"
Job 17:13,
14 reads...
13 “If I hope [ -
qavah: To wait, to look for, to hope, to expect] for Sheol as my home, I make my bed in the darkness;
14
If I call to the grave, ‘You are my father’; To the maggot, ‘my mother and my sister’;
The early writers of the Hebrew scriptures, understood Sheol to be the grave.
While the Hebrew Bible appears to describe Sheol as the permanent place of the dead, in the Second Temple period (roughly 500 BCE – 70 CE) a more diverse set of ideas developed.
Also, see
Hebrew Bible.
Interpretation
Even within the realm of Jewish thought, the understanding of Sheol was often inconsistent. This would later manifest, in part, with the Sadducee–Pharisee ideological rift which, among other things, disagreed on whether relevancy should lie more prominently in the world of living or in the realm of an afterlife. The lack of a clear belief structure surrounding Sheol lends the idea to
a number of interpretations: namely, one which imagines Sheol as a concrete state of afterlife, or one which envisions Sheol as a metaphor for death as a whole. To the latter's end, certain editions of the Bible translate the term Sheol as generic terms such as "grave" or "pit" (KJV, NIV, etc.), while others (NAB, NASB, etc.) preserve it as a proper noun. Distinguishing Sheol between a realm and a metaphor is the crux of several unanswered questions surrounding its nature.
Perhaps owing to the evolution of its interpretation, certain elements of Sheol as described in the Hebrew Bible appear contradictory.
The origins of the concept of Sheol are debated. The general characteristics of an afterlife such as Sheol were not unique to the ancient Israelites; the Babylonians had a similar underworld called Aralu, and the Greeks had one known as Hades. As such,
it is assumed that the early Israelites apparently believed that the graves of family, or tribe, all united into one, collectively unified "grave", and that this is what the Biblical Hebrew term Sheol refers to: the common grave of humans."
@CoreyD
I agree with all of the above that you have shared. In fact, that's precisely what the video that I've shared with you has stated. But none of the above changes the fact that sheol is oftentimes described in watery terms, and that in ancient cosmology, it was viewed as an underworld in which dead spirits dwelled. And this is just a fact of scripture. It's very plainly stated, as noted above. If you would like more passages on Sheol, feel free to ask.
"The general characteristics of an afterlife such as Sheol were not unique to the ancient Israelites; the Babylonians had a similar underworld called Aralu, and the Greeks had one known as Hades. "
And regarding this statement, as I am sure you well know, Hades is the world of the dead. It is where spirits reside.
2 Peter 2:4 states, For God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hades and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgement.
As an example. So this just isn't up for debate. Sheol is an underworld, and in the Bible it is described as a place where spirits dwell. It is also described in several places in watery terms.
Isaiah 14:9 ESV
Sheol beneath is stirred up to meet you when you come; it rouses the shades to greet you, all who were leaders of the earth; it raises from their thrones all who were kings of the nations.
The rephaim are there, shades, people go down into it when they die, and sometimes people just fall into it when the earth opens up. Jonah sinks down to it. Samuel is down there, and then he is resurrected as a spirit and he comes up out of it. 1 Samuel 28.
It is an underworld. As your resource states.
