If we look at the words that are translated as ‘hell’, we will start with the word Gehenna, which is translated 12 times in the NBG translation. We find it 11 times in the words of the Lord Jesus and once in James.
valley of Hinnom
Gehenna is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Gehinnom. It is a geographical place and the name for the valley of Hinnom. And that is strange, because geographical places are never translated. Names such as Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethel, etc. also have meaning, but they are rendered as place names in translations. That has generally not happened with Gehenna. Only the NBV translation has rendered it untranslated, as a place name should be rendered: Gehenna.
infamous
Gehenna, or the Valley of Hinnom, is located south and west of the city of Jerusalem and is an infamous place in the Bible because of what happened there. We first find the Valley of Hinnom in the book of Joshua, where Israel entered the promised land and it was divided among the tribes, each of whom was assigned their own territory.
Joshua 15
8 Then the border would go up to the Valley of Ben-Hinnom, to the southern slope of the Jebusites, that is, of Jerusalem; then the border would go up to the top of the mountain that lies west of the Valley of Hinnom at the northern end of the Valley of the Rephaim.
The names ‘the Valley of Ben-Hinnom’ and ‘the Valley of Hinnom’ are used interchangeably. Ben means son. The Valley of Hinnom is also named after his son.
The next time the word occurs is during the reign of Josiah, a king who did what was right in the eyes of YAHWEH (2 Kings 22:2).
2 Kings 23
10 And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, that no man should make his son or his daughter pass through the fire to Molech any more.
child sacrifices
In the previous verses we read that Josiah is doing a great clean-up in the land and is clearing away everything that has to do with idolatry. Josiah is purging Topheth, in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom, so that no one would make their children pass through the fire anymore. The Valley of Hinnom was a terrible place, where child sacrifices were made to idols.
A little further on in 2 Kings, Ahaz becomes king. He was a godless king, who committed idolatry (2 Kings 28:1-2).
2 Kings 28
3 He burned incense in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom and burnt his sons in the fire, according to the abominations of the nations that YHWH had driven out before the Israelites.
evil in the eyes of YHWH
What we read here is hard to imagine, so terrible. This Ahaz reintroduced the sacrifice of children to idols in the valley of Hinnom and even did this with his own sons. We read the same thing later about king Manasseh (2 Chron.33:6). He also made his sons pass through the fire. He did much that was evil in the sight of YAHWEH and provoked Him to anger (2 Chron.33:6).
Through the prophet Jeremiah, God says:
Jeremiah 7
30 For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, declares the LORD, and have set up their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it.
31 They have also built the high places of Topheth, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I have not commanded, nor has it come into my mind.
Jeremiah 19
4 Because they have forsaken me, and have made this place a strange place, and have burned incense there to other gods whom they have not known, they and their fathers and the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with innocent blood.
5 They have also built the high places of Baal, to burn their children as burnt offerings to Baal in the fire, which I have not commanded, nor spoken, nor has it come into my mind.
Jeremiah 32
35 and they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to dedicate their sons and their daughters to Molech, which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart to do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.
not come into God’s heart
Realize what is written here. God not only condemns what these kings did, but He also says that it is not He who instructed these things and that it did not come into His heart. While almost all of Christianity says that God will let the greater part of His creatures go through the fire and suffer in hell.
And what Christianity attributes to God is even worse. The child sacrifices described are terrible, but the suffering of these children came to an end when they died. But God would let His children, the work of His hands, suffer and torture in the flames of hell fire forever. Do you really think this entered His heart?
Gehenna is not hell
This all took place in the valley of Hinnom, which in the Greek of the New Testament is called Gehenna. Terrible things happened there, but it is not hell. We will see that in the future it will also have a terrifying function, but it has nothing to do with a mythical place like hell.