A WORD WITH MULTIPLE MEANINGS
There are eight different words (four Hebrew and four Greek) that are translated as “world” in the King James Version of the Bible. It is helpful to study these words if we are to understand the spiritual meaning of the word.
Eretz (a word that appears 2,047 times in the Old Testament) is translated as “world” four times in the KJ. Looking at the definitions of Eretz we see that it is translated into many words (e.g. land 1543, earth 712, country 140, ground 98, way 3, common 1, field 1, nations 1, wilderness) in addition to the four times it is translated as “world.”
Owlam (a word that appears 439 times in the Old Testament) is translated as “world” four times in the KJV. Looking at the definitions of Owlam we see that it is also translated into many other words (e.g. ever 272, everlasting 63, old 22, perpetual 22, evermore 15, never 13, time 6, ancient 5, always 3, alway 2, long 2, more 2, never 2, miscellaneous 6) in addition to the four times it is translated as “world.”
Tebel (a word that appears 36 times in the Old Testament) is translated as world thirty-four times in the KJV. Looking at the definitions of Tebel we see that it is also translated into other words (inhabited 1, inhabited world 1) in addition to the thirty-four times it is translated as “world.” Curiously, variations on Tebel are translated as confusion (e.g. violation of nature or divine order) and incest and perversion.
Cheled (a word which appears five times in the Old Testament) is translated two times as “world”, two times as “age” and once as “time”.
Oikoumene (a word that appears fifteen times in the New Testament is translated fourteen times as “world” and once as “inhabited earth.”
Aion (a word that appears 128 times in the New Testament is translated world 38 times. Looking at the definition of Aion we see that it is also translated as several other words (e.g. , never, ever, evermore, age, eternal, miscellaneous).
Kosmos (a word that appears 186 times in the New Testament) is translated as world or worlds 185 times and once as adornment.
The wide variety of definitions and uses of these words obviously makes understanding difficult. Looking at the definition of “world” in English, we see again that it has a wide variety of meanings. What we learn from these observations is that it would be misleading to adopt a simple, definition of “world” for all applications in either the Bible or in common usage. The many nuanced meanings require that the context in which the word “world” is used must be carefully considered if we are to understand the intent — especially in the Bible.