Translation choice · documented · Afterlife
What the source reads — Sheol tachtit — 'the lowest Sheol', the deep grave / underworld reached by God's burning anger (so the Hebrew; the WEB keeps 'the lowest Sheol', the LXX reads 'Hades below')
What this version reads — 'the lowest hell' — the KJV turns the deep grave into the pit of the damned (so too the Vulgate's 'inferni' and Martini's 'inferno')
The earliest 'hell' in the Bible — and it sits in the Song of Moses, the very chapter as the divine-council verse at 32:8. God's anger is a fire that burns 'to the lowest Sheol' — the deepest part of the grave, not a place of torment. The KJV renders it 'the lowest hell', and the Vulgate's 'inferni' carries into Martini's 'inferno'; the WEB keeps 'Sheol', the LXX reads 'Hades', Diodati 'the lowest place underground', the Riveduta 'the abode of the dead'. The independent witnesses confirm the plain reading: the Samaritan Torah keeps 'Sheol tachtit' and the Ethiopic transliterates 'Sheol'. One chapter, edited twice — the council narrowed at 32:8, the grave turned to hell here.
Read this chapter side by side — Deuteronomy 32:22 →