams on
ev'ry leaf are spread. Of various forms unnumbered spectres more,
Centaurs, and double shapes, besiege the door. Before the passage horrid
Hydra stands, And Briarius with his hundred hands; Gorgons, Geryon with
his tripe frame; And vain Chimera vomits empty flame."
Dr. Anthon says, "As regards the analogy
between the term Hadees and our English word Hell, it may be remarked that
the latter, in its primitive signification, perfectly corre-sponded to the
former. For, at first, it denoted only what was secret or concealed; and
it is found, moreover, with little variation of form and precisely with
the same meaning in all the Teutonic dialects. The dead without
distinction of good or evil, age or rank, wander there conversing about
their former state on earth; they are unhappy and they feel their wretched
state acutely. They have no strength or power of body or mind. . . Nothing
can be more gloomy and comfortless than the whole aspect of the realm of
Hadees, as pictured by Homer."
The heathen sages admit that they invented
the doctrine. Says Polybius: "Since the multitude is ever fickle, full of
lawless desires, irrational passions and violence, there is no other way
to keep them in order but by the fear and terror of the invisible world;
on which account our ancestors seem to me to have acted judiciously, when
they contrived to bring into the popular belief these notions of the gods,
and of the infernal regions." B. vi. 56.
Strabo says: "The multitude are restrained
from vice by the punishments the gods are said to inflict upon offenders,
and by those terrors and threatenings which certain dreadful words and
monstrous forms imprint upon their minds. . . . For it is impossible to
govern the crowd of women, and all the common rabble, by philosophical
reasoning, and lead them to piety, holiness and virtue-but this must be
done by superstition, or the fear of the gods, by means of fables and
wonders; for the thunder, the aegis, the trident, the torches (Of the
Furies), the dragons, etc., are all fables, as is also all the ancient
theology." Geo. B. I. Seneca says: "Those things which make the infernal
regions terrible, the darkness, the prison, the river of flaming fire, the
judgment-seat, etc., are all a fable, with which the poets amuse
themselves, and by them agitate us with vain terrors." How near these
superstitious horrors--these heathen inventions--
has sometimes been, may be seen by quoting
the following testimonies. Do they resemble anything in the Old Testament?
Do they not exactly copy the heathen descriptions? Whence came these idea?
They are not found in the Old Testament? And yet the world was full of
them when Christ came. Read the verse of Pollok as lurid and blasphemous
as it is vigorous:
Wide was
the place,
And deep as wide, and ruinous as deep.
Beneath I saw a lake of burning fire,
With tempest tost perpetually, and still
The waves of fiery darkness, gainst the rocks
Of dark damnation broke, and music made
Of melancholy sort; and over head,
And all around, wind warred with wind, storm howled
To storm, and lightning forked lightning, crossed,
And thunder answered thunder, muttering sound
Of sullen wrath; and far as sight could pierce,
Or down descend in caves of hopeless depth,
Thro' all that dungeon of unfading fire,
I saw most miserable beings walk,
Burning continually, yet unconsumed;
Forever wasting, yet enduring still;
Dying perpetually, yet never dead.
Some wandered lonely in the desert flames,
And some in fell encounter fiercely met,
With curses loud, and blasphemies, that made
The cheek of darkness pale; and as they fought,
And cursed, and gnashed their teeth, and wished to die
Their hollow eyes did utter streams of wo.
And there were groans that ended not, and sighs
That always sighed, and tears that ever wept,
And ever fell, but not in Mercy's sight
And Sorrow, and Repentance, and Despair,
Among them walked, and to their thirsty lips
Presented frequent cups of burning gall.
And as I listened, I heard these being curse
Almighty God, and curse the Lamb, and curse
The Earth, the Resurrection morn, and seek,
And ever vainly seek for utter death.
And to their everlasting anguish still,
The thunders from above responding spoke
These words, which thro' the caverns of perdition
Forlornly echoing, fell on every ear-
"Ye knew your duty but ye did it not" * * *
The place thou saw'st was Hell; the groans thou heard'st
The wailings of the damned-of those who would
Not be redeemed-and at the judgment day,
Long past for unrepented sins were damned.
The seven loud thunders which thou heard'st, declare
The eternal wrath of the Almighty God.
* * There in utter darkness, far
Remote, I beings saw forlorn in wo.
Burning, continually yet unconsumed.
And there were groans that ended not, and sighs
That always sighed, and tears that ever wept
And ever fell, but not in Mercy's sight;
And still I heard these wretched beings curse
Almighty God, and curse the Lamb, and curse
The Earth, the Resurrection morn, and seek,
And ever vainly seek for utter death;
And from above the thunders answered still,
"Ye know your duty, but ye did it not."
Such descriptions are not confined to poetry.
Plain prose has sought to set forth the doctrine in words equally
repulsive and graphic. Rutherford, in his "Religious Letters," declares
that hereafter "Tongue, lungs and liver, bones and all shall boil and fry
in a torturing fire,--a river of fire and brimstone, broader than the
earth!"
Boston, in his 'Fourfold State,' says: "There
will be universal torments, every part of the creature being tormented in
that flame. When one is cast into a fiery furnace, the fire makes its way
into the very bowels, and leaves no member untouched; what part then can
have ease when the damned sinner is in a lake of fire, burning with
brimstone?"
Buckle, in his "Civilization in England,"
thus sums up the popular doctrine: "In the pictures which they drew, they
reproduced and heightened the barbarous imagery of a barbarous age. They
delighted in telling their hearers that they would be roasted in great
fires and hung up by their tongues. They were to be lashed with scorpions,
and see their companions writhing and howling around them. They were to be
thrown into boiling oil and scalding lead. A river of brim-stone broader
than the earth was prepared for them; in that they were to be immersed. .
. Such were the first stages of suffering, and they were only the first.
For the torture besides being unceasing, was to become gradually worse. So
refined was the cruelty, that one Hell was succeeded by another; and, lest
the sufferer should grow callous, he was, after a time, moved on, that he
might undergo fresh agonies in fresh places, provision being made that the
torment should not pall on the sense, but should be varied in its
character as well as eternal in its duration.
"All this was the work of the God of the
Scotch clergy. It was not only his work, it was his joy and his pride.
For, according to them, Hell was created before man came into the word;
the Almighty, they did not scruple to say, having spent his previous
leisure in preparing and completing this place of torture, so that when
the human race appeared, it might be ready for their reception. Ample,
however, as the arrangements were, they were insufficient; and Hell not
being big enough to contain the countless victims incessantly poured into
it, had, in these latter days, been enlarged. But in that vast expanse
there was no void, for the whole of it reverberated with the shrieks and
yells of undying agony. Both children and fathers made Hell echo with
their piercing screams, writhing in convulsive agony at the torments which
they suffered, and knowing that other torments more grievous still were
reserved for them." And it was not an infinite Devil, but a just and
merciful God who was accused of having committed all this infernal
cruelty.
Michael Angelo's Last Judgment is an attempt
to de-scribe in paint, what was believed then and has been for centuries
since. Henry Ward Beecher thus refers to that great painting. (Plymouth
Pulpit, Oct. 29, 1870): "Let any one look at that; let any one see the
enormous gigantic coils of fiends and men; let any one look at the defiant
Christ that stands like a superb athlete at the front, hurling his enemies
from him and calling his friends toward him as Hercules might have done;
let any one look upon that hideous wriggling mass that goes plunging down
through the air-serpents and men and beasts of every nauseous kind, mixed
together; let him look at the lower parts of the picture, where with the
pitchforks men are by devils being cast into caldrons and into burning
fires, where hateful fiends are gnawing the skulls of suffering sinners,
and where there is hellish cannibalism going on-let a man look at that
picture and the scenes which it depicts, and he sees what were the ideas
which men once had of Hell and of divine justice. It was a night-mare as
hideous as was ever begotten by the hellish brood it-self; and it was an
atrocious slander on God. . . . I do not wonder that men have reacted from
these horrors-I honor them for it."
Tertullian says: "How shall I admire, how
laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many proud monarchs
groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness; so many magistrates liquifying
in fiercer flames than they ever kindled against the Christians; so many
sage philosophers blushing in red-hot fires with their deluded pupils; so
many tragedians more tuneful in the expression of their own sufferings; so
many dancers tripping more nimbly from anguish then ever before from
applause."
Jeremy Taylor, of the English Church, says:
"The bodies of the damned shall be crowded together in hell, like grapes
in a wine-press, which press one another till they burst; every distinct
sense and organ shall be assailed with its own appropriate and most
exquisite sufferings."
Calvin describes it: "Forever harassed with a
dreadful tempest, they shall feel themselves torn asunder by an angry God,
and transfixed and penetrated by mortal stings, terrified by the
thunderbolts of God, and broken by the weight of this hand, so that to
sink into any gulf would be more tolerable than to stand for a moment in
these terrors."
Jonathan Edwards said: "The world will
probably be converted into a great lake or liquid globe of fire, in which
the wicked shall be overwhelmed, which will always be in tempest, in which
they shall be tossed to and fro, having no rest day or night, vast waves
and billows of fire continually rolling over their heads, of which they
shall forever be full of a quick sense within and without; their heads,
their eyes, their tongues, their hands, their feet, their loins and their
vitals, shall forever be full of a flowing, melting fire, fierce enough to
melt the very rocks and elements; and, also, they shall eternally be full
of the most quick and lively sense to feel the torments; not for one
minute, not for one day, not for one age, not for two ages, not for a
hundred ages, nor for ten thousand millions of ages, one after another,
but forever and ever, without any end at all, and never to be delivered."
And Spurgeon uses this language even in our
own days: "When thou diest, they soul will be tormented alone: that will
be a hell for it, but at the day of judgment thy body will join thy soul,
and then thou wilt have twin hells, thy soul sweating drops of blood, and
thy body suffused with agony. In fire exactly like that which we have on
earth thy body will lie, asbestos-like, forever unconsumed, all thy veins
roads for the feet of pain to travel on, every nerve a string on which the
devil shall forever play his diabolical tun of Hell's Unutterable Lament."
"A Catholic Book for Children" says: "The
fifth dungeon is a red-hot oven in which is a little child. Hear how it
screams to come out! see how it turns and twists itself about in the fire!
It beats its head against the roof of the oven. It stamps its little feet
on the floor of the oven. To this child God was very good. Very likely God
saw that this child would get worse and worse, and would never repent, and
so it would have to be punished much worse in Hell. So God, in his mercy,
called it out of the world in its early childhood."
Now the horrible ideas we have just quoted
were not obtained from the Old Testament, and yet they were fully believed
by the Jew and Pagan when Christ came. Whence came these views? If the New
Testament teaches them, then Christ must have borrowed them from
uninspired heathen. What does the New Testament teach concerning Hell?
Within a few years Christians have quite
generally abandoned their faith in material torments, and have substituted
mental anguish, spiritual torture. But the torment, the anguish, the woe
and agony are only faintly hinted by any possible effect of literal fire.
The modification of opinion from literal fire to spiritual anguish, gives
no relief to the character of God, and renders the "orthodox" hell no less
revolting to every just and merciful feeling in the human heart, no less
dishonorable to God. It is woe unspeakable to millions, without
alleviation and without end, inflicted by a being called God, ordained by
him from the foundation of the world for those he foresaw, before their
birth, would inevitably suffer that woe, if he consented to their birth,
compelling his wretched children to cry for endless eons in the language
of Young (Night Thoughts): "Father of Mercies! why from silent earth Didst
thou awake and curse me into birth, Tear me from quiet, banish me from
night, And make a thankless present of Thy light, Push into being a
reverse of Thee And animate a clod with misery? This question never can be
answered. Good men groping in the eclipse of faith created by the false
doctrine of an endless Hell, have tried in vain to see or explain the
reason of it. Albert Barnes, (Presbyterian,) voices the real thought of
millions, when he says: "That any should suffer forever, lingering on in
hopeless despair, and rolling amidst infinite torments without the
possibility of alleviation and without end; that since God can save men
and will save a part, he has not proposed to save all-these are real, not
imaginary, difficulties. . . . My whole soul pants for light and relief on
these questions. But I get neither; and in the distress and anguish of my
own spirit, I confess that I see no light whatever. I see not one ray to
disclose to me why sin came into the world; why the earth is strewn with
the dying and the dead; and why man must suffer to all eternity. I have
never seen a particle of light thrown on these subjects, that has given a
moment's ease to my tortured min. . . . I confess, when I look on a world
of sinners and sufferers-upon death-beds and grave-yards-upon the world of
woe filled with hosts to suffer for ever: when I see my friends, my
family, my people, my fellow citizens when I look upon a whole race, all
involved in this sin and danger-and when I see the great mass of them
wholly unconcerned, and when I feel that God only can save them, and yet
he does not do so, I am stuck dumb. It is all dark, dark, dark to my soul,
and I cannot disguise it." |
