Yom Kippur (9-23-15): Will We Understand the Meaning of This Day?
Yom Kippur (9-23-15): Will We Understand the Meaning of this Day?
Why We “Watch the Calendar”
Students of Bible prophecy pay close attention to dates. We can’t seem to help ourselves. We are eager for the Lord Jesus Christ to return and we seek to know how long it will be before He does. Despite biblical cautions and historical lessons teaching against this practice, we continue to speculate. Driving these speculationsare the symmetries of calendric dates and specific time intervals uttered in prophetic passages, particularly in the Book of Daniel and the Revelation. These dates and intervals constitute patterns that to prophecy students infer possible moments when crucial propheticevents will occur.
Looking backward, the intervals between certain important dates in secular history provide intriguing coincidences that might just signify Bible prophecy has already been fulfilled—and we missed it because we didn’t recognize their prophetic significance ahead of time. This curiosity fuels speculation and heightens anticipation. Moreover, prophecy buffs seem to be constantly on the lookout for “breaking the code” and determining exactly when the Lord will return. Indeed,so much of the intrigue of Christian eschatology remains bound up in this concern. But does this watchfulness actually pay spiritual dividends? Does it grow our faith or does it threaten to dampen our hope when disappointment arises because events fail to happen as expected? This is the dilemma of “date setting” and we know this phenomenon continues up to this very day.
Indeed, this September 2015, there are many dates of interest. September 13 completes the seven-year Shemitah cycle. September 14 is the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah. September 23 is the Day of Atonement, aka Yom Kippur. September 28 is Sukkotcalled the Feast of Tabernacles. 28 September 2015 also happens to be fourth of the four “blood moons”, this one appearing over Jerusalem. If youcombine these dates with various intervals of time before and after this month (in which those intervals culminate in September or begin with dates this September and look forward to future dates), it suggests the month of September will be a September to remember. As I write this piece, we are two-thirds through the month. The economic collapse didn’t happen on 29 Ellul (September 13). The rapture didn’t happen on Rosh Hashanah (September 14). The Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, is tomorrow (September 23). Consequently, we must ask, “Is September 2015 yet another example of “much ado about nothing? Is this month so pregnant with potential dates of prophetic significance just one more classic example of prophecies that failed?” Yom Kippur is the 266th day in the Gregorian calendar. Does this have meaning?
For the most part, the supposition that these dates are meaningful owes itself to the time intervals between past events of note and specific dates that fall within this September 2015. Perhaps the most important is the fact that there have been 49 Jewish prophetic years (which consist of 360-days) from June 6, 1967 to September 23, 2015 (the Day of Atonementin the Jewish year 5776). This amounts to a total of 17,640 days (49, 360-day years).History tells us that on June 6, 1967, Israel recaptured the so-called West Bank and within it, the Old City of Jerusalem including the Temple Mount (although that area is still under the supervision of the Arab WAQF and not accessible to Jews). It has been suggested that this time interval promises to be highlysignificant since September 23, 2015 supposedly commences a new Jubilee year. [1]Many things are happening on this date. Some call attention to the fact that the Pope, Francis I, is spending the night at the White House with the First Family and President Barak Obama. Those who have speculated that this meeting is between the False Prophet and the Antichrist are standing on their toes, wondering what will result. Does “something wicked this way come?”
Other experts, however, challenge such assumptions.That it is the 266th day of the year is meaningless. The meeting between the Pontiff and the President is purely a political matter, not an occult maneuver. As to the possibility that this year is the beginning of the year of Jubilee, mostscholars opine that we don’t know exactly when the Jubilee year begins because the Jubilee years of the past are uncertain. We don’t know which years are Jubilee years because we have lost track. The initial instances of the Jubilee are just too ancient.We can’tenjoy certaintybecause Jubilee-year “time keeping” disappeared in the dark mists of time many millennia ago.
Does Yom Kippur, September 23, 2015 Commence a Jubilee Year?
On the other hand, popular authors who do see 2015-2016 as a Jubilee year suppose it to be so because not only was Jerusalem’s Temple Mount recaptured in 1967, before that, in 1917 (50-years earlier), English General Allenby captured Jerusalem, deposing the Ottoman Turks.
However, despite those impressive dates falling roughly 50 years apart, it should also be noted thatnot all scholarseven agree that Jubilees are every 50 years. Some researchers suppose they are every 49 years, with the 50th year also comprising the first year of the next Jubilee. In this view, a Jubilee is both the 50th and final year of the previous 50-year cycle and the first year in the next 50-year cycle.[2] This is known as an intercalation.[3]
Furthermore,there are thosethat go one step beyond, claiming we aren’t just dealing with any old Jubilee; we are dealing with an incredibly special one.They speculate “this Jubilee” (assuming it is one) stands out as the 70th Jubilee since Joshuaand the Hebrews entered the Promised Land when they walked acrossthe dry Jordan River bed. It a much less celebrated moment in our modern day, even though God miraculously driedup this riverbed repeating the famed parting of the Red Sea by Joshua’s renowned predecessor, Moses.
“…Then you shall inform your children, saying, 'Israel crossed this Jordan on dry ground.' "For the LORD your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed, just as the LORD your God had done to the Red Sea, which He dried up before us until we had crossed; that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the LORD is mighty, so that you may fear the LORD your God forever.” (Joshua 4:22-24)
To clarify, for the Jubilee that begins (perhaps) on September 23, 2015 to be the 70th Jubilee, it requires that the 50-year cycle employ a Jubilee year that is both the 50th and the 1st year in the cycle. 70 such Jubilees would take us back to about 1,366 BC, to the first Jubilee according to this calculation. This date, however, does not square with the year conservative scholars believe Joshua and the Hebrewsbegan the conquest of Canaan, which was 1406 BC (only 40 years before Jubilee number one if September 2015commences the 70th Jubilee). An article at Bible Archeology.org provides arguments for both the traditional dating in the 15th century BC with the “modern” view approximately 150 years later in the 13th century BC. The rationale for the traditional date is highlighted here:
The date of the Biblical Exodus-Conquest is clear. 1 Kgs 6:1 and 1 Chr 6:33–37 converge on a date of 1446 BC for the exodus and the Jubilees data and Judges 11:26 independently converge on a date of 1406 BC for the beginning of the conquest. The 1406 BC date is further confirmed by archaeological data from Jericho…”[4]
If we take the traditional biblical chronological view, which prophecy students are strongly inclined to take, then the 70th Jubilee, still using the intercalated method, would put us in the Gregorian year 2025, which also happens to be a date my co-author Douglas W. Krieger (co-writingThe Final Babylon) proposes begins the Millennial Kingdom, with the 70th week of Daniel beginning 7 years earlier, in 2018. Conversely, we must point out that it contradicts the view the 70th Jubilee begins this September.[5] Those that see this upcoming year, the Jewish year 5776 to be a Jubilee year, would be wrong. Plus, if you happen to dispute the intercalated method of calculation (as explained earlier), then those that declare this to be the 70th Jubilee would bevery wrong.
And yet, the Jubilee year, in my opinion,will still be a crucial factor in determining the beginning of the Millennium. It is simply that this upcoming year (2015-2016), isn’t it.Those that have calculated this year to be a year of Jubilee have jumped the gun.Good research based on solid authorities disputes this conclusion. Likewise, the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, remains a day on which we are likely to see the fulfillment of Messiah’s coming. For Christians, we should uphold this day as a most probable date of the future Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Even if we don’t visibly see any specific activity on September 23, 2015 that confirms He is coming soon, the importance of Yom Kippur should not be diminished.
The Jewish High Holy Days
Prophecy students affirm an axiom that the Hebrew calendar is God’s calendar—the major holidays on the Hebrew calendar are prophecies; that is, what they commemorate in the pastforeshadowskey prophetic events in the future.We can count on the most important salvific[6] events transpiring on these particulardays.In other words, we assert that Jesus Christ fulfilled messianic prophecy on these most important calendric milestones—thesevery specific holy days (which is, incidentally, where we derive our word holidays).
In particular, the Passover (Pesach) and Pentecost (Shavuot) represented two Mosaic “convocations”[7]which were highly prophetic. The prophetic meaning of these holidays were accomplishedby the death of Jesus Christ on the cross as he was our “Passover Lamb” (1 Corinthians 5:7) and the coming of the Holy Spirit (and the harvest of souls on that day, see Acts 2) fulfilled the meaning/intent of Shavuot. Both of these holy days are among what are considered spring feasts, feastsrealized whenYeshua first came; Christ simultaneously fulfilled what they commemorated and what they foreshadowed regarding his death for our sins.
Likewise, those who love the study of Bible prophecy believe that events comprising the future Second Coming of Jesus will be fulfilled on the fall feasts. Specifically, the specificholidays ofRosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur portend to be the days when Messiah returns in the clouds with the shout of the angel and the voice of the Lord calling out “Come up hither” (on Rosh Hashanah, see Revelation 4:1, 11:12).Subsequently, He returns visibly to the earth to judge humankindwhen “every eye shall see Him” on Yom Kippur(Revelation 1:7). Also important: the interval between those dates is called the “Days of Awe.” (Yamim Noraim).[8]
I am not familiar with any scholar who proposes the rapture transpires on Rosh Hashanah followed by the days of God’s wrath during the eight intervening days during the Ten Days of Awe culminating on Yom Kippur (also known by the way as “Judgment Day”) with Christ’s physical return to the Mount of Olives (Acts 1:11-12). One could argue that such a pattern would be a fulfillment of what is known throughout scripture as The Day of the Lord. I don’t argue this, but I would stipulate it would be a logical approach to encapsulate these most monumental of prophetic events.
Nevertheless, taken together,prophecy students believe these ten days will ultimately prove the most consequential days in human history, whether their fulfillment happens on ten consecutive days, or what they symbolize happen across a series of years (which is the conventional point of view).
To complete the story, we mustinclude the Feast of Tabernacles, Sukkot, which happens five days after Yom Kippur. “Tabernacles”commences the dwelling of God with humankind on this earth with Messiah sitting upon the throne of David. Ezekiel tells us that when this occurs, Jerusalem will even be renamed announcingthat the time has arrived which fulfills our Lord’s heartfelt desire to dwell with men.“The name of the city from that day shall be, ‘The LORD is there.’” (Ezekiel 48:35) Sukkot is the last major fall feast and symbolizes the Millennium when Christ establishes the Kingdom of God and He dwells on the earth with His saints for 1,000 years (Revelation 20:2,3) while Satan is bound in the bottomless pit.
The importance of the Jewish calendar and its high holy days rightly emphasizesthat students of eschatology are spot-on to pay close attention to these special days. While the oft-quoted scripture says “No man knows the day nor the hour”(Matthew 24:36, 25:17) when the Lord comes again, it would certainly be most foolish to assume that major events like the Rapture of the Church, the onslaught of the Day of the Lord (when God’s wrath of Revelation’s “trumpets and vials” commences), and the visible return of Jesus Christ, will have no connection to the special days set aside to commemorate and foreshadow God’s acts of salvation.
While prophecy may seem to have failed in this month of September 2015 (depending upon your point of view and without knowing the outcome of the events transpiring this month), we who love Bible prophecy should not lose heart. Paying attention to special dates and patterns in the Bible is forever sanctioned by our faith in the Lord God who is sovereign, working out His will in the specific days of humankind. The providence of God will always be showcased in the specific events of our history and precisely when they occur. The often-heard cliché, “The devil is in the details” is doubly true when we consider the working out of the plan of our Lord—God is in the details.
Prophetic Calendric Intervals Merit Special Attention
We also pay close attention to prophetic intervals specified by the Bible’s seers for this reason: they are repeated as a means to underscore their significance and because theyculminate in monumental predicted events. Biblical numerology plays an important role here too. Numbers used in the Bible like 7, 12, 33, 70, 120, 360, 1,260, and 2,520 all have special prophetic significance. Of particular importance to us in this regard: the prophets Daniel and the Apostle John reference the latter two numbers in numerous passages directing us to make note of the duration between critical prophetic events. Frequently, these durations connect two Jewish holidays stressing the providence of God and the fact that these intervals are not accidental.
First, we need to recall that scholars teach a prophetic year consists of 360 days in length (derived primarily from the “lunar” calendar employed by the Hebrews, 12, 29.5 days plus adjustments over the course of a 19-year period). The Gregorian calendar is based upon the sun rather than the moon—hence, the secular calendar we all follow is a 365.25-day “solar” calendar, with an adjustment every leap year (1 day over four years). In addition to 1,260 days, Daniel also incorporates the count of 1,290 and 1,335 days.These numbers are also highly significant, as we will discuss shortly.
But first we must recount numerouspassages in which 1,260 days are referenced (or itscalendric equivalent). We see these numbers explicitly or implicitly in the following biblical prophetic passages:
- John tells us that during the Great Tribulation,that Jerusalem, the Holy City, will be subject to the gentiles who will “trample on the holy city for 42 months.” (Revelation 11:2—42, 30-day months equals 1,260 days)
- John says “the two witnesses” who testify against “the beast” will perform their ministry for 1,260 days: "And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for twelve hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth." (Revelation 11:3)
- John also states that “the woman” who gave birth to the Messiah will flee from the dragon (Satan) “into the wilderness where she had a place prepared by God, so that there she would be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.” (Revelation 12:6)
- Daniel introduces the “little horn”akathe “prideful king” that arises out of a confederation of ten horns and ten kings: “He will speak out against the Most High and wear down the saints of the Highest One, and he will intend to make alterations in times and in law; and they will be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time.” (Daniel 7:25) The Hebrew words for time, times, and half a time essentially comprise what we mean in English by “a single, a couple, and half of a single” or 3.5. We understand the “times” in this case—given the repeating pattern—to be years also known as 42 months or 1,260 days.[9]
- Then there is the mysterious “man in linen”, likely signifying Jesus Christ acting as judge who tells Daniel the period known as “the end of days” should be concluded within the timeframe of 1,260 days: “And I heard the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand unto heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever that it shall be for a time, times, and an half; and when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished.” (Daniel 12:7)
- Then we come across those unique “extensions” Daniel mentions to the standard pattern of 1,260 days. Daniel 12:11-12 states: “From the time that the regular sacrifice is abolished and the abomination of desolation is set up, there will be 1,290 days. How blessed is he who keeps waiting and attains to the 1,335 days!” Scholars agree that the person committing the abomination of desolation, referencing the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 24, comprises the same prideful, boastful king of Daniel 7. The action“that makes desolate” is his declaration that he alone deserves to be worshipped while at the same time he speaks blasphemies against the Lord God of the Bible. This act, according to Paul, will occur in a future Temple. “Let no one in any way deceive you, forit will not comeunless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction,who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.” (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4)
The passage, Daniel 12:11-12,which mentions the 1,290 days and 1,335 days, has often baffled many Bible scholars as to exactly why Daniel draws out a difference between these intervals and the more standard 1,260 days. Most recently, the Lord appears to be unsealing the Book of Daniel (Daniel 12:9) to his prophets and teachers, enabling those who student these sections of scripture to better understand the prophecies given to Daniel. Many of these authors/scholars now suppose the riddle of this passageinvolves counting from one of the fall feasts (Yom Kippur the most likely) to day one of Hanukkah. These holidays do not fall on exactly the same day each year and a 75-day interval does not consistently occur between them. But it is usually extremely close. [10]