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(Rev. 12: 10). This verb kataballo occurs many times in the LXX version. We find it
used of the siege of a city:
"Joab battered the wall, to throw it down" (II Sam. 20: 15).
It is used of the overthrowing of Israel in the wilderness:
"He lifted up His hand against them, to overthrow them in the wilderness;
to overthrow their seed also among the nations, and to scatter them in the lands"
(Psa. 106: 26, 27).
Again it is written concerning the destruction of Tyre:
"And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus: and break down her towers" (Ezek. 26: 4).
A correspondent recently sent us a paper in which he agreed that the verb kataballo
means "To overthrow", but by some process which he did not reveal nor support either
by Scripture or the Lexicon, he maintained that the noun katabole meant "making a new
start". It is foreign to the genius of language, whether ancient or modern, thus to separate
noun and verb. If I sing (verb) that which I sing must be a song (noun). I cannot "sing" a
"speech" or anything outside the category of "song". Similarly, if I overthrow (verb),
that which is overthrown cannot be something freshly started or something constructed.
We therefore bring together the testimony of the Hebrew words tohu and bohu and the
meaning and usage of kataballo and katabole, with the result that we are forced to
translate Eph. 1: 4, "before the overthrow of the world" and refer it to a period that
comes between verses 1 and 2 of Gen. 1: Further light upon this period is thrown by
the time reference in II Tim. 1:, which deals with the same calling and company as those
of Ephesians:
"Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works,
but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before
the world began" (II Tim. 1: 9).
The original reads pro chronon aionion, "before age-times".
We therefore now know two things of intense interest from the point of view of
Biblical chronology.
(1)
The church of the mystery was chosen in Christ before the overthrow of the world.
(2)
And that with the reconstruction and making of the heavens and the earth in the six
days, the age-times began.
Seeing that the dissolution of II Pet. 3: stands at the end of the present creation, just
as the chaos of Gen. 1: 2 stands at the beginning, it is a sound inference to draw that just
as the "ages" commence with the present creation, they come to their end with the new
heaven and the new earth. Looking at Gen. 1: 1 and 2 together, in this matter of time
and purpose we perceive that as a beginning, looking constantly at the end in view, God
created the heaven and the earth. This end, however, was not to be attained mechanically