These events indeed “came to pass” when Jesus, the true Temple, was torn down and raised up again through His death and resurrection (John 2:19-22). At the same time the word of the LORD will flow out to the ends of the earth. Even the mountains will shift when this “comes to pass.” The nations will flow uphill to the “house of the LORD”. What is yet to come will establish a whole new world. Notice how this future event will make history. 4 And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people. 3 And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And while all things in the meantime might pass, the Messiah’s coming would be the real making of history.įor instance, the KJB translates Isaiah chapter 2 like this:Ģ And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD’S house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills and all nations shall flow unto it. They strained ahead towards this Messianic future. The Messiah will come and establish His kingdom, He will shatter His enemies and reign in peace and righteousness. For them, the things that “shall come to pass” are earth-shattering events that will change history for good. Yet the words of the Old Testament prophets could not be more different. It’s a phrase invoking the transience of all things. It would make him happy when sad and sad when happy. It was meant to remind him that both his achievements and his sufferings were only fleeting. Legend has it that this saying was inscribed on a ring given to a powerful king. Therefore this saying is the very opposite of that similar sounding phrase which comes from Persian poets: The world will have to reckon with these fresh happenings. That is, they will be established as new states of affairs. These events will not only come, they will come to pass. By using the phrase, the translators manage to convey both a sense of future and past. And one of the great benefits of the phrase is its sense of prophetic history. There are 526 “comings to pass” in the Old Testament and 87 in the New. But we would have missed a beautiful turn of phrase. In fact many times they might have left it entirely untranslated (as many modern translations do). They might have simply said “It shall be”. It’s merely the future 3rd person singular of the verb “to be”. Six English words render a single Hebrew verb. Here’s a really lovely bit of over-translation from the KJB.
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