Sheol
Sheol, in the Hebrew Bible, is dark region within Hell and the darkest most desolate realm of all. It is also the eternal prison of the Watchers for rebelling against their sacred duties by taking human wives and spawning the Nephilim.
Description[]
While the Hebrew Bible describes Sheol as the permanent place of the dead, in the Second Temple period (roughly 500 BC – 70 AD) Sheol is considered to be the home of the wicked dead, while Paradise is the home of the righteous dead until the Last Judgement (e.g. 1 Enoch 22; Luke 16:19–31). In some texts, Sheol was equated with Gehenna in the Talmud. This is reflected in the New Testament where Hades is both the underworld of the dead and the personification of it.
In the Old Testament, the most common way of describing Sheol is as the house of death. It is the realm of the dead, where all the dead go. This is even personified in Proverbs 1–9, where Lady Folly’s house, and the meal she serves there, is characterized by death. Samyaza is prince over this house of the dead with Death as his hangman and jailer. As chief of the Watchers, Samyaza had been cast down to eat dirt for the rest of his days, and the dirt he eats is that of his realm, the grave (Genesis 3:14). The place of the dead is enemy territory, ruled by the first and greatest enemy of humankind, the accuser.
Overview[]
Speaking of meals, the Old Testament speaks of Sheol as one who is never satisfied, always attempting to fill its belly but never achieving its goal. Nothing less than all of humanity will satiate it (Proverbs 30:15; Habakkuk 2:5). Its mouth is an open pit, swallowing all eventually. This insatiable gluttony is one of the reasons why it is often characterized as the abode of humanity’s final enemy, death itself, and why death is even called humanity’s shepherd (Psalm 49:14).
Sheol is also symbolically characterized in the Old Testament as the opposite of the Promised Land. To put it geographically, it is the ultimate place of exilic wilderness, a place from which one cannot return to the land flowing with milk and honey. Instead, the only meal one can eat in Sheol is dust and ash. Further, instead of God being praised in the sanctuary — an act which of necessity is bodily — there is no praise of God in Sheol, and the dead do not remember him. Most striking is Psalm 6:5: “In death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who will give you praise?” Likewise, Isaiah 38:18 reads, “Sheol does not thank you; death does not praise you; those who go down to the pit do not hope for your faithfulness.”