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hear not” (Jer. 5:21). After the Exile, the people of God were to experience a spiritual
awakening and new sensitivity to God’s Word which, in the words of Isaiah, is to be
compared to the opening of the “ears” (Isa. 50:5).
The
KJV
gives these renderings: “ear; audience; hearing.”
EARTH
(
0
, 776), “earth; land.” This is one of the most common Hebrew nouns,
occurring more than 2,500 times in the Old Testament. It expresses a world view contrary
to ancient myths, as well as many modern theories seeking to explain the origin of the
universe and the forces which sustain it.
,
may be translated “earth,” the temporal scene of human activity, experience,
and history. The material world had a beginning when God “made the earth by His
power,” “formed it,” and “spread it out” (Isa. 40:28; 42:5; 45:12, 18; Jer. 27:5; 51:15).
Because He did so, it follows that “the earth is the Lord’s” (Ps. 24:1; Deut. 10:1; Exod.
9:29; Neh. 9:6). No part of it is independent of Him, for “the very ends of the earth are
His possession,” including “the mountains,” “the seas,” “the dry land,” “the depths of the
earth” (Ps. 2:8; 95:4-5; Amos 4:13; Jonah 1:9). God formed the earth to be inhabited (Isa.
45:18). Having “authority over the earth” by virture of being its Maker, He decreed to
“let the earth sprout vegetation: of every kind” (Job 34:13; Gen. 1:11). It was never to
stop its productivity, for “while the earth stands, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat,
and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease” (Gen. 8:22). “The earth is full
of God’s riches” and mankind can “multiply and fill the earth and subdue it” (Ps. 104:24;
Gen. 1:28; 9:1). Let no one think that the earth is an independentself-contained
mechanism, for “the Lord reigns” as He “sits on the vault of the earth” from where “He
sends rain on the earth” (Ps. 97:1; Isa. 40:22; 1 Kings 17:14; Ps. 104:4).
As “the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the earth,” He sees that “there is
not a just man on earth” (Eccl. 7:20). At an early stage, God endeavored to “blot out man
… from the face of the earth” (Gen. 6:5-7). Though He relented and promised to “destroy
never again all flesh on the earth,” we can be sure that “He is coming to judge the earth”
(Gen. 7:16f.; Ps. 96:13). At that time, “the earth shall be completely laid waste” so that
“the exalted people of the earth fade away” (Jer. 10:10; Joel 2:10; Isa. 33:3-6; Ps. 75:8).
But He also provides a way of escape for all who heed His promise: “Turn to me and be
saved, all the ends of the earth” (Isa. 45:22).
What the Creator formed “in the beginning” is also to have an end, for He will “create
a new heaven and a new earth” (Isa. 65:17; 66:22).
The Hebrew word
also occurs frequently in the phrase “heaven and earth” or
“earth and heaven.” In other words, the Scriptures teach that our terrestrial planet is a part
of an all-embracing cosmological framework which we call the universe. Not the result of
accident or innate forces, the unfathomed reaches of space and its uncounted components
owe their origin to the Lord “who made heaven and earth” (Ps. 121:2; 124:8; 134:3).
Because God is “the possessor of heaven and earth,” the whole universe is to
reverberate in the praise of His glory, which is “above heaven and earth” (Gen. 14:19, 22;
Ps. 148:13). “Shout, O heavens and rejoice, O earth”: “let the heavens be glad and let the
earth rejoice” (Ps. 49:13; 96:11). Such adoration is always appropriate, for “whatever the
Lord pleases, He does in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deeps” (Ps. 135:6).