From the Greek Septuagint text as was used by First Century Christians

Chapter 1

¹ This is the vision of ObadiJah.

 Jehovah God said to Edom (I heard this report from Jehovah, and it’s a summary of what He sent to the nations)… He said, ‘Get up and rise against her in battle!

² ‘Behold, I’ve made you few ‘mong the nations, and much disgrace I have brought upon you. ³ For, you have made your hearts proud, by camping high among cracks in the rocks, and you say in your hearts, Who can bring me down to the ground?

⁴ ‘But if you should fly as high as an eagle, and put your nest high among stars, from there I’ll lead you down,’ says Jehovah.

⁵ ‘If thieves were to enter among you, or robbers were to come during the night, [how many things] would you lose? Would they not steal just the things [they desire]? And if those who [steal] grapes came among you, would they not leave you a gleaning?

⁶ ‘O how Esau’s things will be searched through, and how the things he hides will be lost. ⁷ For, to your borders they’ll drive you, where your allies will fight you and win… men of peace will set [traps] against you, and they won’t understand what they’ve done.

⁸ ‘So, in that day,’ says Jehovah, ‘I will destroy all the wise [men] of Edom, and from the mountains of Esau, all understanding will be gone. ⁹ Your warriors from Teman will know terror, and from the mountains of Esau, all the men will be taken.

¹⁰ ‘Because you’ve been so defiant, and brought slaughter against Jacob your brother, with shame I will cover you over, and you’ll be removed through the age. ¹¹ For, from the day that you faced and opposed them, to the day that strangers captured his army, and foreigners entered his gates, then over Jerusalem’s spoils they cast lots, you were as one among them.

¹² ‘You shouldn’t have [sneered at] your brother, during the day when strangers came… over the [fall] of of Judah’s sons, you should’t have rejoiced at their destruction… you shouldn’t have gloated in their day of affliction. ¹³ You shouldn’t have entered the gates of their people, in the day of their misery; and especially you should not have looked, upon their gathering in the day of their ruin, nor should you have joined an attack on their [men], in their day of destruction.

¹⁴ ‘You shouldn’t have stood in their mountain passes, to destroy those escaping through them, nor should you have locked up those who had fled, in their day of affliction. ¹⁵ For, the day of the Lord is near for all nations. And the things that you’ve done, are the things that they’ll do to you… what you did will come upon your own head. ¹⁶ And the way you drank wine upon My Holy Mountain, is the same way the nations will drink wine from you. For, they will swallow you down, and it’ll be as though you never were.

¹⁷ ‘But salvation will come to Mount Zion, and a Holy Place will be there again. Then the house of Jacob will inherit, all those who’ve inherited them. ¹⁸ For, though there’ll be fire within Jacob’s house, and flames in the house of Joseph, the house of Esau will be just like stubble, and among them fire will burn and consume… for Esau’s house there’ll be no wheat harvest, for I, Jehovah, have spoken.

¹⁹ ‘Then the Mountains of Esau will be, inherited by those who live in the Negev, and by those in the Philistine Shephela… the mountains of EphraIm they’ll inherit, along with Samaria and Benjamin’s plains, and the whole land of Gilead.

²⁰ ‘Then the sons of Israel who then return, will inherit CanaAn’s land to ZarEphath. And those of Jerusalem who return, will inherit Negev’s cities to EphRatha. ²¹ While those from Mount Zion who are rescued, will go to take vengeance on the mountains of Esau, and their kingdom will belong to Jehovah.’

Notes

Why the Name Changes?

You have likely noticed that we are putting some of the letters in Bible names in capital letters. For example, we’ve started spelling such names as Jonathan as JoNathan, Isaiah as IsaiJah, and Eliezer as EliEzer. Why? Well, partly to help with the correct pronunciations of the names, and partly to show some translating consistency.

We all know that the common English pronunciation of Jonathan (for example) is Jon-uh-thun. But did you know that the first part of the name (Io in Greek, Ieho in Hebrew) refers to the name Jehovah, and the second part of the Name (Nathan) means Gift? So, the name was originally pronounced closer to Ye-hoh-nuh-thahn.

In the case of names that end with an iah, as in Isaiah, the last part of the name often includes the name of God. Isaiah, for example, means Salvation [of] Jehovah, and it was originally pronounced Ee-sai-Yah. So, why have we substituted a capital ‘J’ for the letters ‘ie’ in both of the above cases? Well, we recognize that there is an inconsistency here, because there was no letter ‘J’ in Hebrew or Greek alphabets. However, we have the choice of changing all names that start with ‘J’ (such as Jesus, John, Jonah, Joshua, Jeremiah, etc.) to start with the letters ‘Ie’, or for consistency, we can change all the ‘Ies’ into ‘Js’, which is what we have done. Realize that several other Hebrew consonants are commonly mispronounced in English, which no one objects to, so this minor deviation should not be objectionable to the thinking.

Does this mean then that we are setting out a new rule for name spelling? Absolutely not, for centuries ago, a Bible translator first established this rule when he spelled the name Eliou (Greek spelling, pronounced ay-lee-ou) and wrote it as EliJah, because this name is regarded as meaning ‘My God is Jehovah.’

Also notice that where a name ends with an iah, as in Jeremiah (Jehovah exalts), we have often spelled it as iJah, because the I would typically be pronounced as a long E, followed by a Y in Hebrew, and writing it without the I (as in JeremJah) misses this nuance. So, we have rendered it as JeremiJah, which is similar to the way it is often pronounced by modern-day Hebrew-speaking Jews, YeremiYah.

Another important word in names that we usually capitalize is ‘El’ (from the Hebrew Elohe, or God). So EliEzer (which people commonly pronounce Eelai-eezer and means God [has] Helped) should actually be pronounced El-ee-eh-zer. The same is true for the letters Ai, especially in the names of cities, because Ai in Hebrew refers to the word city. So, AiLam (for example) probably meant the City of Lam.

Similar words, such as Bel (as in BelShazzar), Baal, and Beel, refer to ‘the Lord’ or ‘the God.’ Also, the prefixes ‘Ben’ and ‘Bar’ mean ‘the son of.’ ‘Beth’ means ‘the house of,’ ‘Beer’ refers to a ‘well,’ ‘Is’ or ‘Ish’ means ‘Man,’ etc.

Does this mean that we have put all the capitals in the right places? No, for we make no claim to Hebrew scholarship (all our translating here has been from Greek). So, what we are trying to do is provide a better understanding to how these names were pronounced by First-Century Christians.

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Age, Eternal, Perpetual, Everlasting, Immortal, or Forever?

Two words imply infinite states in the Bible; one is the Greek word athanasia (undying), which is only found in two places, 1 Corinthians 15:53, where it mentions resurrected ones as clothing themselves with immortality, and at 1 Timothy 6:16, where Paul speaks of Jesus as having received it. The other Greek word is aidios, which is used at Romans 1:20 to describe God’s Power and Might as eternal, and at Jude 6 when speaking of the perpetual state of gloomy darkness that rebellious angels have been confined to.

However, the Greek word aionos (pronounced ai-on-oss), which is used throughout the Bible and is often translated as forever and everlasting, is what the English word eon is derived from. It means an indefinite period, and there is no exact English word to translate it. The best equivalents are age(s) or era(s).

Where the plural form of the word (aionion) is used, it refers to a long time… at least multiple generations. However, where the singular form is used (aionos), this appears to mean a much shorter period, such as a lifetime, generation, or era. And where the term ages of the ages is used (such as at Ephesians 3:21), which is usually said in reference to The God, we would assume that this truly means forever.

It is noteworthy that aionos is the word that is used in the Greek Septuagint in place of the Hebrew word ohlam, which is also translated as forever and time indefinite in popular versions of the Ancient Scriptures of Israel. So, this one word (aionos) is translated as forever, everlasting, eternal, system of things, time indefinite, [end of] the world, long ago, from of old, etc. Obviously, something is very wrong here, because the word can’t mean a period having a definite end in one place and infinity in another.

Take for example, the unique way that aionos is used in the question that Jesus’ Apostles asked him, which is found at Matthew 24:3: ‘Tell us; When will these things happen… what will be the signs when you are to arrive and this age will come to its conclusion?’ You can see that the word aionos obviously doesn’t mean forever, everlasting, or eternal in this case, nor did it mean world or system of things. It simply meant the age or, the time before the end would come. And for them, that meant the age when God’s Temple at Jerusalem would be destroyed, because that’s what Jesus had just told them.

The word aionos (which we have translated as age here) is also translated as world (KJ) and as system of things (NW) in other Bibles. However, if the Apostles had meant any of those words, they would have used the Greek word cosmos (world or system of things), not aionos.

The ancient Hebrews viewed everything (and rightly so) as having a beginning and an end. For that reason, you will only find three places in the Bible where words are used that imply no end, and none that imply no beginning. An interesting possible insight on the reason for this can be found at Hebrews 1:10-12, which says: ‘Long ago, O Lord, you laid the foundation of the earth and your hands made the heavens. They will destroy themselves, but you will remain. They will grow old just like clothes do. Then, as [you would do to] a robe, you will wrap them up and repair them like clothes. Yes, you are the one, and your years will never expire.’

So, notice; The Bible shows that even our universe will eventually end and need to be ‘wrapped up and repaired,’ which agrees with the conclusions of modern science.

The problem with most Bible translations is that; when they encounter the word aionos in all its different tenses, they interpret it according to accepted doctrine, not according to the way that Jesus and his disciples used it. So, the common renderings forever, eternal, and everlasting are used even when the word is in its singular forms (aioni, aiona, aionos, aionion, aionian, aionios, aioniou), and this totally distorts the meaning of the text.

Take for example, the scripture at John 5:24, where Jesus said, ‘I tell you the truth; He who hears what I say and believes in the One that sent me, will have life in this age… he won’t have to be judged, for he has crossed over from death to life!’

Most Bibles translate Jesus as saying that those who believe in the One who sent him will have everlasting life (or the equivalent). However, the words that Jesus used there were, zoe aionos (life age – singular), not zoe aionion (life ages – plural).

Notice how Jesus explained the meaning of these words with his next statement, ‘He won’t have to be judged, for has crossed over from death to life.’

So, what Jesus was saying here, wasn’t that they would have everlasting life, but that they in their current lifetime would be considered among the living, not among the dead (see Revelation 20:12).

This doesn’t necessarily mean that they won’t live forever… it’s just that Jesus wasn’t really saying that. What we find (from consideration of the evidence found in the bulk of Jesus’ words about life) is that he never taught the hope of ‘life eternal,’ ‘everlasting life,’ or ‘immortality,’ in those specific words. However, the concept is still there. What he taught was that righteous people will receive ‘life in the age,’ or be considered worthy of (possibly everlasting) life by God during their current lifetimes… that their names would be written in ‘the scroll of life,’ and that they would not have to be judged, but will have already ‘crossed over from death to life,’ as Jesus said at John 5:24.

Yes, we know that this is a difficult concept to understand, but it’s what Jesus actually said.

For more information, select the linked documents, The Hereafter and Does the Bible Promise Everlasting Life?

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