05. THE THREE PROPHETIC PERIODS

THERE is yet another fact, the knowledge of which is indispensable to those who would comprehend Divine revelations of the future. Prophetic time, from the commencement of the Seventy Weeks to the Second Advent, is divided into three grand periods, which are plainly marked out in the book of Daniel, and as plainly recognised in the Apocalypse. The evidences to this fact will be given in their proper place: for the present we shall merely make a statement of it, in order that the principles which guide our interpretation may be at once laid before the reader.

In glancing through the book of Daniel we observe that the prophet could not understand his earlier visions in the seventh and eighth chapters;¹ that in the ninth chapter an angel is sent, in answer to his

¹ Dan. vii. 28; viii. 27.

THE THREE PROPHETIC PERIODS.

earnest prayer, to give him "skill and understanding";¹ and that, after receiving this communication, he readily comprehended the final vision,² which is narrated in the tenth and following chapters. It is clear, then, that the four verses³ which contain the angel's words are the key to the whole book.

Now the purport of these verses is, that God had divided what was then future time into three periods.

I. The first, a definite time of four hundred and eighty-three years, beginning with the issue of a mandate for the rebuilding of the city and walls of Jerusalem, and ending with the presentation of Messiah as her King to the daughter of Zion, four days before His death.

II. The second, an indefinite period, beginning immediately upon the close of the first, and ending with the resurrection of the dead in Christ and their translation, together with all waiting believers who are then upon earth, to meet the Lord in the air. This is the present age, the time of the Church, during which all Jewish prophecies are suspended.

III. The third, a brief period of but seven years, beginning on the day when Antichrist shall make a seven years' covenant with the majority of the Jewish nation, and ending with the glorious appearing of the Lord Jesus to set up His Kingdom. This is a time of judgment, God's strange and short work, during which He will resume His dealings with the Jews by casting them into the refining furnace, carry on His controversy with the Gentiles, and permit the fulfilment of the prophecies concerning Antichrist and the Great Tribulation.

Dan. ix. 22.

² Dan. x. 1.

³ Dan. ix. 24-27.

Now with these three distinctly marked times before us, let us remind ourselves of two facts.

First: the Scriptures cannot be broken or disagree. We may, therefore, justly expect to find in the Apocalypse a recognition of the periods disclosed to Daniel.

And, secondly, John wrote many years after Christ's entry into Jerusalem. Therefore, the first of Daniel's periods had then passed away, and the apostle was living in the second or Church period.

Turning now to the Apocalypse, we shall find that its contents are given to us by the Lord Himself in the nineteenth verse of the first chapter, where He says;—"Write, therefore, the things which thou sawest, and the things which are, and the things which shall be after these things."

We have, then, the following harmony with the scheme of the Seventy Weeks.

I. Daniel's first period had passed by.

II. What John had already seen is written in the first chapter, which describes his vision of the sanctuary arranged for the present dispensation. Then, occupying the second and third chapters, come "the things that are," or prophecies of the age in which John was living, which is still going on, and which answers to Daniel's second and indefinite period.

III. Lastly; stretching from the fourth to the nineteenth chapter, come "the things that shall be after these things," that is, in Daniel's third period, the seven years of judgment.

A careful application of this Divinely revealed scheme will dispel confusion, and enable us to range the predictions of the two great prophets, as well as those of all others, in their proper order.

MYSTIC CHRONOLOGY.

VI.

MYSTIC CHRONOLOGY.

WE must not close our introductory remarks without mention of the mystical chronology which inspired writers sometimes use in dealing with the times of Israel, and which is based upon a very simple principle.

Israel once brought out of Egypt should have been the people of God for ever without any intermission. But they provoked Him by their idolatries, so that He repeatedly "sold them" into the hands of their enemies. And whenever He did so, the theocracy was suspended, and the time of their servitude was not reckoned in the mystic chronology.

We shall meet with a remarkable illustration of this fact when we examine the prophecy of the Seventy Weeks. There the whole time from the Lord's rejection as King by the daughter of Zion to the still future day on which Antichrist will make his covenant with the Jews, is omitted from the calculation, because it is the Lo-ammi-period, during which no Israelites of any tribe can be nationally recognised as the people of God. But of this we shall have to speak presently.

There is, however, another instructive instance which we shall not need to mention again, and will, therefore, endeavour to set forth now.

In the Book of Kings, we are told that Solomon began to build the Temple in the fourth year of his reign, and "in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of Egypt."¹

But if we turn to the thirteenth chapter of "Acts"

¹ 1 Kings vi. i.

we shall meet with a very different computation. For there Paul speaks of the Israelites as having passed forty years in the wilderness,¹ four hundred and fifty under the judges,² and forty under Saul.³ If to these five hundred and thirty years we add the forty during which David was king,¹ and the three of Solomon's reign which had gone by before he commenced his great work, we see that Paul reckons five hundred and seventy-three years between the Exodus and the building of the Temple.

Here, then, is an apparent discrepancy of no small magnitude. For the same period contains

| According to Paul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | 573 | years |

| --- | --- | --- |

| And according to the Book of Kings | 480 | " |

| So that the difference is . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | 93 | " |

Now some chronologists defend Paul's calculation, some that of the Book of Kings: but, for aught they say, the result is in either case equally disastrous, since one of the two inspired writers is always shown to be wrong.

If, however, we apply the principle stated above, the discrepancy vanishes, and it appears that neither the author of the Book of Kings nor Paul is mistaken; but that the former is reckoning by the mystical and the latter by the ordinary chronology. Nor is there any difficulty in demonstrating the fact.

During the period in question the only instances of God's formal, though temporary, rejection of His people occur in the Book of Judges. And turning to that

¹ Acts xiii. 18.

² Acts xiii. 20.

Acts xiii. 21.

1 Kings ii. 11.

MYSTIC CHRONOLOGY.

book we find that He sold them to Chushan-rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia, for eight years; to Eglon, king of Moab, for eighteen; to Jabin, king of Canaan, for twenty; to the Midianites for seven; and to the Philistines for forty.

There is also mention of an oppression by the Ammonites lasting eighteen years; but this was contemporaneous with that of the Philistines,¹ and may, therefore, be omitted from our calculation.

The times, then, during which their enemies ruled over the Israelites, and the theocracy was, consequently, suspended, were as follows.

| Chushan-rishathaim | . | . | . | . | 8 | years. |

| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |

| Eglon | . | . | . | . | 18 | " |

| Jabin | . | . | . | . | 20 | " |

| The Midianites | . | . | . | . | 7 | " |

| The Philistines | . | . | . | . | 40 | " |

| | | | | | -- | |

| | | | | | 93 | " |

Thus the sum of the times of servitude is ninety-three years, which, as we have just seen, is the exact difference between the lengths assigned to the period from the Exodus to the Temple in the "Acts" and the Book of Kings.

This instance unquestionably demonstrates the principle of the mystic chronology as applied to the history of Israel. And, among other lessons, it warns us to beware of finding mistakes in the Scriptures. If a discrepancy so utterly hopeless, to all appearance, as that which we have been considering is made to vanish in a moment by the discovery and application of one

¹ See Judges x. 7, where the double oppression is mentioned, and the historian immediately proceeds to describe that of the Ammonites, returning to the Philistines in chap. xiii.

of the Divine laws, should we not unhesitatingly attribute other difficulties which we may encounter to our own ignorance of the clue rather than to error in the revelation of God?

VII.