Revelation: For Ever is Two Words

For ever and ever?  

I had always wondered about the “and ever” part.  How is that even possible?  If forever means without end, wouldn’t “for ever and ever” be eternity plus eternity? 

For so long a time I decided “for ever and ever” must just be the ornate language of the ostentatious Revelation until many years later I discovered something so significant that it made me wonder why it took me for ever and ever to discover it.

Mrs. Kirby would have noticed.  She was an effective English teacher who positively affected her students.  Hmm?  Was that a correct use of effect and affect?  Wish I could ask Mrs. Kirby.  She tried to help us hone our homophones, those tricky words that sound the same but have different spellings and meanings.  Nearing retirement, the silver-haired matronly marm wore long floral print dresses and thick black-rimmed glasses.  Tottery with a halting limp, her right hand would occasionally tremble from a slight palsy.  Feeble in body but not in mind, Mrs. Kirby was a sharp grammarian. 

David was my best friend in ninth grade.  Tall, olive-skinned, curly headed, my pensive pal was amusingly childlike.  He wasn’t exactly paying attention when Mrs. Kirby explained the slippery difference between effect and affect.  He tried to refocus by innocently asking, “Now what does affect with the "a" mean again?”  Mrs. Kirby dryly replied, “What does that have to do with you, David?”  Not realizing she had expertly answered his question, he awkwardly responded, “Oh, nothing Mrs. Kirby.  I was just wondering.”  An eruption of laughter revealed the class got what he didn’t.   Kind as she was keen, Mrs. Kirby pleasantly clarified her response to David’s relieved satisfaction.

From homophones, homonyms, and homographs to innumerable idioms and a thousand inconsistencies of several dozen “rules,” it’s a wonder we ever learned to speak such a bewildering thing, especially considering we did so in but a few years after we were born!   

A witty wag highlights some of the oddities of our nuanced native tongue:

Our beloved English, I think you’ll agree,

Is the craziest language you ever did see.

We'll begin with box, and the plural is boxes;

But the plural of ox should be oxen, not oxes.

And one fowl is goose, but two are called geese,

Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.

You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,

Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

We speak of a brother, and also of brethren,

But though we say mother, we never say methren.

Beware of heard, a dreadful word,

That looks like beard and sounds like bird.

The masculine pronouns are he, his and him,

But imagine the feminine she, shis, and shim!

A dreadful language? Why, man alive,

I'd learned to speak it when I was five,

And yet to write it, the more I’ve tried,

I haven't learned it at fifty-five!

My Amish friends, whose first language is the Deitsch (Pennsylvania Dutch), and who refer to outsiders as "English," would often pause a moment to thoughtfully choose just the right English word in our conversations.  “Umm... how would you say…?”  They would also correct what they presumed was a misuse of English.  Once a sweaty neighbor grumbled on a sweltering day, "It's hot!"  An Amishman responded, "We don't like to say hot because that would be complaining.  We say warm."   The miserably warm fellow bluntly countered, "Well, I don't like to say warm because that would be lying.  It’s hot!"  

Complaining, “Ah, that took forever!” elongating the evvvvvver, I was gently scolded for exaggeration.  “Now you know that did not take an e-ter-ni-ty,” enunciated a beard under a broad brim.  “It may have taken a long time, but it did not take forever.”  And it wasn’t any obsession with linguistic precision that provoked the reproof, but rather his spiritual sobriety.  Eternity is a serious matter to the Amish and shouldn’t be taken lightly.  

Wait, what?  Was that a typo?  I was reading in Revelation about the smoke of their torment ascending up “for ever and ever” (14:11) and noticed for the first time that there was a space between for and ever.  Yeah, surely that was a mistake.  But it was the same in the passage about the devil being tormented day and night “for ever and ever” (20:10).  I checked the concordance to locate other texts using the term and was surprised to find that every single one had the space between, over four hundred times in all.  Definitely not a typo.  “Forever” was nowhere to be found - the word was not in the Word.  It is always two words, “for ever.”  For ever- four hundred plus times.  Forever- never. 

In fact, writing the two as one didn't even start until the late 1600's.  What difference does it make?  A vital one.  Mrs. Kirby might put it this way: "Instead of being a synonym of timeless eternity, it is a prepositional phrase expressing a long but indefinite length of time.  Pay attention, David!"  

This understanding has survived in our common usage, an exasperation instead of an exaggeration, and not a misuse in spite of the Amish objection.  We English speakers, especially the American variety, are forever saying “forever” to speak of a long but indefinite length of time.  “It took forever!”  “We had to wait in line forever.”  “Are you going to be in there forever?”  And some dramatically drone “The preacher went on and on forever.”  We mean it in a long, but indefinite, not infinite, sense. 

It’s how we consistently use “ever.”  Whenever something is indefinite, we add “ever.”  For example, if someone asks, “What time should I get there?”  If it’s a definite time we may say nine or noon.  If it’s indefinite, we say “whenever."  “Oh, just come on whenever.”  Or “Who can go on the trip?”  If it’s definite we may say “any church youth 13 and older.”  But if it’s indefinite, we say “whoever."  “Whoever wants to go.”  Whenever, whoever, wherever, whichever, whatever, however- “ever” is definitely indefinite.  Say whichever of those words and you know immediately it’s not specific.  

As we discovered in the chapter on Ever-Ascending Smoke, the fires from the terrorist attack on 911 burned for at least one hundred days.  That’s a definite length of time.  How long?  For one hundred days.  But there was no way to know how long it would be when the planes first crashed into the towers.  As we observed the scene day after day on the news we could have accurately said the fires burned and the smoke ascended for ever-  a long but indefinite length of time.    How long?  If definite, for so long a time, in this case for one hundred days.  If indefinite, “for ever.”  Again, it's not the merged word forever, which has evolved into a synonym of eternity or eternally, but the phrase for ever, expressing an unspecified amount of time.  

This is not to say that in the context it cannot mean without end.  It may.  But the context decides.  “O thou enemy, destructions are come to a perpetual end: and thou hast destroyed cities; their memorial is perished with them.  But the Lord shall endure for ever” (Psalm 9:6, 7).  The context presents “a perpetual end… destroyed… perished” contrasted with “endure for ever”-  an end contrasted with no end.  And of course the Lord shall endure without end.  The context decides.

Under the law, a Hebrew servant who was free to go after six years of service but wished to stay with the wife his master gave him, could decide “I will not go out free: Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever” (Exodus 21:5, 6; Cf. Leviticus 25:46).  No ear-ringed eternal slave here, but because it was unknown how long the servant may live, he would thus serve his master “for ever”- an indefinite length of time, presumably long, but still unknown.  The context decides. 

Numerous times “for ever” is used to describe a perpetual ordinance.  Here’s a few examples: “It shall be a statute for ever in your generations concerning the offerings of the Lord” (Leviticus 6:18); “an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord... an ordinance for ever in your generations” (Numbers 15:14, 15); “the Levites shall do the service of the tabernacle… it shall be a statute for ever” (Numbers 18:23).  All of these lasted for an indefinite length of time as “a shadow of good things to come” (Hebrews 10:1), but were replaced and fulfilled by the Lamb of God who made atonement by the sacrifice of himself.  

Here’s a curious one: “An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the Lord for ever” (Deuteronomy 23:3).  Though the restriction specifically extends “even to their tenth generation,” it still doesn’t specify exactly how long that may be, so it is “for ever.”  Similarly “Joshua burnt Ai, and made it an heap for ever, even a desolation unto this day” (Joshua 8:28).  Someone could have checked the calendar to ascertain precisely how much time had elapsed since “Joshua burnt Ai” but how long Ai would continue to be a heap was unknown, so it was accurate to say “made it an heap for ever.”  

I could go on and on for… well, ever, but I am only trying to prove my contention that “for ever” as a two word phrase is not necessarily synonymous with “eternity” or “eternally," but can be if the context so indicates.  

So what about the "for ever and ever?"  Why, now it makes sense.  It does indeed express a long period of time, and that would be the very reason for adding “and ever,” but it's indefinite, not a nonsensical and impossible "eternally and eternally."  Indefinite, not infinite.  This is made clear in Revelation by the fact that “for ever” is never found by itself; it is always (twelve times total) “for ever and ever” with one revealing exception: “I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen” (Revelation 1:18).  This one exception, with the “evermore,” clearly expresses an endless “eternally.”  The other dozen just as clearly do not.  The smoke of Sodom and Gomorrah and Idumea continued to rise for a long indefinite time, as will the smoke from the future destruction of Babylon and the torment of the devil and those who worship the beast.  

Mrs. Kirby could appreciate how combining the two words “for ever” into “forever” would have a consequential effect and unduly affect orthodox eschatology.  Hmm?  Did I get it right that time, Mrs. Kirby?  It's been forever since ninth grade, and David and I still aren’t sure. 

But of this I am certain: in the Bible “for ever” is two words.  This indefinite phrase makes a definite difference, and we should be as careful as the Amish to get it right.