The Evangelical Universalist Forum

a covenant for a thousand generations?

Can the following passages (taken from the KJV) be understood to mean that God’s covenant was made a thousand generations (at least 20,000 and perhaps as many as 40,000 years) ago?

“Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations.” (Deuteronomy 7:9)

“Be ye mindful always of his covenant; the word which he commanded to a thousand generations.” (I Chronicles 16:15)

“He hath remembered his covenant for ever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations.” (Psalm 105:8)

I’m particularly interested in an analysis of the Hebrew text of these passages.

I’d understand this purely in terms of accommodative “hyperbolic language” much like…

Any wooden literalism implies God owns no more than “1000” – who owns the 1001st etc?

I agree, but wouldn’t it therefore be natural to understand these passages to be talking about more than a literal 1,000 generations? Wouldn’t it be odd to suppose the writers used “a thousand” to refer to a number significantly lower than a thousand?

No I don’t think so; it just means “many”, which is indeterminate in terms of straining the gnat in missing the gist of what’s being said, IMO.