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"Thou hast ascended on high (marom); thou hast led captivity captive."
We have already referred to Isa. 26: 5 by reason of its use of kataballo "The lofty
city, He layeth it low; He layeth it low even to the ground". We now refer to the same
verse for a reference to "them that dwell on high (marom)". "Kosmos" therefore includes
the living "hosts" of heaven as well as the "starry host". Shall we forfeit all this revealed
truth just because most of the New Testament references to the word are concerned with
man's limited sphere? Again, in Isa. 40: 26 we are exhorted to lift up our eyes "on high"
and behold Who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host (kosmos) by
number. Here the kosmos includes "created" things that are above the earth. Our mentor
"X" says "In the Greek Old Testament, we admit freely, kosmos signifies ornament or
adornment", but a witness even in a human court is expected to speak "the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth", why therefore this admission concerning
"ornament" and the omission of the passages now brought forward that he contradicts?
We now append the references found in the LXX where the idea "ornament" or
"delight" is intended. Prov. 29: 17. Here the word kosmos translates a Hebrew word,
whose root gives us the name "Eden", where the Garden of Gen. 3: was planted.
Eden is used as a type of restoration in Isa. 51: 3. Exod. 33: 4, 5, 6; II Sam. 1: 24;
Isa. 49: 18; 61: 10; Jer. 2: 32; 4: 30; Ezek. 7: 20; 16: 11; 23: 40 are passages
which speak of "ornament", and Prov. 20: 29; Isa. 3: 18; 13: 10 and Ezek 16: 13
speak of delight, glory or constellations, but all have the basic meaning of orderly
arrangement that is a character of ornament and adornment. The Hebrew word which is
translated "create" in Gen. 1: 1 is bara, which primarily means "to cut, carve, form by
cutting, pare down, to plane, to polish". In Josh. 17: 15 this "creating" is done with an
"axe". The world is an ornament, a jewel, fashioned by the loving wisdom and power of
the Creator, and when the restoration or the new creation is in sight, the scripture reverts
to this conception of a jewel fashioned and polished with care. Speaking of the new
Jerusalem in Isa. 54: 11, 12; 65: 18, the prophet says:
"I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And I
will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of
pleasant stones."
The reader will not need a quotation from Revelation to show that the same lavish
adornment characterizes also the heavenly city.
All this may at first seem far removed from Eph. 1: 4 but we could not stand by and
allow those less fortunate than ourselves to be so misled and so defrauded of fact without
incurring a great responsibility. We have now had sufficient evidence to justify the
translation of Eph. 1: 4 "before the overthrow of the world" and its reference back to
Gen. 1: 2 and that kosmos is not only the created universe, but includes spiritual beings
also.
We must now pick up the thread of our exposition and resume our normal positive
method of teaching, but there may be other occasions when it will again become