What is the Sheol?
Short Definition:
Sheol: underworld (place to which people descend at death)
Original Word: שְׁאוֹל Part of Speech: Noun Feminine Transliteration: sheol Phonetic Spelling:
(sheh-ole')
Image: The Sheol by
A.G. Ruff
Illustrating the
primitive concept of the Universe and a Hollow Earth.
Origin: meaning "abode of the dead".
Often mistaken for Hell, Gehenna or Hades, Sheol is Hebrew for “the grave pit” or “mankind’s common grave", and is better understood as the abode of the dead or of departed spirits. The Sheol is where the dead meet without judgement, distinction of rank or condition—the rich and the poor, the pious and the wicked, the old and the young, the master and the slave, the righteous and the unrighteous, and regardless of the moral choices made in life. The Sheol is a place of stillness and darkness cut off from God. It is described as being beneath the Earth, a mass grave, that can be visited by the living, but from which the dead are not expected to return. According to some, The inhabitants of Sheol were the "shades", entities without personality or strength. Under some circumstances they could be contacted by the living.
