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Home > Magazines > Bible Review > Spring 2005

When Forever Isn’t Forever

Reinterpretation is sometimes the only way to keep God’s promise alive.

Can God lie? The answer, according to the Bible, is “yes.” On one occasion, described in 1 Kings 22:22–23, God commissions a “lying spirit” that tricks the prophets of an evil Israelite king into encouraging their boss to go to war, where he will die. Elsewhere, however, the Bible clearly states that God does not lie. Numbers 23:19 asserts that “God is not a human being, that he should lie,” and in the New Testament, Titus 1:2 makes the same claim, that God “never lies.” It’s safe to assume that the majority opinion in ancient Israel was that God’s […]

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Footnotes

1.

For more on this topic, see William S. Schniedewind, Society and the Promise to David (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1999).

2.

See Lisbeth S. Fried, “Cyrus the Messiah,” BR, October 2003.