With The Ten Blank Periods of Israel's History, from Abraham to Christ's Second Coming.
IN my former paper, the object of which is to prove the existence of the Cycle of seventy weeks in connection with man universally, with Israel especially, I have in a general way stated that during the three periods between Abraham and Nehemiah there were certain blanks, or pauses in time, connected in a governmental way with His people; and not only so, but that (passing by the question of the canceled week towards the close of the fourth and last cycle,) we find the course of time interrupted to an extent altogether unprecedented; namely, between the sixty-ninth week and the seventieth, or last week of Daniel, the intervening space being the present period of Israel's rejection. Now then, having very briefly touched on this subject, I turn to consider it somewhat more in detail, and speak of those interruptions or blanks which we find (ten in number observe,) between the birth of Abraham and the kingdom.
FIRST CYCLE.
And now as to the first Cycle. In Gen. 12:44So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. (Genesis 12:4), we read that Abraham was "SEVENTY AND FIVE YEARS OLD when he departed out of Haran; to go into Canaan," and then in Ex. 12:40,4140Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years. 41And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt. (Exodus 12:40‑41), in the Septuagint version, which all the best critics agree in considering to be the true rendering thereof, it is written, "Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, and of their fathers, which they sojourned in the land of Canaan and in the land of Egypt, was FOUR HUNDRED AND THIRTY YEARS;" which last period, being added on to the above seventy-five years, makes up, from Abraham's birth to the Exodus, just five hundred and five years, that is, FOUR HUNDRED AND NINETY YEARS, or SEVENTY WEEKS, with fifteen years in addition. This addition of course will at first sight be thought to stand in our way, and to lengthen our cycle beyond its due limits. But, so far from interfering at all with that which it is my object to prove, it falls in, in a most remarkable way, with what I have before stated as to the existence of periods in scripture which the Lord in His record of time has passed over as BLANKS in the moral history of man. Such, as we shall see, were the seven intervals of servitude in the days of the Judges; such the Babylonian captivity; and such too is the period in question. And now let us consider what period this was. It was, I believe, the interval between the birth of Ishmael and the weaning of Isaac— THE TIME OF THE BONDWOMAN AND HER SON. And that this was fifteen years, the overplus period, we gather from the following facts: Abraham at the time of Ishmael's birth was eighty-six (Gen. 16:1616And Abram was fourscore and six years old, when Hagar bare Ishmael to Abram. (Genesis 16:16)), and when Isaac, the son of promise, was born, 'a hundred years old (Gen. 21:55And Abraham was an hundred years old, when his son Isaac was born unto him. (Genesis 21:5)), which makes an interval of fourteen years between these two events. Then, if we allow for another year between the birth and the weaning of Isaac, when the bondwoman and her son were cast out, we come to the conclusion which we desire to reach, we have the fifteen years exactly.
And now as to the principle involved in this fact. Faith, we must recollect, was the peculiar and distinctive characteristic of the dispensation in which the patriarch lived. The promise of blessing through Isaac, the child of Sarah the free woman, had been secured to Abraham and his seed by the immutable counsel and oath of the living God. But in the interval between the going forth of the promise and the birth of the child of promise, we see Abraham losing sight of the blessing, and failing entirely. At the suggestion of Sarah, with a view to secure to himself in his own way what God had promised before, he takes Hagar to wife; and thus Ishmael, the fruit of this union, comes before us in scripture as the sad witness of the patriarch's folly and distrust of the truth of the unchangeable God. Here then at once was an infringement upon the order of God—here the spirit gives way to the flesh—faith to unbelief. It was in fact, as we gather from Gal. 4:21-3121Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? 22For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. 23But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. 24Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. 25For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. 26But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. 27For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband. 28Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. 29But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. 30Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman. 31So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free. (Galatians 4:21‑31), the law in a figure finding its way into this household of faith, and thus for a time breaking the happy link of communion between God and His people. Hence it is that we are given to trace with such accuracy the years between the birth of Ishmael and that of Isaac, to know the moment exactly when Abraham failed, and when, at the manifestation of him who was a son to him indeed, he (Gen. 21:1414And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child, and sent her away: and she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beer-sheba. (Genesis 21:14)) regained his original strength. And this did not take place till the day of that feast which he made when the true heir of the blessing was weaned, and when the bondwoman and her son were fairly cast out.
Surely this is all most important; because, judging from analogy, we know that this space must of necessity, in the very nature of things, have been a break of Abraham's history, a blank, which goes in one sense for nothing in the general order of time under the eye of the Lord.
Here however, before I proceed, I must answer an objection which may be urged against the above statement. It was, it may be said, within the interval that we speak of that Abraham entertained the three angels, and also interceded for Sodom; which proves him to have been walking, not at a distance from God, but in close communion with Him. This however does not alter the question; because in the two above actions we see Abraham personally, as a saint, of course not losing his standing as such, and still having access to God. It is the dispensation I speak of; and that this was, through Abraham's failure, invaded, it is vain to deny.
Then there is another point. It was for some time a question with me whether I was warranted thus to view the dispensational lifetime or history of God's ancient people as opening at the birth rather than at the call of Abraham. But now, for the following reasons, I feel sure that such is the true view of the question. The Church of God, as we know, was called into being when the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost descended on the saints in Jerusalem. This was, if we may so speak, the birthday of the Church as a body: and so now, with each individual saint, the day when the Spirit first opens his eyes to see the value of Jesus is his birthday, and his natural birthday in one sense is taken no account of at all in his history. The fact is, our calling being heavenly, this, with everything else that connects us with the earth, is unrecognized in this dispensation. But of old it was otherwise; each Jew, the moment he entered the world, was numbered among the people of God, and as such, on the eighth day he was circumcised. And this was according to the calling and standing of Israel. The dispensation was earthly and carnal, and therefore all was in keeping with this: and so too it was with the patriarch Abraham himself; the time of his birth is recorded, because in one sense his life under the eye of the Lord may be dated from thence. Besides, his birth, we may say, was the birth of the whole Jewish nation, which in embryo lay hid in the loins of their first father from the very beginning: for which reason especially I feel free to go back to this point, and to date the opening of our cycle from thence.
The above statement as to the 505 years, with the 15 years deducted from thence so as to make it 490 years, is, for the sake of greater perspicuity, illustrated by the annexed diagram.
SECOND CYCLE.
And now as to the next period, the one between Moses and Solomon. This we make out in the following way: FIRST, 480 years from the Exodus to the temple; SECONDLY, 7 years, the time of building the temple; THIRDLY, 3 years, the probable time of making the vessels, furniture, &c. This, as I have said, begins with the Exodus, and concludes I believe with the dedication of Solomon's temple, amounting, as in the former case, to 490 years.
If however we look at the dates in connection with this same period, as given chiefly in Judges and Samuel (and as shown in the annexed diagram), we find it there to amount, not to 490, but to 621 years; that is, no less than 131 years additional. Thus we find an utter discrepancy apparently between these two statements, the time between Moses and Solomon, we repeat, being shown in one to be 490 years, in the other 621; both, it will be remembered, with the exception of the probable period (namely the three years at the close), being taken from scripture. How, it will naturally be asked, are we to reconcile this? Can the word of God disagree with itself? Assuredly not, we confidently reply. No one taught of the Spirit could for a moment allow such a thought. "Let God be true," let His word be believed, though all beside be given up. How then, I repeat it, are we to explain the seeming discrepancy? I have heard it explained in the following way—that the number in 1 Kings 6:11And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the Lord. (1 Kings 6:1), the 480 years between the Exodus and the foundation of the temple, must of necessity be spurious; that it was not originally there, but that the Jewish Rabbis, in order to serve certain ends of their Own, struck out the SEVEN PERIODS OF BONDAGE in the Clays of the Judges and Samuel, amounting in all to 131 years, so as to shorten the time and reduce it from 611 years to 480. Their object in thus corrupting the word, it is said, was in order to make it appear that Jesus of Nazareth was not the Messiah. Christ came, as we know, at the very time that the whole Jewish nation expected Him, when from the angelic announcement to Daniel they had reason to do so. (Dan. 9) Could the Jews then in after times have succeeded in showing that the world was not really so old as it was generally supposed to have been at the time of the coming of Jesus, then the conclusion of necessity would be that the Lord had not come, that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed a deceiver, as they wished to make it appear.
When this view of the question first came before me, settled as I had previously been as to the periods between Abraham and Christ, I own I was startled, seeing this would have disturbed all my previous conclusions.
Painful I felt it would be to relinquish what I had long believed to be true, what I felt to be in such beautiful harmony, so according to God, so altogether beyond what my mind, or I may say what any human mind had power to originate. Still I was willing, I can truly say, to give it all up as a mere imaginary theory, if such indeed it should prove to have been, waiting for light at the same time on the subject from Him who is the sole fountain of truth, and who has been true in this case to His promise to those who look to Him for wisdom, who seek to be guided aright as to His word. He has, I feel sure, shown me how the whole thing may be settled without rejecting the number in question as spurious, or in any way changing the word in this place from what we find it at present.
Now then I proceed to explain what I believe to have opened up on me in considering this question; and in so doing I return to the principle which I have noticed before in the foregoing statement, as to Abraham and Ishmael; namely, the suspension of the reckoning of years on God's part at such times as the Jews were out of His presence. This was the case, as we shall see: during the years of the Babylonian captivity, so now in this age of dispersion and blindness, Israel bears the name of "Loammi," and hence time as to them is suspended; in a moral sense, we may say, it does not exist: and what if the same thing occurred during the period in question? What if during those years when the sword of the stranger, of the Moabite, the Ammonite, and the Philistine hung over the land, the current of time ceased to flow on as before, and that for this reason the seven periods of servitude have been designedly passed over by God? He is ever true to Himself; in all ages His ways are the same; and hence the seeming discrepancy. Hence, when recording the history merely of Israel, we find the Spirit of God by the pen of the inspired historian noting the actual period, carefully marking the seven periods of servitude, with the exact duration of each; while on the other hand, when His object is different, when He means to show His own purpose of grace with regard to His people, to present the period in a dispensational aspect, we find Him designedly passing over in silence those years when Israel's Sabbaths had lapsed for a season, when the land was in bondage, as unworthy of notice in His record of time, and so treating these periods of humiliation and sorrow as SEVEN BLANKS IN THEIR HISTORY. Thus, if there be indeed a discrepancy here, it is a divine, yea a harmonious discrepancy, in which we trace, not the hand of poor failing man meddling with the letter of scripture, but of Him who in all ages is true to Himself, who has full title to change the times and the seasons just as He pleases, and who, in spite of the Jews having lengthened the time by their sin, has given us to see that if not actually, at least dispensationally, SEVENTY WEEKS AFTER ALL INTERVENED BETWEEN MOSES AND SOLOMON. These are the Lord's ways, and man has only to stand by and in thankful admiration be silent. In tracing His ways, so far above the reach of the natural man, we surely may each of us gladly echo the thought of the poet:—
"His purpose and His course He keeps,
Treads all my reasonings down,
Commands me out of nature's deeps,
And hides me in His own.”
THIRD CYCLE.
We now come to the third Cycle above named—the 490 years between Solomon and Nehemiah. And here at the outset the same difficulty as before apparently stands in the way of our argument; namely, that this, if we trace the chronology between these two points, was actually 560 years; that is, seventy years more than the 490. In answer to this I reply, that we are now dealing with divine not human chronology; and, as I before said, while the Jews were disowned by the Lord the course of time as to them was suspended. So that the years were not reckoned in one sense at all. Proceeding on this principle then, we are to regard that which actually was 560 years as only 490, inasmuch as the seventy years of the Babylonian captivity breaks in on this period in a dispensational sense; was a blank in the annals of Israel. Then the land kept her Sabbaths; as it is written, "For as long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfill threescore and ten years," (2 Chron. 36:2121To fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years. (2 Chronicles 36:21);) while, as to the people themselves, there was no Sabbath for them, no time at all while they groaned under the yoke of the Gentiles. Therefore in computing this period we have to start from the fourteenth of Solomon, when the temple was dedicated (1 Kings 6:37, 3837In the fourth year was the foundation of the house of the Lord laid, in the month Zif: 38And in the eleventh year, in the month Bul, which is the eighth month, was the house finished throughout all the parts thereof, and according to all the fashion of it. So was he seven years in building it. (1 Kings 6:37‑38)), and reckon on to the third of Jehoiakim, when, according to Daniel, the captivity began (Dan. 1:1, 21In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon unto Jerusalem, and besieged it. 2And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God: which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the vessels into the treasure house of his god. (Daniel 1:1‑2)): thus we have 411 years. Then leaving out the seventy years for the above reasons as a blank, we start again from the proclamation of Cyrus as to the temple at the end of the captivity, and pass on to the time of Nehemiah, when the city was built—reckoning just 79 years between these two events. Having done this, we next add these two periods together (411 years and 79), and in this way reach the period required—the 490 years. But how, it will be asked, are these periods traced in the word? To this I answer, In the following way: in the first place by taking the time that each king reigned over Judah, from the fourteenth of Solomon to the third of Jehoiakim, and adding them together, we have 411 years. Then, secondly, as to the 79 years, this, it is true, is not actually found in the word; but if the testimony of historians agree on this point, as it here does in a most remarkable way, with the principle which it is my object to establish, I am surely bound not only not to reject it, but on the contrary fully to own it as true. Should my reader feel difficulty on this point, I ask him just to suspend his judgment awhile, and then, having taken a general view of the subject, to consider with what wondrous consistency it all hangs together; what A ONENESS OF THOUGHT runs through the whole beyond what the mind of man could at all have conceived. I feel assured, that if he will only consent to do this, he will feel no more doubt about it than I do myself. He will see that 79 years are here needed in order to make up the cycle, just as 3 years were required in order to finish the former: and though there is it is true, no definite scriptural statement as to either of these periods, he will (if he allows the general view of this subject here given to be according to God) regard it to be in itself a sufficient scriptural proof as to the two above periods, without seeking farther.
FOURTH CYCLE.
Then as to the fourth and last Cycle. This owing to the canceling of the week, as we already have shown, we find is twice brought to a close: FIRST at the cutting off of the Messiah; SECONDLY at the destruction of the willful king, and the restoration of Israel. And here observe, in two ways, distinct from each other and yet closely allied, the same principle holds good as to the abolition of time, inasmuch as THE Canceled WEEK, in a way altogether peculiar, shows how God is displeased with His people; while THE LONG GAP OF CENTURIES intervening between it and the week that is future and is to come in its place (the present period of Israel's banishment), tell the same tale in another way. Here however the grace of God is triumphant. This fourth and last cycle of all, how does it end? Not with rejection as before, but with restoration and blessing: the blood that this people have impiously shed is that which blots out their sin. The man of sorrows, the despised, rejected, crucified Jesus of Nazareth, He in whom they saw no beauty that they should desire him, turns out after all to be their long looked for Messiah, the hope, the deliverer of Israel! Who would ever have thought of this as the means of bringing blessing to man? Who but ONE could have devised such a plan? Who but HIMSELF, He who by the very same means has dealt with us in infinite grace, and will deal in the same way with them in the end? In the full sense of the word, it yet will be said, "THE TIME IS FULFILLED;" yes, and not only the time, but the prophecy also. The last week is at hand—a time of judgment, it is true, but also of blessing, seeing that then, in the midst of the infidel nation, there will be those who will give heed to that wonderful word spoken ages ago by the angel Gabriel in the ears of the prophet: "SEVENTY WEEKS ARE DETERMINED UPON THY PEOPLE AND UPON THY HOLY CITY, TO FINISH THE TRANSGRESSION, AND TO MAKE AN END OF SINS, AND TO MAKE RECONCILIATION FOR INIQUITY, AND TO BRING IN EVERLASTING RIGHTEOUSNESS, AND TO SEAL UP THE VISION AND PROPHECY, AND TO ANOINT THE MOST HOLY." (Dan. 9:2424Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. (Daniel 9:24).)