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, and 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," 60 times; "death,"

62 times; "kill," 32 times; "slay," 81 times; and "dead body," "worthy of death,"

"destroy," "destroyed." We have enough in such a number of occurrences to provide to

a demonstration the meaning and usage of the word muth.  Let us examine a few

"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, &100: It is used of the death of animals (Exod. 7: 18; 8: 13; Lev. 11: 39,

&100:).  It is this self-same word that is used in Ezek. 18: 4, "The soul that sinneth, it

shall die." Moses used this word in Deut. 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). It is precisely the same word

"death" in Gen. 21: 16 as in Ezek. 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 xx.17) were similarly

punished. Nowhere, throughout the whole range of inspiration, is man ever told to

torture, torment, or in any way foreshadow the horrors of the traditional penalty of sin;

the extreme penalty is always death. Thus was it so in the beginning. In Gen. 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 Gen. 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. 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"! Adam, who was of the earth, earthy, who was not a

spiritual being as is so often taught (cf. I Cor. 15: 45-47), was treated by God upon a

plane suitable to his nature. His obedience would have meant a continuance in the state