Table of Contents

Hell is Made Holy

How the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Book of Revelation show that the wicked and hell cease to exist

Over 75 Free Online Bible Commentaries
Pulpit
Expositors
Keil & Delitzsch
Matthew Henry

By David Aaron Beaty

Visit author’s web site at www.davidaaronbeaty.com

Chapter 11

Hell is Made Holy and Poetic Justice is Served

At this time I would like to circle back to the repeated theme of the final fate of the wicked being turned to ashes. As I've already shown, hell, Gehenna, the lake of fire, is described in the Bible as a physical literal place just outside of Jerusalem. The traditional view of hell urges us to see this place as an endlessly burning pit of torment that will exist for all of eternity. In sharp contrast to this, we may have a direct biblical pronouncement that Gehenna, the place of dead bodies and ashes, will be completely restored, just as it must be in order for these passages below from Revelation 21, Isaiah 65, and Isaiah 26 to be fulfilled:

Revelation 21 WEB - "the former things have passed away"

Isaiah 65 WEB - "the former things will not be remembered or come to mind"

[Isaiah 26:14 NASB20] The dead will not live, the departed spirits will not rise; Therefore You have punished and destroyed them, And You have eliminated all remembrance of them.

If your interpretation of scripture leads you to believe that the new heavens and the new earth involve a complete and total destruction of the old heavens and old earth, then there will no longer be a valley of Gehenna, because the earth that it is now physically and literally located on will no longer exist. Hint, hint.....some of the best ancient manuscript evidence demonstrates that 2 Peter 3:10 shows the earth and its works will be something like "laid bare" or "discovered", not "burned up". See several commentaries on 2 Peter 3:10 as sources:

  • 1983, Richard Bauckham, Word Biblical Commentary, Jude & 2 Peter, Vol. 50
  • 2003, Thomas R. Schreiner. The New American Commentary, 1 & 2 Peter, Jude, Vol. 37
  • 2008, Gene L. Green, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, Jude and 2 Peter

    • "Laid bare" or "discovered" in 2 Peter 3:10 is very likely combining the language of burning up unacceptable works and exposing them with the language of burning everything off the surface of the earth and exposing the earth. In other words, the verse could be playing on a double meaning for "laid bare" or "discovered" which describes the earth and its works in two separate ways. "Laid bare" or "discovered" in 2 Peter 3:10 may be referring to the statement "each one’s work will become evident; for the day will show it" from Paul's work in 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 where Paul writes in the same thematic arc as 2 Peter 3. Peter even mentions Paul's work and his name in 2 Peter 3. Alternatively, 2 Peter 3:10 may be referring to a Targum wording just as John does in Revelation. See the Targum verse below. Recall from chapter 6 that Targum Jonathan of Zechariah is one of the Targums which underwent its first phase of development in the 1st to 2nd centuries AD (Flesher, 2011, pgs. 199, 226) and may contain pre-Christian concepts and phrases:

    The Targum................

    [Zechariah 4:10 Targum Jonathan] For who is this who has despised this day on account of the building, because it is small? Will he not rejoice again when he sees the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel seven layers like these? The works of people throughout the whole earth are revealed before the Lord. (Cathcart, 1989, Vol. 14, pgs. 194-195)

    Or 2 Peter 3:10 may be drawing a known concept from the Psalms:

    [Psalm 18:15 NASB20] 15 Then the channels of water appeared, And the foundations of the world were exposed By Your rebuke, LORD, At the blast of the breath of Your nostrils.

    Regardless, we can tell from the passages just shown that the concepts of exposing or discovering or laying bare or revealing both works and the earth are known to circulate in the thoughts of God for Peter to use them in 2 Peter 3:10. The ancient scribe who very likely altered the difficult reading in 2 Peter 3:10, "the earth and its works will be discovered" to say, "the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up" had no legitimate reason to do so. He just may not have known the scriptures well enough to know of these themes. It is a belief among scholars that a scribe intentionally did this alteration because he did not understand the meaning of the wording. It seems to be a likely scenario because people today still do not understand it. If your interpretation of 2 Peter 3, Revelation 20-22, and Isaiah 65-66 lead you to believe that the new heavens and new earth are only a partial surface destruction on the earth like the flood was, then here in the obvious end times context of Jeremiah 31 below we very likely have a prophecy that the fires of Gehenna will go out. They will "not be quenched" by any human hand, as Isaiah 66 says, but they will very likely burn until they go out on their own:

    [Jeremiah 31:38-40 NASB20] 38 "Behold, days are coming," declares the LORD, "when the city will be rebuilt for the LORD from the Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate. 39 "The measuring line will go out farther straight ahead, to the hill Gareb; then it will turn to Goah. 40 "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."

    Recall again that the Old Testament Hebrew word for "quenched" in Isaiah 66, and its description of fires that will never be quenched in Gehenna, is used several times in Old Testament contexts which very obviously demonstrate that it can mean intentionally putting out a fire like the fire department does. It doesn't have to describe an endlessly burning fire. In that sense, if a fire is not quenched, it burns until it completely consumes. Did you see that word "consume" anywhere else in the scripture passages in this book? And how about those "ashes" in the Jeremiah 31 passage above? Where else do dead bodies and ashes and fire very likely get together? Here in Isaiah 66 below we have Gehenna with the fire and the dead bodies in it still existing in what may be the new heavens and the new earth, sometime maybe shortly before Jeremiah 31:38-40 above is finally fulfilled:

    [Isaiah 66:22-24 NASB20] 22 "For just as the new heavens and the new earth, Which I make, will endure before Me," declares the LORD, "So will your descendants and your name endure. 23 "And it shall be from new moon to new moon And from Sabbath to Sabbath, All mankind will come to bow down before Me," says the LORD. 24 "Then they will go out and look At the corpses of the people Who have rebelled against Me. For their worm will not die And their fire will not be extinguished; And they will be an abhorrence to all mankind."

    Notice how both these Isaiah 66 and Jeremiah 31 passages above locate this place of judgment that Jesus refers to as "Gehenna", just outside of Jerusalem where we still see it on the map today? God's place of residence will be in Jerusalem when he rules the earth, so when the people "go out" after bowing down before the Lord, they will walk past the valley of Hinnom, Gehenna, just as Jesus implied when he quoted the line from Isaiah 66, "their worm will not die and their fire will not be extinguished" in Mark 9:47-48 and called it "Gehenna". Of course, most modern translators have covered this fact up by essentially mistranslating Gehenna as "hell" in Mark 9:47-48 and all throughout the New Testament. Of course, this mistranslation artificially pastes all the traditionalist connotations of the word "hell" onto a literal physical valley outside of Jerusalem which in no way conforms to the traditional view of hell.

    With a little knowledge about the geography surrounding the city of Jerusalem we can deduce with a considerable degree of confidence that the Jeremiah 31 passage above, when it says "the entire valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes" is referring to the valley of Hinnom, Gehenna. On this topic, an excellent source is the following paper:

    Dennis M. Swanson, "Expansion of Jerusalem in Jer 31:38-40: Never, Already or Not Yet?", The Master's Seminary Journal, Spring 2006, 17/1, pgs. 17-34

    From the paper above we can learn the following, paraphrased in my words.................

    All of the geographical locations in the Jeremiah 31:38-40 passage I showed far above are known with great confidence, with the exceptions of Gareb and Goah which are only known with any confidence to be on the west or southwest sides of Jerusalem. Jeremiah 31:38-40 describes an encircling counterclockwise route around the city of Jerusalem, with each landmark listed in order as the description proceeds around the city. The "valley of the dead bodies and the ashes" is known with confidence to be, Gehenna, the valley of Hinnom. For much of Jerusalem's biblical history, Gehenna has been a natural border barrier on the southwest and south sides of Jerusalem.

    A general perusal of commentaries shows that many scholars agree with the findings of Swanson in the paper I cited above. The wider context of the entire book of Jeremiah further supports the idea that this "valley of the dead bodies and the ashes" in Jeremiah 31:49 is Gehenna. Near the beginning of the book of Jeremiah, in chapter 2, God names a place He calls "the valley" in which the Israelites are worshiping baal. Then in chapter 7, God brings it up again, calling it by both its two names this time as the "Valley of Ben-Hinnom" and "Topheth". He describes His disgust with the people of Israel burning their sons and daughters there and describes how it will be their bodies this time which will be buried there or left in the open to be scavenged on by animals. There will be so many bodies there, God says it will be given a new name, "the Valley of Slaughter". Then with persistent anger, like a horribly offended person who just can't let something go, God brings it up again in Jeremiah 19, devoting much of the chapter to it. He repeats all of what he has already described in chapter 7, but this time clarifies that this "Valley of Ben-Hinnom" is outside the city and it is a place of baal worship. This clues us in that chapters 7 and 19 are a wider description of "the valley" of baal worship as it is named in chapter 2. Still not being over His anger, God brings it up yet another time by name in Jeremiah 32, "Valley of Ben-Hinnom". Then, as if to give the place an ultimate smackdown, He pronounces in our Jeremiah 31:38-40 passage that this "valley of the dead bodies and the ashes" will be made "holy" and never again be "overthrown". With all this context, which valley is God talking about when He says "valley of the dead bodies and the ashes" in Jeremiah 31:40? What other valley would it be? He's most likely referring to the valley full of dead bodies that He denounces numerous times in Jeremiah, the Valley of Hinnom, Gehenna, hell, the lake of fire. The specific passages showing all these details are: Jeremiah 2:23; 7:31-33; 19:1-15; 32:35.

    Well, what about the ashes in the "valley of the dead bodies and the ashes"? How would "ashes" give any useful information to the ancient audience of Jeremiah that would help them understand which valley was being referred to? The author grins, with a sense of expectancy..........of course these "ashes" may be the same ashes which mysteriously keep coming up as the final end of the wicked in this book. As far as what ashes would have meant to the ancient audience of Jeremiah, we see this directly in the book of Jeremiah. The Israelites were burning their sons and daughters in the valley of Hinnom according to Phoenician religious worship of baal, possibly also known as moloch or molech, in Jeremiah 32:35. The alternate name for the valley of Hinnom, "Topheth", was also an ancient generic name for a place that child sacrifice was offered to baal at various other cities. The Israelites literally turned their sons and daughters to ashes in the valley of Hinnom. Even much archaeological evidence has been found to support these facts about the Topheths. Ash urns, inscriptions verbally dedicating the human sacrifices to baal, and even a disgusting ancient depiction showing a cultic priest holding a baby before a sacrifice have been discovered. See below:

    Photo credit:© The Bardo National Museum (Tunisia) www.bardomuseum.tn

    In Ezekiel 28, satan is shown being the king of the Phoenician city of Tyre, just as satan is shown as being influential on and/or controlling of evil human kingdoms in Revelation 12-13 and Daniel 7. There are even some who argue that the name "beelzebul", identified by Jesus in Mark 3:22-24 as being another name for satan, has contained in it an identification of baal. So satan very likely had his influence right up in the middle of Phoenicia, Tyre, Topheth, baal/molech worship in the valley of Hinnom, and worst of all turning God's children into ashes. We can even see what may have been the initial incursion of this type of religious practice into Israel through the wicked queen of Israel, Jezebel in 1 Kings 16:31 who is there named as the daughter of the king of the Phoenician city of Sidon. So she was a princess of the sister city of satan's Phoenician city of Tyre.

    In 1 Kings 16:31 and in 1 Kings 18:19, Jezebel is clearly associated with baal worship, helping us to make the connections between Phoenicia, baal worship in Israel, satan, and Jezebel. So in some sense, satan was responsible for turning God's children into ashes in the valley of Hinnom. Then according to the "Swift Witness" pointing reference in Revelation 22 and many other pointing references in Revelation, God turns the children of the devil to ashes in the valley of Hinnom, Gehenna, the lake of fire. Could this be God delivering the ultimate smackdown of poetic justice against beelzebul, baal, satan, and his children. Does satan have children?

    [1 John 3:10 NASB20] 10 By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother and sister.

    Satan sacrifices God/Jesus and his Israelite children "outside the city" on the cross and in the valley of Hinnom. Satan "crushes" Jesus' heel in this way as foretold in Genesis 3. God sacrifices satan and his children "outside the city" in the valley of Hinnom. Jesus "crushes" satan's head! Could this be an intentional poetically just closing of the circle of evil and final justice? No matter who you are and how powerful you are, you can never get one over on God. He's always 7 steps ahead of you unfolding his plan. An excellent paper which shows many details of the Israelite child sacrifice and its link with Phoenician religious practice is:

    Henry B. Smith Jr.
    "Canaanite Child Sacrifice, Abortion, and the Bible"
    The Journal of Ministry and Theology.
    Fall 2013, Volume 7, Number 2, pp. 90-125.

    I know you doth protest the progression of thought to conclusion that I just showed you regarding Hinnom. You might say that the prophecy about the valley of the dead bodies and ashes in Jeremiah 31:39-40 has already been fulfilled. Notice below though in Jeremiah 31, the new covenant with Israel which almost directly precedes the Jeremiah 31:38-40 pronouncement that the valley of Hinnom will be holy and never again overthrown. This new covenant involves all of the Israelites knowing God, an abolishment of evangelism, God's law is on all of their hearts. Evil is gone. They all know him. Take a look:

    [Jeremiah 31:31-34, 38-40 NASB20] 31 "Behold, days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers on the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them," declares the LORD. 33 "For this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the LORD: "I will put My law within them and write it on their heart; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 "They will not teach again, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them," declares the LORD, "for I will forgive their wrongdoing, and their sin I will no longer remember." ... 38 "Behold, days are coming," declares the LORD, "when the city will be rebuilt for the LORD from the Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate. 39 "The measuring line will go out farther straight ahead, to the hill Gareb; then it will turn to Goah. 40 "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."

    Where on the prophetic timeline have the things in the new covenant above in Jeremiah 31 ever happened or where will they ever happen? Revelation might put this full development of the "new covenant" to be starting at the beginning of the perfected eternal state described in Revelation 21-22. Revelation below even uses some of the same language as Jeremiah 31 above. Remember that "no longer any sea" in Revelation below means that the wicked are no more just as in Jeremiah 31 above:

    [Revelation 21:1-3 NASB20] 1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, "Behold, the Tabernacle of God is among the people, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them,

    The New Covenant in Jeremiah 31 far above is even unlike descriptions of the millennium in which: the millennial temple exists to make the Israelites "ashamed" of their sin, their sin is said to be ongoing, they still must be taught God's laws, and some of them even rebel against God coming under a "curse" leading to their death at the young age of 100. See these passages:

    Ezekiel 40:39; 43:10-11, 18; 44:15-24; 45:17-25; 46:18-24; Isaiah 65:17-23

    It may also be helpful to consider history and the future prophetic timeline for Gehenna when trying to determine when Jeremiah 31:38-40 will be fulfilled, leaving Gehenna holy and never again to be overthrown. We need to consider that Gehenna was likely again filled with bodies during the overthrow of Jerusalem in 70 AD by the Romans. The Jewish historian Josephus records the filling of the "ravines" around Jerusalem with bodies. So many Jews perished, there was no way to bury them all, and they were just tossed outside of the city by the hundreds of thousands. Gehenna, being one of the deepest and largest ravines, just outside the city walls, would almost certainly have been one of the ones filled with dead bodies. See Josephus' words here below:

    Josephus, The Jewish War, Book V, chapter xii, verses 3-4:

    "The latter at the outset ordered the bodies to be buried at the public expense, finding the stench Intolerable; afterwards, when incapable of continuing this, they flung them from the ramparts into the ravines. When Titus, going his rounds, beheld these valleys choked with dead and the thick matter oozing from under the clammy carcasses, he groaned and, raising his hands to heaven, called God to witness that this was not his doing." (Thackeray, 1968, Vol. 3)

    Josephus, The Jewish War, Book V, chapter xiii, verse 7:

    "But why need I severally recount the calamities? Why, indeed, when Mannaeus, son of Lazarus, who sought refuge in those days with Titus, reported that there were carried out through a single gate, which had been entrusted to him, 115,880 corpses, between the fourteenth of the month Xanthicus, on which the general encamped before their walls, and the new moon of Panemus? All these were of the poorer class; nor had he undertaken this charge himself, but being responsible for the payment of public funds he was bound to keep count. The remainder were buried by their relatives, burial consisting merely in bringing them forth and casting them out of the town. This refugee was followed by many eminent citizens, who reported that the corpses of the lower classes thrown out through the gates amounted in all to 600,000; of the rest it was impossible to discover the number." (Thackeray, 1968, Vol. 3)

    So Gehenna has not remained holy on the historical timeline, and of course, it will not remain holy on the prophetic timeline until after the final judgment at the end of the millennium in Revelation 20 as you see in Mark 9 and Isaiah 66 below:

    [Mark 9:47-48 WEB] 47 If your eye causes you to stumble, cast it out. It is better for you to enter into God’s Kingdom with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into the Gehenna of fire, 48 ‘where their worm doesn’t die, and the fire is not quenched.’

    [Isaiah 66:23-24 NASB20] 23 "And it shall be from new moon to new moon And from Sabbath to Sabbath, All mankind will come to bow down before Me," says the LORD. 24 "Then they will go out and look At the corpses of the people Who have rebelled against Me. For their worm will not die And their fire will not be extinguished; And they will be an abhorrence to all mankind."

    Does the "abhorrence to all mankind" description in Isaiah 66 above sound anything like the Roman general Titus' literal reaction of disgust to the ravines full of dead bodies in 70 AD, as described by Josephus far above? Maybe Gehenna in Isaiah 66 is a literal description, and not the spiritual ethereal endless torture chamber of souls that our pastors told us it is? Our pastors have made the colossal blunder of interpreting Jesus' parable of the rich man and Lazarus as defining Gehenna to be an endless spiritual ethereal torture chamber of souls. In his 2013 book "The Geography of Hell in the Teachings of Jesus" on pgs. 111-135, scholar and pastor Kim Papaioannou solidly defeats this misinterpretation of the rich man and Lazarus parable. He adds a lot onto the already painfully obvious argument that the parable has "Hades" named in it, not Gehenna/"hell" as many modern translators have erroneously pasted over it. We know that Hades, according to the obvious biblical narrative, does not go on endlessly because it is cast into the lake of fire in Revelation 20:13-15 and completely emptied of all its dead.

    So we can see the most likely point on the timeline where Gehenna will finally be made holy, never again to be overthrown, will be at the beginning of the eternal state described in Revelation 21-22 when Gehenna will be a clean, holy place "outside" the city where the ashes of the sacrifice of the wicked finally come to reside. This is just as in the Old Testament sacrificial system inaugurated at the coming of the Lord to the tabernacle. Just like the Old Testament tabernacle inauguration and its ensuing sacrificial system, the priests/Christians are consecrated, they are fitted with new white robes, the priests/Christians kill the sacrifices/the wicked, fire falls from God/Jesus to turn the sacrifices/the wicked to ashes, God/Jesus takes up his residence among his people in the tabernacle/temple, the final place of the ashes is outside the camp/outside the city/Gehenna in a clean/holy place. Hell is Made Holy:

    [Leviticus 4:11-12 NASB20] 11 'But the hide of the bull and all its flesh, along with its head, its legs, its entrails, and its refuse, 12 that is, all the rest of the bull, he is to bring out to a clean place outside the camp where the fatty ashes are poured out, and burn it on wood with fire; where the fatty ashes are poured out it shall be burned.

    [Jeremiah 31:40 NASB20] 40 "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."

    And here below in Isaiah 30 and Daniel 7, we see the antichrist getting burned on a pile of wood outside the city in Topeth/the valley of Hinnom/Gehenna like a spent sacrifice. This perhaps follows right along with the symbolism of the sin sacrifice being burned on a pile of wood outside the camp in the Leviticus 4 passage above, and maybe also follows along with the theme of the wicked finally being ashes in Gehenna found throughout end times prophecy:

    [Isaiah 30:33 NASB20] For Topheth has long been ready, Indeed, it has been prepared for the king. He has made it deep and large, A pyre of fire with plenty of wood; The breath of the LORD, like a torrent of brimstone, sets it afire.

    [Isaiah 30:33 NIV] Topheth has long been prepared; it has been made ready for the king. Its fire pit has been made deep and wide, with an abundance of fire and wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of burning sulfur, sets it ablaze.

    [Daniel 7:9-11 NASB20] 9 "I kept looking Until thrones were set up, And the Ancient of Days took His seat; His garment was white as snow, And the hair of His head like pure wool. His throne was ablaze with flames, Its wheels were a burning fire. 10 "A river of fire was flowing And coming out from before Him; Thousands upon thousands were serving Him, And myriads upon myriads were standing before Him; The court convened, And the books were opened. 11 "Then I kept looking because of the sound of the boastful words which the horn was speaking; I kept looking until the beast was killed, and its body was destroyed and given to the burning fire.

    This Assyrian "king" in Isaiah 30 above is not the historical Assyrian king Sennacherib because the Bible clearly records in Isaiah 37:33-38 that Sennacherib returned to his own land and was killed by his own sons there and not in Topheth/Gehenna. So Isaiah 30:33 above puts the antichrist right where we see him in Revelation 19:20 at the beginning of the millennium, in Topheth/Gehenna/the lake of fire.

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