Questions on Prophecy

Introducing a forum on prophetical matters, designed to increase our interest and knowledge of the sure word of prophecy, whereunto we do well to take heed in our hearts until the daystar arise. Contributions, in a variety of formats as brief as those hereunder, are invited from interested readers, perhaps offering alternative interpretations. Simple questions are also invited. The following answers serve to stimulate interest and indicate a line of possible solution. (Views expressed are not necessarily those of the Editorial committee.)

1. What do you think of the “day for a year” basis for interpreting prophetic dates generally?

Not much. I think it Is rather tenuous to base such a rule of thumb on specific references like Numbers 14:33-34 or Ezekiel 4:4-6. One might just as reasonably make the equation: “a day is a thousand years” based on Psalm 90:4. I prefer to let the context guide the interpretation.

2. When did the seventy weeks prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27 begin?

Verse 25 says there would be sixty-nine weeks “from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto Messiah the Prince.” The oft quoted references in Ezra are not applicable as the starting point, because they all refer to the building of “the house of the Lord” (the temple) and not to the city, Jerusalem. The decree to build Jerusalem is found in Nehemiah 2:1-8, and “the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the King” is one of the best known dates of ancient history. The starting point of the Seventy Weeks prophecy? 14 March, 445 B.C.

3. Are the seventy “weeks” seventy lots of “seven days” or “seven years”?

Neither “days”, “years” nor “weeks” are mentioned in the original. Rather, it is seventy “sevens”. My choice, from the context, is seventy lots of “seven years”, i.e., 490 years.

4. When do you think the sixty nine “weeks”, of Daniel 9:25, were up?

On 6 April, 32 A.D. when Jesus rode into Jerusalem (Luke 19:28-44) and was proclaimed the Messiah (Luke 19:37-38). The mathematics? 69 x 7 x 360 -­173,860 days.

5. Does Micah 7:15 indicate a period of forty years from 1948 to the kingdom established?

No, I don’t think so. The words “According to the days …” is simply a way of saying “Like, as in the days . .” cf. R.V., R.S.V., New World Translation etc.). The N.E.B. has, “Shew us miracles as in the days when thou camest out of Egypt.”

6. Where will the judgment seat be established?

My predilection would be for Jerusalem. l know of no Scriptural verse to support the Sinai notion that some brethren, from Dr. Thomas onward, favour. Three references are often confidently put forward by those who prefer the Sinai location (Deut. 33:2; Psalm 68:15-17; and Habakkuk 3:3) but significantly none of them contains this idea. Indeed, the “hill of the Lord” in Psalm 68 is a reference to Mt. Zion (Jerusalem), and not Mt. Sinai. The Scriptures teem with evidence for the location being, at least for the bestowal of Immortality, at Jerusalem. (e.g. Psalms 68; 102:18-21; 133; 87:5, 6; Isaiah 4:2, 3; 25:7, 8; Joel 2:28, 32; Matthew 27:52, 53 et al.).

7. How can messiah be called “the everlasting father” in Isaiah 9:6?

Because he is evidently the King in the future age. A king should be a father to his people and this Divine King, representing the Eternal, will be the ‘father of futurity”, for the age to come, “forever”. But there is a deeper sense in which the Lord Jesus Christ will be the “father of the millennial age”. At his voice the dead shall be raised and with the mortal living, after judgment, shall be changed to his glorious nature (1 Cor. 15:51-55). In giving immortal birth to all faithful saints Jesus will literally be their father. Thus he is, at once, the rod or branch out of the stern of Jesse (Isa. 11:1) and also (though an offspring) the root or ancestor of David (cf. Revelation 22:15).

8. When David said in psalm 51:5 “behold I was shapen in iniquity … “to what was he alluding?

Pre-eminently to the fact that he had committed a couple of particularly nasty crimes for which he knew himself to be answerable to God. He caused God’s holy name to be blasphemed. For this he attributed no blame on his parents; in saying “in sin did my mother conceive me” he was NOT suggesting that his mother had illicitly conceived him, nor can we fairly infer that there is something inherently sinful about human conception and birth (Hebrews 13:4). In deep remorse for transgression committed David acknowledged his inherited sinful nature at the root of the matter; but clearly knew that he had not had to submit to the demands of his baser instincts. God had been there to help, had David submitted to His will (cf. Rom. 7:24, 25). His sin was not inevitable and he could never plead his inherited nature as an excuse. Nor was he attempting to do so.

9. Do you think Daniel was a eunuch?

Quite possibly. He was placed, with his companions, in the charge of Ashpenaz, “the chief of the eunuchs” (Daniel 1: 3, 7), and Isaiah had prophesied to Hezekiah that some of his descendants would be “eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon” (cf. 11 Kings 20:18; Isa. 39:7). Christ may even have had Daniel in mind when he said ” …there are eunuchs which were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs which made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake”. (Matthew 19:12).

10. Does Joel prophesy of two rains of the spirit, the first at Pentecost and the second in the last days?

I don’t think so. Joel does not speak of former and latter rains of the Spirit, and I see no reason for adding the phrase to Joel 2:23. I am aware that Dr. Thomas in Eureka (vol. 1) so interprets this verse, but such an inference is at best extremely tenuous; for what God poured forth at Pentecost was more like wind, than rain. More likely the two rains of Joel, like the locusts were literal and followed the repentance and fasting of the people that occurred at the time; the result being restoration of harvest. Note the tense (Joel 2:18 RV). “Then was the Lord jealous for his land and had pity on his people”. The pouring out of the Spirit (v. 28) was “afterward”, and occurred at Pentecost, as Peter tells us in Acts 2:17-21. I cannot see that Joel promises another (second) outpouring for our days.

11. Did Joel actually indicate a real locust invasion of Judah, or were his early chapters allegorical?

Certainly the language, particularly in chapter two, is poetical but with few exceptions can be applied to locusts. I see it as an actual locust invasion which, because it is terrible and extraordinary, should be seen by its recipients as a divine intervention guaranteeing a final judgment in the last days.

12. How can the words “he hath broken my bones” in Lamentations 3:4 be applied to the Lord?

They can’t. The Scriptures are explicit, “A bone of him shall not be broken” (John 19:36 citing Exodus 12:45). This reference in Lamentations is to the judgments of God poured out upon Jerusalem in the Babylonian Conquest when the city and the temple were destroyed.