A Prophecy of Days (Cont’d)
More than Poetry
In looking at the importance of timing in the plan of God, we see that the Scriptures are abundantly clear: If nothing else, the God of The Bible is a God of Set Times Who fulfills His word of promise at “just the right time.” Then consider the possibility that God might have revealed this notion of His “appointed times” from the beginning when Adam and Eve were originally expelled from Paradise. In the apocryphal record, we discover the very moment when God explained that even though He had banished them because of their disobedience He would not abandon them forever. Someday, according to God’s first prophetic timeline for humanity, He would allow them back into their garden home upon the completion of The Great Five and a Half Days, or rather—from Adam and Eve’s point of view—after 5,500 years.1
Next, we ask whether or not this same principle of a day-oriented prophecy can be found in the Biblical Canon. Or, to put it in the form of a question: Are there any rescue efforts in the traditional texts depicting a prophecy of “days” like the one in First Adam and Eve, as opposed to those utilizing the more familiar timeline of “years” like the one in Daniel? In order to answer this question, I then led us to the prophecies of Hosea, Isaiah, and Ezekiel. There we discover a consistent pattern of God lifting His provision and protection of His people in times of punishment, and in this pattern, I believe, we have the evidence that we are seeking. In all of this, the reoccurring pattern that emerges is: Again and again, whether it is Adam and Eve, or Israel and Judah, the chosen ones begin in a state of blissful ignorance, believing themselves to be the perpetual darlings of God. Then, complacency and pride creep in, slowly but surely eroding the established order, followed by willful disobedience and outright rebellion. Finally, after all the stern warnings of the Lord are ignored comes His reluctant, though necessary, punishment as depicted in the first couple’s fall from grace and both the kingdoms of Israel and Judah’s deportation into slavery. Yet according to a similarly persistent pattern, God places a time limit on this period of judgment. Instead of destroying the people of His calling, His chastisement ultimately leads to repentance and renewal, thereby bringing them to a higher level of responsibility and awareness.
Story Continues Below
To hear Kent, Zen Garcia and S. Douglas Woodward as they continue their discussion concening the implications of the 5,500-year prophecy spoken of in the various apocryphal sources and confirmed via the chronology of The Septuagint, CLICK BELOW.
Story Continues From Above
In the case of Hosea, one comes face to face with this principle when he reassured the Israelites that although they would be abandoned and characterized as “not God’s people” they would yet, in the very place of desolation and retribution, someday be called “the children of God.”2 But when was this future restoration and exaltation supposed to take place? Fortunately for us, not only can we find the answer to that question, but in doing so, we will also finally be able to answer our question as to whether or not there is any evidence for the kind of prophecy of “days” in the canonical record like those in the apocryphal record. However, to find that out, one must delve even further into The Book of Hosea. First, we read that Hosea ended the fifth chapter with a severe word of warning:
For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, like a great lion to Judah. I will tear them to pieces and go away. I will carry them off with no one to rescue them. Then, I will go back to My place until they admit their guilt and seek My face. In their misery, they will earnestly seek Me.3
Then, Hosea began the sixth chapter with a hauntingly familiar message of hope:
Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces, but He will heal us. He has injured us, but He will bind up our wounds. After two days, He will revive us. On the third day, He will restore us so that we may live in His presence. Let us acknowledge the Lord. As surely as the Sun rises, He will appear. He will come to us like rain in winter, like the spring rain that waters the Earth.4
So there it is. A prophecy of “days” is in the canonical record after all. “After two days, God will revive us. On the third day, He will restore us.” And just like God’s timeline for Adam and Eve, this exiling of the nation of Israel was destined to involve a prophetic period that would be comprised of a similarly constituted set of preordained “days.”
And just in case anyone is liable to think that this prophecy of “days,” located in the Canon, is some kind of fluke or aberration, let us take a moment to examine the precision of the scriptural record as it pertains to this particular chapter of prophetic history. To Ephraim, synonymous with the northern kingdom, Hosea proclaimed that God would attack like a lion, and to Judah, the southern kingdom, He would attack like a great lion. In this declaration, Hosea was not merely uttering a poetic turn of the phrase. He was precisely predicting the way in which God was planning to vanquish the two kingdoms.
The northern kingdom of Israel was to be conquered by Sargon the Second, whose power was depicted, throughout that country’s architecture and sculpture, by none other than the lion. In 722 B.C., the Assyrians, led by Sargon, vanquished the capital of Samaria, located in the territory of Ephraim, and carried away captive the majority of the population. Then, in 586 B.C., the southern kingdom of Judah came to an ignominious end; this time at the hands of the Babylonian Empire. And what was their national symbol of power? Naturally, just as Hosea had warned them so many years earlier, it was the lion of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, who performed God’s will in humbling the kingdom to the south.
My purpose in mentioning all of this is two-fold: First, I hope to convey the precision with which Hosea presented his message. In other words, for Hosea, the words that God entrusted him with were more than poetry. When he proclaimed to a rebellious nation that unless they changed their idol-worshiping ways the Lord would attack them as a lion, he was accurately predicting the way in which God eventually raised up both Assyria and Babylon to perform the work of His hands. In this, it was exactly as Moses warned the nation in The Book of Deuteronomy:
If you do not obey the Lord your God, and do not carefully follow all His commands, all these curses will overtake you: The Lord will cause you to be defeated by your enemies. You will come at them from one direction but will flee from them in seven, and you will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms of the Earth—an object of scorn and ridicule to all the nations where the Lord will drive you.5
Second, just as his predictions of doom were more than merely poetic in nature, so also were his predictions of salvation. Therefore, when Hosea reassured the people that God would “revive them after two days; and restore them on the third day,” he was being just as precise in his meaning. In this case, of course, we are much more sophisticated in our understanding of the ways of God when He stated that His intention was to restore the nation in three “days” time. Certainly no one in the present age would ever be so naïve as Adam when he thought that God was going to rescue him after just five and a half days as they are reckoned from our earthbound perspective. Naturally, when God speaks of doing things according to His days, He is always referring to a period that is, according to our human perspective, equal to a thousand years.6
