Excerpt from Aiōn-Aiōnios: An Excursus on the Greek Word Rendered Everlasting, Eternal, Etc., In the Holy Bible

If the ancient Hebrew wished to express great but un known duration, past or future, he resorted to reduplications and intensified forms, as in Micah8 - We will walk in the name of the Lord our God for an olam and an Olam of olams, according to the Syriac version'g, or, in the Hebrew, for an olam Of ads, - the latter word being a synomym of the former. The phrases, generations of clams, and Olams of ads, are intensified'forms of the word for the purpose of describing indefinite, but still limited, duration; for at the time the Old Testament was written the Hebrew mind had not cognized the metaphysical idea of endless duration, and therefore could have no word expressive Of eternity. Says a French author10 - It is certain that in the Hebrew there is no word which, properly speaking, signifies eternity or a time which has no end. Gnolam signifies only a time, of which we know not the beginning or the end; according to the signification of its root, which means to conceal, to hide. Thus it is to be under stood more or less strictly according to the object to which it is applied. When it relates to God or his attributes we Should take it in its largest possible extent, that is to say, of an abso lute eternity. But when it is applied to things that have a beginning or an end, we must understand it in a manner SO limited as the subject requires. Thus, when God says of the Jewish laws that they should be observed 26 gnolam, forever, we must understand a Space of time as long as God Should find it proper, a Space of which the Jews, before the coming of the Messiah, did not know the end. An equally eminent German writer 11 declares The pure idea of eternity is too abstract to have been conceived in the early ages of the world.

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