Ps. 55:15 - to Sheol alive

[joeteekay]

While reading through Psalms I came across this verse, and I am unsure what it means. Going down to Sheol (grave) alive seems inconsistent with other scriptures which tell us that the dead end up in Sheol. They are dead. Can it mean what happened to Korah and his followers?  :dontknow:

Psalm 55:15(KJV) Let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick into hell: for wickedness is in their dwellings, and among them.

Psalm 55:15  CLV May death lure them away; May they descend to the unseen alive, For evils are among them in their sojourning."


Psalm 55:15   (NIV)  Let death take my enemies by surprise; let them go down alive to the realm of the dead, for evil finds lodging among them.

Psalm 55:15   (YLT) Desolations are upon them, They go down to Sheol—alive, For wickedness is in their dwelling, in their midst.

Psalm 55:15   (ASV)  Let death come suddenly upon them, Let them go down alive into Sheol; For wickedness is in their dwelling, in the midst of them.

[sheila]

pit/abyss..it refers to satan being bound.........in his adversarial role. the adversary raises up certain men to fight against the men God chooses to speak

for Him[like Moses] the adversary always does this. In the OT when God chose a true prophet to speak His words unto the people..always the adversary

  caused false competing prophets to muddle the waters and confuse the people as to which one really spoke God's words....there be many gospels of Christ

  out there saying different things.

   I think in Korah's case..where the earth opened up and swallowed them alive...was an 'act" by God showing how the earth would help the woman..when the

dragon spews floods of false gospels to try and cause the woman to be carried away of it.  Legions of deceiving spirits if ye will..that Christ sends into

the abyss.

   Also, an Elijah..that clearly shows who really speaks the Lord's words...in the showdown on Mt Carmel.......fire coming down consuming/accepting

  Elijah's sacrifice/word... showing Elijah's words in agreement with Heaven;and not the prophets of Baal,or prophets of the groves.

[sheila]

ps  prophets of the groves...Jesus showed a second 'touch' was needed to open the eyes of the blind..that they may see clearly/spiritually...

[sheila]

...men may be swallowed up by the adversary. while sojourning. in the wilderness,but all men live unto God.

[micah7:9]

I have noticed the word sheol grave, pit is from H7585 according to Strong's comes from H7592 to ask or inquire. Maybe it is like saying you need a time out to get your head together. :dontknow:

[sheila]

I can see that..Micah..specially since 'confusion" as to what are the true words of God[meaning/understanding] are the results of it.

[jugghead]

pit/abyss..it refers to satan being bound.........in his adversarial role. the adversary raises up certain men to fight against the men God chooses to speak for Him[like Moses] the adversary always does this. In the OT when God chose a true prophet to speak His words unto the people..always the adversary caused false competing prophets to muddle the waters and confuse the people as to which one really spoke God's words....there be many gospels of Christ out there saying different things.

Understanding this in the spiritual sense (meaning what takes place in our own spirit between the heart and mind ..... in his adversarial role, the adversary (carnal mind) raises certain men (thoughts) against the men (thoughts) God chooses to speak (be heard) for Him, the adversary (carnal mind) always does this. It takes from it's own storehouse, what it had been taught by men.

Understanding that the carnal mind contains all that men taught us until we started hearing from God directly, this is the first born that needs to die, if this first born is dead it can no longer raise up thoughts (men) to combat the thoughts (men) of God. :2c:

[micah7:9]

The carnal mind I cannot accept as the adversary, does the adversary use the mind which is absolute carnal yes. Until the Lord comes into ones life we are yet carnal natural. Rom 8:7  Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
That does not make the carnal mind the adversary but the playground if you will.  :2c:

[jabcat]

The carnal mind I cannot accept as the adversary, does the adversary use the mind which is absolute carnal yes. Until the Lord comes into ones life we are yet carnal natural. Rom 8:7  Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
That does not make the carnal mind the adversary but the playground if you will.  :2c:

agree  :thumbsup:

[sheila]

 :thumbsup:   the adversary used Peter's natural mind[thoughts of men].  man's natural mindedness..even Peter's love for Christ that he not be crucified.......

   if it be against the will of God...the adversary will even use that to hinder the works of God.Jesus understood this..and said 'get behind me satan......"

    ...so this adversary will use whatever..to thwart God's will.

   God's thoughts much higher...working unto a greater more eternal good..than natural minded mind can see.

[jugghead]

Yes, I would agree also if the only battle is thought against thought, but we also have feelings, so there can be a battle between thoughts and feelings which I believe now makes the spirit the playground/battlefield

I believe there are three types of battles, 1: thought against thought 2: thought against feeling 3. feeling against feeling

1: thought against thought takes place in the mind
2: thought against feeling takes place in the spirit between the heart and mind
3: feeling against feeling takes place in the heart

But that is only my opinion

[micah7:9]

Man is a sentient being, the thought evokes the desire of our five senses. Just see Eve and the serpent "And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat;"  :2c:

[eaglesway]

I think it is possible that Sheol is many chambered- not everyone who is in Sheol, is necessarilty in the same chamber. If Tartarus is a chamber of Sheol, we read in Jude of the angels who left their proper domain being bound in chain, reserved for judgment. Perhaps there's a place where the wicked may go down to the grave alive, as Korah did. As to what their state of being is, it does not say they stayed alivE Maybe they died in the landng. :o)

[sheila]

 :2c: sheol/grave.unseen/.darkness as to what occurs at death.   Jesus said the hour has come and is now..when all who are asleep[darkness] shall hear the voice of the Lord and come forth.


  He does not leave our soul in hell/sheol..just as He did not leave Jesus's..because death is the end of the corrupt image in man..as I understand..being the last enemy..and the raising

up in Christ is the putting on of incorruption/immortality.  My understanding is that Jesus was concerned about all mankind through the fear of death remaining bound to corruption.

   outside are the cowards/men have bowed the knee to satan to avoid death..from fear.His spirit strengthen you/fear not for I have overcome.


  He also showed that passing over....man's spirit leaving this world is the Way of return home unto the Father. I truly believe the 'works' of Jesus and Our Father in resurrection of the dead

  was to also comfort man in this regard and that man may have peace.   Men are horrified of it and fear it greatly..angry with God for taking their children/husbands father's away from

them through death..when in reality Father is just bringing/delivering His sons and daughters into incorruption/immortality   to dwell with Him.


   Because what happens  is unseen from the appearance of our eyes..we have failed to understand that death has no sting!!!.. Father's works through Jesus as a display of His power and authority

  over death...and man's expierence of it as the first death..is simply rising in spirit and leaving our clay vessel behind to return unto the dust/dissolve..and putting on of glorious garments

and being seated at the table in heaven.....Rise shake yourselves free of the dust..Put on your glorious garments!   Comfort ye,comfort ye my people...tell them their hard service is

over..for they have received double for all their sin[we receive double here on earth...as we suffer for doing evil and suffer for doing good].  Justice requires..suffering for evil but not

suffering for good...thus no further suffering  once we arrive home/delivered from evil.....appointed for all men to die once!   I also feel the prodigal's son's return show this..my son was dead

and is alive!.   Father granting mankind to eat of the TOL../Jesus Christ and granting mankind the free gift of eternal life....requires we overcome all the power of the enemy..to deceive

and twist the words of Life Jesus was giving us....we miss this mark in understanding when we  follow Jezebel's teaching to eat things offered unto idols and fornicate with babylons spirit

and partake of her wine which is adulterated with lies and hellfire et ed teachings..deliverance by the works of our hands.and shrink back to the old law covenant ministration of death.


   He that believes shall never die..even if ye die[by believing/shrinking back to condemnation/death;  ye shall live!]   the dragon tramples the saints...until the time comes they inherit

the kingdom....each in his order...and those that have passed over ahead of us..we shall not precede them...for when we are changed[garments] and meet Him in the clouds[unseen heavens]

   they are with Him.   He has gone ahead and prepared a place for us all..that we may ALL be ONE with the Father and Him.


    corruption is the grave...the spirit of man was sown in it...[field/clay/flesh].....our spirits are unseen...a shroud of death..is removed..and a homecoming feast prepared.


   two trees in the garden...tokogae.....death/flesh first stage of man/corrupt image...TOL  IMMORTAL LIFE/perfected spirits of just men/incorrupt image......each bears it's own image

and likeness......the prince of this world's works are wicked...........the PRINCE OF Peace's works are Good[my kingdom is not of this world] thus the new heaven new earth..the kingdom

prepared before the founding of 'this' world.   We are fearfully and wonderfully made!!!...our expiereance with evil through the disobedience of Adam.....has caused us to fear God..which

is the beginning of 'wisdom"...our perfection in love/spirit is the casting out of fear...and the adoring of the WONDERFUL ONE!!!!


    :2c:  the corrupt image remains here and does not rise..it has bore the image and likeness of the adversary..and shares the same judgement/fate.......it will dissolve/melt as will

  satan and his demons in the LOF...for the elements will dissolve/melt....flesh and blood can not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.  ARE not my WORDS LIKE FIRE? His word,His judgements

  will dissolve and melt and consume...tares/chaff.  Does not a kernel of wheat's outer body dissolve/die/undergo corruption....and then sprout/rod/branch and a new plant come up from the earth?

   
         But those whom are set free of the Son shall be free indeed.     That's all of us  men who have bore the image of the corrupt..delivered from this body undergoing this death!!!

   out of your belly will flow waters of Life.  All my offsprings are in thee!


    Double destruction..lof    double peace...Peace,Peace..to those both far off and near.

         
   

 

[joeteekay]

Thanks Sheila. So much said and so much to think about. Thanks again.  :thumbsup:

[marie glen]

I think the last verse explains the meaning - Psalm 55:23 - "And Thou, O God, dost bring them down to a pit of destruction, men of blood and deceit reach not to half their days, And I -- I do trust in Thee!"

Which sounds (to me) like the pit of destruction is upon Earth.. "may they go down quick to sheol.."

I think it was "Jewish myth" which blurred the Hebrew meaning of sheol with the greek and pagan idea of hades. Just my 2 cents.. I know others see it differently.. which of course is perfectly fine! One day we will all know where we were correct and where we erred (in our perceptions of God's word and reality)
  :gsmile: :thumbsup: :Peace2:

[eaglesway]

By "Jewish myth" are you sayng the Jews adopted the mythology of Greek Hades and overlayed Hades upon Sheol in the latter times(under Greco/Roman rule leading up to Septuagint)?

Not trying to put words in your mouth, just trying to understand the comparison you are making.

If so, I agree entirely LOL.

[marie glen]

Yes, though I do think some of the myths had to do with genealogies and such.. (if I'm remembering right. I know genealogies are mentioned in one of the Timothy letters, or Titus). I've read that the Talmud has some strange ideas in it.

Yes, I think human reasoning and pagan views colored their view of Sheol, though I'm not sure when(?) Though your post puts much light upon that!
:thumbsup:

[eaglesway]

http://hell-is-a-myth.webs.com/hellisamyth.htm

A little bit about how and when Sheol became Hell.

[marie glen]

http://hell-is-a-myth.webs.com/hellisamyth.htm

A little bit about how and when Sheol became Hell.

Thank you! The article fills in the gap for me between Babylon and Egypt's shadowy versions of afterlife and the KJ, etc translations into the Greek hades and 'hell' (I have wondered if hell was supposed to be the Roman inferno.)

It will be interesting to ultimately find out if sheol originally (as Yahweh intended) was the unseen, beyond the horizon, or unknowable, and came to be regarded as the grave, or if it was originally the literal hole (pit) in the ground, grave. "for dust thou [art], and unto dust thou turnest back".. And what with the wars and all I'm sure they were acquainted with the mass grave. And it became known as the unseen, etc. (You may be able to intuit which version I lean toward :gsmile: )

I've had the theory that the gnostics brought in 'hell' but I'm not thinking that so much lately.. I may have to give up that theory. I think I wanted them to be guilty of that as I find myself hating any whiff of gnosticism. And I did find out they were a pre-christian group originally being a loose collection of the esoteric elements of the world pagan faiths. So I'm sure they believed that ever popular belief of soul immortality (inherent immortality). I often think modern Christianity reflects Plato much more so than it does the Hebrew prophets.

I especially liked your conclusion -

The (Scandinavian/Norse) word "hell" was a natural replacement for "hades/inferno" in the evolution of religious language because it was already a popular word in the common language of the dark ages. The problem is, "hell" is three steps removed from "sheol"(sheol>hades>inferno>hell)

"Theology by morphology."  (Amen!!)

"If the meaning we hear is different than the meaning of the speaker at the time he/she spoke- we will not understand what they were saying." :thumbsup: "Although there may have been no appropriate Greek or Latin word for "Sheol", they would have been better off to translate the word directly as a proper name than to convert it to "Hades" or "Inferno" because these words are loaded with meaning in Greco-Roman religion and philosophy."

"Therefore the word hell, to the English translators, carried all of the mythological baggage of the Greeks, Romans, and Norse- plus the theological baggage of the (dominating) Roman Catholic church."

I read "Hell is a Myth" before.. but it usually takes a time or two more to actually sink in. Thanks!

[eaglesway]

I think the gnostic influence had a lot to do with hell, conceptually, even tho the word did not exist for them yet in their time. Hel, in Norse religion and mythology was not well defined and is considered by historians specializing in the study of the era to have possibly been a late addition to the Norse cosmology by later poets.

So "Hell", for "Helheim" was just a name that fit as a substitute for Hades and Inferno in a time when Old English influences were still strong(many English Kings and Lords listed there heritage from Norse Gods, as was the practice of the kings and Lords of early Norse tribes).

Hell, therefore, just became an Old English name for the concepts engendered by Hades and Inferno. Actually Hades and Hel were more like "outer darkness" in their concepts, It was the Roman "Inferno" and Dante's popular writnig that created the images that eventually overlayed Sheol conceptually. Inferno overlayed Gehenna and the lake of fire. Hell became the recipient of all those influences as a name, having no real solid cosmology of its own, being only briefly mentioned in Norse writings made in 1200 to 1300 AD from Germanic traditions estimated to have begun between 500 and 800 AD.

[marie glen]

Thank you! That's very helpful!!

[eaglesway]

It is worth making note that Dante's writings were finished in 1320. The KJV was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, so Dante's work had 3 centuries to become a concept popularized among the masses, who had known no other theology but Roman Catholic theology from the very beginning of Christian influence in Old Britain. The Inferno/Hell fix was in. In Dante's writing he was led through the underworld by the Roman poet Virgil, so the translators themselves were also heavily influenced, culturally, philisophically and theologically, by the Latin concept of "inferno", the word used in the Latin Vulgate, which was the authoritative version of the scriptures in the Catholic church for over one thousand years. The Church of England came to be primarily because of issues related to marriage and divorce and church government- rather than theology-and altho Martin Luther's theses contained some theological import(1546)- they were almost universally directed to the issue of papal authority and the sale of indulgences, and in two places in particular acknowledged "Hell" by name- Luther bore no weight on the proper translation of words that would throw the teaching eternal torment into any doubt- and actually was only a tiny step away from the Catholic theological model.

For example, thesis #7

"God remits guilt to no one unless at the same time he humbles him in all things and makes him submissive to the vicar, the priest."

The more we step back from the "mythology" of the theological depth of reformers like Luther and Calvin and simply read what they wrote and did, the more we see their works and words were never meant to be a "new tabernacle" of faith and in many instances were in direct opposition to what most resonable and independent thinkers(much less seekers being instructed by the Holy Spirit) would conclude from an unbiased reading of the scriptures.

The Vulgate translation was largely the work of St. Jerome, who, in 382 AD, was commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Vetus Latina ("Old Latin") collection of biblical texts in Latin then in use by the Church. Once published, it was widely adopted and eventually eclipsed the Vetus Latina and, by the 13th century, was known as the "versio vulgata" [1] (the "version commonly-used") or, more simply, in Latin as vulgata or in Greek as βουλγάτα ("Vulgate").[Wikipedia- but I have confirmed this through other sources, there are many, anyone can research this]

The Catholic Church affirmed the Latin Vulgate as its official Latin Bible at the Council of Trent (1545–63 AD), so it was the universally accepted version of scripture for a millenia before the King James Version, and the matters which separated the Church of England from Catholicism were primarily issues of government- not issues of theology, so the KJV is heavily influenced by the Latin Vulgate and Roman Catholic theology. The bishops and lords and kings in early English religion wielded power over men much like that of the Pope and his bishops and priests.

"In addition, later scholars have detected an influence on the (KJV)Authorized Version from the translations of Taverner's Bible and the New Testament of the Douay–Rheims Bible.[44]" [Also Wiki]

The DouaiRheims Bible was represented as a direct translation of the Latin-Vulgate by English-Catholic scholars in exile in France.


Also, because the KJV was large and expensive, the Douai Rheims, which was smaller and comparatively inexpensive was smuggled into England in large quantities and was the common reading Bible of the time- totally from the Latin Vulgate. The historical and theological bias to an eternal torment in Hell was deep and wide way before the KJV was done, and the earlier English Bibles translators were commanded to lean on when conflicted were influenced strongly by the Latin Vulgate, particularly the Geneva Bible commissioned 50 years early by "Bloody Mary" who obtained that name by executing masses of Protestants after she became Queen of England(which led to the Douai Rheims).

[marie glen]

Amen..! I knew Dante (madman? :laughing7: ) was a biG influence.. that whole slice of history - Europe / middle ages, is so intense and confusing! I have noticed how the "Lutheran" and Luther is merely a step away from the RC.

All this really does put a lot of holes in the King James Only theory! (No offense to anyone!) I've known that of course, but now I can see it even more so..

I'm going to print your posts so I can study and commit much more of this to memory than I currently have. Thanks!!! :gsmile: :thumbsup:

[eaglesway]

 :thumbsup:

I think Dante was just a storyteller telling a tale with the material everyone was living in those times. Mythology was all the rage back then. Like a lot of fantasy authors of today. But who knows? He might have been on the RC payroll  :laugh: