by Bp. Horsley, on the ground that ' in its primary and natural sense it si^nilies nothing more than the unseen and covered place ' (Sermons, ii. 20). But the English Kevisers, recognizing the difficulty of disconnectinij the word from its usual associa- tions, have disi)laccd ' hell ' bj' ' Hades ' in the NT. In the OT thej' h.ave adopted a less uniform practice. In the historical books tliey have left the rendering 'the grave' or 'the pit' in the text, and have placed on the margin the note ' lleb. Sheol,' to ' indicate that it does not signify the place of burial,' as they explain in their Preface. In the poetical books tliei' usu.ally give Sheol in the text, and put • the grave ' in the m.argin. In Is 14 they retain 'hell' in the text and give 'Sheol' in the margin, on the ground that in that paragraph the word ' hell ' has ' more of its usual sense, and is less liable to be misunderstood,' while ' any change in so familiar a passage which was not distinctly an improvement would be a decided loss.' The Ameri- can Revisers, however, have followed the more con- sistent course of giving ' Sheol ' in the text of the OT, and dispensing with the variant renderings ' the grave,' ' the pit,' ' hell ' ; as ' Hades ' is given by both English and American Revisers in the text of the NT. (See also the article on Hell.)
The word Hades is a familiar term in classical Greek. It is usually supposed to be derived from o privative and iSelf, videre, ' see,' and hence it is rendered Nclucus by Hermann. This etymology is thought to be rendered extremely doubtful by the presence of the aspiration, and so Voss (Hipnn Dem. 348) would derive the word from iba, x^om, in the sense of iroKvbiimjs, der Uinfasser, the ' all- receiving,' ' all ■ devouring. ' Though the Attic form, however, was 'Ai5i;s, q-Srii, the more ancient torm, as generally in Homer, was 'AtoTjs, -ao and -f w, which form, except in the Epic genitive 'Aiofu, occurs also in the 'Tragic poets. So in Milton (PL u. 963, 964)—
' and by them stood
Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name
Of Demogorgon.'
In Homer, the word (also in the form 'KiSuivein there, in Hesiod, and, though rarely, in the Tragedians) occurs only as a proper name, the name of the god of the nether world, Pluto ; in Hesiod (Th. 455), the son of Kronos and Rheia, and older brother of Zeus. Hence, in Homer, tlie forms (h 'Atoao, dv 'AtSao with or without Sbixovs, Slifioit, in the sense of ' into ' or ' in the lower world ' ; in Attic the forms iv and eWAiSov ; and in the NT the ^;'5i5ouof the TR, and the later MSSin Ac 2-''-*' displaced by the e/j q.^-qf of the RV and the older MSS. Later the word became an appellative, de- noting the underworld itself, the habitation of the dead, corresponding to the Latin Orcus, Inferi, Infernum, Inferna.
In the LXX and the OT Apocr. the word repre- sents the Heb. Vlx^', and sometimes other Heb. terms, as -lu (Is 14'» 38'«), r^^\-^ (Ps 93 [94]" 113"> [115"]), m= (Pr 14'^ 16^, Is 28"), niD (Job 33~), nitS' (Job 38"). These latter, however, are only occa- sional occurrences. In the vast majority of casea (some 59 in the canonical books alone, and often in the Apocr.) ' Hades' is the equivalent of Sin?, and it carries with it the sense which that term has as a designation of the world beyond the grave.
The conceptions formed of that world by different peoples have been very various. They nave been largely affected by racial, geographical, and climatic circumstances, and have not been altogether con- stant in the history of the beliefs of the progressive peoples. By far the more prevalent, however, has been the idea that would most naturally occur to men as they looked down into the grave which hid their departed kinsfolk from their gaze — that of an underivorld, the opposite in all respects of the
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open, visible, sunlit world of activity. In various forms this general conception has held the mind of races as dillerent as the lusty Teutonic tribes, the Zulus of Africa, the savages of North and South America, the Samoan islanders, the Asiatic Karens, the Italmen of Kanischatka, the Kgyptians, the Babylonians and Assyrians, the Greeks and Ro- mans. It was also the popular conception of the ancient Hebrews, and the llebrew form of the idea had special alUnity with that of the Uabylonians and Greeks. In the OT, therefore. Hades ex- presses the general view of the world of the departed as a dark, deep underworld, in which the deceased continue to exist, but in a state of being devoid of the joy, the activity, the fulness, and the substantiality of real life. For the most part, too, in the OT it is an abode from which there is no return, and in which tliere are no moral dis- tinctions ; a condition involving separation at once from living men and from the living God ; one in which rich and poor, king and slave, good and evil, subsist togetlier in the same inane, shadowy, cheerless condition, without positive reward for the righteous or pen.altv for the wicked. Though not without occasional hints and suggestions of better things, the OT, reflecting the popular Hebrew modes of thought on the subject, presents Hades neither as a distinct stadium between death and a larger future, nor as a scene of moral issues, but as the common gathering-place for the de- parted, into which all alike go down, beyond which there is nothing to be clearly seen or certainly looked for, and from which tliere is no open way of restoration to the old strength of life, far loss any elevation to a new and higher life, near or afar.