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The Sage Who Toured Gehinnom and the King Who Built Over It

Rabbi Joshua ben Levi descended through all seven chambers of Gehinnom and returned. Solomon never went himself, but he sent his workforce there instead.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. What the Messiah Refused to Show
  2. Elijah's Guided Route
  3. Solomon's Different Approach
  4. What Gehinnom Lay Under

What the Messiah Refused to Show

Rabbi Joshua ben Levi wanted to see Gehinnom. He had already done things no rabbi was supposed to do: he had spoken with the prophet Elijah, had traveled to the gates of Rome to try to meet the Messiah, had a reputation for going where other sages would not. He was not asking out of morbid curiosity. He wanted to understand what the tradition said existed and what the stakes actually were.

The Messiah refused. "It is not fitting for the righteous to see Gehinnom," he said. "There are no righteous people there." Rabbi Joshua pressed the matter, and eventually the angel Qipod was assigned to escort him to the gates. The Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a twelfth-century Hebrew chronicle compiled by Jerahmeel ben Solomon that preserved much older tradition, gives the tour its full detail: each of the seven chambers corresponded to specific categories of sin, and each punishment matched the specific violation it answered. The connection between what a person had done and what they experienced in each chamber was exact. This was not arbitrary suffering. It was the precise shape of each soul's own choices, made visible from the outside.

Elijah's Guided Route

Rabbi Joshua encountered Elijah on the road. Elijah asked: "would you like to see the gates of Gehinnom?" "Yes," said Joshua. What followed was a second tour, the Chronicles of Jerahmeel preserving this as a distinct account from the Qipod escort, and the detail it added was about the gates themselves. Each gate was a threshold between the living world and a different chamber of suffering, and the gate showed what was at stake on both sides simultaneously. To stand at a gate of Gehinnom was to understand, with the specific clarity that only boundary-standing provides, exactly where every human choice was aimed.

Rabbi Joshua came back from both tours with information. The tradition does not record that the tours broke him or terrified him into silence. They appear in the narrative as things he survived and carried forward. He had seen the structure of consequence and he continued to teach. That is the point the tradition makes by including him in the story rather than a less durable sage.

Solomon's Different Approach

Solomon never descended into Gehinnom. He sent his workforce there instead. The problem was that the Temple could not be built with iron tools: iron was associated with weapons and war, and a house of peace could not be built with instruments of killing. Solomon needed something that could cut stone without iron. What he found was a creature called the shamir, a worm or stone-cutting entity whose nature the tradition describes variously but whose function was consistent: it could split the hardest stone along any desired line without metal contact.

To get the shamir, Solomon needed demons. The Testament of Solomon describes how this worked. A demon named Ornias was terrorizing the boy who served the master craftsman, appearing each night to drain the child's wages, food, and life-force through his thumb. Solomon petitioned the archangel Michael, who sent down a ring engraved with a pentagram seal. The ring gave Solomon authority over demons. He pressed Ornias with it, and Ornias was bound. Solomon then worked his way through the hierarchy of demonic beings, binding each one and assigning it a role in the Temple's construction. Some fetched water. Some worked stone. Others he locked in prisons under the mountain where the Temple stood.

What Gehinnom Lay Under

The Temple mount, in rabbinic geography, was directly above the entrance to Gehinnom. Solomon built his house of worship over the mouth of the place of purification. The demons he set to work under angelic command were building above the very domain they came from, pressing stone against stone in the service of a divine house while their own origin point was directly below. The tradition presents this arrangement as fitting rather than ironic: the forces most associated with the destruction of human souls were being redirected into the construction of the building that existed to protect them.

Rabbi Joshua ben Levi had seen the chambers from the inside. Solomon had built the roof over the top. Neither man had a complete picture. The sage had understood the structure of consequence. The king had understood the structure of redemption. The tradition holds both accounts side by side and does not attempt to resolve them into a single unified theology. They are two different faces of the same reality, seen from different directions by two different men.

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From the tradition

Sources

3 sources

The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Chronicles of Jerahmeel XXIChronicles of Jerahmeel (Gaster, 1899)

Rabbi Joshua ben Levi wanted to see Gehinnom (the place of spiritual purification after death). The Messiah refused. "It is not fitting for the righteous to see it," he said, "for there are no righteous people in hell." But Rabbi Joshua pressed the matter, and eventually the angel Qipod escorted him to the fiery gates. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, what he found was a system of seven compartments, each more terrible than the last.

The first compartment measured one mile in length and breadth, filled with open pits containing lions made of fire. Two brooks ran through it, when the wicked fell in, the fire-lions standing above cast them back into the flames. When the Messiah accompanied Rabbi Joshua to the gates, the wicked saw his light and rejoiced, crying, "This one will bring us out of this fire!"

The second compartment held nations of the world with Absalom presiding over them. The nations argued among themselves, "If we sinned because we rejected the Torah, what sin did you commit?" They challenged Absalom: "Your ancestors accepted the Torah. Why are you punished?" He answered simply: "Because I did not listen to my father." The punishing angel Qushiel struck the wicked with a rod of fire, cast them into flames, and burned them, seven times daily and three times nightly. But Absalom himself was spared each time, because he descended from those who declared at Sinai, "We shall do, and we shall hear."

This pattern repeated through all seven compartments. Korah in the third, Jeroboam in the fourth, Ahab in the fifth, Micah in the sixth, and Elisha ben Abuya in the seventh. Each Israelite sinner was rescued from the worst punishments by the merit of their ancestors' covenant at Sinai. The darkness filling these compartments was the primordial darkness that existed before creation. So thick that no soul could see another.

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Chronicles of Jerahmeel XVChronicles of Jerahmeel (Gaster, 1899)

Rabbi Joshua ben Levi was walking on the road when he met the prophet Elijah. "Would you like to see the gates of Gehinnom (the place of spiritual purification after death)?" Elijah asked. "Yes," he answered. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle compiled by Jerahmeel ben Solomon, what followed was a guided tour of punishments that matched each sin to the exact body part that committed it.

Elijah showed him men hanging by their hair. These had grown their hair long to make themselves attractive for sin. Others hung by their eyes, for following their gaze into transgression. Others by their tongues, for slander. Others by their hands, for theft. Others by their feet, for running to do evil. Women hung by their breasts for deliberately enticing men.

Deeper in, Elijah showed him men forced to eat fiery coals. These had blasphemed. Others swallowed bitter gall, punished for eating on fast days. Still others ate fine sand until their teeth broke. God Himself addresses these sinners: "When you ate stolen food it was sweet in your mouth. Now you cannot eat even this."

Others were thrown from fire to snow and back again, endlessly. These had turned away the poor who came asking for help. Others were driven from mountain to mountain like sheep, with death itself serving as their shepherd.

Rabbi Johanan explained the system: for every sin, a specific angel is appointed to extract its expiation. They take turns, like creditors collecting debts. Three categories of sinners descend to Gehinnom forever and never ascend: the adulterer, the one who publicly shames their neighbor, and the perjurer. But even Gehinnom observes the Sabbath. On Friday evening, the sinners are led to two mountains of snow and left there until Saturday night. Some try to smuggle snow under their armpits to cool themselves during the week. God rebukes them: "You steal even in Gehinnom."

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Legends of the Jews 5:86Legends of the Jews

The familiar telling remembers the human labor, the cedar from Lebanon, the gold and precious stones. But there's a less-told tale, a whisper from the shadows, involving beings not quite of this world: demons.

In legends, Solomon wasn't just a brilliant king; he was also a master of the mystical arts. The stories tell us that, in the beginning of the Temple's construction, things weren't going so smoothly. One of Solomon's pages kept losing his money and food to a mischievous, unseen force. Imagine the frustration! Solomon, unable to catch the culprit, turned to the highest power. He prayed fervently to God, begging for deliverance from this wicked spirit.

His prayers were answered. As we read in Legends of the Jews by Ginzberg, the archangel Michael himself appeared before Solomon. He didn't come empty-handed. Michael presented Solomon with a small ring, a signet ring bearing a powerful seal. "Take, O Solomon, king, son of David," Michael said, "the gift which the Lord God, the highest Zebaot (hosts), hath sent unto thee." With this ring, Solomon could "lock up all the demons of the earth, male and female; and with their help thou shalt build up Jerusalem." A fascinating divine decree, isn't it?

The ring wasn't just any piece of jewelry. It bore a Pentalpha – a five-pointed star – an engraving that held immense power. Solomon, now armed with this divine gift, summoned all the demons before him. Can you picture that scene? A king, empowered by God, facing down the denizens of darkness.

He interrogated each demon, demanding their names and their celestial affiliations. He wanted to know which star, constellation, or zodiac sign held sway over them, and the name of the angel to whom they were subject. According to these legends, knowledge is power. And Solomon, through the ring, had the power to subdue them.

One by one, the spirits were vanquished. Solomon, wielding the power of the ring, compelled them to aid in the construction of the Temple. Imagine those mischievous demons, forced to use their supernatural abilities for something… constructive! It's a evidence of the power of faith and divine intervention. The Temple, a symbol of holiness and connection with the divine, was built not just by human hands, but with the unwilling assistance of the demonic realm. What does that tell us about the complexities of creation, and the surprising ways that even darkness can be channeled toward light?

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