Old Testament Theology of the Afterlife

Old Testament passages that describe what happens after death lack the detail and clarity of the nt. The predominant term used by ot writers for the afterlife is sheol, which refers either to the grave or the supernatural realm of the dead. Some writers personify sheol as a power that destroys the living (e.g., Isa 5:14; Prov 27:20), although this usage is rare. Both the Septuagint and the New Testament translate sheol as hades. Due to the ambiguity of sheol, the Israelites may not have developed a view of the afterlife (in the nt sense of a heaven or hell) until the third century bc. (This position assumes a late date for texts like Dan 12:2 and Isa 26:19.)

Sheol

The word sheol, which occurs 66 times in the ot, is often used to describe the literal, physical grave in which the dead are buried (Psa 18:4–5; 89:48; 2 Sam 22:5–6; Hos 13:14) and decompose (Job 17:13–16). Since no person escapes death, no one escapes sheol. Both the righteous (Gen 37:35; 42:38; 2 Sam 22:6) and the wicked (Job 21:13–16) are destined for sheol.

Old Testament writers often portray the dead as going “down” to sheol, (see Num 16:30; Job 7:9; Isa 57:9), which may simply refer to the physical grave. However, Israelites, Canaanites, and Mesopotamian peoples believed that sheol was the vast cosmic abode of the dead under the earth. It is difficult to discern in each case precisely which “downward” destination the writer intended: the literal grave or the cosmic underworld.

Cosmic sheol was the lowest place imaginable: the cosmological waters under the earth (Job 26:5). Contrasts between words like “pit” and the “highest heavens,” where God dwells, capture this idea (Deut 32:22, 32; Isa 7:11; Amos 9:2; Pss 86:13; 139:8; Job 11:8; Ezek 31:14–18). Jonah 2:3–6 is especially illuminating, as sheol is partnered with other terms rich with cosmological meaning: sea (yam/yammim), river (nahar), waves (gallim), waters (mayim), and the deep (tehom). The biblical text occasionally makes it clear that sheol refers to something other than the physical grave by indicating its capacity, its vast breadth and depth to hold the dead (Prov 27:20; Isa 5:14; Hab 2:5), or its bars and gates to prevent escape (Job 17:16; 38:17; Isa 38:10; Pss 9:14; 107:18; compare Matt 16:18).

A Blissful Afterlife?

Mesopotamian parallels refer to sheol as a watery, cadaverous existence from which the listless dead long to escape. On this basis alone, one might conclude that the ot writers knew nothing of the nt writers’ understanding of heaven. This conclusion, however, misguidedly restricts the ot understanding of the afterlife to one word.

The ot more broadly contains definite hints of a hope beyond sheol for the righteous. Although Job 7:9 states that no person comes up out of sheol, 1 Sam 2:6 clearly expresses the belief that God can rescue people from sheol: “The Lord kills and brings to life; he brings down to sheol and raises up.” The verb translated “raises up” is not the word typically used in the ot for physical deliverance. This “upward” deliverance language occurs again in Prov 15:24: “The path of life leads upward for the prudent, that he may turn away from sheol beneath.” The text may either indicate that the righteous never go to sheol (i.e., that they will not die), or that the righteous, at some point after death, escape cosmic sheol. If this verse (and others like it) merely suggests deliverance from physical death, then the ancient Israelites would have had to believe it was possible for the righteous to never die—something that ot statements about sheol clearly contradict. Psalm 30:3 also seems to suggest that God can raise someone out of sheol: “O Lord, you have brought up my soul [i.e., my life] from sheol; you restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit.” Psalm 49:15 echoes this thought: “But God will ransom my soul [i.e., my life] from the power of sheol, for he will receive me.” Being “received” by God makes little sense if it merely refers to protection from harm in this life. Furthermore, the Hebrew word for “receive” (yiqqach) can also mean “taken,” and so the text may here imply removal from sheol.

With these thoughts in mind, Psa 73:23–26 deserves consideration:

Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand.

You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory.

Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Being “received to glory” (the same verb as in Psa 49:15) may simply imply God’s honoring of the psalmist, in which case “glory” does not refer to the presence of God. However, the following verse makes that interpretation difficult: “Whom have I in the heavens but you?” Israelites, of course, thought God dwelled in the heavens, so the language of the psalm more likely expresses the hope of being in God’s presence.

An Old Testament Hell?

No direct evidence points to sheol as a place of everlasting torment akin to nt descriptions of hell. The dead desired escape from sheol, but only the righteous could hope in this possibility.

Hints in the ot nevertheless point to later theological developments of sheol as a place of torment. For instance, sheol is described as a place of unrelenting darkness (Job 17:13; compare Lam 3:6; Job 18:18). The inhabitants of sheol include the Rephaim (see Job 26:5–6 and Isa 14:9–11; compare Ezek 32:26–30), This term, often translated “the dead” or “the shades,” is associated with clans of giants descended from the Nephilim (e.g., Deut 2:10–11), who were known as great warriors. Texts outside the ot, however, only make the latter association: that the Rephaim were great warriors. In Second Temple Jewish literature, Jewish theologians developed the ot‘s combination of both beliefs about the Rephaim, asserting that demons were not only the spirits of deceased giants who roamed the earth and harassed humanity, but were associated with the Underworld (1 Enoch 6–11, 15). The twofold description of sheol as a place of darkness inhabited by Rephaim thus shares certain elements with a nt hell.

Michael S. Heiser

Further Reading

Sheol DDD

Dead, Abode of the AYBD

Sheol ISBE