Topic
Alpha and Omega
5 passages cited, from 1 classic reference work.
These works date from 1915 and are in the public domain. They reflect the Protestant scholarship of their time: their history, archaeology and dates can be out of date, and where they interpret, other traditions read the text differently. The verses are shown in the King James Version, the wording these works were written against.
The verses
The passages the works cite, those cited by more of them first.
- Leviticus 26:3–13ISBE
¶ If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the…
- Leviticus 26:14–43ISBE
¶ But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments; And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant: I also will do this unto you;…
- Revelation 1:8ISBE
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
- Revelation 21:6ISBE
And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.
- Revelation 22:13ISBE
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.
In the reference works
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915) · 6 references
al'-fa, o'-me-ga, o-me'-ga (Alpha and Omega = A and O): The first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, hence, symbolically, "beginning and end"; in Revelation "The Eternal One" in Re 1:8 of the Father, in Re 21:6 and Re 22:13 of the Son. Compare Theodoret, Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, iv. 8: "We used alpha down to omega, i.e. all." A similar expression is found in Latin (Martial, v.26). Compare Aretas (Cramer's Catenae Graecae in New Testament) on Re 1:8 and Tertullian (Monog, 5): "So also two Greek letters, the first and last, did the Lord put on Himself, symbols of the beginning and the end meeting in Him, in order that just as alpha rolls on to omega and omega returns again to alpha, so He might show that both the evolution of the beginning to the end is in Him and again the return of the end to the beginning." Cyprian, Testim, ii.1; vi.22, iii.100, Paulinus of Nola Carm. xix.645; xxx.89; Prudentius, Cathem., ix.10-12. In Patristic and later literature the phrase is regularly applied to the Son. God blesses Israel from 'aleph to taw (Le 26:3-13), but curses from waw to mem (Le 26:14-43). So Abraham observed the whole law from 'aleph to taw. Consequently, "Alpha and Omega" may be a Greek rendering of the Hebrew phrase, which expressed among the later Jews the whole extent of a thing.
J. E. Harry
Texts: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915), from the CrossWire SWORD modules (public domain). Verse references were parsed from the works' own markup and checked against the KJV verse list.