The Dominion Parallels

When God gave the Law to the descendants of Israel, he promised them blessings when they obeyed, and cursing’s if they did not. They constantly disregarded the Law, and therefore every adversity threatened has come upon them. Two of the severest of these were the “seven times” of punishment, and the “desolation of the land,” pronounced together by Moses in the book of Leviticus, 26:14-43. The Scriptural connections show that these punishments both began at the same date, namely, 606 B.C. That the period of desolation was 70 years, beginning when Zedekiah was dethroned by Nebuchadnezzar, is proved by the evidences given in Section IV (Compare, also, Dan. 9:2, 11).

In dethroning Zedekiah, Judah’s last king, and laying waste Jerusalem and the land of Judea, the king of Babylon began the lease of power to the Gentiles. Although the people were allowed to return to their land after the 70 years’ desolation was accomplished, they were still subject to Gentile powers, because the long period of their “seven times” of punishment (2520 years) had to run its course until, as Jesus said, the “times of the Gentiles be fulfilled” (Luke 21:24).

The complete dominion of the Gentiles was illustrated in the vision of the great image, which the Lord caused Nebuchadnezzar to see in a dream (Dan. 2). This image’s head was of fine gold, his breasts and arms of silver, his belly and thighs of brass, his legs of iron, and his feet part of iron and part of clay. Daniel, interpreting the dream, said: “Thou [Nebuchadnezzar] art this head of gold (The Babylonians). And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee (The Medes and the Persians), and another third kingdom of brass (The Grecian Empire), which shall bear rule over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron (The Roman Empire) . . . And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom [Christ’s], which shall never be destroyed . . . It shall break in pieces and consume all these [Gentile] kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.”

Thus, the four Gentile kingdoms symbolized by the image were really one, in the same sense as a man’s body is one, although composed of many members (1 Cor. 12:12).  Nebuchadnezzar, the representative of the first of these kingdoms, was likened to the head; and as the head represents the whole body, so the Babylonian kingdom represented all the other Gentile kingdoms. The 70-year period of this kingdom’s supremacy, also, represented the complete period of the Gentile dominion, i.e., the “Seven Times.”

The number 70 may be regarded as symbolic, being the product of two typical numbers, 7 and 10. Seven is the perfect number, especially in connection with time; and ten is the symbol of numerical completeness, especially with regard to governments, e.g., the ten toes of the image, the ten horns of the beast, etc., which are symbolical figures used in the Scriptures to denote powerful governments.

The “Seven Times” of punishment upon the people of Israel consisted in the removal of their crown, and their consequent unwilling subjection to the insane, beast-like Gentile kingdoms (See Jer. 51:7; Dan. 7; Ezek. 21:25-27). To confirm this feature of his “Plan of the Ages,” God visited a typical period of “seven times” of insanity upon Nebuchadnezzar, the first Gentile king (Dan. 4). Just as the “seven times” which passed over Nebuchadnezzar, the “head of gold,” were seven literal years, so in the antitype the “Seven Times” which were to pass over the Gentile kingdoms, symbolized by the great metallic image, were to be on an antitypical scale.

In the book of Revelation, “three times and a half ” are shown in parallel texts to be equal to 42 months, and 1260 days, i.e., three and a half years (See Rev. 11:2, 3; 12:6, 14; 13:5 compare with Dan. 7:25 ; 12:7). Seven times, or twice this amount, will therefore equal 2520 days. The typical man (Nebuchadnezzar) had 2520 literal days of un-reason (Dan. 4:28-37); but the great antitypical “man“ (Composed of the Gentile kingdoms) was to have un-reason for 2520 symbolical days (See Sec. V). The “madness” of the Gentile nations has consisted in their vainglorious pride in their own strength, and in thinking they could rule the world. When the Lord sets up his Kingdom, he will prove that only He can rule in righteousness.

On the completion of his “seven times” of insanity, Nebuchadnezzar said : “At the same time my reason returned unto me; and for the glory of my kingdom, mine honor and brightness returned unto me . . . and I was established in my kingdom, and excellent majesty was added unto me” (Dan. 4:36). This pre-figures the changed attitude of the nations after their foreordained “Seven Times” of un-reason, when the crisis of the great time of trouble which terminates the Age is over. As with Nebuchadnezzar, the understanding of the nations will return; and when they reflect on their former degraded condition, they will abhor themselves and turn and extol the King of heaven—”All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee.” Mankind will also have restored to them the original dominion over the earth lost by father Adam. As the First Adam lost his dominion gradually during his 1000-year “day” of condemnation, so the restoration of this dominion will be gradually accomplished during the 1000-year “day” of the Last Adam.

It is remarkable that the date 606 B.C. when the kingdom of God’s typical people came to an end, should be exactly midway between the great 1000-year “days” of the First and Second Adams. The words of the Lord in Lev. 26:18 “I will punish you seven times more for your sins “—gain additional force through this symmetrical arrangement; for if the exact interval of 2520 years between the First Adam’s “day,” and the end of Israel’s kingdom be denominated “Seven Times,” then the period of Israel’s punishment during the lease of Gentile rule is “Seven Times more.”

In a number of respects the first Seven Times foreshadowed the second. The overthrow of the kingdom of the Fleshly House at the end of the first period in 606 B.C., prefigured the greater overthrow of nominal Spiritual Israel’s dominion, which has been misnamed Christendom—Christ’s kingdom. The 40-year term of Jeremiah’s prophetic activity at the close of the typical kingdom (See number (1) at bottom of page), corresponds with the 40-year period at the end of the Gospel Age, from 1874 A.D. when Christ came again as Chief Reaper in the “Harvest” of the Age, to 1914 A.D. when the destruction of the “kingdoms of this world” was due to begin. For a prominent feature in the prophetic utterances of this faithful servant of the Lord, Jeremiah, was the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, and the overthrow of the kingdom. So, during the period of 40 years from 1874 A.D., the Lord’s consecrated people frequently drew attention to the Scriptural indication of the approaching destruction of Christendom in 1914 A.D.

The great Passover celebration of Josiah, noticed in 2 Chron. 35:1-19, which was held in commemoration of the passing-over from death of the first-born of the Israelite’s in Egypt, corresponds with the great antitypical passing-over from death to the Spiritual condition of the Church of the first-born in 1878 A.D. (Sec. XVII, Part 20 in our study).

The division of the kingdom of Israel into ten and two tribes at the death of Solomon in 999 B.C. (Sec. III), which was 393 years before its complete destruction at the end of the first “Seven Times,” prefigured the division of Christendom into Catholicism and Protestantism in 1521 A.D., as the result of the reformatory work of Martin Luther, 393 years before its foreordained destruction at the end of the second “Seven Times“. The ten tribes had offered allegiance to Rehoboam on condition that he would deal more leniently with them than had his father Solomon; but his harsh answer—”My father put a heavy yoke upon you, I will put more to your yoke: my father chastised you with whips, but I with scorpions“—drove them away (2 Chron. 10:1-15). In like manner the Protestant section of Christendom, represented by the two tribes, lashed its adherents to obedience by the dreadful alternative of “Eternal Torment,” in consequence of which the great majority of the people clung to the Catholic section with its comparatively milder whip of Purgatory.

Roman Catholic writers, of course, claim the opposite that the Protestant section was represented by the ten tribes who broke away from Judah and Benjamin, because they divided from the parent system. They fail to notice, however, that the schism in Israel, which was specially ordered of the Lord (2 Chron. 11:1-4), was the occasion of a great cleansing work, dividing from the ten tribes a remnant who had faith in, and respect for, the promises of God (1 Kings 12:23 ; 2 Chron. 11:13-16). It was the two tribes along with the faithful remnant of the other tribes, therefore (the Protestants), who were separated by God from the idolatrous majority (the Catholics).

The evidence that 1521 A.D. is the date when the division of Christendom into Catholicism and Protestantism occurred is clear. In June 1520 Luther received from Pope Leo X the first bull of excommunication, commanding him to confess his faults within sixty days, or be cast out of the church. Luther publicly burnt this bull, with the result that, in January 1521, a second bull was issued expelling him from the Roman Church. Blackie’s Modern Cyclopedia states with regard to this: “From this time Luther formally separated from the Roman Church, and many of the principal German nobles, the most eminent scholars, and the University of Wittenberg, publicly declared in favor of the reformed doctrines and discipline. Luther’s bold refusal to recant at the diet of Worms (17th April, 1521) gave him increased power, while the Edict of Worms and the ban of the Emperor made his cause a political matter.”

The destruction of Christendom was also, in certain aspects, foreshadowed by the fall of the Babylonian Empire. The Lord foretold through Isaiah that Babylon would be overthrown, and the captive Israelite’s set free by one named Cyrus, who was thus called by his name long before he was born (Isa. 44 and 45). The name Cyrus means sun. Cyrus, king of Persia, was a “sun” to the captives in Babylon, shedding light and warmth upon them in allowing them to regain freedom and return to their land. As the 70-year period of the Babylonian kingdom was typical of the complete Gentile dominion, the prophecy of Isaiah concerning the work of Cyrus applies in reality to Christ, who, as the Great Sun of Righteousness, shall arise with “healing in his wings” (Mal. 4:2; Matt. 13:43), overthrowing, first, the kingdoms of this world denominated “Babylon the Great,” and then setting at liberty the captive Israelite’s, spiritual and earthly.

After Cyrus overthrew Babylon he became emperor of the world. In this he represented the Great Cyrus, who, after the downfall of Mystic Babylon (Rev. 17:5; 18:2), will become King of kings, and Lord of lords. The superiority of the Persian over the Median portion of the typical kingdom, was illustrated in Daniel’s two symbolical visions of the various Gentile powers; in one the Medo-Persian kingdom was likened to a bear raised on one side; and in the other it was represented by a ram with two horns, one of which was higher than the other (Dan. 7:5, 17; 8:3, 20). By this means God prefigured the fact that in the dual Kingdom of Christ, the spiritual phase, to which Christ belongs, will be so much higher than the earthly phase as the heavens are higher than the earth. We read that the laws of the Medes and Persians were unalterable (Dan. 6:8). However true this may have been of the typical Medo-Persian empire, it will certainly be true of the time when “out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem” (Isa. 2:3).

When we appreciate the fact that the short period of the Babylonian universal empire typified the whole period of the “Times of the Gentiles,” and that the heathen monarch Cyrus with his conjoint kingdom prefigured the heavenly King, Christ, and his dual Kingdom, we can understand the significance of the three ribs in the mouth of the bear which symbolized the Medo-Persian empire (Dan. 7:5). The mouth represents speech (Jer. 1:9). The bear was, figuratively, uttering words regarding three “ribs.” In the Scriptures a rib denotes a woman (Gen. 2:22). This Medo-Persian power under Cyrus was, therefore, speaking (symbolically) concerning three women. Who were they?

In Palestine it is the custom for parents to select the bride for their son; the Bible intimates that the heavenly Father has been selecting a bride for His Son, Jesus Christ. The first to be favored with the proposal of the heavenly marriage was the Jewish nation, the Old Jerusalem. But when Jesus “came to his own,” they would not receive him (John 1:11). They saw no comeliness or beauty in him they could desire, and he was despised and rejected (Isa. 53:1-3). In consequence of this faithlessness that nation was cast off from being the bride of Christ; and God did visit the Gentiles to take out of them a people for his name (Acts 15:14). But although the called-out company of the Gospel Age was originally espoused as a “chaste virgin” to one husband, Christ, yet, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtility (deceitfulness), so the Nominal Church was corrupted by the “god of this world” from the simplicity that is in Christ (2 Cor. 11:2, 3). Tired of waiting for her Lord she apostatized from the faith, and in 539 A.D. “married” another, and thus became an “adulteress” and the “mother of harlots” (Rev. 17). When Jesus Christ returned (in 1874) and the cry went forth: “Behold the bridegroom; go ye out to meet him” (Matt. 25:6), he was again despised and rejected (by the nominally professing church).

The third “rib” is the true Church, composed of the faithful remnants of both Houses of Israel. This is the Church whom Christ loved, and for whom he gave himself in sacrifice (Eph. 5:25-27). Like her Lord she also has been despised and rejected; but in spite of every trial she has remained chaste and faithful throughout her long period of waiting, and will now soon become the “holy city, the new Jerusalem,” “the bride, the Lamb’s wife” (Rev. 21:2, 9; 19:7, 8). As the second Eve she will, in the re-generation, become the “mother of all living” (Matt. 19:28).

The union of Christ, and the “Church of the first-born” whose names are written in heaven (Heb. 12:23), was typified by the marriage of Isaac the seed of promise, and Rebecca. The improper union in 539 A.D. of the Apostate Church with her lord and head, the Pope, who claimed to be the vicar of Christ, (See number (2) at bottom of page) when the “THE ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION” was set up in power and gave rise to the “Holy” Roman Empire, counterfeited the great and holy anti-typical “marriage of the Lamb.” It is interesting to notice that the date of the typical marriage of Isaac and Rebecca, 1981 B.C. (See number (3) at bottom of page), corresponds with the date of the antitypical counterfeit in 539 A.D.

As 539 A.D. began the 1260 symbolical days of Papal power, so, as we shall see, the date of Isaac’s marriage, 1981 B.C., began a similar period of 1260 “days.” The prophet Daniel was informed that the period following the end of these “days” of the crushing of the true Church or “holy people” of the Lord, by the Apostate Church, would be the “time of the end,” during which all the evil systems of Satan’s kingdom would be gradually consumed and finally destroyed (Dan. 7:23, 26; 12:4-9; 2 Thess. 2:7-9).

In Vol. 3 of Studies in the Scriptures, Chapter 2, C. T. Russell proves conclusively from the historical fulfillment of prophecy that the “time of the end” is a period of 115 years, beginning at the date 1799 A.D. The event in that year, however, which fixed the prophetic end of Antichrist’s dominion, was not in itself of great historical importance; but in 1789, ten years earlier, an event of outstanding prominence took place which more than any other led to Papacy’s loss of power, namely, the French Revolution. (It was likewise at this time that “the beast that was, and is not, and is to come again,” Rev 17:8 made its first appearance). So terrible was the trouble in 1789 A.D., it seemed as if the foretold destruction of the “Present Evil World” was then about to be fulfilled (Dan. 12:1; Matt. 24:21). But “Christendom” recovered from this death-blow in a wonderful way; and although Papacy was shorn of its temporal authority by Napoleon in 1799-1800 A.D., the Scriptures indicate that this was only the beginning of the end (Dan. 7:19, 27); for its utter destruction was not due to begin till the completion of the “Seven Times” of the Gentiles (for Papacy is in itself one of the great Gentile powers).

The date 721 B.C. at the end of the period of 1260 “days” in the first “Seven Times,” like the corresponding date 1799 A.D. in the second “Seven Times,” is not signalized by any particular feature in connection with Fleshly Israel; but ten years previously, in 731 B.C., the Scriptures record two prominent events. (1) In 731 B.C., which corresponds with the year of the French Revolution, Sennacherib, the Assyrian king, besieged Jerusalem with a great army; and it seemed as if the destruction of the typical kingdom was then about to take place. (2) “In those days,” also, Hezekiah, the king and head of the Jewish nation, was “sick unto death.” Hezekiah was then childless, and had he died the line of the kings of Judah would have been broken. (See number (4) at bottom of page), But the Lord delivered Hezekiah from death; and in one night the great army of Sennacherib was blotted out.

Thus the typical kingdom was miraculously saved from a time of trouble which must shortly have overwhelmed it. Both of these events prefigured in a manner Christendom’s threatened destruction and “sickness unto death” at the time of the French Revolution. Just as the downfall of Jerusalem (in 606 B.C.) occurred 125 years after the deliverance of the Jewish kingdom from the Assyrians, and Hezekiah’s miraculous recovery, so, 125 years after the French Revolution, the final downfall of nominal Spiritual Jerusalem and all the kingdoms of this world commenced viz. 1914 A.D. (Rev. 11:13-15).

We read that Hezekiah, after the Lord had vindicated himself on behalf of his people, gave way to vainglory when he received ambassadors from Babylon (2 Kings 20:12-19 ; 2 Chron 32:31). so, also, after its marvelous recovery from the Revolution, France again affiliated with Mystic Babylon the Great. We read, further, that Hezekiah led aqueducts into Jerusalem, that the inhabitants might have an abundant supply of refreshing water (2 Chron. 32:30). Water is the Scriptural symbol of truth; this act of Hezekiah typified the abundant stream of the “water of life” flowing through the numerous Bible Societies, which were founded at the end of the Papal oppression of 1260 “days” (See Vol. 3, Studies in the Scriptures, pages 50, 51).

The momentous events of the year 731 B.C. in addition to being recorded in the books of Kings and Chronicles are also recounted in full detail in four chapters in the book of Isaiah, the 36th to the 39th inclusive. These four chapters are inserted between two great Millennial chapters; Chapter 35 prophecies the glad Millennial Day when “the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose,” and “the ransomed of the Lord shall return,” etc.; while the 40th Chapter begins with the words of Millennial hope: “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak you comfortably to Jerusalem.” This peculiar arrangement in Isaiah’s writings would be unaccountable, were it not that we now perceive that the events which happened to Fleshly Israel in 731 B.C., prefigured the events of 1789 A.D. at the beginning of the “time of the end,” i.e., the beginning of the day of the Lord’s “preparation” for his glorious Millennial Kingdom.

Thus, in the 35th Chapter, Isaiah describes the future restitution work of the Millennium, then in the next four chapters he, while apparently detailing events which occurred far back in his own day, is really giving us a pictorial account of the French Revolution. He is thus speaking of the commencement of the “time of the end” of the “Present Evil World,” and the beginning of the Lord’s preparation for the new Dispensation,—the time, therefore, when his words in the 40th Chapter are now due to be proclaimed: “Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her appointed time is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned,” that the time of her recovery has drawn nigh.

This time-parallel demonstrates that there is a connecting link between the 39th and 40th Chapters of Isaiah, and is evidence that the Higher Critics err when they claim that the latter part of this book from the 40th Chapter onward, was not written till after the 70 years exile.

There is another feature in connection with Hezekiah which this time-parallel throws light upon, namely, the meaning of the sign of the sun-dial of Ahaz (Isa. 38:7, 8, 22). The French Revolution, which, as we have seen, was typified in part by the sickness of Hezekiah, broke out ten years before the commencement of the “time of the end.” May it not be that the sign of the sun-dial given to Hezekiah was intended as a prophecy of this, the ten degrees (or steps—R.V.) representing the ten years? We suggest that the sign indicated, symbolically, that just as the shadow on the sun-dial, on account of Hezekiah’s repentance, was set back ten steps, so the French Revolution was set back ten years; i.e., that after this foreknown upheaval in Christendom would break out, ten years would still require to elapse before the beginning of the “time of the end.”

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(1) The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah in the 13th year of the reign of Josiah, till the 11th year of Zedekiah (Jer. 1:1-3). The first year of Josiah began to count from the beginning of the Jewish year, spring, 659 B.C. (See Bible dates, Sec. III; also Sec. V). The middle of Josiah’s 13th year would be autumn, 647 B.C. Jeremiah, therefore, began his career as a prophet 646¼ years before A.D. 1; and 40 years from then end in the middle of Zedekiah’s 11th year, 606¼ B.C., this is the exact beginning of the “Seven Times of the Gentiles”

(2) See Vol. 2, Studies in the Scriptures, by C. T. Russell, pages 227-282.

(3) Gen. 15:20—”And Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebecca to wife.” As Isaac was born 2020 B.C. (See Bible dates, Sec. III), his 40th year would fall in 1981 B.C.

(4) The accounts of Sennacherib’s invasion and Hezekiah’s sickness are contained in 2 Kings Chapters 18 and 19; 2 Chron., Chapter 32. Sennacherib came against Jerusalem in the

14th year of Hezekiah, Hezekiah began to reign 745 B.C. (See Bible dates, Sec. III); his 14th year would therefore end in spring, 731 B.C.

Great Pyramid Passages Page 127-136, par. 310-337