To Hell with Hell

Death and the Afterlife In the Psalms and Wisdom literature

The pop-Christian picture of the afterlife is a dichotomy between eternal bliss and inhumane

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torment​When the righteous die, their souls leave their bodies to be in the eternal presence of God,

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going for a morning jog along the streets of gold, and swimming in the crystal sea​Forever singing

praises to God in an ethereal, otherworldly ever lasting party where every night they feast, and no

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work gets done​All of this while the unrighteous go to be poked by the Devil's pitchfork in the eternal

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furnace of Hell​Where heavy metal is the music of choice, and there is no rest, comfort, or air

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conditioning​Of course, the above is extremely hyperbolic, and not a proper reflection of good

Christian theology, but is nonetheless a representation of the folk beliefs of the average North

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American Deist​However, ancient Hebrew poetry depicts a much different perspective of death and

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the afterlife, and is grossly different than the understanding that the New Testament leads us to​In

this essay, we will define and describe the Hebrew picture of the living, and the eternal state of the

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dead​We will learn all of this from the writings in Job, Psalms, and Ecclesiastes, and look at the nature

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of revelation as it has progressed in scripture on this subject​Ultimately, we will see that in ancient

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Hebrew poetry, there is no picture of the afterlife​The dead are believed to be dead forever, with no

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consciousness beyond life​

LIFE

In the early Hebrew paradigm, the human life was thought of as a unity, made up primarily of

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flesh animated by the Spirit or breath (ruach) of God​When God withdrew his ruach, life ended and

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the body returned to the dust​There was nothing that resembles the Christian idea of the “soul” that

continued on after death, but rather a shadow of the person detached itself and continued to eke out
 .1 ​
a bare existence​ .​
The whole person does not survive, but only a very small portion​This perspective

of the physical life has significant implications for the afterlife which will be explained in more detail

.
later​

DEATH'S DICHOTOMY

Death in the Psalms is seen as going down to the soil (22:15), back to that from which we

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came (90:3), The soil where the worm consumes (Job 17:14), going to destruction (Ps​88:11), down

to the pit (28:1), to silence (115:17) to a place of darkness (49:19), and to an extreme sleep (13:3)

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from which one never wakes (14:12)​The words primarily translated to depict death and the afterlife

are Sheol (land of destruction) which is the most dominant, and Abbadon (destruction, ruin) which is

.2 ​
less common​ Sheol is derived from the verb that means “to extinguish”, and has overtones of

.3 ​
misfortune​ .​
When used in poetry, it describes death in many, sometimes even conflicting ways​As

seen above, Sheol is described in both ways alluding exclusively to a physical death with nothing

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beyond, and sometimes gives a picture of a dark, gloomy underworld cavern akin to the Greek Hades​

4
.5
Most of the Biblical images paint Sheol to be a place with identifiable structure and geography​

Some passages describe Sheol as totally outside of Yahweh's jurisdiction, and other texts assert

.6 ​
Yahweh's power over Sheol​ What is consistent throughout the literature is the fact that Sheol is, in

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fact, an undesirable place to go, but all people will eventually find their way there​It is the abode of

1
.​
 Robin L​ ,​
 Routledge​ ,​
 “Death and Afterlife in the Old Testament”​ ​  ​
Journal of European Baptist Studies​ ,​
9​ .​
 no​ 1 
(2008): 23­24. 
2
 ​
 After the Exile: Essays in Honour of Rex Mason​ ,​
(Macon​ .​
 Ga​ ,​
: Mercer University Press​ ,​
 1996)​ .​
 p​ 231 
3
 J Harold Ellens​,​Heaven​
 ​ ,​ ,​
 Hell​ ,​
 and the Afterlife: Eternity in Judaism​ ,​
 Christianity​ ,​
 and Islam​ , 
 Psychology​
,​
Religion​ and Spirituality (Santa Barbara: Praeger​ ,​
 2013)​,​
 2. 
4
After the Exile: Essays in Honour of Rex Mason​
 ​   231. 
5
.​
 Ellens, p​1. 
6
After the Exile: Essays in Honour of Rex Mason, ​
 ​ 233. 
 .7 ​
both the virtuous, and the evil​ It is not until after the Babylonian captivity that a theology with a

.8
more desirable afterlife is developed​

Although, there seems to have been some idea among the Israelites of an alternative to such a

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gloomy afterlife, and a state much more desirable than death​ .​
J​Harold Ellens describes this idea,

defended from Psalm 16:

In Psalm 16, David extols his own state of virtue and emplores God, therefore, not to
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leave his soul in Sheol nor allow him to merely molder away in death (Ps​49:15)​...
David imagines that God can intervene and take David's soul into a status of greater
and more blessed proximity to God's own self and God's kind of eternal existence​ .​”9

This idea is also presented by the Psalmist in chapter 49:7 “Yet God will redeem my life from the

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power of Sheol, for He will take me​” This implies that God is not directly involved in bringing people

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to their deaths (though he is no doubt behind this process)​But it seems that there is an

understanding that God can take the faithful person from Sheol, preventing it from getting the person

.10
into it's clutches​

Anyone who is currently among the living is certain that they will someday enter the abode of

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the dead​ .​
The living know something, whereas the dead know nothing (Ecc​ .​
9:5)​The early Hebrew's

idea of a desirable afterlife was not at all the immortality of the soul, but evidence before death of the

.11 ​
continuation of the family line through successive generations and descendants​ The “shadow” that

survived and continued to live after death was not a literal living peice of the person's life, but instead

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the memory of the deceased person in the minds of their families​Immortality of the righteous, they

believed, was not the individual living forever, but instead the family legacy, and the community

7
 Ellens, 1. 
8
 After the Exile: Essays in Honour of Rex Mason,​
 233. 
9
,​
 Ellens​ . 
 1​
10
 John Goldingay​ ,​
 ​  ​
Israel's Faith​ ,​
(Downers Grove​ ,​
 IL: IVP Academic​ 2006), 615. 
11
,​
 Routledge​ 31. 
 .​
continuing on​For those whose lives were lived well and fulfilled, there was no need for the life to be

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prolonged after death simply because it was fulfilled​Because the dead know nothing, they needed

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to be sure in life that their legacy would continue​This compliments Israel's future hope which was

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seen collectively​As the Israelites look forward to the coming of God's kingdom and future liberation,

their main concerns are what is to happen within the community. Even if one did not survive to see

.12 ​
Israel's future glory, they saw themselves as being vitally linked to the community​ If one dies apart

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from a fulfilled life, then the fear of Sheol is simply the prolongation of the unfulfilled life​No matter

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how long and prosperous the legacy of one's community may be, death is inevitable for all​

If it is inevitable, then why is there such a fear of Sheol? Why is something so sure so horrific

for the Psalmist? The Psalms describe Sheol as a place of silence (115:17), where there is no more

praise to Yahweh (6:5, 30:9, 88:10), and the writers express a fear of being cut off from God's hand

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and providence (88:5)​ .​
“The inhabitants of Sheol lie in the grave, do not get up, do not praise​From

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youth, the Psalmist has been terrified of such an inert existence​”13 This would be the worst tragedy​
.

ECCLESIASTES

In Ecclesiastes, the author describes that even the dead are forgotten, and all who enter Sheol

have lost all hope: “No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not

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be remembered by those who follow them” (Ecc 1:11​ .​
See also 2:16, 9:4, 9:10, 7:8-10)​Even the

state of the most evil person is preferable to that of the most righteous who have died without

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blame​ .​
It seems that the fear of death comes from one's belief that their life is yet unfulfilled​They

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fear that they will be forgotten​Not only does God not remember the dead, but the memory of the

12
,​
 Routledge​ 31­32. 
13
,​
 Konrad Schaefer​ ​ ,​
Psalms​ ,​
 Berit Olam (Collegeville​ .​
 Minn​ ,​
: Liturgical Press​ ,​
 2001)​ 215. 
 .​
dead eventually fade away from their families, as their body decays in the dirt​The person's shadow

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that survives is eventually gone from the memory of the community​Their identity is nothing without

.
the community​

THE GOOD LIFE TO LIVE

Sheol seems to be spoken of mainly in connection with the wicked, and under the background

.14 ​
of divine judgement​ But the poetic books give nearly no information regarding the alternative to

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Sheol​“There is no binary opposite of Sheol in the sense that the blessed go to enjoy a beatific

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afterlife​”15

What about Psalm 139? That seems to say otherwise (“If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If

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I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!”)​It suggests heaven, made for the righteous' eternal

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dwelling​ .​
But here, heaven and Sheol are misleading to the Christian mind​The Psalmist is not

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referring to the next life, but is saying that in this world too he cannot escape God​Neither the in the

.16 ​
skies nor in the earth​ When reading it with a Christian mindset, we automatically come to the

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conclusion that this is what the Psalmist is referring to​But in his world, there was no such idea of

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heaven​

So where is the good life to be lived? If not in eternity with God, then it must be lived on

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earth​If God's providence doesn't reach Sheol, then where life can be lived the closest with God is on

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earth, where praises can be sung to him, and life can be enjoyed​Therefore, Qoholet commends joy

“for man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him

14
 Schaeffer, 215. 
15
,​
 Schaeffer​ 31. 
16
 Michael Wilcock​ ,​
 ​ ,​
The Message of Psalms 1­72: Songs for the People of God​ The Bible Speaks Today (Downers 
,​
Grove​ .​
 Ill​ ,​
: InterVarsity Press​ ,​
 2001)​ 259. 
 .​
in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun​ .​
” (Ecc​8:15) We should

.17
eat and drink in gladness, knowing that God himself delights in what we do​

Psalm 45:9 seems to imply that the dead eventually rot away, which would also imply not so

much of a conscious afterlife, but simply as the physical death entering non-existence as it is talked

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about in Job and Ecclesiastes​At the very least it could also imply some sort of temporary

.18 ​
consciousness before wasting away to nothingness in Sheol​ This, in continuance with the theme of

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immortalizing the community's legacy, could contribute to their fear of death​

JOB

It seems that the Old Testament saints did not have a clear understanding of what to expect in

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Sheol​ .​
They were constantly torn by mixed emotion when they contemplated their death​They did

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not experience the same joy and bold confidence that the New Testament saints express​While the

.19 ​
New Testament saints think of death as gain, the Old Testament saints think of it as loss​ Though

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Job seems to think of death more desirable in his turbulence​He sees it as an escape from the

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turmoil of his life, and he longs to enter Sheol in peace (Job 21:13)​In his turmoil Job sees death as a

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better alternative to the life that he is experiencing​ .​
Job often describes Sheol as a place of rest​A

sleep from which one never wakes(14:12), and a desirable place for the tired, the prisoner, the slave,

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and a sufferer such as himself​ .
This is an interesting contrast from how the Psalms describe death​

Many Psalms paint a picture of some sort of consciousness after death, but Job seems to desire to be

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gone from the memory of God, and for his memory to fade away from the earth​In fact, Job

17
.​
 Iain W​ ,​
 Provan​ ​ ,​
Ecclesiastes​ ...​
 Song of Songs: From Biblical Text​ ,​
 to Contemporary Life​ The Niv Application 
,​
Commentary Series (Grand Rapids​ .​
 Mich​ ,​
: Zondervan​ ,​
 2001)​ 182. 
18
 Ellens, p. 2. 
19
.​
 Robert A​ ,​
 Morey​ ​  ​
Death and the Afterlife​ ,​
(Minneapolis​ .​
 Minn​ ,​
: Bethany House​ ,​
 1984)​ 22. 
 .​
describes Sheol as not any sort of afterlife at all, but simply physical death​He desires his entire

.
existence to end, and return to the dirt​

Part of Job's extreme desire for death comes not only from his sickness, loss of livestock, and

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the fact that his children had died​He no longer sees any hope for his family line to continue ht

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legacy for his community​ .​
All of his loss has already caused him to lose hope​Therefore, he sees no

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difference between death and life​He is already undergoing the process of death while he is still

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living, and entering the finality of death will end his grief forever​His life has become purposeless He

feels the tightening grip of Sheol around him, and laments his life's loss of hope:“If I hope for Sheol as

my house, if i make my bed in darkness, if I say to the pit, 'You are my father' and to the worm 'My

mother,' or 'My sister,' where is my hope? Who will see my hope? Will it go down to the bars of

.20
Sheol? Shall we descend together into the dust?” (17:14-16)​

PSALMS

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Of the Poetic books, the Psalms have the most eclectic view on death​There are sentiments

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similar to that of Job, and pictures that make us think about a New Testament perspective​Some

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Psalms talk about God's involvement in Sheol, while others speak of his distance from it​Most of the

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Psalms personify Sheol (49:14-15)​Sheol and death is even something that the Psalmists experience

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during life (55:15, 116:3)​The Psalms still speak very little of of the nature of Sheol after death, but

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primarily speak of it from the perspective of the living​Even through the embellished poetry that the

Psalmists use when speaking of Sheol, Sheol is clearly a word speaking only of the grave, and not of a

.
conscious afterlife​

20
.​
 J H​ ,​
 Eaton​ ​ ,​
Job​ ,​
 Old Testament Guides (Sheffield: JSOT Press for Society for Old Testament Study​ ,​
 1985)​ .​
  p​ 12. 
 “As when one plows and breaks up the earth, so shall our bones be scattered at the mouth of

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Sheol” (Psalm 141:7)​This is one of the clearest Psalms that speak about the place of Sheol,

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describing it as the grave rather than an underworld​The other Psalms, through their embellished

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poetry, do the same​For obvious reasons, the Psalms refer to death from the perspective of the

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living​

Psalm 6:5 speaks of Sheol as a place of silence, where there is no remembrance of God, and there are

.21
no praises raised to him​

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Although, not all agree that Sheol is a place where all go​Of the thirty four times that Sheol is

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mentioned in Scripture, twenty five of them are lined directly with the fate of the ungodly​There are

.22 ​
only two passages that describe Sheol as a universal destiny: Psalm 89:48, and Ecclesiastes 9:10​ In

the other seven, the righteous contemplate descent into Sheol, though these are generally in times of

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crisis​In the times that the Psalmist is pleading with God to pick him out of Sheol, it is that he fears

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being forgotten by their community (16:10, 18:5, 30:3, 49:15, 86:13 116:3)​Their crisis is that they

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are no longer of value or worthy of memory in the community​Not that they are going to live in

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eternal conscious torment​

There is also a theme in the Psalms when the authors are pleading with God to not let them

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die​It seems as if they often try to wager with God, saying that if they go to Sheol, then they will be

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unable to sing God's praise​If the patient dies, then God's praises will be lessened (88:4-5, 6:5, 30:9,

.23 ​
115:17)​ This makes it even more clear that there is no picture of a heavenly afterlife in their

21
,​
 Gerald Henry Wilson​ ​ ,​
Psalms: From Biblical Text­­ to Contemporary Life​ The Niv Application Commentary 
,​
(Grand Rapids​ .​
 Mich​ ,​
: Zondervan​ ,​
 2002­)​ 180­181. 
22
 Routledge​,​
 29. 
23
,​
 Schaefer​ 215. 
 .24 ​
paradigm, because the death of the righteous means no gain for God​ Heaven does not gain one

.
more soul at the death of the righteous​

PROGRESSIVE REVELATION

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Throughout history, doctrines on the afterlife continued to change​God gave new revelation

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to his people slowly over time to get to the doctrines that the New Testament teaches​Each new

revelation was like a turn of the knob on a pair of binoculars which would eventually change the initial

.25 ​
blurred vision of the seer to the point of clarity​ With all this in mind, some would say that a New

Testament understanding of heaven and hell should be read into the whole of the Old Testament

as​
because of Progressive Revelation,​ W​.​.​
G​T Shedd in his book “The Doctrine of Endless Punishment”

would argue:

“In modern theology, the Judgement and Hell are correlates; each implying the other,
.​
each standing or falling with the other​ In the Old Testament theology, the Judgement
26
and Sheol sustain the same relations”

He argues that because of progressive revelation, the doctrines of the afterlife seen in the New

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Testament should be read into the Old Testament​Therefore, Sheol should be read with the same

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connotations of the New Testament picture of Hell​I think that this understanding stems from a

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fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of progressive revelation​I would argue the very

opposite: that a proper understanding of what the Old Testament saints knew about Sheol should be

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read into the New Testament​Yes, Jesus is clear that there is a beatific afterlife, and a separation of

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the wicked and the righteous after death​But the New Testament saints, having only the Hebrew

Scriptures to inform their understanding of the afterlife, would have used Old Testament imagery in

24
 Wilson​ ,​
 518. 
25
 Morey​ ,​
 23. 
26
 The Doctrine of Eternal Punishment​
  William Greenough Thayer Shedd​  (Minnesota: Klock & Klock Christian 
.​
Pub​, ​
1980) 29. 
 .​
their teaching​ .​
This is how it must be for all of scripture: that the Old inform the New​The nature of

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progressive revelation is that pieces of truth were revealed over time​Not that ideas were given by

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God and then debunked and replaced by further revelation​Watching the beauty of progressive

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revelation unfold throughout scripture is something that makes the narrative so captivating​But it by

no means implies that Old Testament theology is inferior, or less complete than New Testament

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Theology​ .
It is in fact just as much the Holy Scriptures as the New Testament​

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In this paper, we have begun to learn about the ancient Hebrew's picture of death​Death, to

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them was going into the dirt, physically rotting away without any consciousness​What remained of

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them was a shadow of their memory with eventually faded away from the earth​Their fear was being

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forgotten by their community, and by God who leads their community​We have looked at the

perspectives and fears of Job and the Psalmists, and briefly at Qoholet in Ecclesiastes, who, I have

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argued, all had a similar perspective on death​Despite this, Jesus did make himself very clear that

there is a separation of the righteous and the wicked, and he is intent on communicating that there is

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a more desirable afterlife​So should this Old Testament understanding affect our New Testament

understanding of life, death, and the afterlife then? The fact that the New testament authors were

inform the way that we think of the eternal state of the

using Old Testament imagery should​

wicked, just as it should inform our perspective on the beatific afterlife that Jesus promised.

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But while we are still alive, I think that Qoholet's advice still reigns true​That we should eat and drink

.27 ​
in gladness, knowing that God himself delights in what we do​ That we should enjoy life as we live

it, in worship to God in new-but-not-yet creation, knowing that the life that the righteous have will

, where we will live as we were intended to live.

continue in the New creation​

27
 Provan, 182. 
BIBLIOGRAPHY

.​
After the Exile: Essays in Honour of Rex Mason​ .​
Macon, Ga​: Mercer University Press, 1996.

.​
Collins, John J​ .​
, and Daniel C​ .​
Harlow, eds​ ​ .​
The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism​Grand Rapids,
Mich​.​ .​
: William B​Eerdmans, 2010​ .

.​
Eaton, J H​​ .​
Job​ .​
Old Testament Guides​Sheffield: JSOT Press for Society for Old Testament Study,
.
1985​

Heaven, Hell, and the Afterlife: Eternity in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam​
Ellens, J Harold ​ .
.​
Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality​Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2013.

.​
Goldingay, John​​ .​
Israel's Faith​ .
Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2006​

.​
Morey, Robert A​​ .​
Death and the Afterlife​ .​
Minneapolis, Minn​: Bethany House, 1984.

.​
Provan, Iain W​Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs: From Biblical Text​
​ ...​ .​
to Contemporary Life​The Niv
Application Commentary Series​ .​
Grand Rapids, Mich​ .​
: Zondervan, ©2001​.

.​
Routledge, Robin L​ .​
“Death and Afterlife in the Old Testament​”​
Journal of European Baptist
Studies​ .​
9, no​ .
1 (2008): 22-39​

Schaefer, Konrad ​ .​
Psalms​ .​
Berit Olam​ .​
Collegeville, Minn​: Liturgical Press, 2001

Shedd, William Greenough Thayer​ .​

The Doctrine of Eternal Punishment​Minnesota: Klock & Klock
.​
Christian Pub​, 1980.

.​
Wilson, Gerald Henry​ ​ .​
Psalms: From Biblical Text-- to Contemporary Life​The Niv Application
Commentary​ .​Grand Rapids, Mich​.​
: Zondervan, 2002.