Moses describes the Lord as the judge of all the earth. Like the New Testament that follows, he even describes God as a consuming fire of judgement (Deuteronomy 4:24, 9:3, Hebrews 12:29). Together with the rest of the prophets, he warns about the dangers of death and "the grave." Beyond such warnings, however, the Hebrew Scriptures say little if anything about suffering after death. Daniel gives the most information when he predicts, "Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt" (Daniel 12:2).In a specific example of judgement, Isaiah uses the language of unquenchable fire to describe the fate of those who die on the battlefield at the end of the age. Speaking in apocalyptic language, the prophet says, "For their worm does not die, and their fire is not quenched. They shall be an abhorrence to all flesh" (Isaiah 66:24). The revulsion Isaiah speaks of has a physical setting. It occurs as living people look on the dead bodies of those who have fallen under the judgement of God. A Jewish reader in Isaiah's day would probably not have seen anything in these words about conscious suffering after death.NEXT: Hell in the teachings of Jesus
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