What is Sheol?
Question 10119
The word “Sheol” occurs sixty-five times in the Hebrew Old Testament and represents one of the most important concepts in the biblical understanding of death and the afterlife. Yet it is also one of the most misunderstood. English translations have rendered it variously as “the grave,” “the pit,” “hell,” and “the realm of the dead,” which has created considerable confusion about what it actually refers to. Is Sheol simply the grave where the body is buried? Is it an underworld where the dead exist consciously? And does the Old Testament teach that the righteous and the wicked share the same post-mortem destination? Getting Sheol right is essential for understanding the progressive biblical revelation about death, judgement, and the afterlife.
The Meaning of Sheol in the Old Testament
Sheol in Hebrew (she’ol) refers to the realm of the dead, the place to which all the dead go upon departing this life. It is not simply the physical grave, though the two concepts sometimes overlap in Old Testament usage. The grave (qeber) is where the body is laid; Sheol is where the person goes. Jacob says, “I shall go down to Sheol to my son, mourning” (Genesis 37:35), which cannot mean the physical grave alone, since Jacob believed Joseph had been torn apart by wild animals and had no burial site. He expected to join Joseph in the realm of the dead.
The Old Testament presents Sheol as a place located beneath the earth (Numbers 16:30-33; Isaiah 14:9-15), to which the dead descend. It is associated with silence (Psalm 115:17), darkness (Job 10:21-22), and a diminished form of existence. The dead in Sheol are called rephaim, “shades,” which conveys weakness and insubstantiality rather than full, vigorous life. Yet the dead are not unconscious. Isaiah 14:9-10 pictures the dead rising to meet the king of Babylon as he descends to Sheol, speaking to him and recognising him. Samuel, called up by the medium at Endor, is conscious and coherent (1 Samuel 28:15-19). Sheol is a place of diminished existence, not of extinction.
Did the Righteous and Wicked Go to the Same Place?
The Old Testament uses Sheol language for both the righteous and the wicked. Jacob expected to go there (Genesis 37:35). The wicked go there under judgement (Psalm 9:17; Numbers 16:30). This has led some interpreters to conclude that the Old Testament makes no distinction between the afterlife of the righteous and the wicked, but that conclusion goes beyond what the texts actually say.
There are hints, even within the Old Testament, that Sheol is not a uniform experience. Psalm 16:10 expresses confidence that God will not abandon the psalmist’s soul to Sheol or let His holy one see corruption, a text that Peter applies to the resurrection of Christ in Acts 2:27-31. Psalm 49:15 declares, “God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me.” Psalm 73:24 anticipates being received into glory after death. These texts suggest an expectation among the faithful that their experience in Sheol would be fundamentally different from that of the ungodly, even if the Old Testament does not spell out the precise geography.
By the time of Jesus, Jewish understanding had developed a more explicit picture of Sheol as a divided realm, with a place of comfort for the righteous (Abraham’s bosom) and a place of torment for the wicked. Jesus’ account of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16 reflects and confirms this understanding, presenting the two regions as separated by an impassable chasm.
Sheol and the New Testament
The Greek equivalent of Sheol is Hades, and the Septuagint consistently translates Sheol as Hades throughout the Old Testament. In the New Testament, the terminology shifts, and the fuller revelation of Christ’s death and resurrection transforms the picture considerably. Christ holds the keys of Death and Hades (Revelation 1:18). He has conquered the realm of the dead. For the believer who dies after the cross, the destination is no longer Sheol but the presence of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:8; Philippians 1:23). Sheol as the common destination of all the dead belongs to the pre-cross arrangement. The resurrection of Christ changed everything.
So, now what?
The Old Testament understanding of Sheol reflects a genuine but incomplete revelation about what lies beyond death. God had not yet fully disclosed the glory that awaited the righteous or the full horror that awaited the wicked. That clarity came progressively, reaching its zenith in the death and resurrection of Jesus. What the Old Testament saints glimpsed dimly, the New Testament declares openly: death has been defeated, its realm has been conquered, and for those who belong to Christ, the sting of death has been permanently removed. The darkness and silence of Sheol have given way to the light and joy of Christ’s presence.
“O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” 1 Corinthians 15:55