Isaiah (Major Prophet, Old Testament) · Prophetic poetry
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God sits above the חוּג (chug) — the circle/circuit — of the earth and stretches out the heavens like a curtain and a tent.
The passage explicitly says chug (circle/circuit). Any move from 'circle' to 'sphere' is interpretation, not translation. Do not label chug as 'sphere' — see Isaiah 22:18 for the actual Hebrew ball-word.
A circle drawn on a surface. The heavens are pictured as a tent stretched over that circle — a bounded, disc-shaped earth with a canopy above.
The horizon of a spherical earth appears as a circle from any vantage above it. Some readers extend 'circle' to 'sphere', though the Hebrew word chug is not the word for a ball.
A circle; a circuit; a compass-drawn arc or vault. BDB gives 'circle, vault'. Distinct from a three-dimensional ball.
Brown–Driver–Briggs (BibleHub reprint)Earth; land; the ground or a defined territory.
Brown–Driver–Briggs (BibleHub reprint)Heavens; sky. Dual/plural form; the visible expanse above.
Brown–Driver–Briggs (BibleHub reprint)Isaiah 40:22 uses chug (H2329) — circle, circuit, or drawn boundary. Isaiah 22:18 uses kaddur (H1754) — a ball. Isaiah 40:22 does not use the Hebrew word for a ball. A flat-circle reading of chug is a recognized interpretation of the imagery; other interpreters read chug as horizon, circuit, or a circular language compatible with a globe. Chug is not lexically defined as "sphere" — do not automatically rewrite Isaiah 40:22 as "sphere of the earth".
A circle; a circuit; a compass-drawn arc or vault. BDB gives 'circle, vault'. Distinct from a three-dimensional ball.
Brown–Driver–Briggs (BibleHub reprint)God sits above the חוּג (chug) — the circle/circuit — of the earth and stretches out the heavens like a curtain and a tent.
A ball. BDB: 'ball'. Used in Isaiah 22:18 of a ball tossed into a wide land. This is the Hebrew word for a ball; it is not the word used in Isaiah 40:22.
Brown–Driver–Briggs (BibleHub reprint)God will roll/wind Shebna around like a כַּדּוּר (kaddur — a ball) and throw him into a wide land.
The explicit word in Isaiah 40:22 is chug. Any move from "circle" to "sphere" is later geometric interpretation, not translation.
Scripture text: World English Bible (public domain) — Heavens Declare verified corpus. Every verse on this page is rendered from the verified corpus already ingested into Heavens Declare — not from the discovery article.
Verse discovery: BibleStudyTools — Bible Verses About Flat Earth — Secondary topical-index reference used only to seed the verse list. Not the source of Scripture text or lexical claims. Retrieved 2026-07-26.