p. 172 | Sheol-the Grave by Uriah Smith

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 28, 1863

Sheol—the Grave.

By Uriah Smith

BRO. SMITH: A writer in Zion's Herald says, in speaking on Gen. xxxvii, 35, "Grave here is not from keber, the proper Hebrew word for grave, but from sheol, which is used to express the invisible world, or the habitation of the departed." Is it so?

A. S. H.

ANSWER. It is true that grave in Gen. xxxvii, 35, is from sheol, not from keber. This latter word occurs in the Old Testament seventy times. Five times it is rendered burying-place, twenty-six times sepulchre, and thirty-nine times, grave. It seems to be used where reference is made to the grave as an outward and visible object, the place of burial. It is never used in connection with language showing the state of man in the grave, except, perhaps, in Ps. lxxxviii, 11, where we read, "Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in (keber) the grave?" Whereas with sheol the idea of condition, or state, is connected, as well as of place. This word occurs sixty-five times, and is rendered grave, or hell, in every instance. It is uniformly conceded that the Greek word corresponding to this, is ha-des, which in the New Testament is the proper word for grave. The corresponding word in the O. T. must therefore perform a similar office.

But, waiving this point, the "writer in Zion's Herald" makes a most excellent admission, and all that could upon any ground be asked, in asserting that sheol "is used to express the invisible world, or the habitation of the departed." Granted. What more could be required? for sheol is the very word which is used to express an unconscious state. It was that word from which Job understood a place of darkness and corruption. Job xvii, 13–16. It is a place where none give thanks to God, nor have any remembrance of him. Ps. vi, 5. It is the place where the wicked are silent. Id. xxxi, 17. It is the place where the dead cannot praise the Lord. Isa. xxxviii, 18. It is that place of which Solomon wrote, when he said, "For there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wis

dom in the grave [sheol] whither thou goest." Eccl. ix, 10.

Granted, then, that sheol was the place into which Jacob was going, Gen. xxxvii, 35; granted that it is the word which is used to express the "habitation of the departed;" but the advocates of the popular view have yet the fact to meet that it is beyond the power of language to express a more complete state of unconsciousness and inactivity.

U. S.