231 as if indicative of the cries of the children in the horrid rites of the Moloch-worship (see Buxtorf, Lex. Rab., p. 108 ; Glassius [ed. Dathii], Philolog. Sacr. i. Sob). The etymological remarks have paved our way to the next section of our subject.
The Biblical meaning of these three terms.-1.
Aleanings of t':1";. (t) The Grave.' Much controversy has arisen whether within the meanin,..a of SHEOL should be included the „grave e indeed this is the only question of difficulty. The fact, which we have already stated, that our A. V.
translates 9Nt.."., quite as often by 'grave' as by the general term hell,' supplies a prinui facie reason for including it. Without, however, insisting on the probability that polemical theology, rather than Biblical scienCe, influenced our translators, at least occasionally, in their rendering of the word, we may here adduce on the other side the telling fact, that of all the ancient versions not one translates in any passage the Hebrew Sheol by the equivalent of grave. The other Greek tmnslators, like the vene rable LXX., so far as their fragments shew (see Origen, Hexapla, passim), everywhere give "Auins for 5itit.", (sometimes they use for the locative case the older and better phrase els, iv " ALSov, times he more recent and vulgar cis ray "Atanv, Iv re?' "ALM. The Samaritan text in the seven passages of the Pentateuch has either 9I'VY (Siol)or Onkelos and Jonathan everywhere, cept in five passages, retain it•tt:!. The Peschito everywhere in both Testaments renders the Hebrew Sheoland the Greek Hades by %0_16_9[5:11.:;,Shize/]; and, as we have already seen, the Vulgate trans lates the same words in both the a T. and the N. T. by inferm (plur. Inferi mostly) and above all Injernus (see above for particulars). It is to the later Targumists (the Pseudo-Jonathan and the yernsalem Targum), and afterwards to the Rabbini cal doctors of the middle ages, that we trace the version of the 'sepulchre' and the grave' (thus in Gen. xxxvii. 35 ; xlii. 38; xliv. 29, 31, these Tar gumists rendered Shia by tarnap +3 [the house of burial]; similarly did they render Ps. cxli. 7 • Job vii. 9 • xiv. 13 ; xvii. 13, 16 ; xxi, ; EccPl. ix. to, an'd other passages, in which it is observablc how often they have been followed by our trans lators.* In the note below we have quoted reasons which have led learned men, who have especially examined the subject, to exclude the grave (specifi cally understood as a nzaa'e or artificial one) from the proper meaning of Sheol. We cannot but accept their view in critical exactness. But there is an inexact and generic sense of Sheol in which the word grave well expresses the meaning of the Scripture passages just mentioned, and (in justice to A. V. it may be admitted) of most of the others, which our translators rendered by this word.* Of this more vague sense Ussher (Works, iii. 324) says—‘ When Sheol is said to signify the grave, the term grave must be taken in as large a sense as it is in our Saviour's speech, John v. 28 and in Is. xxvi. 19, according to the LXX. reading ; upon which passage writes Origen thus—‘ Here and in many other places the graves of the dead are to be understood, not such only as we see are builded for the receiving of men's bodies—either cut out in stones, or digged down in the earth ; but every place wherein a man's body lieth either entire or in part . . . otherwise they which are not committed to burial, nor laid in graves, but have ended their life in shipwrecks, deserts, and such like ways, should not seem to be reckoned among those which are said to be raised from the grave' (In Esai. lib. 28 citatus a Pamphilo, Apol.)' We have here, then, the first meaning of the Hebrew 'It'4V), largely applied, as we have seen, in our A. V. to the grave,' considered in a universal sense (sec the passages in the last note), commensurate with death itself as to the extent of its signification. (Comp. the grave ana' gate of death' of the Engl. Liturgy, Collect for Eastcr Even.) Though we carefully exclude the artificial grave, or -cp, from this cate.
gory, there is no doubt, as Bishop Lowth has well shewn (De Sacra Poesi Hebr. Prael. vii. [ed. Oxon. with notes of Michaelis and Rosenmiiller. 18211, pp. 65-69), that the Hebrew poets drew all the imagery, with which they describe the state and condition of the dead, from the funeral rites and pomp, and from the vaulted sepulchres of their great men. The Bishop's whole treatment of the subject is quite worth perusal. We can only
quote his finaI remarks—` You will see this tran scendent imagery better and more completely dis played in that noble triumphal song which was composed by Isaiah (xiv. 4-27) . . . previous to the death of the king of Babylon. Ezekiel has also grandly illustrated the same scene, with simi lar machinery, in the last -prophecy concerning the fall of Pharaoh (xxxii. It32).' For an excellent vindication of the A. V. in many of its translations of the grave, we refer the reader to the treatise ot Archbishop Ussher (Answer to the yesuit's Chal lenge, Woils [ed. Elrington], vol. iii., pp. 319-324 and 332-34o. We doubt not that, if grave is an admissible sense of .1:gt:)., our translators have, on the whole, made a judicious selection of the pas sages which will best bear the sense : their purpose was a popular one, and they accomplished it, in the instance of uncertain words and phrases, by giving them the most intelligible tuni they would bear, as in the case before us. We undertake not to decide whether it would be better to leave the broad and generic word Sheol, as the great versions of anti quity did, everywhere ; whether (e. g..) Jacob's lament (Gen. xxxvii. 35 ; xlii. 38) and such like passages would be more suitably, if not correctly,* rendered by the simple retention of the original word, or the equally indefinite hades. (2) The other meaning of rendered Hellin thirty-one passages of A. V., according to the more ancient and, as it seems to us, preferable opinion, makes it local i.e., the place of disembodied spirits. ("Atons ae 76703 hyll, &CAS', tow, dvbaviis Kat alanorros, 6 Tets IPUVLS 12/.ILP ePTEM-CV etio7),U060-aS Sex6yevas, Andr. Csaricus in Apocat. c. 63.) A later opinion supposes the word to indicate ` not the place where souls departed are, but the state and condition of the dead, or their permansion in death,' as Bishop Pear son calls it (C2-eed [ed. Chevallied, p. 439)• On this opinion, which that great divine ` cannot admit as a full or proper exposition,' we shall say nothing more than that it is at best only a deduction from the foregoing local definition. That definition we have stated in the broadest terms, because, in re ference to Dr. Is. Barrow's enumeration (given at the beginning of this article) of the questions which have arisen on the subject before us, we believe that Holy Scripture warrants the most ample of all the positions suggested by that eminent writer, to the effect that the Sheol or Hell, of which we treat, is not merely ` the place of good and happy souls,' or ` that of bad and miserable ones,' but `indiffer ently and in common of both those.' We propose to arrange the Biblical passages so as to describe, first, the state of the occupants of Sheol, and, secondly, the locality of it, in some of its prominent features. As to the first point, Sheol is (a) the receptacle of the spirits of all that depart this This appears from Ps. lxxxix. 47, 48 ; and Is. xxxviii, 18, 19 (in which latter verse the opposition in its universal sense between sheol and the state of life in this world is to be observed). We do not hesi tate with Archbishop Ussher ( Works, iii. 318) to translate 91N,pi in these passages ` hell' or sheol, instead of g-mve,' as in A. V. Sheol, therefore, is V') the abode of the wicked, Num. xvi. 33 ; Job xxiv. ; Ps. ix. 17 (Hebr. Bib. 18) ; xxxi. 17 (18) ; Prov. v. 5 ; ix. 18 ; Is. lvii. 9 ; and (-y') oj the good [both in their ` disembodied' condition], Ps. xvi. io, comp. with Acts ii. 27, 31 ; Ps. xxx. 3 (4) ; xlix. 15 (16) ; lxxxvi. 13; Is. xxxviii. Jo, comp. with Job. iii. 17-19 ; Hos. xiii. 14, comp. with Cor. xv. 55. With regard to the second point, touching some local features of Sheol, we find it described as very a'ecp (Job xi. 8) ; a'ark (Job x. 21, 22) ; (yet confest and often to the eye of God, Job xxvi. 6); with 'valleys' [Gesell., Thes. 134S] or depths of various gradations (Ps. Lxxxvi. 13 [comp. with Dem. xxxii. 22] ; Prov. ix. 18) ; 7vith bars CTob xvii. 16 [comp. with Jonah ii. 6] and g-ates (Is. xxxviii. io); situated beneath zts ;* hence the dead are said to go down' [1-14] to Sheol, Num. xvi. 3o, 33 ; Ezek. xxxi. 15, 16, 17 [comp. with Job vit. 9 ; Gen. xlii. 38]). We have seen how some have derived the name of Sheol from its insatiability ; such quality is often attributed to it : it is all-devouring- (Prov. 12); never satisfied (Prov. xxx. 16 ; Is. v. 14), and inexorable (Cant. viii. 7).