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Note: All quotes from the Bible in this article are from the King James Version.
Gehenna is a word tracing to Greek, ultimately from Hebrew Gai-Ben-Hinnom meaning Valley of the Son of Hinnom, and is still called Gai Ben Hinnom in Modern Hebrew(גיא בן הינום), though this is sometimes shortened to Gai-Hinnom in rabbinical texts. Originally it referred to a garbage dump in a deep narrow valley right outside the walls of outside Jerusalem (in modern-day Israel) where fires were kept burning to consume the refuse and keep down the stench. It is also the location where bodies of executed criminals, or individuals denied a proper burial, would be dumped.
There are stories of fires that were kept burning via the adding of brimstone (sulfur). Light a match and one knows what sulfur dioxide smells like. criminals, and the carcasses of animals, and every other kind of filth was cast.”
The dump was full of rotting garbage which sent up a stench that could be smelled for miles.
It is mentioned in the Old Testament several places, notably 2 Chronicles 28:3; 33:6; 2 Kings 23:10; Jeremiah 7:31; 19:2-6; 32:35. We quote Jeremiah, 19:2-6, which speaks of the Jews worshipping pagan idols and committing abominations:
The ancient Jews sometimes sacrificed their children to pagan idols in the fires in Gehenna, and this was an abomination; in 2 Kings, 23:10, King Josiah forbade the sacrificing of children to Moloch at Gehenna (though Baal is not mentioned in this particular verse).
It is often mentioned in the New Testament of the Christian Bible as the place of condemnation of unrepentant sinners.
In the Book of Matthew, 23:33, Jesus observes,
Jesus used the word gehenna, not hell, and his audience understood quite well that gehenna meant a place of condemnation, where Jews had previously cast aside the worship of the true God to defile themselves by committing abominations. Human garbage, sinners, would be consumed and destroyed forever.
We note, the King James Bible (and other translations as well) speak of “hellfire” and of being “cast into hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched." The original Greek scriptures of the New Testament actually used the word gehenna, which tended to become hell in English translation.
The word gehenna also occurs in the Islamic holy book, the Qur'an, as a place of torment for sinners. It is an Arabic borrowing from ultimate Hebrew.
See also:
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