IN THE GRAVE in 9 passages
(1) 1 Samuel 2:6 "The lord kills and makes alive: he brings down to the GRAVE (sheol), and brings up." If they had translated this Hell, they would have the Lord brings up from Hell, but they believed no one could come out of Hell and have a second chance after they were in Hell; therefore, they did not use Hell. Coming out of Hell would completely upset their theology.
A typical Hebrew parallelism:
· “The Lord brings death and makes alive.”
· “He brings down to the grave and raises up” (New International Version).
(2) Job 7:9 "As the cloud is consumed and vanishes away: so he that goes down to the GRAVE (sheol) shall come up no more." All go down to the grave. They could not have translated this into Hell for then they would have put all in Hell together, both the good and the bad. Neither do they believe any immortal soul in "Hell" will vanish away as bodies in the grave do; there is no torment of the bodies that are vanishing away in the grave.
(3) Psalm 6:5 "For in death there is no remembrance of you: in the GRAVE (sheol) who shall give you thanks?" David is not saying that only these in Hell have no remembrance of God, but that none of the dead have any remembrance, or none can give Him thanks. If the souls that were in the bad were in Hell and the souls that were in the good in Heaven or Abraham's bosom, then the souls of both the bad and the good would have a remembrance of God. Could anyone’s soul be in Heaven and have no remembrance of God, or the souls that are being tormented in Hell had no remembrance of the God who is tormenting them? If this had been translated Hell, it would have put the souls that were in all, both the good and the bad in Hell with no remembrance of why they were there, or of the God that was tormenting them. This statement is a flat contradiction of today's theology of an immortal soul that is only a part of a person. That the dead are unconscious is so strongly stated in this passage that those who believe the dead are conscious have a hard time with it.
This is shown in the Connelly-Field "Debate On The State Of The Dead" when Thomas P. Connelly said, "The desire expressed here is for salvation, in view of the fact that there is no chance of salvation in the grave; those who go to the grave unprepared give God no thanks, they do not remember the Lord, the term remembrance being used in the sense of obedience."
It was David who did believe in God that would have no remembrance of God when he was in the grave, not someone who went to the grave not believing in God. David was not, as Connelly said, someone who went "to the grave unprepared." David was asking God to save him from death "for in death there is no remembrance of You."
Connelly's statement on Psalm 146:3-4 again shows the dilemma of those who do not want to believe God. "Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goes forth, he returns to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish." Connelly said, "The term thoughts in this text, as is evident not only from the word used in the Septuagint, but from the context, means designs or purposes. We are exhorted not to trust in man, for though he may design to bless us, he is destined to die, when his purpose must fail--they must perish."
The Christian Church, in which Connelly is an Evangelist, believes no one can change God's word, but he changes "thoughts" into "purpose" when they are completely different words in the Hebrew and the word "thoughts" never means "purpose," and is never translated "purpose," but he had to find a way to make the dead have thoughts even if he had to change the Bible. Connelly-Field "Debate On The State Of The Dead."
(4) Psalm 89:48 "What man is he that lives and shall not see death? Shall he deliver his soul (life-nehphesh) from the hand of the GRAVE (sheol)?” He makes no distinction between the righteous and the unrighteous, at death all go to the grave. This is another Hebrew dualism that is used throughout Psalm; in this dualism the grave and sheol are synonymous terms. A person cannot keep himself from death and the grave; he was speaking of his life (nehphesh) that he could not be kept from the grave, not an “immaterial invisible” something that cannot die and will never go to the grave. If this grave (sheol) were Hell, then no person could keep himself from Hell, not even the righteous. All die and go to the grave (sheol), but no one believes all go to Hell. Although this Psalm is speaking of all, both the good and the bad, all can see why the translators did not translate sheol into Hell in this passage, for they believed the righteous will keep their souls from Hell, but why did the translators make the writer of this Psalm say no one can keep their “soul” (that the translators believed could not die) from the grave? A soul that cannot die, but cannot be kept from the grave makes this passage as it is translated in the King James Version be nonsense. It was his life that he could not keep from the grave, not an immortal soul that would never be dead and never in the grave.
(5) Psalm 141:7 "Our bones are scattered at the GRAVE’S (sheol) mouth, as when one cuts and cleaves wood upon the earth." Will the bones of the immaterial souls that are in Hell be scattered at the mouth of Hell and not be in it? Whatever David means by grave's mouth, he is not saying that the inside of the grave (sheol/hades) has two sides, one side for the good and one for the bad. Even the King James translators did not think so and translated it grave, not Hell. Bones can be scattered only at the mouth of a grave (many grave were caves), but not at the mouth of Hell, and not at the mouth of any kind of holding place that is inside the earth for immaterial souls that have on bones. There is nothing about torment or an immortal soul in this Psalm.
(6) Proverbs 1:12 "Let us swallow them up alive as the GRAVE (sheol): and whole, as those that go down into the pit."
(7) Proverbs 30:16 "The GRAVE (sheol) says not 'It is enough.'" No matter how many die, the point will never be reached when no more can die.
(8) Ecclesiastes 9:10 "Whatsoever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the GRAVE (sheol), whether YOU go." In the same chapter Solomon says, "The dead know not anything" (Ecclesiastes 9:5). “His breath departs, he returns to the earth; in that very day his thoughts perish” (Psalm 146:4). “The dead do no praise the Lord, nor do any that go down into silence, but we (those who are alive) will bless the Lord” (Psalm 115:17). Those in the grave know nothing, and will know nothing unto the resurrection; A Hell or a Heaven where souls that are in them know nothing and does nothing, neither good or bad would not be the Hell or the Heaven the Catholics or the Protestants believe the souls of the dead to now be living in; a Hell where those in it have no knowledge would be a place of torment where those being tormented would not have any knowledge that they were in torment. Solomon is not speaking in figurative language. A more positive statement that the dead are now unconscious could not be made; “whether you go,” not “whether an immaterial something in you goes.” It could not be said any plainer that death is death, and no part of anyone is alive before the resurrection; that after death no part of a person has thoughts or knows anything; if there were an immortal soul living in a person, and it had any thoughts after it had left the person it was in, it’s thoughts would not be the thoughts of the person; it is always speaking of the person being in sheol and not having any thoughts, never a soul after it has left the person it was in.
(9) Song of Solomon 8:6 "Love is as strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the GRAVE (sheol)." No distinction is made of the good or the bad. The bad and the good are the same to the grave, it takes everything from all, and without the resurrection that was made known by Christ, and there never would be any life for anyone.
(5) BOTH THE GOOD AND BAD ARE BOTH IN HELL (In 15 passages)
Both in Hell in King James Version
The good in Hell in 9 passages
(1) 2 Samuel 22:6 "When the waves of death compassed me, the floods of ungodly men made me afraid; The sorrows of HELL (grave-sheol) (Hell changed to sheol in New King James Version) compassed me about; the snares of death prevented me." Up to the time of David, Hell is used in the King James Version only one time. From Genesis one to the time of David in 2 Samuel, over three thousand years had passed before the second time the word Hell was put into the King James Version, but even then the New King James takes it out. 2 Samuel 22:5-6 is David speaking about troubles and fears he had, including fear of death, for he was running from Saul who was trying to kill him. It is difficult to see why the King James Version put Hell in this passage, for when they did it is far from being what those who believe in Hell believe. Was David running from Saul because he thought Saul would send him to the grave, or would send him to Hell? Even those who believe in Hell do not believe Saul could have sent David to it. There is nothing in it about anything after death, or after the Judgment Day. "The sorrows of Hell (grave-sheol) compassed me about" and "the snares of death prevented me" are Hebrew dualism.
Matthew Henry: "This is expressed figuratively. He was surrounded with death on every side, threatened to be overwhelmed, and saw no way of escape" Matthew Henry's Commentary, page 357. David thought his death and the grave were near, not that he was soon going to Hell.
(2) Job 11:8 "It is as high as heaven; what can you do? Deeper than HELL (grave-sheol) (Hell changed to sheol in New King James Version); what can you know?" "They are higher than the heavens-what can you do? They are deeper than the depths of the grave-what can you know" New International Version. This is one of Job's comforters, Zophar. God said, "My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends, because you have not spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has" (Job 42:7). Can the words of Job's friends, which God says are not "right," be used to prove any truth? What is both higher than the heavens, and deeper than the depths of the grave? The mysteries of God, and the limits of the almighty (11:7). All though Job's friend might not have been speaking what was right, there still is nothing in what they said about anything after death, nothing about an immortal soul, or nothing about anything after the judgment. In this, as in all the sixty-five uses of sheol, there is no torment after death.
(3) Job 26:6 "HELL (grave-sheol) is naked before him, and destruction has no covering." When a person who believes in the Hell that is taught today reads the King James Old Testament, he or she finds a Hell that is totally difference and contradictorily to what they have been taught. The passages where sheol was mistranslated to put Hell in the Bible describe a place very unlike the Hell that is now believed in by many, and the wrong people are sometimes in it, sometimes while they are still living.
(4) Psalm 16:10 "For you will not leave my soul in HELL (grave-sheol) (Hell changed to sheol in New King James Version): neither wilt you suffer your Holy One to see corruption." This is used in Acts 2 and is about Christ. The translators put most of the saved in the grave, not in Hell, but this says his soul was not left in sheol. The translators were in a dilemma in this passage.
1. They could not put a "soul" (as the word is used today-an invisible, immaterial, something that has no substance) in the grave, which would be to admit that a soul could be dead.
2. Or they had to put Christ in Hell. If Christ were alive in Hell, He was alive and never was dead; therefore, there was no resurrection of Christ. Did God raise Christ from the dead, or did God just take the living Christ who was not dead out of Hell? Christ paid our debt, which was death, not eternal torment.
This is Hebrew dualism where the same thought is given in two ways.
1. “For you will not leave my soul in Hell (grave-sheol).”
2. “Neither wilt you suffer your Holy One to see corruption.” Corruption is in the grave, not in “Hell.” God raised Christ from the dead. He did not take a living Christ out of Hell.
(5) Psalm 18:5 "I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies. The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid. The sorrows of HELL (grave-sheol "grave" in margin of King James Version) (Hell changed to sheol in New King James Version) compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me. In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God; he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him even into his ears." This is David saying about the same thing that he said in 2 Samuel 22:5-6. See notes there. This is Hebrew dualism where the same thing is said in two ways. "The sorrows of sheol compassed me about" and "the snares of death prevented me" are two ways of saying the same thing. If Hell were a place of eternal torment after death, and David had been compassed about by it, he would not have been alive on earth to write this. This is one of the good guys who came near unto death and was saved “from mine enemies,” from sheol—was saved from death and the grave, not came near unto Hell.
(6) Psalm 86:13 "For great is your mercy toward me: and you have delivered my soul from the lowest HELL (grave-sheol)." (Hell changed to sheol in New King James Version). (Footnote in King James Version: "Or, grave"). Neither the Catholic, Protestant nor the after judgment versions of Hell believe that a person can go to the Hell they believe in and come back to live on Earth. The writer of this Psalm is thanking God for saving his life from the grave, not for bring his soul back from eternal torment in Hell, but for bring him back from a place (near death) where he had been and was delivered from it while he was alive in the body; the nest verse plainly indicate that his deliverance was from “arrogant men have risen up against me, and a band of violent men have sought my life,” but God had delivered him from death and the grave (sheol) by their hands. The New Revised Standard Version says, "You have delivered my soul (life-nehphesh) from the depths of Sheol" (grave). At the time David was writing this he had not been to the Hell that is taught today, and could not have been delivered from it, for the today’s Hell is a place of eternal torment from which none will ever be delivered. It is no wonder that the New King James took "Hell" out of this passage.
If this passage were believed as it is translated in the King James Version, using the words "soul" and "Hell," as they are used and understood today it would teach:
In trying to put Hell in the Bible, they made a mess of things, a mess that no one believes, not even the translators that made the mess. In the next verse it is clearly indicated that this is deliverance from a threat of death from those who sought his life. "O God, arrogant men have risen up against me, and a band of violent men have sought my life (nehphesh)" (New American Standard Bible).
In this Psalm the beliefs of the translators give them only two choices. They had to:
· Put a soul that could not be dead in the grave.
· Or put a soul in Hell.
There choice was to put a soul in Hell, even if it was David’s soul in Hell before his death.
(7) Psalm 116:3 "The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of HELL (grave-sheol) (Hell changed to sheol in New King James Version) gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow. Then called I upon the name of the Lord; O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul." The writer could see that death and the grave may be close. When they translated sheol into Hell, did they not put the righteous in Hell before he died? While he was still living did he pray that his soul be taken out of Hell, when according to today's teaching his soul would not have been in Hell while he was still living? The New King James Version did not think so and changed Hell to sheol. His trouble and sorrow were in this life, and he called upon the name of the Lord to deliver him from death and the grave, he thought his death was near at the hands of those that sought his life, not to deliver him from Hell when he was not in Hell, when he had not died.
(8) Psalm 139:8 "If I ascend up into heaven, you are there: if I make my bed in HELL (grave-sheol), behold, you are there." He is saying God is everywhere; He is omnipresent. There is nowhere one can go away from God for He can reach into the grave and raise the dead. The King James Version makes God be in Hell, but if He were, then those in Hell would not be away from the presence of God and death would not be a separation from God as some teach they are. Sleep is used as a metaphor of death throughout the Bible. "If I make my bed in Sheol" (Hell in the King James Version), those who believe in Hell do not believe those in Hell will have a bed and sleep. If David had made his bed in Hell, this would be saying one of the good guys was asleep in Hell? See GATHERED TO HIS PEOPLE - WAKENING UP AT THE RESURRECTION in chapter three on the use of sleep in the Bible.
(9) Jonah 2:2 "And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me; out of the belly of HELL (grave-sheol) ("grave" in margin of King James Version) (Hell changed to sheol in New King James Version) cried I, and you heard my voice." In the belly of the great fish was a dark covered place as the grave is but it was nothing like a place of torture in fire brimstone. Jonah was not dead, and neither the Catholics, Protestants, nor the after judgment versions of Hell believe that a person can be in Hell before his death, or that he can come back to this world from Hell. For 374 years (from 1611 to 1985) the readers of the King James Version were told Jonah was in Hell, then the New Kings James Version came along and said not so, he was in sheol. This passage is as are many others; it is difficult to see how the King James translators thought they could get their view of "Hell" out of it even when they mistranslated it.
1. No one believes Hell is in the belly of a great fish.
2. No one believes a living person in the flesh can ever be in Hell?
3. No one believes that anyone that does go to Hell will ever come out of it to live on this earth?
But the King James Version makes all three of these to be true. Did the translators believe what they made that translation say? Does any one that believes in Hell believe what they made it say?
THE BAD IN HELL
In only 8 of the 65 passages that have sheol
(1) Psalm 55:15 is the third time sheol is translated Hell and the first time that it is people that are in Hell, the first two was the nation of Israel in captivity, not in Hell. "Let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick into HELL (sheol-grave in the margin of the King James Version): for wickedness is in their dwellings, and among them." David is asking that they die and go to sheol (the grave) quickly. He is not asking that their souls be tormented in Hell forever. Those who believe in the after judgment Hell do not believe the souls of the wicked go quickly to Hell after the death of the person it was in, but some are desperate enough for proof of Hell that they use this and other verses like it. Though this is the twenty-ninth time sheol is used, it is only the eighth time it is translated Hell is in the New King James Version. Numbers 16:29-33 is similar, "If these men die the death of all men, or if they suffer the fate of all men, then the Lord has not sent me. But, if the Lord brings about an entirely new thing and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that is theirs, and they descend alive into sheol (grave-sheol, pit in King James Version), then you will understand that these men have spurned the Lord. Then it came about as he finished speaking all these words, that the ground that was under them split opened; and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, and their households, and all the men who belonged to Korah, with their possession, So they (people, not soul) and all that belonged to them went down alive to sheol (sheol-grave-pit in King James Version); and they perished from the midst of the assembly" New American Standard Bible. If they had translated this sheol into Hell, it would have put Hell in a hole in the ground and on this earth; if Hell is eternal torment then this hole is still some place on this earth, and this earth will have to last for eternity if Hell were on the earth and Hell last for eternity.
The King James translators did not know whether they wanted the wicked (1) in the grave (2) or in Hell; the two most certainly are not the same place. Did they divide up the dead and (1) put some in Hell, (2) some in the grave, (3) and some in a hole in the ground? Sheol is translated grave, Hell, and pit