Published 2026-11-01 · 5 min read
How many times is hell mentioned in the Bible?
The word “hell” appears 54 times in 54 verses of the King James Bible: 31 in the Old Testament, where it always translates the Hebrew Sheol, and 23 in the New, where it translates Gehenna (12), Hades (10) and Tartarus (1). Modern translations often keep Sheol and Hades as names, so their totals are lower.
Download the per-verse CSV to check every match yourself. The method file (JSON) lists the rule, the source hash and every result.
How we counted
Rule: whole word, any case, in the verse text of our King James Version file. A letter, digit, underscore or hyphen next to the match disqualifies it, so a form never matches inside a longer word; possessives such as “’s” stay in. An occurrence is one match; a verse counts once however many matches it holds. This is the same rule as our Bible word counter.
| Form | Occurrences | Verses | In the headline |
|---|---|---|---|
| hell | 54 | 54 | yes |
| Headline total | 54 | 54 |
Hell, Sheol, Hades and Gehenna
One English word stands for four source words. The KJV text has no “Sheol”, “Hades” or “Gehenna” at all (0 matches each); it translates them.
| Testament | Source word | KJV “hell” | Verses |
|---|---|---|---|
| Old Testament | Hebrew Sheol, the place of the dead | 31 | all 31 Old Testament uses |
| New Testament | Greek Gehenna, the valley of fire | 12 | Matthew 5:22, Matthew 5:29, Matthew 5:30, Matthew 10:28, Matthew 18:9, Matthew 23:15, Matthew 23:33, Mark 9:43, Mark 9:45, Mark 9:47, Luke 12:5, James 3:6 |
| New Testament | Greek Hades, the place of the dead | 10 | Matthew 11:23, Matthew 16:18, Luke 10:15, Luke 16:23, Acts 2:27, Acts 2:31, Revelation 1:18, Revelation 6:8, Revelation 20:13, Revelation 20:14 |
| New Testament | Greek tartaroō, “cast down to Tartarus” | 1 | 2 Peter 2:4 |
The source-word labels follow Strong’s concordance; the English count and the verse lists come from our KJV file. The two agree: the 23 New Testament verses are exactly the 12 + 10 + 1 above. The KJV also renders Sheol as “grave” and “pit” in other verses, so “grave” (68 times) and “pit” (88) overlap the same idea; they are not added to the 54.
“Hell” and “Hell” are the same word here. The search ignores case; the 5 capitalised uses begin a sentence. The plural “hells” does not occur, and no verse uses “hell” twice.
Old Testament, New Testament and each book
| Testament | Occurrences | Verses |
|---|---|---|
| Old Testament | 31 | 31 |
| New Testament | 23 | 23 |
| Book (KJV) | Occurrences | Verses |
|---|---|---|
| Matthew | 9 | 9 |
| Psalms | 7 | 7 |
| Proverbs | 7 | 7 |
| Isaiah | 6 | 6 |
| Ezekiel | 4 | 4 |
| Revelation | 4 | 4 |
| Mark | 3 | 3 |
| Luke | 3 | 3 |
| Job | 2 | 2 |
| Acts | 2 | 2 |
Show the other 7 books with at least one match
| Book (KJV) | Occurrences | Verses |
|---|---|---|
| Deuteronomy | 1 | 1 |
| 2 Samuel | 1 | 1 |
| Amos | 1 | 1 |
| Jonah | 1 | 1 |
| Habakkuk | 1 | 1 |
| James | 1 | 1 |
| 2 Peter | 1 | 1 |
First: Deuteronomy 32:22. Last: Revelation 20:14. The most in one verse is 1, in Deuteronomy 32:22, 2 Samuel 22:6, Job 11:8, Job 26:6, Psalms 9:17, Psalms 16:10, Psalms 18:5, Psalms 55:15, Psalms 86:13, Psalms 116:3, Psalms 139:8, Proverbs 5:5, Proverbs 7:27, Proverbs 9:18, Proverbs 15:11, Proverbs 15:24, Proverbs 23:14, Proverbs 27:20, Isaiah 5:14, Isaiah 14:9, Isaiah 14:15, Isaiah 28:15, Isaiah 28:18, Isaiah 57:9, Ezekiel 31:16, Ezekiel 31:17, Ezekiel 32:21, Ezekiel 32:27, Amos 9:2, Jonah 2:2, Habakkuk 2:5, Matthew 5:22, Matthew 5:29, Matthew 5:30, Matthew 10:28, Matthew 11:23, Matthew 16:18, Matthew 18:9, Matthew 23:15, Matthew 23:33, Mark 9:43, Mark 9:45, Mark 9:47, Luke 10:15, Luke 12:5, Luke 16:23, Acts 2:27, Acts 2:31, James 3:6, 2 Peter 2:4, Revelation 1:18, Revelation 6:8, Revelation 20:13, Revelation 20:14. 49 of the 66 books have no match.
Every verse
All 54 verses in Bible order; a number in brackets is a verse with more than one use. Each link opens the verse in the KJV reader.
Deuteronomy 32:22, 2 Samuel 22:6, Job 11:8, Job 26:6, Psalms 9:17, Psalms 16:10, Psalms 18:5, Psalms 55:15, Psalms 86:13, Psalms 116:3, Psalms 139:8, Proverbs 5:5, Proverbs 7:27, Proverbs 9:18, Proverbs 15:11, Proverbs 15:24, Proverbs 23:14, Proverbs 27:20, Isaiah 5:14, Isaiah 14:9, Isaiah 14:15, Isaiah 28:15, Isaiah 28:18, Isaiah 57:9, Ezekiel 31:16, Ezekiel 31:17, Ezekiel 32:21, Ezekiel 32:27, Amos 9:2, Jonah 2:2, Habakkuk 2:5, Matthew 5:22, Matthew 5:29, Matthew 5:30, Matthew 10:28, Matthew 11:23, Matthew 16:18, Matthew 18:9, Matthew 23:15, Matthew 23:33, Mark 9:43, Mark 9:45, Mark 9:47, Luke 10:15, Luke 12:5, Luke 16:23, Acts 2:27, Acts 2:31, James 3:6, 2 Peter 2:4, Revelation 1:18, Revelation 6:8, Revelation 20:13, Revelation 20:14
Check the count yourself
Open hell-count-audit.csv in a spreadsheet: 54 rows plus a header, one for every verse containing a counted form. The headline_occurrences column sums to 54 (=SUM over it) and has 54 non-zero rows (=COUNTIF(range,">0")). The context_url column opens each verse.
Or recount from scratch. Download count-words.py and run it with Python 3:
python count-words.py --output-dir results
It uses only Python’s standard library, downloads the pinned KJV file, checks its SHA-256 (0c3b8afefa4efaa8bd72576682c8ad060e4ccb499e81943a9678de49ab9416ad) and writes every CSV and the method JSON. The KJV text was imported from aruljohn/Bible-kjv; its exact printing is unknown. Only verse text is counted: no headings, notes or Apocrypha.
To count another word with the same rule, use the Bible word counter.
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