Hades

Hades names the unseen world into which the dead descend. The UPDV preserves the Hebrew Sheol in the Old Testament and the Greek Hades in the New Testament and Apocrypha, treating them as the same domain. It is described as a region beneath the earth with cords, gates, depths, and chambers; as the assembly where the spirits of the dead lie still and silent; and, in the apocalyptic close, as a power that, together with Death, gives up its dead and is itself cast into the lake of fire.

The Realm Beneath

Sheol lies below the living world. It is reached by descent — those who die "go down" into it, and Yahweh's reach extends into it: "Though they dig into Sheol, from there will my hand take them; and though they climb up to heaven, from there I will bring them down" (Am 9:2). It is depicted as deeper than human knowing — "At the height of heaven, what can you do? Deeper than Sheol; what can you know?" (Job 11:8) — and as wholly exposed to God: "Sheol is naked before [God], And Abaddon has no covering" (Job 26:6); "Sheol and Abaddon are before Yahweh: How much more then the hearts of the sons of man!" (Pr 15:11).

The waters and the deeps mark its threshold. Job describes its inhabitants as those who "tremble Beneath the waters and those that stay in them" (Job 26:5). Jonah cries from there: "Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, [And] you heard my voice" (Jon 2:2). The lowest Sheol is its uttermost reach (Ps 86:13; De 32:22 — "a fire is kindled in my anger, And burns to the lowest Sheol").

The State of the Dead

In Sheol the dead are still. There is no remembrance, no praise, no work. "For in death there is no remembrance of you: In Sheol who will give you thanks?" (Ps 6:5). "The dead don't praise Yah, Neither any who go down into silence" (Ps 115:17). "Will you show wonders to the dead? Will the spirits of the dead arise and praise you? Selah. Will your loving-kindness be declared in the grave? Or your faithfulness in Destruction? Will your wonders be known in the dark? And your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?" (Ps 88:10-12).

Qoheleth gives the same picture: "the dead don't know anything, neither have they a reward anymore; for the memory of them is forgotten. Their love as well, as their hatred and their envy, has perished long ago; neither have they anymore a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun" (Ec 9:5-6). And again: "Whatever your hand finds to do, do [it] with your might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol, where you go" (Ec 9:10). Sirach echoes the verdict: "[Be it] for a thousand years, a hundred, or ten [that you live], In Sheol there is no inquiry of [length of] life" (Sir 41:4).

The dead are gathered as an assembly. The wanderer "Will rest in the assembly of the spirits of the dead" (Pr 21:16). Solomon warns of those who do not see "that the spirits of the dead are there; That her guests are in the depths of Sheol" (Pr 9:18). Job, longing for relief, says, "If I look for Sheol as my house; If I have spread my couch in the darkness" (Job 17:13).

Gates, Cords, and Chambers

Sheol is rendered as a city with gates and as a hunter with snares. David sings, "The cords of Sheol were round about me; The snares of death came upon me" (2Sa 22:6; Ps 18:5), and again, "The cords of death surrounded me, And the pains of Sheol got hold on me" (Ps 116:3). Hezekiah laments, "In the noontide of my days I will go into the gates of Sheol" (Is 38:10). The psalmist thanks Yahweh for lifting him "up from the gates of death" (Ps 9:13). Job is asked, "Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Or have you seen the gates of the shadow of death?" (Job 38:17). Ben Sira likewise: "from the gates of Sheol I cried" (Sir 51:9).

The same realm is "the pit." It has chambers, depths, and an uttermost part: "Yet you will be brought down to Sheol, to the uttermost parts of the pit" (Is 14:15). To go down to the pit is to die without escape: "I will become like those who go down into the pit" (Ps 28:1); "What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it declare your truth?" (Ps 30:9); "I am reckoned with those who go down into the pit; I am as an [able-bodied] man without strength" (Ps 88:4); "Don't hide your face from me, Lest I become like those who go down into the pit" (Ps 143:7). Job says God "keeps back his soul from the pit, And his life from perishing by the sword" (Job 33:18). Ezekiel applies the descent to fallen nations: Egypt and her companions are sent down "to the nether parts of the earth, with those who go down into the pit" (Eze 26:20; Eze 32:18).

Sheol's Appetite

Sheol is portrayed as never full. "Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied; And the eyes of man are never satisfied" (Pr 27:20). Habakkuk says of the betrayer: "who enlarges his soul as Sheol, and he is as death, and can't be satisfied, but gathers to himself all nations, and heaps to himself all peoples" (Hab 2:5). Isaiah warns of judgment: "Therefore Sheol has enlarged its soul, and opened its mouth without measure; and their majesty, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he who rejoices among them, descend [into it]" (Is 5:14). The way of the loose woman reaches there: "Her feet go down to death; Her steps take hold on Sheol" (Pr 5:5); "Her house is the way to Sheol, Going down to the chambers of death" (Pr 7:27). Sirach concurs: "The way of sinners is made smooth without stones, And at its end is the pit of Hades" (Sir 21:10), and the bitter tongue is judged: "The death of it is an evil death, And Hades is more profitable than it" (Sir 28:21).

The Wicked Sent Down

Sheol receives the wicked: "The wicked will be turned back to Sheol, Even all the nations that forget God" (Ps 9:17). The covenant-makers with death are themselves trodden down: "your⁺ covenant with death will be annulled, and your⁺ agreement with Sheol will not stand" (Is 28:18). Idolatrous Judah is rebuked for sending her ambassadors "far off, and debased yourself even to Sheol" (Is 57:9). The Korahite oracle is invoked against the violent: "Let death come suddenly on them, Let them go down alive into Sheol; For wickedness is in their dwelling, in the midst of them" (Ps 55:15). Discipline aims to keep a child from the same end: "You will beat him with the rod, And will deliver his soul from Sheol" (Pr 23:14). And the wise way runs the other direction: "To the wise the way of life [goes] upward, That he may depart from Sheol beneath" (Pr 15:24).

The Mighty Dead

Isaiah and Ezekiel both stage the descent of fallen kings into Sheol as a vast underworld assembly. "Sheol from beneath is moved for you to meet you at your coming; it stirs up the spirits of the dead for you, even all the chief ones of the earth; it has raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations" (Is 14:9). Ezekiel makes the picture concrete: when Pharaoh's company falls, "I cast him down to Sheol with those who descend into the pit; and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon … were comforted in the nether parts of the earth" (Eze 31:16). "The strong among the mighty will speak to him out of the midst of Sheol with those who help him: they have gone down, they lie still, even the uncircumcised, slain by the sword" (Eze 32:21). "And they will not lie with the mighty who have fallen of old, who have gone down to Sheol with their weapons of war, and have laid their swords under their heads" (Eze 32:27).

The Maccabean histories record the same descent at the level of human burial. Mattathias "died in the hundred and forty-sixth year: and he was buried by his sons in the sepulchres of his fathers in Modin, and all Israel mourned for him with great mourning" (1Ma 2:70). Trypho killed Jonathan, "and he was buried there" (1Ma 13:23); Simon "took the bones of Jonathan his brother, and buried them in Modin, in the city of his fathers" (1Ma 13:25), and "built over the tomb of his father and of his brothers, a building lofty to the sight, of polished stone behind and before" (1Ma 13:27). The pit is also a literal grave of slaughter: Bacchides "took many of those who had fled away from him, and some of the people he killed, and threw them into a great pit" (1Ma 7:19).

Hope of Rescue from Sheol

Against the Old Testament's stillness, several voices look for rescue out of Sheol. The psalmist confesses, "But God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol; For he will receive me. Selah" (Ps 49:15). The thanksgiving is given as already done: "you have delivered my soul from the lowest Sheol" (Ps 86:13). The Davidic prayer trusts that "you will not leave my soul to Sheol; Neither will you allow your holy one to see the pit" (Ps 16:10). Hezekiah's reprieve is set against the same horizon: "you have in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption; For you have cast all my sins behind your back" (Is 38:17). Hosea names the rescue most directly: "I will ransom them from the power of Sheol; I will redeem them from death: O Death, [my Speech] will be your plague. O Sheol, I will be your destruction" (Ho 13:14). Paul seizes the same formula: "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" (1Co 15:55). The Psalter's awaking-into-righteousness sits beside it: "As for me, I will see your face in righteousness; I will be satisfied, when I awake, with [seeing] your form" (Ps 17:15).

Hades in the Gospels

Jesus uses the Greek word directly. To unrepentant Capernaum: "And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will go down to Hades" (Lu 10:15). In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, Hades is a place of conscious torment with sight of the righteous in distance: "And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and sees Abraham far off, and Lazarus in his bosom" (Lu 16:23). When Jesus speaks of going where his hearers cannot follow, the Jews wonder whether he means a destination beyond death: "Will he kill himself, that he says, Where I go, you⁺ can't come?" (Joh 8:22).

Paradise

Alongside Hades, the New Testament names another postmortem location. Paul says of the man caught up to the third heaven that "he was caught up into Paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter" (2Co 12:4). The exalted Christ promises the overcomer "to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God" (Re 2:7). The Epistle to Diognetus sets the same horizon over against the punishment of the wicked: "that death is reserved for those who will be condemned to eternal fire, which will punish to the end those delivered to it" (Gr 10:7).

The Keys, the Riders, the Lake of Fire

Revelation gives the closing arc. The risen Christ holds the authority over Hades: "and the Living one; and I became dead, and look, I am alive forever and ever, and I have the keys of death and of Hades" (Re 1:18). At the opening of the fourth seal, the pair rides out together: "I looked, and saw a pale horse: and he who sat on him, his name was Death; and Hades followed with him. And there was given to them authority over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with famine, and with death, and by the wild beasts of the earth" (Re 6:8). At the final judgment, Hades surrenders its dead: "And the sea gave up the dead who were in it; and death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works" (Re 20:13). The story ends with Hades itself abolished: "And death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death, [even] the lake of fire" (Re 20:14).