“The Times And The Seasons”: The Divine Chronology Of Scripture

The Reality of Scriptural, God-given prophecy indicates that a Divine intent is operative in the earth. Certain events are happening (and have happened in the past) on a national and international scale because of a Divine will and purpose to that end; and the ultimate end is clear: it is the Kingdom of God.

It is also clear, from what the Scripture says, that behind this Divine superintendency of man’s affairs on the earth there is a Divinely appointed time scale to these affairs and events. Not only are they determined to happen, but they will happen at appointed times. Numerous passages will immediately spring to mind to show this. Thus Paul at Athens affirmed that God has appointed a day in which He will judge the world (Acts 17:31); when Jesus began to preach he said that the time was fulfilled (Mk. 1:15); Jerusalem, he said, would be trodden down until the times of the Gentiles were fulfilled (Lk. 21:24); and this agreed pointedly with the earlier Word of God through Ezekiel at the time of the abolition of the monarchy in the days of the last king Zedekiah: “it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him” (Ezek. 21:27).

It could be argued that these statements do not necessarily imply quantitative delimitation of a specific time period. True; but then it is also clear that the Scripture does specify time periods, both historical and prophetic. It marks the date of the Exodus by 430 years to the day (Ex. 12:40-42); and this time length occurs elsewhere—twice: the time length of the nation’s declension into sin, and the corresponding length of expiation in punishment (Ezek. 4:4-14). Notably, the sum of these three 430s is 1290, which also occurs in Daniel’s prophecy (12:11); and this is one of a number of clearly stated time-period prophecies. To be sure, though the statements may be apparently clear, the interpretations may be difficult. We may get them wrong, or incompletely correct, as have others (perhaps). But let us try.

To any chronological time period such as we are considering there will be, obviously, three major points: the beginning, the duration and the end. Further, the opening and concluding events will each have two aspects: the nature of the event, and its date. To these five points two more may be added. Firstly, there may be more than one application, based essentially on two time scales (as the words and visions of the prophets often have a ‘short focus’ relating to events of their own times, e.g. the Babylonian invasion, and a ‘long focus’ which is always, seemingly, the advent of the Kingdom); and secondly, the events spoken of may be either sharp and essentially instantaneous happenings, such as the birth or death of a person, or processes themselves occupying some time, such as the rise and fall of a political power. In general then there will be seven points to consider:

What is the starting event?
When did it occur?
What is the time scale?
Is there more than one time scale?
Are the events involved sharply defined, or processes?
What is the concluding event? And, crucially-
When will it occur?

When the time periods of Scripture are examined it is evident that, in the Old Testament, they nearly all occur in the book of Daniel, which might aptly be termed the Apocalypse of the Old Testament And when they are picked up for further revelation in the New Testament it is in the book of Revelation (not surprisingly, since Revelation is so rooted in the prophecies of Daniel). It appears, then and let it be said that all these matters are put forward propositionally and suggestively, and in no way dogmatically that there is a group of seven chronological prophecies based around the number seven, and then three others, apparently unconnected numerically, thus:

Nebuchadnezzar’s personal alienation of seven times (Dan. 4).
The nation of Israel’s 70 years alienation, i.e. captivity (Jer. 25; Dan. 9).
The nation’s full span of” seven times” alienation (Lev. 26:18,21,24,28).
Spiritual Israel’s (i.e. the ecclesia’s) time, times and a half, i.e. 3 1/2 “times” of similar downtreading (Dan. 7 and various passages in Revelation).
The seventy weeks to the coming of Messiah (Dan. 9).
The seventy Jubilees to the second coming (from Dan. 9).
The six days of Divine working, leading to the millennial sabbath(Heb. 3-4; 2 Pet. 3:8; Rev. 20:1-6).
The 2,300 of the ‘evening-morning’ vision—”Then shall the holy be avenged” (Dan. 8).
The 1,290—from the taking away of the daily sacrifice, and the setting up of an abomination that makes desolate (Dan. 12:11).
The 1,335—blessed is he that waits and comes thereto (Dan. 12:12).

The visions in the book of Daniel become more complex and enigmatic as the message unfolds:

Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of chapter 2 is laid out, side by side with its interpretation, like a ‘worked example’ in a junior text book compared with the later visions. It is as if the earlier visions were laid out so as to instruct the reader how to attempt to unravel the later ones. Similarly with the time periods. The time, times and a half of chapter 7 is explained quite extensively. The 1,335 is revealed in all but the last verse of the prophecy, with little more than a comment of blessing. Let us look then, briefly, at these various times.

Nebuchadnezzar’s seven times of alienation

This is the fundamental incident from which stem the six that follow. Of these six, the first three are of the type process at the beginning, reverse process at the end; and the second three of the form sharp beginning, sharp end. Firstly, then, Nebuchadnezzar himself.

Nebuchadnezzar is the head of gold of the image-dream of Daniel 2 (vv. 37,38). He is the Kingdom of Men personified, in all its glitter, arrogance and pride. He represents mankind in, initially, its unrepentant, unregenerate state. In the incidents of Daniel 4 he is shown firstly in great blessedness and peace, then manifesting this pride, then because of it falling into punishment of alienation, poverty and derangement (cf. Jer. 51:7; Rev. 18:3,23) for a predetermined time period. Then he is seen to recover out of it, with a change of heart, to a yet greater glory (v. 36) than originally.

This is to be the experience of the whole of mankind as a race: from Eden, into adversity for sin, then restored at the end to a glory surpassing that at the first.’ This can be represented in a very simple manner, as in Fig. 1. It is stated four times in the chapter that the duration of the punishment was to be for “seven times” (vv. 16,23,25,32), meaning, evidently, seven time lengths, not sevenfold. Accordingly, “at the end of the days” (v. 34), “At the same

time” ( v. 36), sanity spiritual sanity returned and he was restored, to greater glory.

Though it is not explicitly stated, the only reasonable time span for this, considering the long slow growth of the nails, is seven years. It is the last narrative incident concerning Nebuchadnezzar, and would most reasonably occur towards the end of his reign, approximately B.C. 570-563,² leaving about three years’ restoration before the monarch’s death.

The seventy years captivity

This is the first amplification of the root incident portrayed in Nebuchadnezzar. Here two parties are involved, with Judah ‘falling’ while Babylon, the enemy, ‘rises’ by conquest. At the end of the

appointed time period in this case given prophetically in advance by Jeremiah (25 and 29:10) the process is reversed (a turning of the political world upside down) and the restoration takes place. The principles involved are considered in more detail in the following section, but note immediately:

that a process, spread over a few years, marks the beginning of the epoch, namely, three attacks by the Babylonians in the reign of Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin and Zedekiah (probably the “overturn, overturn, overturn” of Ezek. 21:27), and a reverse process over a similar number of years marks the end;
that between these two there is nevertheless an exact time interval-70 years;
that the restoration, small and modest as it was, prefigured the great and final restoration, and was brought about, under the providence of God, by an appointed agent (Cyrus), whose advent prefigured that of Christ (“My shepherd. . . His anointed”—Isa. 44:24-45:7);
that the whole matter is associated with a man of God; in this case Daniel, who witnessed both the fall of Jerusalem and the fall of Babylon.

This can be represented as in Fig. 2. The first attack of the Babylonians was in B.C. 606, approximately, and 70 years later the captivity of the nation was broken at the fall of Babylon to Cyrus. The temple (of Solomon) was destroyed in the final attack on Jerusalem, culminating B.C. 586 approximately, and the Second Temple under Ezra, Haggai and Zechariah was rebuilt B.C. 520.

The seven times of Judah’s full captivity

This is the full span of the nation’s alienation from God. They had been built up to a pinnacle of glory under Solomon, having been given both promises and warnings. If they remained faithful they would be preserved in national existence under great blessing (Deut. 28:1-14); but if they turned to determined disobedience they would be broken up and dispersed (Deut. 28:15-68). Human nature being what it is, the latter is what actually happened.

The language in Deuteronomy 28 is most significant. They were to be “set. . . on high above all nations. . . the head, and not the tail. . . thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath” (vv. 1,13). But for national transgression their political “world” would be “turned upside down”: “The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low” (v. 43). In fact, the breath of the spirit of life in their body politic, namely, the presence-cloud in the most holy place in the temple, was withdrawn (Ezek. 8-11), causing the living national “body” to become, specifically, a carcass (Deut. 28:26). Up came the Assyrian and Babylonian lions, with associated vultures, to eat the flesh and gnaw the bones (Jer. 50:17; Ps. 79:1-3; 141:7).

These are the unburied bones strewn over the face of the earth seen in vision by Ezekiel (ch. 37) when the time came for the nation to revive—that resurrectional revival in the latter days, as now witnessed in the earth. This time is indicated in Leviticus 26, parallel to Deuteronomy 28. Four times in this chapter (vv. 18,21,24,28) it is stated that the nation would be punished “seven times” for their sins, and again, exactly as in Daniel 4, the sense is of seven time-lengths. There, with Nebuchadnezzar, the only reasonable span was of seven years (some versions in fact give this as the translation). Here, for a long national dispersion, the only reasonable span would be to take each day of seven years to represent, itself, a

year, as God compelled the nation to spend a year wandering in the wilderness for every day of iniquity in refusing to possess the Land (Num. 14:32-34; Ps. 106:24).

Since the Scripture appears to deal with what might be called idealised’ years of 360 days (see the following section) these “seven times” would then signify 7 x 360 = 2,520 years. This is represented in the upper part of Fig. 3. Note that the events of the restoration under Cyrus can be fitted in historically at the beginning of the time period, since that restoration prefigures the great final restoration at the Lord’s coming as Messiah. On adding 2,520 to the B.C. dates there is obtained a series of corresponding dates—in these very days in which we find ourselves living. T

hey start with the First World War, when the Turk was expelled from the Land and the Jewish nation was thereby allowed to begin its return under the British Mandate in accordance with the Balfour Declaration, and they proceed through the days of Hitler’s persecutions to the present. This is the very era in which, as indisputable fact, every living soul has witnessed the process of the resurrectional revival of the Jewish nation, in these latter days. And the very last foreseeable pair of dates stretches from the rebuilding of the temple, B.C. 250 approximately, to the end of this century, now only a handful of years away.’

Again, one man stands representative of these matters: the grand man of the Old Covenant given to the nation of Israel of fleshly descent, Moses. Here indeed is, explicitly Scripturally, a nation of witnesses, whose bones were not to be suffered to be buried (the individual Jew was to remain visible in the earth), and becoming a very specific witness to the hand of God, being operative again in the earth in the latter days (Is a. 43:10,12; 44:8; Rev. 11:9; Ezek. 37).

The spiritual Israel’s time, times and a half

More is said of this time period in the Scripture than of any other, and, not surprisingly on reflection, it forms a marked bridge between Daniel and the Apocalypse. It is laid out firstly, and very clearly, in Daniel 7. A power was to arise out of the political developments of the Roman Empire, different from the other powers, reckoning to change times and laws, making war against and wearing out the saints, the sanctified ones, of God.

Without arguing the matter, this is clearly the papacy, the New Covenant’s “Babylon” (Rev. 17,18), versus the spiritual Israel, the ecclesia in Christ. In Daniel 7 again, this was to last (vv. 25-27) for “a time and times and half a time” (RV) to the coming of the Kingdom of God with judgement and power. This evidently implies a 3 1/2 ‘time’ period, that is, half as long as the “seven times”, and this is made explicit by the terms used in the Apocalypse: “a time, and times, and half a time” (12:14); “forty and two months” (11:2; 13:5); “a thousand two hundred and threescore days” (11:3; 12:6).

These agree, but only agree, if a ‘time’ of a year is made up of 12 months of 30 days, as it were an idealised year. (Possibly this was the actual length of the year before the upheaval of the Flood, for Genesis 7:11,24 and 8:3,4 show that a month was then 30 days. 360 is, of course, the basis of the ancient astronomical division of the full circle of the heavens into so many degrees, as on trigonometrical instruments to this day.)

It is immediately evident that there is a close analogy to the “seven times” period. The true church, the ecclesia in Christ, the spiritual Israel, was founded on a covenant; not that at Sinai, but the everlasting covenant confirmed in the sacrificial blood of Christ. The ecclesia was thereby bound to the keeping of the faith and commands of Christ in love, and continued existence as the ecclesia of the living God was contingent on fidelity to that faith and practice. The early church turned aside over a few centuries to become a political state-church system. It corrupted its doctrine and compromised its behaviour until for centuries it viciously persecuted all dissenters, including those who held to the original beliefs. The great public manifestation of the powers of miracle-working ceased and, so far as existence of a visible religious body was concerned, the light went out.

But only for a time: 1,260 years. And we are immediately delivered from an apparent problem over which “much ink has been spilled”. Were the early brethren right in considering the 1,260 to span from the decree of Emperor Phocas in A.D. 610 to the loss of papal temporal power in 1870? Yes, but this was incomplete. The papacy is still there, and all is not yet finished (Dan. 12:6,7). “Rome was not built in a day”; and the papacy took about 400 years to attain political power, via Constantine (A.D. 312), Justinian (529) and Phocas. 1,260 years on from these dates gives the St Bartholomew’s Eve Massacre, 1572, and in 1789 the French Revolution, which shattered papal political power. But both Sir Isaac Newton, in 1733,⁴ and Bishop Thomas Newton, in 1754,⁵ said that this period should not be started too soon, not until the papacy attained complete political independence, which they estimated as A.D. 726 and 727 respectively. Behold-1986, 1987! Is not the end of all things very near?

Again, this time period is characterised by a man of God: Elijah the prophet, in whose ministry was played out an allegorical drama between himself, together with a remnant in a sack-cloth state of affliction, and the state-church alliance of Ahab and “that woman Jezebel”, characterised by a drought of 1,260 days, or “three years and six months” (Lk. 4:25; Jas. 5:17). The two witnesses to Christ, the Law and the Prophets, were represented at the Transfiguration. And towards the end of the 1,260 ‘the Truth’ revives as a manifest community in the earth. Reader, you are part of this fulfilment of a specific prophecy!

The 70, 2,520 and 1,260 matters were conditional from God: He told His people, “If . . .then. . . “. The next three are unconditional: God said, and it is to be done. They have the form sharp beginning, sharp ending (though they are not without their difficulties of interpretation).

The seventy weeks

This prophecy (in Dan. 9) clearly spans from a Persian decree of restoration to the first coming of Christ. Indisputably, it is approximately right, and doubtless it is exactly right. But there were four Persian decrees (Ezra 1:1-4; 6:1-12; 7:126; and Neh. 2:1-8); the crucifixion has been dated between A.D. 29 and A.D. 34; some expositors take the full 70 weeks (490 years), some 69 1/2 (486 1/2 years) see Daniel 9:24-26; some use a normal year (of 365’A days), some a ‘lunar’ year of 12 months by the moon’s phases, that is, 12 x 29 1/2, or 354 days approximately. For simplicity, Fig. 4 represents Brother Thomas’s view in Exposition of Daniel: 490 years from the 20th year of Artaxerxes in B.C. 456 to the crucifixion in A.D. 34.⁶

The late Brother W. H. Carter pointed out in 1953 and 1961, in works now out of print,’ that, starting with the settlement under Joshua in B.C. 1435 and numbering off jubilee cycles of 49 years, remarkable dates stand up at the end (Fig. 5): 67/1848, revolutions in Europe and the revival of the Truth; 68/1897, first Zionist Congress in Basle, Switzerland; 69/1946, aftermath of the war, birth-pangs of the State of Israel; 70/1995, Messiah glorified in the beginning of the Millennium?

The seven millennia

Is not the Millennium the great Divinely ordained sabbath of peace after six millennia of labouring thereto (Fig. 6)?

The 2,300 (Dan. 8)

This relates to the cleansing of the sanctuary, in a vision concerned with Alexander’s Greek attack on the Persians. Alexander was born B.C. 353 approximately; 2,300 years later, 1947-8, The Jewish State erupted into renewed existence, in the Land.

The 1,290 (Dan. 12:11)

This is enigmatically dated from the setting up of an abomination making desolate. The temple site is currently occupied by the Islamic Mosque of Omar, or the Dome of the Rock. Islam began to attack the Jews in the Land in A.D. 627. 1,290 years later, in 1917, the Islamic Turk was driven out.

The 1,335 (Dan. 12:12)

An enigmatic blessing. Remarkably, Islam began a calendar of its own with the flight of Mahomet from Mecca to Medina (“The Hegira”) in A.D. 622, using a year of twelve cycles of the moon, that is, 354 days approximately. This calendar, used by the Turks, stood at 1,335 in the Western year 1917 when Turkey was forced out of the Land, underwent a political upheaval and changed to the Western calendar. This was the first major change in the Land for centuries, and remarkably, 1,335 normal years are just 40 years longer than 1,335 lunar years, running out therefore at 622 + 1335 = 1957. In that year man first ventured an object into space, and the first members of the European Economic Community, now ten, signed their constitutional

Treaty of Rome. If that marks the start of “ten kings” giving power “one hour” to “the beast” (Rev. 17:12), that time, 30 years (one twelfth of a day-year, John 11:9, i.e.360 ÷ 12) would run out in 1987. Great things?

Finally

These times are not arbitrary and unconnected. For a great event a wedding feast, or a state coronation—various, differing activities (preparation of the building, the food, the garments) are commenced at different dates: but they are designed to interlock into the final pattern of the occasion. So, surely, it is with these matters. Fig. 7 gives a suggestion, a suggestion only. Remarkably, various possibilities arise for “this generation” which, seeing the fig tree of Israel shoot forth, will see the summer come (Lk. 21:29-33): 40 years (Num. 14), 70 years, or 80 (Ps. 90:10)? But this also: has it ever puzzled us that the application to the hewing down and burning of the fig tree for its barrenness and crucifixion of Messiah (Lk. 13:6-9; Mk. 11:1221; Mt. 27:25) does not fit to a generation of 40 years (A.D. 32-34 to A.D. 70)? No! Because Jesus said that the generation should not pass away it was to be still alive to receive the terrible judgement of A.D. 70.

That event fell inside, just inside, a 40-year span from the crucifixion (just as the nation actually wandered in the wilderness 38 years Deut. 2:13-15; cf. Jno. 5:5-8). So is it not likely that the Lord’s actual coming understandably that most elusive event in all these chronological considerations will be inside, just inside, 40 years from the shooting forth of the fig tree in the latter days? Was that the 14th of May 1948? Perhaps. If so, we are just over 36 years on . . .

The Lord, in his love to us, teaches, warns and most earnestly exhorts us. If we look up no other references, let us take to heart Matthew 24:44 and Mark 13:35-37. Shalom!

SUMMARY TABULATION OF DATES

B.C.

4004	Eden
1435	Settlement under Joshua
606	First attack of Nebuchadnezzar; captivity
586	Final attack of Nebuchadnezzar; destruction of temple
570	Onset of Nebuchadnezzar’s madness
563	Return of sanity
536	Fall of Babylon to Cyrus; end of captivity
520	Second year of Darius I; work on temple resumed; “From this day will I bless” (Hag. 2:19)
516	Temple finished – desolation ended
457	Twentieth year of Artaxerxes I
353	Birth of Alexander the Great
323	Death of Alexander
4	Birth of Jesus

A.D.

29/32	Crucifixion
312	Constantine; beginning of open growth of papacy
529	Justinian- 2nd year – fostering growth of papacy
610	Phocas; decree establishing Rome’s bishop supreme
622	The “Hegira”; commencement of Islamic lunar calendar
627	Attacks by Islam on the Jews
727	Papacy independent of Roman Emperor in Constantinople
1572	St. Bartholomew’s Eve Massacre
1789	French Revolution
1848	Spate of European revolutions; revival of the Truth
1870	Loss of temporal power by the papacy
1897	First Zionist Congress in Basle
1914	The war which freed the Land
1917	Jerusalem cleared by General Allenby; Islam’s calendar at 1335
1934	Hitler in power; anti-Semitism
1946 – 48	Jew/Arab fighting – termination of British Mandate; emergence of independent State of Israel
1957	Not as it turned out – the return of the Lord; signing of the Treaty of Rome; space technology begun
1984 – 87	The last days of Rome?
1995 – 97	Commencement of the Millennium?

All dates, except obviously some of the more recent ones, approximate. ( Strictly, in spanning dates from B.C. to A.D., 1 should be added since there was no year 0.) All dates suggestive, not dogmatic. But those who are Scripturally wise will be able to understand, as it becomes progressively more obvious, as the end draws yet nearer (Dan. 12:10).

References

It is notable that Job went through a precisely similar experience. In this most ancient book, approximately contemporary with the patriarchs, Job’s experiences also prefigure the experience of the human race.
G. Rawlinson, A Manual ofAncient History (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1869), p. 35.
Eagle-eyed readers will note that there are two dates given here for the temple restoration at the end of the captivity. In Fig. 2 it is taken as B.C. 516 (586 + 70 = 516), whereas in Fig. 3 it is taken as B.C. 520(520 + 2,520 = A.D. 2000). The building of the temple was, of course, itself a process, which commenced immediately on the return, c. 536, was frustrated until the second year of Darius (B.C. 520), in the time of Haggai and Zechariah, and was completed in the sixth year of Darius (B.C. 516). B.C. 520 is remarkable for the comment, “From this day will I bless” (Hag. 2:19), whereas B.C. 516 marks the completion—which matches the completion of the destruction in B.C. 586.
Sir Isaac Newton, Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St John (Darby and Browne, London, 1733), p. 78.
Bishop Thomas Newton, Dissertations on the Prophecies (Thomas Tegg, London, 1826), p. 702. (First edition published 1754.)
John Thomas, Exposition of Daniel (The Christadelphian Office, Birmingham, 1900 edition), p. 38.
H. Carter, Prophecy and Chronology (1953); Times and Seasons (1961). Both published by the author, Birmingham.