July 12

The Pillars of the Earth

1 Samuel 2:8

In Hannah’s song of gladness and thanksgiving, we meet with one expression which is calculated to bring some readers to a pause—

“The pillars of the earth are the Lord’s,
And he hath set the world upon them.”

There are many similar expressions in Scripture, which, however interpreted, certainly do not agree with that form and condition which is known, through the discoveries of modern science, to belong to the earth. The truth of this matter seems to be, that since the object of the sacred writers was not to teach natural science, they were left in all such concerns to express themselves according to the prevalent notions of their time and country. Had they done otherwise, they would not have been intelligible without such explanations, and such elaborate circumvallations of every phrase with elucidatory matter, as would have confused the meaning of their utterances, and rendered them a weariness to the mind. Under the teachings of the Holy Spirit, they were led in all things to set forth the Lord as the creator, sustainer, and governor of the universe; but in other respects they expressed themselves according to the prevailing ideas of the times in which they lived; and from their expressions, it is quite possible to collect what those ideas were, and even to detect some variation in them in the progress of time; and it is always interesting to trace the alterations of notions and usages which occur in the course of ages. It is indeed too much our habit to look upon the Bible without regard to the fact, that it covers a period historically of four thousand years, and in composition of two thousand. If we take the latter period only, and reflect upon the great differences of language, usage, and civilization which have occurred in every known country within the nearly equal period since the birth of Christ—we may from the analogy reasonably expect to find very considerable variations in regard to external matters, and to the ideas of external things, between the earlier and later books of Scripture. It is true, and it has often been said, that certain ideas and customs have a somewhat stereotyped character in the East. Yet, nevertheless, certain changes must have arisen, and may be traced in the most fixed of nations; and, while making large allowance for the alleged permanency of eastern ideas, we may surely concede for two thousand years in the East, as much change as for a fourth of that period in the West. Yet it is probable that few read the Bible with any consciousness of the probability that the manners and ideas of the later scriptural period may have been as different from those of the earlier, as our own manners and ideas are different from those which prevailed in the time of the Plantagenets.

The earth is usually represented by the sacred writers as a vast and widely extended body, environed on all sides by the ocean, and resting upon the waters. But the earlier idea presented to us in the book of Job, seems to represent the earth as sustained floating in the air—or rather, perhaps, in empty space, by an omnipotent and invisible power. It is difficult to see what other signification to affix to the text to which we refer—Job 26:7, “He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, Note: The void—Hebrew, tohu. and hangeth the earth upon nothing,”—a much finer and truer idea than is to be found in the gross cosmographies of the remote East, in which sundry coarse material supports are provided for the earth.

Hindu Cosmological System of the Universe

In the Hindu cosmical system of the universe, the three, or as more minutely subdivided, the twenty-one worlds, of this system, are sustained by a tortoise, the symbol of strength and conservative power, which itself rests upon the great serpent, the emblem of eternity, which embraces the whole within the circle formed by its body. These worlds form three grand regions, each subdivided into seven spheres, zones, or countries, which are supposed to be arranged spirally, or in concentric circles. The upper region is composed of the seven Swargas or Lokas, which are at the same time the domiciles of the seven planets, and the residence of the gods. Below this is the earth, divided into seven isles, separated by different seas. Below, upon the back of the tortoise, is the lower region, or hell, in its seven Patalas. Three, sometimes four elephants, standing upon the tortoise, sustain the earth, and eight elephants, standing upon the earth, uphold the heavens. Mount Meru is supposed to traverse and unite the three worlds, and it is upon its topmost summit, in the most elevated of the spheres, that we behold the radiated triangle—the symbol of the Yoni and of the creation.

The highly poetical and figurative language of the book of Job, may however leave us in some doubt how far the notion there exhibited is to be regarded as the expression of a current theory or fixed opinion. It is indeed certain, that the passages which disclose the other view are not only far more numerous, but much more distinct. So the Psalmist calls upon the Lord, “that stretched out the earth above the waters.” Note: Psalms 136:6. There are passages which appear to assign to the earth even a more substantial basis than the water. In Job himself, this notion may be detected—“Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who hath laid the foundations thereof?” Note: Job 38:4-6. And so Isaiah—“Hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in.” Note: Isaiah 40:22. It is quite clear that, in these passages, the earth is compared to a building, whose foundations are deep and immovable. It is under this idea, and with reference to a building clearly that Hannah speaks of “the pillars of the earth.” To the same essential purport are the words of Solomon, who, in Proverbs 8:29, represents Divine Wisdom as saying—“When he appointed the foundations of the earth, then I was by him;” and also those of Jeremiah 31:37—“If heaven can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel.”

In such passages as these, the waters, on which the earth is supposed to rest, do not immediately appear. But the subsistence of this idea as to the lowermost waters, is in all evinced by the fact, that when the sacred writers describe some great convulsion of nature, such as an earthquake, they in their accumulated images of terror, speak not only of the mountains being rent, and the foundations of the earth being shaken, but of the lower waters being disclosed by the broken. earth. So the Psalmist: “The earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken. Then the channels of the waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered.” Note: Psalms 18:7; Psalms 18:16. Finally, the prophet Jonah is very clear for the opinion of the earth being above the waters; for in expressing his condition when entombed in the body of the fish, he very poetically supposes that he had gone down to these lowermost waters, where the earth lay over his head. “I went down,” he says, “to the bottoms of the mountains: the earth with her bars was about me forever.” Note: Jonah 2:6. He was, as it were, shut down in the lower mass of waters, by the floating earth, without the hope that he should ever rise again. In fact it would seem that the popular cosmological ideas of the Jews bore considerable resemblance to that which still subsists among the Persians, who hold that the earth floats in the water, like a melon Note: Hindoùâny, a species of Indian melon, otherwise called kharboùuzeh hindy. See Chardin’s Description de la Perse, iv, 448, and Langies note. in a round pool. This was also not very dissimilar from the view of some of the old Gentile philosophers, and it was likewise entertained by the ancient Christians, by whom it was probably founded on the scriptural intimations. Under such views, it could not of course be supposed that there were any antipodes; and as only the upper surface, that above the water, could be habitable, it follows that the inhabited parts of the earth were of very limited extent compared with the fact, which allows the entire land surface of the globular earth to be habitable. Even if the world had been supposed round, only the part of it rising out of the water could under this view be inhabited. The earth, under this system, was no other than an extended level surface, except for the inequalities occasioned by the mountains. The Israelites do not, however, appear, to have supposed that it was round. In the Hebrew the earth is never called a ball, nor by any name corresponding to those employed by the Latin orbis and globus—the word (thebel) rendered orbis in Latin versions of the Scripture, means simply the world as it exists, and in particular the habitable world. There are, contrarily, passages which distinctly describe the earth as extended or stretched out upon the surface of the waters. Thus in Isaiah 42:5 : “He that created the heavens and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh forth of it.” And, again, the Psalmist: “Him that stretched forth the earth above the waters.” Psalms 136:6. In both these texts the word rendered “stretched” is the same, or rather from the same root as that rendered in other places “firmament,” or more properly “an expansion,” as applied to the visible heavens above—showing the analogy of ideas under which the term is in both respects used. This upper firmament is regarded as a sort of dyke against the waters above, to prevent them from falling upon the earth; and so the lower expansion, the earth, keeps down the waters on which it lies, and prevents them from breaking forth and reducing the world to its ancient chaos.

It is doubtful whether any distinct figure were, under these impressions, assigned to the earth. Some have supposed that it is described as being square, seeing that God is said to gather his elect from “the four corners” of the earth, Matthew 24:31; or “from the four winds,” Revelation 7:1; Revelation 20:8; and in the glorious prediction of the Messiah’s dominion over all the world, it is said, “He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth,” Psalms 72:8. We cannot however build too much on this: but it is certain that the ancient heathen geographers supposed the habitable earth to be more long than broad; and that its extent was greatest from east to west, and least from north to south.