Earth

The term is used in two widely-different senses: (1) for the material of which the earth's surface is composed; (2) as the name of the planet on which man dwells. The Hebrew language discriminates between these two by the use of separate terms, adamah for the former, erets for the latter.

1. Adamah is the earth in the sense of soil or ground, particularly as being susceptible of cultivation. (Genesis 2:7)
2. Erets is applied in a more or less extended sense-- (1) to the whole world, (Genesis 1:1) (2) to land as opposed to sea, (Genesis 1:10) (3) to a country, (Genesis 21:32) (4) to a plot of ground, (Genesis 23:15) and (5) to the ground on which a man stands. (Genesis 33:3) The two former senses alone concern us, the fairest involving an inquiry into the opinions of the Hebrews on cosmogony, the second on geography.
3. cosmogony. -- (1) The Hebrew cosmogony is based upon the leading principle that the universe exists, not independently of God, nor yet co-existent with God, nor yet in opposition to him as a hostile element, but dependently upon him, subsequently to him and in subjection to him. (2) Creation was regarded as a progressive work --a gradual development from the inferior to the superior orders of things.
4. Geography. --There seems to be traces of the same ideas as prevailed among the Greeks, that the world was a disk, (Isaiah 40:22) bordered by the ocean, with Jerusalem as its centre, like Delphi as the navel, or, according to another view, the highest point of the world. As to the size of the earth, the Hebrews had but a very indefinite notion.

Earth

In both Hebrew and Greek the same word is used to denote the earth as a whole, and a particular land. Only the context can enable us to decide in which of these senses it is to be taken in a given passage.

Thus in Matthew 27:45 we might, so far as the original word is concerned, render either "there was darkness over all the land," or over all the earth. The expression "all the earth" is sometimes used hyperbolically for a large portion of it, Ezra 1:2. The word is used of the whole world, etc. In a moral sense, earthly is opposed to what is heavenly, spiritual and holy, John 3:31 1 1 Corinthians 15:47 Colossians 3:2 James 3:15. "The lower parts of the earth," means the unseen world of the dead, Psalm 63:9 Isaiah 44:23 Ephesians 4:9.

EARTH

urth ('adhamah, 'erets, 'aphar; ge, oikoumene):

In a hilly limestone country like Palestine, the small amount of iron oxide in the rocks tends to be oxidized, and thereby to give a prevailing reddish color to the soil. This is especially the case on relatively barren hills where there is little organic matter present to prevent reddening and give a more blackish tinge.

'Adhamah (compare 'adham, "a man," and Adam) is from 'adham, "to be red," and is used in the senses: "earth" (Exodus 20:24), "land" (Psalm 105:35), a "land" or country (Isaiah 14:2), "ground" (Genesis 4:11), "the earth" (Genesis 7:4).

The word most in use is 'erets, undoubtedly from a most ancient root occurring in many languages, as English "earth," German Erde, Arabic 'ard. It is used in most of the senses of 'adhamah, but less as "soil" and more as "the earth" as a part of the universe; frequently with shamayim, "heavens," as in Genesis 1:1: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

`Aphar and its root word and derivatives are closely paralleled in the Arabic, and refer mainly to "dust" or "dry earth" (compare Arabic `afir, "to be of the color of dust"; `afar "dust"; ya`fur, "a gazelle"; Hebrew `opher, "a gazelle"). Compare Genesis 2:7: "Yahweh God formed man of the dust of the ground"; Job 2:12: ". sprinkled dust upon their heads"; Psalm 104:29: ". they die, and return to their dust"; Genesis 18:27: "dust and ashes."

In the Septuagint and New Testament, ge is used in nearly all cases, oikoumene being used a few times for the "habitable earth," as in Luke 21:26 the King James Version.

See further ANTHROPOLOGY; ASTRONOMY; EVOLUTION; WORLD.

Alfred Ely Day

EARTH, CORNERS OF THE

The "corners" or "ends" of the earth are its "wings" (kanephoth ha-'arets), i.e. its borders or extremities. The word in general means a wing, because the wing of a bird is used as a covering for its young, and from this meaning it acquires that of the extremity of anything stretched out. It is thus used in Deuteronomy 22:12: "Thou shalt make thee fringes upon the four borders (wings) of thy vesture, wherewith thou coverest thyself." It thus also means the coasts or boundaries of the land surface of the earth; its extremities. It is translated "corners" in Isaiah 11:12; "ends" in Job 37:3, 38:13. The "four corners" of the earth (Isaiah 11:12) or "land" (Ezekiel 7:2) are therefore simply the extremities of the land in the four cardinal directions.

See also ASTRONOMY, sec. III, 3.

E. W. Maunder

EARTH, THE NEW

See ESCHATOLOGY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, IX; HEAVENS, NEW;

EARTH, VAULT, OF THE

volt:

In one passage God is said to have "founded his vault ('aghuddah) upon the earth" (Amos 9:6). It is not quite certain whether this dome or vault refers to the earth itself, or to the heavens arched above it.

The latter is the usual interpretation, but in either case the reference is rather to the strength of the structure than to its form; the word implying something that is firmly bound together and hence, an arch or dome because of its stability.

See also ASTRONOMY, sec. III, 2.

HEAVENS, NEW (AND EARTH, NEW)

" 1. Eschatological Idea

2. Earliest Conceptions: Cosmic verses National Type

3. Different from Mythological Theory

4. Antiquity of Cosmical Conception

5. The Cosmical Dependent on the Ethico-Religious

6. The End Correspondent to the Beginning

7. The Cosmical Heavens: Hebrews 12:26-29

8. Palingenesis: Matthew 19:28

9. A Purified Universe

1. Eschatological Idea:

The formal conception of new heavens and a new earth occurs in Isaiah 65:17; Isaiah 66:22 2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1 (where "heaven," singular). The idea in substance is also found in Isaiah 51:16 Matthew 19:28 2 Corinthians 5:17; Hebrews 12:26-28. In each case the reference is eschatological, indeed the adjective "new" seems to have acquired in this and other connections a semi-technical eschatological sense. It must be remembered that the Old Testament has no single word for "universe," and that the phrase "heaven and earth" serves to supply the deficiency. The promise of a new heavens and a new earth is therefore equivalent to a promise of world renewal.

2. Earliest Conceptions: Cosmic verses National Type:

It is a debated question how old in the history of revelation this promise is. Isaiah is the prophet with whom the idea first occurs in explicit form, and that in passages which many critics would assign to the post-exilic period (the so-called Trito-Isaiah). In general, until recently, the trend of criticism has been to represent the universalistic-cosmic type of eschatology as developed out of the particularistic-national type by a gradual process of widening of the horizon of prophecy, a view which would put the emergence of the former at a comparatively late date. More recently, however, Gressmann (Der Ursprung der israelitisch-judischen Eschatologie, 1905) and others have endeavored to show that often even prophecies belonging to the latter type embody material and employ means of expression which presuppose acquaintance with the idea of a world-catastrophe at the end. On this view the world-eschatology would have, from ancient times, existed alongside of the more narrowly confined outlook, and would be even older than the latter. These writers further assume that the cosmic eschatology was not indigenous among the Hebrews, but of oriental (Babylonian) origin, a theory which they apply not only to the more developed system of the later apocalyptic writings, but also to its preformations in the Old Testament. The cosmic eschatology is not believed to have been the distinctive property of the great ethical prophets, but rather a commonly current mythological belief to which the prophets refer without formally endorsing it.

3. Different from Mythological Theory:

Its central thought is said to have been the belief that the end of the world-process must correspond to the beginning, that consequently the original condition of things, when heaven and earth were new, must repeat itself at some future point, and the state of paradise with its concomitants return, a belief supposed to have rested on certain astronomical observations.

4. Antiquity of Cosmical Conception

While this theory in the form presented is unproven and unacceptable, it deserves credit for having focused attention on certain phenomena in the Old Testament which clearly show that Messianic prophecy, and particularly the world-embracing scope which it assumes in some predictions, is far older than modern criticism had been willing to concede. The Old Testament from the beginning has an eschatology and puts the eschatological promise on the broadest racial basis (Genesis 3). It does not first ascend from Israel to the new humanity, but at the very outset takes its point of departure in the race and from this descends to the election of Israel, always keeping the Universalistic goal in clear view. Also in the earliest accounts, already elements of a cosmical universalism find their place side by side with those of a racial kind, as when Nature is represented as sharing in the consequences of the fall of man.

5. The Cosmical Dependent on the Ethico-Religious:

As regards the antiquity of the universalistic and cosmical eschatology, therefore, the conclusions of these writers may be registered as a gain, while on the two other points of the pagan origin and the unethical character of the expectation involved, dissent from them should be expressed. According to the Old Testament, the whole idea of world-renewal is of strictly super-natural origin, and in it the cosmical follows the ethical hope. The cosmical eschatology is simply the correlate of the fundamental Biblical principle that the issues of the world-process depend on the ethico-religious developments in the history of man (compare 2 Peter 3:13).

6. The End Correspondent to the Beginning:

But the end correspondent to the beginning is likewise a true Scriptural principle, which theory in question has helped to reemphasize, although there is this difference that Scripture does not look forward to a repetition of the same process, but to a restoration of the primeval harmony on a higher plane such as precludes all further disturbance. In the passages above cited, there are clear reminiscences of the account of creation (Isaiah 51:16, "that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth"; Isaiah 65:17, "I create new heavens and a new earth"; 2 Peter 3:13 compared with 2 Peter 3:4-6 Revelation 21:1 compared with the imagery of paradise throughout the chapter). Besides this, where the thought of the renewal of earth is met with in older prophecy, this is depicted in colors of the state of paradise (Isaiah 11:6-9 Hosea 2:18-21). The "regeneration" (palingenesia) of Matthew 19:28 also points back to the first genesis of the world. The `inhabited earth to come' (oikoumene mellousa) of Hebrews 2:5 occurs at the opening of a context throughout which the account of Genesis 1-3 evidently stood before the writer's mind.

7. The Cosmical Heavens: Hebrews 12:26-29:

In the combination "new heavens and a new earth," the term "heavens" must therefore be taken in the sense imposed upon it by the story of creation, where "heavens" designates not the celestial habitation of God, but the cosmical heavens, the region of the supernal waters, sun moon and stars. The Bible nowhere suggests that there is anything abnormal or requiring renewal in God's dwelling-place (Hebrews 9:23 is of a different import). In Revelation 21, where "the new heaven and the new earth" appear, it is at the same time stated that the new Jerusalem comes down from God out of heaven (compare 21:1, 2, 10). In Hebrews 12:26-28 also the implication is that only the lower heavens are subject to renewal. The "shaking" that accompanies the new covenant and corresponds to the shaking of the law-giving at Sinai, is a shaking of "not the earth only, but also the heaven." This shaking, in its reference to heaven as well as to earth, signifies a removal of the things shaken. But from the things thus shaken and removed (including heaven), the writer distinguishes "those things which are not shaken," which are destined to remain, and these are identified with the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God, however, according to the general trend of the teaching of the epistle, has its center in the heavenly world. The words "that have been made," in 12:27, do not assign their created character as the reason why heaven and earth can be shaken, an exegesis which would involve us in the difficulty that among that which remains there is something uncreated besides God; the true construction and correct paraphrase are: "as of things that were made with the thought in the mind of God that those things which cannot be shaken may remain," i.e. already at creation God contemplated an unchangeable universe as the ultimate, higher state of things.

8. Palingenesis: Matthew 19:28:

In Matthew 19:28 the term palingenesia marks the world-renewing as the renewal of an abnormal state of things. The Scripture teaching, therefore, is that around the center of God's heaven, which is not subject to deterioration or renewal, a new cosmical heaven and a new earth will be established to be the dwelling-place of the eschatological humanity. The light in which the promise thus appears reminds us that the renewed kosmos, earth as well as cosmical heavens, is destined to play a permanent (not merely provisional, on the principle of chiliasm) part in the future life of the people of God. This is in entire harmony with the prevailing Biblical representation, not only in the Old Testament but likewise in the New Testament (compare Matthew 5:5 Hebrews 2:5), although in the Fourth Gospel and in the Pauline Epistles the emphasis is to such an extent thrown on the heaven-centered character of the future life that the role to be played in it by the renewed earth recedes into the background. Revelation, on the other hand, recognizes this element in its imagery of "the new Jerus" coming down from God out of heaven upon earth.

9. A Purified Universe:

That the new heavens and the new earth are represented as the result of a "creation" does not necessarily involve a production ex nihilo. The terms employed in 2 Peter 3:6-13 seem rather to imply that the renewal will out of the old produce a purified universe, whence also the catastrophe is compared to that of the Deluge. As then the old world perished by water and the present world arose out of the flood, so in the end-crisis "the heavens shall be dissolved by fire and the elements melt with fervent heat," to give rise to the new heaven and the new earth in which righteousness dwells. The term palingenesia (Matthew 19:28) points to renewal, not to creation de novo. The Talmud also teaches that the world will pass through a process of purification, although at the same time it seems to break up the continuity between this and the coming world by the fantastic assumption that the new heavens and the new earth of Isaiah 65:17 were created at the close of the Hexemeron of Genesis 1. This was inferred from the occurrence of the article in Isaiah 66:22, "the new heavens and the new earth."

Geerhardus Vos

NEW EARTH

See ESCHATOLOGY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT; HEAVENS, NEW.

CORNERS OF THE EARTH

See EARTH, CORNERS OF THE.

EARTH, CIRCLE OF THE

See ASTRONOMY, sec. III, 1, 3.

EARTH, ENDS OF THE

See EARTH, CORNERS OF THE.

EARTH, PILLARS OF THE

See ASTRONOMY, sec. III, 2.

ENDS OF THE EARTH

See ASTRONOMY, sec. III, 2.

(1.) In the sense of soil or ground, the translation of the word adamah'. In Genesis 9:20 "husbandman" is literally "man of the ground or earth." Altars were to be built of earth (Exodus 20:24). Naaman asked for two mules' burden of earth (2 Kings 5:17), under the superstitious notion that Jehovah, like the gods of the heathen, could be acceptably worshipped only on his own soil.

(2). As the rendering of 'erets, it means the whole world (Genesis 1:2); the land as opposed to the sea (1:10). Erets also denotes a country (21:32); a plot of ground (23:15); the ground on which a man stands (33:3); the inhabitants of the earth (6:1; 11:1); all the world except Israel (2 Chronicles 13:9). In the New Testament "the earth" denotes the land of Judea (Matthew 23:35); also things carnal in contrast with things heavenly (John 3:31; Colossians 3:1, 2).

1. (n.) The globe or planet which we inhabit; the world, in distinction from the sun, moon, or stars. Also, this world as the dwelling place of mortals, in distinction from the dwelling place of spirits.

2. (n.) The solid materials which make up the globe, in distinction from the air or water; the dry land.

3. (n.) The softer inorganic matter composing part of the surface of the globe, in distinction from the firm rock; soil of all kinds, including gravel, clay, loam, and the like; sometimes, soil favorable to the growth of plants; the visible surface of the globe; the ground; as, loose earth; rich earth.

4. (n.) A part of this globe; a region; a country; land.

5. (n.) Worldly things, as opposed to spiritual things; the pursuits, interests, and allurements of this life.

6. (n.) The people on the globe.

7. (n.) Any earthy-looking metallic oxide, as alumina, glucina, zirconia, yttria, and thoria.

8. (n.) A similar oxide, having a slight alkaline reaction, as lime, magnesia, strontia, baryta.

9. (n.) A hole in the ground, where an animal hides himself; as, the earth of a fox.

10. (v. t.) To hide, or cause to hide, in the earth; to chase into a burrow or den.

11. (v. t.) To cover with earth or mold; to inter; to bury; -- sometimes with up.

12. (v. i.) To burrow.

13. (n.) A plowing.

776. erets -- earth, land
... << 775, 776. erets. 777 >>. earth, land. Transliteration: erets Phonetic Spelling:
(eh'-rets) Short Definition: land. Word Origin a prim. ...
/hebrew/776.htm - 6k

778. araq -- the earth
... << 777, 778. araq. 779 >>. the earth. Transliteration: araq Phonetic Spelling:
(ar-ak') Short Definition: earth. Word Origin (Aramaic ...
/hebrew/778.htm - 6k

6083. aphar -- dry earth, dust
... << 6082, 6083. aphar. 6084 >>. dry earth, dust. Transliteration: aphar Phonetic
Spelling: (aw-fawr') Short Definition: dust. Word Origin ...
/hebrew/6083.htm - 6k

772. ara -- the earth
... << 771, 772. ara. 773 >>. the earth. Transliteration: ara Phonetic Spelling:
(ar-ah') Short Definition: earth. Word Origin (Aramaic) corresponding ...
/hebrew/772.htm - 6k

3007. yabbesheth -- earth
... << 3006, 3007. yabbesheth. 3008 >>. earth. Transliteration: yabbesheth Phonetic
Spelling: (yab-beh'-sheth) Short Definition: earth. Word ...
/hebrew/3007.htm - 6k

7263. regeb -- a clod (of earth)
... << 7262, 7263. regeb. 7264 >>. a clod (of earth). Transliteration: regeb
Phonetic Spelling: (reh'-gheb) Short Definition: clods. Word ...
/hebrew/7263.htm - 5k

127. adamah -- ground, land
... Word Origin from the same as adam Definition ground, land NASB Word Usage country
(1), dirt (1), dust (3), earth (32), farming* (1), fields (1), ground (64 ...
/hebrew/127.htm - 6k

1487. gush -- a clod, lump
... clod, mass of earth. Or rather (by permutation) giysh {gheesh}; of uncertain derivation;
a mass of earth -- clod. << 1486, 1487. gush. 1488 >>. Strong's Numbers
/hebrew/1487.htm - 5k

2789. cheres -- earthenware, earthen vessel, sherd, potsherd
... earthen, potsherd, stone. A collateral form mediating between cherec and cheresh;
a piece of pottery -- earth(-en), (pot-)sherd, + stone. see HEBREW cherec. ...
/hebrew/2789.htm - 6k

3671. kanaph -- wing, extremity
... From kanaph; an edge or extremity; specifically (of a bird or army) a wing, (of
a garment or bed-clothing) a flap, (of the earth) a quarter, (of a building) a ...
/hebrew/3671.htm - 6k