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Eden’s trees in hell

Ezekiel 31:15-17 (JDV)

Ezekiel 31:15 ” ‘This is what the Lord Yahveh says: I caused grieving on the day the cedar went down to Sheol. I shut off the underground deep because of it: I held back the rivers of the deep, and its abundant water was restrained. I made Lebanon mourn on account of it, and all the trees of the field fainted because of it.
Ezekiel 31:16 I made the nations quake at the sound of its downfall when I threw it down to Sheol to be with those who descend to the Pit. Then all the trees of Eden, the choicest and best of Lebanon, all the well-watered trees, found consolation below the ground.
Ezekiel 31:17 They too descended with it to Sheol, to those murdered ones by the sword. As its allies, they had lived in its shade among the nations.

Eden’s trees in hell

Why would the trees of Eden go to hell? That is what the KJV says, but Shrewsbury points out that the Hebrew here is Sheol “the ‘grave,’ as the word chiefly signifies in the Old Testament.”1 He’s saying that the prideful pagan king (described as a great cedar) will join all the other fallen trees in death. Everyone goes to Sheol and awaits resurrection and judgment to determine their permanent fate: either permanent life through Christ or permanent destruction in the real hell: Gehenna.

1 Shrewsbury, W. J., and J. V. B. Shrewsbury. Notes on Ezekiel, Critical and Explanatory: [With the English Text]. 1863. p. 127.