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Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 9, 1858

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 13, No. 3.

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Generation.

By O. Nichols

A GENERATION denotes a particular class of people that have arrived at an age to know between good and evil, at the commencement of a certain period, and who are connected with the history of the events of that period. The children of Israel that came out of Egypt are an example. "Surely there shall not one of those men of this evil generation see that good land, save Caleb and Joshua; they shall go in hither. And the Lord made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until all that generation that had done evil in the sight of the Lord was consumed."
"Moreover your little ones, and your children, which in that day had no knowledge between good and evil, they shall go in hither, and unto them will I give it, and they shall possess it." Deut. i, 35-39; Num. xxxii, 13; Heb. iii, 10.
The next generation that succeeded, were their "little ones, and their children which in that day" they came out of Egypt, "had no knowledge between good and evil." They entered into the possession of Canaan with Caleb and Joshua. "The elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the works of the Lord that he did for Israel," were a remnant of this second generation.
"And also all that generation were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which he did." Judges ii, 6-10.
Here are three successive generations of Israel named, and probably Caleb and Joshua, the remnant of the first generation, lived to see the children of the third generation.
"One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh." Eccl. i, 4.
In every successive period of about twenty-five years, another generation arises and takes the place of its predecessor; but the preceding generation does not all pass away at the end of the first period; a remnant of the aged will remain until after the third generation has arisen. In every period there are three generations—a remnant of the aged, and their successors, and the younger, or third generation. The definition of "pass away," is "to vanish, to disappear. In this sense we usually say pass away, to die; to depart from life." Webster—definition of pass. v. i.
O. NICHOLS.
Dorchester, Mass.