For example, we can see the similar usage in the Hebrew text of Psalms 103:17 and of Micah 5:2. However, in the case of Psalm 103:17 we find an interesting twist to the text that shows that this text is by no means speaking literally or eternity. That passage, when red conjointly with verse 18, clearly states the following:
But the
mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear
him, and his righteousness unto children’s children. To such as keep his
covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them.
Here is the rub. The created children and children’s children
are not eternal, so far as to their physical existence on earth are concerned.
Those who fear the LORD also are not eternal in the sense that Evangelicals and
other critics say the word indicates when used to speak of the God of the
Bible. So, if we have mercy needed by created beings, that mercy cannot be
truly said to have existed from eternity. We know that they had beginnings as
organized beings. The same kind of thing can be seen in the passage at Micah
5:2, for in that passage its text in various translations clearly states that
the origins of the Messiah have been “from everlasting.” Now, it yet is true
that the King James Version of the Bible (and a number of others), have
rendered it as “goings forth” but the word there actually makes reference to origins
or to points of origination . . . .
If we turn to the Hebrew text of Jeremiah 7:7, we see yet
another passage that has a phrase very similar to that found in the ninetieth
Psalm, only therein it refers to God causing the children of Israel, to dwell
in the land that he gave to their fathers. The King James Version translates
that as “for ever and ever” whereas the phrase actually represents meaning like
that in Psalm 90:2. Yet we know that both the people and the land itself had
beginnings! Looking over Jeremiah 25:5 we find the identical phrasing and
meaning to that at Jeremiah 7:7. Again therein, Israel’s fathers and the land
itself both also had beginnings, or origins, at the time of their creation.
At Jeremiah 28:8, we find a phrase that literally translated
might be rendered “from the eternity” but the passage speaks of prophets
prophesying, which we know had a beginning—at least here on earth. At Psalm
93:2 we find it speaking of God, and also of his throne, but the very same word
is used in Proverbs 8:23 to speak of wisdom being set up from the same
reference to time! Yet the fact that wisdom was set up shows a point of
origin in time. So again, this is not that concept of eternity that we Westerners
would expect to see here.
D. Charles Pyle, I Have Said Ye Are Gods:
Concepts Conducive to the Early Christian Doctrine of Deification in Patristic
Literature and the Underlying Strata of the Greek New Testament (Revised and
Supplemented)
(North Charleston, S.C.: CreateSpace, 2018), 213-14, 220-21
Further Reading: