All critics agree that the Greek Hades in the New Testament corresponds in meaning to the Hebrew Sheol in the Old. In the Septuagint version the translators have rendered the term Sheol sixty times by the word Hades, out of the sixty-four instances where it occurs. Hades also occurs sixteen times in the apocryphal books, and is used in a similar way as the Hebrew Sheol is in the canonical writings of the Old Testament. Besides, the New Testament writers, in quoting from the Old, use Hades as the rendering of Sheol. See Psalms 16:10, compared with Acts 2:27, etc.
The term Hades occurs eleven times in the Greek of the New Testament. In the common version it is once rendered grave, and in the other ten places by the word hell. The following are all the passages.
Matthew 11:23 — “And thou Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell (Hades).” Dr. Campbell, in the dissertation already quoted, says, “As the city of Capernaum was never literally raised to heaven, we have no reason to believe that it was to be literally brought down to Hades. But, as by the former expression we are given to understand that it was to become a flourishing and splendid city, or, as some think, that it had obtained great spiritual advantages; so by the latter, that it should be brought to the lowest degree of abasement and wretchedness.” See on Isaiah 7:9, where Sheol is used in a similar sense. This text has often been quoted to prove that all who have abused spiritual privileges shall be brought down to hell, or endless misery.
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Author: Walter Balfour
Keywords: Unquenchable fire, Unquenchable, Fire is not quenched, Fire not quenched, Hell, Hades, Sheol, Tartarus, Elysian fields
Bible reference(s): Matthew 11:23, Matthew 16:18, Luke 10:15, Acts 2:27, Acts 2:31, 1 Corinthians 15:55, Revelation 1:18, Revelation 6:8, Revelation 20:13-14, Luke 16:19-31
Source: An Inquiry into the Scriptural Import of the words Sheol, Hades, Tartarus and Gehenna, translated Hell in the Common English Version. Revised, with essays and notes, by Otis A. Skinner (Boston: A. Tompkins, 1854).
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