"You shall anoint them, as you anointed their father, that they may minister to me in the priest's office. Their anointing shall be to them for an everlasting priesthood throughout their generations" (Exodus 40:15).
Translation Issues:
Everlasting or Indefinite Continuance?
The Bible was originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek. Some of these original words are sometimes translated as "everlasting" or "forever", when possibly they should be translated to infer indefinite continuance. Strong's words 5769 and 165 are examples in the Old Testament and New Testament, respectively.
Contradictions are sometimes created in some passages by rendering those words as "everlasting" or "forever". For example:
"You shall anoint them, as you anointed their father, that they may minister to me in the priest's office. Their anointing shall be to them for an everlasting priesthood throughout their generations" (Exodus 40:15).
The priesthood of Aaron (Exodus 40:12-15) was not eternal. It was of indefinite duration. Christ replaced it. We do not have the sons of Aaron performing sacrifices or any priestly duties in the Christian church. Neither do present day Jews. Nowhere in the pages of the New Testament do we see a continuation of Aaronic priesthood. See Hebrews 7:1-10:18, especially 7:12, 8:4-5 and 9:11-14. Instead of the sons of Aaron being priests, all Christians are priests! See 1 Peter 2:9.
In Depth Study: Everlasting or Indefinite Continuance?
The difference between eternal and indefinite continuance, and the proper translation of certain words in the Old and New Testament regarding that difference is treated here.
For those of you who are interested in a detailed study of this subject written by a theologian who is expert in both Hebrew and Greek, see the analysis below by Joseph Rotherham from the introduction to his translation of the Bible, The Emphasized Bible. The remainder of this page, is devoted to Rotherham's scholarly examination of this topic, which was published in 1902.
As I quote Rotherham below, you will see some phrases, in bold text. Those phrases are in Rotherham's appendix, but not in bold print. But, I have rendered them in bold text below to make it easier for you to understand Rotherham's point of view.
I present below two entries from the appendix to Rotherham's Emphasized Bible:
- AGE
- AGE-ABIDING
Here is Rotherham's treatment of the subject:
AGE
To trace the Biblical development of the Ages is to gain a point from which many
far-reaching observations may be made. The first thing to note is, that the idea of an "age"
is one of comparatively slow growth. The Biblical parent of the Greek aion is the Hebrew
olâm, and the root conception of olâm is concealed duration. Concealed duration is
naturally unknown and unbounded; and it should be carefully remembered that it is from
this radical conception of the nouns olâm and aion that the force of the qualifying terms
l'olâm and aionios springs. (See below on Age-abiding.) The second thing to observe is,
that duration does not fall into "ages" until it acquires character, and there is a transition
of the times from one character into another. Only by degrees can a period round itself off
into a "golden age," and then, by some observable transition, the time become so changed
as to appear as only a "silver age" in comparison; or "an age of barbarism" undergo such
an amelioration as to become gradually merged into "an age of civilisation." Accordingly
it is not till we get far on in the O.T. that we meet with olâmim in the plural. The third
thing to notice is, that "ages" may be so modified by local conditions as to vary with
country and sphere; so that the ages in different lands may be far from simultaneous.
While one country is advancing in civilisation or religion, another may be receding. A
golden age may not be world-wide; a barbaric period may not afflict all lands at once and
an age of activity in one direction may be an age of stagnation or retrogression in another.
In fine, ages may overlap and interlace and interchange; and the result may be one of the
utmost complexity, calling for the most thoughtful and guarded discrimination. "The
patriarchal age" may, for the Hebrews, be changed into "the Mosaic," and yet for other
nations remain patriarchal still. "The Mosaic age" naturally affects those only who come
under Moses. It is folly for Gentiles to speak as if they had once been under Moses if they
never were. The fourth point of importance is, that only as a change of age is
supernaturally superinduced can we assume to characterise a given age as a divine
dispensation. It cannot be affirmed that God has placed under Moses nations whom at the
same time he is "suffering to walk after their own ways " (Ac. xiv. 16). The fifth
consideration that arises is, that larger ages may include smaller ones. The larger age of
Mosaism may embrace the smaller ages of the Judges, of the Kings, of the Dispersions.
The final Christian age may resolve itself into the age of the Church, to be followed by
the age of the Kingdom. Nay, we may go further and affirm, that all ages, up to a given
point, may be predominantly evil, and then, from that point onward, be wholly or
prevailingly good. When the foregoing factors of thought have been patiently digested,
the student to whom the subject is new may find it comparatively easy to accommodate
his mind to the crowning discrimination which can he traced in the Christian Scriptures,
and in tracing which the eye will rest on the following land-marks. "This age" and "the
coming" are terms which describe a distinction which runs through the New Testament
(Mt. xii. 32; Eph. i. 21). (i.) "This Age" is characterised as one of anxieties (Mk. iv. 19);
of a commingling of good seed and bad in the field sown by the Son of Man (Mt. xiii.
24-30, 36-43); of persecutions (Mk. x. 30); of need for nonconformity (Ro. xii. 2; Tt. ii.
12); of the crucifying of the Lord of glory by its rulers (1 Co. ii. 8); or the deification of
Satan (2 Co. iv. 4); of the prevalence of evil (Gal. i. 4, cp. Eph. ii. 2; 2 Tim. iv. 10). (ii.)
"The coming age" will be signalised by the forthshining of the glory of the Lord (Tt. ii.
13; 1 Co. xv. 23); the resurrection from among the dead (Lu. xx. 35); the bestowal of
age-abiding life (Mk. x. 30; Lu. xviii. 30); and the forthshining of the righteous in the
kingdom (Mt. xiii. 39, 43).—"The conclusion of the age" is spoken of in Mt. xiii. 39, 40,
49; xxiv. 3; xxviii. 20; "the conjunction of the ages," Heb. ix. 26; and "the ends of the
ages," 1 Co. x. 11. (Cp. note on "Age-abiding" below.)
AGE-ABIDING
Age-abiding: that is, lasting for an indefinite or perpetual age; or abiding from age to age. The reasons for adopting this rendering of the Greek adjective aionios are:
(i.) to keep up a close connection with the word "age" as the translation, in this New Testament, of the cognate noun aion; and (ii.) to avoid, as too restricted, the confinement of the idea to any particular, limited age. It is true that aion does not of itself mean absolute eternity, otherwise it would not submit to be multiplied by itself, as in the familiar phrase "aions of aions," which would then be equivalent to "eternities of eternities"; and it is further true that, in the history of divine revelation, aion sometimes puts a dispensational limit upon itself, so far as that the dawn of a new aion or "age" serves to close and exclude an old aion or "age," the end of which was aforetime concealed in the mists of an undefined futurity (cp. note on "Age," above). But, with all this, it is most important to remember that "age" is not the primary meaning of aion: rather, Moreover, it seems to be as clothed with this more primitive significance, that the qualifying word aionios comes into use. The noun aion itself clings to this fundamental notion in the well-known idiomatic phrase eis ton aiona (lit. "into" or "unto the age"); in the interpretation of which, if the force of idiom he ignored, and each word be pressed on its individual merits, the reader will be continually teased by feeling that he is being referred to some particular and pre-eminent age, which ought to be well known, while all the time it is unknown. He may say: "'Unto the age' —unto what age?" and there will be nothing in context or circumstance to tell him; whereas, once assume the existence of an idiom, and then all perplexity is at an end —l'olâm, aionios and eis ton aiona become very nearly equivalent expressions, the essence of which is "indefinite continuance." The Hebrew servant's bondage, for example, is to be indefinitely prolonged: it is to be for life—the end of which cannot be seen (Exo. xxi. 6). So also the Hebrew priesthood was appointed for indefinite continuance, when as yet it could not be foreseen that a change in the priesthood would necessitate a change in the law (Exo. xl. 15; He. vii. 12). The surrender of Samuel, by his mother, to the priestly service is to be taken as equally undefined (1 S. i. 22). To the barrenness of the fig-tree no limit can be assigned (Mt. xxi. 19). The son does not cease to be welcome in his father's house, save by externally induced bounds to possibility (Jn. viii. 35). Upon the "aionion correction" (Mt. xxv. 46) no arbitrary limit can be laid,—unless indeed the essential nature of "correction" implies it—aionios of itself utterly refuses to settle the dread question. If the equally "aionion life" is to be endless, that is best made out from the mighty negatives of Scripture ("immortal," "incorruptible," "unfading": 1 Co. xv. 51-54; 1 P. i. 4), and from the correlative promise. "Because I live ye also shall live" (Jn. xiv. 19; He. vii. 16).