H5769

• {"n":"Psalm 90:2","s":"From everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. Olam is built on a root meaning hidden, naming indefinite time rather than philosophical eternity.","u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/bible-translation-differences\/#id=psalm-90-2","r":"Psalm 90:2","b":[{"l":"How modern translations read it","t":"Every version reads everlasting or eternity, correctly conveying the sense of vast duration, though importing centuries of philosophical precision the Hebrew word's own root, hiddenness, does not specifically supply."},{"l":"First, in plain English","t":"English everlasting and eternity name an abstract philosophical category, time without beginning or end, argued about by theologians and philosophers. Hebrew olam is more concrete: time so far back, or so far forward, that it disappears from view, hidden beyond what anyone can trace, a spatial metaphor for duration rather than a formal metaphysical claim."},{"l":"What you are seeing","t":"Olam derives from a root associated with concealment or the vanishing point, the place where something passes out of sight, and by extension names time so extended it cannot be traced to its origin or end, whether looking backward or forward. Me'olam ad olam, from olam to olam, expresses the same idea by doubling the word in both directions rather than by asserting a formal doctrine of timelessness."},{"l":"Why translators split","t":"English everlasting and eternity carry the weight of later philosophical and theological precision about timelessness; Hebrew olam's own etymology points instead toward duration too vast or too hidden to trace, a related but not identical idea, closer to beyond memory or beyond sight than to a formal metaphysical claim about existing outside time altogether."},{"l":"The rule to carry away","t":"When translating time-vocabulary from Hebrew, check whether the English word imports later philosophical categories, timelessness, eternity as a formal metaphysical state, that the Hebrew root itself, often built on very concrete physical images, does not specifically require."},{"l":"Choosing between them","t":"Everlasting or eternity are the natural, traditional English renderings and are not wrong, since the psalm is certainly making a claim about God's duration exceeding any human measure. What is worth keeping in view is that olam's own root sense, hidden or vanishing from sight, pictures indefinite, untraceable duration rather than formally asserting timelessness as a philosophical category."},{"l":"The word","t":"\u05e2\u05d5\u05b9\u05dc\u05b8\u05dd olam (\u05de\u05b5\u05e2\u05d5\u05b9\u05dc\u05b8\u05dd \u05e2\u05b7\u05d3\u05be\u05e2\u05d5\u05b9\u05dc\u05b8\u05dd me'olam ad olam) \u00b7 H5769"}],"src":["olam's root sense of hidden\/concealed: standard Hebrew lexicons","olam also meaning world\/age, reflecting the same indefinite-duration sense: Ecclesiastes 3:11"]}
• {"n":"olam","s":"A long duration, an age, the far horizon. Usually flattened to forever.","u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/bible-translation-differences\/#id=olam","r":"Genesis 17:7","b":[{"l":"How modern translations read it","t":"Versions read forever, everlasting, ancient, or of old."},{"l":"First, in plain English","t":"**That will take forever.** You do not mean infinity. English already uses its eternity word for a long unspecified stretch."},{"l":"What you are seeing","t":"Olam covers the distant past and the distant future, whatever lies beyond the horizon of view. It is used of a slave serving his master olam, which is plainly a lifetime, and of God's covenant."},{"l":"Why translators split","t":"English forever means unending, so a word about an unseen horizon becomes a claim about infinity."},{"l":"The rule to carry away","t":"When a word is rendered both ancient and everlasting in the same Bible, it is about distance in either direction rather than about duration without end."},{"l":"Choosing between them","t":"Forever and everlasting are the majority renderings; ancient and of old appear where the past is in view."},{"l":"The word","t":"\u05e2\u05d5\u05b9\u05dc\u05b8\u05dd olam \u00b7 H5769"}],"src":["olam of a lifetime: Exodus 21:6; 1 Samuel 1:22","olam of the distant past: Genesis 6:4; Isaiah 63:9","olam of God's covenant: Genesis 17:7"]}