Erets

Land, or earth?

Compare the following two verses that contain the SAME Hebrew word, erets [Strong's #776], which TRANSLATORS, and not God, believe have two different and conflicting English meanings:

Genesis 13:17 Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee.

Gen 13:17 Arise,^{6965 walk1980 through the land776 in the length753 of it and in the breadth7341 of it; for3588 I will give5414 it unto thee.}

 

Genesis 7:6 And Noah [was] six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.

Gen 7:6 And Noah^{5146 was six8337 hundred3967 years8141 old1121 when the flood3999 of waters4325 was1961 upon5921 the earth.776}

 

Genesis 18:18 Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?

Either "erets" means the whole earth, or it means a piece of land which Abraham was able to walk "the length ... and breadth" of.  Did Abraham walk around the whole earth, or world?  Of course not--the KJV got it right this time. But this also means that it's not possible that God did or intended to flood the entire earth, as the "erets" that He did flood most likely was even SMALLER than the "erets" that Abraham walked the length and breadth of.  In the KJV, "erets" was translated 1,509 times as "land", 97 times as "ground", 92 times as "country", and only 712 times as "earth".  So this translation as "earth" in Genesis 7:6, a mistake carried on by almost every other English translator since the KJV, is an exception to the rule.  Furthermore, we can tell from the context of some of these verses where it was translated as "earth" that it could also have meant, and most likely did mean, "land":

Jos 5:14 And he said, Nay; but as  captain of the host of the LORD am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my lord unto his servant?

Yes, you could say that "erets", where Joshua "fell on his face to" represents the whole earth, but you could also say that he fell on a small piece of ground, or land.   Since even the KJV translators recognized that "erets" means only "land" two thirds of the time, it's very arbitrary and inconsistent to now translate it as "earth" in these other verses, particularly in Genesis 7:6.

Furthermore, there IS a Hebrew word, "adamah" [Strong's #127], which DOES mean "earth", just as it does in the following verse, which would have been used here if God had intended to say that the entire "earth" had been "flooded":

Eze 38:20 So that the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the field, and all creeping things that creep upon the earth, and all the men that are upon the face of the earth, shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground.

Eze 38:20 So that the fishes^{1709 of the sea,3220 and the fowls5775 of the heaven,8064 and the beasts2416 of the field,7704 and all3605 creeping things7431 that creep7430 upon5921 the} earth,127 and all3605 the men120 that834 are upon5921 the face6440 of the earth,127 shall shake7493 at my presence,4480, 6440 and the mountains2022 shall be thrown down,2040 and the steep places4095 shall fall,5307 and every3605 wall2346 shall fall5307 to the ground.776

It's preconceived biases by mere men acting as translators, and not God, which caused many of us to believe that there was an inconsistency in the Word of God that was not originally there.  Furthermore, Scripture itself confirms that this "flood" was only 32 feet deep, hardly a high as a high tide in some parts of the world today.

???

'erets

From an unused root probably meaning to be firm; the earth (at large, or partitively a land): - X common, country, earth, field, ground, land, X nations, way, + wilderness, world.

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