Isaiah
The word “hell” first appears in this book in chapter 5, verse 14. My KJV dutifully notes “Or Sheol.” We see hell/sheol again in 14:9 & 15, 28:15 & 18, and 57:9.
In Chapter six we read of Isaiah’s vision of seeing God, where one of the Seraphim touches his lips with a live coal and declares “…thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.” (6:7) This is just another instance of fire serving as God’s instrument to refine men, not to punish them. We will see this theme again.
Chapter 14 is mostly about Israel, Babylon, Assyria, and God’s judgment on each. In the midst of all this are some verses about “Lucifer.” Now we met up with Satan in the book of Job, and my KJV noted there that the name means “the adversary,” which strikes me as a title, not a name. Yet here in Isaiah, most folks think it is the same person being referred to, but no this time it’s Lucifer, and my KJV states that it literally means “Day Star.” Going from the Adversary to the Day Star is quite a leap, and it’s not likely to be the same person. Note that the context for this passage begins in verse 4: “That thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon…” Then in verse 13, “For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north.” Two verses later, however, judgment is given: “Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell [sheol], to the sides of the pit [grave].” In verse 16 the question is raised, “…is this the man…?” Now most of us have been taught that Satan is a spirit being, but this passage shows this person to be mortal. For this reason I believe the person referred to in this passage to be NOT Satan, but the king of Babylon. I don’t care to stretch every text I can find to promote my thesis, unlike some. By the end of this essay, I think we will have found that Satan is a fairly minor character in the story, as he should be.
Now for the serious Bible student, I’d like to add a note of caution, to stay alert for the sleight-of-hand we so often find. First, as we saw above, is the bad translation: Adversary to Satan and Day Star to Lucifer. Then we get the bad interpretation, usually taken in a verse or two ripped from its proper context - in the present case, to point out the Devil wherever possible. Often, a look at the surrounding text will support the given interpretation, or not. If you understand the message and themes of the whole Word of God, you will tend to notice when “theo-illogical” tricks are being pulled.
After several chapters of the judgment of this nation or that, Isaiah tells us in 25:7 & 8, “And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away the tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it.” With death at that time swallowed up in victory, how can anyone be still dead, or for that matter, in Hell? Now if we can think of the “covering” and the “vail” above in terms of graveclothes, I think we can see what God is trying to tell us here. It all hinges on His intentions, and thus far He has not spoken of eternal torture in a fiery Hell.
Hope here, in 26:19, “Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.” I see here no distinction between the righteous and the wicked dead. On the other hand, in chapter 28, we see an early reference, if we read between the prophetic lines, to the first and second resurrections of the dead. Isaiah writes of the planting of cumin, which is then threshed with a simple rod or staff. It’s just like the twenty-third Psalm, in which David is comforted by God’s rod and staff. The wheat, barley, and rye get a rougher treatment in the threshing here, needing a cart, an ox (Deuteronomy 25:4), or various threshing instruments to separate the grain (good) from the chaff (bad). It may be a bit off topic, but it is worth mentioning, as long as we are covering other theories on Hell, to also offer another view of the parables God offers us concerning the afterlife and the resurrection. You see, most folks are taught that the wheat and tares are good and bad people, as are the wheat and chaff, or the sheep and goats. Others contend the good parts of the individual person are represented by wheat, barley, and rye grains; and also by the gold, silver, precious gems left by the refining fire of God. The bad parts of us are typified by the chaff, blown away by the wind; by the tares, gathered together and burned; by the goats, culled from the sheep; or by the wood, hay, and stubble burned up by the same fire of God.
We arrive at 33:14 - “The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?” Now, this looks like a picture of Hell, but hold on, for remember that up to this point God has NOT ever threatened anyone with Hellfire. Yes, we have seen some killed with fire from God, but it was always fire in the real world, not in an unknown Hell. We today have an advantage over Isaiah, for we know of the Lake of Fire in the Revelation. We also know that the wicked, including sinners and hypocrites, are thrown into it, and that it is the second death. As I’ve said before, that is not the end of the story, and it all hinges on whether “everlasting burnings” is correct. The YLT renders the Hebrew here as “of the age,” For reasons I will go into more detail later, “of the age” or “age-long” are more correct than “everlasting” simply because eternity does not begin for a very long time. The Lake of Fire itself takes place before the ages (as such) have expired, but that topic will have to wait until we cover the Revelation. A hint of what lies ahead is at the end of chapter 33 – “…the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick: the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity.” This is said of Zion, in a future time when no one is sick, and everyone in Zion, is given forgiveness, without conditions or exceptions. It does look like universal reconciliation…
Moving forward, among God’s complaints of His people, Israel, either being lax in their devotions to Him, or practicing idolatry, we find that He fails to threaten them with Hellfire for these things. Many religious folks would relegate the wicked to Hell, but God continues to speak of forgiveness: “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.” (43:25) “I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee.” (44:22) “Drop down ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and [not swallow up the wicked, but] let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the Lord have created it.” (45:8)
God says of the House of Israel: “Behold, I have refined thee, but not … [as] … silver; I have … [tested] … thee in the furnace of affliction.” (48:10) There is no point in God saving and forgiving His people unless He refines them, for He would just have the same pack of sinners. He admits this much, “There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked.” (48:22) No peace for them, yet no mention of Hell, either.
In 65:17, God foretells His re-creation: “For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.” As in Genesis there is no mention of a new Hell, so we see it is excluded in the future as well as the past. Again, in 66:22, He tells us: “…the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord…”
The very last verse of the book pulls us up short: “And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases [sic] of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring to all flesh.” This sounds very much like Jesus’ warning to His listeners in the ninth chapter of the Gospel of Mark, where Jesus actually quoted Isaiah. I will treat this more fully later, but “Hell” in Mark 9 is footnoted as “Gehenna” in my KJV, and Gehenna is a place in the real world, so I question that Jesus could have been referring to Hell. Isaiah 66:24 also seems to be relating something to happen in the real world.
Isaiah writes much of the wicked, the ruin of the Israel/Judah of his day, but also much of the glorious future of God’s people, the city of Jerusalem, and the world in general. Therefore, I think I can say with some confidence that Hell cannot be found in the book of Isaiah.