Does the Earth Have Four Corners?

Yes, I know this isn't what people mean by the earth having four corners,
but I still think the picture is kind of neat. ;-)

There are four passages in the Bible that use the phrase "four corners of the earth".

• Isaiah 11:12 - "He will raise a signal for the nations and will assemble the banished of Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth."
• Ezekiel 7:2 - "And you, O son of man, thus says the Lord GOD to the land of Israel: An end! The end has come upon the four corners of the land." [The Hebrew word for land is eretz, which also means earth.]
• Revelation 7:1 - "After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow on earth or sea or against any tree."
• Revelation 20:8 - "...and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea."

Do any of these verses mean that the earth literally has four corners? Let's look at each of them in turn.

Isaiah 11:12

Since we are required to interpret the words in a strictly literal manner in order to believe that this refers to literal corners, we must also assume that "the dispersed of Judah" are only dispersed into those four corners or else they will only be gathered from those four corners, leaving the remaining of the banished Jews in whatever land they were banished to. This would also mean that God only names the places from which he will gather the remnants of the Northern Kingdom (Israel/Ephraim) but leaves the source of the remnants of the Southern Kingdom (Judah) unnamed. 

This seems like a very unlikely interpretation. It's more likely that the places mentioned were simply the places that came to the minds of the people of Isaiah's day when they thought of "the nations": Assyria, Egypt, Chad, Ethiopia, Babylon, Asia Minor, and Philistia. When God said that he will assemble the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth, he meant "from wherever they have been dispersed, no matter how far."

Ezekiel 7:2

Once again sticking to the literal meaning of the words, the end prophesied in this verse can only apply to the four corners of the earth, leaving the the rest of the earth alone. However, the first part of the verse strongly indicates that the prophecy is only against the land of Israel, not the whole world. So, does the land of Israel have four corners? I can't find a single map of Israel, depicting any period in its history, in which it could reasonably be described as having four corners. Most maps show borders that follow rivers, ridges, and valleys or that taper off into the wilderness and fluctuate with the political winds. There could be ten thousand corners of Israel or there could be no corners at all, depending on what period of time you want to consider. 

There is no reasonable way to interpret "four corners" in this verse as literal corners. It is clearly an idiom intended to mean "the furthest reaches of the land in every direction".

Revelation 7:1

If the "four corners" in this verse means that the earth has four literal corners, then it must also mean that the earth has four literal winds. Since it says that no wind can blow on the earth while the four winds are held back, then the earth can only have four winds. No more. I suppose if you believe the earth is square, then you also must believe that weather maps are all fake, so I can't appeal to weather maps to prove that there are more than four winds. Perhaps if you go stand on any open hilltop, you'll be able to feel that the winds come from all directions, shifting constantly, but this could also be attributed to the interplay of two or more winds coming from different directions simultaneously. 

The typical flat-earth model shows the sun and moon attached to a dome and circling in the sky above. The sun setting below the horizon is only an illusion caused by it receding into the distance. However, v2 says that the rising sun. Since we are interpreting everything literally, this can only refer to the sun rising from below the horizon in reality, not apparently. This doesn't directly address the claim of "four corners", but it does address the related claim that the earth is flat and the sun follows a circuit around the sky. Either the earth has four literal corners OR the sun rises from the horizon in one direction and sets below the horizon in the other direction, without simply receding into the distance.

Once again, the most likely intended meaning of "the four corners of the earth" in this verse is none of the above. The most natural and obvious meaning is "the whole earth", not four literal corners. It's an idiom meaning "as far as you can go in any direction".

Revelation 20

I hyper-literal interpretation of this verse requires that Gog and Magog be precisely the same as "the nations that are at the four corners of the earth", which doesn't really make a lot of sense. There are no nations today that go by those names, so they would have to be ancient names that have changed since then. Nobody who believes that the earth has four corners is able to say what nations these are. Exactly which nations are at the four corners? Is this a prophecy against Australia, Argentina, South Africa, and India? That seems more than a little absurd. Nobody in the first century Roman Empire had any clue that Australia and Argentina existed, let alone have a name for them.

The most likely intended meaning, for the fourth time, is that "the four corners of the earth" was understood by everyone in the first century to mean "the whole earth", with no implication that the earth actually has any corners.

Corners in all of these cases, even if it is translated as "quarters", just means "directions", as in North, East, South, and West. It's an idiom, like "I blew off his advice", which has nothing to do with blowing on anything, and like "He was slow as molasses", which doesn't mean anyone was actually as slow as molasses. All languages spoken by all people in all times have idioms that nobody thinks are supposed to be taken literally. This is one of them.

Even most flatearthers agree that "four corners" is just an idiom for "all parts". Those who interpret it to mean a literal four locations where two lines intersect are an extreme minority of an extreme minority. So why bother writing an article about it? Because some people still need to hear it.