Psalms 9:17

9:17 The wicked are turned back and sent to Sheol; ¹ 

this is the destiny of ²  all the nations that ignore ³  God,

Psalms 49:15

49:15 But ⁴  God will rescue ⁵  my life ⁶  from the power ⁷  of Sheol;

certainly ⁸  he will pull me to safety. ⁹  (Selah)

Psalms 139:8

139:8 If I were to ascend ¹⁰  to heaven, you would be there.

If I were to sprawl out in Sheol, there you would be. ¹¹ 

Leviticus 19:28

19:28 You must not slash your body for a dead person ¹²  or incise a tattoo on yourself. ¹³  I am the Lord.

Numbers 6:6

6:6 “‘All the days that he separates himself to the Lord he must not contact ¹⁴  a dead body. ¹⁵ 

Deuteronomy 32:22

32:22 For a fire has been kindled by my anger,

and it burns to lowest Sheol; ¹⁶ 

it consumes the earth and its produce,

and ignites the foundations of the mountains.

Job 11:8

11:8 It is higher ¹⁷  than the heavens – what can you do?

It is deeper than Sheol ¹⁸  – what can you know?

Proverbs 15:11

15:11 Death and Destruction ¹⁹  are before the Lord –

how much more ²⁰  the hearts of humans! ²¹ 

Proverbs 27:20

27:20 As ²²  Death and Destruction are never satisfied, ²³ 

so the eyes of a person ²⁴  are never satisfied. ²⁵ 

Isaiah 5:14

5:14 So Death ²⁶  will open up its throat,

and open wide its mouth; ²⁷ 

Zion’s dignitaries and masses will descend into it,

including those who revel and celebrate within her. ²⁸ 

Isaiah 14:9

14:9 Sheol ²⁹  below is stirred up about you,

ready to meet you when you arrive.

It rouses ³⁰  the spirits of the dead for you,

all the former leaders of the earth; ³¹ 

it makes all the former kings of the nations

rise from their thrones. ³² 

Amos 9:2

9:2 Even if they could dig down into the netherworld, ³³ 

my hand would pull them up from there.

Even if they could climb up to heaven,

I would drag them down from there.

Luke 16:23

16:23 And in hell, ³⁴  as he was in torment, ³⁵  he looked up ³⁶  and saw Abraham far off with Lazarus at his side. ³⁷ 

Acts 3:15

3:15 You killed ³⁸  the Originator ³⁹  of life, whom God raised ⁴⁰  from the dead. To this fact we are witnesses! ⁴¹ 

Acts 3:1

Peter and John Heal a Lame Man at the Temple

3:1 Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time ⁴²  for prayer, ⁴³  at three o’clock in the afternoon. ⁴⁴ 

Colossians 1:1

Salutation

1:1 From Paul, ⁴⁵  an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

Revelation 1:18

1:18 and the one who lives! I ⁴⁶  was dead, but look, now I am alive – forever and ever – and I hold the keys of death and of Hades! ⁴⁷ 

Revelation 20:13

20:13 The ⁴⁸  sea gave up the dead that were in it, and Death ⁴⁹  and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each one was judged according to his deeds.

[9:17]  ¹ tn Heb “the wicked turn back to Sheol.” The imperfect verbal form either emphasizes what typically happens or describes vividly the aftermath of the Lord’s victory over the psalmist’s enemies. See v. 3.

[9:17]  ² tn The words “this is the destiny of” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons. The verb “are turned back” is understood by ellipsis (see the preceding line).

[9:17]  ³ tn Heb “forget.” “Forgetting God” refers here to worshiping false gods and thereby refusing to recognize his sovereignty (see also Deut 8:19; Judg 3:7; 1 Sam 12:9; Isa 17:10; Jer 3:21; Ps 44:20). The nations’ refusal to acknowledge God’s sovereignty accounts for their brazen attempt to attack and destroy his people.

[49:15]  ⁴ tn Or “certainly.”

[49:15]  ⁵ tn Or “redeem.”

[49:15]  ⁶ tn Or “me.” The Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) with a pronominal suffix is often equivalent to a pronoun, especially in poetry (see BDB 660 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 4.a).

[49:15]  ⁷ tn Heb “hand.”

[49:15]  ⁸ tn Or “for.”

[49:15]  ⁹ tn Heb “he will take me.” To improve the poetic balance of the verse, some move the words “from the power of Sheol” to the following line. The verse would then read: “But God will rescue my life; / from the power of Sheol he will certainly deliver me” (cf. NEB).

[139:8]  ¹⁰ tn The Hebrew verb סָלַק (salaq, “to ascend”) occurs only here in the OT, but the word is well-attested in Aramaic literature from different time periods and displays a wide semantic range (see DNWSI 2:788-90).

[139:8]  ¹¹ tn Heb “look, you.”

[19:28]  ¹² tn Heb “And slash for the soul you shall not give.” The Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “soul, person, life”) can sometimes refer to a “dead person” (cf. Lev 21:1, 5; 22:5). See J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 306, 320-21.

[19:28]  ¹³ tn Heb “and a writing of incision you shall not give in you.”

[6:6]  ¹⁴ tn The Hebrew verb is simply “enter, go,” no doubt with the sense of go near.

[6:6]  ¹⁵ tn The Hebrew has נֶפֶשׁ מֵת (nefesh met), literally a “dead person.” But since the word נֶפֶשׁ can also be used for animals, the restriction would be for any kind of corpse. Death was very much a part of the fallen world, and so for one so committed to the Lord, avoiding all such contamination would be a witness to the greatest separation, even in a family.

[32:22]  ¹⁶ tn Or “to the lowest depths of the earth”; cf. NAB “to the depths of the nether world”; NIV “to the realm of death below”; NLT “to the depths of the grave.”

[11:8]  ¹⁷ tn The Hebrew says “heights of heaven, what can you do?” A. B. Davidson suggested this was an exclamation and should be left that way. But most commentators will repoint גָּבְהֵי שָׁמַיִם (govhe shamayim, “heights of heaven”) to גְּבֹהָה מִשָּׁמַיִם (gÿvohah mishamayim, “higher than the heavens”) to match the parallel expression. The LXX may have rearranged the text: “heaven is high.”

[11:8]  ¹⁸ tn Or “deeper than hell.” The word “Sheol” always poses problems for translation. Here because it is the opposite of heaven in this merism, “hell” would be a legitimate translation. It refers to the realm of the dead – the grave and beyond. The language is excessive; but the point is that God’s wisdom is immeasurable – and Job is powerless before it.

[15:11]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Sheol and Abaddon” (שְׁאוֹל וַאֲבַדּוֹן (shÿ’ol va’adon); so ASV, NASB, NRSV; cf. KJV “Hell and destruction”; NAB “the nether world and the abyss.” These terms represent the remote underworld and all the mighty powers that reside there (e.g., Prov 27:20; Job 26:6; Ps 139:8; Amos 9:2; Rev 9:11). The Lord knows everything about this remote region.

[15:11]  ²⁰ tn The construction אַף כִּי (’af ki, “how much more!”) introduces an argument from the lesser to the greater: If all this is open before the Lord, how much more so human hearts. “Hearts” here is a metonymy of subject, meaning the motives and thoughts (cf. NCV “the thoughts of the living”).

[15:11]  ²¹ tn Heb “the hearts of the sons of man,” although here “sons of man” simply means “men” or “human beings.”

[27:20]  ²² tn The term “as” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation in light of the analogy.

[27:20]  ²³ sn Countless generations of people have gone into the world below; yet “death” is never satisfied – it always takes more. The line personifies Death and Destruction. It forms the emblem in the parallelism.

[27:20]  ²⁴ tn Heb “eyes of a man.” This expression refers to the desires – what the individual looks longingly on. Ecclesiastes Rabbah 1:34 (one of the rabbinic Midrashim) says, “No man dies and has one-half of what he wanted.”

[27:20]  ²⁵ tc The LXX contains a scribal addition: “He who fixes his eye is an abomination to the Lord, and the uninstructed do not restrain their tongues.” This is unlikely to be original.

[5:14]  ²⁶ tn Heb “Sheol” (so ASV, NASB, NRSV); the underworld, the land of the dead, according to the OT world view. Cf. NAB “the nether world”; TEV, CEV “the world of the dead”; NLT “the grave.”

[5:14]  ²⁷ tn Heb “so Sheol will make wide its throat, and open its mouth without limit.”

[5:14]  ²⁸ tn Heb “and her splendor and her masses will go down, and her tumult and the one who exults in her.” The antecedent of the four feminine singular pronominal suffixes used in v. 14b is unclear. The likely referent is personified Zion/Jerusalem (see 3:25-26; 4:4-5).

[14:9]  ²⁹ sn Sheol is the proper name of the subterranean world which was regarded as the land of the dead.

[14:9]  ³⁰ tn Heb “arousing.” The form is probably a Polel infinitive absolute, rather than a third masculine singular perfect, for Sheol is grammatically feminine (note “stirred up”). See GKC 466 §145.t.

[14:9]  ³¹ tn Heb “all the rams of the earth.” The animal epithet is used metaphorically here for leaders. See HALOT 903 s.v. *עַתּוּד.

[14:9]  ³² tn Heb “lifting from their thrones all the kings of the nations.” הֵקִים (heqim, a Hiphil perfect third masculine singular) should be emended to an infinitive absolute (הָקֵים, haqem). See the note on “rouses” earlier in the verse.

[9:2]  ³³ tn Heb “into Sheol” (so ASV, NASB, NRSV), that is, the land of the dead localized in Hebrew thought in the earth’s core or the grave. Cf. KJV “hell”; NCV, NLT “the place of the dead”; NIV “the depths of the grave.”

[16:23]  ³⁴ sn The Greek term Hades stands for the Hebrew concept of Sheol. It is what is called hell today. This is where the dead were gathered (Ps 16:10; 86:13). In the NT Hades has an additional negative force of awaiting judgment (Rev 20:13).

[16:23]  ³⁵ sn Hades is a place of torment, especially as one knows that he is separated from God.

[16:23]  ³⁶ tn Grk “he lifted up his eyes” (an idiom).

[16:23]  ³⁷ tn Grk “in his bosom,” the same phrase used in 16:22. This idiom refers to heaven and/or participation in the eschatological banquet. An appropriate modern equivalent is “at Abraham’s side.”

[3:15]  ³⁸ tn Or “You put to death.”

[3:15]  ³⁹ tn Or “Founder,” “founding Leader.”

[3:15]  ⁴⁰ sn Whom God raised. God is the main actor here, as he testifies to Jesus and vindicates him.

[3:15]  ⁴¹ tn Grk “whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses.” The two consecutive relative clauses make for awkward English style, so the second was begun as a new sentence with the words “to this fact” supplied in place of the Greek relative pronoun to make a complete sentence in English.

[3:1]  ⁴² tn Grk “hour.”

[3:1]  ⁴³ sn Going up to the temple at the time for prayer. The earliest Christians, being of Jewish roots, were still participating in the institutions of Judaism at this point. Their faith in Christ did not make them non-Jewish in their practices.

[3:1]  ⁴⁴ tn Grk “at the ninth hour.” This is calculated from sunrise (Josephus, Ant. 14.4.3 [14.65]; Dan 9:21).

[1:1]  ⁴⁵ tn Grk “Paul.” The word “from” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate the sender of the letter.

[1:18]  ⁴⁶ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[1:18]  ⁴⁷ tn Concerning “Hades” BDAG 19 s.v. ᾅδης 1 and 2 states: “Orig. proper noun, god of the nether world, ‘Hades’, then the nether world, Hades as place of the dead, Ac 2:27, 31 (Ps 15:10; Eccl 9:10; PGM 1, 179; 16, 8; Philo, Mos. 1, 195; Jos., Bell. 1, 596, Ant. 6, 332). Of Jonah’s fish ἐκ τοῦ κατωτάτου ᾅδου. In the depths, contrasted w. heaven ἕως (τοῦ) ᾅδου Mt 11:23; Lk 10:15 (PsSol 15:10; cp.; Is 14:11, 15); ἐν τῷ ᾅδῃ 16:23; ἐν ῝Αιδου ApcPt Rainer. Accessible by gates (but the pl. is also used [e.g. Hom., X., Ael. Aristid. 47, 20 K.=23 p. 450 D.] when only one gate is meant), hence πύλαι ᾅδου (Il. 5, 646; Is 38:10; Wsd 16:13; 3 Macc 5:51; Pss. Sol. 16:2. – Lucian, Menipp. 6 the magicians can open τοῦ ῝Αιδου τὰς πύλας and conduct people in and out safely) Mt 16:18…locked ἔχω τὰς κλεῖς τοῦ θανάτου καὶ τοῦ ᾅδου Rv 1:18 (the genitives are either obj. [Ps.-Apollod. 3, 12, 6, 10 Aeacus, the son of Zeus holds the κλεῖς τοῦ ῝Αιδου; SEG VIII, 574, 3 (III ad) τῷ τὰς κλεῖδας ἔχοντι τῶν καθ᾿ ῝Αιδου (restored)] or possess.; in the latter case death and Hades are personif.; s. 2)…Hades personif.…w. θάνατος (cp. Is 28:15; Job 38:17…) Rv 6:8; 20:13f.”

[20:13]  ⁴⁸ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[20:13]  ⁴⁹ sn Here Death is personified (cf. 1 Cor 15:55).