The Bible indicates that the earth is round. Consider Isaiah 40:22 which mentions the “circle of the earth.” This description is certainly fitting—particularly when the earth is viewed from space; the earth always appears as a circle since it is round.
In Isaiah 40:22 ( Douay-Rheims Bible) states that earth is a ” GLOBE“
” It is he that sitteth upon the globe of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as locusts: he that stretcheth out the heavens as nothing, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in. “
Note, the Biblical Hebrew word for “circle” (חוג—chuwg) can also mean “round” or “sphere.”, globe.
“The Earth a Sphere—Certain astronomical relations were recognized very early. The stars appear as if attached to a globe rotating round the earth once in 24 hours, and this appearance was clearly familiar to the author of the Book of Job, and indeed long before the time of Abraham, since the formation of the constellations could not have been effected without such recognition. But the spherical form of the heavens almost involves a similar form for the earth, and their apparent diurnal rotation certainly means that they are not rigidly connected with the earth, but surround it on all sides at some distance from it. The earth therefore must be freely suspended in space, and so the Book of Job describes it:
“‘He stretcheth out the north over empty space, and hangeth the earth upon nothing’– (Job 26:7)
Another verse that indicates the spherical nature of our planet is Job 26:10. This verse teaches that God has inscribed a circle on the surface of the waters at the boundary of light and darkness. This boundary between light and darkness (day and night) is called the “terminator” since the light stops or “terminates” there. Someone standing on the terminator would be experiencing either a sunrise or a sunset; they are going from day to night or from night to day. The terminator is always a circle, because the earth is round.
One of the great delights of observing the moon through a small telescope is to look at its terminator, especially during the first or third quarter phases when the terminator is directly down the middle of the moon. The craters are most easily seen at this boundary since the sun is at a low angle and casts very long shadows there. The moon looks particularly three-dimensional when viewed through a telescope during these phases; it is clear that the moon is a sphere.
For the earth, the terminator occurs not on a cratered rocky surface, but primarily on water (since the earth’s surface is 70 percent water). Job 26:10 suggests a “God’s eye” view of the earth. This biblical passage would be nonsense if the earth were flat, since there would be no true terminator; there is no line to “step over” that separates the day from night on a flat surface. Either it is day everywhere or night everywhere on a hypothetical “flat earth.” However, the earth does indeed have a boundary between light and darkness which is always a circle since the earth is round.
Curiously, many astronomy textbooks credit Pythagoras (c. 570–500 B.C.) with being the first person to assert that the earth is round.However, the biblical passages are older than this. Isaiah is generally acknowledged to have been written in the 700s B.C. and Job is thought to have been written around 2000 B.C. The secular astronomers before the time of Pythagoras must have thought the Bible was wrong about its teaching of a round earth, yet the Bible was exactly right. It was the secular science of the day that needed to be corrected.
The Earth Floats In Space:
A very interesting verse to consider is Job 26:7 which states that God
“Hangs the earth on nothing.”
This might evoke an image of God hanging the earth like a Christmas tree ornament, but hanging it on empty space. This verse expresses (in a poetic way) the fact that the earth is unsupported by any other object—something quite unnatural for the ancient writers to imagine. Indeed, the earth does float in space. We now have pictures of the earth taken from space that show it floating in the cosmic void. The earth literally hangs on nothing, just as the Bible teaches.
From astronomy we know that the planet is hung on nothing. It is freely orbiting around the sun. In the gravitational field of the sun it is actually falling towards the sun but because of its speed it moves in a stable orbit. But nothing holds it up, because there is no up or down in space.
The direction we give to the north or south are convenient terms, but north is not any more important than south. What is truly amazing though is the fact that the Scriptures have such a statement, when more than 3,000 years ago, around the time the book of Job was written, the ‘science’ of the day (actually myths in Hindu culture) taught the earth was held on the back of four giant male elephants who stood on the back of a giant female turtle. That is probably where they get their elephant god from. And then there is in the ancient Greek mythology, Atlas, a giant Titan god, who held the earth on his back. But the Bible does not describe a fanciful myth but describes what we know to be true.
THE SCIENCE OF THE BIBLE 