What do Jewish scriptures say about “hell” and “the devil?”

Not very much at all, The History Channel reported with apparent disappointment in its recent documentary, "Hell, The Devil’s Domain.”  The bulk of the documentary focused on other religions, particularly Christianity, which is so much more vivid on the subject of ultimate rewards and punishments.

The two-hour program was broadcast Dec. 27—but I watched it on videotape today (Dec. 28), thereby avoiding the hell of too many commercials.

What little the History Channel considered quote-worthy from Jewish scriptures about hell or the devil can be found in this order in the Tanakh—Numbers 16:32-33; Isaiah 38:18-19;  the Book of Job; and Daniel 12:2. 

The first of these told about the man who challenged Moses’ right to lead the Jews —Korah— being swallowed up with his followers by the earth at Sinai. The passage says nothing about anything happening to them after that—the issue apparently settled with their deaths.

In the passage from Isaiah (as rendered in the Stone version of the Tanakh),  the prophet says to God:  “For the Grave cannot thank You nor can Death laud You; those who descend to the pit cannot hope for Your truth.  A living person, a living person, he shall thank you, as I do today! A father can make Your truth known to children.”

Although others may have different interpretations, I find  no substantiation for the idea that Isaiah’s reference to “the pit” is an allusion to “hell.”  The way I read it, it seems to be just a poetic synonym for the grave.

The Book of Job relates the outcome of a wager between God and the Satan—the Adversary, as the term is translated from Hebrew—over whether Job would remain faithful to God if God “had not set a protective wall about him, about his household and about everything he owns …?”

In response to the challenge, God permits Satan to kill Job’s family, destroy his possessions, and afflict his body, but Job nevertheless remains faithful, even though he cries in anguish to God that he does not deserve such punishment. 

It’s hard to know who this Satan, this Adversary, really is—but I see nothing in the passage to suggest that he is the “devil” of popular conception, nor that he rules over the netherworld.

In the Book of Daniel, it is predicted than an epic battle will occur at the End of Days , and “many of those who sleep in the dusty earth will awaken: these for everlasting life, and these for shame, for everlasting abhorrence.”

So here, at least, is straightforward language in Hebrew scriptures corroborating the belief that there are eternal rewards and punishment. The nature of these rewards and punishments, however, remain vague.

Religion Prof. Alan F. Segal of Barnard College commented to the History Channel that Hebrew scriptures are so vague that some Reform and Conservative Jews find nothing in them to justify a belief in an afterlife; contending instead that what the scripture really teach us is that what matters is the here and now.

In contrast to this view is the Orthodox Jewish belief in a system of rewards and punishments in the afterlife, according to national radio commentator, Dennis Praeger. Such a belief is one of the building-block principles of  Jewish faith articulated by the medieval Jewish philosopher and theologian, Maimonides.

Praeger said that Judaism, like other major religions, teaches that the “evil person” gets his “just desserts.” He said that “if you don’t believe there is a hell, then you are saying that Hitler had no different fate than Mother Theresa.”

Although all faiths teach that repentance is possible before you die, Praeger said that he is not a “big fan” of the idea that repentance just before death atones for a lifetime of misdeeds—not without some further punishment.

While Jewish scriptures are relatively quiet about the afterlife, Christians have their own way of interpreting some passages.

The History Channel said that the snake in the Garden of Eden, in the Jewish view, is “just a snake.” On the other hand, some Christians believe the snake really was the devil or one of his agents.

Anne Graham Lotz—the daughter of evangelist Billy Graham—says the meaning of the Book of Job is that “Satan can’t touch my life, unless God permits him,” and if God does permit Satan to do so, it “will be for my own good, for some ultimate purpose.”  — Donald H. Harrison