What does “the hole” mean in the Bible?

What is the “well” mentioned so often in the Bible?

This one is not as easy as one might suspect. Many words, a little Hebrew and Greek. Attention to context.

I am using the King James Bible and the Concordance based on it by another “James”, James Strong. Different translations may have used different English words, but the Hebrew is pretty straight forward.
Let’s start in the Old Testament, and follow the meaning carefully, because there are many false teachings built on a false understanding of “the Well.” There are three Hebrew words that translate as “well.” I give you Strong’s article number for his own research:

953. Bode: Basically a hole that is used as a cistern or prison. Translated cistern, dungeon, fountain, well and well. Joseph, in Genesis, was thrown into a well. One of David’s mighty men killed a lion that was in a hole. David claims that God has delivered him from a terrible boredom, showing us that the word can also be taken figuratively.

Now, there are times when the word is used to speak of death and the grave, and even possibly eternal punishment, as in Ezekiel 31. When the definite article is used with it, it can mean all of these last things, and the translators often capitalized: “the Hole”.

7585. Sheol. The moat. Hell. The world of the dead. Including the internal ones. Translated tomb, hell, hole. This is by far the most frequently used word in Hebrew to convey the idea of ​​something happening in the world to come. Although it is not often translated hole, it is translated as hell quite often. Much more than a hole in the ground, although that hole, a tomb, could surely be the entry point to the Well. Just as the righteous spirits go somewhere, “up”, the lost also take a direction when leaving the body. Down. In a well. And, of course, their spirit is gone when they’re buried in the ground, so we don’t have to give a spooky meaning to a graveyard. Necessarily. The destiny of his soul is a completely different world, where evil reigns and he is punished for that reign. Very much alive, in a lethal way.

Those who dared to come against Moses quickly went to Sheol. Numbers 16. David states that the wicked will go to Sheol. David’s son says that the false women and their clients will be in Sheol. But it is not always so clear. Jonah states that he called out to God from the womb of Sheol. And we know where he was. Also Jesus, according to David: God promised that he would not leave the soul of Jesus in Sheol. Definitely the place of the dead, but still a place from which one can be recovered. But still too, a shame. It shows us how much the prophet was being punished, and how far Jesus was willing to go for us.

7845. Shakath. Well, (figuratively): destruction. Translated Corruption, destruction, ditch, grave, pit. The uses of this word seem to overlap with the previous two words and have no specific meaning in our research. We also use different words to express basically the same idea. In the case of this study, we could say Hell of fire, Inferno, Pit, Lake of fire, Hades, and mean the same thing in all cases.

In the New Testament, “well” is translated by the Greek frehar, which brings us back to the Hebrew bore. A hole, a hole in the ground, a cistern, a well. Jesus spoke of a certain donkey that fell into a certain well.
The only other time it is used in the New Testament (as “well”) it takes on a completely different meaning, and not only does it have a definite article attached to it, but it also includes the word “bottomless.”

A hole in the ground. In tank. have a hole Bottomless. Possible? Of course. Through gravitational attraction, objects are carried along and around the bowels of the Earth, falling forever, without peace, without destiny. Perhaps being thrown aside onto ledges along the way by torment, perhaps swimming in the lake of fire from time to time, and then falling back?

It is not until the end of the Bible that this truth comes to light. The well spoken of by the prophets and historians of the Old Alliance turns out to be a place of unspeakable horror, where Satan amasses his troops and occasionally sends them to the planet. The Antichrist himself waits there, according to John, being fed poison and power to strut the Earth for his few years, before his public demise. Oh, it has already been a long fall for Satan, from the top of the Heavenly Mountain into the earth’s atmosphere, to the earth, and then below the earth, to a pit whose bottom cannot be reached.

Although “well” is not otherwise translated in the New Testament (except where the woman at the “well” calls that “well” Jacob’s “well”), we do know that sheol has become Hades in the English language. Greek. It also means the place of the dead, with all that that entails. But here we are concentrating on the word “well”.

We must view all of these words as a family (pit, grave, pit, hell, well, cistern, prison), and check each context carefully to see what is being said. The basic meaning of all of them is simply a hole in the ground. It may be a harmless hole filled with water. It may be a simple tomb, where bodies are temporarily stored, but not souls. Or it may be the larger “hole” that John saw at the end of God’s revelation of truth to his church, encompassing the full extent of the prison created for those who have rejected God and his Son.

We are told that Jesus went and preached to a company of prisoners as a Spirit, while His body lay in a hole in the ground, ready to be taken out of the underworld forever. As long as he was close to him, he actually announced his triumph to the evil spirits. We are not told that He suffered there. Objections by which it appears that his suffering for sin was fulfilled on the cross, not in the grave.

The Pit, from the standpoint of eternity, is Satan’s prison. It is the place of the dead. It is the place of entry into eternal suffering apart from God, for those who so desired to be apart from Him. It is a place to be avoided. This escape can only come through the shed blood of the spotless Son of the living God.