Both Hebrew and Greek have an important geographic term that can mean either “land” or “earth.”1 These words have a significant impact on our prophetic framework (inmillennialism).
In Hebrew, “,erets does not only denote the entire terrestrial planet, but is also used of some of the earth’s component parts. English words like land, country, ground, and soil transfer its meaning into our language. Quite frequently, it refers to an area occupied by a nation or tribe. So we read of ‘the land of Egypt,’ ‘the land of the Philistines,’ ‘the land of Israel,’ ‘the land of Benjamin,’ and so on (Gen. 47:13; Zech. 1:21; 2 Kings 5:2, 4; Judg. 21:21).”2
Likewise, the Greek word gē can mean “the earth as a whole, the world” or “‘a country, territory,’ e.g. Luke 4:25; John 3:22.”3
Translators choose between “earth” or “land” based on the meaning they think best fits the context in which these words occur. The prophetic framework they adopt influences their understanding of that context. If they believe a passage refers to a universal event, for example, they will choose a word like “earth” to translate ,erets or gē. If, in their opinion, the writer refers to a localized incident they will use “land” or something similar.
Sometimes the translators choose different options. As an example from the Old Testament, the King James Version (KJV) translates Zec. 5:3 as “Then said he unto me, This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole earth. . . .” However, Young’s Literal Translation (YLT) has “And he saith unto me, ‘This is the execration that is going forth over the face of all the land. . . .’” Is the curse of which this verse speaks worldwide, or is it confined to the land (of Israel)?
These choices sometimes become critical in prophetic texts. In the Olivet Discourse, a key passage for inmillennialism, we find “And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring” (Luke 21:25) in the KJV. However, we see “And there shall be signs in sun, and moon, and stars, and on the land is distress of nations with perplexity, sea and billow roaring” for the same verse in YLT. Is this distress worldwide, or in the land (of Israel) only?
Our answer to these questions depends on our understanding of the context. There are no hard-and-fast rules. In this blog, we reserve the right to translate these words based on key factors within our prophetic system, especially the many time statements found in both the New and Old Testaments. If, for example, Jesus said (in the Olivet Discourse) that a “distress of nations” would occur with the destruction of the Temple in his generation, our preference is to understand the geographic term gē in a localized manner (e.g., “land,” as in YLT). We believe Jesus was not speaking about an earth-encompassing event since nothing in the context requires us to understand him in this way.
In almost every instance where we choose “land” as our translation instead of the KJV’s “earth” (or its equivalent), at least one well-established translation will support our selection. We will, on rare occasions, find it necessary to suggest the narrower meaning (“land”) without the support of any translation. In such situations, we will try to make our reasons clear.
Footnotes
- They sometimes mean other things, but these are the most important definitions for our purposes.
- W. E. Vine, Merrill F. Unger, and William White Jr., Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, (Nashville: T. Nelson, 1996), 1:66.
- Vine, Unger, and White Jr., Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary, 2:191.