Hebrew Word Study – Eternity – ‘Olam

Ecclesiastes 3:11: “He hath made everything beautiful in its time (season), also he has set the world (eternity) in their hearts, so that no man can find out the work that God made from beginning to end.”

“Grow old with me, the best is yet to be.”  Robert Browning 

Probably 50% of your modern English translations will render olam (eternity) as the world.   I have never understood this as olam clearly carries a time factor to it.  It does give sense to the Biblical phrase: “So no man can find out the work that God made from beginning to end.” Yet, the Hebrew is so ambiguous here that I find the most appropriate rendering to be: “He has placed eternity in their hearts and yet they still cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”  In other words, God has brought so much beauty into the world but we cannot even begin to comprehend it all.

The word time here is ‘ayth which is an appointment, an appointed time, or a season.  “He has made everything beautiful in its appointed season.”  I just love the way the writer poetically uses ‘ayth and ‘olam.  He has made us creatures of time yet with the awareness that we are also eternal.   Each season he brings a special beauty and like a beautiful flower, we can pick it from the ground and carry it with us through eternity.

Eternity (olam) is spelled Ayin, Lamed, Mem. Well, this day has been an eternity and I am tired. But as I laid back in my chair to take a nap, I suddenly heard the siren of an ambulance.  I looked across my desk and I saw Ayin and Final Mem running toward the ambulance with a stretcher carrying Lamed.  They quickly boarded the ambulance which raced through my Looking Glass hanging from my Daleth. At the risk of being called an ambulance chaser, I started to chase after the ambulance and followed it through my Looking Glass. I found myself in a hospital operating observation room.  I saw Ayin in a surgical gown and mask frantically working on Lamed. Final Mem was also in surgical garb and seemed to be giving Mem a heart massage. I was in an upper enclosed gallery watching all this. I was sitting next to Kap who is Lamed’s neighbor.  Kap was wringing his hands repeating: “Such a Shame, such a shame.” I asked what he was talking about and he said that Lamed suffered a heart attack. “Are Ayin and Final Mem specialists?” I asked. “Oh yes,” said Kap, watch what they are doing now.

I noticed Ayin take hold of the lower end of Lamed and Final Mem take the upper end.  Apparently, they were getting ready to perform some sort of CPR or AEP.  Suddenly, bolts of electricity flowed from Ayin and Mem and this power met in the bump (heart) of Lamed.  Lamed sat up and suddenly appeared quite well. Ayin and Mem were congratulating each other and patting Lamed on the back.

Kap looked at me and said I was very lucky. “Why should I be lucky,” I asked. Kap replied: “Ayin, Lamed, and Mem, form the word olam which means eternity and God placed ‘olam into your heart.  Ayin represents the deep spiritual insight, and the beauty that you are supposed to receive from this season in your life, and Final Mem represents the secrets or hidden mysteries of God that make them beautiful. The Ayin Lamed and Mem form the word eternity. You will notice olam came from Ecclesiastes 3:11.  Whatever is beautiful within ‘ayth your world of time will fade as your season ends and a new one begins.  Stories, roses, lovers all fade, but if it touches that which is eternal through the mysteries of God, they will abide forever.” My friend Kap continued: “As your season faded into a new season, you failed to grab hold of the beauty of the past season, and as all that beauty faded and Lamed started to Code Blue.  All that beauty that God sent into your life during this past season stood to be lost for eternity as you were just starting to cast your season to the wind.”

Lamed, now fully recovered, took his rightful place in Olam and journeyed with me back through the Looking Glass. Olam tried to explain to me that God sends something beautiful in every season of my life. “Not this season of my life” I responded rather negatively. “Yes,” said Olam, “Even in this very season of your life God is sending you something beautiful, you just must look for it before this season fades away and it is cast off to the wind to be lost for eternity.  In each day of our life God will bring us something beautiful and as we see God’s daily gift of beauty, we can carry it with us throughout eternity.

As Olam stepped back into my Hebrew Bible, He encouraged me by saying: “The more beauty of God you capture today in your heart today, the greater the beauty you will find in your next season.”  Don’t cast your seasons to the wind until you have grabbed hold of its beauty and set it in your heart for eternity.

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