'Hell' in Matthew 5:22 — Gehenna, a physical valley

Why it matters

When 'Gehenna' is rendered 'hell,' two things happen at once. First, the geographical specificity disappears — a reader has no idea that a real valley near Jerusalem is being named. Second, the abstracted theological concept of 'hell' (which has accumulated a great deal of medieval and modern imagery) takes the place of a concrete first-century image rooted in Israel's historical memory. The choice to translate rather than transliterate is a translation philosophy choice, not a neutral one. Both approaches have costs.

The valley

The Hinnom Valley (Hebrew: Gei-Hinnom, גֵּי הִנֹּם) is a real geographical location. It runs along the south and south-west side of the Old City of Jerusalem, beneath the walls of what is now the Old City. You can walk it today. It joins the Kidron Valley near the south-east corner of the city, just below the Temple Mount.

In Joshua 15:8 and 18:16, the valley is named as part of the boundary between the tribal territories of Judah and Benjamin. By the late monarchy period, the valley had acquired a specific historical association — child sacrifice. 2 Kings 23:10 describes King Josiah’s destruction of the high place at Topheth in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, where children had been “made to pass through the fire” to the deity Molech. Jeremiah 7:31 and 19:2–6 contain similar references, describing the practice as the worst kind of apostasy and announcing divine judgment in connection with it.

Josiah’s reforms (c. 622 BC) included desecrating the valley to prevent its further cultic use. From that point on, the valley became associated in Jewish memory with apostasy, judgment, and abomination.

The development from Gei-Hinnom to Gehenna

By the Second Temple period (roughly the last few centuries BC and the first century AD), the valley had become a charged metaphorical image. In some Jewish writings — including Second Temple texts like 1 Enoch and 2 Esdras — the Hinnom Valley imagery is used for the place of eschatological judgment. The Greek transliteration γέεννα (geenna) preserves the Hebrew name through Greek phonetics.

When Jesus uses Gehenna in his teaching (twelve times across the Synoptic Gospels), the first-century Jewish audience would have heard the geographical reference. The valley was on the south side of their own city. The image was concrete: a real place associated with abomination and judgment, used as a metaphor for divine judgment more broadly.

What gets lost in “hell”

When Matthew 5:22 is translated “shall be in danger of the fire of hell,” modern readers hear the abstracted theological category that has accumulated in centuries of Christian usage — Dante’s circles, medieval imagery, Jonathan Edwards’s sermons. They do not hear “the Valley of Hinnom, the place where Manasseh sacrificed children to Molech, the place Josiah desecrated, the place where Jeremiah announced judgment.”

A reader who walks the Hinnom Valley today will see olive trees, modern apartment blocks, and the walls of the Old City. They will not see fire. The valley as a metaphor for divine judgment is anchored to specific historical events that the metaphor compresses.

The translation “hell” trades that historical anchor for a more familiar theological category. There are reasons to do this — most modern readers do not know the geography of Jerusalem and are not familiar with the late monarchy’s Molech worship. There are also reasons not to do this — the loss of the historical anchor is a real loss.

Modern translations have moved differently

The KJV is uniform: Gehenna is “hell” in all twelve NT occurrences. The same is true of the NKJV, NIV, ESV, and most major Protestant translations.

A few translations have moved toward preserving the Hebrew/Greek term:

• The NET Bible retains “hell” but adds detailed footnotes on the Hinnom Valley.
• The Tree of Life Version renders the word as “Gei-Hinnom,” preserving the Hebrew geographical name directly.
• The Disciples’ Literal New Testament transliterates as “Gehenna” throughout.

The choice reflects a tension within translation practice: clarity for the modern reader (who recognises “hell”) versus fidelity to the underlying word’s specific historical anchor (which “Gehenna” preserves).

Other “hell” words in the New Testament

The Greek word translated “hell” in Matthew 5:22 is one of four distinct biblical words that have at various points been rendered “hell” in English. The others are Sheol (Hebrew), Hades (Greek, the Septuagint rendering of Sheol), and Tartarus (Greek, used once in 2 Peter 2:4). For the broader picture, see our word entry on hell.