Hades / Sheol

The Hebrew, Latin, Ge’ez and Greek that is often translated in English as “Hades” or “Sheol” is translated in the German Luther Bible 2017 (and pre-1912) as Totenreich or “realm (or: kingdom) of the dead” in these verses. (Source: Jost Zetzsche)

In Chuj it is translated as “among the dead,” in San Mateo Del Mar Huave as “the place where are the dead,” and in Coatlán Mixe as “the grave.” (Source for this and above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)

Learn more on Bible Odyssey: Sheol .

Translation commentary on Wisdom 17:14

A paragraph break is appropriate here. We are returning to the line of thought we departed from at the end of verse 10.

But throughout the night, which was really powerless, and which beset them from the recesses of powerless Hades, they all slept the same sleep: Hades is the world of the dead (see 16.13). The same sleep refers to sleeping the same way that people sleep in Hades, not to everyone sleeping alike. The verse is grammatically complex, and translators will want to break it up and restructure it. Good News Translation has done this well, but we offer as an alternative this approach:

• The darkness had no real power over these people, since it came from the depths of the world of the dead, which itself has no power. But [still] they slept as dead people sleep.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Wisdom of Solomon. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2004. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.