delta of the Nile.  The two seas mentioned would be the Mediterranean and the

Red Sea.  One can sense something of the different outlook of the ancient

world from that of modern times, in the expression, 'The Seven Seas'.  The

Talmudists speak of the land of Israel being compassed by seven seas, these

include the Mediterranean, the sea of Tiberius and the sea of Sodom, and the

Midras Tillim says: 'I have created seven seas; saith the Lord, but out of

them all I have chosen none but the sea of Gennesaret'.  The Atlantic and the

Pacific might well have never existed so far as these writers were concerned.

When David spoke of the dominion of his son reaching 'from sea to sea'

therefore, we must beware of the temptation to interpret the words with a

modern breadth, and read into them a meaning that would have been quite

foreign to the reader of the day.  Further, the dominion which was to extend

from 'sea to sea' is given another dimension, it was 'from the river unto the

ends of the earth'.  After Israel's contact with Egypt is recorded, the

Hebrew word yeor is employed when the Nile is intended (Gen. 41:1), but when

the Euphrates is meant the Hebrew word nahar is used (Gen. 15:18).  It will

be observed that when the extent of the promised land was given to Abraham in

Genesis 15, its boundaries were given as from the river of Egypt, unto the

great river, the river Euphrates, and in Genesis 13:14 Abraham was told to

look 'from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward,

and westward'.  From the river Euphrates, this dominion spoken of in Psalm 72

extended 'unto the ends of the earth'.  If the extreme interpretation of

these words is adopted, it will appear somewhat strange to attempt to measure

the whole earth from such a datum line, and an examination of the term is

therefore called for.  The word translated 'end' is the Hebrew ephes,

primarily means 'to cease' and so comes to mean 'an extremity'.

In Psalm 72:8 the LXX translates the Hebrew word erets, 'earth', by the

limited Greek word oikoumene.  Apart from this one passage in the Psalms, the

remaining references where erets is rendered oikoumene are all found in

Isaiah.  These references are:

'In the midst of all the land' (10:23),

'the whole land' (13:5),

'to lay the land desolate' (13:9),

'the whole earth' (14:26),

'all the kingdoms of the world' (23:17),

'the Lord maketh the earth empty' (24:1),

'all the kingdoms of the earth' (37:16),

'the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations (margin lands)'

If these passages be considered with their contexts,

it will be seen that where a modern reader is likely to invest these

predictions and threats with a worldwide significance, the Septuagint

translators limited them to the narrow sphere of the oikoumene.  In like

manner, the command of the Lord, recorded in Acts 1:8, has been looked upon

as being of worldwide scope, whereas it is most probable that it should read

Jerusalem, Judæa, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the land.

The Hebrew word tebel is translated oikoumene in the LXX more times

than any other, it occurs twenty -six times or more than twice the number of

all the other Hebrew words so translated put together.  Gesenius derives the

word tebel from the verb yabal, 'to bring forth', and so it indicates the

fertile or habitable earth.  We are distinctly told that the Lord formed the

earth to be inhabited (Isa. 45:18), and the book of Proverbs takes us back to

the day of creation where we read of One, spoken of as the personification of