Different Words for “Hell”

In Christian terminology, “Hell” refers to the final fate of the lost which they will experience after the Final Resurrection when Jesus comes back. In the biblical languages, there are four terms that have been historically rendered as “hell” in English Bible translations. However, three of these words do not refer to the final fate of the lost.

1. Tartarus (τάρταρος tartaros)

The Greek word tartaros itself is not used in the New Testament, but its related verb, tartaroō (ταρταρόω), is used only once, in 1 Peter 3:19:

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell [tartaroō] and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgement. (ESV)

The Greek expression for “cast into hell” is the verb tartaroō, which simply means “to put into Tartarus”. Here, Tartarus clearly does not refer to the final fate of the lost, since these sinful angels are being kept there “until the judgement”—when they will be sent to experience their final fate.

2. Sheol (שְׁאוֹל šəʾōwl)

The Hebrew word “Sheol” means “underground”. It was used as an idiom for death. Thus, to “go to Sheol” meant to die, and to “be in Sheol” meant to be dead. Whether Sheol is a real place for the disembodied souls of dead people, it refers to the intermediate state of dead people before the Final Resurrection. Therefore, Sheol does not refer to the final fate of the lost.

3. Hades (ᾅδης hadēs)

The Greek word “Hades” was used by Jews and Christians as the equivalent of the Hebrew word “Sheol”. Accordingly, the New Testament writers used “Hades” to express the same thing communicated by the Hebrew word “Sheol” in the Jewish Scriptures: the intermediate state of dead people before the Final Resurrection, and not the final fate of the lost.

4. Gehenna (γέεννα geenna)

The Greek word for “Gehenna” was coined from the Hebrew expression gēyʾ ḇen hinnōm (גֵּיא בֶן הִנֹּם), meaning, “Valley of the Son of Hinnom”. It is a geographical place that is mentioned in the Jewish Scriptures (Josh. 15:8; 18:16; 2 Ki. 23:10; Jer. 7:31, 32; 19:2, 6; 32:35; 2 Chr. 28:3; 33:6). This Valley was also known alternatively in its shorter form, gēyʾ hinnōm (גֵּיא הִנֹּם), meaning, “Valley of Hinnom” (Josh. 15:8; 18:16; Neh. 11:30). By the time of Jesus and the first Christians, this Valley had become an idiom for the final fate of the lost.

Therefore, among the four words that were historically rendered “hell” in English Bible translations, only “Gehenna” is properly rendered “Hell”.