he-man
he-man
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HELL. This is the word generally and unfortunately used by our translators to render the Hebrew
Sheol שאול, or:"αιδης, and once θανατος, 2 Sam. xxii. 6: Inferi or Inferna, or sometimes Mors). We say unfortunately, because although, as St. Augustine truly asserts, Sheol,with its equivalents Inferi and Hades, are never used in a good sense (De Gen. ad Lit. xii. 33), yet the English word Hell is mixed up with numberless associations entirely foreign to the minds of the ancient Hebrews.
It would perhaps have been better to retain the Hebrew word Sheol, or else render it always by " the grave " or " the pit."
Ewald accepts Luther's word Holle; even Unterwelt, which is suggested by De Wette, involves conceptions too human for the purpose.
Hell: Passing over the derivations suggested by older writers, it is now generally agreed that the word comes from the root, "to make hollow" (conip. Germ. Ilolle, "hell," with Ilohle, "a hollow "), and therefore means the vast hollow subterranean resting-place which is the common receptacle of the dead (Ges. T/ies. p. 1348; UiJttcher, lie Jnferis, c. iv. p. 137 fF.; Ewald, ad Ps. p. 42).
The notion, of the fiery rivers of Tartarus, however, is not found in Scripture, for Psa . xviii. 5 is a mere metaphor. It is clear that in many passages of the O. T. Sheol can only mean " the grave," and is so rendered in the A. V. (see, for example, Gen. xxxvii. 35, xlii. 38; 1 Sam. ii. 6; Job xiv. 13).
It is obvious, for instance, that Job xi. 8; Ps. cxxxix. 8; Am. ix. 2 (where " hell " is used as the antithesis of "heaven"), merely illustrate the Jewish notions of the locality of Sheol in the bowels of the earth.
Even Ps. ix. 17, Prov. xv. 24, v. 5, ix. 18, seem to refer rather to the danger of terrible and precipitate death than to a place of infernal anguish.
Even Ps. ix. 17, Prov. xv. 24, v. 5, ix. 18, seem to refer rather to the danger of terrible and precipitate death than to a place of infernal anguish.
The statements of Gesenius and very many others about the gates and bars of Hades simply convert rhetoric into logic, and might with equal propriety invest the Kingdom of Heaven with " keys." The theory so prevalent, that Hades was the common province of departed spirits, divided, however, into two compartments, Paradise and Gehenna, seems to have been founded more upon the classical writers and the Rabbis — to whom it appeals so largely — than upon the Bible.
Sheol was, no doubt, the unseen world, the state of the dead generally. So in modem times we often intentionally limit our views, and speak of the other world, the invisible world, the undiscovered country, the grave, the spirit land,etc. (See Fairbaim, Hermeneut. Manual,p. 290 ff. )
Shoel, To translate this Hebrew term, the LXX. adopted the nearest Greek word. Hades, which by derivation signifies the invisible world. But the Greek word could not carry Greek notions into Hebrew theology.The unknown region into which the dying disappeared, was naturally and always invested with gloom to a sinful race. ' But the vague term was capable of becoming more or less definite according to the writer's thought. Most commonly it was simply the grave, as we use the phrase; sometimes the state of death in general; sometimes a dismal place opposed to heaven, e. g., Job xi. 8, Ps. cxxxix. 8, Am. is. 2
In many instances it is with strict propriety translated "hell." Even in Acts ii. 27, 31, quoted from the O. T., Hades is the abode of the wicked dead. Even the righteous Hezekiah trembled lest, " when his eyes closed upon the cherubim and the mercy-seat," he should no longer "see the Lord, even the Lord in the land of the living."
[see 2Th 1:9 Who shall pay a penalty of everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;]
[see 2Th 1:9 Who shall pay a penalty of everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;]
In the N. T. the word Hades (like Sheol) sometimes means merely "the grave" (Rev. xx. 13; Acts ii. 31; 1 Cor. xv. 55), or in general "the unseen world." It is in this sense that the creeds say of our Lord Κατηλθεν εν αδη or εισ αδου, descendit ad inferos, or inferna, meaning " the state of the dead in general, without any restriction of happiness or misery" (Beveridge on Art. iii.), a doctrine certainly, though only virtually, expressed in Scripture (Eph. iv. 9; Acts ii. 25-31).
DR. WILLIAM SMITH'S DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE; Page 1038
DR. WILLIAM SMITH'S DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE; Page 1038
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