On the previous page we saw that because of the endemic sin the 12 tribes of Israel where cut off from the land right up to the gates of Jerusalem. Now the focus shifts to the true centre of Israel, with the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple when the Babylonians carry the remnant into exile.
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Ezekiel 4 : 390 & 40 years leading up to the Siege of Jerusalem in 586 BC
In the previous section we have seen the mounting sin of the kings of Israel and Judah; now the Exile comes as the recompense to these sins. As always God gives very specific periods of time and numbers that make clear the punishment fits the crime, and not only that but leads onto Jesus as the endpoint of sin. He is the answer to the question what can bring an end to Man's sin against God. First we need to wrestle with how to apportion the years given in Ezekiel 4.
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Problem:
Ezekiel 4, the Siege of Jerusalem, has periods of 390 days representing 390 years of Israel’s sin and the 40 days representing the 40 years of Judah’s sin. Commentators place the Judah’s sin starting in King Josiah’s reign (40 years before) and Israel’s sin to Jeroboam I’s reign when the kingdom was divided up and Jeroboam I took the 10 northern tribes of Israel. The problem arises when you go back from when Ezekiel receives the word. Ezekiel receives the word sometime between when he starts to have his visions in Ezekiel 1:1, 5th year of King Jehoiachin’s exile 592 BC, and the Siege of Jerusalem 589– 586 BC. Let’s just use 586 BC for ease of calculations (and another reason that soon will become clear). 390 years before 586 BC is 976 BC, and 976 BC is well before Jeroboam I’s reign 931 - 910 BC. In fact, this is before the reign of Solomon 970 – 931 BC.
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Resolution:
Putting ourselves in the Ezekiel’s position. Imagine having to lie 390 days on your left side bearing the discomfort. In the days before memory foam his spine must have been much misaligned. To add insult to injury Ezekiel had to bear what must have been excruciating pain as he lay on his right side for 40 days.
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It makes sense to have the 40 years being the first part of the 390 years, just a Judah is part of the same body as Israel and them 2 tribes of Judah and 10 tribes of Israel when kingdom was broken up in Jeroboam’s time. It would be wrong to put apply the 40 years to Josiah’s reign when he is recorded to have acted in devotion to the Lord.
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976 BC points in most probability to a time when King David sinned (provoked by Satan) when he ordered a census to see how many fighting men he had in 1 Chronicles 21. His sin was not trusting in God, but in Man’s strength. God gave David 3 options:
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3 years of famine
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3 months of sword
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3 months of plague
David chose the latter. An angel of the Lord descended on Israel and towards Jerusalem. God relented on carrying out his judgement. David now in sackcloth and ashes sees the disaster averted and decides at builds an altar at the place and then to build the temple there (1 Chronicles 22:1).
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It is Jerusalem and the temple that Ezekiel now sees Nebuchadnezzar coming against to destroy. The judgement is continued because of the continued sin. Notice how the number 3 in Ezekiel 5:12 matches up with the 3 options given to David above.
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1/3 die by plague or famine
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1/3 die by sword outside walls
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1/3 scattered to the winds pursued by sword
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The Exile ends in 539 BC when Daniel receives the word of 70 ‘sevens’ that sees Jesus death as the endpoint for our sins, when he paid the price on the cross. We can sees this illustrated in the 3s surrounding his death – three in the afternoon, 3days, 3 times the cock crows… 3rd April 33 AD.
Fascinatingly there is still a probable link to Jeroboam I and the pervading theme of the change of kingdom and authority. 976 BC minus 40 years takes us to about 936 BC, before his reign 931 - 910 BC, when perhaps when Jeroboam I received 10 torn pieces of new cloak from the prophet Ahijah, symbolizing the division of the kingdom. After this Jeroboam I flees to Egypt until Solomon dies, when he then comes to rule.
Jeremiah 70 years of desolation
Daniel had become an exile from his home country, Judah. He was taken to Babylon where he declared what God said or had shown him regarding what was to come, about the current and subsequent empires of the world, and the future kingdom of God established by Jesus.
Daniel was endowed with wisdom and because he was able to discern what he received from God, he rose in stature to a place where kings would listen to him. In Daniel 9 we can see Daniel absorbed by the words of the prophets before him and realized he was brought to a pivotal point in time. Daniel understood that the desolation caused by Babylon had ended, as spoken by Jeremiah.
This whole country [Judah] will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
Jeremiah 25:11
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This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.” Jeremiah 29:10-14
So, Daniel wrote:
In the first year of Darius son of Xerxes (a Mede by descent), who was made ruler over the Babylonian kingdom, in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years. So, I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes...
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“Now, our God, hear the prayers and petitions of your servant. For your sake, Lord, look with favor on your desolate sanctuary. Give ear, our God, and hear; open your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears your Name. "
Daniel 9:1-3,17,18
70 years before we arrive at the time when Babylon became the ultimate power in the Middle East, when they defeated an Assyrian and Egyptian alliance at the Battle of Megiddo in 609 BC. It is recorded in 2 Chronicles 35:20-25 that king Josiah suffered a bad wound and later died in Jerusalem.
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Yet, we can identify two more parallels of 70 years that take us from desolation to restoration of the temple at the heart of Jerusalem, and the focus of Daniel's prayer. So we have trio of dates:
609 BC (Babylonians brought the end of the rule of king Josiah) - 539 BC (Persians & Medes bring the Babylonian empire to an end)
592 BC (Ezekiel's inaugural vision in between the 2 sieges of Jerusalem) - 522 BC (the Jews are blessed in their land)
586 BC (the destruction of Jerusalem) - 516 (the rebuilt Temple is dedicated)
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In the second year of Darius I, 521 BC, we pick up on the 2nd of the 70s in the Zechariah 1:12, where we meet Jesus in the guise of a surveyor planning out a new Jerusalem.
There is something similar to the book of Revelation's depiction of Seals, Trumpets and Bowl here, and this is confirmed to us in the revelations given to the prophet Daniel that delves beneath the surface of world events to see what is really taking place. We will come to look at the book of Daniel in closer detail, but for the moment keep the year 522 BC firmly in your mind.
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It may not be immediately clear how the inaugural vision of Ezekiel in 592 has a connection to the Land and Nature. The answer comes in the sense that the priests would officiate over the offerings ans sacrifices, the fruit of the land brought by the people. These practices were central to Israel and cannot be underestimated. By sacrifice God made a covenant to Abraham which we know as the Promise, by sacrifice Abraham was prepared to offer his own son on Mount Moriah (where Jerusalem is now) but God provided a Ram in his place, by sacrifice the high priest would enter the Most Holy place to atone for sin- all point to Jesus as the High priest and the sacrificial Lamb of God taking away our sin and making the way open to God.
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But with the exile of the priests of which Ezekiel was one, they were no longer in position to receive the thanksgiving offerings of the land they were given in the Promise to Abraham. In 522 BC, they had the 3 key ingredients back in place - a priest, the blessing of the land, and the altar to offer upon. It was these type of sacrifices that feature prominently in the revelations to Daniel. Ezra 4:1-4 describes the hostility from other previously resettled peoples around them that prevented them from knowing the blessing until a fundamental shift happened in 522 BC.
The Plan
Ezekiel as a priest among priests taken into exile, he knew the importance of keeping the family line - on return after 70 years they would need to officiate the sacrifices on an altar where the new temple would be built after the previous one was destroyed by king Nebuchadnezzar (Ezra 3:1-6).
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Jeremiah too was to make plans for after the scourge of the exile, he was to buy a plot of land. At a time of the great threat of removal from the land God gives him this assurance which
“You are saying about this city, ‘By the sword, famine and plague it will be given into the hands of the king of Babylon’; but this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I will surely gather them from all the lands where I banish them in my furious anger and great wrath; I will bring them back to this place and let them live in safety. They will be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me and that all will then go well for them and for their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me.I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul.
Jeremiah 32:36-41
Nothing is by chance with God, the Babylonians, with whom king Hezekiah foolishly entertained back in the time of Isaiah, were predicted to arrive back in force.
Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord: The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your predecessors have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the Lord. 18 And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood who will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”
2 Kings 20:16-18
Nebuchadnezzar asked the advice of different oracles, all of which warned him not to undertake the expedition against Jerusalem, yet he proceeded anyway.
Missed Jubilee
522 BC can be considered as a special Jubilee. Its worth spending a little time understanding the Jubilee, as a time when fortunes are restored, or as Jesus said the ‘Year of the Lord’s favour’ (Luke 4:18-19). The Jubilee, just like Daniel’s ‘sevens’ are made up of sets of 7 years.
The Jubilee is taken from Leviticus 25 where it first sets forth a set of 7 years (6 years plus 1 Sabbath year when the land would rest), it then counts off 7 Sabbath years (i.e. 49 years).
Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land. Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan. The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines. For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only what is taken directly from the fields.
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In this Year of Jubilee everyone is to return to their own property. Leviticus 25:9-13
A Jubilee might have been marked in 572BC (located by Ezekiel’s 30th year in 592BC Ezekiel 1:1), though this would not have been practised for the Jews were in exile, rather there would have been a lament. But out of the despair of what Jeremiah prophesied would happen, God tells him to buy a field in the territory of Benjamin (Jeremiah 32). Lamentations, written by Jeremiah, also breaks out at the lowest ebb of the prose, with the sound of hope:
I have been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is. So, I say, “My splendour is gone and all that I had hoped from the Lord. I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore, I will wait for him.”
Lamentations 3:17-24
Moving though the Jubilees 572 BC (every 50 years) we meet significant dates 522BC (Zechariah), 473-472 (Esther) and continuing through to the start of Jesus ministry.[1]
Its no surprise that there is alignment between the Jubilees (at 50 year spans) and 70 year spans. The 70 year span is possibly another ‘yardstick’ that has a little traction, we see it mentioned in Daniel 9:2 where we read from Jeremiah ‘the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years’. More correctly understood as Babylon's rule lasting 70 years, from 609 BC when the last Assyrian king, Ashur-uballit II, was defeated in Harran, until 539 BC when the Mede-Persians conquered Babylon (Jeremiah 25:9-12, Jeremiah 29:10). Here we have the 17 year period in the years 609-592 BC, as we have in the years 539-522 BC & 12-29 AD (a period that has significance when we delve into the book of Daniel).
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In 592 BC Ezekiel visions begin when he is beside the Kebar River. 70 years later in 522 BC Zechariah/Haggai support the construction of the second temple in earnest through Zerubbabel (named because he was born in Babylon) and Joshua the anointed High Priest.172 BC High priest becomes puppet of Antiochus Epiphanes (leading to the desecration of the temple 167-164 BC). Between 522 BC and 172 BC there are 7 spans of 50 years (i.e.7 Jubilees).
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Any consideration of this period of time must be dealt with by looking at the book of Daniel. Since this has huge implications, it takes up most of the next section, 'Return'. For against the back drop of the change of kingdoms we will observe the judgement against other nations to see what is happening as the Jews return to their Promised Land. The judgements against nations come from the pre-exilic prophets, whose proper interpretation should await the chronicled history of Ezra and Nehemiah. Even here we have a surprising twist that will influence how we interpret Daniel's sevens.
Before we move on we let us consider the transformation that Ezekiel shows regarding the temple. The comment in Ezra 3:12 show that the second temple does not match expectations of grandness, one might think then that what is described matches beauty of the temple in Jesus time (Luke 21:5). But there is more to consider.
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The city that Ezekiel, in chapters 40-48, describes envisages a city of Promise in contrast to the desecrated and destroyed by the Babylonians as described in earlier chapters of the book of Ezekiel. Critically, in this temple there is no mention of the veil, the ark of the covenant, no human high priest, no human king. The ark of the previous temple held preserved items (manna and Aaron's budded staff) from the time of the Exodus, but the glory of God departed from it. Compare this to the new kingdom where the glory of God returns, with God and the Lamb in the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21, there is no need for these things of former glory (2 Corinthians 3:10-11). God seems to be presenting to Ezekiel, the glorious new temple in ways that are familiar to Ezekiel - possibly following the trajectory of the promise (see the promise page). When Ezekiel is taken for a tour of it he doesn't see any of the idolatry of the the old temple (Ezekiel 8) now there is life at the centre - a river of life flows from it.
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