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Resuming the references to angels in chapter 2: the apostle says:
"For unto the angels hath He not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we
speak" (Heb. 2: 5).
This assumes that "the world" was at some time under angelic surveillance. The word
"world" here is not aion or kosmos, but oikoumene, "the habitable world", particularly the
world as known and visualized in Old Testament times, the prophetic earth. The first
occurrence of oikoumene in the LXX is in Exod. 16: 35: "Until they came to a land
inhabited", i.e., the land of Canaan. In Psa. 72: which speaks prophetically of the
dominion ruled over by David's greater Son, we read:
"He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the
oikoumene" (Psa. 72: 8).
The kingdoms of the world (oikoumene) were shown in the temptation in the
wilderness (Luke 4: 5). In contrast with the wide extent of "heaven and earth",
Psa. 89: 11 says, "Thou hast founded them" (heaven and the oikoumene), and it is in
this Psalm that we have another prophetic anticipation:
"I will make Him My Firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth" (Psa. 89: 27).
When the day comes when man shall "sing a new song" the psalmist says:
"Say among the heathen that the LORD reigneth:
the oikoumene also shall be
established that it shall not be moved" (Psa. 96: 10).
This verse gives us a positive link with the theme of Hebrews, for there, in
chapter 12:, following the shaking of the earth at Sinai, we read:
"Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved" (Heb. 12: 28),
where the Greek word, saleuo (move or shake) is employed. It is a very wonderful
comment on the meaning attached to the oikoumene of the future, that where the Hebrew
reads: "Thou shalt be called Hephzi-bah (i.e. My delight is in her), and thy land Beulah
(i.e. married)", the LXX of Isa. 62: 4 reads, "Thou shalt be called My Pleasure
(thelema), and thy land oikoumene". This is the "world to come" whereof Paul was
speaking in Heb. 2: This "world to come" will include more than the kingdom of Israel
in the days of their restoration, for the Tempter showed the Lord "all the kingdoms of the
oikoumene" (Luke 4: 5), and so revealed that more kingdoms than one occupied the
territory specified, and this word was used by Roman and Greek historians as well as the
LXX to refer to the lands ruled over by Nebuchadnezzar and his successors. Had the
Devil known the Scriptures a little better he might have hesitated to tempt the Lord to
make stones into bread, for Psa. 50: 12 says: "If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for
the oikoumene is Mine, and the fullness thereof." Satan offered the kingdoms of the
oikoumene to One Who was their rightful owner.