Hell

UPDV does not collapse the ancient vocabulary of post-mortem judgment under a single English word. Where the Hebrew text speaks of Sheol, UPDV writes "Sheol"; where the Greek text speaks of Hades, UPDV writes "Hades"; where the Greek text speaks of Gehenna, UPDV writes "hell"; where 2 Pet 2:4 speaks of Tartarus, UPDV transliterates "Tartarus." The reader who follows the words finds four distinct registers — a Hebrew underworld, a Greek shadow-realm, a valley-name turned into a place of fire, and a deeper holding-cell for fallen angels — gathered together at the end of Revelation under one image: the lake of fire, also called the second death.

Sheol — The Old Testament Underworld

Sheol is the place beneath. The wicked are turned back into it (Ps 9:17), the foolish woman's path winds down to it (Pr 5:5; Pr 7:27), and her guests are already "in the depths of Sheol" before they know it (Pr 9:18). The proverbs treat Sheol both as destination and as appetite — never satisfied, paired with Abaddon, set over against the eyes of man (Pr 27:20). The way of life goes upward; the way of the wise is "that he may depart from Sheol beneath" (Pr 15:24).

Personified, Sheol is a swallower. Isaiah hears it open its mouth without measure to receive Jerusalem's pomp (Isa 5:14); Habakkuk describes the arrogant betrayer who "enlarges his soul as Sheol" and is never full (Hab 2:5). When Korah's company is taken alive, the psalmist asks the same end on the violent: "Let death come suddenly on them, Let them go down alive into Sheol" (Ps 55:15).

The deepest registers of suffering are spoken from Sheol's threshold. David, in two parallel oracles, cries that "the cords of Sheol were round about me; The snares of death came upon me" (2Sa 22:6; Ps 18:5). Jonah, from inside the great fish, places himself even further down: "Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, [And] you heard my voice" (Jon 2:2). And the messianic Psalm 16 turns the formula inside out: "For you will not leave my soul to Sheol; Neither will you allow your holy one to see the pit" (Ps 16:10).

Yahweh's Reach into the Pit

Sheol is not a sealed jurisdiction outside Yahweh's reach. "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). Job grants the same: God is "Deeper than Sheol; what can you know?" (Job 11:8). Amos states it as direct threat: "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).

Yahweh's anger reaches there too. Moses sings: "For a fire is kindled in my anger, And burns to the lowest Sheol, And devours the earth with its increase, And sets on fire the foundations of the mountains" (De 32:22). Sheol is not Yahweh's rival. It is one more place under his authority — where his hand brings down the proud and where, by the same hand, his holy one is not abandoned.

The Descent of Kings and Nations

Isaiah and Ezekiel use Sheol as the levelling-place of the great. The taunt-song over the king of Babylon imagines the underworld stirred to its feet to greet a new arrival: "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" (Isa 14:9). The verdict is given in one line: "Yet you will be brought down to Sheol, to the uttermost parts of the pit" (Isa 14:15).

Ezekiel's lament for Pharaoh works the same image at length. The nations shake when the great cedar falls and is cast "down to Sheol with those who descend into the pit" (Eze 31:16). The mighty already there speak from inside Sheol to the new arrivals (Eze 32:21); the slain warriors of old "have laid their swords under their heads, and their iniquities are on their bones" (Eze 32:27). Isaiah extends the same shame to Judah's idolatrous diplomacy: "you went to the king with oil, and increased your perfumes, and sent your ambassadors far off, and debased yourself even to Sheol" (Isa 57:9).

The Covenant with Death

The pretence that Sheol can be negotiated with is exposed by Isaiah. Jerusalem's leaders boast: "We have made a covenant with death, and we are at agreement with Sheol; when the overflowing scourge will pass through, it will not come to us" (Isa 28:15). Yahweh answers by laying a stone in Zion and a measuring line, then strikes the fraud out: "your⁺ covenant with death will be annulled, and your⁺ agreement with Sheol will not stand; when the overflowing scourge will pass through, then you⁺ will be trodden down by it" (Isa 28:18). No alliance survives.

Topheth — The Place Prepared

Isaiah names a specific kindled site. "For a Topheth is prepared of old; yes, for the king it is made ready; he has made it deep and large; its pile is fire and much wood; the [Speech] of Yahweh, like a stream of brimstone, kindles it" (Isa 30:33). Joined to the everlasting-burnings oracle, the prophets give the picture of a fire that does not burn out: "The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling has seized the godless ones: Who among us can dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?" (Isa 33:14). Isaiah closes his book on the same image of bodies and unquenched fire: "for their worm will not die, neither will their fire be quenched; and they will be an abhorring to all flesh" (Isa 66:24).

Hades and the Keys of Death

In the New Testament, Sheol's Greek counterpart is Hades. The risen Christ tells John, "I became dead, and look, I am alive forever and ever, and I have the keys of death and of Hades" (Re 1:18). The fourth seal sends out the rider Death, "and Hades followed with him" (Re 6:8). At the final judgment, "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 most concrete New Testament picture of the wicked in Hades is given by Jesus in Luke. "And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and sees Abraham far off, and Lazarus in his bosom" (Lu 16:23). The rich man pleads for "the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am in anguish in this flame" (Lu 16:24). It is the only New Testament narrative in which a named figure speaks from inside post-mortem judgment — and what he speaks of is fire and thirst.

Gehenna — The Unquenchable Fire

Where the New Testament writers want to name the place of judgment as place, they use the word UPDV translates simply as "hell." Jesus warns: "Fear him, who after he has killed has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you⁺, Fear him" (Lu 12:5). The clearest cluster is Mark 9: better to enter life maimed "rather than having your two hands to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire" (Mr 9:43); rather than have two feet "to be cast into hell" (Mr 9:45); rather than have two eyes "to be cast into hell" (Mr 9:47); for there "their worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched" (Mr 9:48) — Jesus quoting Isaiah's last verse word for word. James extends the image to the inward life: the tongue "defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the wheel of nature, and is set on fire by hell" (Jas 3:6).

Tartarus and the Bound Angels

For the rebellion of angels, the New Testament picks up still another vocabulary. "For if God did not spare angels who sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus, and delivered them to chains of darkness, to be reserved to judgment" (2Pe 2:4). The same logic moves through 2 Peter: God knows "how to deliver the godly out of trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment to the day of judgment" (2Pe 2:9). Jude pictures the same future for unrepentant teachers — "wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever" (Jud 1:13). The present world is on the same docket: "the heavens that now are, and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men" (2Pe 3:7).

The Resurrection of Judgment

The two outcomes are not parallel only at death; they are parallel at resurrection. Daniel sees it first: "And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt" (Da 12:2). Jesus repeats it in the same shape: "the hour comes, in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice, and will come forth; those who have done good, to the resurrection of life; and those who have participated in evil, to the resurrection of judgment" (Jn 5:28-29). The state of the disobedient is already begun: "He who believes on the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God stays on him" (Jn 3:36).

Perdition and Eternal Destruction

The Pauline letters give the reckoning a different vocabulary again — apōleia, perdition, ruin. The greedy "fall into a temptation and a snare and many foolish and hurtful desires, such as drown men in ruin and destruction" (1Ti 6:9). The opposition's hostility "is for them an evident token of perdition, but of your⁺ salvation, and that from God" (Php 1:28). The day of the Lord comes only when "the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition" (2Th 2:3) — the same designation Jesus had given the betrayer: "not one of them perished, but the son of perdition" (Jn 17:12). The penalty is then named directly: those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel "will pay a penalty of eternal destruction away from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might" (2Th 1:9). Hebrews puts it as exhortation: "But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction; but of those who have faith to the saving of the soul" (He 10:39); "of how much sorer punishment, do you⁺ think, he will be judged worthy, who has trodden under foot the Son of God" (He 10:29).

The same pattern surfaces under historical typology. John the Baptist warns: "every tree therefore that does not bring forth good fruit is cut down, and cast into the fire" (Lu 3:9). Sodom is the standing example: "in the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all" (Lu 17:29). Malachi closes the Old Testament on the same furnace: "the day comes, it burns as a furnace; and all the proud, and all who work wickedness, will be stubble; and the day that comes will burn them up, says Yahweh of hosts, that it will leave them neither root nor branch" (Mal 4:1).

The Lake of Fire and the Second Death

Revelation gathers every prior register and lays them down inside one image. The Beast and the false prophet "were cast alive into the lake of fire that burns with brimstone" (Re 19:20). The devil follows: "the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where are also the beast and the false prophet; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever" (Re 20:10). Hades itself is then handed over: "death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death, [even] the lake of fire" (Re 20:14). The same end is given to every name not in the Book of Life: "And if any was not found written in the Book of Life, he was cast into the lake of fire" (Re 20:15). Re 21:8 lists who is meant: "for the fearful, and unbelieving, and those who have become disgusting, and murderers, and whores, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, their part [will be] in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone; which is the second death."

The promise to the church at Smyrna is the inverse of that verdict: "He who overcomes will not be hurt of the second death" (Re 2:11). The Beast "is about to come up out of the abyss, and to go into perdition" (Re 17:8); Babylon "will be cast down, and will be found no more at all" (Re 18:21); and the smoke of the worshipers' torment "goes up forever and ever; and they have no rest day and night, those who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name" (Re 14:11) — they are "tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb" (Re 14:10). Paul's word sits inside the same picture: "to those who are factious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, [will be] wrath and indignation" (Ro 2:8); and "sudden destruction comes on them, as travail on a pregnant woman; and they will in no way escape" (1Th 5:3).

Sirach and Diognetus on the End of the Ungodly

Sirach treats the same arc in proverbial form. "The way of sinners is made smooth without stones, And at its end is the pit of Hades" (Sir 21:10). The bound conclusion is recurring: "[Like] flax wrapped together is the gathering of the ungodly, And their end is a flame of fire" (Sir 21:9). The mechanism is internal as well as external: "And a brazen soul will destroy its owner" (Sir 19:3); "Tyranny and violence destroy wealth, So the house of the arrogant is desolated" (Sir 21:4). The thief and the persistent liar both "inherit destruction" (Sir 20:25); evil itself does not depart from the wicked man (Sir 40:10). Yahweh's role is not in question: "His mercies are great, He will pardon the multitude of my iniquities. For mercy and anger are with him, And upon the wicked he will lay his wrath" (Sir 5:6). And again: he "repays vengeance on the arrogant; Until he takes away the sceptre of pride, And wholly destroys the staff of wickedness" (Sir 35:23). The woes — "Woe to you, ungodly men, Who have forsaken the law of the Most High God" (Sir 41:8); "if you⁺ die [it will be] for a curse" (Sir 41:9) — are sustained as direct address. Even the proverb on speech registers Hades: "The death of it is an evil death, And Hades is more profitable than it" (Sir 28:21).

The Epistle to Diognetus carries the same teaching forward into the post-apostolic register. The author pictures the Christian who has "come to despise what is here considered death" and "come to dread what is truly death," because "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).