Does the earth have literal ends?
To set the stage for what we’ll cover in this blog, let me ask you a question. When you are reading Scripture and come across the word “earth,” what comes to your mind? I’m sure you’re saying something like, “well, it depends on the context,” and that is the correct answer. Unfortunately, many Christians almost always translate the word to mean earth in its totality, as in the whole earth, irrespective of whether it is a flat round disk or a sphere.
(If you prefer a video format, see the link at the end of the blog).
As it turns out, however, the word “earth,” translated from the Hebrew word erets, only rarely means the earth in its entirety. For example, Genesis 1:1 (KJV) says, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Almost everyone will agree that the entire earth—regardless of its shape, is what is in view here, but look what happens just a few verses later in Genesis 1:10 (KJV), “And God called the dry land [erets] Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.” Here, “earth” (the dry land) is kept distinct from and is separate to the earth that exists below sea-level. What we today would call the ocean floor.
We see something similar in Exodus 20:4 (KJV), “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth [erets] beneath, or that is in the water under [beside, but lower than] the [erets] earth.” This time Scripture makes a distinction between the dry land, the seas, and the sky.[1] The “earth” makes up just a part of the whole planet.
We get a completely different description, however, from Genesis 19:28 (KJV), “And he [Abraham] looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land [erets] of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the [erets] country went up as the smoke of a furnace.” In this verse, the same Hebrew word, erets, is translated using two different English words, “land,” in the first half of the verse, and “country” in the second. In context, the erets in view is a large, but local tract of land inclusive of the cities Sodom and Gomorrah. In Genesis 23:19 (KJV), however, the geographical extent is substantially narrowed down to a mere field, “And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field [erets] of Machpelah before Mamre: the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan.”
Erets is even used in Scripture to describe the nations of the world. In Genesis 11:1 (KJV) we read, “And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.” Since we know that the earth neither speaks nor has a language, we must infer that the author of Scripture was using metaphorical language.
As it turns out the Old Testament uses erets to describe what in English requires nearly twenty different words. Just in these few verses, for example, we’ve demonstrated that the word erets can mean the entire planet, the dry land on the planet—distinct from that which is below sea-level, large areas of land akin to that which surrounds townships, very small fields, and even people. The context must determine the meaning, and this will be important moving forward.
Ok, now let’s have a look at the phrase, “the ends of the earth,” keeping what we’ve just said in mind.
In Isaiah 40:28 (KJV), the Bible says, “Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.” Commenting on this verse, author and flat-earther Caspian Sarginson is explicit, “Again we have God telling us the earth has ‘ends.’”[2] As it turns out this phrase is used throughout both the New- and Old Testaments numerous times and has become one of the most important “go to” proof texts supporting the flat earth theory.
This expression, however, has got nothing to do with the earth having literal “ends.” In Isaiah 41:8-9 (KJV), God says to Israel, “But thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend. Thou whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called thee from the chief men thereof, and said unto thee, Thou art my servant; I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away.”
Notice that God is talking about Abraham, whom He called from the land of Ur in Mesopotamia. Genesis 15:3,7 (KJV) make this explicit, “And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir. … And he said unto him, I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.”
Can we be quite clear here that Abraham was not literally taken from a remote location at the very end of a flat earth. This is explicit. Abraham was taken from the Mesopotamian region. The Bible is obviously using figurative language to express the idea of lands and peoples that, from the author’s perspective—in this case Isaiah, were a long way away.
In this context, the Hebrew word erets, translated as “earth” must be interpreted to mean “lands,” and the word “ends” that the prepositional phrase “of the earth” modifies must be given a non-literal, figurative sense expressing a faraway place. Thus, the phrase “ends of the earth,” at least here in Isaiah 40:28 should be interpreted to mean “faraway lands.” Using this phrase to try and prove that earth is a flat, round disk that has ends demonstrates a wholesale disregard for the context local to the passage as well as the context of the Bible as a whole.
Can things be any clearer? Well, apparently not. Caspian vehemently objects and states, “I know what the pat answer is on this issue for the vast majority of Christians and even theologians. ‘Well, God used ‘ends of the earth’ as an expression just to emphasize how far away something would be, or that it is on the opposite side of the earth.’ Really? What verse is that please.”[3] Well, a good start is Isaiah 41:8-9, but this is just one of several passages in Scripture that absolutely demand a figurative sense. Consider also Deuteronomy 28:49, Isaiah 5:26, and Isaiah 43:6.
In Deuteronomy 28:49 we read, “The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand.” This passage is prophetic in nature and speaks about multiple forthcoming exilic events that saw several Mesopotamian nations first invade, and then carry off large numbers of Israelites to their respective Mesopotamian nation. Once again, the careful reader of Scripture is not to suppose that these nations came from unknown geographical regions at the literal ends of a flat earth. The context, as with that in Isaiah 41:8-9 plainly clues us into the figurative intention behind the phrase, “the ends of the earth.” These are faraway lands and nations.
Similarly, in Isaiah 5:26 we read, “And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, and will hiss unto them [who are] from the end of the earth: and, behold, they shall come with speed swiftly.” This prophecy from Isaiah was actually fulfilled shortly afterwards by the Assyrians who invaded Judea. Yet once again Assyria is located within the Fertile Crescent of ancient Mesopotamia and like Ur, which was located further south, was not literally located at the ends of a flat earth.
In contrast to God’s bringing the nations of Mesopotamia to Israel for judgement and exile, are other passages that speak of God’s bringing the Israelites from those same nations back to their land. In Isaiah 43:6 we read, “I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth” Isaiah 43:6 (KJV). Once again, and not withstanding an aspect of this prophecy that is yet future, many ancient Israelites were brought back to their land from multiple Mesopotamian nations. All three passages are, therefore, categorically referring to the geographical locations in and around ancient Mesopotamia and have absolutely nothing to do with the material limits of our planet. This means that the writers of Scripture unmistakably, categorically, and without any doubt whatsoever, used the phrase “the ends of the earth” figuratively for faraway lands and nations.
One wonders how Caspian, and many other flat-earth leaders consistently miss these glaringly obvious contextual clues. As it turns out, although Caspian uses this expression to bolster his flat earth argument, he never considers the context of the passage it is used in any of the 94 times it is referenced in his book. That’s right, not even once. This is genuinely troubling because I do believe that Caspian is a believer and fellow brother in Christ. I do not think he is one of the very many flat-earth charlatans that appear on YouTube. Yet this uncritical assessment of the Bible is consistent throughout his book. Over and over again, he quotes various passages, picks out the phrase or word that bolsters his thesis, but then never, not even once critically assesses the context of the passage in question.
Just when things look like they can’t get any worse, we must now consider the few passages we’ve looked at so far in light of the flat-earth model. According to flat-earthers, the phrase “the ends of the earth” represents the geographical area where the earth literally ends. Yet this region is supposedly located as many as ten thousand kilometers past an almost impenetrable ice-wall that surrounds six of the planet’s seven continents—the seventh, Antarctica, being identified with the ice-wall. This means that unknown nations no one has ever heard off came from the extreme edges of the world where they later returned with most of Israel’s population. Yet the Bible says that the Israelites were exiled to the various regions in Mesopotamia from which many of them later returned. If, as flat-earthers insist, the Israelites were actually taken thousands of miles away to lands no one has ever heard of, and subsequently brought back from those lands, then the Bible has contradicted itself. You simply cannot have your cake and eat it too.
[1] This verse does not necessarily support a subterranean ocean. God is clearly commanding the people not to make images of animals found in the three chief spheres of earth—in the sky, on the earth, or in the seas. Why forbid images of creatures living in subterranean oceans, when a rich variety of image-worthy contenders live in large, local bodies of water, including nearby oceans. Thus “under” is best understood as beside the land but at a lower elevation.
[2] Caspian Sarginson, Flat Earth: What The Bible Actually Says (Sakal Publishing, 2023), 58.
[3] Caspian, Flat Earth, 87.
