BIBLE CHRONOLOGY [Part 2] – By Bro. David Rice
[A]Our last issue carried an article titled “When Comes the Kingdom?”, pointing to the scriptural evidence that the Kingdom is near, not quite four decades [now two decades] ahead. In one sense, of course, the Kingdom [that is, its setting up] is already beginning, in that our Lord’s return as a divine invisible spirit being, with regal authority, has already commenced. According to the prophecy of the 1335 years of Daniel 12:12, our Lord’s Parousia commenced during the year 1874. There began the Harvest of the present Gospel Age. There commenced the seventh trumpet of Revelation 11:15, which brings the announcement that the Kingdom of this world has become the Kingdom of our Lord (Jehovah) and of his Christ (his anointed son, Jesus Christ); and he shall reign for ever and ever.
The verses following this announcement speak of the judgments of God which stir the anger of the nations, as they are buffeted and riven [or divided] with wars and uprisings. The effect of these have been evident in two world wars and the subsequent conflicts within and between nations world-wide. World War I began in 1914, forty years after our Lord’s second advent. Thus for forty years the judgments were held in abeyance [or suspension], just as following our Lord’s first advent in 29 AD, the judgments against the nation of Israel were in abeyance for forty years.
Jesus is now a conquering king. But when we speak of the Kingdom near at hand, we mean the time when Christ’s Kingdom is established on the earth as a governing force among men. This awaits the end of the present Gospel Age Harvest. Then, when the Church is complete and the high calling of God in Christ Jesus is completed, that Kingdom will begin to operate in Israel under the resurrected Ancient Worthies [or heroes of faith] of old. Gradually its influence and authority will spread worldwide. That will be the long anticipated Millennium. During that time the saints shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years (Revelation 20:6).
As explained in last issue’s article, that Millennium will be the seventh millennium since Adam. According to the record of years given in the Old Testament, 6000 years from Adam will close with the year 2043 AD, just 38 [now 18] years ahead. If this understanding be correct, we are very near to the climax of our hopes.
“THY KINGDOM COME” [Third Volume Title; Matt. 6:10a]
As most of our readers know, Pastor Charles Russell authored a series of six volumes collectively titled Studies in the Scriptures, which contain the essence of Present Truth for the establishment of the faith of the saints. We highly recommend this series of studies for all who have a thirst for the deep things of God.
The third volume of this series was titled Thy Kingdom Come. Its opening chapter explains in reverent tones, but with a lofty, exhilarating spirit, the grandeur of our day at the very threshold of the glorious Kingdom so near. Here is the opening page of that volume.
[B]The most momentous event of earth’s history is the establishment of God’s Kingdom among men, in the hands of our Lord Jesus and his selected joint-heirs, the overcomers of the Gospel Church. This great event, toward which, as shown in previous volumes of Scripture Studies, all of God’s promises and types point, we now see to be not only at hand, but just upon us. None of those awake to these facts, and who properly or even partially realize them, and whose hearts are in full sympathy with God’s great plan of the ages, and who see that God’s panacea [or remedy] for the sin and misery and dying of the groaning creation is to be applied by this Kingdom, can possibly feel other than an absorbing interest in the fact, the time and the manner of its establishment.
“All who trust implicitly for the fulfillment of the prayer our Lord himself taught us to offer, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven” [Matt. 6:10]– must feel the liveliest interest in the fulfillment of their request, if they prayed from the heart — in spirit and in truth.
“We can see that even the world, if it could but realize the true character of this Kingdom, would hail it at once, as they finally will, as the long sought blessing, bringing with it the precious favours of the golden Millennial age, so long desired.
OUR SENTIMENTS
This expresses our sentiments, exactly. The time has been delayed since these words were penned. But all the while we have been advancing to the time of the promised Kingdom. The light now shining on the Divine Word shows that the words our Lord spoke to the Jews of his day can be used again This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled (Matthew 24:34).
The count of years from Adam was explained in our last issue. We now propose to examine each portion of time in depth. Those who wish to know something of the time of that kingdom will surely be interested in how the Scriptures shed light on our way toward that blessed time.
ADAM TO THE FLOOD
From Adam until the end of the Flood was a period of 1656 years. The source of this information is Genesis, beginning with chapter five. There we have the age of Adam when his son Seth was born, namely 130 years, and the age of Seth when his son Enos was born, namely 105 years, and so on, generation by generation, until Noah. At the bottom of page 11 is a list of these generations, with each text of scripture supplied. (You can find the same list in Studies in the Scriptures, Volume 2, titled The Time is at Hand, page 43).
Only the scriptures give us this reliable and unbroken testimony of the earliest times. By this means our Heavenly Father has supplied information without which we could not know the times and seasons which are in His power.
To guard against possible slips for example transcription errors which are possible in any record of digits and numbers we have an internal check on the integrity of each value. For example, for Adam, Genesis 5:3-5 says, And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth; And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters: And all the time that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died. {*The word begat is used repeatedly in the common version of our English translation. Modern translations clarify the meaning, such as the New American Standard Version, which says became the father of. The Hebrew word is yalad, which according to Strong’s Concordance means to bear young: causative, to beget. Thus it can refer either to birth or begettal, but it seems clear in the context, and is generally conceded, that in these genealogies the time of birth is referred to, rather than the begettal nine months earlier.}
Thus the passage gives us the years until the birth of Seth, the years following the birth of Seth, and the sum of these years. By this means any error in the record would become immediately apparent, and a correction could immediately be made, thus ensuring the preservation of the information. The same formula is given for the other patriarchs as well.
THE END OF THE FLOOD
Sometimes there is confusion about exactly how to reckon the closing 600 years listed below. The flood episode lasted just over a year from beginning to end. The rains began in the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month (Genesis 7:11), and the band of eight survivors left the ark the following year in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month (Genesis 8:14).
The 600th year referred to means 600 complete years had not yet passed. The conclusion of that year came later, and in fact the very first day of the next year numbered 601 is explicitly mentioned in the Genesis account. And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth (Genesis 8:13). Thus we conclude that the 600 years closed near the end of their flood experience. In other words, there were 1655 years until the flood, and 1656 years until the flood end.
CALENDAR YEARS
The method of dating experiences in the flood is by year, month, and day, each numbered and reported. The flood began on the 17th day of the second month of year 600. [Gen. 7:11] The years mentioned are the years of Noah’s life. But how were they reckoned?
They seem to be calendar years, because of the mention of numbered months and days. They do not seem to count from Noah’s birthday, as we reckon ages of people today for example. Presumably all of the years mentioned in the genealogy are of the same kind of reckoning, that is, calendar years.
This is consistent with the way reigns of kings of nations such as ancient Israel, Babylon and Assyria were reckoned. Calendar years were used, so that the number of the years of a king’s reign was incremented on the first day of a new year. It was not counted from the day he came to the throne, which could be any time during the year when the previous king died.
Possibly some era of years counted from the beginning and ran consecutively until the flood. But if this was so, there is no record of it in Genesis. The absence of such an era in the text suggests it was not the common practice, for if it were, such a convenient and widely used system would probably have been noted when dating the events in the flood narrative.
But with such long-lived patriarchs as lived before the flood, there was a readymade method for accounting long periods of time in any given family, by numbering years according to the years of the patriarchs not just for the line from Adam to Noah, but for any family line. In this case, to avoid a duplicate number assigned to any given year, thus confusing the count over several generations, an easy custom could be used. When a child was born, simply count that year as the year of his birth. His year numbered one would commence on the following new year day.
By this method, when the record says of Lamech, the father of Noah, that he lived 182 years to the birth of his son Noah, the year of that birth would be counted as 182 of Lamech. The year following would be numbered 183 Lamech and 1 Noah, the next 184 Lamech and 2 Noah, etc. Over several generations, one could compute an accurate sum of years by merely adding the years reported in the genealogy as we have them in Genesis chapter 5 or any genealogy various families may have kept before the flood.
But, was it so? The inference that it was is supported by examining the record of Methuselah, who incidentally was the longest living man in the record. Methuselah lived 187 years to the birth of Lamech, Lamech 182 years to the birth of Noah, and Noah 600 years until the end of the flood. The sum of these is 969 the same as the lifespan of Methuselah. But this sum of years takes us to the end of the flood. How could Methuselah live to the end of the flood, since he was not on the ark?
Using the calendar system above, it does work. The year 969 of Methuselah would be the year in which he died. That would be the same calendar year which began a month and seventeen days before the flood. Evidently Methuselah died, very old even by the standards of that day, in the opening weeks of the year the flood came.
On the other hand, if ages were counted in ancient times the way we count ages today that is, from one birthday to another, the years of one’s age incrementing only after that complete number of years had passed then Methuselah would necessarily have died in year 601 of Noah. This would be impossible, since it would mean he survived the flood, which no one did except the eight occupants of the ark.
What is the point of this? It is that the sum of years listed above, from Adam to the close of the flood, yields an accurate span of years from Creation to the Flood.
AN ENGAGING OBSERVATION
Brethren of the Bible Student fellowship are familiar with the period of 1845 years, which spans the distance between the first advent of our Lord Jesus, when he was baptized by John at Jordan in 29 AD, and the second advent of Jesus, at the end of the 1335 years of Daniel 12:12 in 1874. This period of time has been discussed by generations of Bible Students.
Notice that from Adam until the Old World passed away at the opening of the Flood was a period of 1655 years. The sum of these two numbers 1655 and 1845 is exactly 3500. In other words, from the end of the Old World, 1845 years forward bring us exactly to the year which is the mid-point of God’s plan of 7000 years.
It is generally supposed that this 7000-year period is the seventh of the seven creative days mentioned in Genesis chapter one. Each of those days was termed an evening and morning. True to this reckoning, even the Jewish days counted by Israel commenced in the evening, and half way through the 24 hours of any given day appeared the morning.
Is it then a coincidence that from the passing of the Old World, this well-known prophetic time span of 1845 years brings us exactly to the opening of a new beginning in God’s plan of the Ages, the morning of God’s rest day, during which all the blessings God intends for His human creation will come to fruition?
As observed in our previous issue, that mid-point marks the very year commencing the seventy-week prophecy of Daniel’s ninth chapter [Dan. 9:24], leading to the redemption, and all the blessings which flow from it.
This is an example of the kind of symmetry and order we encounter time and again when the count of years is established from Scripture. This is an evidence for our faith that we are discerning the mind of God in these issues. It is lovely to behold. In the next issue we will consider the next link in the chain of Bible Chronology, namely, the 427 years from the end of the Flood to God’s Covenant with father Abraham.
– By Br. David Rice – From Faithbuilders Fellowship, December 2005.
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Good subject.
- Our last issue carried an article titled “When Comes the Kingdom?” – Refer WHEN COMES THE KINGDOM? – By Br. David Rice – From Faithbuilders Fellowship, October 2005.
- The most momentous event of earth’s history is the establishment of God’s Kingdom among men – Refer Studies in Scriptures, Volume 3, Study 1 – Thy Kingdom Come, Page C19.
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