In the Hebrew Bible, Sheol is the name used for the shadowy abode of the dead.
Sheol appears throughout the Hebrew Bible as a destination associated with death, burial, silence, and the inability to participate in ordinary earthly life. It is often personified as a place that receives the dead, rather than described as a fully developed system of rewards and punishments.
The biblical concept developed over time in Jewish interpretation. Later Jewish writings and traditions distinguish or connect Sheol with ideas such as Gehinnom, resurrection, and the world to come. These terms are not always used with exactly the same meaning in every period or text.
Sheol is also frequently confused with the Christian idea of hell. That comparison can be misleading because biblical Hebrew descriptions of Sheol generally emphasize the realm of the dead itself, while later Christian theology developed more specific concepts of postmortem punishment.