Define hell please?

The translators of the King James Version caused much confusion by translating two different Greek words (hadēs and gehenna) with one-in-the-same English word, “hell”. 

Hadēs almost always denotes the “grave” or the “place of the dead.” Only one New Testament passage definitely describes hadēs as a place of evil and punishment of the wicked and may appropriately be translated “hell” (Luke 16:23). In all other instances, hadēs indicates nothing more than the place of the dead. Gehenna, a much rarer expression in the New Testament, denotes the “eternal fires.” Thus, “hell,” as most people think about it, is really gehenna, not hadēs.

The Greek word gehenna is used in a number of New Testament texts to designate the fiery place for punishment of sinners and is often translated “hell” or “the fires of hell” (Matt. 5:22, 29–30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:15, 33; Mark 9:43, 45, 47; Jas. 3:6). Gehenna is also usually used in connection with the final judgment and its use suggests that the punishment spoken of is eternal. The word is derived by transliteration from the Hebrew phrase of the Old Testament, “valley of Hinnom” or the “valley of the son of Hinnom,” a ravine on the south side of Jerusalem. 

This valley was the center of idolatrous worship in which children were burned by fire as an offering to the heathen god Molech (2 Chr. 28:3; 33:6). In the time of Josiah, this valley became a place of abomination, polluted by dead men’s bones, the filth of Jerusalem, and by garbage and rubbish dumped there (2 Kgs. 23:10–14). A fire burned continuously in this valley. 

It thus became a symbol of the unending fires of hell, where the lost are consumed in torment, and a symbol of judgment to be imposed on the idolatrous and disobedient (Jer. 7:31–34; 32:35). 

Another Greek word used to designate “hell” or “the lower regions” is Tartarus, a classical word for the place of eternal punishment. Peter used the word Tartarus in 2 Peter 2:4 to describe the place where fallen angels were thrown: “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment” (NASB).

The most descriptive and conclusive utterances about hell come from the lips of Jesus. He spoke of hell in terms of a furnace of fire, eternal fire, eternal punishment (Matt. 13:42, 50; 25:41, 46); outer darkness, the place of weeping and torment (Matt. 8:12); the lake of fire, the second death (Matt. 21:8); and a place for the devil and his demons (Matt. 25:41). Those in hell experience everlasting separation from the Lord (2 Thess. 1:9). Separation from the Lord, for all people, would mean existing without meaning, hope, love, or anything good—there is nothing worse than separation from God.







Carpenter, E. E., & Comfort, P. W. (2000). In Holman treasury of key Bible words: 200 Greek and 200 Hebrew words defined and explained (p. 303). Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers.