HELL

It is unfortunate that many of the older versions of the English Bible use the one word ‘hell’ to translate several words in the original languages. In the minds of most English-speaking people, hell is a place of terrible torment where the wicked dead are sent for final punishment. Although this idea of hell may be true for the word gehenna, it is not true for other biblical words translated ‘hell’. The Hebrew sheol and its Greek equivalent hades mean simply the place of the dead or the state of the dead. Gehenna was the name Jesus used for the place of final punishment of the wicked. The word appears in the New Testament as a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew ‘Valley of Hinnom’. The Valley of Hinnom was a place just outside the wall of Jerusalem where, in times of apostacy, the people of Israel burnt their children in sacrifice to the god Molech (Jer 7:31).

In the place where the people committed this wickedness, God punished them with terrible slaughter (Jer 7:32-34). Broken pottery was dumped in this valley, and the place became a public garbage dump where fires burnt continually (Jer 19:1-13). Because of this association with judgment and burning, ‘gehenna’ became a fitting word to indicate the place or state of eternal punishment (Matt 10:28; 18:9; 23:33; Mark 9:43-48; cf. James 3:6). According to the New Testament, the punishment of hell (gehenna) is one of eternal torment. It is likened to eternal burning (Matt 13:42; 18:8-9; Rev 20:10), eternal darkness (Matt 8:12; 22:13; 2 Peter 2:4,17), eternal destruction (Matt 7:13; Phil 1:28; 2 Peter 3:7,10) and eternal separation from God and his blessings (2 Thess 1:9). Another symbolic picture of eternal punishment is that of a lake of fire prepared for the enemies of God (Rev 19:20; 20:10; cf. Matt 25:41). Into this lake God throws his great enemy, Death (Rev 20:14; cf. 1 Cor 15:26), along with all whose names are not written in the book of life (Rev 20:15). Just as heaven is something far better than the material symbols used to picture it, so hell is something far worse than the material symbols used to picture it. (See also JUDGMENT; PUNISHMENT.)