Where is the Soul After Death?

Where does the nephesh go after death? Does it go into a grave or a tomb? Jehovah's Witnesses, Adventists, and others have all capitalized on the KJV where it translates Sheol as the grave. Here are all the verses where nephesh and Sheol appear in the same verse:

Nephesh and Sheol

Ps 16:10 For You will not leave My soul [nephesh] in hell [sheol]; You will not allow Your Holy One to see corruption.

Ps 30:3 O LORD, You have brought up my soul [nephesh] from the grave [sheol]; You have kept me alive, so that I should not go down to the Pit.

Ps 49:15 But God will redeem my soul [nephesh] from the hand of the grave [sheol]; for He will take me. Selah.

Ps 86:13 For great is Your mercy toward me; and You have delivered my soul [nephesh] from the lowest hell [sheol].

Ps 88:3 For my soul [nephesh] is full of troubles, and my life draws near the grave [sheol].

Ps 89:48 What man lives and never sees death? Shall he deliver his soul [nephesh] from the hand of the grave [sheol]? Selah.

Pr 23:14 You shall beat him with the rod, and shall deliver his soul [nephesh] from hell [sheol].

Isa 5:14 So hell [sheol] has enlarged itself [nephesh], and opened its mouth without measure; and their glory, and their multitude, and their pride, and he who rejoices in her, shall go down into it.

Hab 2:5 And also wine indeed betrays a proud man, and he is not content. He widens his soul [nephesh] like Sheol, and he is like death, and is not satisfied, but gathers all nations to himself, and heaps to himself all the peoples.

Here is the only place that nephesh and qber / kever (grave, sepulchre, tomb) appear in the same verse:

Nu 19:18 And a clean person shall take hyssop and dip in the water, and sprinkle upon the tent and upon all the vessels, and upon the persons[nephesh] that were there, and upon him that touched a bone, or one killed, or one dead, or a grave [qber].

This just emphasizes that sheol, not a tomb (qber / kever) is the home or abode of the nephesh after it leaves the body. Other verses confirm this belief.

Job 14:13 Who will grant that You would hide me in the grave [sheol], that You would keep me secret, until Your wrath is past, that You would set me a fixed time and remember me?

Ps 6:5 For in death there is no memory of You; in the grave [sheol] who shall give You thanks?

King Saul Seeks a Medium

Recall the incident in which King Saul sought out the medium at Endor. What did Saul seek?

1 Sam 28:7-8 And Saul said to his servants, Seek out for me a woman possessing a familiar spirit, a medium, and I will go to her and inquire of her. And his servants said to him, Behold, a woman, a possessor of a familiar spirit, is in Endor. And Saul disguised himself and put on other clothes. And he and two of the men with him went; and they came to the woman by night. And he said, I beg you, divine for me by the familiar spirit, [calling up the dead,] and bring up to me him whom I say to you.

King Saul obviously believed that the dead could be contacted. He believed that the familiar spirits were conscious enough to respond to communications from "above." He wanted Samuel to arise from below. Was Saul standing over Samuel's grave?

1 Sam 28:11 And the woman said, Whom shall I bring up to you? And he said, Bring up Samuel to me.

King Saul did not go to Samuel's grave and request that he be exhumed. [Picture the farcical show that must have taken place when one Pope put the dead corpse of a prior Pope on trial and began to question him!] King Saul went to a medium and wanted Samuel's spirit or soul to be manifested. [We need not dwell on whether or not Samuel's spirit actually was manifested. The point is that King Saul believed that such was possible.]

Josephes Records Jewish Beliefs

So as to not leave doubt about the beliefs of the Jews, let's review the account of this incident from Josephus' "Antiquities of the Jews." He wrote first in Aramaic and translated (or had it translated) the work to Greek (using Hades instead of the Hebrew Sheol) and relates in Chapter XIV:

"and when God did not answer him, Saul was under still greater dread, and his courage fell, foreseeing, as was but reasonable to suppose, that mischief would befall him, now God was not there to assist him; yet did he bid his servants to inquire out for him some woman that was a necromancer, and called up the souls of the dead, that he might know whether his affairs would succeed to his mind; for this sort of necromantic women that bring up souls of the dead, do by them foretell future events to such as desire them… As soon as he had induced her by this oath to fear no harm, he bade her to bring up to him the soul of Samuel. She not knowing who Samuel was, called him out of Hades."

The Torah Speaks Out Against Familiar Spirits

The belief in communing with familiar spirits was so prevalent during the life of Moses that the Torah repeatedly proscribed contact with them or those who claimed to bring them up.

Le 19:31 You shall not turn to those having familiar spirits; and you shall not seek to spiritists to be defiled by them; I am Jehovah your God.

Le 20:6 And the person who turns to those having familiar spirits, and to the spiritists, to go whoring after them, I shall set my face against that person, and cut him off from the midst of his people.

Le 20:27 And a man or woman, when there is among them a medium, or a familiar spirit, shall certainly be put to death; they shall stone them with stones; their blood is on them.

De 18:10-11 There shall not be found in you one who passes his son or his daughter through the fire, one that uses divination, an observer of clouds, or a fortuneteller, or a whisperer of spells, or a magic charmer, or one asking of familiar spirits, or a wizard, or one inquiring of the dead.

If familiar spirits did not exist, it would have been prudent for God to have declared that spirits or conscious souls of the dead do not exist. This would have separated Israel from other nations. But God did not so declare.

Familiar Spirits Condemned Throughout the Old Testament

Of course, it's not just in the early years while Moses was alive that Israel believed in familiar spirits, or communing with the dead. This belief lingered throughout their history. These and other Scriptures attest to this fact.

1Ch 10:13 And Saul died because of his trespass that he trespassed against Jehovah, against the word of Jehovah that he did not keep, and also for asking of a medium [one that had a familiar spirit], to inquire;

2Ch 33:6 And he made his sons to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and did magic and divined, and used sorcery, and used mediums [with familiar spirits] and conjurers; he multiplied the doing of the evil in the eyes of Jehovah, to provoke Him to anger.

Isa 8:19 And when they say to you, Seek to the mediums [having familiar spirits], and to wizards who peep and mutter; should not a people seek to its God, than for the living to seek to the dead?

Isa 19:3 And the spirit of the Egyptians shall be empty in its midst; and I will swallow its counsel. And they shall seek to idols, and to the enchanters, and to the mediums [with familiar spirits], and to the knowing ones.

Isa 29:4 And you shall be brought low; you shall speak from the ground; and your speech shall be bowed down; and your voice shall be from the ground, like a spiritist [having familiar spirits]; and your speech shall chirp out of the dust.

Belief in Living Souls Prevelant in the Old Testament

Hopefully, it's now clear that the belief in contacting the dead was prevalent throughout Israel's history. The flesh or body was placed in a grave or tomb while the inner man including the mind and emotions descended to Sheol. It was this inner man that the living desired to contact.

This brings us to two important observations that are required to uphold the Physical Only belief.

  1. Nephesh, at death, is placed in a grave or tomb.

  2. Graves or tombs can be purchased for future placement of dead nephesh.

We have seen that nowhere are nephesh ever placed in a tomb or grave (qber / kever). Thus, nobody bought graves or tombs for the future placement of dead nephesh. After death, Nephesh always went to Sheol. No human placed them there.

Next we will examine some statements about Sheol that describe how the people and the Scriptures pictured Sheol.

How Sheol is pictured

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