The Nether Parts of the Earth

To whom art thou thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden? yet shalt thou be brought down with the trees of Eden unto the nether parts of the earth: thou shalt lie in the midst of the uncircumcised with them that be slain by the sword. This is Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord GOD.

(Ezekiel 31:18) KJV

Yesterday we took a detour to slam dunk relativistic time dilation as proof of the Bible. Today we’re going back to our discussion of a possible transition in the internal structure of the Earth when tehom became sheol.

The scientific paradigm is theoretical. Theory is the scientific word for faith. People have faith in theoretical science. The reason why they do this is because theories are based on hypotheses. Hypotheses are the meat and potatoes of science because in order to be truly scientific they must be testable, the experimental result must be repeatable, and they must be potentially falsifiable. By taking bite-sized chunks of the natural world and contriving them as testable hypotheses, science can craft the most utterly ridiculous theories in the world and claim that they are scientific. It’s slight-of-hand.

In Matty’s Paradigm we also have testable hypotheses, but the way we test them is to see if they hold up to scripture. I can make up anything I want, if I wanted to, and claim that it is Biblical. Many people do this, it’s why Christianity is in such a shambles. My approach has been significantly different in that I have used a deduction to rationalize science with the premise that God cannot lie. If the earth is a hollow sphere which formerly contained the waters of the deep but is now empty space, then we ought to be able to find something in the Bible which describes, or at least refers to, this transition.

If God cannot lie and the Bible is true, and if our working model of the internal structure of the earth is even close to reality, it will be in scripture. That’s the test. It worked for our hypothesis that God created gravity on the 2nd day: we found a Hebrew concept of gravity in the correct place in the sequence of creation.

Ezekiel is the one who provides us with a narrative of the transition from tehom to sheol. In so doing he also confirms the rest of our hypothesis about the internal structure of the earth. Ezekiel 31 is where we find a description of the antediluvian hydrological cycle:

Here “the deep,” is tehom, the waters of the great deep which are enclosed within the hollow spherical earth. The waters up well at Eden, flow over the surface of the dry ground to the sea, then return to the deep. This gives us the explanation of Psalms 42:7:

Deep calls to deep
at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves
have gone over me.

(Psalms 42:7) English Standard Version

Ezekiel is prophesying against Pharaoh King of Egypt and comparing him to a cedar of Lebanon. The abundance of waters from the deep made the cedar tree to excel above the heights of all others:

Thus was he fair in his greatness, in the length of his branches: for his root was by great waters.

(Ezekiel 31:7) KJV

However, judgment comes:

Upon his ruin shall all the fowls of the heaven remain, and all the beasts of the field shall be upon his branches: To the end that none of all the trees by the waters exalt themselves for their height, neither shoot up their top among the thick boughs, neither their trees stand up in their height, all that drink water: for they are all delivered unto death, to the nether parts of the earth, in the midst of the children of men, with them that go down to the pit.

(Ezekiel 31:13-14) KJV

None of the trees that have grown by drinking the waters of the deep will be spared, they will all be delivered unto death. They are going to go to the “nether parts of the earth,” to “the pit.” The “nether parts of the earth,” is a translation of Hebrew words for lowest and earth. They are different words than tehom or sheol, but it is the functional equivalent. “The pit,” as we have seen, is the molten core of the earth. If earth is a sphere and men dwell all over the surface of the earth, then the midst of the children of men is the core of the earth, “the pit.” It appears that we are transitioning from tehom to sheol, when the waters of the deep are no longer under the earth. Oddly enough, that what Ezekiel tells us next:

Thus saith the Lord GOD; In the day when he went down to the grave I caused a mourning: I covered the deep for him, and I restrained the floods thereof, and the great waters were stayed: and I caused Lebanon to mourn for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him.

(Ezekiel 31:15) KJV

Here we see “the grave,” meaning the underworld, is sheol, and “the deep,” which is tehom, from which the great waters were stayed (stopped). The cutting off of the waters of the deep is the judgment that caused the cedars of Lebanon to be ruined. This was the prediction: that scripture would refer to the time when the waters of tehom were removed, and the underworld became sheol. But Ezekiel is not done yet:

I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth. They also went down into hell with him unto them that be slain with the sword; and they that were his arm, that dwelt under his shadow in the midst of the heathen.

(Ezekiel 31:16-17) KJV

We have practically everything here. The word translated “hell,” is the same Hebrew word for underworld that we saw in verse 15: שְׁא֖וֹלָה – sheol. We also have ‘the pit, which we are taking to mean the molten core of the earth.  The “nether parts of the earth,” is a translation of a word for lowest. Being “cast down to hell with them that go down to the pit,” means that of those that die some go into the pit (the molten core) and some go into the underworld (sheol). This is now possible because the waters of the deep – tehom, are gone.

But Ezekiel is still not done.

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