The word hell really means just a pit or grave.
Colliers Encyclopedia (1986, Vol. 12, p. 28) says concerning Hell: First it stands for the Hebrew Sheol of the Old Testament and the Greek Hades of the Septuagint and New Testament. Since Sheol in Old Testament times referred simply to the abode of the dead and suggested no moral distinctions, the word hell, as understood today, is not a happy translation.
It is, in fact, because of the way that the word hell is understood today that it is such an unsatisfactory translation of these original Bible words. Websters Third New International Dictionary, unabridged, under Hell says: fr[om] . . . helan to conceal. The word hell thus originally conveyed no thought of heat or torment but simply of a covered over or concealed place. In the old English dialect the expression helling potatoes meant, not to roast them, but simply to place the potatoes in the ground or in a cellar.
