neither they nor the narrator of their wonder-working had any definite opinion on the subject. Elisha's bones, also, had such virtue that when a dead man let down into his sepulchre (2 Kings xiii. 21) had touched them, he revived and stood up on his feet. It is strange that the bones could not do so much for themselves. Neither this man, however, nor the resuscitated children, appear to have been made immortal on earth, any more than the son of the widow of Nain, or the raised Lazarus of the New Testament. So, wretched ones, they had to suffer death twice; and when they were brought back to life, what did they tell their wondering friends of the condition of the disembodied soul? The world has been none the wiser of their revisit, (e.) The marvellous departure of Elijah (2 Kings ii. 11) was probably told to prevent any sort of worship at his tomb, concealed, in all likelihood, as that of Moses, doubtless at his own desire, was. 15. The authorised version gives rise to considerable misapprehension by translating the Hebrew word "sheol" as "hell" in some places, and "the grave" in others, (a.) The passage (Genesis xxxvii. 35) before referred to, where Jacob says, "I will go down into the grave (sheol) unto my son mourning," if translated, "I will go down into hell," &c, would have conveyed to the mind of a modern Christian that Joseph was in the place of torment. It was quite necessary here, therefore, to render the word "the grave." Genesis xlii. 38 is, similarly treated, (b) Proverbs xxiii. 13, 14, is an example of the other rendering of the same word: "Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell" (from sheol). Here nothing more is meant than that by coercing a youth to follow the lessons of experience, he would be saved from an early grave; but by translating sheol "hell," the notion that "eternal woe" is to be averted by the unsparing use of the rod is erroneously implied, (c.) The Hebrew word _kibr_ is usually employed to designate a specific burying-place (a grave, as distinguished from _the_ grave), as in Genesis xxiii. 42; xxxv. 20, but is sometimes also used in the same sense as sheol, as Psalm vi. 5, "In the grave (sheol) who shall give thee thanks:" Psalm lxxxviii. 10, "Shall thy loving-kindness be declared in the grave" (kibr)? Sheol, however, almost invariably means more than a mere burial place: sometimes it is used in the sense of the "power of death" (Isaiah xiv. 9), sometimes of the unfathomable abyss of darkness, erroneously believed in those days to be under the earth (Psalm cxxxix. 8; Amos ix. 2); but usually it implies _the state that follows death_; and that this state was held to be one of ended existence, non-existence, or nothingness, is as clear a conclusion as words can convey. The reprieved Hezekiah (Isaiah xxxviii. 18) says, "For the grave (sheol) cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee: