So Chrysostom declares, referring to this very text, "Not to be retained in the region of the dead, but to be delivered from it, is virtually not to die."11 Moreover, the phrase above translated "to save him from death" may be translated, with equal propriety, "to bring him back safe from death."
The Greek verb [non-ASCII characters], to save, is often so used to denote the safe restoration of a warrior from an incursion into an enemy's domain. The same use made here by our author of the term "death" we have also found made by Philo Judaus. "The wise," Philo says, "inherit the Olympic and heavenly region to dwell in, always studying to go above; the bad inherit the innermost parts of the under world, always laboring to die."12 The antithesis between going above and dying, and the mention of the under world in connection with the latter, prove that to die here means, or at least includes, going below after death.
The Septuagint version of the Old Testament twice translates Sheol by the word "death."13 The Hebrew word for death, maveth, is repeatedly used for the abode of the dead.14 And the nail of the interpretation we are urging is clenched by this sentence from Origen: "The under world, in which souls are detained by death, is called death."15 Bretschneider cites nearly a dozen passages from the New Testament where, in his judgment, death is used to denote Hades.
Again: we read that Christ took human nature upon him "in order that by means of [his own] death he might render him that has the power of death that is, the devil idle, and deliver those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." It is apparent at once that the mere death of Christ, so far from ending the sway of Death, would be giving the grim monster a new victory, incomparably the most important he had ever achieved. Therefore, the only way to make adequate sense of the passage is to join with the Savior's death what followed it, namely, his resurrection and ascension. It was the Hebrew belief that sin, introduced by the fraud of the devil, was the cause of death, and the doomer of the disembodied spirits of men to the lower caverns of darkness and rest. They personified Death as king, tyrannizing over mankind; and, unless in severe affliction, they dreaded the hour when they must lie down under his sceptre and sink into his voiceless kingdom of shadows. Christ broke the power of Satan, closed his busy reign, rescued the captive souls, and relieved the timorous hearts of the faithful, by rising triumphantly from
11 Homil. Epist. ad Heb. in hoc loc.
12 Quod a Deo mitt. Somn., p. 643, ed. Mangey.
13 2 Sam. xxii. 6; Prov. xxiii. 14.
14 Ps. ix. 13. Prov. vii, 27.
15 Comm. in Epist. ad Rom., lib. vi. cap. 6, sect. 6.: "Inferni locus in quo anima detinebantur a morte mors appellatur."
the long bound dominion of the grave, and ascending in a new path of light, pioneering the saints to immortal glory.