"Hell is never mentioned in the Old Testament." True?

Question

"Mahal" wrote this to a question I had about OT God sending people to Hell. Don't know if it's true, but that would be interesting...

Answer 1

False.

It's talked about in Job.

Job 31:12 (NLT)
It is a fire that burns all the way to hell. It would wipe out everything I own.

NKJV

Deuteronomy 32:22
For a fire is kindled in My anger,And shall burn to the lowest hell; It shall consume the earth with her increase, And set on fire the foundations of the mountains.
Deuteronomy 32:21-23 (in Context)

Psalm 9:17
[ Meditation. Selah ] The wicked shall be turned into hell,And all the nations that forget God.
Psalm 9:16-18 (in Context)

Psalm 55:15
Let death seize them;Let them go down alive into hell, For wickedness is in their dwellings and among them.
Psalm 55:14-16 (in Context)

Psalm 139:8
If I ascend into heaven, You are there;If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.
Psalm 139:7-9 (in Context)

Proverbs 5:5
Her feet go down to death, Her steps lay hold of hell.
Proverbs 5:4-6 (in Context)

Proverbs 7:27
Her house is the way to hell, Descending to the chambers of death.
Proverbs 7:26-27 (in Context)

Proverbs 9:18
But he does not know that the dead are there, That her guests are in the depths of hell.
Proverbs 9:17-18 (in Context)

Proverbs 15:11
Hell and Destruction are before the LORD; So how much more the hearts of the sons of men.
Proverbs 15:10-12 (in Context)

Proverbs 15:24
The way of life winds upward for the wise, That he may turn away from hell below.
Proverbs 15:23-25 (in Context)

Proverbs 23:14
You shall beat him with a rod, And deliver his soul from hell.
Proverbs 23:13-15 (in Context)

Proverbs 27:20
Hell and Destruction are never full; So the eyes of man are never satisfied. Proverbs 27:19-21 (in Context)

Isaiah 14:9
“ Hell from beneath is excited about you, To meet you at your coming; It stirs up the dead for you, All the chief ones of the earth; It has raised up from their thrones All the kings of the nations.
Isaiah 14:8-10 (in Context)

Ezekiel 31:15
“Thus says the Lord GOD: ‘In the day when it went down to hell, I caused mourning. I covered the deep because of it. I restrained its rivers, and the great waters were held back. I caused Lebanon to mourn for it, and all the trees of the field wilted because of it.
Ezekiel 31:14-16 (in Context)

Ezekiel 31:16
I made the nations shake at the sound of its fall, when I cast it down to hell together with those who descend into the Pit; and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, were comforted in the depths of the earth.
Ezekiel 31:15-17 (in Context)

Ezekiel 31:17
They also went down to hell with it, with those slain by the sword; and those who were its strong arm dwelt in its shadows among the nations.
Ezekiel 31:16-18 (in Context)

Ezekiel 32:21
The strong among the mighty Shall speak to him out of the midst of hell With those who help him: ‘ They have gone down, They lie with the uncircumcised, slain by the sword.’
Ezekiel 32:20-22 (in Context)

Ezekiel 32:27
They do not lie with the mighty Who are fallen of the uncircumcised, Who have gone down to hell with their weapons of war; They have laid their swords under their heads, But their iniquities will be on their bones, Because of the terror of the mighty in the land of the living.
Ezekiel 32:26-28 (in Context)

Amos 9:2
“ Though they dig into hell, From there My hand shall take them; Though they climb up to heaven, From there I will bring them down; Amos 9:1-3 (in Context)

Habakkuk 2:5
[ Woe to the Wicked ] “ Indeed, because he transgresses by wine, He is a proud man, And he does not stay at home. Because he enlarges his desire as hell, And he is like death, and cannot be satisfied, He gathers to himself all nations And heaps up for himself all peoples.
Habakkuk 2:4-6 (in Context)

Answer 2

Whenever I’m explaining something from the Old Testament, I always refer to the original Hebrew and avoid modern translations as much as possible.

Christians have for a long time held certain beliefs and assumed that these ideas have always existed, and so modern translations fall into the trap of inserting these ideas and words into the OT without thinking about the differences in meaning. If you want a good modern translation that follows the original Hebrew, try the RSV. In many places, it follows nearly word-for-word my Hebrew/English Masoretic Text.

When I said that “Hell” is never mentioned in the OT, I meant three things:

1)that the word itself never appears in the original text (not even once)
2)that the idea of an eternal punishing fire also never appears

3) In fact, there’s no such thing as any eternal fire anywhere. Fire is destructive in nature, and whenever “eternity” is implied in any of these verses, it’s the eternity of oblivion.
The writers thought it the worst of curses to leave the earth without children. Jews consider this to be a failure to follow God’s first commandment (“be fruitful and multiply”).

Our concepts of Hell come from three words:

"Sheol" (Hebrew word for the grave or death, an eternal condition of non-existance, considered a curse)

"Hades" (Greek mythology) the word appears in the Septuagint mistakenly replacing the Hebrew "Sheol", the two ideas are definitely not the same

"Gehenna" (a New Testament word that evolved from the Valley of Hinnom, a place in Jerusalem where ritual garbage was taken.)

Here are some examples from verses given by other answers here:

Job 31:12 is exactly what I’ve just described. This chapter isn’t talking about Hell at all, and in fact it’s not talking about any specific place. The chapter is about a man committing adultery with another woman and being consumed by lust. The punishment is the fire of destruction and the end of his family line (his “increase”). Modern translations substitute the word destruction for the proper name “Abaddon”, with no justification. Abaddon is a Greek word, not a Hebrew.

Deuteronomy 32:22 reads much the same as II Peter 3. The fire consumes and destroys, there’s no mention of lasing forever. This is why elsewhere in the Bible the wicked and the old earth are said to be “forgotten and never come into mind”. Psalms 102:25-26, Isaiah 65:17, Revelations 21:1. (How can people burning in Hell be forgotten and never come to mind?)

(Doug is wrong. Hell is mentioned 31 times in modern translations of the OT, all based on the word "Sheol". Hell is mentioned 10 times in the NT based on the word "Hades", 11 times based on the word "Gehenna" and once in II Peter based on "Tarturus".)

(Kallan is expressing the frustration many Jews feel when Christians explain the OT. Can you imagine the audacity of NOT using Jewish sources to explain a Jewish book?)

Answer 3

Could we define "hell", please?

Our idea of hell, the fire and brim stone region of eternal torture and torment to which SINNERS (ie people who broke several commandments, ignored Christ's teachings, turned their backs on God and shut their hearts to the needs of their fellow man) are sent is NOT mentioned in the Old Testement.

Some of the quotes provided above are referencing a region of existance for the Fallen, a group of angles (now called demons) who split away from God and live in a realm of existance that does not know his grace. Also, some of the quotes are often mis-translated as the words themselves have meaning (ie destruction, hell, death, etc) but are also used as the names of demons that serve the Fallen or angles that serve God. The problem with most languages is it is hard to tell when they are using a word for the word or the word as a name.

Wikipedia has a wonderful collection names for all the Fallen, Angles, etc, what they represented and what they did. And though the story of the Fallen is not included in the Torah (jewish bible) or the Bible, there are several other religious texts that mention it; these texts were reserved for those studying to be rabbis in the early Hebrew culture and were not ment to be read by or to the masses.

For the Jews, after a mortal died their soul went to Sheol, a region between the living and the divine that was void of anything good and anything evil. You existed in a land seperate from the grace of God, but you still had knowledge of his existance and what you did in your life time. At the end of all days, all the souls in Sheol would stand before God and be sent either to live with the divine or live with the fallen.

Christian priests in later years decided this whole "wait until the end of days" thing was an unnecessary step and told their followers they would be judged IMMEDIATELY after their death, and came up with a long list of things you could do that would get you sent to the Fallen. They adopted the Celtic/Viking word 'Hel' to describe this area, despite the fact that the Celtic Hel was much like the Jewish Sheol, only there the souls were waiting to aid their gods in a battle at the end of time between good and evil; which ever side had the most warriors would win and rebuild the world to their liking.

God never sent anyone to the land of the Fallen, as he had given them the right to choose how they wanted to live their lives (ie Free Will). He could influnce their lives, deal with them directly or indirectly, but he could not pre-determine where they would go in the ends of days. It was a person's past actions and lack of repentance that would earn them a place amoung the Fallen.

There is a lot more to expand on, but that will have to do for now. If you are still interested, talk to a rabbi (jewish minister) or religious studies major focusing on the Judeo-Christian religions. Why a rabbi? The Old Testiment is the Jewish Torah, their holy book, and if anyone would know the ins and outs of the Old Testiment it would be a rabbi.

~~ Abaddon

Answer 4

Again we enter the territtory of Bibles being edited to fit the needs of various sects of Christianity. Hell does not appear in a Torah or in an exact translation of the Old Testament. I'm not going through all the quotes by name and number but the The Oxford Study Bible does not use the word Hell in the three I checked.

As an example of the varience, in my digital research reference Bible Job 31:12 reads "For it [is] a fire [that] consumeth to destruction, and would root out all mine increase."

Lets catch the King James used by some here by quoting from the Oxford.
DEUT. 32:22 "For fire is set ablaze by my anger, in burns in the depths of Sheol."
BTW, definition of Sheol: She·ol n. Bible. The underworld of the Old Testament, where the dead dwelt in darkness. [Hebrew šµ’ôl.] (Notice there is no mention of sinners, but only the word "Dead."

I thank those who have finally placed there own evidence on the internet that the Christian Bibles vary in word and implied meaning. Their only consistancy being their inconsistancy.

Both Satan and a fiery Hell are the tools of later day Christianity.

Answer 5

Not hell as the NT/christians understand it. The OT mentions Sheol (Job, Ecclesiastes, etc) and everyone went there, good or bad. It was synonymous with death/destruction. It was not ruled or had a connection with Satan. More like the greek Hades, not a place of final endless punishment. Also, there is Gehenna, which was basically a place they burned garbage outside Jerusalem.

Answer 6

hell is usually how christian bibles translate the word Sheol.

"In Hebrew, Sheol (שאול) is the "abode of the dead", the "underworld", "the common grave of mankind" or "pit".[1] In the Hebrew Bible, it is a comfortless place beneath the earth, beyond gates, where both the bad and the good, slave and king, pious and wicked must go after death to sleep in silence and oblivion in the dust. Sheol is the common destination of both the righteous and the unrighteous dead, as recounted in Ecclesiastes and Job."

hell is not jewish, but it suits the church's purposes to pretend that they got it from hebrew scriptures rather than make it known that they invented it themselves in order to scare jews and pagans into converting to christianity.

Answer 7

True ... the Old Testament mentions Sheol. A dark and gloomy place but no elements of punishment were attached to it. Jewish people do not believe in hell. The New Testament turns Sheol into "hell" or "hades".

Answer 8

Sheol is mentioned, which is translated as hell.

Job 14:13 "O that in Sheol you will conceal me, That you would keep me secret until your anger turns back. That you would set a time limit for me and remember me"

If hell is a burning place of torment, why would Job pray to go there to be concealed? God said he was upright and blameless, why wouldn't Job have prayed to go to heaven?

Sheol is the common grave of mankind. Job prayed to go to Sheol, basically he prayed to die because of the sickness inflicted on him by Satan. He knew Jehovah would not leave him in Sheol, but would resurrect him doing the resurrection.

Answer 9

um your first answerer is incorrect, or attempting to deceive. The fire that consumes unto destruction isn't Hell, and it isn't mentioned at ALL in the TaNaKh (Old Testament) because the Jews do not believe in a place of eternal torment.
Sh'ol is the grave, but is not considered a dark, gloomy place.. wow it always amazes me to see what kind of messed up thinking comes out of christianity.

Answer 10

The original definition of Hell meant a pit in the ground where people buried their veggies in the winter. Just as the fiery pits of Jehanna meant the garbage dump outside of Jerusalem where they burned the waste.

Answer 11

I'm not sure that I would say that there is punishment in hell. What I would say is that hell is punishment. It is separation from God, and there is nothing so agonizing as that. But it's a choice that we make.