Geerhardus Vos (1862-1949)
Reformed Dogmatics, V.vi.8.

What distinction is made presently between Sheol-Hades, on the one hand, and Hell-Heaven, on the other?

Many maintain that in Scripture the Hebrew word she’ol (Sheol) and the Greek word hadēs (Hades) do not mean the place of suffering but a general dwelling place of the dead, in which there are different sections for the different kinds of people who are gathered there after their death. In this way, corresponding to each of the different places, a different state is also assumed, which is carefully distinguished from the state of eternal destruction or eternal blessing. Sheol-Hades is an intermediate place; they who find themselves there live in an intermediate state. The English Revised Version has adopted this view by rendering Hades not with “hell,” as the King James Version does, but with “Hades.” In the historical books they render Sheol mostly with “the grave” or “the pit” and in a marginal note add “Sheol,” so that the reader does not think of “the grave.” In the poetic books they use “Sheol” in the text and “the grave” in the margin. Only in Isaiah 14 has “hell” remained in the text.

It is not feasible here to enumerate all the conceptions that have been formed regarding the relationship of Sheol-Hades, hell, and heaven to each other. As an example, we give the view of Kliefoth, a modern German theologian, who has written a work on eschatology. He says: At the time of the Old Testament there was only one abode for all the dead. Both pious and ungodly went to it. At the descent of Christ into hell, this Sheol was emptied of all its inhabitants, that is, both of those called of the Old Testament, who had lived under the dispensation of the covenant of grace (believers and unbelievers), and of those not called under the Old Testament, who went down into Sheol from the pagan world. But Sheol does not disappear with the descent into hell. Indeed, Revelation 6:8 and 20:13-14 speak of it (under the name “Hades”) as of something that will continue to exist until the final judgment (Phil 2:10; Rev 5:3 also teach that). Therefore those not called—pagans, Mohammedans [Muslims], Jews, etc.—now go into Sheol-Hades at their death. Those who are called, that is, who live under the gospel, on the other hand, now go immediately at their death to Gehenna (= hell) if they have remained unbelieving; to paradise (= heaven) if they believed. According to Kliefoth, children who die unbaptized also go into Sheol-Hades.

Against this conception we observe:

a) That with the words Sheol and Hades one cannot always think of a locality. Without doubt both occur as abstract concepts by which nothing else is meant than being dead, soul and body being separated. This takes place for believers and unbelievers under the old and new covenants, and so in a figurative sense it can be said that they all, without distinction, are in Sheol or Hades. It is meant in this way in the Old Testament; for example, 1 Samuel 2:6: “The LORD kills and makes alive; He brings down to Sheol and brings up.” Here the parallelism shows what is meant (Gen 44:31; Job 14:13; 17:13–14; Hos 13:14; Psa 89:48). And many more places of that sort can be found in the Old Testament.

But Hades occurs in this sense in the New Testament too. Acts 2:27: “You will not leave my soul in Hades (= in the state of the separation of death), nor will you give over your Holy One to see corruption” (cf. v. 31). First Corinthians 15:55: “Death, where is your sting? Hades, where is your victory?” Here again the parallelism shows what is meant with Hades. And the number of such citations can also be increased.

b) Thus we do not need to show that Hades or Sheol never mean something that applies to both believers and the ungodly, but only that they do not mean a place where the souls of believers and the ungodly dwell or exist together. Every place where Sheol-Hades is meant locally, it indicates nothing other than the place of destruction, what we usually call “hell.” Only the latter need be demonstrated. It is based on the following grounds:

1. Descending into Sheol is threatened as a danger and a punishment of the ungodly (Deut 32:22; Job 21:13; Psa 9:17; Prov 5:5; 15:24). The threatening sense disappears from these passages if Sheol is a place neutral in character, more negative than positive, where good and evil are found together. As a place, then, Sheol cannot contain two sections, Gehenna and Paradise, for here Sheol as such is identical with the place of destruction. The idea of a division within Sheol itself is a pagan one that first intruded into the Christian world of thought from paganism, and perhaps had already possessed the Jews during the sojourn of our Lord on earth, but is not supported by Scripture itself. Only of Sheol as a state can it be said that in it there are two divisions, but then one is speaking figuratively.

2. If Sheol does not mean the place of destruction, then the Old Testament has no word to designate this place, and we would have to reach the conclusion that during the time of the Old Testament there was no “hell.” This conclusion, however, completely contradicts every analogy, is in conflict with the retributive righteousness of God, and so must be rejected along with its source.

3. The Old Testament, on the contrary, speaks of a place where believers who died in their Lord enjoy a state of blessing. Hence they cannot have gone to Sheol (Num 23:5, 10; Psa 16:11; 17:15; 49:15; Prov 14:32). Enoch and Elijah certainly did not go to Sheol, the land of darkness and shadows, as the pagans imagine it, and about which they declared that it must be located far below the earth (cf. Heb 11:16, 35).

4. Sheol as a place and not only as a state occurs in the closest connection with the concept “death.” Thus one only need grasp this biblical concept of “death” in its depth to see immediately that Sheol cannot have been the dwelling place for those who died in the Lord. Death is not solely physical. It is also spiritual death. One may compare Proverbs 15:11; 27:20; 5:5 with Revelation 20:14 to see that in the former series of texts Sheol and death are linked, as are Hades and death in the latter passage.

c) Both meanings of the state of death and the state of destruction (= the place of destruction) are therefore designated in Scripture by the same word. That is not accidental. It is based on the fact that death is a punishment for sin and that in the returning of the body to dust, in the body being covered by soil, the Lord has provided an image of the destruction of death in the broadest sense that includes the damnation of hell. It is not to be thought that the designation Sheol for “hell” is a metaphor derived from the designation Sheol for “grave.” On the contrary, since for sinners God has ordained Sheol as “hell” and consistent with the spatial order determined by God this “hell” is associated with what is below, He has therefore willed that something would happen with our dead bodies that called to mind symbolically eternal destruction. Hence in Scriptural symbolism the grave is the gateway to hell. Accordingly, Sheol in the one sense is the anteroom of Sheol in the other sense. But because this was so, and this plainly cannot be applied to those who die in the Lord, therefore, by the mouth of the apostle Paul, Scripture has given another sense to this “going down” for believers, connected to another symbolism [1 Cor. 15:42-44]. For believers, descending into hell is being sown in a furrow. Seed, too, goes down, apparently to rot, but in reality in order to come up in the glory of stem, leaf, and blossom.

In the Old Testament, Sheol more often means “grave” and less frequently “hell.” In the New Testament the relationship is reversed. This is connected with the fact that in the New Testament more light is shed on the doctrine of future things.

One can conclude from what has been said how little justification there is for always translating Sheol or Hades in the same way and to decide that a priori. In each instance the translation should depend on the context. The English Revised Version has done something risky by taking sides here, and ultimately can itself not remain consistent (Isa 14). One should either leave Sheol and Hades untranslated everywhere or assess and decide each concrete case individually. [1]

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For a more detailed survey, see William G.T. Shedd on The Meaning of Sheol, Hades, and Hell.

[1] On the other hand, capitalizing Sheol and Hades, and leaving them untranslated in a Bible version, would tend to leave the reader with the impression that these are formal localities other than Hell, as many today do indeed believe. Translators, informed by the analogy of Scripture and sound theology, would do much better to “assess and decide each concrete case individually,” perhaps with a footnote of the original transliterated word.