Dates and Times and Numbers in the
Bible
Later this
month, our Jewish friends and colleagues around the world will be celebrating
the beginning of their High Holy Days. Preparations have already begun for Rosh
Hashanah. As I noted in an earlier post on the links between Christianity and
Israel, Rosh Hashanah marks the beginning of the Jewish New Year. This
September will bring in the Year 5784 Am. [It will also mark the beginning of the
10-day period of penitence for their sins during the past year, and will conclude
with the Highest Holy Day, the “Day of Atonement” called Yom Kippur…but that
discussion is not my focus at this time.] (https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/4762/jewish/What-Is-Rosh-Hashanah.htm#Why )
I’m
providing that introduction to bring into focus that the New Year of the Jewish
Calendar will be 5784 Am. The
qualifying suffix to that year is “Anno mundi” or “Am”. It is translated: “In
the year of the world”, and is based on calculations made by Jewish Rabbi
scholars many centuries ago. (https://www.britannica.com/topic/anno-mundi ; https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/counting-the-years/ )
I
highlight and emphasize that year “5784 Am” to draw contrast to our current
familiar Gregorian Calendar Year 2023 A.D.. (https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar) Of course, we Christians have our calendar
based on the approximate year of the birth of our Lord Jesus, leading to the
qualifying suffix: “Anno Domini” or abbreviated A.D. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anno_Domini )
As
we continue to study the Bible, I think it is important to look at the broader context
for what we read and try to “see” more of the events from God’s perspective. What
“we” see, and can only imagine and take by faith, is what the Scripture tells us
about what our Lord Jesus did to redeem us some 2,000 years ago. With much more difficulty we try to imagine the
events surrounding “Noah’s Flood”, but find it virtually impossible to imagine
the Creation. In that context, here are some factors to consider:
· We understand that God
(Elohiym) is an Eternal Spirit, and lives / exists outside of the constraints
of time as we know it. (https://www.gotquestions.org/God-time.html )
· God gave to certain
members of the Nation of Israel the gifts to serve as divine oracles to share His
word / the Scripture with mankind. (Romans 3: 1-2) For example, Hebrew Rabbinic
tradition says the Torah (the first five Books of our Bible) were written by
Moses. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torah ) Remember, however,
that “all scripture is given by inspiration of God.” (2 Timothy 3: 16)
· When reviewing dates and timelines in the
Scripture, remember that these events took place many thousands of years ago.
The accuracy of the dates is subject to the validity of the research done by
the various scholars; the elimination of potential errors in translation from
the original languages; etc. Even so, we regard them to be as close to
“factual” as current knowledge provides.
With
that understanding, we accept that through the Bible Scripture, God has given
us a record of the history of mankind…with an early possible “exception”. That controversial exception is called by
some scholars as the “Gap Theory”, which attempts to explain what seems to be a
“Gap” in time between the events described in Genesis 1: 1 and Genesis 1: 2. There
is some plausibility to that theory in that it could explain other areas of
speculation, including:
· The events that led to
the Serpent’s / Lucifer’s / Satan’s hatred for man, leading to his deceiving
Eve to sin against God in the Garden of Eden (Genesis Chapter Three). (https://www.gotquestions.org/gap-theory.html )
· The Scripture of the
oldest book of the Bible, Job Chapters 39, 40, and 41, in which the LORD scornfully
questions Job about his knowledge of pre-existing creatures including the
Unicorn, the Behemoth, and the Leviathan.
· Fossils and other
archeological evidence that man inhabited the earth perhaps millions of years (or
more) earlier than the 5784 Years noted above, as calculated by Israeli Rabbi
Scholars. https://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=AwrNZtk.ePJkB4EQ2GdXNyoA;_ylc=X1MDMjc2NjY3OQRfcgMyBGZyA21jYWZlZQRmcjIDc2EtZ3Atc2VhcmNoBGdwcmlkA2hVdkNyWHJtVC5PdEo2VF8xU2g4SEEEbl9yc2x0AzAEbl9zdWdnAzEwBG9yaWdpbgNzZWFyY2gueWFob28uY29tBHBvcwM1BHBxc3RyA2hvdyBvbGQgaXMgBHBxc3RybAMxMQRxc3RybAMxOARxdWVyeQNob3clMjBvbGQlMjBpcyUyMG1hbmtpbmQEdF9zdG1wAzE2OTM2MTIyNjkEdXNlX2Nhc2UD?p=how+old+is+mankind&fr2=sa-gp-search&fr=mcafee&type=E210US105G0&mkr=11
Israel
has marked the history of mankind dating back nearly 6,000 years. It is
important for Christians and Jews to look ahead from the “Dates and Times”
given to those gifted men / oracles by the Holy Spirit to prophesy our future.
(2 Timothy 3: 16-17) Associated with
those dates and times are “Numbers” that have significance in helping us better
understand God’s messages.
We
might not know definitively all of what has happened to mankind in the past,
but Scripture has given us some perspective as to what lies ahead. The most visible
of these narratives is the Book of Revelation, which the Ascended Lord Jesus revealed
to the Apostle John (Revelation 1: 1-3) However,
the high degree of symbolism throughout causes many readers to give up trying
to understand it. Although our lives today are geared towards that blessed
future outcome of having our names appear in the Lamb’s Book of Life
(Revelation 20: 12-15, Chapter 21), we are not yet there. In the meantime…
As
to our present day and the near future, many Christian Bible students have not fully
appreciated the value of reading and understanding those prophecies in the
context of today’s discussion. [The Book
of Matthew, Chapter 24 contains the Lord’s prophetic statements as to the
events that will usher in the end of this World Age, which many believe we are quickly
approaching. I encourage you to read this scripture, but in keeping with this
focus on “Dates and Times and Numbers” I want to highlight other areas.]
In
the Book of Daniel, there are two key areas of prophecy that are particularly relevant
to this current period in man’s history. In Chapter Two, God revealed to young Daniel
the interpretation of a dream experienced by his captor, King Nebuchadnezzar. The
dream was of a “great image” in the form of a man. The image had a head of
gold, breast and arms of silver, belly and thighs of brass, legs of iron, and
feet of part iron and part clay. Each of the five components of the
image represented a Gentile kingdom that would in succession rule over Israel
during the future centuries. The significance of the number “five” will be
discussed later.
Later,
in Daniel Chapter Nine (Verses 24-27), God’s Messenger Angel Gabriel revealed
one of the most significant prophecies affecting Israel’s future…with direct
implications for all the world. That prophetic timeline covers “Seventy Weeks…to
finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, and to atone (make reconciliation)
for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the
vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy.”
What
is intriguing about the timeline of 70 weeks is that the term “week” in the
original Hebrew language literally means “sevened” or heptad of years. (Strong’s
Expanded Concordance # 07620, “shabuwa”) When 70 is multiplied by 7, the total
is 490 years. Of that total, Christian scholars and others have calculated that
from the benchmark starting date determined by God (Verses 25, 26), 483 of
those years were fulfilled when our Lord Jesus was Crucified.
(https://www.gotquestions.org/seventy-weeks.html)
(http://jewishroots.net/library/prophecy/daniel/daniel-9-24-27/seventy-weeks.html )
The
remaining seven years have been placed “on hold” by God over the past
2,000 years of the current World Age, while our Lord Jesus has been calling out
believers through His Gospel of Grace, to be members of “His Body”. (Acts 15:
14-17; 1 Corinthians 15: 1-4; Romans 10: 9-13; Romans Chapter Three; 1
Corinthians Chapter 12). Romans 11: 25 notes that “blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fulness of the
Gentiles be come in.” Then, on God’s timeline, we anticipate the “Rapture” of the Church will
take place (1 Thessalonians 4: 13-17), where we will forever be with the Lord. This will be followed by God’s returning to
the final seven years of Daniel’s prophecy. It will mark the onset of that period
called the “Tribulation”, highlighted by the appearance of the Antichrist, and
the horrors wreaked on Israel and mankind before the Second Coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ. (https://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=mcafee&type=E210US105G0&p=tribulation+in+the+bible)
Now,
with a change of focus…
Dates
and Times / Timelines are just a couple of ways that “Numbers” are integral to
our understanding of Scripture. Very helpful
in our full appreciation of God’s messages is our knowledge of the spiritual significance
of many specific numbers and their patterns of use. For example:
· Number 1 represents “God”,
whose name is “One” (Zechariah 14: 9)
· Number 2 represents “Divisions”,
such as Good vs Evil; Heaven vs Earth; natural vs spiritual; male vs female.
· Number 3 represents “Divine
Perfection / Completion:, such as Father, Son and Holy Spirit; or body, soul
and spirit in man; or the Resurrection of
our Lord Jesus on the 3rd Day.
· Number 4 represents the
“Creation / World”, such as Earth, Air, Water and Fire; or Summer, Fall, Winter
and Spring; and North, South, East and West.
· Number 5 represents
“Grace”, as it is the 5th letter in the Hebrew alphabet, meaning “window”
of Divine revelation / breath; the means by which God is providing for the
Redemption of His Creation (Number 1 + Number 4 = Number 5)
· Number 6 represents “Man”,
his creation on the Sixth Day, the number of his imperfection, and the days of
his labor as the result of Adam’s sin.
· Number 7 represents “Spiritual
Perfection / Completion, such as the Seven Spirits of God (Isaiah 9: 2); the stem
and branches of the Menorah in Israel’s Temple sanctuary (Exodus 25: 31-37); the
Lord’s seven miracles in the Gospel of the Book of John; and the Lord’s seven parables in the Book of
Matthew, Chapter 13.
· Number 8 represents “Resurrection
/ Regeneration / New Beginnings”, such as the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus on
the first day of the week: the eighth day; and there were eight people who
survived “Noah’s Flood”, as noted in Genesis Chapter 8
· Number 9 represents “”End
/ Conclusion / Judgment related to and his works, such as the judgments of God
upon Israel for neglecting to rebuild the Temple (Haggai 1: 11); and the Gifts
of the Holy Spirit given to those who
have become members of the Body of Christ .(1 Corinthians 12: 7-10)
· Number 10 represents “Perfection
of Divine Order / Ordinal Completion”, such as the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:
1-17), the 10 plagues God set on Pharaoh and Egypt (Exodus 9: 14); the Tithes (one
tenth of the whole} due to God (Leviticus 27: 27,32); and the 10 “I AM”s of the
Lord Jesus in the Gospel of the Book of John.
· Number 12 represents “Governmental
Perfection / Completeness, such as the number of tribes of the Nation of
Israel, the number of Disciples chosen by the Lord Jesus (Matthew 10: 1-4); and
the 12 Judges who ruled over Israel as noted in the Book of Judges.
https://www.biblestudy.org/bibleref/meaning-of-numbers-in-bible/1.html
These
are just a few of the many times that numbers or patterns of numbers occur in Scripture.
These and others have been documented by the noted Bible Scholar, Dr. E. W.
Bullinger. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._W._Bullinger ) As a valuable Bible
study resource, I highly recommend his book: Number in Scripture: Its
Supernational Design and Spiritual Significance, E. W. Bullinger, Kregel Publications,
Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1967
Dr.
W. A. (Bill) Robinson
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