How many times is heaven mentioned in the Hebrew bible?
Heaven, referring to the afterlife, is never mentioned in the
Hebrew Bible. There is no Biblical Hebrew word for this
concept.
However, Early modern English translations used the word
"heaven" as a poetic word for sky, and the word sky (שמיים)
appears 653 times. Many Christian translations continue to use the
word "heaven" in their translations, when the word שמיים in
the Hebrew text is either referring literally to the sky, or
figuratively, to God.