Verse 11
11. For ensamples Greek, typically; that is, illustratively.
The world World in the Greek, here, is plural, making ends of the worlds. The word signifies age or dispensation; implying a cycle of time in which some great round of Providence is accomplished. Hence, if the word here be rendered world, it must be understood to signify not κοσμος , cosmos, the material world, but a world -period, or time- world. These ages or time- worlds of sacred history can be variously measured. We may reckon the antediluvian period or world; the patriarchal; the Mosaic and the Christian. In Matthew 24:3 the Greek for end of the world is της συντελειας του αιωνος ; literally, the together ending of the age, or present time-world. The term together ending, or con -summation, implies the converging of several threads of providential events to a common close. Similarly, here we have the (plural) endings, convergings to one close, of all the previous ages into the present final age. The age of the Messiah is the age for which the previous ages, or time- worlds, were framed. Hebrews 1:2. Hence the wilderness-histories of Israel find their antitype in the present history of the Church, and so were written for our admonition. We are heirs to all the past.
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