הַיֹּשֵׁב֙ עַל־ח֣וּג הָאָ֔רֶץ וְיֹשְׁבֶ֖יהָ כַּחֲגָבִ֑ים
הַנּוֹטֶ֤ה כַדֹּק֙ שָׁמַ֔יִם וַיִּמְתָּחֵ֥ם כָּאֹ֖הֶל לָשָֽׁבֶת׃
Isaiah 40:22, MT
I find it strange that the question of the earth’s shape even comes up among semi-intelligent people today. How has society so debased itself that people have reverted to primitive thinking and pre-scientific reliance on nothing but what your five senses can demonstrate to you? Did we not already establish that reality can be counterintuitive and that data and experimentation must often trump what we see with our eyes? That said, and for whatever reason, people in this generation are allowing themselves to be persuaded by arguments meant to present themselves as healthy skepticism and calling into question what our elders have told us.
This isn’t a terrible idea. We should never accept things just because we were told that they are true. The bad aspect of this calling things into question is that those who believe that the earth is flat often share other conspiratorial thinking and live beyond the bounds of healthy skepticism. It is becoming more common today to run into someone who kicks up this conversation around the dinner table among friends. It has even made its way to Israel and has taken on expression in the Hebrew language. The normal response is to simply refer our flat earther friends (“flerfs”) to science and to the evidence that we have that the universe (indeed, the cosmos) is what we know it to be from the observations of our instruments. Now, I am not a scientist and wouldn’t want to engage in these discussions, but recently they have taken a path into the realm of biblical Hebrew, which interests me far more than the conspiracy theories that are whipping back and forth in today’s societies.
The Bible is often called into the discussion by both fundamentalists, who think that every word of the Bible is true and inerrant, and by skeptics who argue that the thinking of the biblical authors was primitive, that they could not have envisioned the cosmos in the way that we see it today. A YouTuber named Nuriel, who calls himself Round About, has taken to opposing flerfs on a different footing from the majority of those who take up opposition to the flat earth arguments. Round About is a Bible-believing Jew who takes up the opposite position of flat earth Evangelicals. Whereas they read the Bible literally when it says that God stretched out the heavens and made a firmament, Round About argues that the Bible doesn’t at all teach that the earth is flat and that those verses which seem to argue in support of a flat earth are metaphors. This makes his argument a bit different from most, in that he accepts the Bible as inerrant while opposing flat earthers. Normally, those who are on the inerrantist side accept flat earth, and those who oppose it either reject biblical authority or acknowledge that the Bible teaches a flat earth while admitting that these parts of the Bible should be rejected as pre-scientific and mistaken.
First, I will admit that Round About puts out some good arguments against flat earth claims. He accepts scientific data and what science has demonstrated regarding reality. He denies that the Bible teaches flat earth out of dedication to the dogma of inerrancy. Whereas we agree with Nuriel that the earth is spherical, should we accept what he has to say about the Bible not teaching a flat earth? Let’s look at the question together.
Isaiah 40:22 and Chug Ha’Arets
In the debate over the biblical presentation of the shape of the earth—whether the Tanach represents the earth as flat or as a sphere—Isaiah 40:22 takes center stage. It presents God as sitting high above the earth and looking down at how small its inhabitants are, as if they were insignificant grasshoppers. “It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them like a tent to live in” (NRSVUE). I remember when it had to be pointed out to me that a “circle” is not the same thing as a “sphere,” though they are both “round”—one in three dimensions and one in two. The two-dimensional shape cannot be taken as corresponding to what we find about the earth in reality. The word in the Hebrew of the verse is חוּג. Let’s take a quick look at the entries for this word in two of the most trusted Hebrew lexica used nowadays.
[HALOT] Koehler and Baumgartner’s The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Brill, 1994–2000):
חוּג: → חוג; MHb. עוּגה, > JArm.t Syr. חוּגְתָא: circle חוּג הָאָרֶץ the earth conceived as a disc Is 40:22, חוּג עַל־פְּנֵי תְהוֹם the horizon on the sea Pr 8:27; חוּג שָׁמַיִם the vault of heaven Jb 22:14 Sir 43:12. †
[DCH] David Clines’s Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (Sheffield, 1993–2011):
חוּג 3.1.1 n.[m.] circle—cstr. חוּג—with ref. to horizon (Is 40:22; Jb 26:10 [if em.] Pr 8:27; 1QM 1013), vault of heaven (Jb 22:14; Si 43:12), <OBJ> חקק mark out Jb 26:10 (if em. חֹק־חָג he drew a circle to חֹקֵק/חַק חוּג he decreed a circle) Pr 8:27, נקף hi. surround Si 43:12(M[Yadin]) ([הקיפה] חוג; B חוק, either חֹק statute, i.e. boundary, or חוּק circle; Bmg הוֹד splendour), הלך htp. walk upon Jb 22:14, ברא create 1QM 1013. <cstr> חוּג שָׁמַיִם circle, i.e. vault of heaven Jb 22:14, חוּג הָאָרֶץ circle of the earth, appar. vault of heaven Is 40:22, חוג ימים circle of the seas 1QM 1013. <prep> עַל upon, above, + ישׁב sit Is 40:22. <coll> חוּג עַל־פְּנֵי תְהוֹם a circle on the face of the deep Pr 8:27, sim. Jb 26:10 (מַיִם on the face of the waters; if em.; see Subj.).*
► חוּג draw a circle.
And for those who can read modern Hebrew, here is the entry from Even-Shoshan:
חוּג (ז׳) [מן חוג] 1. עִגּוּל, הֶקֵּף: ”וְחוּג שָׁמַיִם יִתְהַלָּךְ“ (איוב כב יד). 2.ח כָּל אֶחָד מִשְּׁנֵי הַמַּעֲגָלִים הַמַּקְבִּילִים לַמַּשְׁוֶה בְּכַדּוּר הַשָּׁמַיִם וּבְכַדּוּר הָאָרֶץ: חוּג הַגְּדִי וְחוּג הַסַּרְטָן [ראו ערכים גְּדִי, סַרְטָן]. 3.ח סְבִיבָה, תְּחוּם, אֵזוֹר: ”תִּשָּׁאֵר… בְּתוֹךְ הַחוּג הַצַּר שֶׁהִיא סְגוּרָה בּוֹ עַתָּה“ (אחד העם, לט). כָּל חוּגֵי הָעָם הִשְׁתַּתְּפוּ בַּמִּפְעָל. בִּלִּיתִי אֶת הַשַּׁבָּת בְּחוּג הַמִּשְׁפָּחָה. חוּגֵי הַמֶּמְשָׁלָה הִכְחִישׁוּ אֶת הַשְּׁמוּעָה. 4.ח [בהשאלה] הֶקֵּף, תְּחוּם: ”אֲבָל כְּשֶׁחוּג-מַבָּטוֹ מִתְרַחֵב, כְּשֶׁהוּא רוֹאֶה לְפָנָיו כָּל הָעוֹלָם“ (ברנר, א 435). חוּג יְדִיעוֹתָיו שֶׁל הָאִישׁ רָחָב. 5.ח קְבוּצַת אֲנָשִׁים הַמִּתְכַּנְּסִים לְעִתִּים מְזֻמָּנוֹת לְשֵׁם פְּעֻלָּה מְסֻיֶּמֶת: חוּג לְלִמּוּד תָּנָ״ךְ. חוּג דְּרָמָתִי בְּבֵית-הַסֵּפֶר. [חוּג־, חוּגִים, חוּגֵי־]
The dictionaries in both Hebrew and English clearly say that the meaning is “circle” (Heb. עִגּוּל). What does Round About say about it, though? He claims that חוּג should be read as a verb, presumably an qal infinitive construct. Just for comparison, let’s look at the qal entry for this verb in Even-Shoshan:
פָּעַל חָג 1. (פ״י) עָשָׂה עִגּוּל, סִרְטֵט קָו מִסָּבִיב: ”חֹק חָג עַל־פְּנֵי־מָיִם“ (איוב כו י). הַתַּלְמִיד חָג עִגּוּל בַּמְּחוּגָה. 2.ב (פ”ע) הִסְתּוֹבֵב, נִשָּׂא בְּעִגּוּל: ”וַאֲנִי עַל גַּב אֳנִי תָּלוּי בְּבֵין מַיִם וּבֵין שָׁמַיִם אָחוּג וְאָנוּעַ“ (יהודה הלוי, א 26). ”צִפּוֹר זָהָב, עוּפִי, חוּגִי“ (ביאליק, בין נהר פרת). ”חָגָה, נָעָה הָאֳנִיָּה“ (ביאליק, קטינא כל בו). [לָחוּג, חָג חָֽגָה; חָג, חָגָֽה; יָחוּג]
In Even-Shoshan, the abbreviation ב means בֵּינוֹנִית and refers to medieval Hebrew. The other abbreviations for time periods are: מ for biblical (מִקְרָאִית), ת for the Hebrew of the rabbinic period (תַּלְמוּדִית), and ח for modern Hebrew (חֲדָשָׁה). The biblical meaning is to “make a circle” or “to sketch a line around” something (Even-Shoshan). What could this possibly mean as an infinitive construct? If we took it as a qal infinitive construct, it would lead to something like “He sits above the earth’s sketching of a circle,” which makes no sense.
It seems to me that Round About is anachronistically importing the modern meaning of קְבוּצַת אֲנָשִׁים הַמִּתְכַּנְּסִים לְעִתִּים מְזֻמָּנוֹת לְשֵׁם פְּעֻלָּה מְסֻיֶּמֶת (Even-Shoshan fifth meaning), since it has to do with engaging in some type of activity—as if God were looking down on people engaging in their busy activities like a bunch of grasshoppers. This agrees with what he said in the interview, but this isn’t the meaning of this root in biblical Hebrew. That is the meaning that has been created in modern Hebrew, and reading that meaning into the Bible is anachronism. In this way, he takes the noun that refers to a group for activities (in the sense, for example, of children engaging in extra-curricular activities after school) and says that it has a verbal meaning within this verse. When we speak the modern counterpart of an ancient language, we must do our best to avoid importing our understanding when reading a text, since the modern meaning may not be represented at all in the uses of the language in the ancient world. This is the case here.
The Syllogism Within
Together with Job 38:12–15, those who espouse the flat earth theory often come to the conclusion as the result of a literal approach to reading the Bible that the Tanach suggests that the earth is a flat disk above which God takes his seat. The argument may be written as a syllogism in the following way:
P1 Everything the Tanach plainly states must be believed.
P2 The Tanach plainly states that the earth is flat.
∴ We must believe that the earth is flat.
This argument clearly hinges on accepting everything from the Bible as literally true—the position of many Evangelicals in the United States—which is why the flat earth argument is gaining so much traction in that demographic. Of course, “true” leaves space for non-literal expressions such as metaphor, simile, hyperbole, etc. Yet, when the Bible speaks on any issue, it must have the final word, which is why it is taken to override scientific conclusions (especially evolutionary theory, but also any cosmology). Since the Torah speaks of the vault of the sky as a רָקִיעַ, which is derived from the verb לִרְקֹעַ “to hammer out,” since it specifically says that in order to bring on Noah’s flood God “opened the windows of heaven” to allow waters to fall down upon the earth, since it says that God sits above the circular disk of the earth, those who believe in the above syllogism must accept that the earth is flat and has a dome-like firmament above it.
The alternative conclusion is that the Bible reflects the thinking of the people who wrote it from within the world as they saw and understood it—and we should not expect them to have been hyperscientific and to have understood all of the workings of the world. After all, the inhabitants of earth were completely earth-bound and unable to explore the heavens just over a century ago. For the most part, they were unable to imagine a world beyond what they could see, due not to limitation of the imagine or the reasoning faculty, but due only to the fact that it was reasonable for them to draw conclusions that matched what they saw in the world.
To the ancients, the world simply stretched out as far as its set limitations existed. Where were those limitations? Only God knew, which is why he is credited in the Bible with “spreading out the earth” (Isaiah 42:5 etc.), implying that he laid it out and knows where it ends. The earth is also said to have “ends” and “corners” (the extents of the four directions) and to be similar to a sheet that is spread out. Only God knew where the earth ended, but it surely ended at some point.
Nuriel seems to operate from a different syllogism. Whereas the above syllogism forces meaning on the scientific perception of the world, the syllogism undergirding his thinking forces meaning on the text of the Bible. This is the syllogism spelled out:
P1 The Bible cannot make any claims that are incorrect.
P2 Flat earth claims are incorrect (the earth is spherical).
∴ The Bible cannot make the claim that the earth is flat.
He first restricts what the Bible can claim, since he rejects the idea that there could possibly be any mistakes in those things which the Bible claims, and this forces him to reinterpret the meanings of the texts that apparently represent the perspective of a flat earth. Thus, “he sits above the circle of the earth,” which seems to show the earth as a circular disk above which Yahweh looks down upon its inhabitants like humans keep ant farms, must be understood to mean something else—anything else—in order to protect the major premise of his syllogism.
To prevent the violation of this principle, he reverts to interpreting the text in ways that he would call fallacious in any other situation. Just as we cannot interpret the word כַּדּוּר in the Bible to mean “bullet” because there were no guns in biblical times, so we cannot take חוּג with some modern sense like “engaging in group activities.” That is not what the word meant in the Bible. It literally meant what the English translations indicate—that the earth was being pictured like a flat disk that, if one were seated above it, he could view all of its inhabitants at once like we watch ants in their farms through the side of the glass. Nuriel’s interpretation might be inventive, but being a modern Hebrew speaker does not instantly qualify one for biblical interpretation. And in this case, the anachronism has caused a problem and led him to an incorrect conclusion. The Bible has the earth as a flat disk above which sits a dome that separates waters above it from the waters of the seas. The disk sits on foundations, and God laid those foundations and knows where the earth’s ends lie.