If indeed “Hell” and “Hades” are what the majority of Christians believe they are, viz. a place of fire and brimstone of endless torment, why then did Job pray to God, “Oh that in Hades thou wouldst hide me! That thou wouldst keep me secret until the turn of thine anger, that thou wouldst set for me a fixed time and remember me.” (Job 14:13 Rotherham Version)
“According to the view originating in the Dark Ages, Sheol, the Bible hell, was supposed to be a place where God visits his wrath upon sinners; but here we have Job, a righteous servant of God, praying to go to hell to escape God's wrath. How different is the Word of God from the teachings of the creeds! The wrath of God from which Job asked to escape by going to Sheol is the manifestation of his disfavor toward the human race because of sin. It began in Eden in the pronouncement of the death sentence upon our first parents, and all the pain and sorrow in the world since have been incident thereto.
But Job, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, looked forward to a time when God's wrath would be past, when, according to the Book of Revelation, there would be no, more "curse." (Rev. 22:3) With this hope in mind, he simply asked God to allow him to fall asleep in death—to go into Sheol—until it was the due time for divine love to be manifested in the restoration of the dying race. Then, as Job expressed it, he would hear the Lord call him forth from death.—Job 14:15
Jacob likewise expected to go to hell, note his remarks when his family attempted to comfort him at his loss of Joseph, “Surely I will go down unto my son mourning to Hades…” Gen 37:35
“Bear in mind that the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, and the New Testament in Greek. The word hell is an English word sometimes selected by the translators of the English Bible to express the sense of the Hebrew word "Sheol" and Greek words "hades, gehenna", and "tartaroo".
The word "hell" appears in the Old Testament Scriptures thirty-one times. It is of Old English usage but like many other English words, through the years it has taken on a radical change of meaning. Originally it simply meant to conceal, to hide, to cover; hence it was properly descriptive of any concealed, hidden, or covered place. In Old English literature may be found references to the helling of potatoes—that is, putting them into pits—and of the helling of a house, meaning to cover it with a thatched roof.
“The word hell was therefore properly used by the translators as synonymous with the words "grave" and "pit" to translate the Hebrew word Sheol—the only word in the Old Testament that is translated hell in any English Version of the Bible. It is interesting to observe in comparing these various translations of the same Hebrew word—as they appear in the King James Version of the Bible—that as a rule the word hell is given when the text applies to wicked people, while the words grave or pit are used if righteous persons are involved.
Thus the reader is led to an entirely wrong conclusion concerning the death state of the two classes.
The translators of the Revised Version Bible did a little better in that they left Sheol untranslated, giving the reader an opportunity to draw his own conclusion as to the meaning of the text. This was being only partially helpful, for had they given a correct and consistent translation in every instance, the truth concerning hell would have been discerned—readers would have known that it was not a place of torment.”
Note carefully Rev 20:14, “Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.”
Question: How can hell if it be the lake of fire, be cast into hell?
Notice the last part of this verse as well as that of Rev 21:8 gives the proper explanation as to what the lake of fire actually is, “This is the second death”, from which there is no resurrection. The lake of fire is the symbolic expression denoting destruction, permanent destruction, annihilation, or extinction of being. Death and Hell being cast into this lake or condition would therefore signify their destruction or termination.
Some have a hard time with this because they honestly believe eternal torment is a just punishment, “Shall mortal man be more just than God? (Who declared the wages of sin to be death, period!), Shall a man be more pure than his Maker?” Job 4:17
"He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet (all insubordination, etc.). The last enemy to be destroyed is death" (1 Cor. 15:26). That is to say when Christ shall have accomplished the work appointed for Him, the work of Mediatorial reign--and shall have put down all enemies, at its completion the last enemy to be destroyed will be death, and of course if death is destroyed so too is Hell (which from the Greek word Hades means: the tomb or grave) this too will be terminated as the Lord states in Rev 21:4, “there shall be no more death” thus no more need for tombs or graves.
“Whoever shall hereby find that his false views rested upon human misconceptions and misinterpretations will at the same time learn to trust hereafter less to his own and other men’s imaginings and by faith to grasp more firmly the Word of God which is able to make wise unto salvation.” Seeing then the unreasonableness of man’s views let us lay aside human opinions and theories and come to the Word of God, the only true authority on the subject. “To the law and the testimony; if they speak not according to this word there is no light in them.” Isa 8:20
