![Let’s proceed on the basis that the two witnesses in Revelation chapter 11 are Moses (representing the Law) and Elijah (representing the prophets who provided an interpretation of the spirit, rather than the legalistic letter, of that Law)
Now have another look at Revelation 11, noting two things:
1 how long the witnesses (olive trees - the law and the prophets) prophesied and
2 how long they lay dead in the streets of the great city -figuratively called Sodom or Egypt
in Isaiah 1:9-10, 3:9, Jeremiah 23:14, 49:18, 50:40, (in the case of Ezekiel 16:46 it refers to Israel), Amos 4:11
Hint: if you use the biblical convention of 360 day years, then 3.5 years equals 42 months equals 1260 days.
3.5 is half of 7, and 7 is a number that seems to be related to perfection, completeness.
It is assumed that God is perfect and complete so it is often taken to relate to God, but stick with the completeness thing.
We will place emphasis on the completeness idea whenever the figure seven is used. It might be 7 days, 7 weeks, 70 weeks, 7 years, but the important thing to grasp is that the inclusion of 7 anywhere in a statement may well signify it refers to the completion of some plan or overarching organisation of a series of events.
So the figure 3.5, or half of 7, would indicate some event that happens halfway through a complete period.
Now think about the song, Daniel. Recall what has been said ...
1 Daniel and his prophecy of the end of the world after 70 weeks of years
2 Daniel was told that after the seventy years of captivity in Babylon, there would be a period of 69 weeks of years before the anointed one (Jesus?) was ‘cut off’.
If you follow through the argument presented earlier in this work you will see that a case can be made for the anointed one who is cut off as being Jesus.
So you would assume that the next lot of seven years would bring about the end of the world as we know it, right?
Unless we have all been living through two thousand years of the end of the world as we know it, the prophesy is in need of some serious reinterpretation.
Think again... about a GAP between 69 and 70
Paul, the Jewish writer of great chunks of the New Testament supplied that re-interpretation. He introduced the idea of the times of the gentiles.
You might remember at the end of the passage on the little scroll reference was made to the symbolism inherent in the act of measuring God’s temple in Revelation chapter 11:1-2. To take the measure of something is to come to understanding of what it is all about. That is one way of interpreting the act of measuring the temple – the symbol of God’s dealings with the people of Israel. Here is the full reference
I was given a reed like a measuring rod and was told, "Go and measure the temple of God and the altar, and count the worshipers there. But exclude the outer court; do not measure it, because it has been given to the Gentiles. They will trample on the holy city for 42 months.
If you read that passage in conjunction with chapters 9 to 11 of Paul’s letter to the Roman church, you will be open to the idea of
a gap between the 69th and 70th weeks of Daniel’s prophecy.
Paul talks to the Roman church about a period of grace when God will reveal himself to the gentiles.
That will make the Jews jealous and give the gentile nations an unspecified period of time to avail themselves of the promise given to Abraham about his offspring being a blessing to all tribes, nations and tongues.
Unfortunately, the gentiles refuse to see this as being a gap in the prophecy about God’s atonement of Israel.
The gentiles who launched a take-over of the ‘Christian’ church and made it their power base seem to insist on believing that God does not like the Jews anymore and has broken his three promises to Abraham.
If you read Paul in Romans 9 to 11, you will see that he did not believe this to be the case.
He was convinced that after the 69th week of Daniel, the clock would stop ticking for a period of time known only to God, and would resume when the full number of Gentiles have experienced redemption and atonement.
The number of those people who discover grace and truth, mercy and justice, is known only to God (You can read all that in Romans 11:25-27)
I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:
"The deliverer will come from Zion;
he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.
And this is my covenant with them
when I take away their sins.
How long is the Gap?
God only knows?
What! No clues at all?
Well... Perhaps one!
Remember this whole 70 Weeks of Years prophecy appears in Daniel chapter 9. It was given to Daniel when he was asking God about when the prophecy of 70 years captivity in Babylon would come to an end,
In Daniel 9:27 there is a reference made to a covenant entered into with a ruler who will come – it is usually assumed that is a covenant between the Jews and the anti-Christ
Daniel 9:27 He (that is the ruler who will come) will confirm a covenant with many for one `seven.'
The covenant between the Jews and the anti-Christ - or ruler who will come - starts the clock ticking again for the 70th week of Daniel.
Because the Roman Empire has never been defeated in the same manner as the Babylonian, Persian and Greek Empires, it is suggested that the ruler who will come is the appointee of some form of renewed Roman Empire - bible teachers like to call him the anti-Christ although that expression does not appear in the book of Revelation.
So, the ruler who will come enters into a 7 year covenant with the Jews (perhaps a peace deal in return for their right to exist with complete political and religious freedom)
In the middle of the `seven' he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on a wing [of the temple] he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him. "
This ruler who will come (or anti-Christ) reneges on this agreement after 3.5 years, thus starting the Great Tribulation, that will culminate in the Day of the Lord and the second coming of Jesus Christ
The witnesses (olive trees - law and prophets - word of God) are available to all during the first half of Daniel's last 7 years, but for the latter half of that period - the great tribulation - they are silenced - all but a decaying memory.
Maybe that is saying that the bible – the Law of Moses and the Prophets who demonstrated how that Law should be interpreted in a spirit of grace and truth – will be ignored in the last days before the end of the present world order.
Maybe the two witnesses represent the effect that righteous people can have when they seek to apply an enlightened understanding of the bible to their behaviour.
Maybe the ideas in the bible have been so discredited that no one much reads it in the spirit in which the prophets showed it should be read.
And then maybe the more things change, the more they remain the same. Maybe what the bible is really saying has always been ignored by the vast majority of people.
After Elijah had called down God’s fire from heaven then escaped the wrath of Queen Jezebel, he seems to have experience what we would now call a nervous breakdown. You can read about it in 1 Kings 19:10-18. From the very depths of despair, he asked God to let him die.
"I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too."
God told gave him three tasks to fulfil then said
I reserve seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and all whose mouths have not kissed him."
(1 Kings 19)
The more things change, the more they remain the same?
Maybe what the bible is really saying has always been ignored by the vast majority of people.
Maybe it is only the seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal, who are coming to terms with the Law of Moses and the prophets interpretation of that Law
Such people continue to read the Law of Moses in the spirit with which the prophets interpreted it.
Maybe it is the people like Abraham, Moses, David or the noble savage – the righteous gentile described in chapters 1 and 2 of Romans, whom God considers to be righteous. They are the ones who have the Law written upon their hearts and fulfil its requirements.
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You Can’t Keep Moses & Elijah Down (for long)
You Can’t Keep Moses & Elijah Down (for long)