“The secret things belong unto the Lord our God but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.” Deuteronomy 29:29

The tools by which we understand the word and plan of God are the Holy Spirit combined with a careful inspection of the dictionary/concordance meaning of words and the historical record. These are the basic building blocks of our faith. However, in Scripture there appears to be a level of information beyond only the surface reading of the record. This “hidden wisdom” is referred to by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 2:6-10.

Once a “Thus saith the Lord” and thus say the Scriptures is in place, we are better prepared to properly interpret parables, understand allegories, apply symbols and types. These parts of Scripture are given to substantiate and confirm our faith while God hides them from the wise and proud of this world and confirms His foreknowledge and forecast of things to come for his people. Yet to use the symbolical method of reading Scripture without first grasping the clear face value, is to invite arbitrary speculation or reasoning toward preferred conclusions.

From here we venture into the world of numbers in Scripture. For many this arena is not so familiar and the events promised may be considered sufficient for faith, without accounting for days and years. Yet the numbers may be God’s way of showing the precision of His plans. And their use hides the purpose from the casual reader.

We have many prophetic and historical periods: 490, 1260, 1335, 2300, 2520. Some of these are symbolically produced like “seven times” or “time, times and a half” or 42 months or 70 weeks. After determining the scale, we are required to attach them to the correct events. Here we must clearly understand God’s purpose, methods and historical factors; else we also risk being arbitrary in our placing of numbers and dates.

SECRET ONE

A case in point is the Gentile Times. We have the vague but repetitive references in Leviticus 26:18, 21, 24, 28 to the seven times¹ of punishment upon Israel. Are these seven years or do the days of these “times” stand for years themselves? How many days are in a year and where should the times begin to count? We learn from Ezekiel 21:25-27 that the dominion removed from Israel would be overturned amongst others, the Gentiles. Ezekiel 21 indicates this began with the removal of Judah’s last king from Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple (vss. 2, 25). This is connected with the Gentile King Nebuchadnezzar, who ended Zedekiah’s throne and removed the population of the land. And the seven times in Daniel 4:16, 23, 25, 32 evidently relate to these seven times of Leviticus 26.

Finally we have Luke 21:24 from the New Testament that explains Jerusalem would be trodden down of the Gentiles for a fixed period to fulfill the prophecy. We might yet look for a confirmation that this is a fixed period of 2,520 years² by multiplying 7 by 360 Jewish calendar days rather than 354 lunar days or 365 solar days.³ In other words, “Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify.” (I Peter 1:11) We hold that these seven times are based on the same 360 day formula that is required in Revelation 11 and 12, where 3½ times (years), 42 months and 1260 days all express the length of one span. Further, we hold that each day is fulfilled by a natural year, as in Revelation 11 and 12.

Daniel interpreted the miraculous handwriting judgment on the palace wall just at the juncture of the first overturning of Gentile dominion from Babylon to Persia in Daniel 5:25-28. The proper rendering of the Chaldean words are “Numbered, Numbered, Weighed and Divided ‘ “ Daniel properly declared them as Judgment on this Babylonian “head of gold .”⁴

However, there is a unique property in these Chaldean words: Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin. The Hebrew equivalents are: Mina, Mina, Shekel, Peres. They are the same words used for weights. The smallest component weight was the gerah. The shekel consists of 20 gerahs (Exodus 30:13, Leviticus 27:25, Numbers 3:27). The mina is 50 shekels, therefore 1000 gerahs. Peres means a division (of Babylon and by implication of the mina), therefore 500 gerahs. The total of 2 minas, 1 shekel, ½ mina = 2000 + 20 + 500 = 2,520 gerahs. This number, in years, was the fixed extent of Gentile dominion. Is this a contrived figure or something intentionally hidden below the surface? We think it was intentional, and that it confirms the limit of years given the gentile dominions, of which Babylon was the first. Else why code the judgment with a list of numerical weights?

You may remember that God allowed the Jewish temple built by Solomon to be destroyed by the fires of Nebuchadnezzar. This was prophesied in Hosea and Psalms and elsewhere.

“Set the trumpet to thy lips. He shall come as an eagle against the house of the Lord, because they have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my law.” (Hosea 8:1)

“Thine enemies roar in the midst of thy congregations; they set up their ensigns for signs. A man was famous according as he had lifted up axes upon the thick trees. But now they break down the carved work thereof at once with axes and hammers. They have cast fire into my sanctuary, they have defiled by casting down the dwelling place of thy name to the ground.” (Psalms 74:4-7)

TABLE OF EVENTS – 1914

June		28		Hapsburg heir Archduke Francis Ferdinand assassinated in Serbia
July		24		Austria delivers ultimatum to Serbia
		25		Serbia replies and protests two demands
		28		Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia
		30		Russia mobilizes, Austria-Hungary moves to Russian border
		31		Germany issues Russia ultimatum to move back
Saturday	August	1	(Av 9)	Germany orders general mobilization, declares war on Russia
Sunday		2	(Av 10)	Germany invades Luxembourg (for railways), first military event.
		3		Germany declares war on France and invades Belgium
		4		Great Britain declares war on Germany
		5		Austria-Hungary declares war on Russia
		6		Serbia against Germany
		7		Montenegro against Austria-Hungary
		10		France against Austria-Hungary
		12		Great Britain against Austria-Hungary
		20		Germany enters Brussels
		23		Japan against Germany
		25		Austria-Hungary against Japan
		28		Austria-Hungary against Belgium

All this happened on the 7th or 10th day of the Hebrew month Av according to Jeremiah 52:12 and 2 Kings 25:8. 2 Kings reads the 7th day. Some believe Nebuchadnezzar breached an outer wall on the 7th and set fire to the temple on the 10th. Others believe the Hebrew character for 7 was mistaken for the character for 10. The Jewish consensus is that the burning occurred on the 10th, and Josephus agrees. When Zedekiah was dethroned and the temple burned, the dominion was effectively transferred. All the symbols of the theocracy were removed from Jerusalem.

It is most interesting to inspect the end of the Gentile Times prophecy. Today the 9th of Av is reverently kept by Jews as the last day of temple independence. It raises the national zeal of Orthodoxy and occasionally leads to attempts to return the temple mount to Jewish hands from Muslim occupation.

Yet the 9th and 10th of Av reveal another turning point in history. The guns of August 1914 that began the First World War were loosed on the 10th of Av. Each day afterward saw the explosive burning of the European monarchies. Note the table above, listing the events for the year 1914 leading to the war and the first month of conflict.5 It would seem that God measured exactly His seven times to the day, from the day Nebuchadnezzar torched Solomon’s temple till His judgments set the torch to the feet of the Gentile dominion. It was the First World War that eventuated in the Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate over Turkish-held Palestine and particularly Jerusalem. Jews were once more allowed the right of return and to purchase land and homes in the ancient capitol. This effectively began the process of returning dominion.

SECRET TWO

Some believe that every word and letter of Scripture was divinely directed. This led to a method of reading Scripture called “Gematria.” This is a method of adding the numeric value of each Hebrew or Greek letter in a text to determine a clue to some extended meaning of the text. Here we must be very careful not to use some value to insert a private interpretation or to fanaticize with the many mystical interpretations of the Cabalistic branch of Judaism. Any teaching must have a firm basis in the written word.

Yet there are some texts that invite our pursuit to a level deeper than the surface. And some uses of numbers do not relate to time at all. One of these is Revelation 13:18.

“Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.”

This follows the prophetic symbols of the seven-headed beast, a two-horned beast and an image of the beast. Finally this “image of the beast” receives power to mark both small and great in the hands or forehead and to control a certain commerce.

Following Bro. Russell’s suggestion (and many earlier reformers), we understand the beast to represent Papacy, the Man of Sin, a most beastly church-state government. The other images are extensions of the ideology of the first beast, and even of the dragon, pagan Rome, who fostered the whole system.

The number 666 in some Greek texts is written out with the words for each number, as we would say, “six hundred sixty six.” In others, they are the three Greek letters χξζ which are used for the positional value of numbers. The Greeks used this form of letters to represent both words and numbers. α = 1, β = 2, γ = 3, δ = 4, ε = 5, … ξ = 60, χ = 600. But when it came to 6, another letter was introduced! Not the next-the sixth letter (ζ, zeta) – but a different letter, a peculiar form of S, called “stigma”(ζ). Now the word στιγμα (stigma) means a mark, but especially a mark made by a brand as burnt upon slaves, cattle, or soldiers, by their owners or masters; or on devotees who thus branded themselves as belonging to their gods. This meaning of the characteristic number six seems significantly related to the mark of the beast. Indeed the expression of this number χξζ consists of the initial and final letters of the word χριστοζ, (Christos), Christ, viz.,  χ and ζ, with the symbol of the serpent between them, χ – ξ – ζ.

In this verse we are asked to “count” the number of the beast. The word “count” means to calculate, compute or sum. Many names may be found, the numerical value of whose letters amount to 666. Brother Russell suggested “Vicarius Filii Dei” which appeared on the papal crown. Others have suggested “Nero Caesar,” and there have been many others all applying to the Roman system.

It is remarkable that the Romans did not use all the letters of their alphabet for numbers, as did the Hebrews and Greeks. They used only six letters, D, C, L, X, V, and 1. (M appears to have evolved from the original use of two adjacent Ds to represent their sum of 1000.) It is even more remarkable, and perhaps significant, that the sum of these amounts to 666, and that each pair sum to the three component parts of the 666 prophetic number. Also the sum of the highest unit in each pair is 6.

666 is the characteristic feature of the Roman numeral system, and perhaps is a reason this number was chosen to mark the whole Roman politico-religious system in this prophecy.

We think the meaning of the words “wisdom” and “understanding” in Revelation 13:18 do not refer to a cleverness to understand the formula of the number, but to the spiritual perception and wisdom in identifying the Man of Sin system and keeping separate in spirit from it. These are identified in Revelation 20:4 as those who “had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands’ Let us be free from the spirit of antitypical Babylon.

CONCLUSION

We may each see different facets in God’s word depending on our mind’s eye. But we can be assured it is deeper and broader than can mortal ever go. Oh, the riches of His grace and the bounties of His word! Isaiah 45:3 is Isaiah’s prophecy regarding Cyrus, who is a picture of Christ, the liberator from bondage.

“I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel.”

From the mouth of Isaiah we hear:

“Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest? For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the LORD: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.” (Isaiah 66:1, 2)

– Jerry Leslie

 

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¹ There is actually no corresponding Hebrew word here for times. The single word is Strong’s #7651 meaning the cardinal numeral seven. Isaac Leeser simply translates it as sevenfold, meaning seven repetitions. Gesenius says in Leviticus 26 the word is used as an adverb, by implication seven times. This appears confirmed by Luke 21:24 where he uses the Greek word for times.

² Arithmetically, this is a very unique number. It is the least common multiple of the first ten numbers -the first number which is exactly divisible by all the first ten numerals. It would seem to be a special combination of the number ten, as are the ten horns in Revelation 12, 13 and 17

³ See “Bible Study Monthly,” May/June 1994, Vol. 71, No. 3, “The Seven Times of Nebuchadnezzar,” and July/August 1994, Vol. 71, No. 4, “The Lunar Month in Prophecy.”

⁴ Some may begin this prophecy with the ascendancy of Nebuchadnezzar or his father in the emerging kingdom of Babylon. However, we are inclined to apply it to the time of Babylon’s removal of Israel’s dominion.

⁵ Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th Edition, 1973, “World Wars.”

 

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