tted in the dark nether world." This
"wandering and flitting," however, is rather the spirit of
Herder's poetry than of that of the Hebrews; for the whole tenor
and drift of the representations in the Old Testament show that
the state of disembodied souls is deep quietude. Freed from
bondage, pain, toil, and care, they repose in silence. The ghost
summoned from beneath by the witch of Endor said, "Why hast thou
disquieted me to bring me up?" It was, indeed, in a dismal abode
that they took their long quiet; but then it was in a place "where
the wicked ceased from troubling and the weary were at rest."

Those passages which attribute active employments to the dwellers
in the under world are specimens of poetic license, as the context
always shows. When Job says, "Before Jehovah the shades beneath
tremble," he likewise declares, "The pillars of heaven tremble and
are confounded at his rebuke." When Isaiah breaks forth in that
stirring lyric to the King of Babylon,

"The under world is in commotion on account of thee, To meet thee
at thy coming; It stirreth up before thee the shades, all the
mighty of the earth; It arouseth from their thrones all the kings
of the nations; They all accost thee, and say, Art thou too become
weak as we?"

he also exclaims, in the same connection,

"Even the cypress trees exult over thee, And the cedars of
Lebanon, saying, Since thou art fallen, No man cometh up to cut us
down."

The activity thus vividly described is evidently a mere figure of
speech: so is it in the other instances which picture the rephaim
as employed and in motion. "Why," complainingly sighed the
afflicted patriarch, "why died I not at my birth? For now should I
lie down and be quiet; I should slumber; I should then be at
rest." And the wise man says, in his preaching, "There is no work,
nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol." What has already
been said is sufficient to establish the fact that the Hebrews had
an idea that the souls of men left their bodies at death and
existed as dim shadows, in a state of undisturbed repose, in the
bowels of the earth.

Sheol is directly derived from a Hebrew word, signifying, first,
to dig or excavate. It means, therefore, a cavity, or empty
subterranean place. Its derivation is usually connected, however,
with the secondary meaning of the Hebrew word referred to, namely,
to ask, to desire, from the notion of demanding, since rapacious
Orcus lays claim unsparingly to