Meaning of PARADISE

(lat. "paradisus"; gr. "paradeisos": "park", "pleasure garden", from the Avesta "pairi-daêza", "closed enclosure").

In Ecclesiastes 2:5; Cnt. 4:13; Neh. 2:8, the Hebrew text. It says "pardês", garden, orchard, park, taking the meaning of forest in this last passage. Josephus (Ant. 8:7, 3; Against Apion 1:20) calls it Gr. "paradeisos" to the gardens of Solomon in Etam and the hanging gardens of Babylon.

In the LXX the paradise of Eden is called the garden of Eden (Gen. 2:8).
Paradise, designating the place of happiness that man has lost, became the name of the abode of the righteous in the hereafter.

The late Israelites distinguished between a celestial paradise and a lower paradise, the former belonging to heaven, while the latter was a division of Hades (Heb. "sheol," the abode of the dead), assigned to souls. of the righteous

It is in this sense that Jesus addresses the repentant thief: "Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise" (Lk. 23:43).

By this he referred to the abode of the blessed dead, also called by the Jews "Abraham's bosom" (Lk. 16:22). In fact, that is where Jesus descended at the time of his death (Eph. 4:9; Acts 2:27, 31).

In other passages of the NT this term acquires its heavenly meaning. Paul was caught up “into paradise,” to the third heaven, in the presence of God (2 Cor. 12:2, 4). To him who overcomes, the Lord will give him to eat from the tree of life, “which is in the midst of the paradise of God” (Rev. 2:7; cf. 22:2).