Interestingly, Moses and Aaron fell upon their faces and addressed themselves to God this way: “O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh . . .” (Numbers 16:22.)
Moses spoke of “the God of the spirits of all flesh.” (Numbers 27:16.)
The Lord himself asked Job, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? . . . when . . . all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (Job 38:1-7.)
The Preacher said that when we die, our dust “returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.” (Ecclesiastes12:7.)
God said to the prophet Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:5.)
While accompanying Jesus and upon seeing a man blind from birth, the disciples asked Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2.)
Addressing the men of Athens, Paul said of God, “we are indeed his offspring.” (Acts 17:27-28.)
Echoing the words of the Lord to Job, Paul said to the Ephesian saints that God “our Father” . . . “chose us in him before the foundation of the world.” (Ephesians 1:1, 4.)
And the writer of the following extensive passage in Proverbs seems to have communicated the idea in a way consistent with what is cited and quoted above: “Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth; before he had made the earth with its fields, or the first of the dust of the world. When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him. . . .” (Proverbs 8:23-30.)
All quotations set forth above are taken directly from the most commonly preferred English-language version of the Bible accepted by the Roman Catholic Church, the Revised Standard Version - Catholic Edition (1966), available online at
jmom.honlam.org/rsvce/.
Interestingly, the language in the above quoted passages does not differ from the King James Version (1611), the version used by the Latter-day Saints (Mormons), other than minor differences, such as an occasional “you” in the RSV where there is a “thou” in the KJV.
