May 2, 2010

  • Question 238 - How should we interpret 1 Chron 16:30?

    Dear Robert,

    For many months now I have been completely open to the fact that if Holy Scriptures teaches that the earth stands still, I will firmly believe that. It is only now that I have come to understand what the following verse truly means.

    1 Paralipomenon     16:30 "Let ALL the earth be MOVED at His presence: for he hath founded the world immoveable."

    Let all the PEOPLES of the earth be spiritually moved, that is let their hearts and minds be spiritually moved to the grace and presence of the Lord, because the Lord has found the PEOPLES of the earth stubborn in their hearts and minds.

    For example in Acts 17:5 the word MOVED denotes a movement in the soul, "But the Jews, MOVED with envy..."

    Movement of grace in souls is opposed to an immoveable (stubborn in heart) world as is denoted in: Psalms 94:8 "To day if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts"

    1 Paralipomenon 16:30 is not saying that PLANET earth stands still, but that the peoples of the earth are stubborn and immoveable in their hearts and minds.

    Sincerely in +JMJ,
    Roger

    R. Sungenis: Roger, I’m glad to hear that you are open to whether the Holy Scriptures teach that the earth does not move. That’s more than I can say for most Catholics. That being said, you need to remember that it is not only me who is saying that Scripture teaches geocentrism. This position was an absolute consensus among the Fathers and medievals, which was the very argument that St. Robert Bellarmine told to Galileo, and which he confirmed by citing the Council of Trent’s teaching that when the Father’s are in consensus we cannot deviate from them. This stance of Bellarmine’s was confirmed by Pius V’s Catechism which confirms geocentrism in four separate places; by Pope Paul V in 1616 and Pope Urban VIII in 1633, the latter confirming that heliocentrism was a “formal heresy.” So, when you venture to the position that Scripture does not teach geocentrism, you are moving against a great tide of Catholic witness, to say the least.

    Second, in order to confirm a position that Scripture does not teach geocentrism, you would have to tackle a lot more in Scripture than 1 Chronicles 16:30 (1 Paralipomenon 16:30). There are over two dozen passages that explicitly teach geocentrism. 1 Chronicles 16:30 is, unfortunately, one of the shortest, and this often lends itself to being abused and distorted.

    Third, in order to make any legitimate conclusions on 1 Chronicles 16:30, you will first have to do a much more thorough study of the words it uses and compare those findings to how these words are used in other similar contexts. This would require a knowledge of the Hebrew vocabulary and grammar. I cover all these aspects of the passage in my book, Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was Right, Volume 2.

    Before I copy and paste that section for your perusal, I’ll just make a few preliminary remarks:

    You wrote:

    "1 Paralipomenon 16:30 "Let ALL the earth be MOVED at His presence: for he hath founded the world immoveable." Let all the PEOPLES of the earth be spiritually moved, that is let their hearts and minds be spiritually moved to the grace and presence of the Lord, because the Lord has found the PEOPLES of the earth stubborn in their hearts and minds."

    Apparently, your interpretation is based on your assumption that “he hath founded the world immoveable” is speaking about the hearts of the people on earth that are hard-hearted. If that were the case, then why does the next verse speak of the heavens and the earth rejoicing? They certainly can’t be rejoicing over hard-heartedness.

    Second, there is nothing in the context that backs up your interpretation that “he hath founded the world immoveable” are referring to hard-heartedness. Beginning in verse 8 after the making of the text for the Ark, David makes a song of God’s exaltation which carries through to verse 36. The entire section is dealing with God’s great deeds and the salvation of Israel. There is nothing about hard-heartedness.

    I think the major reason for your misinterpretation is that you are interpreting the word “founded” as if God was searching the earth’s people and “found” them in some kind of disbelief. Although this idea may be true in other passages, that is not the message in 1 Chronicles 16:30. The word “founded” is the Hebrew KUN, which simply means “established.” It does not mean that God “found” something after he looked for it. You are simply confusing the word “found” (as in finding something) with the word “founded” (as in establishing something). They are two totally different concepts. If the verse had said “he hath found the world immoveable” you might have some credence to your idea, but it says “founded,” as in God doing something to the earth, not observing something in the earth.

    With that, allow me to give you the portion of Galileo Was Wrong that deals more in depth with 1 Chronicles 16:30:

    1Chronicles 16:30

    Tremble before him, all the earth; yea, the world stands firm, never to be moved.

            

    Psalm 93:1-2 

    1The Lord reigns; he is robed in majesty; the Lord is robed, he is girded with strength. Yea, the world is established; it shall never be moved.

    2thy throne is established from of old; thou art from everlasting.

    The point of these passages is to portray the Lord’s majesty and strength, as a king who wears his royal robes signifies that he reigns supreme over all the land and has subdued all his enemies. One specific display of the Lord’s power is that he has established the world so that it cannot move. Like the throne of a king that does not move unless by his order, so the world has been set and will not be moved.

    Although the comparison between the strength of God and the stability of the world is quite evident in the passage, there are very few options available regarding the meaning of the “establishment of the world” if one seeks to make a legitimate comparison to God. The world cannot refer to the political machinations of the nations, for they shift quite frequently. It could not refer to the whole universe, since if the universe were moved, to where would it move? The best way the Psalmist’s analogy can have its intended effect is if an object exists that is unmoved in the midst of all other objects that are moving. For example, if the Psalmist were referring to an unmoving Earth, then the image displayed by Ps 93:1 would be most accurate, for the Earth would be the only body at rest in the midst of a sea of moving bodies in the heavens. The Earth would be the only foundation point; the only immovable object, and thus the best example to picture of the immutability of God himself. More to the point is that Ps 93:2 adds that God’s throne is also “established.”[1] Logically, if his throne does not move then the world cannot move. The intended imagery would be identical to passages that call the Earth the “Lord’s footstool,” since footstools are understood to be at rest, not moving.[2]

    Some might object that the phrase “shall never be moved” could also be translated as “shall never be shaken.” If that is the case, then one could argue that a “shaking of the world” could have some political overtones. This might be true, except for the fact that the political systems of the world are inherently unstable, and thus they would not make a good comparison in displaying the strength and throne of God almighty. Conversely, the physical world, marked as it is by times and seasons that have been repeating themselves in exact precision for eons, is the only possible “world” that could be compared to the infinite stability of God.

    In actuality, if the proper translation were “shaken” rather than “moved,” this would only enhance the imagery of an immobile Earth, for this interpretation would require that the Earth be so firm in its position that it would not only be prohibited from rotating or revolving, but it would also be prohibited from shaking. As we learned in the science portion of this work, the Earth is held in space by the combined torque of the whole universe. To move the Earth would require that it overcome the combined torque of the universe. Consequently, we can see why this particular Hebrew word (mōht) for “move” or “shaken” was chosen, since it includes the Earth’s resistance to even the slightest outside movement.[3] If vibration occurs, it will occur within the internal structure of the Earth but not with respect to the Earth’s position in space. In fact, the reason earthquakes occur is that the internal movements within the Earth are rubbing against the external forces that are keeping the Earth immobile in space.

    The only other detail of Ps 93:1-2 regards the meaning and usage of the word “world.” As it stands, the Hebrew consistently uses the term in reference to the earth, not the universe at large.[4] Hence, it is the Earth alone that is kept immobile, not the universe.

    Psalm 96:9-11

    9Worship the Lord in holy array; tremble before him, all the earth!

    10Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns! Yea, the world is established, it shall never be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity.”

    11Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it;

    Here again the Hebrew ,wK kun and fwm mōht appear in tandem. Although it would be proper to interpret kun (“established”) and mōht (“moved”) as words conveying the idea that the Lord’s reign over the nations is such that it will be uninterrupted and always produce justice, the unavoidable dimension of this passage is that the Lord’s reign is being compared to the already known fact of the world’s immovability, and it is the Hebrew poetic form that brings these two dimensions into comparison. Without the poetic form, the passage could have simply stated: “The Lord’s reign is established and it shall never be moved, he will judge the people with equity,” and the salient point of the Psalmist would have been accomplished nonetheless. But within the poetic form, the Psalmist is drawing on facts he and other authors have stated elsewhere about the world’s establishment and immobility, such as Ps 104:5: “Thou didst set the Earth on its foundations, so that it should never be shaken” or 1Ch 16:30: “tremble before him, all the Earth; yea, the world stands firm, never to be moved.” In other words, he is using the scientific fact of the Earth’s motionlessness as the basis for the analogy as to why the Lord will always reign and judge with equanimity. Both states will always be true: (1) the Lord will reign with equity, and (2) the world will never move. One verifies and supports the other. If one fails, the other fails also.

    We can imagine how difficult it would have been for the Psalmist to prove his point if, indeed, the world was constantly moving through space. If it were a fact that the Earth was moving, the Pslamist would, instead, have had to make a comparison between the stability of the Earth’s orbit and the stability of the Lord’s reign. In actuality, however, he cannot do so, because previously he had made a comparison between the stability of the Lord’s reign and the orbit of the sun (e.g., Ps 19:4-14), and thus it would not be permissible now to compare the Lord’s reign to the orbit of the Earth, since obviously both the sun and the Earth cannot be orbiting around each other.[5]

    On a theoretical basis, one might object that since the Psalmist regards the sun as orbiting the Earth he could just have easily regarded the Earth as orbiting the sun, since both systems are equivalent, geometrically speaking. But although the geometrical reciprocity between the two celestial models is true, the Psalmist is working from a perspective of propositional truth that will only allow him to appeal to the actual celestial model and force him to discount its geometric or mathematical equivalent. That is, since the Psalmist’s major point concerns the eternal stability of God’s reign, he can only communicate that important truth analogously if he knows which celestial model is actually true, the heliocentric or the geocentric. Any false information will necessarily negate his analogy.

    To say it another way, although one could argue that from a relativistic perspective the Psalmist has the option of using the stability of an orbiting Earth as the analog to the Lord’s stable reign, the fact remains that he, in the general scope of his Psalmic writings, chooses an immobile Earth (Ps 96:10) and a moving sun (Ps 104:4-6). This choice is significant, since in order to make the analogy he is proposing valid, the Psalmist must base it on an incontrovertible scientific fact. If he chooses the wrong celestial model, his very purpose in creating the analogy is defeated, for the Lord’s reign cannot be compared to something fictitious. Either the Earth is fixed and the sun moves around it, or the sun is fixed and the Earth moves around it. Both cannot be true, and the Psalmist must adopt the correct one in order for his analogy to be genuine.

    In retrospect, we can see why the Psalmist does not state cosmological truths as mere brute facts. Rather, to make the strongest argument, he purposely compares the immobility of the Earth to the unshakable reign of the Lord, since in serving as witnesses to one another, both must be absolutely true, or, consequently, both are absolutely false. Similar to instances in which God swears to Himself because he can find no one greater to serve as a witness (cf. Hb 6:13-18), so here in the Psalms we have the Lord comparing his unflappable divine justice to a divinely-set immovable object.

    Some might object, however, that passages such as Ps 82:5 (“They have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken”) contradict the above conclusion that the Earth does not shake. A careful comparison, however, will show that Ps 82:5 specifies that the “foundations” of the Earth, not the Earth itself, are shaken, while Ps 96:10 says that the world, in its totality, will not be shaken or moved.[6] As noted earlier, the “foundations” of the Earth are part of the inner structure of the Earth which lie beneath its surface. The foundations may shake but they will not move the Earth itself out of the position in space God has given it.

    Psalm 75:2-4

    2At the set time which I appoint I will judge with equity.

    3When the earth totters, and all its inhabitants, it is I who keep steady its pillars. Selah

    4I say to the boastful, “Do not boast,” and to the wicked, “Do not lift up your horn.”

    Here the “tottering” refers to the Earth’s land mass, not the Earth’s position in space. Although the land mass may totter, and perhaps even vibrate its pillars, ultimately God holds the pillars in position and the Earth’s surface remains firm. The Hebrew word for “totters” is gwm (moog), which refers mostly to “melting” or some kind of structural weakening.[7] Similar to all the other Psalms that speak in this same way, the movement attributed to the Earth refers to its internal structure, not its spatial position in the cosmos.     

    Psalm 104:5, 19

    5Thou didst set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be shaken.

    19Thou hast made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows its time for setting.

    This Psalm makes an important distinction from the other Psalms that speak of the foundations of the Earth shaking, particularly Ps 82:5 (“They have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken”). Ps 104:5 is very similar to Ps 96:10: “Yea, the world is established, it shall never be moved,” since both passages are speaking about the Earth’s position in space. The word for “foundations” in Ps 104:5 is not the normal word used for “foundations of the Earth,” but the Hebrew ,Wkm (mahchon), which refers to a fixed place.[8] As such, it is referring to the fact that the Earth is positioned in its spatial foundation (e.g., Jb 26:7: “he…hangs the Earth upon nothing”) from which it cannot be moved or shaken. Additionally, in contrast to the Earth’s spatial immobility, the Psalmist speaks in vr. 19 of both the moon and the sun moving in space to accomplish their particular tasks.

    Psalm 119:89-91

    89For ever, O Lord, thy word is firmly fixed in the heavens.

    90Thy faithfulness endures to all generations; thou hast established the earth, and it stands fast.

    91By thy appointment they stand this day; for all things are thy servants.

    There are several interesting features to this passage. First, the phrase “stands fast” is from the Hebrew dme (amad), the same word appearing in Joshua 10:12-13 in reference to the sun and moon that temporarily had no spatial movement in the sky. But here in Psalm 119 it is applied to the Earth that is always without movement. It does not refer merely to the existence of the Earth, since the preponderant usage of amad in Hebrew refers to the lack of motion or the deliberate cessation of motion.[9] Amad is also the word behind the phrase “they stand” in vr. 91, although it is in the plural since it is referring to both “all generations” and the “Earth.” By the same token, the Psalmist is careful not to imply that the “heavens” themselves stand fast like the Earth; rather, the heavens are merely an indication of the general steadfastness of the Lord’s word.[10] As was the case in Ps 96:9-11, the Psalmist is comparing the very character of God to the scientific fact of the Earth’s motionlessness. One fact supports the other. 

     

    [1] Ps 93:1 and 93:2 use the same Hebrew word for “established,” the word ,wK (kun), which appears over a hundred times in the Old Testament in most of the Hebrew tenses. In vr. 1 it is utilized in the Niphal imperfect and in vr. 2 in the Niphal participle, which is the simplest of the passive tenses. Although kun includes the concept of an original founding date (e.g., “the building was established in 1955”), it also includes the concept of stability and longevity (e.g., “the rock of Gibraltar was established”). Kun also refers to rest or immobility (Jg 16:26: “and Samson said to the lad who held him by the hand, ‘Let me feel the pillars on which the house rests’”; 16:29: “And Samson grasped the two middle pillars upon which the house rested”; Er 3:3: “They set the altar in its place”).

     

    [2] Is 66:1; Mt 5:35. In all of these passages the notion of “rest” for the Lord’s footstool is emphasized: Is 66:1: “Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool; what is the house which you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest?”; 1Ch 28:2: “I had it in my heart to build a house of rest for the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and for the footstool of our God”; Ps 132:7-8: “Let us go to his dwelling place; let us worship at his footstool! Arise, O Lord, and go to thy resting place, thou and the ark of thy might” (see also Ac 7:49). “Rest,” of course, refers to motionlessness, which is appropriate in the Earth’s case only if it is not moving through space.

     

    [3] Hebrew: fwm (mōht) appears 39 times in the Old Testament, 20 in the Psalms. The Qal form appears 13 times, 23 times in the Niphal, and one each in the Hiphil and Hithpael. It can refer to things as simple as slipping with the foot (Dt 32:35; Ps 17:5; 38:16-17) to moving the earth (Ps 82:5; Is 24:19). Mōht, in the physical sense, refers to the transition from a state of rest to a state of movement; in the figurative sense, from a state of stability to a state of instability. Of all the words in Hebrew referring to movement (e.g., ;pj, ;rj, ddn, ewn, qwp, [jr, et al) fwm (mōht) is used when any, even the slightest movement, is in view. Hence, it can refer to a shaking or vibration as well as a change of location.

     

    [4] Hebrew: lbt (tebel) appears 38 times in the Old Testament. It is often a poetic synonym of ;ra (erets) referring to the “earth” (e.g., 1Sm 2:8; Ps 33:8; 77:18; 90:2; Is 34:1; Lm 4:12), but in non-poetic contexts it sometimes has a larger focus than the physical world and may include the more abstract notions associated with existence, such as the totality of human consciousness (e.g., Is 24:4; 26:9). In the non-poetic passages that tebel is used without erets, tebel always refers to the earth or that which is inhabited by mankind (e.g., 2Sm 22:16; Is 13:11; 14:17, 21; 18:3), not to the universe at large.

     

    [5] Moreover, mutual orbiting around a common center of mass will also not satisfy the Psalmist since in that case neither the sun revolves around the Earth nor the Earth revolves around the sun.

    [6] The same emphasis on the “foundations” is noted in the following passages: Ps 18:7: “Then the earth reeled and rocked; the foundations also of the mountains trembled and quaked, because he was angry.” Similar rationale can be applied to Ps 46:2; 60:2; 68:8; 97:4; 99:1; 104:32.

     

    [7] Hebrew gwm (moog), appears 17 times in the Old Testament, mostly as “melt” (e.g., Ex 15:15; Ps 46:6; Am 9:5), sometimes “faint” (e.g., Js 2:9; Jr 49:23). Ps 75:3 is in the Niphal participle (“when the Earth and its inhabitants are melting…”).

     

    [8] Hebrew ,Wkm (mahchon) appears 17 times in the Old  Testament, and refers to a settled and immovable place. In 16 of the references it refers to God’s dwelling place that is impenetrable and immovable (e.g., Ex 15:17; 1Kg 8:13, 39, 43, 49; 2Ch 6:2, 30, 33, 39; Er 2:68; Ps 33:14; 89:14; 97:2; Is 4:5; 18:4). The only time God’s “place” is moved is in the apostasy (Dn 8:11). The word ,Wkm is applied to the Earth once (Ps 104:5), which states that the Earth is set into its ,Wkm, from which it cannot be shaken or moved. A similar word is hnWkm, the feminine form of ,Wkm, which appears 24 times and is normally translated as “stands” or “base” (1Kg 7:27-43).

     

    [9] Hebrew dme (amad) appears over 500 times in the Old Testament, usually denoting the conscious decision of the individual to cease motion and remain in a certain position (e.g., Gn 19:27; 41:46; 2Ch 34:31).

     

    [10] The RSV’s “firmly fixed” in Ps 119:89 is the Hebrew bxn (nahtzab), a frequently used word in the Old Testament referring to something built or erected with firmness or authority.