The Great Timeline
The Lord will guard your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forever. Psalm 121:8 NASB
And forever – We reach the end of this short poem. The end is “forever,” an appropriate place to close our thoughts about God’s care. According to the poet, God is constantly watching over us (the metaphor of going and coming), and He will never cease doing so. The idea of “never” is expressed in the Hebrew word ʿôlām. We know this word—this oddword.
Though ʿôlām is used more than three hundred times to indicate indefinite continuance into the very distant future, the meaning of the word is not confined to the future. There are at least twenty instances where it clearly refers to the past. Such usages generally point to something that seems long ago, but rarely if ever refer to a limitless past.[1]
ʿōlām can express by itself the whole range of meanings denoted by all the prepositions “since, until, to the most distant time”; i.e. it assumes the meaning “(unlimited, incalculable) continuance, eternity.”[2]
Now we have a clue about the meaning of this poem. It must be applied to more than a single lifetime. Biblical man did not believe in the immortal existence of the “soul.” That Greek idea arrived with Pythagoras. It was adopted by Hellenistic thinkers, both Jews and Gentiles, and eventually became a staple of Christianity, but it wasn’t in the mind of the poet on ancient Israel. We can rule out the possibility that “forever” meant “after death.” This means that the poem cannot have the eternal existence of individuals in mind. Therefore, the poem is not about you, me, or any other person. It must be about Israel as a whole. What the poet is communicating is that God is wedded to Israel—forever. God’s protection of Israel as His chosen people will go on and on. It will never stop. God has committed Himself to guard Israel, the witness to His self-revelation, regardless of what happens to any individual inside or outside of the covenant promise.
There are two significant implications of this poem. The first is that the entire theological history of replacement of Israel by the Church, the so-called “new” Israel, is simply at odds with Scripture. There is no biblical justification for such an idea no matter how convenient it might be for Christianity’s justification as an ancient religion. The second implication is that “Israel” will be saved. Our connection to God’s chosen people is the critical determining factor here. There is no guarantee that our lives will be any more protected than anyone else. There is only the guarantee that Israel will survive. And we get to choose if we want to belong.
Topical Index: forever, ʿôlām, Israel, soul, Psalm 121:8
[1] Macrae, A. A. (1999). 1631 עלם. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 672). Chicago: Moody Press.
