DEATH, THE INTERMEDIATE STATE, THE RESURRECTION AND THE FINAL DESTINY — page 7

Sheol” or “Hades”

While the bodies of the men who have died are in the tomb, the spirit and the soul outside the body pass into the world of invisible spirits. The biblical name for this temporary condition of spirits and souls outside the body is “Sheol” or “Hades.” Just as “queber” and “mnemeion” are the Hebrew and Greek words for grave or sepulcher, “Sheol” and “Hades” are, respectively, the Hebrew and the Greek word for the invisible world of spirits and souls outside the body. They are simply two different words from two different languages that describe a single thing. This can easily be proved by comparing Psalm 16:10 with Acts 2:27. These two words in the original language were adopted into the text in most English translations.

Unfortunately, the King James Version (KJV), which is generally a reliable translation, does not use “Sheol” and “Hades” in its text (as most other translations do), but translates the two words respectively as “hell” and “grave” (or “pit”). This has led to considerable confusion, for the grave is a temporary place of corpses and hell is the eternal dwelling of the lost, not the temporary condition of spirits outside the body. In the KJV translation of the Old Testament, “Sheol” was incorrectly translated as “grave” (31 times), “hell” (31 times) and “pit” (3 times). In the KJV translation of the New Testament, “Hades” was wrongly translated as “hell” in ten passages (Matt. 11:23, 16:18; Luke 10:15, 16:23; Acts 2:27, 31; 1 Cor. 15:55 – margin; Rev. 1:18, 6:8, 20:13-14). We would do well to go through the New Testament of our Bibles and mark these passages as “Hades”, instead of “hell,” to put an end to the confusion in our subsequent Bible studies.

“Sheol” or “Hades” is not a place, but a condition that contains two opposite states. It simply means “the invisible world of spirits outside the body.” The footnote in J. N. Darby’s translation at Matthew 11:23 provides a helpful explanation of this condition of spirits and souls outside the body. It says: “‘Hades’ as ‘Sheol’ in the Old Testament (see note at Psalm 6:5) is a very vague expression used generally to designate the temporary state of departed spirits, the unseen or invisible world of spirits, over which, until the coming of Christ, darkness and gloom rested.”