The place or state of departed spirits. In the eleven passages where it occurs in the New Testament, it is translated “hell,” except in 1 Cor. 15:55, where it is always translated “grave.” It is apparently where the Lord’s spirit went to (Acts 2:27, 31); where Abraham and Lazarus were; where also the rich man was in torment (but between the two a great gulf). It is thus evidently divided absolutely into two parts, the one for the spirit of believers, a place of perfect bliss, the other for the unsaved, a place even now of torment. The one side must not, however, be confounded with the New Jerusalem, the glorious home of the redeemed; nor the other, with the lake of fire, the eternal portion of the lost. At the coming of Christ the spirits of all that are His will leave Hades, and united to glorious bodies be caught up to heaven. At the great white throne the spirits of all the lost will be taken out of it for judgment, and Hades, thus being emptied and no longer required, will be cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:13). Of course in this we only go the length human language can reach which can but imperfectly convey to our minds these abodes of spirits. The blest, who are in Hades, are said even now to be “present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5).