Hence, Sheol is obviously the place to which the dead go. It is not an individual grave but the common grave of dead mankind in general, where all conscious activity ceases. This is also what the New Catholic Encyclopedia acknowledges to be the Biblical significance of Sheol, saying:

“In the Bible it designates the place of complete inertia that one goes down to when one dies whether one be just or wicked, rich or poor.”​—Vol. 13, p. 170.

What, then, is the “hell” in which Jacob thought he would join his son? The correct answer to this question lies in getting the proper sense of the original-language word for “hell,” namely, sh^e’ohlʹ, which is transliterated “Sheol.” This term, also translated as “grave,” “pit,” “abode of the dead” and “nether world,” appears sixty-six timesa (in the New World Translation) in the thirty-nine books of the Hebrew Scriptures (commonly called the “Old Testament”), but it is never associated with life, activity or torment. To the contrary, it is often linked with death and inactivity. A few examples are:

“All that your hand finds to do, do with your very power, for there is no work nor devising nor knowledge nor wisdom in Sheol [the grave, Authorized Version; hell, Douay Version], the place to which you are going.”​—Ecclesiastes 9:10.