The four "corners" you can't seem to get past are
four extremities, I.e., the four cardinal directions.
Ever bothered to read past Rev. 7:1?
Good post Huckleberry. I've cutteded and pasteded this;
Perhaps no phrase in Scripture has been so controversial as the phrase, “the four corners of the earth.” The word translated “corners,” as in the phrase above, is the Hebrew word,
KANAPH.
Kanaph is translated in a variety of ways. However, it generally means extremity.
It is translated “borders” in
Numbers 15:38. In
Ezekiel 7:2 it is translated “four corners” and again in
Isaiah 11:12 “four corners.” Job
37:3 and
38:13 as “ends.”
The Greek equivalent in
Revelation 7:1 is
gonia. The Greek meaning is perhaps more closely related to our modern divisions known as quadrants.
Gonia literally means angles, or divisions. It is customary to divide a map into quadrants as shown by the four directions.
Some have tried to ridicule the Bible to say that
it teaches that the Earth is square. The Scripture makes it quite clear that the Earth is a sphere (
Isaiah 40:22).
Some have tried to say there are four knobs, or peaks on a round Earth. Regardless of the various ways
kanaph is translated, it makes reference to EXTREMITIES.
There are many ways in which God the Holy Spirit could have said
corner. Any of the following Hebrew words could have been used:
- Pinoh is used in reference to the cornerstone.
- Paioh means “a geometric corner”
- Ziovyoh means “right angle” or “corner”
- Krnouth refers to a projecting corner.
- Paamouth - If the Lord wanted to convey the idea of a square, four-cornered Earth, the Hebrew word paamouth could have been used. Paamouth means square.
Instead, the Holy Spirit selected the word
kanaph, conveying the idea of extremity.
It is doubtful that any religious Jew would ever misunderstand the true meaning of
kanaph. For nearly 2,000 years, religious Jews have faced the city of Jerusalem three times daily and chanted the following prayer:
Sound the great trumpet for our freedom,
Raise the
banner for gathering our exiles,
And gather us together from THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE EARTH
into our own land.
The Book of
Isaiah describes how the
Messiah, the Root of
Jesse, shall regather his people from the four corners of the Earth. They shall come from every extremity to be gathered into Israel.
"And in that day there shall be a Root of Jesse,
Who shall stand as a banner to the people;
For the
Gentiles shall seek Him,
And His resting place shall be glorious."
It shall come to pass in that day
That the LORD shall set His hand again the second time
To recover the remnant of His people who are left,
From
Assyria and
Egypt,
From
Pathros and
Cush,
From
Elam and
Shinar,
From
Hamath and the
islands of the sea.
He will set up a
banner for the nations,
And will assemble the outcasts of
Israel,
And gather together the dispersed of
Judah
From THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE EARTH.
(
Isaiah 11:10-12, New King James Version)