However, by far the greatest number of Old Testament passages dealing with the subject express a belief in a continuous existence after death in Sheol. Sheol is the place of departed personalities; the generations of one's forefathers are there: he who dies is gathered unto his fathers; the tribal divisions of one's race are there: the dead is gathered unto his people; and if his descendants have died before him, they are there, and he goes down to them, as Jacob to his son (Gen. 37. 35: "For I will go down to Sheol to my son mourning"), and David to his child (2 Sam. 12. 23: "I shall go to him, and he shall not return to me").
There are only a few passages which go beyond this, expressing a hope of immortality or a resurrection. There is, for example, the hope expressed in Psa. 16. 8-11:
I have set Jehovah always before me: Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: My flesh also shall dwell in safety. For thou will not leave my soul to Sheol; Neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption. Thou wilt show me the path of life: In thy presence is fullness of joy; In thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.
The hope expressed here is not a hope of a resurrection, but, rather, a hope that the psalmist will { 186} be delivered from death and live in fellowship with God forevermore. There are other passages which recognize the impossibility of escaping death, but express a hope that there will be a resurrection from death. The most definite Old Testament teaching of a resurrection is in Dan. 12. 2, "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt."
These lofty hopes are peculiar to Israel. But Israel's conception of Sheol shows very striking resemblances with the Babylonian conception. The descriptions found in Job, in the Psalms, in Isaiah, in Ezekiel and elsewhere, are hardly to be distinguished from those found in Babylonian literature. The opening lines of Ishtar's descent into Sheol read:
To the land from which there is no return, the home of darkness, Ishtar, the daughter of Sin, turned her mind, Yea, the daughter of Sin set her mind to go; To the house of gloom, the dwelling of Irkalla, To the house from which those who enter depart not, The road from whose path there is no return; To the house where they who enter are deprived of light; A place where dust is their nourishment, clay their food; The light they behold not, in thick darkness they dwell; They are clad like bats in a garb of wings; On door and bolt the dust is laid.