find the word translated 'destroy'.  The words of the context are suggestive,

'destroy' ... 'take away' ... 'pluck out' ... 'root out'.  The Psalm,

originally written with reference to Doeg the Edomite, has prophetic

reference to the Antichrist, 'the man who made not God his strength' (verse

7).  It is interesting to note that the gematria (the numerical value) of

this sentence is 2,197 or 13 x 13 x 13, the number of Satan and rebellion.

Muth.  Let us now examine the word which is translated 'death'.

Scripture declares in both Testaments that the wages of sin is death.  Much

has been written to show that death means everything else except death.  The

current conception seems to be that death, as a punishment for sin, is

endless life in misery.  Presumably if tradition had its way it would alter

the Scriptures, and would declare that 'he that believeth hath everlasting

life in happiness, but the wages of sin is everlasting life in misery'.  The

Bible, however, knows no such doctrine.

We have already examined several words, and find that the wages of sin

is destruction, perishing, a full end, consumption, riddance, death.  The oft

quoted John 3:16 declares unmistakably that the alternative to everlasting

life is perishing.  However, our present studies are devoted to the

consideration of the Hebrew words themselves.  How is the Hebrew word muth

rendered in the A.V.?  It is translated 'to die' 420 times; 'be dead' 60

times; 'be put to death' 57 times; 'put to death' 19 times; 'dead' 62 times;

'kill' 32 times; 'slay' 81 times; and 'dead body'; 'worthy of death';

'destroy'; 'destroyer'; 'death'.  We have enough in such a number of

occurrences to provide a demonstration of the meaning and usage of the word

muth.  Let us examine a few passages.

'And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years,

and he died' (Gen. 5:5).  The word is used throughout Genesis to record the

deaths of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph etc.  It is used of the death of

animals (Exod. 7:18; 8:13; Lev. 11:39).  It is this selfsame word that is

used in Ezekiel 18:4, 'The soul that sinneth, it shall die'.  Moses used this

word in Deuteronomy 4:22, 'I must die in this land'.  The word muth is used

to describe a corpse.  'Abraham stood up from before his dead' (Gen. 23:3).

'Bury therefore thy dead' (Gen. 23:15).  Maveth (from muth) is translated

'death' in both Genesis 21:16 and Ezekiel 18:32.

Death, physical and inflicted death, was continually presented to the

mind of the Jew under the law.  'He that smiteth a man ... shall be ... put

to death' (Exod. 21:12), so he that smiteth his father, stealeth, or curseth

(Exod. 21:15,16,17).  Murder, adultery, witchcraft (Num. 35:16; Lev. 20:10

and Exod. 22:18, respectively) were similarly punished.  Nowhere throughout

the whole range of inspiration, is man ever told to torture, torment, or in

anyway foreshadow the horrors of the traditional penalty of sin; the extreme

penalty is always death.  Thus was it so in the beginning.  In Genesis 2:17

the penalty for disobedience was, 'in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt

surely die'.  We are fully aware that this passage has been made to mean

death, spiritual and eternal, which in orthodox teaching comes to mean life

in conscious torment.

What was the penalty threatened in Genesis 2:17?  'Dying thou shalt

die'.  This is the same idiomatic construction as is translated 'freely eat',

viz., 'eating thou mayest eat' (Gen. 2:16).  It is of frequent occurrence in

the Old Testament (cf. marginal notes at Gen. 26:28; 27:30; 43:3,7,20), and

it is false to seek to make the Hebrew idiom (Gen. 2:17) speak of a process

of 'dying' or of 'spiritual' death.  Adam, who was of the earth, earthy, who