The Hebrew conception of Sheol.
Henderson says, "In this verse the state of the dead is represented as thrown into great agitation, on its being announced that the mighty King of Babylon is about to enter. Personages of the same rank, as the fittest to conduct the ceremony of his reception, and the most likely to sympathize with him, are selected to present themselves and address him on the occasion. They rise from their thrones of state on which they had been sitting—perpetuating in mock majesty the pageant which they had exhibited while on earth." "Sheol is here used collectively of the entire population of shades. The word means first a grave, or individual sepulcher, and then the grave as a general receptacle, indiscriminately occupied by all the dead without respect to character." In its further signification it means the abode of disembodied souls, and these are regarded poetically as retaining not only a form, but a position also, analogous to that which they had on earth. It is an interesting and important, though a difficult question, how far we may regard Holy Scripture as colored by the common conceptions of a future state in ancient times. We need not regard such conceptions as tree, because they belonged rather to the imaginations of men than to the revelations of God. The subject may profitably be discussed under the following headings; but little or no treatment is suggested, because different conclusions are reached by different schools of theologians.
I. On the nature and occupations of the future state, or condition of the dead, no precise revelations were made in olden times.
II. Men seem to have been left to fashion the future by their own imaginations. The general line of thought seems to have been started by Egyptian notions concerning the dead; but each nation put its characteristic seal upon its eschatology.
III. There is a very real sense in which "life and immortality have been brought to light" by Jesus Christ.
IV. But the light he sheds falls rather on the character of the future than on the form of it. He meets all that man actually requires to know; he satisfies man in nothing that he too curiously seeks to know. The essence of Christ's revelation of the future is, that moral goodness is crowned with everlasting blessedness.—R.T.