In the first place, 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 the Greek words hades, gehenna, and tartaroo.
The word hell in old English usage simply meant to conceal, to hide, to cover; hence the concealed, hidden, or covered place. In old English literature records may be found of the helling of potatoes—putting potatoes into pits; and of the helling of a house—covering or thatching it. The word hell was therefore properly used synonymously with the words grave and pit, to translate t he words sheol and hades as signifying the secret or hidden condition of death.
The Hebrew word sheol occurs sixty-five times in the Old Testament. In the King James Version it is translated hell thirty-one times, grave thirty-one times, and pit three times. If the translators of the Revised Version had been thoroughly disentangled from error, they would have done more to help the English student than merely to substitute the Hebrew word sheol and the Greek word hades as they have done. They should have translated the words. But they gave us sheol and hades untranslated, and thus permitted the inference that these words mean the same as the word hell has become perverted to mean. Yet anyone can see that if it was proper to translate the word sheol thirty-one times grave and three times pit, it could not have been improper to so translate it in every other instance.