Hebrew word for Hell, the underworld.

Gehenna is actually the Grecian mode of spelling the Hebrew word Gehhinnom, which is translated, “The valley of Hinnom.” This was the valley just outside the walls of Jerusalem that was used as a trash dump. There was an enormous amount of trash made by Jerusalem, and they used this entire valley to burn their trash. There was always a fire in this valley; it never stopped burning, so it must have seemed to be unquenchable. Imagine looking down into a valley and instead of seeing the valley flooded with water, you see it flooded with fire. This valley must have appeared to be a lake of fire to onlookers. Everything was thrown into it to be completely destroyed; rubbish, trash, even dead bodies of criminals and those deemed unworthy of a proper burial.

Among the Israelites a burial in a memorial tomb symbolized righteousness for the one being buried. This was not scriptural, just their way of showing that they considered a person to be worthy of a resurrection. So for a corpse to be condemned into the seemingly eternal fire of a trash dump was the opposite of that. For someone to be thrown into Gehenna symbolized the resident’s abhorrence of this person. If the fire didn’t burn up their corpses, they were on display for everyone to see the maggots eating them. This was the place where the worms never died and the fire never went out. You could always find both of these things in this valley. (Isaiah 66:24) This is something that these guys were familiar with, so what bette...