Netherworld: Down to Death
- James Collazo
- Feb 5, 2021
- 8 min read
Updated: Nov 17
Introduction
The netherworld is real, but not in the way most people imagine. The "hell" Jesus spoke about was the Hinnom Valley near Jerusalem. Its Hebrew name is Ge-Hinnom (H2011), and its Greek form is Geenna (G1067), which scholars anglicize as Gehenna. The prefix Ge- means "valley" in Greek (H1516). Of all modern Bible translations, only the Complete Jewish Bible and Young's Literal Translation render this term accurately. If translators had kept the true geographical meaning of Geenna rather than changing it into an idea of the afterlife, our Bibles would read "Hinnom" instead of "hell."
Look at the Bible through first-century eyes and picture Jesus saying, "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the One who can destroy both soul and body in [Hinnom]" (Matt. 10:28). The message feels less terrifying. However, Jesus uses the Hinnom Valley as a symbol of God's final judgment for a reason. Places can develop dark reputations over time. We think the same way about Auschwitz, the Bermuda Triangle, or even a local cemetery. To first-century Jews, the Hinnom Valley represented all these horrors at once—cruelty, disappearances, slaughter, mass graves, and pure evil.
Hinnom: Burning & Sacrifice
The Old Testament mentions the "Valley of Ben Hinnom" eleven times. God assigned this land to the tribe of Judah when the Israelites entered the Promised Land. The Israelites captured the territory from the Jebusites to establish the Hebrew faith in a region steeped in pagan idolatry (Exod. 3, 23:23, 33:2, 34:11; Deut. 7:1, 20:17; Josh. 3:10). Yet the book of Joshua states, "Judah could not dislodge the Jebusites, who were living in Jerusalem; to this day the Jebusites live there with the people of Judah" (Josh. 15:63).
Because they failed to remove the Jebusites, the Israelites lived among the very pagans God told them to conquer. They began to worship foreign gods and intermarried with them (Ezra 9:1–2). Many commentators interpret the book of Joshua as a record of genocide, but the real story is more complex. God commanded Israel to take the land to end the nations' horrific practices—especially child sacrifice.
The Jebusites carried out these sacrifices in the Hinnom Valley, burning children alive as offerings to the idol Molek. During his sweeping reforms, King Josiah tore down the Topheth altars where these murders took place (2 Kings 23:1–20). The prophet Jeremiah denounced this cruelty (Jer. 7:31–32) and recorded God's anger toward such evil:
So beware, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when people will no longer call this place Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter (Jer. 19:6). . . . They built high places for Baal in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to sacrifice their sons and daughters to Molek, though I never commanded—nor did it enter my mind—that they should do such a detestable thing and so make Judah sin (Jer. 32:35).
Gehenna: Beyond the Grave
If Jesus' warnings to the Pharisees referred only to the Hinnom Valley, they would mean little to us today. When reading Scripture, we often struggle to tell what still applies to us and what belongs to its original setting. In Jesus' message, he accused the Judean religious leaders of idolatry in both spiritual and political ways. The Pharisees turned away from God by rejecting the Messiah and putting their faith in self-righteousness and Roman power.
Jesus used the Hinnom Valley as an image of a graveyard, as people in the first century knew it. In ancient times, people had used the valley as a mass grave for children killed in sacrifice. After the exile, the Jewish people turned it into a cemetery because of its dark history with death. Hakeldama (G184), or the "Field of Blood," where Judas Iscariot died, was also located in the Hinnom Valley. Luke used this setting to show Judas' judgment, quoting Peter's words: "Judas left to go where he belongs" (Acts 1:25).
According to the Law of Moses, the Pharisees took great care to remain ritually clean (Matt. 23:25–26; Mark 7:1–5). This law required them to avoid touching corpses or walking through graveyards (Num. 19:11–13; Luke 11:44). When Jesus called them "whitewashed tombs" that looked beautiful on the outside but were filled with death inside (Matt. 23:27), he exposed their hypocrisy. He warned them that God saw their sin as just as corrupt and detestable as the history of the Hinnom Valley.
The "undying worms" and "unquenchable fire" (Mark 9:48; cf. Isa. 66:24) symbolized both the worms that consumed decaying bodies and the flames that accelerated their decomposition. Jesus used these images to describe spiritual death as an experience of abandonment and destruction with no relief or escape.
Netherworld: Sheol, Hades & Tartarus
Sheol (H7585) refers to the netherworld in the Hebrew Scriptures. Modern interpreters often leave Sheol untranslated because it represented a real realm in Hebrew cosmology, not just a figure of speech. Older translations use "grave," but Sheol describes the dwelling place of the dead, not merely a burial site.
The translators of the Septuagint considered the Greek concept of Hades the best equivalent for Sheol and used it throughout their translation. This parallel between Sheol and Hades carries into the New Testament, where it represents the netherworld—not "hell" as eternal punishment, but a shadowy place where souls existed apart from their earthly bodies.
Greek mythology described Tartarus as a deep abyss where the Titans were imprisoned and punished. The Greeks believed the gods cast their worst enemies, and later the souls of wicked people, into this dark realm. Tartarus appears in the Septuagint's translation of Job and in the non-canonical Book of Enoch. The New Testament mentions it only once, as the Greek verb tartaroō (G5020, "to cast into Tartarus"). When Peter writes, "For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell [Greek: tartarōsas], putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment" (2 Pet. 2:4), he draws from Enoch's account of the Watchers' punishment (§§ 1, 2).
This same theme sets the background for Jesus' most severe warnings about hellfire:
Then he will say to those on his left, "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me" (Matt. 25:41–43).
First-century Jews understood the afterlife differently from how many Christians view heaven and hell today. Their beliefs focused less on eternal reward or punishment and more on the state of the soul after death within God's larger plan. Instead of longing for "heaven," they hoped to rest in "Abraham's bosom." In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, Jesus described the different fates of the righteous and the wicked. He said little about "Abraham's bosom," except that a great boundary separates it from the netherworld. Notably, the rich man asked only for a drop of water, showing that even the most basic needs go unmet in "this place of torment" (Luke 16:19–31).
Conclusion
In our contemporary Western culture, we often overspiritualize the ideas of hellfire and final punishment. We tend to forget the physical reality of Gehenna—the valley that exists here on earth—and ignore the grave that awaits every person. In many churches, people say, "Hell is eternal separation from God." Yet the Bible never teaches this idea; it teaches the opposite. King David writes:
If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. . . . If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you (Ps. 139:8, 11–12).
In other words, God remains fully present even in the darkness of Sheol. No place, not even the realm of the dead, lies outside his reach. Older translations, such as the King James Version, express this idea clearly: "If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there" (Ps. 139:8 KJV).
The apostle John writes in Revelation:
They, too, will drink the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. They will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever. There will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name (Rev. 14:10–11).
God's presence—not his absence—brings torment to the wicked and the unrighteous. The "Gehenna of fire" does not show a cruel God but reveals the pain people bring on themselves when they turn away from him. Their pride and defiance cut them off from the life and peace he offers. Those who hate God in this world would not want his presence in the next. Jesus warns, "Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full" (Matt. 6:2), and Paul explains that they "received in themselves the due penalty for their error" (Rom. 1:27).
Prayer
Blessed are you, LORD our God, King of heaven and earth. You ascended your Son, who descended to the netherworld and broke death's power, bringing light into the darkness. Reveal to us the way to eternal life and give us hope. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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