PHILIPPIANS 2:10 "THINGS UNDER THE EARTH"

 

As I was looking at the hymn in Philippians 2, my mind was drawn to verse 10 where it states that at the name of Jesus, every knee on heaven, on earth, or under the earth will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. I was especially curious about the reference to things “under the earth” and wondered how often that phrase appeared elsewhere in the Bible and what it referred to exactly. So I decided to look at all the similar geographical series throughout the Bible. When I did, a definite progression was seen to take place from two to three to four.

At the very start we see the very familiar coupling of heaven(s) and earth. Sometimes this phrase occurs with heaven in the singular and sometimes in the plural. There may not be any real distinction between the meanings of the two, but the references to heaven(s) in the Bible are somewhat ambiguous. At times the word appears to refer to the atmosphere above the earth while other passages make more sense if the meaning is the realm which God and the angels inhabit. In any case, “heaven(s) and earth” means the totality of God's creation.

The dual creation in Genesis 1 becomes a triad first at Exodus 20:4 when God commands the people not to make images of (and worship) anything in the heaven, the earth, or the water under the earth. But in this case, we need to go to the parallel teachings in Deuteronomy 4:18 and 5:8. Those two verses make it clear that fish and other sea dwellers are what are living in the water “under the earth.”

But in later references to “under the earth,” that metaphor usually applies to Sheol, the realm of the dead. For example, in I Samuel 28:13 a vision of the deceased prophet Samuel comes up from the ground. Thus, he must have been under the earth originally. Another completely different spiritual entity rises out of the earth in Revelation 13:11 – the second beast. And in Ezekiel 26:20; 31:14-16 and 32:18,24 various pagan nations are cursed and predicted to be sent to the underworld, also called the Pit. So we can assume that those mentioned in Philippians 2 as being under the earth are the various spirits, whether of deceased human beings or supernatural ones.

Another seemingly similar phrase is found in Psalm 139:15 in which the Psalmist talks about God forming him in the lowest parts of the earth. But that particular reference has been explained as either (a) an allusion to Adam being formed from the dust of the earth, (b) a metaphor for a deeply concealed place (i.e. the womb), or (c) a reference to the fact that earth is far below heaven.

The closest parallels to the triad in Philippians 2:10 are actually found in the Book of Revelation. In Rev. 5:3, none of the creatures in heaven, on earth, or under the earth are able to open the scroll to read it. Finally, in 5:13 we read that all beings in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea sing a song of praise to the Lamb of God. Notice that this listing incorporates the language found in the Deuteronomy references but now expands it to four locations instead of just three. This is appropriate since the number four in Revelation and elsewhere in the Bible is symbolic of all God's creation.