Job, Jonah

Job, who had gone through untold pain and misery, cried out for death, Job 14:13

¹³O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave (sheol), that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me!

Grave is the Hebrew word sheol.  The same word used for hell.  After all the pain and suffering Job endured, why would Job want to go to the fiery hell most people believe in?  Job being an inspired servant of God knew that this was a not a place of  torment, but a place of rest.  Job was weary of suffering.  He wanted to be released from it to his rest.  Job speaks of the rest in Job 3:11-19.

¹¹Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly? ¹²Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck? ¹³For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest, ¹⁴With kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves; ¹⁵Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver: ¹⁶Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light. ¹⁷There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest.  ¹⁸There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor. ¹⁹The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master.

Job said that the small, great and even the wicked are in this place of rest.

Job 17:13-16

¹³If I wait, the grave is mine house: I have made my bed in the darkness. ¹⁴I have said to corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister.  ¹⁵And where is now my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it? ¹⁶They shall go down to the bars of the pit, when our rest together is in the dust.

 Grave is the Hebrew word sheol.  Job describes sheol as a resting place with hope.  There is an important thought in the Hebrew Scriptures, Job eludes to this real hope, Job 19:25-26.

²⁵For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: ²⁶And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God:

Job knew that in the latter days, he would see God.

Jonah who was swallowed by a big fish, stated in Jonah 2:1-2:

¹Then Jonah prayed unto Yehovah his God out of the fish’s belly, ²And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto Yehovah, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell (sheol) cried I, and thou heardest my voice.

Hell is the Hebrew word sheol.  Jonah compared the belly of the fish to sheol, because of the similarities.  It was not to a fiery place.  It was a dark place where one would rest similar to an unconscious state.

Next Samuel, Saul & Sheol

Back to Unconscious State

Return to Sheol and Hell

Return to Sheol, Hell, Heaven and the Lake of Fire