Topic
Earth, Corners of the
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 They reflect the Protestant scholarship of their time: their history, archaeology and dates can be out of date, and where they interpret, other traditions read the text differently.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.
- Deuteronomy 22:12ISBE
¶ Thou shalt make thee fringes upon the four quarters of thy vesture, wherewith thou coverest thyself.
- Job 37:3ISBE
He directeth it under the whole heaven, and his lightning unto the ends of the earth.
- Job 38:13ISBE
That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it?
- Isaiah 11:12ISBE
And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.
- Ezekiel 7:2ISBE
Also, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord GOD unto the land of Israel; An end, the end is come upon the four corners of the land.
In the reference works
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915) · 6 references
The "corners" or "ends" of the earth are its "wings" (kanephoth ha-'arets), i.e. its borders or extremities. The word in general means a wing, because the wing of a bird is used as a covering for its young, and from this meaning it acquires that of the extremity of anything stretched out. It is thus used in De 22:12: "Thou shalt make thee fringes upon the four borders (wings) of thy vesture, wherewith thou coverest thyself." It thus also means the coasts or boundaries of the land surface of the earth; its extremities. It is translated "corners" in Isa 11:12; "ends" in Job 37:3, 38:13. The "four corners" of the earth (Isa 11:12) or "land" (Eze 7:2) are therefore simply the extremities of the land in the four cardinal directions.
See also ASTRONOMY, sec. III, 3.
E. W. Maunder
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.