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‘Hell’ in the Torah (Pentatuch)

by Dr. Eitan Bar
9 minutes read

The Hebrew Scriptures, which chronicle God’s relationship with Israel over thousands of years, do not contain a Hebrew term equivalent to the concept of hellfire as understood in later Augustinian-Calvinist theology. Instead, the Old Testament’s Hebrew word “SHEOL” simply refers to the realm of the dead, akin to a grave. For instance, Genesis 37:34-35:

Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. And he said, “No, I shall go down to Sheol to my son, mourning.” Thus his father wept for him.

Genesis 37:34-35, ESV

The NIV translated Sheol as “grave”:

I will go down to the grave to my son in mourning.

Genesis 37:35, NIV

If we read this verse in other translations, like that of Douay-Rheims Bible, for instance, it will make no sense: “I will go down to my son into hell, mourning.” Why would Jacob want to go to hell, and why would he think his son is burning in hell? This is the time to remind ourselves that the word “hell” did not always mean what most understand it as today (eternal conscious torment in fire).

In English bible translations, the Hebrew term Sheol is variably translated in English versions of the Old Testament as “grave,” “underworld,” “pit,” “death,” and “hell.” This variation in translation has led to significant theological confusion regarding the afterlife.

Deuteronomy 32:22

John MacArthur’s interpretation of the hellfire doctrine illustrates the confusion that can arise from depending solely on a single translation, particularly when ignoring the context and disregarding the evolving meanings of words over time:

[Hellfire] is not new. This is what the Bible has said. You can go back to Moses…In Deuteronomy 32:22, it reads this way in the Authorized Version, “A fire is kindled…says God…in my anger and burns to the lowest part of hell.” The 1611 King James version made it clear even that early that the anger of God reached into hell.

John MacArthur

In Hebrew, however, the term “hell” does not appear in the Deuteronomy 32:22 text; rather, the word used is “Sheol.” Consider the much more literal JPS translation of Deuteronomy 32:22:

For a fire is kindled in My nostril, And burneth unto the depths of the nether-world, And devoureth the earth with her produce, And setteth ablaze the foundations of the mountains.

Deuteronomy 32:22 (JPS)

Taken literally, it would imply that God has a nose from which, during Moses’ time, fire erupted to set the mountain foundations ablaze. However, within its context, Deuteronomy 32:22 serves as a metaphor for God’s wrath, extending even to the underworld.

The absence of a definitive concept of hellfire in the Old Testament texts partly explains why traditional Jewish views on the afterlife, including notions of punishment, differ markedly from those later developed in Christianity. In Judaism, Sheol is more neutrally seen as a place where all deceased souls rest until judgment day rather than a place of torment.

Moses and the Prophets never depicted Sheol as a place of torment after death, which reflects the overall focus of the Law of Moses on temporal, not eternal, rewards and punishments. In fact, the Torah and the Prophets always emphasize an immediate consequence of actions within one’s lifetime rather than posthumous suffering or reward.

Was Hellfire the Consequence of Breaking the Ten Commandments?

You might be familiar with videos by fundamental Evangelical minister Ray Comfort, which have been widely advertised and amassed roughly half a billion views on social media. He is best known for his “Ten Commandments Interrogation” series. In these videos, Comfort approaches strangers in public and prompts them to confess their sins by asking if they’ve ever broken the Ten Commandments. His line of questioning includes: “Have you ever lied?” “Have you ever stolen anything?” “Have you ever lusted after someone?” Honestly, it’s challenging for anyone to answer ‘no’ to these questions. For instance, calling a bride’s unattractive dress ‘beautiful’ technically makes you a liar. Taking a pen from work and not returning it makes you a thief. Regarding lust, I recall a doctoral class where all attendees were men. The professor asked if there was someone in the class who had never fantasized about lesbians. Despite the embarrassment, no hands were raised. It seems theologians, pastors, ministers—we’ve all been there. This wasn’t a liberal institution. It was Dallas Theological Seminary!

Then, Comfort continues by explaining God’s holiness to his interviewees: “You have to be perfect in God’s eyes. Morally perfect!” Says Comfort. Otherwise, “if God judges you according to the Ten Commandments,” you are doomed forever. The punishment is everlasting condemnation “in the lake of fire,” concludes Comfort.

So, because you broke the Ten Commandments, God must torture you in fire for eternity. Or, to use the words of another reformed preacher: “We owed a debt to God because of our sin. And that debt was eternal punishment.” (Paul Washer)

During an encounter in August 2022, Comfort questioned a young Israeli-Jewish man on the street, “Have you ever looked at a woman with lust?” Upon receiving an affirmative response and a smile, Comfort responded that, according to Jesus, this is equivalent to committing adultery and would result in condemnation to hellfire on judgment day. Comfort’s claim made no sense to the young Jewish guy, who politely said he believed otherwise.

Let’s step back and analyze the reasoning behind Comfort’s claim that violating any of the Ten Commandments results in eternal damnation by using one of Comfort’s frequently cited commandments:

You shall not commit adultery.

Exodus 20:14

Once Comfort gets his interviewees to admit that they have previously looked at a woman with lust, he then continues by quoting the following verse:

I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Matthew 5:28

Comfort’s reasoning goes something like this: Any transgression of the Ten Commandments, no matter how minor, such as a fleeting lustful glance at a passing woman, warrants harsh and everlasting punishment—eternal torture in hellfire. Essentially, Comfort argues that God endowed you with strong sexual instincts as an integral part of your being. Yet, if you entertain a sexual thought for even a moment—and it is inevitable that you will—God is left with no option but to subject you to eternal torment in hellfire. The logical next step in this direction is to mandate that women cover themselves with Hijabs to prevent anyone from being inadvertently attracted. While I’m not advocating for permissiveness, this example highlights how religious legalism thrives.

Let’s consider applying Comfort’s reasoning to everyday life. Imagine living in a country where parking in a no-parking zone could land you a lifetime prison sentence or where a parent is legally permitted to cut off their child’s hand for watching pornography. This scenario illustrates a society with extremely severe and unbalanced moral codes, akin to the harshness found in regimes like North Korea or Iran. Yet, this parallels how some Christians interpret Biblical Law, portraying it as even more draconian as eternal torture in the fire for lusting in your mind is much worse than losing your hand (or eye).

The issue is not with Jesus or the Law but with the misinterpretation of Moses and Jesus and with the association of the Law with eternal life or punishment in hellfire.

For the sake of argument, let’s hypothesize for a moment that in Matthew 5:28, where Jesus spoke of lustful looks being akin to adultery, he was indeed suggesting a literal, judicial sentence of death, as stated in Leviticus 20:10. Under this interpretation, we must also consider his earlier statements in Matthew 5:21-22, where he allegedly equates an insult (“fool”) with risking eternal damnation. Such an interpretation might lead one to believe Jesus frequently threatened his disciples with eternal torture for anything but perfection. However, understanding Jesus in this way would severely distort his message. As a Jewish rabbi, Jesus often taught using parables, metaphors, symbolism, and figurative language to convey deeper spiritual truths rather than acting as a human textbook for escaping hellfire.

So, what was Jesus trying to convey? Every company that has been established began as an idea, a concept in someone’s mind. Every gun fired at a person was initiated by a thought in the shooter’s mind. All actions are initially conceived in our minds. Adultery begins with harboring the thought. Cursing stems from first feeling anger. Murder is preceded by hatred in one’s heart.

To quote Andy Woods, the president of Chafer Theological Seminary:

Jesus warned you about murder happening in your heart long before physically anything else transpires. Because private thoughts will ultimately lead to public actions. That’s why there is so much scripture about us guarding the mind.

What’s the Point of the Law?

Misusing the Law

The term “Torah” (or “Law”) is among the most perplexing and debated terms in both Judaism and Christianity, mostly due to erroneous translations. “Torah” primarily refers to the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. However, the same word is also often used to refer to the laws and commandments within the Pentateuch.

Although there are laws in the Torah, the literary genre of the Torah is not judicial but narrative. It’s a story – a story written in one book, “The Book of Moses.” Later, the book was divided into five books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The laws/commandments are only a small fraction of the Torah, which is a narrative story. Jewish Bible Professor Simeon Chavel explains:

The Torah, which contains most of the laws, is not a collection of laws but rather a narrative that tells the history of the Jewish people in their earliest days…Therefore we can view the Torah as a source of laws and even construct a set of laws from it. But this is not adequate grounds to interpret the Torah outside of its literary genre, which is a narrative…The fact that the biblical laws are always found in a literary context and not in a legal context means that the laws are indisputably tied to the means and purposes of the literary context in which they are found…The Torah is, first and foremost, a narrative and not a law book, and it needs to be treated accordingly.

Judaism doesn’t consider the Law’s commandments to be an instruction manual on “how to get saved from hellfire,” but rather as encompassing rites, rituals, customs, morals, and justice, all impacting earthly daily life and carrying immediate consequences. These laws, provided in the context of establishing a new nation, functioned essentially as the constitution of Israel. In a similar vein, American citizens do not regard the U.S. Constitution and laws as a pathway to eternal life. While the Law may have significantly influenced an Israelite’s earthly life, it clearly pertained to their existence in this temporal world:

If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today…You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock–the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed…The LORD will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. The LORD your God will bless you in the land he is giving you.

Deuteronomy 28:1; 3-5; 8-10

Much like modern law, the Torah sets forth regulations on taxation (Leviticus 27:30; Deuteronomy 14:28), banking (Exodus 22:25; Deuteronomy 23:19), and labor laws (Leviticus 19:13; Deuteronomy 24:14-15), among others. Suppose the Torah were to be given in contemporary times. In that case, it might include mandates such as prohibiting smoking on airplanes or prohibiting pedestrians from crossing the street unless the walking signal light is green (for Israel, I think it’s white in the USA). While there are fines and penalties for violating these statutes, they do not pertain to one’s eternal fate.

Throughout the extensive history of Israel, none of its prophets, kings, or judges ever linked adherence to the commandments with eternal life or hellfire. It was rather about life’s repercussions. Discussions of the afterlife, in terms of obeying the commandments, would have been alien to the people of Israel. Indeed, breaking a commandment incurred punishment, but this was related to their temporal existence, not the everlasting fate of their souls. While sin did carry penalties, including death for certain transgressions, these were physical, not spiritual/eternal consequences.

For instance, let’s look into another one of Comfort’s favorite commandments to quote in his videos. The 8th commandment says: “You shall not steal.” (Exodus 20:15).

Here in the Middle East, lamb is a favored dish. Imagine a scenario where my neighbor, driven by hunger while I was abroad, steals and eats one of my sheep. Does this mean, as some might suggest following Comfort’s logic, that he’s destined for eternal torture in hell? Not quite. Exodus 22:1 offers clarity: “If a man steals an ox or a sheep, and kills it or sells it, he shall repay five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep.” This scriptural context reveals that God’s justice for theft involves restitution, not eternal torture in fire. Thus, instead of facing eternal doom, my neighbor now owes me four sheep, and they better be well-fed and chubby!

To complicate matters, consider a person in the era of Deuteronomy who violates two commandments at once by abducting a woman to engage in sexual relations with her. One might assume that such transgressions must result in eternal damnation in hell. However, the Law offers a pretty straightforward solution:

If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her. He may not divorce her all his days.

Deuteronomy 22:28-29

In such a case, the man must pay a fine to the young woman’s father and provide for her for life. It appears one might have to atone for their wrongdoings, possibly for a lifetime. However, this had nothing to do with one’s eternal life.

King David is another great example. David committed theft and adultery with Bathsheba and even orchestrated the murder of her husband, Uriah. David also failed to repent or make amends. Only after about a year or so did God, tired of waiting on David, finally send the prophet Nathan to confront David (2 Samuel 12). Still, Nathan made no threat or mentioned David’s afterlife. Instead, he declared David’s punishment, which did not involve hellfire. Only at this point did David finally repent, hoping God would spare his child’s life. It seems clear that both Nathan and David understood that David’s afterlife was not at stake. Notably, God did not even demand David’s resignation from his kingship.

Let’s look into another commandment. The 5th commandment, “Honor your father and mother” (Exodus 20:12), which holds a much more severe punishment. What would happen if you didn’t honor your parents? Several chapters later, in the book of Leviticus, we find the most extreme situation: “For anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death” (Leviticus 20:9). Now the question is, what kind of death is Leviticus referring to? A spiritual one? An eternal torture in the fire, as some believe, or was it something of a different nature? In Deuteronomy 21, we find the answer:

…then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city, “This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.” Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones.

Deuteronomy 21:18-21

In the Bible, while a physical death penalty may have excluded someone from society, it was never linked to a secondary, eternal punishment in the afterlife. As far as the Torah is concerned, our behavior on Earth affects our life on Earth.

Conclusion

Nowhere in the Torah is there a threat that violating a commandment will result in eternal condemnation in hell. The fact that the foundation of the entire Bible, the Pentateuch, says nothing about hell is significant enough to cast serious doubt on the doctrine of eternal hellfire. The Pentateuch, which lays the groundwork for all of biblical theology, is completely silent on the concept of hell as a place of eternal torment. This absence strongly suggests that the idea of hellfire is not an original part of the biblical message but rather a later development that lacks grounding in the core scriptures of the Jewish and Christian faiths.

I do respect Comfort, Washer, or other fundamentalist preachers’ sincerity, earnestness, zeal, and fervor for God. Yet it’s crucial to address that their interpretations may distort the character of God and the essence of the Good News. They tend to oversimplify the complexities of sin, divine commandments, and the concept of hell, often reducing them to a simplistic notion like eternal damnation for coveting a neighbor’s attractive new convertible. These perspectives not only ignore context but fail to capture the broader, more compassionate teachings found in scripture.


This article was a copy-paste from my new book on hell: HELL: A Jewish Perspective on a Christian Doctrine

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Dr. Eitan Bar
Author, Theologian, Activist