We respond to every follow-up question submitted, but only publish selected ones.
In order to be considered for publication, questions must be on-topic, polite, and address ideas rather than
personalities.
What is “Sheol”?
The word “sheol” occurs in Gen. 37,42, and 44, in Num. 30 and 33, in Job, and many other places in the Bible. Many of its uses imply that it is an underworld inhabited by (the spirits of) the dead, though in many cases it is used only as a term for the lowest point in the universe. Apparently sheol is a place of silence (dumah); see Psalm 115:17. The reference to sheol in 1 Samuel 2:6 and Psalms 30:4 suggest that the dead will be brought back from there at the resurrection. There are about a dozen references to legends about sheol in Ginzberg’s Legends of the Jews, and a brief discussion of sheol in the article “Netherworld” in the Encyclopedia Judaica (vol.12, cols. 996-998).
