A Future Life in the O.T.
Sat.—Janus states that in the Old Testament there is no belief in a future life. I suggest that this statement is incorrect. Perhaps the most familiar statement of belief in a future life is to be found in the last verse of the 23rd Psalm ; but there are others. In the Book of the Psalms edited by Dr. James Hastings, of encyclopaedia fame, I find this: " Beyond the grave, behind the shadow, is the bright light of immortality, for the soul shall not be left in the grave, nor shall His Holy One see corruption. These foregleams of immortality are very few in number in the Old Testament, and are therefore all the
Yverdon, Cliftonville, Dorking. Rector of Wotton, Surrey.
[Janus writes: My statement, through the need for brevity, was perhaps too sweeping, but I think it was substantially correct. The general belief did not go beyond the idea of Sheol, and existence there as commonly imagined—e.g., Job x, 20-22—can hardly be considered as " a future life" as the term is understood today. There were no doubt rare gleams of immortality in the minds of one or two O.T. writers, but it is by no means clear that the author of the 23rd Psalm was one of them. As one commentator puts it. "There is no direct allusion to a future life in the words for ever,' neither is there any exclusion of the thought." The R.V. margin (so often the best authority) reads " for length of days."]
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