If we inquire for those texts of Scripture which represent the earth as the immovable center of the universe, we shall be referred to the figurative language of the Psalms, the book of Job, and other poetical parts of Scripture, which speak of the "foundations of the earth," "the earth being established," "abiding for ever," and the like, when the slightest attention to the language would show that it is intended to be figurative. The accumulation of metaphors and poetical images in some of these passages is beautiful and grand in the highest degree; but none, save the most stupid reader, would ever dream of interpreting them literally. Take, for instance, Psalm civ. 1-6, where, in one line, the world is described as God's house, with beams, and chambers, and foundations; but in the very next line the figure is changed, and it is viewed as an infant, covered with the deep, as with a garment.
"Bless, the Lord, O my soul.
O Lord my God, thou art very great;
Thou art clothed with honor and majesty:
Who coverest thyself with light, as with a garment;
Who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain;
Who layeth the beams of his chambers upon the waters:
Who walketh upon the wings of the wind:
Who maketh his angels spirits:
His ministers a flaming fire:
Who laid the foundations of the earth,
That it should not be removed for ever.
Thou coveredst it with the deep, as with a garment:
The waters stood above the mountains."
But if any one is so gross as to insist on the literality of such a passage, and to allege that it teaches the absolute immobility of the earth, let him tell us what sort of immobility the third verse teaches, and how a building could be stable, the beams of whose chambers are laid upon the waters—the chosen emblems of instability. "He hath founded it upon the seas: he hath established it upon the floods," says the same poet, in another Psalm—xxiv 1. This, and all other expressions quoted as declaring the immobility of the earth in space, are clearly proved, both by the words used, and the sense of the context, to refer to an entirely different idea: namely, its duration in time. Thus, Ecclesiastes i. 4, "One generation passeth away, and another cometh; but the earth abideth forever," is manifestly contrasting the duration of earth with the generations of short-lived men, and has no reference to motion in space at all.
Again, in Psalm cxix. 89-91, our objectors find another Bible declaration of the immobility of the earth in space:
"For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven;
Thy faithfulness is unto all generations;
Thou hast established the earth, and it abideth.
They continue to this day, according to thine ordinances."
The same permanence is here ascribed to the heavens (to which, as our objectors argue, the Bible ascribes a perpetual revolution) as to the earth. The next verse explains this permanence to be continuance to this day; durability, not immobility. That the word establish does not necessarily imply fixture, is evident from its application, in Proverbs viii. 28: "He established the clouds," the most fleeting of all things. Nor is the Hebrew word kun (whence our English word, cunning), inconsistent with motion; else, the Psalmist had not said that "a good man's footsteps are established by the Lord."[304] "He established my goings." Wise arrangement is the idea, not permanent fixture.
The same remarks apply to Psalm xciii. 1; xcvi. 10; 1 Chronicles xvi. 30, and many other similar passages.
"The world is established, that it can not be moved;
Thy throne is established of old:
Thou art from everlasting."
Where the establishment, which is contrasted with the impossible removal, and which explains its import, is evidently not a local fixing of some material seat, in one place, but the everlasting duration of God's authority. The idea is not that of position in space, at all, but of continued duration.