1 Corinthians 15:55

O death, where is thy sting? This quotation follows neither the Septuagint nor the Hebrew of Hosea 13:14. The former is -Where is thy penalty, O death, where is thy sting, O Hades?" following, most probably, a different reading from the present Hebrew text, which runs thus: -I will be thy plagues, O death, I will be thy pestilence, O grave" (or -Hades," for the Hebrew word has both significations). See next note.

O grave, where is thy victory? In the Greek, O Hades. The Vulgate (which is followed by Tyndale) as well as most of the best MSS. read deathhere for Hades. So do Irenaeus and Tertullian, writing in the second century. But the ancient Syriac version reads Hades. Bishop Wordsworth suggests that the text was altered from a fear lest the passage should give any countenance" to the idea of a god of the shades below, known to the Greeks by the name of Hades. But in later Greek and in the Septuagint its use to denominate the place of departed spirits was well established.