Is Gehenna "Hell"?

Gehenna is a transliteration of the Hebrew term, Gêhinnōm, and it simply means “The Valley of (the sons of) Hinnom.” ‘Gê’ means ‘valley’, and ‘hinnōm’ means of course ‘hinnom’. Gêhinnōm is never translated as "hell" in the Old Testament. Neither did the more accurate translations of the New Testament, such as NASB or YLT, translate it as “hell.”

Gehenna from Jeremiah’s point of view

God did not tell the prophet Jeremiah to “go to hell,” but rather that he should go to “the Valley of the Son of Hinnom.” And there Jeremiah warned about a coming catastrophe that would befall “this place” (i.e. the Valley of Hinnom).

The Valley of Hinnom, was not a place of torment for disembodied souls in a fiery afterlife. It was a literal place by the outskirts of Jerusalem.

In this valley they had worshipped idols and filled it with “the blood of the innocents.” They had built shrines to Baal, and burnt their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to this god.

This was so unthinkable and disgusting to God that He gave them over to their own fate: The Valley of the Son of Hinnom would come to be called the “Valley of Slaughter.” There they would “fall by the sword before their enemies” and the city would become desolate in a siege. And they would bury in Tophet (in the valley) “till there is no place to bury,” (Jer. 19:1-11).

The prophecy was fulfilled when Jerusalem was besieged by Babylon, when the city was made desolate, and the corpses filled the valley.

Gehenna is said to have become a permanent, smoldering garbage dump where unburied bodies were burned. It became a mass grave and became associated with all that was filthy. In fact, Josiah ordered that the valley be forever accursed. Josiah, whose name means ‘fire of God’ burned up all the altars and priests of Molech in that valley.

It was so grotesque to God, that they would burn children as an offering. It was an unimaginable abomination, God said (Jer. 7:30-31; 32:35). But strangely many Christians today think God would do something far worse – that He would torment billions in eternal fire.

Back to the story… Therefore God sent the prophet to the temple. The people thought their temple was a sign of God’s favor (Jer. 7:2-4, 10), but it had actually become a “den of thieves” (7:11) in danger of destruction (7:14-15). So Jeremiah laid out the indictment that God’s anger “will burn and not be quenched,” (Jer. 7:20, 28-31). Jerusalem was going to be destroyed, the temple would be rubble, and corpses would be in flames in Hinnom, (Jer. 7, 19, 32).

So for Jeremiah, Gehenna was not an afterlife judgment, but it was the place for the literal destruction of Jerusalem by foreign armies. And perhaps Jesus thinks of it this way too, since he either cites or alludes to every chapter in Jeremiah (we will come to that).

The fire of Gehenna was a fire of earthly judgment. We see this also when 185,000 Assyrian soldiers died during the siege of king Hezekiah and when they were piled in the valley and set on fire (Isaiah 30-31 and 37).

Yet, God promised a restoration to follow the judgment:

“Behold, the days are coming, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel… For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more… The city will be rebuilt for the Lord… And the entire valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes, and all the fields as far as the brook Kidron to the corner of the Horse Gate toward the east, shall be holy to the Lord; it will not be uprooted or overthrown ever again,” (Jer 31:31-40). God promised to gather them out of the lands they had been driven from. “They shall be My people, and I will be their God… I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; and I will put the fear of Me in their hearts, so that they will not turn away from Me” And the desolated fields will be purchased again “for I will restore their fortunes,” said God, (Jer 32:37-44).

Today you can visit Gehenna. It was once a firepit but it is now a beautiful garden and an urban park. If you ever visit, read the signs that say in Hebrew, “no fires here!”

Jeremiah prophesied exactly this: That the same valley where the corpses of the siege would be thrown out and burned would be restored.

Gehenna from Jesus’ point of view

Both Jeremiah and Jesus prophesied flames in Gehenna associated with the fiery obliteration of Jerusalem and her temple. Jesus was a prophet in the vein of Jeremiah. He too used Gehenna to predict a coming destruction, but this time by Rome.

Jesus recalled the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon in 587 BC as a warning of the impending fall of Jerusalem to Rome in AD 70. The Jews, were according to Jesus, again in peril of consequence for their own self-destructive rebellion.

1. The temple was a “den of thieves” to be overthrown (Matt. 21:12-13), just as Jeremiah had said when he predicted the destruction of the temple, and the city in death, rubble and flames (Jer. 7). 2. Jesus cleansed the temple (Matt 21, Mark 11, Luke 19). This was a prophetic act in the temple, just as Jeremiah broke the pottery in the temple and confirmed its impending destruction (Jer. 19). 3. Jesus predicted the temples destruction but also guaranteed a restoration: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” (John 2:12-22; Luke 22:20), just as Jeremiah prophesied about a new covenant and a restoration of the city and Hinnom (Jer. 31:38-40). 4. Jesus’ prophecy of the fall of Jerusalem was fulfilled in AD 70, just as Jeremiah’s prophecy about the siege and destruction was fulfilled 587 BC when Jerusalem fell to Babylon.

Jesus over and over again quoted Jeremiah and predicted the desolation of Jerusalem and its temple. And according to Josephus, history repeated itself, and the same valley was heaped with dead Israelites following the Roman siege of Jerusalem.

Much like Jeremiah, Jesus warned: “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then recognize that her desolation is near.” And if they would not flee at that point, they would “fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot,” (Luke 21:20-24).

Therefore Jesus said, “if your right eye is causing you to sin, tear it out and throw it away from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into the Valley of Hinnom,” (Matt. 5:29).

You see how the meaning of that text completely changed when “hell” was replaced with its literal meaning (Valley of Hinnom)? But we must put ourselves in the shoes of the first century people. What would they have heard when Jesus spoke of Gêhinnōm? Jesus spoke of a literal valley just like I would speak of for example Death Valley or Napa Valley etc.

So Jesus predicted an earthly destruction, hence “it is better” to lose “one of the parts” of the body, rather than having the “whole body to be thrown” into the Valley of Slaughter.

Jesus did not have in mind any disembodied souls that would suffer eternal conscious torment. In fact, it never entered God’s mind that the Israelites could burn their children. Again, this God said, was an abomination. So Jesus is not identifying Gehenna as the conventional hell we’ve often imagined, where souls suffer in an afterlife, but He identified it as the same valley outside Jerusalem, where the corpses have been left in a fire that continues. Thus “it is better” to cut off one's hand, rather than suffering in the whole body. Having a hand cut off would indeed be painful, but it could not compare to having the whole body burnt.

But just as judgment was not the final and bitter end to Jeremiah, so judgment did not have the final word for Jesus. He compared Gehenna with a prison that one would get out of once he’s “paid the last penny,” (Matt 5:26). Jesus shared the same philosophy in His parable of the Unforgiving Servant. The servant's Master “handed him over to the torturers until he would repay all that was owed him.” And “so My heavenly Father also will do to you,” Jesus said (Matt. 18:34-35). One should be punished until one has paid.

What about “their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched”?

If Jesus did not understand Gehenna as a place of a fiery afterlife, then what about Mark 9? Good question. Let’s read:

“If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into the fire of the Valley of Hinnom — where ‘their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched,’” (Mark. 9:47-48).

Jesus doesn’t say that the worm will “never” die. If we were to take “will not die” to mean “will never die,” we would make a mess of Scripture. Joseph told his brothers in Genesis 42:20 to bring their youngest brother to him, and “you will not die,” he said. Obviously Joseph’s brothers did not think he was promising them immortality.

The worm would simply not die because it would have to completely consume the many corpses, and the trash that was continuously dumped in the valley. We should note that Jesus quoted the prophet Isaiah:

“And they shall go forth and look upon the corpses of the men who have transgressed against Me. For their worm does not die, and their fire is not quenched. They shall be an abhorrence to all flesh,” (Isa. 66:24).

Isaiah talked about, just like Jeremiah and Jesus did, a destruction in the Valley of Hinnom. Isaiah referred not to disembodied souls but rather to “corpses” which would be abhorrent to the people who peeked down into the Valley of Slaughter. There in the valley, the deceased bodies were burnt with a fire that could not be quenched.

Note also that Jesus did not say that the fire would “never” be quenched, but that the fire “is not quenched.” John the Baptist said that God will “burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire,” (Matt. 3:12). The terms “not quenched” or “unquenchable fire” does not refer to a fire that will burn eternally and yet never completely consume what it is burning.

When we speak of quenching things, such as a thirst, we are talking about extinguishing it. When firefighters are called upon to quench a house fire, they don’t arrive on the scene only to stand idly by and watch a home burn to the ground; even if it were unquenchable. And if it was unquenchable it would still go out naturally after it consumes its fuel.

So the “unquenchable fire” that will burn up the chaff is simply unquenchable since no one can extinguish God’s fire, but once the fire has completely reduced the chaff to ashes, then the fire is put out.

So for John the Baptist and Jesus alike, the fire of God is incapable of being quenched, just like a raging house fire which firefighters are unable to extinguish, therefore burning the building to the ground.

If this doesn't convince you, note again that Jesus refers to “bodies,” just like Isaiah referred to corpses. Jesus did not have the modern view of hell, where disembodied souls will burn eternally. If you believe that bodies are being burnt in hell, you could dig up the grave of the most wicked sinner you know, and see if his body is burning. But I don’t recommend that.

We should also note that Jesus used hyperbole when talking about cutting body parts off. His disciples understood that and hence they did not have a maiming convention in Mark 10.

But what if Gehenna is hell?

By the first century a more “apocalyptic” view of Gehenna was developed by the Pharisees and by the help of the non-biblical Book of Enoch. The Pharisees believed in a fiery afterlife. Although for them, it typically had a time limit of 12 months, after which the damned would either be freed or consumed, based on a text from Zech. 13 and also Psalm 84:5-7, where the Psalmist says that the Valley of Weeping will become a “place of springs.” They saw the psalm of ascent sung by pilgrims on the way to Jerusalem’s festivals as pointing eschatologically to our journey from Gehenna to Zion:

“As they pass through the Valley of Baca (Baca is Hinnom), they make it a spring; the rain also covers it with pools. They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion.”

But the Pharisees were a group which Jesus strongly disagreed with, so I doubt Jesus sided with them. But let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. Let’s suppose then that Jesus referred to an afterlife hell. And let’s see how Jesus now subverts our understanding of it:

“For everyone will be seasoned with fire, and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt,” (Mark 9:49).

1 Corinthians 3 later confirms this, that all will pass through the fire so that wood, hay and stubble will be consumed while gold, silver and precious stones will pass through to be purified. No one is exempt from this fire. And "if anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire,” (15).

So is Jesus then saying that all will go to hell? I’ll let you be the judge.

In the next verse Jesus shocks us again:

“Salt is good” (Apparently the salting of fire is good because it purifies).

“Have salt in yourselves, and have peace with one another,” (Mark 9:50).

The salt, connected to being salted by fire, should then be in us. The salting of fire will season everyone, but it is good and purifying, and should be embraced already now. And so we will “have peace with one another.” If we don’t follow Jesus’ example, we opt, like the Jews in the days of Jesus, for self-destruction.