Earth - World | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Apr 26, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 16.

Earth — World

SERIOUS errors often result from a misunderstanding of the Bible use of the above terms. Let us endeavor to make them clear to our readers.

In the Old Testament, the word "earth" comes from two different words, erets, and adamah; the first from a root meaning firm, and from that referring to earth, land, ground, and by extension, the people who inhabit the earth. For examples of its use see Gen. 1:1; Ps. 104:5, 9; Isa. 45:18; Ps. 96:1. The second Hebrew word is from the same root as "Adam." It means ground, land, earth.

In the New Testament the word "earth" comes from ge, meaning soil; by extension, land, country, earth; equivalent to the Old Testament erets. See Acts 14:15; 17:24, 26; Rev. 21:1.

"World" in the Old Testament comes (1) from erets as noted above (See Isa. 23:17); (2) from holam, a period of time hidden or veiled in beginning or ending; sometimes eternity; (3) from tebel, the earth as inhabited, or a part of it, and by implication, its inhabitants; (4) from cheled, from a root meaning to fly swiftly, temporary, transitory. Ps. 17:14.

"World" in the New Testament comes from three words largely: (1) Kosmos, orderly arrangement, beauty, as opposed to chaos; the world in a wide or narrow sense including its inhabitants. See Matt. 4:8; 25:34; 2 Peter 3:6, and many other passages. (2) Oikoumene, meaning land, earth, globe, including the people. Heb. 1:6; Rev. 12:9. (3) Aion, which means age, course; sometimes eternity; parallel to Hebrew holam. Matt. 13:39; 28:20; Heb. 1:2; 11:3 are instances of its use.

The Scriptures do not teach that the earth will pass away. In fact we are told emphatically, "The earth abideth forever" (Eccl. 1:4); that God made it "not in vain," but "formed it to be inhabited," and His purpose can not be thwarted. Isa. 45:18. But the world, the present condition of things, the cosmos that now is, will pass away. The age will give way to another, but the earth will come forth in that glorious coming age beyond the millennium transformed by the power of God, a new heaven and a new earth. So that the world in the sense of age will come to an end. These thoughts may help us in the understanding of the expression "the end of the world."