Revelation 20:13, 14 - Death and Hades
In my recent article about the coming Great White Throne Judgment, which you can find here, we looked at Revelation 20:13-15, which says, "And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. 15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire." In the context of that article, I did not have the time to look into the nature of "death and Hades" as mentioned in verse 13, but I think that there is value in studying it.
I think that the nature of death, as mentioned above, especially as a non-capitalized word, is pretty simple. Since it is not capitalized, it does not refer to a specific place or power; it is quite simply the nature of the end of life. Once one ceases to be alive, they are dead. It is important to note that death entered the world at the same time as sin, as we read about in Genesis. The importance of death in the context of this article is its relation to Hades, which is a capitalized name and is therefore a place.
The word Hades is a Greek word and is therefore found only in the New Testament Scriptures, but the idea of Hades is not new to the New Testament. Hades is synonymous with Sheol, which is found numerous times throughout the Old Testament. Sheol does not appear to be a purely Jewish idea though. The etymology, or linguistic makeup and history of the word Sheol, seems to indicate either an Assyrian or an Assyro-Babylonian origin as found in ancient myths surrounding mythical characters and their interactions with death [a].
The Jewish beliefs around Sheol, or Hades, are actually fairly extensive. It seems that though the western world does not seem to care to consider what happens to us after we die, the ancient world spent a lot of time considering this and developing a sort of theology around it. Citing jewishencyclopedia.com, we begin to gain an understanding of the Jewish beliefs around Sheol (there are a lot of references that follow, which can make this a little tough to follow, but I felt that the references were valuable, so I have included them as presented on the footnoted website); "Sheol is spoken of as a land (Job x. 21, 22); but ordinarily it is a place with gates (ib. xvii. 16, xxxviii. 17; Isa. xxxviii. 10; Ps. ix. 14), and seems to have been viewed as divided into compartments (Prov. vii. 27), with "farthest corners" (Isa. xiv. 15; Ezek. xxxii. 23, Hebr.; R. V. "uttermost parts of the pit"), one beneath the other (see Jew. Encyc. v. 217, s. v. Eschatology). Here the dead meet (Ezek. xxxii.; Isa. xiv.; Job xxx. 23) without 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."[a]
In other words, Sheol is believed to be a place where all souls go after their bodies have died on earth. It is a place that has different levels in which the souls of the departed are kept, and these levels are stacked one upon the other. While this definition appears to state that all the souls of people are kept together without any distinction, there does seem to be different separations to which certain souls are sent; for example, according to 1 Enoch 22:1-13 (which is not Scriptural), there are four compartments of Sheol, which are separated according to the lives lived while on earth, to which the Talmud also seems to refer in Berakhot 7a:25-28. These separations are the righteous man who prospers, a righteous man who suffers, a wicked man who prospers, and a wicked man who suffers. Beyond this, 2 Peter 2:4 seems to indicate that the angels who sinned against God in that they corrupted mankind and the natural realm which caused God to destroy His creation in the flood, have been set apart in a special part of "hell"; "For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment". There are several places in Scripture that have unfortunate translations around the words Hades, Sheol and Hell; this is one of those places. When we look to the original language of 2 Peter 2:4, we see that this is not the Hell that is commonly pictured by modern western people, but this is the Greek word tartaroó - G5020, which refers to a specific place called Tartarus, which the Jews consider to be the deepest abyss of Hades. I don't know if this is the same as the separation into which the wicked man who suffers is sent, but it seems to me that this place is specifically set aside for the rebellious angels, and we are told here that they await their judgment in this place; therefore, the judgment for their deeds has not yet been made.
So if the theology of the separations in Sheol/Hades is accurate, then this means that even the good people who have acknowledged God will go there. This must mean that Sheol/Hades is not specifically a place of punishment for everyone, though it may be a place of punishment for some. We even see this idea that God fearing men will go to Sheol in Scripture. Repeatedly in Genesis, Jacob refers to himself going to Sheol in grief at the loss of Joseph and later the potential loss of Benjamin. As a patriarch of the faith, I doubt that Jacob would be sent to a place of punishment when he died, however, it is obvious that he did expect to go there, so Sheol must not be a place specifically intended for punishment, but a place for the dead to await their judgment.
That being said, Scripture does seem to make it clear that there is a level of punishment in Sheol/Hades as well. In Luke 16:19-31, we read Jesus' parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Now, keep in mind that a parable was a word picture that was used to teach a lesson to the listeners; it was not to be considered an account of something that actually took place, but Jesus was talking to Jews when He told this parable, and He spoke in a manner that they would understand what He was telling them. In verses 23-24 we read that, "In Hades he [the rich man] lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom. 24 And he cried out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.’ Taking everything above together, Sheol/Hades is a place where the souls of men go when their body dies, it is a place of waiting for the coming judgment, there appears to be separation for those who did good in their lives and those who did evil, with some level of punishment for the evil doers while they wait for judgment.
One more thing that I want to point out about the Jewish beliefs about Sheol is again found at jewishencyclopedia.com, and is as follows; " The dead continue after a fashion their earthly life. Jacob would mourn
there (Gen. xxxvii. 35, xlii. 38); David abides there in peace (I Kings
ii. 6); the warriors have their weapons with them (Ezek. xxxii. 27), yet
they are mere shadows ("rephaim"; Isa. xiv. 9, xxvi. 14; Ps. lxxxviii.
5, A. V. "a man that hath no strength"). The dead merely exist without
knowledge or feeling (Job xiv. 13; Eccl. ix. 5). Silence reigns supreme;
and oblivion is the lot of them that enter therein (Ps. lxxxviii. 13,
xciv. 17; Eccl. ix. 10)."[a] Ecclesiates 9:10 (the last reference in the quite) indicates that, "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might; for there is no activity or planning or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol where you are going." So there appears to be an existence, but it is completely void of meaning or value; one merely is. If your life ended well, your existence would be the same; if your life ended harshly, your existence would be the same.
But Sheol/Hades is not Hell.
We know from Revelation 20:14 that, "death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire." Obviously if Hades was the lake of fire (Hell), then it could not be thrown into the lake of fire. Jesus talks about Hell and he uses a valley nearby to Jerusalem as a picture of what Hell will be like. The valley of Hinnom, otherwise referred to as Gehenna, was a trash dump for the city of Jerusalem. King Josiah (2 Kings 23) made a covenant before God to turn the hearts of the nation back to Him. The valley of Hinnom had been used for sacrifices to pagan gods, not only by the pagan nations that predated the Israelite capture of the land, but these practices were also taken up by the Israelites themselves as they turned their backs on God. As part of the covenant, Josiah had the valley defiled in such a way so that even the pagans could not use it for their ceremonies, particularly child sacrifices to the demon god Molech. The valley of Hinnom became the trash dump for Jerusalem as well as place where dead bodies would be disposed of as is prophesied in Jeremiah 7:31–33. It is said that the dead bodies of animals and criminals were disposed of in Gehenna. It is described as a place of smoke from never ending fires in order to burn the trash there and a place where the maggots and the worms festered. In Mark 9, Jesus tells us that it is better to live life maimed and to enter Heaven than to remain intact and enter Hell, "where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched" (v. 42-48).
So we see that Hell is described as a place of eternal fire and smoke and worms and maggots; this is the lake of fire that is mentioned in Revelation 20:10, 14 and 15. Verse 10 describes Hell as a "lake of fire
and brimstone" while verse 14 tells us that this is the second death. There are those who believe that once the condemned souls reach Hell, they are destroyed, but Matthew 25:46 tells us that Hell is a place of "eternal punishment". There will be no end to the suffering. Those who end up in Hell will be forever engulfed in flames and smoke and there are scholars who believe that their guilt will gnaw at them like the worms and maggots that are referred to. In fact, we see in Mark 9:42-48 above, that Jesus personifies the worm as belonging to the soul in Hell, like they made the worm their very own, by their own deeds. We also see this in the view of Hell described in Isaiah 66:24, "Then they will go forth and look On the corpses of the men Who have transgressed against Me. For their worm will not die And their fire will not be quenched; And they will be an abhorrence to all mankind.”
Now, what do we know of the relationship between death and Hades? Revelation 6:8 seems to give us a bit of a clue when John sees the pale horse of the apocalypse and the rider of that horse who "had the name Death; and Hades was following with him". Wherever death goes, so goes Hades. So death could be seen as the time of waiting and Hades could be seen as the place of waiting; when death (the time) visits you, you are ushered into your waiting room (the place). But the real terror comes when the thing that is being awaited comes. Hell is to be the final resting place for all that have rejected God, but it is a place that is devoid of any rest.
We see who the first inhabitants of Hell will be when we look at Revelation 19:20, "And the beast was seized, and with him the false prophet who
performed the signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who had
received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image; these
two were thrown alive into the lake of fire which burns with brimstone." This occurs before the Millennial Reign of Christ at His return to earth, a time during which most of humanity is still waiting in Sheol as I laid out in my article on the judgment referenced at the beginning of this article. It seems that these two will be the only inhabitants of the lake of fire for 1000 years.
As always, I am interested to hear your thoughts on what you have read here. Please let me know them in the comments section below.
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