The Hidden History of Verse Forty - Number Twenty-Eight

According to inspiration, when it comes to inspiration, “every fact has its bearing,” and “every principle has its bearing.”

The fact of the matter is that the Hebrew expression “ereb boqer” is found eight times in the Bible. It is always translated as “evening and morning,” with the exception of Daniel 8:14 where it is rendered as “days.” According to inspiration verse fourteen is the “foundation and central pillar of the Advent faith.”

The fact therefore is that the “days” in the verse is the eighth time of the seven times that Hebrew expression is employed. And the biblical phenomenon of God’s prophetic guidance of the translators of the King James version purposely associated the biblical enigma of the eighth being of the seven in the verse that represents one of two visions in chapter eight. One word translated as “vision” in chapter eight is the Hebrew word “chazon,” and the other is “mareh.” “Mareh” means appearance and the “mareh” vision is the vision of Christ’s appearance in God’s prophetic Word. The “mareh” vision of Daniel 8:14 identifies that Christ was to appear and suddenly come to His temple on October 22, 1844. All these truths are facts, and they have their bearing upon the verse that is the central pillar, and the central pillar is not a doctrine or a prophecy that was fulfilled on October 22, 1844, the fact is that the verse is Christ, the central pillar.

We are now being tested as to whether we will enter the temple and thereafter confess our sins and secure the blessing of His justification. This last call to enter the temple is surrounded by obstacles to prevent our individual entrance, but should we now hesitate, we will be “left alone in the silent horror of night.” But this is not my only point.

Purposeful emphasis was placed upon this most important verse by including the distinction of the word “days,” which carries with it the prophetic enigma that eight is of the seven, which is one of the wheels in the sealing time of the one hundred and forty-four thousand. In the period of the sealing, the Protestant horn and the Republican horn of the sixth kingdom of Bible prophecy will both fulfill the enigma that the eighth is of the seven. Of the eight presidents since the time of the end in 1989, Trump became the sixth king of the sixth kingdom, and after he won his second term, he became the eighth that is of the seven. In the action of the United States in repeating the Edict of Milan in 313, the Laodicean movement of the one hundred and forty-four thousand will become the Philadelphian movement of the one hundred and forty-four thousand. The sealing time concludes at the Sunday law where the papacy’s deadly wound is healed, and she thus fulfills the enigma of Revelation seventeen as the eighth that is of the seven. One fact, represented in one Hebrew phrase, as one English word, brings the verse that identifies the opening of the judgment into the verse that identifies the close of judgment in the sealing time of the one hundred and forty-four thousand.

Every fact has its place, and there is only one expression where a numerical construction of a ‘number’ times another ‘number’ is used in the New Testament, and only two in the Old Testament. The alpha of the ‘numerical construction’ is in Genesis.

The omega ‘numerical construction’ is in Matthew.

These passages represent the first and last time in the Bible where a number is identified to be multiplied with another number. There are many numbers, but the alpha of Genesis and the omega of Matthew possess the identical numerical construction, and they employ the same two numbers of ‘seven’ and ‘seventy.’

Between the alpha and omega, the middle and only other place where this numerical construction exists is in Leviticus twenty-five. There the two numbers are not ‘seven’ and ‘seventy,’ but ‘seven times seven years.’

The middle numerical construction once again employs the number ‘seven,’ but not the number ‘seventy.’ The passage where it is located contains a blessing for obedience, and also a curse for disobedience. The blessings of freeing of slaves and restoration of land are contrasted with the curse of seven times that is mentioned four times in chapter twenty-six of Leviticus. The blessing included the Lord’s sustenance during the years the land rested, and a double blessing in the year of Jubilee, and the cursing of chapter twenty-six is the counterpart in the covenant warning of the two chapters.

The middle numerical construction appears in Leviticus 25:8 (‘seven times seven years’). It is immediately paired with the fourfold ‘seven times’ judgment of Leviticus 26. Thus, the middle numerical construction represents both a blessing and a curse, forming a doubled testimony in the book of Leviticus. The numerical construction of either the blessing or the curse of the Jubilee is placed between the judgment of Lamech and Jesus’ identification of the limit of probationary time. All three together are identifying a probationary limit, which when concluded will manifest one class who is blessed and one class who is cursed. The alpha and omega, representing the first and third angels’ messages, identify four hundred and ninety as the symbol of probationary time. When this is coupled with the curse or blessing of the Jubilee, the facts become important as we approach the study of Ezekiel chapter one verse one that places Ezekiel in the thirtieth year of the seventeenth Jubilee cycle.

That Jubilee cycle ended on October 22, 573 BC, and typified not only October 22, 1844, but also the soon-coming Sunday law. Ezekiel was standing in the temple, representing the one hundred and forty-four thousand who by faith have entered into the Most Holy Place at the end of the judgment, as did the faithful after October 22, 1844. To miss the “fact” of where Ezekiel is at in prophetic history in chapter one and verse one is to lose your “bearing.”

After viewing the glory of the Lord given by the river Chebar, Ezekiel is humbled into the dust as were Daniel, Isaiah and John. Then all four of the examples provide elements of the anointing of those who are to give the message to a church that will not see or hear.

There are six dates in the book of Ezekiel that address Jerusalem. We have previously addressed the first and last dates found in chapter one, verses one and two, and then in chapter forty, verse one. I have addressed the second date found in chapter eight and verse one, but only in its symbolic representation, and without locating it in connection with the siege and destruction of Jerusalem, and the entire book revolves around that axle. Jerusalem was destroyed at the end of 586/585 BC. And in Ezekiel 33:21 a fugitive arrives with the news of Jerusalem’s fall.

In the twelfth year the city was smitten, and Ezekiel is then free to speak upon his own volition. The vision of Ezekiel chapter eight was in the sixth year, thus roughly six years before the city was smitten.

The next year, which was the seventh year, the elders sought Ezekiel to inquire of the Lord.

Then in the ninth year, the year-and-a-half siege began.

Each of these dates represents specific waymarks of the latter days, for Paul says ancient Israel is an example for those who live at the end of the world.

All six of the dates that concern Jerusalem occur between the first date in chapter one verse one and the last date found in chapter forty, verse one. Those two dates mark the fifth year of chapter one, which was 592 BC and the twenty-fifth year of chapter forty, which was 573 BC. At the line upon line level Ezekiel has a line for Egypt, which includes the reference of Tyre, and a line for Jerusalem. The line of Egypt has seven direct waymarks, (when Tyre is included) and Jerusalem has six. With these two lines are the line of Josiah and the seventeenth Jubilee cycle. Yet the line that is portrayed without a direct date is found in chapter four, and the line of chapter four possesses several of the wheels Ezekiel saw when he looked into the Most Holy Place. It is also laden with several symbolic truths.

The number four hundred and thirty represents the everlasting covenant, and in chapter four Ezekiel is employed by the Lord as a living parable, a parable which includes the number four hundred and thirty.

The siege of Jerusalem, as illustrated by Ezekiel is a “sign,” just as the siege against Jerusalem brought by Cestius in the year 66. Commenting on Jesus identifying the destruction of Jerusalem, Sister White informs us that the “direct” fulfillment of the destruction of Jerusalem is in the latter days. The sign of the destruction upon the two witnesses represented by Nebuchadnezzar and Cestius identify that the sign of the siege, is the sign of the approaching Sunday law.

Within the passage we are considering, we also see the omega biblical reference to the premier rule of prophetic interpretation of William Miller in the foundational movement of the first and second angels’ messages. The alpha of the day for a year principle was also an omega symbol, for the alpha of the day for a year principle was set forth in the book of Numbers as the tenth and final test, which Israel failed, thereby bringing upon themselves death in the wilderness over the forty years of wilderness wandering.

The prophetic implications that the day for a year principle is identified in the final rebellion of the ten-step testing process beginning at the Red Sea crossing, and that the same principle is again proclaimed as Jerusalem is to be besieged and destroyed must be understood and applied to the passage we are considering, as must the significance of the “siege” being the “sign.”

The line of history that is brought together when employing the “siege” of Jerusalem as the sign must be recognized, for it becomes an "axle" so to speak, and metaphorically the sign of the siege, has many spokes attached. The sign of the siege is perhaps the most important passage in Ezekiel, and the sign allows the Lion of the tribe of Judah to bring perfection out of what first appeared to Ezekiel to be confusion. The “sign” of the siege, the year for a day principle, and the prophetic lines brought together by the siege, must be considered in the context that four hundred and thirty represents the everlasting covenant.

The Lord entered into covenant with Abraham in a three-step process, and the first of those three steps included the prophecy that Abraham’s descendants would be captives in Egypt for four hundred years. In the second step, Abraham was given the rite of circumcision, and the third step was the sacrifice of Isaac on Mount Moriah. Four hundred years was identified in the alpha of three steps the Lord took in raising up and entering into covenant with a chosen people. That chosen covenant people were divorced from God at the stoning of Stephen in the year 34, and thereafter Paul, the chosen apostle to the Gentiles, identified that four hundred years as—four hundred and thirty years.

The number that represents the covenant is four hundred and thirty, but the two witnesses of Abram and Saul, who both had their names changed to Abraham and Paul respectively, identify two distinct periods that make up the whole number of four hundred and thirty. When God changes a soul’s name, it is a symbol of a covenant relationship between that soul and God. The four hundred and thirty years is therefore a sum that is produced by the addition of two distinct numbers, as with Abraham’s four hundred and Paul’s addition of thirty. Ezekiel lay upon his left side for three hundred and ninety days, and then on his right side for forty days, identifying two numbers whose sum total is four hundred and thirty.

In Genesis chapter eleven the covenant of death that was brought about immediately after the flood through the rebellion of Nimrod identifies the distinction between two covenants. The elements of the tower of Babel testify to a satanic save yourself covenant people who were to be judged and scattered. In the same chapter, the genealogy of the Hebrews is introduced by the birth of Eber, marking the beginning of a chosen people to represent the covenant of life, in contrast with Nimrod’s covenant of death.

In chapter ten of Genesis Eber and Peleg are first mentioned.

Peleg means division or splitting, and in the days of Peleg the division of two classes of covenant people is marked by the history of the tower of Babel and Nimrod’s rebellion. Eber lived to be four hundred and sixty-four years, but after Peleg (division) was born he lived four hundred and thirty years. Every fact has its bearing, and four hundred and thirty is the number Paul assigns to the covenant prophecy of Abraham. Although the number four hundred and thirty is identified with Eber’s life after the birth of Peleg, the first thirty-four years of his life is expressed as “four and thirty years,” which is of course thirty-four years, but at the simple expression of those thirty-four years it reads “four” and “thirty” (430). Then came four hundred and thirty, then the first expression of Peleg’s life is “thirty.”

Eber is the root of the name Hebrew and it is the first mention of the Hebrews, who were to be the chosen people of the covenant. Eber means to cross over, thus typifying the covenant people who cross over from the earth to the new earth as Abraham’s children did when they crossed over the Red Sea to the Promised land. The forty-year wilderness wandering impeded that crossing over, but at the end of the forty years they crossed over the Jordan to the Promised Land, thus typifying the final crossing over of God’s people. Peleg represents the history when the division of mankind into two covenant people first occurred at Nimrod’s tower. The symbol of Nimrod’s covenant of death is confusion, and the symbol of the Hebrew covenant of life is the four hundred and thirty years of Eber’s life before the division represented by Peleg. The name Peleg also marks a symbolic numerical truth, for the four hundred and thirty years of Eber is divided into two numbers, and Peleg represents a distinction of the four hundred with the number thirty.

Four hundred and thirty possesses two parts. The four hundred years of Abraham’s covenant along with the additional thirty years marked by Paul. The increase of knowledge that produces the final revival of God’s people is represented in Daniel chapter twelve, where the two-part symbol of the everlasting covenant is specifically identified, and it is set forth in verses 9/11.

The final unsealing that produces a three-step testing process as represented in verse ten as “purified, and made white, and tried,” is associated with the twelve hundred and ninety years. The pioneer understanding of the verse is that the removal of the resistance of paganism in 508 began a thirty-year process that led to the setting up of the papacy as the fifth kingdom of Bible prophecy in 538, who then reigned as the fifth kingdom of Bible prophecy until the twelve hundred and sixty years concluded in 1798. The thirty years from 508 until 538 is also represented by Paul as a “falling away first,” in 2 Thessalonians.

In 2 Thessalonians the subject is the relationship between pagan Rome and papal Rome, the fourth and fifth kingdoms of prophecy respectively. It is in this chapter of Thessalonians that William Miller discovered that the “daily” in the book of Daniel represented pagan Rome, and Miller further discovered that the “daily” in Daniel was always presented in connection with the abomination or the transgression of desolation. The abomination and transgression of desolation in the book of Daniel represent what John identifies in the book of Revelation as the image of the beast and the mark of the beast, respectively.

William Miller based most, if not all, of his prophetic applications upon his identification of two desolating powers, represented as the “daily” (pagan Rome), and the second desolating power, which is expressed two ways, as the transgression of desolation (the combination of church and state), in the Revelation—as the image of the beast (the papal prophetic structure), and the abomination of desolation (the worship of the sun) in Revelation—as the mark of the beast. The understanding derived by Miller from Paul’s presentation in 2 Thessalonians was a primary foundational understanding of Miller, who is the symbol of the foundations of Adventism. Paul claims that those who do not love the truth represented in chapter two of 2 Thessalonians are those who receive strong delusion.

In Daniel’s three verses (Daniel 12:9–11) the symbolic understanding in the latter days cannot include the application of time, for as of October 22, 1844; the application of prophetic time is no longer valid. The 9/11 verses represent two distinct periods of thirty years and twelve hundred and sixty years. The numbers forty and the number twelve hundred and sixty are both symbols of a prophetic wilderness, and are prophetically interchangeable. Therefore, twelve hundred and sixty can be understood as forty, and forty is the tithe of four hundred. The 9/11 verses symbolize the number of the everlasting covenant, as represented by four hundred (Abraham) in connection with thirty (Paul). The ‘wilderness’ represented by ‘twelve hundred and sixty’ aligns with a ‘wilderness of forty’, and forty, is a tithe of four hundred. Thirty is thirty. Four hundred and thirty is produced by the number four hundred added to the number thirty, which in Ezekiel chapter four is represented as three hundred and ninety added to the number forty.

The 9/11 verses in chapter twelve represent the middle of three prophetic periods in the chapter, and they are a symbol of the everlasting covenant that is unsealed in the latter days. The unsealing of the meaning of four hundred and thirty in the latter days is brought about in chapter four of Ezekiel.

The Lion of the tribe of Judah is now unsealing the final warning message to those who have by faith entered into the Most Holy Place with Ezekiel, John, Daniel and Isaiah. That truth is opened up in conjunction with the lifting up of those represented not only as the outcasts of Israel, but as the ensign of the one hundred and forty-four thousand. That truth is set within the context of the covenant represented by Abraham’s four hundred years in conjunction with the covenant represented by Paul’s thirty years. That truth is set forth in Daniel twelve’s 9/11 verses, which represent the middle of three symbolic periods, which were correctly understood by the Millerites. The middle 9/11 truth that is being unsealed in Daniel twelve is represented in Ezekiel’s three hundred and ninety days and forty days. Those days are opened up to Ezekiel in the thirtieth year of the seventeenth Jubilee cycle, and Ezekiel, as a priest, represents the priesthood of the one hundred and forty-four thousand who are in the middle test of three tests.

Ezekiel is marked within the temple test on the “fifth day” of the “fourth month,” which in Millerite history marked the very middle (“midway”) of the seven months that began at the first disappointment on April 19, 1844, and ended on October 22 of the same year.

July 21, 1844 was midway in the seven sacred months, and on that date Samuel Snow was at the Boston Tabernacle presenting his message of the Midnight Cry. There, for the first time in a public presentation he “proclaimed in the very words of Scripture: ‘Behold, the Bridegroom cometh!’” We are now symbolically standing with Ezekiel in the Boston Tabernacle, shortly before the lifting up of the messengers of the midnight cry go forth like a tidal wave. The prophetic process of lifting up the ensign is represented in the prophetic line of Islam in Revelation chapter nine. Ezekiel chapter four provides the second witness and the conclusion of that prophecy of three hundred and ninety-one years and fifteen days, and he does so in chapter four.

We will continue these things in the next article.