Prophetic Evidences Corroborative

“While the previous evidence shown in our last post is strong and clear just as it stands, we now present prophetic testimony which proves that we began counting the Great Cycle (50 x 50) at the right point. Our Heavenly Father knew the fear and trembling with which our faith would grasp these exceeding great and precious promises, and hence he has doubled the already strong cord of evidence, furnished in the Law, by additional testimony through the prophet. And our dear Redeemer and Lord, who hands us this cord, and whose presence this testimony points out to us, as he comes to us in the early dawn of the Millennial Day, seems to say, as he once said to Peter (Matt. 14:25-32),

“O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” ‘Learn that I am a spirit being, no longer visible to human sight. I thus reveal myself by the lamp of the Word (the Holy Scriptures, specifically by or through “the more sure word of prophecy”) to the eyes of thine understanding, that as in coming days I shall walk upon the stormy sea of the world’s unparalleled trouble, thou need not fear, but “Be of good cheer.” Remembering that it is I, be not afraid.’

This truly marvelous prophetic corroboration, which we now proceed to consider, lay hidden in its own simplicity until the appreciation and application of the Jubilee type, as above, gave it significance.

The seventy years, usually referred to as the seventy years captivity in Babylon, is Scripturally styled the “seventy years desolation of the land.” This desolation God had predicted by Jeremiah the Prophet, thus: “And this whole land shall be a desolation, and… shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.” (Jer. 25:11) “Thus saith the Lord, that after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon, I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you in causing you to return to this place.” (Jer. 29:10)

In 2 Chron. 36:17-21 the fulfillment of this prophecy is recorded; and the reason why it was just seventy years, and why it was made completely desolate, is stated thus:

“He brought upon them the king of the Chaldees [Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon] …and them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon, where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia: to fulfill 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 [70] years.”

From this we see that Israel had failed to observe properly the Sabbatical years, of which the Jubilees were the chief. It certainly was a severe test of obedience toward the Heavenly King, to a people so notably avaricious, to be commanded to let the land rest, to restore to former owners’ lands acquired and possessed for years, and to restore to servants their liberty–especially when obedience was only commanded, and not summarily enforced by compulsion. God had forewarned them, through Moses, that if they were disobedient to the laws to which as a nation, they had pledged themselves, he would punish them for it. In the same chapter in which he tells them of the punishment of seven times (7 X 360 years or 2520 years total) under Gentile rule, he tells them, also, that if they would neglect the year Sabbaths, he would punish them for it by desolating their land. (And, as a matter of fact, the seventy years desolation was also the beginning of the seven Gentile Times, or “Times of the Gentiles”, as already shown.) The Lord’s threatening reads thus: “Your land shall be desolate and your cities waste. Then shall the land enjoy her Sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate and ye be in your enemies’ land…because it did not rest in your Sabbaths when ye dwelt upon it.” Lev. 26:34,35,43

God permitted for a while their half-hearted and half-way obedience (during the first 19 cycles), but finally removed them entirely from the land, made it desolate, without an inhabitant, and gave it the full number of its Jubilee Years–not only for those they had imperfectly observed, but also for the entire future number which would elapse, according to his arrangement, before the antitypical Jubilee, the Restitution or Millennial age, would be due.

And since the entire number of typical Jubilees, designed to precede the antitype, is thus proved to be seventy, we are thus furnished another means of calculating when the antitype is due to begin. The calculating of this prophetic statement of the entire number of Jubilees is simple and easy; and, as we should expect, its results agree exactly with those already obtained by the method of counting furnished by the Law.

The entire number being seventy, and nineteen of these having been observed in a half-hearted way by Israel before the desolation, it follows that the remaining fifty-one (70-19=51) mark the period from the last Jubilee which Israel imperfectly observed, down to the great antitype. But here notes a difference in the manner of counting.

Under the Law reckoning, we counted the future as well as the past cycles of forty-nine years with the fiftieth or Jubilee Year added; for the Law shows things as they would have been, had Israel carried them out properly. But prophecy records things just as they will actually occur. We are now examining the prophetic statement, remember, and hence should now reckon these cycles as they have occurred–cycles of forty-nine years, without Jubilees; for Israel did not observe a Jubilee since their nineteenth one.

The first nineteen cycles had Jubilee Years, but the fifty-one since have had none; hence we must reckon fifty-one cycles of forty-nine years each, or 2499 years (49 x 51 = 2499), from the last typical Jubilee observed by Israel to the antitype. This calculation, though entirely distinct from the other, ends exactly as shown by the Law method of reckoning previously examined —October, A.D. 1874.” (B190-193)

We will attempt to state these matters in another form in our next post for those still having difficulty.