Chapter LXXXI.—He endeavours to prove this opinion from Isaiah and the
Apocalypse.
“For Isaiah spake thus concerning this space of a thousand years: ‘For there shall be the
new heaven and the new earth, and the former shall not be remembered, or come into their
heart; but they shall find joy and gladness in it, which things I create. For, Behold, I make
Jerusalem a rejoicing, and My people a joy; and I shall rejoice over Jerusalem, and be glad
over My people. And the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, or the voice of
crying. And there shall be no more there a person of immature years, or an old man who
shall not fulfil his days.501 For the young man shall be an hundred years old;502 but the
sinner who dies an hundred years old,503 he shall be accursed. And they shall build houses,
and shall themselves inhabit them; and they shall plant vines, and shall themselves eat the
produce of them, and drink the wine. They shall not build, and others inhabit; they shall
not plant, and others eat. For according to the days of the tree of life shall be the days of my
people; the works of their toil shall abound.504 Mine elect shall not toil fruitlessly, or beget
children to be cursed; for they shall be a seed righteous and blessed by the Lord, and their
offspring with them. And it shall come to pass, that before they call I will hear; while they
are still speaking, I shall say, What is it? Then shall the wolves and the lambs feed together,
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent [shall eat] earth as bread. They shall
not hurt or maltreat each other on the holy mountain, saith the Lord.’505 Now we have un-
derstood that the expression used among these words, ‘According to the days of the tree [of
life506] shall be the days of my people; the works of their toil shall abound’ obscurely predicts
a thousand years. For as Adam was told that in the day he ate of the tree he would die, we
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know that he did not complete a thousand years. We have perceived, moreover, that the
expression, ‘The day of the Lord is as a thousand years,’507 is connected with this subject.
And further, there was a certain man with us, whose name was John, one of the apostles of
Christ, who prophesied, by a revelation that was made to him, that those who believed in
our Christ would dwell508 a thousand years in Jerusalem; and that thereafter the general,
501 Literally, “time.”
502 Literally, “the son of an hundred years.”
503 Literally, “the son of an hundred years.”
504 Or, as in margin of A. V., “they shall make the works of their toil continue long,” so reading παλαιώσουσιν
for πλεονάσουσιν: thus also LXX.
505 Isa. lxv. 17 to end.
506 These words are not found in the mss.
507 Ps. xc. 4; 2 Pet. iii. 8.
508 Literally, “make.” [A very noteworthy passage, as a primitive exposition of Rev. xx. 4–5. See Kaye, chap.
v.]
Chapter LXXXI.—He endeavours to prove this opinion from Isaiah and the Apocalypse.
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Chapter LXXXI.—He endeavours to prove this opinion from Isaiah and the …