What is Gehenna & the “Second Death”?

Introduction

Throughout the history of Christendom, there have been various interpretations of just what “Gehenna” is. In the Bible, the Gehenna is also called “the second death”, and also “the fiery pit”. It is described as a place where the wicked and unrepentant will go as a punishment. Most Bible translations today render this as “hell” or “hellfire”, a term borrowed from Greek myth and religion and inserted into the scriptures as a replacement word.

Most churches today teach that Gehenna is a place of eternal torment, where sinners do not die, but will be tortured and burn forever. Whereas others teach that it is not literal, but symbolic of “annihilationism”, meaning sinners will merely cease to exist, and will not be alive or conscious in Gehenna.

There are those against literal hellfire who often argue that such a thing is too cruel for God to conceive of and goes against his personality of love, that it’s “going too far” to not just rob a person of everlasting life and joy, but to then on top of that burn them up forever and ever.

Others argue against this by saying “ceasing to exist is nothing to fear, but hellfire is, therefore it must be literal or else it is not a punishment”, and insist on a literal interpretation of the fiery pit. For them, it is not enough for one to lose hope of eternal life and everlasting happiness, but believe that the wicked must in comparison suffer forever instead for “true equality of justice”.

Where the Teaching is Founded

To come to an accurate understanding we must look to all the scriptural references on this subject.

• Matthew 10:28: “And do not become fearful of those who kill the body but cannot kill the spirit; rather, fear him who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna“.
• Mark 9:43-44: “If ever your hand makes you stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than to go off with two hands into Gehenna, into the fire that cannot be put out… where the maggots do not die, and the fire is not quenched.“.
• Revelation 2:7, 11: “Let the one who has an ear hear what the spirit says to the congregations: To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God…  The one who conquers will by no means be harmed by the second death.”
• Revelation 19:21: “While still alive, they both were hurled into the fiery lake that burns with sulfur. But the rest were killed off with the long sword that proceeded out of the mouth of the one seated on the horse. And all the birds were filled with their flesh”.
• Revelation 20:10: “And the Devil who was misleading them was hurled into the lake of fire and sulfur, where both the wild beast and the false prophet already were; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever“.
• Revelation 20:14-15: “And death and the Grave were hurled into the lake of fire. This means the second death, the lake of fire. Furthermore, whoever was not found written in the book of life was hurled into the lake of fire”.
• Mark 14:21: “…woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.”
• Daniel 12:2: “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt“.

On the surface, it appears the Bible teaches that all wicked people will be condemned to eternal torture in a literal fiery pit.

Many advocates of literal hellfire often reference the scriptures such as “tormented forever and ever”, and other verses such as “the fire that never quenches where the maggot does not die” or “thrown in whilst still alive”. These scriptures, when taken for granted in plain English without any cultural understanding, appear to be strong scriptural references to point to a real, literal, physical furnace where the wicked are thrown.

However, a closer examination of verses which describe Gehenna reveal this may not be so….

A Linguistic & Cultural Examination

Firstly, examining the word “Gehenna” reveals that this was a phrase referring to a real place in Israel where the bodies of convicted sinners and criminals were thrown after their executions, this was known literally as “Gehinnom”, “the Valley of Hinnom”, as was known as a rubbish heap.

“Because the Hinnom Valley is located on the southeast side of Jerusalem, the prevailing winds carry the winds away from the city. For this reason, it became the city dump.

Dead animals from the temple sacrifices were thrown there to rot and be eaten by worms and maggots.

Trash was burned here. The city sewage was emptied here. It was smelly, ugly, burning, crawling with worms, full of rot, and full of disease”. – Holylandsite

The ancient Israelites were very aware of a future resurrection hope, and it has been referenced to by various holy men, such as the faithful Job, who looked forward to being “remembered by God” and awoken (Job 14:13-15). The Jews believed in a real, physical resurrection of the body on Earth.

However, in ancient Jewish belief, before they fully understood the power of God and of the nature of the resurrections, they thought that the bodies and bones of holy ones had to be preserved by means of burial underground or in caves in order to be awoken by God, and that if anyone’s body had turned to ash and their bones disintegrated, then there was no hope for them to be raised from the dead.

This belief in fact was carried over into Christendom’s churches for some time, where they banned cremation due to fear it would prevent them from being resurrected.

“For most of its history, the Roman Catholic Church had a ban against cremation. It was seen as a sacrilegious act towards Christians and God, not simply blaspheming but physically declaring a disbelief in the resurrection of the body… One reason is the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the idea that, during the end times, God will reunite souls with their bodies, the Vatican said”. – Religion and Civil Society

It was for this reason the bodies of criminals were thrown into the pit of Gehenna in Israel, the fiery refuse dump, as opposed to being given a dignified burial (Joshua 7:24-25, 1 Kings 14:13).

In this, they had deemed the unrepentant wicked criminal to have lost any hope of return, for there was nothing of him left, no bones for the flesh of man to be renewed upon, something that was also poetically referred to in various Biblical prophecies, such as Ezekiel 37:7–9:

• “So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked, and behold, sinews were on them, and flesh grew and skin covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then He said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, ‘Thus says YHWH God, ‘Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they come to life.’”

Thus, in Jewish culture, if a man was thrown into the fire of Gehenna, it meant his bones were gone, and that he could then not awaken back to life from his everlasting sleep in Sheol.

(For more on the subject of Sheol and the state of the dead, see my other article below):

Sheol & Hades: Where Do Dead People Go?

The maggots Yeshua spoke of, whom many Christians teach refer to sinners being thrown into hell to forever burn and “never die”, is in fact a reference to Isaiah (a prophet often mentioned by Yeshua), which gives us the correct context to understand what Yeshua meant by “maggots that never die”.

• “And they will go out and look on the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; the maggots that eat them will not die, the fire that burns them will not be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind”. – Isaiah 66:24

We see here that the maggots that do not die in this everlasting fire is not a reference to the victims of the fire, but rather, they are described as ‘part’ of the punishment, alongside the eternal flames, which consume the dead bodies which are thrown in into the fire. We also see a very similar statement made concerning the fate of the nations and even of their “everlasting torment” in the Deuerocanonical book of Judith 16:17:

• “Woe to the nations that rise up against my people! The Lord (YHWH) Almighty will take vengeance on them in the day of judgment; fire and worms he will give to their flesh; they shall weep in pain forever“.

Now we are beginning to understand the Hebrew view of Gehenna, as opposed to the Hellenistic (Greek) view of Gehenna of which was later applied onto the meaning of the scriptures by the Neoplatonic converts of early post-apostolic church.

This is important, for Yeshua spoke in Hebrew terminology, and not in Hellenistic terminology. Therefore, when Yeshua spoke of being thrown into Gehenna to his Jewish audience, they would have understood this to mean “everlasting death” where one’s bones were placed in a fire with everlasting maggots, granting no hope for the “sinews of flesh” to grow back onto the body in order for the breath of life to come back into them (Ezekiel 37:9), for their corpses would be continually burned up and eaten.

This point is further solidified by Yeshua in Matthew 10:28, where he says Gehenna “destroys” both “body and soul”, meaning the physical body, and inner person, or possibly the breath, or life force, consciousness. The term to “destroy” comes from the Greek root word “apollumi” meaning to “perish”, “vanish away” or “annihilate”, whilst the Aramaic manuscripts render “nwbd”, which can also mean “perish”.

“622 apóllymi (from 575 /apó, “away from,” which intensifies ollymi, “to destroy”) – properly, fully destroy, cutting off entirely (note the force of the prefix, 575 /apó).

622 /apóllymi (“violently/completely perish”) implies permanent (absolute) destruction, i.e. to cancel out (remove); “to die, with the implication of ruin and destruction” (L & N, 1, 23.106); cause to be lost (utterly perish) by experiencing a miserable end”. – HELPS Word-Studies

“To be lost, disappear , To perish ,To destroy, to ruin, To eliminate, To lose, To let go , to forfeit, give up something , To be, destroyed, to be killed ,To lead astray”. – The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon

This again reflects Hebrew cultural thought, that not only is the body destroyed, but so is the hope of one’s “spirit” (breath of life) being returned to them. For it is not just our “spirit” which is raised from the dead (whether in Heaven or on Earth), but it is combined with a “body” in order to be conscious, which is why the scriptures tell us that those who go to Heaven must receive “new bodies” with their spirit to be made alive (2 Corinthians 5:1).

As opposed to the popular belief that the “spirit” or “soul” is “separate from the body” and goes to Heaven by itself, the Bible teaches ‘both’ body and spirit must be combined together to have a “living soul”.

(More on this subject can be found in my article below):

Body, Mind, Breath, Soul, Spirit: Is there a Difference?

Therefore, if Gehenna destroys both body and soul, then there can be nothing left over to consciously suffer in a fiery pit of hell.

Revelation’s Symbolism

A third line of reasoning against the notion of a literal fiery pit can be found directly in Revelation’s account of the things thrown into Gehenna, in which it states, along with the Devil, Wild Beast and False Prophet, “death and the grave (Sheol/Hades)” were also thrown into Gehenna:

• “Then Death and the Grave were thrown into the Lake of Fire...“. – Revelation 20:14

It is important to note this, for death and the grave are not people, nor sentient beings being “tormented” or punished in Gehenna. Rather, they are “concepts”, inanimate, non-physical things, which exist only in the abstract and metaphysical.

Therefore, we must ask “how can non-physical concepts be thrown into a real literal pit of fire?” The answer naturally leads us to a conclusion that in order to contain conceptual or non-physical things, the object holding such must also be conceptual or non-physical, that the torment of Gehenna is a form of symbolism or poetry.

If we are to understand the previous scriptures in context of annihilation and not torture as aptly described by the cultural meaning of Gehenna and Yeshua’s words in Matthew, then this would lead us to conclude that the “torture” spoken of in Revelation would be symbolic, just as most other things in the book of Revelation, just as we understand “death and grave” being thrown into the fire.

Just as the verse says “this means the Second Death”, that is to mean “death after death”, death beyond mere Sheol, but to “die again”, a two fold death of which is doubly secured with no hope of return, the “torment” of these ones possibly meaning symbolic suffering. And this would make sense given that we’ve also seen such language of “eternal torment” applied concerning the destruction of the nations that attack God’s people in places such as Judith 16.

Justice & Suffering

Some would argue that “if that is all Gehenna means, why obey God, what is there to fear?”

This here is an objection I personally find quite bewildering. Are people to be saying that “losing out on everlasting life” is not a punishment in itself? Not being able to see your friends, family, loved ones, your wife, or husband, or children, ever again? As they go on living forever, enjoying life, forgetting about you and forgetting you ever existed? Is that not something to fear? It is something I personally fear for a certainty….

Why is eternal torture needed on top of all that to ensure justice? Is this how Yah is said to operate in scripture? Is that the pattern of his standards of justice?

If we look to scripture, we see that our God, the God of love, does not gain satisfaction or justice from pain. Why, even the mere sleep of death upsets Him! (Ezekiel 18:23). No, death is something he brings about out of necessity, to protect the righteous, the eternal sleep of death in itself ensures justice for the righteous. Obedience grants life, disobedience grants the opposite of that, death (Romans 6:23).

God is a God of purpose and order, He has only ever used pain to teach mankind lessons, in the hopes of turning them around into repentance (Hebrews 12:6), whereas everlasting pain for its own sake does not hold any lessons, no purpose can be gained by such a thing.

We know this is how YHWH God feels, for He himself even took away the pain and suffering from the Israelites when he punished them for worshipping false gods, not because they repented of their wickedness, but only because they were in pain and crying out:

• “In his anger against Israel YHWH gave them into the hands of raiders who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist…. Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of YHWH was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress. Then the YHWH raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders. Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped them. They quickly turned from the ways of their ancestors, who had been obedient to YHWH’s commands. Whenever YHWH raised up a judge for them, he was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived; for YHWH was moved to pity because of their groaning under those who oppressed and afflicted them“. – Judges 2:14-18
• “Though he brings grief, he also shows compassion because of the greatness of his unfailing love. For He does not willingly afflict or grieve the sons of men“. – Lamentations 3:32-33

If God isn’t and has never been willing to continually punish unrepentant people purely on the basis of feeling pity over the pain that is inflicted upon them in this life… How much less so then can we expect God to cause the unrepentant to suffer in hell “forever”? With nothing further to be gained from it?

Just as God tells us at Jeremiah 19:5 in reference to the Israelites burning their sons and daughters alive, such a thing has “never entered into his heart or mind”. In turn… are we all not also God’s children? Has it come up into his heart to burn us in turn?

Conclusion

In conclusion… is it impossible for there to be a literal hellfire? No, one might certainly attempt to argue for it based on some scriptures, but I personally believe based on the scriptures and historical Hebrew context of Gehenna, this is not to be so.

Any and all references to an everlasting fire of torture, have only ever been found in prophetic or poetic scriptures which make use of very heavy symbolism. Whereas all literal depictions and descriptions have only ever mentioned it being the place of death.

Hence, Gehenna, as described by our Lord Yeshua (Matthew 10:28), I personally understand to be likely eternal annihilation, not torture.