My thoughts on God’s timing were scattered throughout Future History, since the book wasn’t, strictly speaking, about His schedule. However, because my conclusions are apt to raise a few eyebrows, I have provided the following appendix to bring all the data together in one place, hoping to clarify the issue.

Future History was written to explore every yet-to-be-fulfilled prophecy in the Bible. It was not written to advance some previously held theological agenda of mine. In fact, quite the opposite is true: when I began my study I determined a willingness to abandon any of my long-held beliefs concerning prophecy if the weight of scripture demanded it. And I must admit, there were a few areas where I got surprised (nothing fundamental, I was pleased to discover—just nuances and details).

For instance, I found out there was a lot more to God’s revealed timetable than I’d previously realized. Like most evangelicals, I had long believed that Yahweh had given us no more than hints and generalized signs as to when the events of the Last Days would occur, and I was okay with that. I had a vague notion that there was an order of events that might be worked out to some extent, but in absolute terms, I was “certain” that God had decided to keep all the dates a secret—for our own good. Now, I’m not so sure.

My cherished mindset on the subject was, like everybody else’s, shaped by such passages as, “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming” (Matthew 25:13), or “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.” (Matthew 24:36) In light of these scriptures, most Christians today simply throw their hands in the air and say See, we can’t know anything about the timing of Christ’s return. We’ll return to these texts later, for if we want to know what Yahshua was really talking about, we’ll need to study the words and the context—carefully.

On the other hand, history is replete with people who, for one reason or another, thought they could predict when the end of the world would occur. The following list of second-coming prognostications is from a wonderful website, RaptureReady.com (it’s used by permission). Although almost certainly incomplete by a wide margin, it makes two things perfectly clear: (1) There is no end to mankind’s fascination with apocalyptic theories—it’s as if something within us knows our fallen race can’t last forever, and (2) nobody’s paying much attention to the actual words of scripture.

53 AD          Even before all the books of the Bible were written, there was talk that Christ’s return had already taken place. The Thessalonians panicked on Paul when they heard a rumor that the day of the Lord was at hand, and they had missed the rapture.

500               A Roman priest living in the second century predicted Christ would return in 500 AD, based on the dimensions of Noah’s ark.

1000             This year goes down as one of the most heightened periods of hysteria over the return of Christ. All members of society seemed affected by the prediction that Jesus was coming back at the start of the new millennium. None of the events required by the Bible were transpiring at that time; the magic of the number 1000 was the sole reason for the expectation. During concluding months of 999 AD, everyone was on his best behavior; worldly goods were sold and given to the poor; swarms of pilgrims headed east to meet the Lord at Jerusalem; buildings went unrepaired; crops were left unplanted; and criminals were set free from jails. When the year 999 AD turned into 1000 AD, nothing happened.

1033             This year was cited as the beginning of the millennium because it marked 1,000 years since Christ’s crucifixion.

1186             The “Letter of Toledo” warned everyone to hide in the caves and mountains. The world was reportedly to be destroyed with only a few spared.

1420             The Taborites of Czechoslovakia predicted every city would be annihilated by fire. Only five mountain strongholds would be saved.

1524-1526    Muntzer, a leader of German peasants, announced that the return of Christ was near. After Muntzer and his men destroyed the high and mighty, the Lord would supposedly return. This belief led to an uneven battle against government troops. He was strategically outnumbered. Muntzer claimed to have had a vision from God in which the Lord promised that He would catch the cannonballs of the enemy in the sleeves of His cloak. The prediction within the vision turned out to be false when Muntzer and his followers were mowed down by cannon fire.

1534             A repeat of the Muntzer affair occurred a few years later. This time, Jan Matthys took over the city of Munster. The city was to be the only one spared from destruction. The inhabitants of Munster, chased out by Matthys and his men, regrouped and lay siege to the city. Within a year, everyone in the city was dead.

1650-1660    The Fifth Monarchy Men looked for Jesus to establish a theocracy. They took up arms and tried to seize England by force. The movement died when the British monarchy was restored in 1660.

1666             For the citizens of London, 1666 was not a banner year. A bubonic plague outbreak killed 100,000 and the Great Fire of London struck the same year. The world seemed at an end to most Londoners. The fact that the year ended with the Beast’s number—666—didn’t help matters.

1809             Mary Bateman, who specialized in fortune telling, had a magic chicken that laid eggs with end-time messages on them. One message said that Christ was coming. The uproar she created ended when an unannounced visitor caught her forcing an egg into the hen’s oviduct. Mary later was hanged for poisoning a wealthy client. History does not record whether the offended chicken attended the hanging.

1814             Spiritualist Joanna Southcott made the startling claim that she, by virgin birth, would produce the second Jesus Christ. Her abdomen began to swell and so did the crowds of people around her. The time for the birth came and passed; she died soon after. An autopsy revealed she had experienced a false pregnancy.

1836             John Wesley wrote that “the time, times and half a time” of Revelation 12:14 were 1058­-1836, “when Christ should come” (A. M. Morris, The Prophecies Unveiled, p. 361).

1843-1844    William Miller was the founder of an end-times movement that was so prominent it received its own name, Millerism. From his studies of the Bible, Miller determined that the second coming would happen sometime between 1843-1844. A spectacular meteor shower in 1833 gave the movement a good push forward. The buildup of anticipation continued until March 21, 1844, when Miller’s one-year timetable ran out. Some followers set another date—October 22, 1844. This too failed, collapsing the movement. One follower described the days after the failed predictions: “The world made merry over the old Prophet’s predicament. The taunts and jeers of the ‘scoffers’ were well-nigh unbearable.”

1859             Rev. Thomas Parker, a Massachusetts minister, looked for the millennium to start about 1859.

1881             Someone called Mother Shipton had, 400 years earlier, claimed that the world would end in 1881. A controversy hangs over the Shipton writings as to whether or not publishers doctored the text. If the date was wrong, should it matter anyway?

1910             The revisit of Halley’s comet was, for many, an indication of the Lord’s second coming. The earth actually passed through the gaseous tail of the comet. One enterprising man sold comet pills to people for protection against the effects of the toxic gases.

1914             Charles Russell, after being exposed to the teachings of William Miller, founded his own organization that evolved into the Jehovah’s Witnesses. In 1914, Russell predicted the return of Jesus Christ.

1918             In 1918, new math didn’t help the Witnesses from striking out again.

1925             The Witnesses had no better luck in 1925. They already possessed the title of “Most Wrong Predictions.” They would expand upon it in the years to come.

1941             Once again, Jehovah’s Witnesses believed that Armageddon was due. Before the end of 1941, the end of all things was predicted.

1967             When the city of Jerusalem was reclaimed by the Jews in 1967, prophecy watchers declared that the “Time of the Gentiles” had come to an end.

1970             The True Light Church of Christ made its claim to fame by incorrectly forecasting the return of Jesus. A number of church members had quit their livelihoods ahead of the promised advent.

1973             A comet that turned out to be a visual disappointment nonetheless compelled one preacher to announce that it would be a sign of the Lord’s return.

1975             The Jehovah’s Witnesses were back at it in 1975. The failure of the forecast did not affect the growth of the movement. The Watchtower magazine, a major Witness periodical, has over 13 million subscribers.

1977             We all remember the killer bee scare of the late 1970’s. One prophecy prognosticator linked the bees to Revelation 9:3-12. After 20 years of progression, the bees are still in Texas. I’m beginning to think of them as the killer snails.

1981             One author boldly declared that the rapture would occur before December 31, 1981, based on Christian prophecy, astronomy, and a dash of ecological fatalism. He pegged the date to Jesus’ promised return to earth a generation after Israel’s rebirth. He also made references to the “Jupiter Effect,” a planetary alignment occurring every 179 years that supposedly could lead to earthquakes and nuclear plant meltdowns.

1982             It was all going to end in 1982, when the planets lined up and created magnetic forces that would bring Armageddon to the earth.

1982             A group called the Tara Centers placed full-page advertisements in many major newspapers for the weekend of April 24-25, 1982, announcing: “The Christ is Now Here!” They predicted that He was to make himself known “within the next two months.” After the date passed, they said that the delay was only because the “consciousness of the human race was not quite right...” All these years and we’re still not ready.

1984             The Jehovah’s Witnesses made sure, in 1984, that no one else would be able to top their record of most wrong doomsday predictions. The Witnesses’ record currently holds at nine. The years are: 1874, 1878, 1881, 1910, 1914, 1918, 1925, 1975, and 1984. Lately, the JWs are claiming they’re out of the prediction business, but it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks. They’ll be back.

1987             The Harmonic Convergence was planned for August 16-17, 1987, and several New Age events were also to occur at that time. The second coming of the serpent god of peace and the Hopi dance awakening were two examples.

1988             The book, 88 Reasons Why the Rapture is in 1988, came out only a few months before the event was to take place. What little time the book had, it used effectively. By the time the predicted dates, September 11-13, rolled around, whole churches were caught up in the excitement the book generated.

1989             After the passing of the deadline in 88 Reasons, the author, Edgar Whisenant, came out with a new book called 89 Reasons Why the Rapture is in 1989. This book sold only a fraction of the number of copies his prior release had sold.

1991             A group in Australia predicted Jesus would return through the Sydney Harbor at 9 a.m., March 31, 1991.

1991             Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan proclaimed the Gulf War would be “the War of Armageddon...the final War.”

1991             Menachem Schneerson, a Russian-born rabbi, called for the Messiah to come by September 9, 1991, the start of the Jewish New Year.

1992             A Korean group called Mission for the Coming Days had the Korea Church in an uproar in the fall of 1992. They foresaw October 28, 1992 as the date for the rapture. Numerology was the basis for the date. Several camera shots that left ghostly images on pictures were thought to be a supernatural confirmation of the date.

1993             If the year 2000 is the end of the 6,000-year cycle, then the rapture must take place in 1993, because you would need seven years of the tribulation. This was the thinking of a number of prophecy writers.

1994             In the book, 1994: The Year of Destiny , F. M. Riley foretold of God’s plan to rapture His people. The name of his ministry is “The Last Call,” and he operates out of Missouri.

1994             Pastor John Hinkle of Christ Church in Los Angeles caused quite a stir when he announced he had received a vision from God that warned of apocalyptic event on June 9, 1994. Hinkle, quoting God, said, “On Thursday June the 9th, I will rip the evil out of this world.” Some people tried to interpret Hinkle’s unscriptural vision to mean that God would the rip evil out of our hearts when He raptured us. The date came and went with no heart surgery or rapture.

1994             Harold Camping, in his book Are You Ready?, predicted the Lord would return in September 1994. The book was full of numerology that added up to 1994 as the date of Christ’s return.

1994             After promising they would not make anymore end time predictions, the Jehovah’s Witnesses fell off the wagon and proclaimed 1994 as the conclusion of an 80-year generation; the year 1914 was the starting point.

1996             This year had a special month, according to one author who foresaw September as the time for our Lord’s return. The Church Age, he said, would last 2,000 years from the time of Christ’s birth in 4 BC.

1996             California psychic Sheldon Nidle predicted the end would come with the convergence of 16 million space ships and a host of angels upon the earth on December 17, 1996. Nidle explained the passing of the date by claiming the angels placed us in a holographic projection to preserve us and give us a second chance.

1997             Two widely known time estimates were Monte Judah’s prediction that the tribulation would begin in February/March and another prediction based on numerology and the Psalms that targeted May 14 as the date of the rapture.

1997             When Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat signed their peace pact on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993, some saw the events as the beginning of tribulation. With the signing of the peace agreement, Daniel’s 1,260-day countdown was underway. By adding 1,260 days to September 1993, you arrive at February 24, 1997.

1997             Stan Johnson of the Prophecy Club saw a “90 percent” chance that the tribulation would start September 12, 1997. He based his conclusion on several end-time signs: that would be Jesus’ 2,000th birthday and it would also be the Day of Atonement, although it wouldn’t be what is currently the Jewish Day of Atonement. Further supporting evidence came from Romanian pastor Dumitru Duduman. In several heavenly visions, Dumitru claimed to have seen the Book of Life. In one of his earlier visions, there were several pages yet to be completed. In his last vision, he noticed the Book of Life only had one page left. Doing some rough calculating, Johnson and friends figured the latest time frame for the completion of the book would have to be September 1997.

1998             Numerology: Because 666 times three equals 1998, some people point to this year as being prophetically significant.

1998             A Taiwanese cult operating out of Garland, Texas predicted Christ would return on March 31 of 1998. The group’s leader, Heng-ming Chen, announced God would return and then invite the cult members aboard a UFO. The group abandoned their prediction when a precursor event failed to take place. The cult’s leader had said that God would appear on channel 18 of every TV in the world. Maybe God realized at the last minute, the Playboy Network was channel 18 on several cable systems, and He didn’t want to have Christians watching a porn channel.

1998             On April 30, 1998, Israel was to turn 50 and many believed this birthday would mark the beginning of the tribulation. The reasoning behind this date has to do with God’s age requirement for the priesthood, which is between 30-50.

1998             1998 Marilyn Agee, in her book, The End of the Age, had her sights set on May 31, 1998. This date was to conclude the 6,000-year cycle from the time of Adam. Agee looked for the rapture to take place on Pentecost, which is also known as “the Feast of Weeks.” Another indicator of this date was the fact that the Holy Spirit did not descend upon the apostles until 50 days after Christ’s resurrection. Israel was born in 1948; add the 50 days as years and you come up with 1998. After her May 31 rapture date failed, Agee, unable to face up to her error, continued her date setting by using various Scripture references to point to June 7, 14, 21 and about 10 other dates.

1999             At least you can’t call Marilyn Agee a quitter. After bombing out badly several times in 1998, Marilyn set a new date for the rapture: May 21 or 22 of this year.

1999             TV newscaster-turned-psychic Charles Criswell King had said in 1968 that the world as we know it would cease to exist on August 18, 1999.

1999             Philip Berg, a rabbi at the Kabbalah Learning Center in New York, proclaimed that the end might arrive on September 11, 1999, when “a ball of fire will descend . . . destroying almost all of mankind, all vegetation, all forms of life.”

2000             Numerology: If you divide 2,000 by 3, you will get the devil’s number: 666.66666666666667.

2000             The names of the people and organizations that called for the return of Christ at the turn of the century is too long to be listed here. If there were ever a day on which Christ could not return, it had to have been January 1, 2000.

2000             On May 5, 2000, all of the planets were supposed to have been in alignment. This was said to cause the earth to suffer earthquakes, volcanic eruption, and various other nasty stuff. A similar alignment occurred in 1982 and nothing happened. People failed to realize that the other nine planets only exert a very tiny gravitational pull on the earth. If you were to add up the gravitational force from the rest of the planets, the total would only amount to a fraction of the tug the moon has on the earth.

2000             According to Michael Rood, the end times have a prophetically complicated connection to Israel’s spring barley harvest. The Day of the Lord began on May 5, 2000. Rood’s fall feast calendar called for the Russian Gog-Magog invasion of Israel to take place at sundown on October 28, 2000.

2000-2001    Dr. Dale SumburËru looked for March 22, 1997 to be “the date when all the dramatic events leading through the tribulation to the return of Christ should begin.” The actual date of Christ’s return could be somewhere between July 2000 and March 2001. Dr. SumburËru is more general about the timing of Christ’s second coming than most writers. He states, “The day the Lord returns is currently unknown because He [Jesus] said these days are cut short and it is not yet clear by how much and in what manner they are cut short. If the above assumptions are not correct, my margin of error would be in weeks, or perhaps months.”

2002             Priests from Cuba’s Afro-Caribbean Yoruba religion predicted a dramatic year of tragedy and crisis for the world in 2002, ranging from coups and war to disease and flooding.

2004             This date for Jesus’ return is based upon psalmology, numerology, the biblical 360 days per year, Jewish holidays, and “biblical astronomy.” To figure out this date, you’ll need a calculator, a slide rule, and plenty of scratch paper.

2011-2018    For the past several decades, Jack Van Impe has hinted at nearly every year as being the time for the rapture. Normally, he has only gone out one or two years from the current calendar year. However, Jack’s latest projection for the rapture goes out several years. His new math uses 51 years as the length of a generation. If you add 51 years to 1967, the year Israel recaptured Jerusalem, you get 2018. Once you subtract the seven-year tribulation period, you arrive at 2011.

2012             New Age writers cite Mayan and Aztec calendars that predict the end of the age on December 21, 2012.

2060             Sir Isaac Newton, Britain’s greatest scientist, spent 50 years and wrote 4,500 pages trying to predict when the end of the world was coming. The most definitive date he set for the apocalypse, which he scribbled on a scrap of paper, was 2060.

Thanks again to RaptureReady.com and Todd Strandberg’s sagacious recounting of the history of prophetic foolishness. Most of these dates, of course, can be explained with the simple phrase, You weren’t paying attention to what Yahweh’s scriptures said, were you, boys and girls? Obfuscating the issue, Strandberg goes on to note, “An untold number of people have tried to predict the Lord’s return by using elaborate timetables. Most date setters do not realize that mankind has not kept an unwavering record of time. Anyone wanting to chart, for example, 100 BC to 2000 AD, would have to contend with the fact that 46 BC was 445 days long [due to badly needed adjustments imposed at the introduction of the Julian calendar], there was no year 0 BC, and in 1582 we switched from Julian Years (360 days) to Gregorian (365 days).” Strandberg is wrong here—the Julian year worked out to 365 days and six hours—about eleven minutes longer than the actual astronomical year. Pope Gregory merely fine-tuned the Julian calendar, introducing the provision to suppress certain leap years in order to keep the vernal equinox hovering around March 21. Strandberg concludes, “Because most prognosticators are not aware of all of these errors, their math is immediately off by several years.”

This is all somewhat misleading. Ancient man was fully aware that a solar year was about 365¼ days long. (As early as 200 B.C., the Babylonian Jew Rab Adda had calculated the year to within seven minutes of the correct value.) The only thing that’s changed is the method we’ve used to reconcile the lunar cycle with the solar—tinkering with the number of months per year, the days in each month, and the number and placement of intercalary (compensating) months. But how we’ve chosen to manage our calendars over the years has absolutely nothing to do with the actual passage of time.

There are a few factors that conspire to muddy the waters of our understanding even further. First, if there’s one category of text of which we can be less than confident in our translations, it’s numbers. Neither the Hebrew nor Greek originals used “numerals” as we know them; rather, letters were pressed into service to indicate numbers. For example, the Hebrew letter Aleph (א) stands in for “one,” as does the Greek Alpha (α). The context and conventions of usage are supposed to tell scholars what number was meant. Worse, some paleo-Hebrew texts used the old Egyptian system employing lines for numbers, markings which were easily obscured or obliterated on papyrus scrolls.

The disturbing fact is that there are many discrepancies in regard to numbers between the Septuagint (the circa-275 B.C. translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek), the Masoretic text—the Hebrew Old Covenant text handed down by generations of scribes called Masoretes (literally, “transmitters”) between about 500 and 1000 A.D., culminating in the widely accepted 1524 text of Jacob ben Chayyim —and the Samaritan Pentateuch. And the evidence, remarkably enough, indicates that the Septuagint and Samaritan translation may actually be more faithful to the original meaning in many cases. This might (or might not) adversely affect our accurate understanding of time periods discussed in the Old Testament. It surely makes it harder to be dogmatic.

Second, Yahweh is not using a man-made calendar. Our Gregorian date milestones—like 1000 or 2000—mean nothing to Him. His inspired explanation is found in Genesis 1:14, when He said, “Let there be lights in the firmament (or expanse) of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, for days and years.” Both the sun and the moon, and even the visible stars, would be used to define our reckoning of the passage of time. The earth spins on an axis tilted 23.5 degrees out of perpendicular to its orbit around the sun. It is this tilt that gives us our changing seasons, and without it we would have no convenient way of knowing that our year is 365.24219879 days long. The moon takes about 27.3 days (the “sidereal month”) to orbit the earth, but because the earth itself is in motion in its orbit around the sun, it takes 29.530588 days (the “synodic month”) to return to the same relative point in our celestial sphere—this synodic month is marked by our observation of the phases of the moon.

So since Yahweh has informed us that He’s not exclusively using the sun as our timekeeper, what sort of calendar is He using? Since His dealings with mankind have been primarily through the Hebrews, we should enquire as to how they historically calculated their years. But when we do this, we immediately run into trouble, because they were not consistent throughout their history. Under Egyptian captivity, they most likely conformed to the established local system of twelve months of thirty days plus five additional days (as recorded by Herodotus). But in Exodus 12:2 (the passage introducing the Feast of Passover) we are informed that the year was to begin at the new moon of the month of Abib (see Exodus 23:15), now called Nisan. That is, the first day of the year would fall on the new moon closest to the vernal, or spring, equinox. Passover, which would fall on the 14^th day of that month, would thus coincide with the full moon.

So forget the Egyptian system of counting days. Yahweh had put Israel on a simple lunar calendar: twelve months whose beginnings were marked by the sighting of the first sliver of the new moon—totaling about 354 days. For a simple agrarian society, this was a practical, low-tech way to mark time. They weren’t stupid, of course; they knew they had to make adjustments now and then to keep the solar seasons in the right place on the calendar, so they added an intercalary month every so often, just as we add a leap-year day once every four years. With new-year’s day in the spring as Yahweh instituted, they could check their calendar by picking some barley from their fields and roasting it. If it was not yet ripe, it would jump around in the pan because of the excess water trapped in the kernels—telling them that they needed to add an intercalary month. It worked out to seven of every nineteen years that such an intercalary month would be added just before Abib/Nisan. (Speaking of stupidity, Muhammad, in his arrogance, outlawed the intercalary month being used in Arabia to keep the seasons in place—and thereby doomed dar al-Islam to a useless lunar calendar whose months wander around it in endless confusion—an apt metaphor for this whole satanic religion.)

The Babylonians used a similar lunar calendar, but their astronomers worked out a sophisticated nineteen-year cycle into which were interspersed seven intercalary months, either in the month of Ululu (August/September) or Addaru (February/March). Used as far back as the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II (604-562 B.C.), it was accurate to within two hours, four minutes, twenty-five seconds per year—an amazing achievement. This calendar is practically identical to the Hebrews’ with the exception of the date of insertion for the intercalary years. The complexity of this lunar calendar eventually led to the introduction in Babylon (as it had in Egypt) of a simplified civil calendar of twelve months of thirty days each, with a five-day chaser at the end. The Chaldeans ran this “schematic calendar” right alongside the lunar version, without regard for the actual phases of the moon. Thus the Israelites under Babylonian captivity would have been familiar with this system of reckoning as well. Indeed, in captivity, they abandoned their God-mandated New Year’s Day in favor of the Babylonians’ fall date, making their Rosh Hahshana, or “head of the year” fall on the feast of Trumpets in autumn instead of in spring where it belongs.

The current Hebrew calendar is lunar based, but with a complicated formula that will give an ordinary (non-leap) year either 353, 354, or 355 days. (It’s been tweaked by Rabbinical tradition to avoid putting Yom Kippur on a Friday or Sunday, among other things. The rabbis are clueless to the concept that the seven annual convocations of Yahweh—the miqras—are to have only one definitive occurrence each in an historical setting. The first four took place on the very dates of their scriptural mandates—on Sabbath days when required—and we can count on the last three following suit.) A rabbinically adjusted leap year (one that includes a thirty-day intercalary month) will have 383, 384, or 385 days. The three lengths of the years are termed “deficient,” “regular,” and “complete,” respectively. But during the age of the prophets, this kind of Rabbinical meddling hadn’t yet taken hold. Either the Levitical lunar year or the simplified Babylonian 360-day schematic calendar was in use among the Jews. The question is: what system did God use when delivering His prophecies? To find out, we need to do a little reverse engineering: if there were a prophecy that specified an elapsed time, we could figure out when it had been fulfilled and then work backward to calculate the length of Yahweh’s “prophetic year.” Is there such a prophecy? (Gimme a break. Would I have asked the question if there weren’t?)

Daniel’s sweeping prophecy outlining the course of Jewish destiny contains this statement: “Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. The street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublesome times. And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself.” (Daniel 9:25) The whole story is recounted in detail in chapter 7 of Future History, so I’ll just hit the high spots. The “command to restore and build Jerusalem” was issued by the Persian king Artaxerxes Longimanus on the first day of Nisan, 444 B.C. Seven “weeks,” or seven-prophetic-year periods later, Jerusalem’s “street” and “wall” had been built, just as the prophecy had specified. And sixty-two septades (Is that a word? It should be.) later—i.e., another 434 prophetic years, adding up to 483 total—Messiah the Prince was to come. And only after that time would he be “cut off,” or killed, for crimes he had not committed.

If you count your “weeks” or “sevens” (Hebrew: shabua) with 365¼-day solar years, the date comes out to March 3, 39 A.D. (or thereabouts). Was anybody with Messianic aspirations doing anything to announce or advance his mission in 39? If there was, history doesn’t record it. Ask yourself this, especially if you’re a Jew: “What are the chances that the true Messiah showed up in Jerusalem and nobody noticed?”

There is a persistent hypothesis among some Christian researchers that the antediluvian earth year was not 365¼ days long, but an even 360. We are not told this outright anywhere in scripture you understand, but the record of Noah’s flood in Genesis 6 through 9 provides some hints. Comparing Genesis 7:11 with 8:3-4 we see a period of exactly five months (the 17^th day of the second month to the 17^th of the seventh month) identified as “150 days.” This works out to five months of thirty days each, a reckoning that fits neither the lunar calendar nor a 365¼-day year, but extrapolates out nicely to a 360-day year. Add to this the evidence that the most ancient calendars—Sumerian, Hindu, and Chinese—all used a 360-day system. Herodotus reported that the ancient Greeks had a 360-day year, as did Plutarch of the early Romans. In the new world, both the Mayan and Inca calendars employed the same system. Granted, this is all circumstantial evidence, but it’s evidence nonetheless. Now factor in the enigmatic promise God made to Noah in Genesis 8:22—“While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.” This would really be an odd thing to say under the circumstances if Noah and his forebears had always experienced radical seasonal weather changes. But if Yahweh tipped the axis of the earth to its present 23.5 degrees relative to its orbit around the sun at the time of the flood, then it all makes perfect sense. And if He changed the earth’s axis, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that he slowed down our planet’s solar orbit by a percentage point or two at the same time. Thus the case can be made that Yahweh’s original design for the earth’s solar year was 360 days.

Okay, so let’s recalculate Daniel’s prophecy using a 360-day year. 483 360-day years comes out to 173,880 days, or 476 solar years plus twenty-five days. The target date on the Hebrew calendar works out to the 10^th day of Nisan, or according to our Gregorian calendar, March 28, A.D.33. The 10^th of Nisan is significant in any year, but especially in years when the Jews had a temple and a Levitical priesthood in place—from 967 to 586 B.C. and from 515 B.C. to A.D. 70. Why? Because this was the day each year when the Paschal lamb was to be brought into each Jewish home (Exodus 12:3) and kept there until it was sacrificed on Passover—an event mirrored on a national scale with the selection of the Passover lamb to be sacrificed by the High Priest at the temple.

The historical significance of this particular 10^th of Nisan should be thankfully acknowledged by every Christian (though few even know about it). You see, this was the very day that Yahshua of Nazareth entered Jerusalem amid the adulation of the teeming throng who had lined the road from Bethlehem in anticipation of the High Priest’s selection of the perfect Passover Lamb. It’s commonly known as Palm Sunday, but Constantine’s people, fixated on blending sun-god worship with Christianity, got the day wrong: it was actually Palm Monday. The adoring crowd, of course, thought His appearance there was a happy coincidence—the Hope of Israel making His entrance on such an auspicious day. It was nothing of the sort, but a startling conclusion to a 483-year-long prophecy. The Lamb of God had presented Himself for examination. He would be found without fault and then offered up for the sins of mankind four days later on Passover.

The point of all that was to demonstrate that Daniel’s chapter 9 prophecy was based on a 360-day year. Why should we care? Because the prophecy isn’t done. “Seventy weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy.” (Daniel 9:24) The prophecy spans seventy weeks of years, of which only sixty-nine were fulfilled in the past. There’s still one “week” to go, and now we know that that septade will be comprised of seven 360-day years, totaling 2,520 days. This period of time is generally known as the Tribulation, and the second half, lasting 1,260 days, is called the Great Tribulation.

Yahweh is always more precise with His terminology that we are. Case in point: the prophetic “year” used to describe the future history of Israel is never specifically called a “year” in Scripture. Daniel calls seven of these units a “seven” (usually translated a “week”), and he uses the term “a time” to describe one of them. He also measures intervals in terms of days. Likewise, John doesn’t usually describe events in terms of “years,” but sees durations of days, months or “times.” So when I use loose terms like “prophetic year,” bear in mind that God’s Word doesn’t actually call it a “year” at all. There are a surprising number of Tribulation prophecies (concentrated primarily in Daniel and Revelation) that predict events spanning specific time periods, and they’re invariably listed as “times” (i.e., 360-day “years”), months, or days. It’s clear that Yahweh wants us to know something about the schedule of the Last Days. Therefore, I consider it highly presumptive of my fellow Christians to dismiss the entire subject of prophetic chronology with a shrug and half a verse taken out of context—No one knows the day or the hour. This is like any other doctrine in the Bible: we need to pay close attention to what Yahweh actually told us.

The errant date-setting prognosticators listed above had a tendency to lump all the target dates of the Last Days into one nebulous and ill-defined package, calling it things like “the second coming” or the “return of Christ” or the “end of the world.” But God’s word, like I said, is quite precise in its use of prophetic terminology. I find that many of the misunderstandings concerning God’s timing stem from the erroneous idea that the rapture and the Tribulation are somehow linked. The fact is that nowhere in the Bible are they causally or chronologically associated with each other (except for establishing the order of events, of course).

Moreover, I believe that the only significant date that God has kept a secret is the year of the rapture. We have been given precise and detailed information about the timing of many other Last Days events, from the commencement of the Tribulation onward—information we can correlate to our own Gregorian calendar. This theory is based on two scriptural principles that are usually overlooked by the majority of Christians. First is God’s six-plus-one pattern as embodied in the creation account, the fourth commandment (keeping the Sabbath), and His seven Miqra, or appointed Feasts. Second is the equation of one day with a thousand years, enumerated in both Psalm 90:4 and II Peter 3:8.

I’m convinced there’s more here than meets the eye: more than obscure Jewish rituals and tradition, more than Old Testament rules that Christians don’t pay much attention to because they figure the Law was fulfilled in Christ. We ignore God’s word at our peril. But who knows? There could be another explanation. I’ll present the data. You be the judge.

Let’s begin with the rapture, since it’s a stand-alone event in the prophetic timetable. I covered the subject in detail in chapter 8 of Future History. The classic passage quoted to delineate our inability to know precisely when Yahshua will return is in the Olivet Discourse: “Now learn this parable from the fig tree: When its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near. So you also, when you see all these things, know that it is near—at the doors! Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away. But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.” (Matthew 24:32-36)

It seems obvious (at least to me) that this is not a comment pertaining only to the verses immediately preceding it (that clearly speak of the end of the tribulation), but is a wrap-up of the whole discourse that begins in verse 4. In particular, verse 31 speaks not of the rapture, but of a later time when the angels will collect the elect from “the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other,” that is, not from the earth, and not from sheol (a.k.a. Abraham’s Bosom or Paradise), the places from which the saints will be raptured. To be “gathered from the four winds” implies that those who are thus assembled already have their immortal bodies. Yahshua begins this summation by stating that His followers can and will know the general season when all these things will commence. He then flatly states that after the signs begin, no more than one generation (an imprecise term, but clearly implying a time limit not to exceed the age of the oldest living human) will pass before the whole process is finished.

Only then does he say that nobody knows “the day and hour,” the precise moment. The day of what? His coming in glory? No, because that day is linked to events in the Tribulation, which will begin with a specific sign (Daniel 9:27). Once you’ve seen the sign, you could simply count the days: the Tribulation will run precisely 2,520 days, after which Yahshua will reign in glory for a thousand years. As far as the timing goes, there are no surprises here. But Yahshua then illustrates His comment with an allusion to Noah’s flood, saying some would be taken and some would be left. That is the defining characteristic of the rapture, the harpazo described by Paul in detail in I Corinthians 15:51-58 and again in I Thessalonians 4:13-18. Yahshua punctuates His teaching with a warning to those who might fall asleep on the job: “Watch, therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming.” (Matthew 24:42, repeated almost verbatim in 25:13) This admonition applies only to those to whom Yahshua is “Lord,” in other words, the Ekklesia, those who are “called out.” The unknown day, then, must refer to the rapture of the Church.

The word “know” here is not the Greek ginosko, which means to have knowledge of something, in a beginning (i.e., coming to know) or completed sense. Ginosko implies empirical knowledge, to become aware of a fact through inquiry or experience. Rather, the term used here is eido, which means: “to see, literally or figuratively: to be aware, behold, consider, know, look, perceive, see, or understand.” Therefore Yahshua is not telling his disciples that knowledge of God’s timing of the rapture is impossible, only that nobody will see it coming. “As the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.” (Matthew 24:27) Contrast this with verse 30: “Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” These events are apparently differentiated. One—the rapture—is as sudden as lightning; the other—Yahshua’s coming in glory—is leisurely and majestic, and everyone will see it.

Underscoring His teaching that the master of the house would have been better prepared if he knew what time the thief would come, Yahshua says, “Therefore, you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not expect Him.” (Matthew 24:44) This explains why God is keeping the date of the rapture a secret: He doesn’t want Satan, the “prince of this world,” to know when He’s coming to take back what’s His. Paul, supporting this metaphor, reminds us that “The day of Yahweh comes as a thief in the night,” (I Thessalonians 5:2) that is, surreptitiously and unexpectedly.

A similar illustration is related in Mark’s gospel, where Yahshua speaks of a man going on a journey and leaving his affairs in the hands of his servants, who are expected to keep working and stay watchful. The “master” this time is Yahshua, who has been “on His journey” for almost two thousand years now. He says, “Watch therefore, for you do not know [eido: perceive] when the master of the house is coming—in the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster or in the morning—lest, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping. And what I say to you, I say to all: Watch!” (Mark 13:35-37)

I’d say the principle is pretty well established, then. Nobody is aware of the exact moment Yahshua will return for His people. That’s a good thing, because if this information were available, Satan could create havoc among the faithful. He tries to do that anyway, as we have seen—he doesn’t really need reliable information in order to distract us. All he needs is a theory, an idea based on bits of isolated scriptural content, and he can get otherwise serious believers to forget all about feeding Yahshua’s sheep. I think we can safely take a lesson from Nehemiah here: all the distractions, the threats, the ridicule, and the violence we endure in God’s service must not deter us from continuing to do what He told us to do. We need to both work on the wall and keep a sharp lookout.

All that being said, however, there is one important Biblical clue to the timing of the rapture—not a specific calendar date, but an annual day of observance, a holy appointment, or miqra, that Yahweh instructed His people to observe throughout their generations. Seven such days populate the Hebrew calendar. As we saw in chapter 3 of Future History, they are prophetic: four have been fulfilled and three are yet to come. Known as the feasts of Yahweh, these seven holidays tell us a great deal about God’s program and prophetic modus operandi.

The first, Passover, predicted Yahshua’s sacrifice for our sins. It was fulfilled on Friday, April 1, 33 A.D. The second, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, looked forward to His burial, when our sin (represented by leaven, or yeast) was removed from our lives. It was fulfilled the next day, on the Sabbath (as required), April 2. The third, the Feast of Firstfruits, celebrates Yahshua’s resurrection on the third day: Sunday, April 3. The fourth, the Feast of Weeks (called Pentecost because it came fifty days later) marked the filling of the Ekklesia, the “body of Christ,” with His Spirit—Sunday, May 23, 33 A.D. Each one of these miqra was fulfilled in the person of Yahshua or His Spirit on the very date of its Levitical mandate in the year 33. Jews who refuse to see the connection must somehow explain away the seventeen-billion-to-one odds against these things happening by chance on the right dates.

The next holy appointment on the Levitical calendar is the Feast of Trumpets. “Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to the children of Israel, saying: In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a sabbath-rest, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work on it; and you shall offer an offering made by fire to Yahweh.’” (Leviticus 23:23-25. Numbers 29:1-6 enumerates the sacrifices to be offered on that day.) Note that although the Jews were to be the keepers of these feast days, it is clear from the fulfillment of the Feast of Weeks that the significance of the holidays would extend beyond Israel to the rest of the world. All seven feasts are described as holy convocations. The Hebrew word for convocation is miqra, meaning “something called out, that is, a public meeting, an assembly.” Significantly, the word also means “a rehearsal,” giving us a clue that these seven miqra were designed to be prophetic of milestones in the corporate life of Yahweh’s called-out people.

The only unique thing about this miqra is the “blowing of trumpets,” conveyed by a single Hebrew word: teruah. Baker and Carpenter describe the word thus: “A shout of joy; a shout of alarm, a battle cry. It refers to a loud, sharp shout or cry in general, but it often indicates a shout of joy or victory (I Samuel 4:5-6); a great shout anticipating a coming event (Joshua 6:5, 20). It can refer to the noise of signal put out by an instrument [especially a shofar, or ram’s horn trumpet] (Leviticus 23:24; 25:9). Amos used the word to refer to war cries (Amos 1:14; 2:2). The Lord puts shouts of joy into His people (Job 8:21, 33:26).”

Okay, compare that definition with the description of the rapture found in I Thessalonians 4:16-17: “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.” Then look at I Corinthians 15:51-52: “We shall not all sleep [i.e., suffer physical death], but we shall all be changed—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” When Yahweh shouts, when we hear the voice of the archangel, you can be pretty certain that it’s a battle cry—He’s getting ready to go to war with an unrepentant world. The trumpet of God is a metaphor for the same thing. But here, this trumpet blast or shout of victory—this teruah—is said to be the signal for the rapture. (The words “caught up” are from the Greek harpazo, from whose Latin translation we get the word “rapture.” That’s why you won’t find the word “rapture” in your English Bible.)

The inescapable conclusion, at least to me, is that the Feast of Trumpets is predictive of the rapture in the same way that Passover is predictive of the crucifixion of Yahshua. And that means, presuming Yahweh doesn’t change His modus operandi in mid-stream, that the rapture will occur on the very day mandated for the Feast of Trumpets, the first day of Tishri. (Tishri is the seventh month of the Jewish religious calendar that starts in Nisan with Passover. Depending on where we happen to be in the intercalary cycle, the first of Tishri can fall in either September or October.)

If the rapture is scheduled for some other day of the year, then two things must be explained. First, why has Yahweh neglected to prophetically memorialize what has to be one of the most important milestones in the history of His redemption of mankind? And second, what possible fulfillment could He have planned for the Feast of Trumpets that would top the rapture in terms of its significance? Stumped? Me too. The only other trumpets that loom large in prophecy are the seven trumpet judgments of Revelation 8-11, and the first six of these describe a war that can’t possibly be confined to one day, the first of Tishri. The sounding of the seventh angel, which could be fulfilled in a single day, occurs not on earth, but in heaven. It describes the announcement of the coming of Messiah’s kingdom—an event that is fulfilled not in the Feast of Trumpets, but in the Feast of Tabernacles, which comes later in Yahweh’s timetable. (Because the seventh trumpet is the “last trump” of the series, some have put two and two together and concluded that the rapture will happen here, at the end of the Tribulation—a position known as the “post-Tribulation rapture.” But there are a score of prophetic passages that converge to correct this misconception. See chapter 8 of Future History.)

If the Feast of Trumpets is predictive of the rapture, how could Yahshua say that “No man knows the day or the hour?” Because we still don’t—we don’t know which year He’s chosen. Besides, as I pointed out in Future History, there’s a cultural factor, completely lost in the translation, that brings new meaning to the phrase “No man knows....” The Jewish observation of the Feast of Trumpets (erroneously referred to as Rosh Hashanah—“head of the year”—because it’s the first day of a Jewish “civil” calendar that shouldn’t even exist) had by Yahshua’s day grown its own traditions and practices—things not necessarily prescribed in the Mosaic Law. The shofar is blown, so they say, to confuse the devil on the one day a year he goes before God to accuse the Jews of being bad. (I know it sounds a bit off kilter, but that’s what the legend said.) That’s why this miqra was also known as Yom Hakeseh, “the Day of the Hiding.” According to Rabbinic tradition, this “Hidden Day” had to be symbolically concealed from Satan so he couldn’t do his job. Yom Hakeseh introduced an idiom into Jewish speech that was reflected in Yahshua’s enigmatic statement. Even though everybody knew that the Feast of Trumpets fell on the first day of Tishri, nobody actually said so. They merely observed, tongue in cheek, “Of that day and hour no one knows, only the Father.” If only our accuser were so easily confused. At any rate, in first-century Jewish culture, the Feast of Trumpets was the only day of the year that was characterized as being “hidden.” Yahshua wasn’t telling us that we were to be blissfully uninformed as to the timing of the rapture. Rather, He was telling us He would “gather His elect” on the Feast of Trumpets in some unspecified future year. There have been almost two thousand Feasts of Trumpets since Yahshua spoke those words. Theoretically, He could have returned for His Ekklesia on any one of them (especially one that fell naturally on a Sabbath—see Leviticus 23:24). But He didn’t. I’m pretty sure we would have noticed.

That leaves a rapidly shrinking list of dates from which Yahshua could choose. Not only is the proverbial “fig tree” sprouting leaves like crazy, I’m convinced that he has given us the very date when He will begin His Millennial reign. If we start from that date,  subtract seven years for the Tribulation, and perhaps take off a couple more years for a gap that will almost certainly fall between the rapture and the beginning of the Tribulation, one of the Feasts of Trumpets between now and then will coincide with the rapture. As of this writing, we have fewer than a score of possible dates left.

By the way, there is one wild-card factor that could have a bearing on all the dates alluded to in this appendix. Everything is based on the calculations of modern Hebrew scholars whose task is to correlate our Gregorian calendar with theirs. Although I have no reason to doubt their conclusions, since they’re based on the phases of the moon and simple mathematics, it is nevertheless possible that they’re off. (After all, they have been known to tweak things to compensate for “Ha-Shem’s” perceived shortcomings. It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.) If they’re off, I’ll be off as well. Yahweh, however, is guaranteed to be right on schedule—His schedule.

Yahweh’s annual prophetic calendar tells an incredibly beautiful story of His love for us and the lengths He was willing to go to save us from ourselves. The rapture will be an exciting episode. But it’s not the final chapter.

After reading the list of loonies at the beginning of this appendix who thought they knew the date Christ would return, I’m hesitant to bring up the next subject. Why? Because it puts me in the same boat with them. I’m about to tell you the precise date when Yahshua will return to earth to rule in glory. Good grief, I can’t believe I’m doing this.

On the other hand, I’m not the only one to have noticed certain principles in scripture that seem to point to this very thing, though no one else to my knowledge has actually done the math, or has been crazy enough to tell anybody about what they found. What keeps going through my head is: God told us these things for a reason, and nobody has ever satisfactorily explained what that reason is. I may be crazy, but I just might be right. And if I am right, I would be wrong to withhold the information from you, wouldn’t I?

Also, to be perfectly candid with you, the date is far enough off that I expect to be gone (one way or another) by the time it rolls around. I’m already way too old for a mid-life crisis. At least if I’m wrong, I won’t have to listen to all you Monday morning quarterbacks telling me how badly I blew it. Convenient, huh?

I need to stress that I wasn’t looking for this information when I began my Future History study. I was happy not knowing. But as I studied, it presented itself—no, let me rephrase that—it jumped up and grabbed me by the ears and said Hey, look at this, dummy! I’m not smart enough to figure this out on my own; I’m praying that it was the guidance of the Holy Spirit. After all, He clearly predicted that as the end approached, we would see things more clearly than our forebears did. “But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.” (Daniel 12:4) At the moment, the amount of data available to us is doubling every five years. “The anger of Yahweh will not turn back until He has executed and performed the thoughts of His heart. In the latter days you will understand it perfectly.” (Jeremiah 23:20) I’ve got nothing to gain if I’m right, no books to sell or anything like that. I’m not trying to gather a following, or even convince people I’m right. But because I expect the rapture to take place quite a few years before the ultimate coming of Yahshua, the things I’ve discovered, if not lost to Internet posterity, might be of some benefit to those left behind. And believe me, the Tribulation saints are going to need all the help they can get. Knowing when it will all be over—how long they have to hang on—could be useful information indeed.

The specific Biblical principle that led me to start looking at dates was Yahweh’s ubiquitous six-plus-one pattern. It’s everywhere you look, especially in the Old Covenant scriptures where God was laying the foundations for everything else. We start with creation itself: it was described in Genesis 2:2 as six days of “work” followed by one day of “rest.” The creation week was mirrored in the ten commandments as the Law of the Sabbath: again, six days to work, one to rest. Yahweh was really serious about it, too, so serious in fact that He instructed the Israelites to execute any of their number who worked his regular job on the seventh day. Exodus 31:13 explains it, sort of: “Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am Yahweh who sanctifies you.” The same passage describes it as being a “perpetual covenant” between Yahweh and the Jews, something that was to be “a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever.” (verses 16, 17) There was more to this Sabbath thing than merely wanting to give these former slaves a day off once in a while.

But if it was a sign, what did it signify? Like the creation itself, there were to be six days of one thing, followed by one of another. The units of time specified weren’t always days, either: a third permutation of this principle was seen in the Sabbatical year: “When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a sabbath to Yahweh. Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather its fruit; but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath to Yahweh. You shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard.” (Leviticus 25:2-4) The same sign given to men applied as well to the very earth: six years of “work” and one of “rest.” The passage goes on to describe the Jubilee, an additional Sabbath intermission at the end of the seventh septade, or seven-year period—i.e., once every fifty years.

The recurring theme that’s emerging seems to boil down to this: following God’s example, we should work to provide for our needs and those of our loved ones. This is a good thing; it’s what God wants us to do in this present world. But there will come a time when such work will no longer be necessary, or even proper. Why? Because Yahweh wishes to supply all our needs directly—the gift of a loving Father to His kids. Perhaps it’s His way of giving His children an inheritance upon coming of age and completing our education.

Receiving the gift. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? We can’t work for it, for if we did, it would no longer be a gift, only a payment received for a job performed (and let’s face it—none of us perform all that well). Put yourself in God’s shoes for a moment. No, that’s a bit beyond our ability to visualize. How about imagining yourself in Bill Gates’ Gucci loafers. The Microsoft billionaire has three kids, and I have no doubt that he loves them dearly. Now let’s imagine that he has a trust fund set up for them, let’s say, a hundred million dollars each, payable upon graduation from college. That would be some incentive to finish school, wouldn’t it? How would Bill feel, however, if upon graduation one of his kids told him, I don’t want your money. I have my pride: I want to earn my own fortune. So I’m getting a job in the mailroom. Over at Linux. Would he feel proud that his kid was showing initiative? Maybe, but I think it’s far more likely that he’d just feel hurt—he’d long for the days when a simple gift of a three-dollar toy would have been met with an excited hug and genuine thankfulness.

Okay, back to reality: God’s gift to us is eternal life—all we have to do is accept it, and upon “graduation” from this mortal life, it’s ours. As in our illustration, our inheritance is secure; it’s just sitting there in the bank waiting for us. In comparison, though, Bill’s hundred million bucks is a pittance; Yahweh’s gift of eternal life was far more expensive. Incredibly though, most of the world looks at it, yawns, and tells God to take His gift and shove it.

In our illustration the gift had a timetable, and I believe God’s gift does too. My purpose here is to reveal this schedule. Our key is the six-plus-one pattern. Yahweh is practically screaming to us that we are to work and learn and live our lives as mortal humans for six “time units” (of some specific duration) and that at the end of that period, there will be one more “time unit” in which we will receive our inheritance—the first installment, anyway. (Remember, Bill’s kids’ awesome graduation gift is understood to be only a token or down payment of their real inheritance.)

What, then, are these “time units” that God’s clock is ticking off? We shouldn’t be too surprised to find the answer in scripture. “Beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with Yahweh one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. Yahweh is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” (II Peter 3:8-9) Because of what follows the “formula,” most of us gloss over the significance of the formula itself. Peter’s primary point (and an extremely important one) is that Yahweh is patient with us. But not even Peter (I’m guessing) perceived the full implication of what the Holy Spirit revealed to us through his phrase, “With Yahweh one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” As a matter of fact, he unwittingly (perhaps) confirms in the very next sentence that God has a schedule to keep: “Yahweh is not slack concerning His promise.” No, He’s not at all slack. He’s running a very tight ship, precisely on time. He will come when He said He’d come, not a moment sooner or later.

The thousand-years-equals-one-day formula is confirmed by comparing the creation account to the first-century advent of the Messiah in light of an obscure prophecy from Malachi. In Genesis 1:14-19, the sun was listed among God’s accomplishments on the fourth day—after plant life. Since this is obviously impossible, we (or at least I) explain it in terms of visibility—the sun, moon, and stars were obscured by the atmospheric conditions on earth until the fourth day. But this begs the question: why did Yahweh relate the creation story in such a convoluted way—why did He list the coming of the sun on the fourth day? It’s because He planned, even then, for His Messiah to come during the fourth thousand-year period. “To you who fear My name the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings.” (Malachi 4:2) The Messianic “Sun” became visible during the fourth day—the fourth millennium. As a matter of fact, if Yahshua’s coming had been delayed for a few years, the “healing in His wings” (literally fulfilled in Luke 8:42-45—the “wings” are the borders, or tsitzit, of His garment), would have been pushed over into the fifth millennium. Yahweh’s timing, once again, is flawless.

The six-plus-one time unit, then, is one thousand years. But when are we supposed to start counting? At the beginning, of course. Not the beginning of creation, but the beginning of man’s need for a savior. The whole point of this six-plus-one plan is the redemption of mankind.

Early in the 17^th century, Irish bishop James Ussher added up all the dates provided by the Biblical genealogies, correlated them to known historical events, and came up with a date for the beginning of creation (including the six days, of course) of Sunday, October 23, 4004 B.C. (actually, sundown of the preceding day, which would have been reckoned by the Hebrews as the beginning of the first day of the week). Pioneering astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571–1630), the man who formulated the laws of planetary motion, calculated a creation date of 3992 B.C. I’m not asking you to choose between them, you understand. I merely want to point out that the history of man as recorded in the scriptures only goes back about 6,000 years. We really can’t be sure, because we haven’t been given all the details needed to establish a complete chronology. Complicating matters, textual discrepancies among the oldest extant manuscripts make the data impossible to pin down with certainty. In addition, it’s quite possible that there are gaps in the genealogies, and some sequences of events may be concurrent rather than consecutive. For these reasons, I’d consider any date we have before the time of David—about 1000 B.C.—questionable.

Be that as it may, notice that Ussher and Kepler were adding up genealogical data; what they were actually calculating was not the creation of the universe but the fall of Adam, the first man with a God-breathed spirit. (For a cogent and enlightening treatise explaining how the Biblical “six-day” creation actually equates to the scientifically demonstrable fourteen billion year time span, see Craig Winn’s “Hayah/Existence” chapter in his free online book Yada Yahweh.) I am convinced that Yahweh intended the creation/Sabbath six-plus-one format to be a picture of the unfolding history of mankind’s redemption. If you think I’m wrong about that, then you need to satisfactorily answer the question, what did He mean by it? Why did he reiterate this pattern time and again? Did the God who so carefully orchestrated the Miqra feasts to be fulfilled by His Messiah on the very days of their historic observance—fifteen hundred years after they were mandated—formulate the Sabbath law on a pointless whim? I think not. The cycle of sevens is so ubiquitous in scripture, the significance of the pattern surely must be of the utmost importance.

That is why I am of the firm opinion, although scripture doesn’t say it in so many words, that God’s six-plus-one pattern indicates that He has ordained only six thousand years in which man is to live and work upon this planet in our current condition. We are fallen creatures, separated from God by our sin, but blessed with the ability to choose to accept His gift of eternal life. Choice, in fact, is our work; it is what we were put here to do: “They said to Him, ‘What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.’” (John 6:28-29) According to the creation/Sabbath pattern, this six-thousand-year period in which our “work” is learning to rely on Yahweh will be followed by a seventh millennium in which God will honor the choices we made in the previous age: to love Him or reject Him, to trust in Him or something else, to live or die—to thankfully accept dad’s hundred million dollar graduation gift, or go to work in His competitor’s mailroom.

Presuming you’re willing to concede the point then, let’s move on to the next question—Is there any way to pinpoint precisely when the six thousand years of man’s fallen state will come to an end? I believe there is. This is where the vast majority of theologians would part company with me, and I will admit right up front that I’m drawing a conclusion that is not overtly spelled out anywhere in scripture. But hear me out. You may find merit in my observations.

Each millennium in God’s seven-thousand-year plan has been or will be marked by a significant event—something that illustrates either the need for our salvation or Yahweh’s work in providing it. Let’s begin at the beginning. Our starting point is Adam’s fall into sin. This was the event that made the whole plan of redemption necessary, for by inheriting Adam’s sinful nature, all of us have “fallen short of the glory of God.”

The dates of the first three milestones are impossible to verify through historical or archaeological methods but the ballparks are intriguing, to say the least. Milestone number one came at the time of Noah, a millennium after Adam’s sin. Because of the wickedness of mankind, Yahweh opted to destroy our race, saving only a small remnant of humanity, Noah and his immediate family. “Behold, I Myself am bringing floodwaters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath [Hebrew: ruach—spirit] of life; everything that is on the earth [’erets—land, soil, country, or the surface of the earth] shall die.” (Genesis 6:17)

Yahshua noted the ignorance of and indifference to the will of Yahweh during Noah’s time, comparing it to the Last Days, saying “As the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.” (Matthew 24:37-39) If you add up the generations between Adam and the flood as presented in our English translations, you wind up several hundred years off (though the Samaritan Pentateuch comes out on the money). Like I said, dates this far back are automatically suspect—for half a dozen reasons.

Milestone number two falls about the time of Abraham, though again, the dates are still a matter of conjecture this early—the scholars don’t agree on the precise timing of the patriarch’s life. The date we’re looking for is 1967 B.C. (The reason for this will become apparent in a moment.) Abraham was an old guy by this time, that much is clear. I found two independent chronologies that listed this as the date that Isaac was miraculously conceived—significant enough, I suppose—but I’d like to suggest that it was actually the date of Abraham’s almost-sacrifice of his promised son on the mountains of Moriah—at the very spot where Yahshua, the Lamb of God, would be offered up for the sins of the world precisely two thousand years later. (Just one misreading of one number in the tens place somewhere during the years of textual transmission is all that it would take to account for the discrepancy.) It is here that we see the poetry of the millennial milestones beginning to emerge.

The third milestone falls in 967 B.C. Again we see Mount Moriah in Jerusalem playing a central role, for it was in this year that Solomon began construction of the temple. This event is a logical bridge between the dress rehearsal played out between Abraham and Isaac a thousand years before and the “final performance” played out between Yahweh and His Messiah precisely a thousand years later. The temple, of course, is significant because it is the very picture of our redemption—from the altar standing outside to the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies, upon which the blood of atonement was sprinkled.

Milestone number four (the conclusion of millennium number four—remember Malachi 4:2) is the passion of the Christ. If there is one event critical to our redemption, this is it. The entire Old Testament looks forward to this moment. Every word of the New Testament is built upon it. The first three Feasts of Yahweh were fulfilled at this time, and the pivotal prophecy pinpointing the advent of the Messiah—recorded in Daniel 9:25-26—came to pass this very week. The year? 33 A.D.—exactly one thousand years after the building of the temple, two thousand years after Abraham’s rehearsal of Yahweh’s sacrifice, three thousand years after God demonstrated His willingness to separate good from evil on the earth, and four thousand after Adam’s sin made the whole exercise necessary.

Milestone number five fell in 1033 A.D., right smack in the middle of the “Church age.” Remember the inventory of errant apocalyptic dates I listed at the beginning of this appendix? One of them caught my eye as being “close, but no cigar.” 1033 was “cited as the beginning of the millennium because it marked 1,000 years since Christ’s crucifixion.” Ooooh, they were so close! They recognized that there were millennial markers of which we should be cognizant, and that the most important marker of all was 33 A.D., the year of Messiah’s sacrifice. At the same time, these believers failed to perceive Yahweh’s rule of seven: six days of work, one of rest: 1033 was only mile marker number five.

They also missed the fact that the Millennium wouldn’t start until after the Tribulation, and the Tribulation wouldn’t commence until after the Ekklesia had been “caught up” to be with their savior in the air—the rapture. But I, for one, am willing to cut the 1033 theorists some slack here. They were doing what they were supposed to be doing: watching expectantly for the return of the King. It’s not really their fault that they got some of the details wrong. From that distance, they couldn’t even see the “fig trees” (Matthew 24:32)—all they could perceive was a brown blur on the hillside. Nowadays, it’s just the opposite: we can’t seem to see the forest for the trees—the fig leaves are sprouting out all over the place, and we’re so close to the forest we can count the buds on the branches.

So what was going on in 1033? The fulfillment of the prophetic letter to Thyatira was going on. “These things says the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and His feet like fine brass: I know your works, love, service, faith, and your patience; and as for your works, the last are more than the first. Nevertheless I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce My servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. And I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality, and she did not repent. Indeed I will cast her into a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds. I will kill her children with death, and all the churches shall know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts. And I will give to each one of you according to your works.” (Revelation 2:18-23) The Church had grown rich and powerful—and sick. 720 years earlier, Constantine’s Edict of Milan had made “Christianity” the state religion of Rome—creating an adulterous liaison between pagan practice and Christian worship. Now the children of that evil union had grown up and taken over the family business.

In 1033, the papal throne was assumed (okay, bought) by Benedict IX, arguably the worst in a long line of excrementitious popes. This murderous bisexual pontiff practiced witchcraft, necromancy, bestiality, and Satanism while running what one contemporary critic called “the best brothel in Rome.” The Roman Catholic Church had hit a new low, and that was sayin’ something. The church, however, was still unified. (It would split forever into warring factions before Benedict’s untimely death in 1055.) This was united Christianity’s last chance to repent, and we blew it. Never was the need for our redemption quite so obvious.

At this point, I must reiterate that God never specifically told us to “find the most significant year in history and calculate the schedule of My grand plan from this point.” All He did is lay heavy-handed hints throughout scripture, clues to a mystery that He didn’t expressly command us to solve, clues like: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of Yahweh your God. In it you shall do no work... For in six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore Yahweh blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it [set it apart from the others].” (Exodus 20:8-11)

Add to that: “With Yahweh one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. Yahweh is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” (II Peter 3:8, 9) Next, consider what Hosea reported about the timing of Israel’s restoration: “Come, and let us [Israel] return to Yahweh; For He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up. After two days He will revive us; On the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His sight.” (Hosea 6:1-2) Two days? The third day? From when? From 33 A.D., when Israel abandoned Yahweh by formally rejecting His Messiah. Yahweh has painted a picture that’s impossible to misconstrue. After “two days” (i.e. two thousand years of “tearing” and “striking”) Yahweh will revive Israel; and on the “third day” (the thousand-year period following the first two), Israel will be “raised up,” and will “live in His sight.” That two-thousand-year marker is practically upon us.

We have but one millennial milestone left to go. Because it’s yet future, we need to establish it’s nature and purpose. It’s timing, however, is predetermined: the seventh millennium must begin in 2033—less than three decades off as I write these words, and within the natural life spans of the vast majority of those reading them.

John described what is to happen as Hosea’s “third day” commences: “And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God...And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.” (Revelation 20:4-6)

Are you still willing to settle for a shrug and knee-jerk recitation of “No man knows the day or the hour?” Do you still believe that Yahweh doesn’t want you to know His chronological intentions? Are these special scriptures—ones we’re not supposed to ponder and scrutinize? I find the evidence to the contrary overwhelming. I’ll grant you that during the bulk of the “Church age” prophetic chronology was way down the line in order of doctrinal importance. But as the Last Days descend upon us, this study will gain significance—and it will be a matter of life and death to those who don’t find Christ until after the rapture.

What biblically prophesied event, then, kicks off the seventh millennium? We can rule out the rapture immediately, because as we know, “Of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.” (Matthew 24:36) As we have seen, the rapture is predicted by the Feast of Trumpets—therefore, if we knew the year, we would know “the day and the hour.” Or looking at it from another angle, the last seven years of the Daniel 9:24-27 prophecy predicts Israel’s restoration—not the Church’s temporal triumph over evil (as is so often errantly preached). The Ekklesia is nowhere to be seen during this time; the only logical conclusion we can draw is that the rapture has already taken place when Daniel’s seventieth septade begins—perhaps several years before.

But we’re on the right track. After the Feast of Trumpets (prophetic of the rapture), there are still two Miqra left to be fulfilled. The “Feasts of Yahweh” are prophetic of the seven most momentous events in the unfolding of God’s redemptive plan—fulfilled in their Levitical order. It’s only reasonable that the most significant of the millennial milestones—the one that begins the long-awaited “day of rest,” would be memorialized in the Miqra.

But of these last two “Feasts,” the next one in line isn’t really a feast at all, but a solemn convocation, a day of national mourning for Israel. Here’s how it’s described in the Torah: “The tenth day of this seventh month shall be the Day of Atonement. It shall be a holy convocation for you; you shall afflict your souls and offer an offering made by fire to Yahweh. And you shall do no work on that same day, for it is the Day of Atonement, to make atonement for you before Yahweh your God. For any person who is not afflicted in soul on that same day shall be cut off from his people.” (Leviticus 23:26-29) The characteristic feature of this Miqra is the “affliction of the soul.” Everybody’s supposed to be mournful and introspective on this day. Why? Because of what it prophesies. Zechariah explains: “And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn. In that day there shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning at Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. And the land shall mourn, every family by itself...all the families that remain, every family by itself, and their wives by themselves.” (Zechariah 12:10-12,14) The Day of Atonement predicts the day when Israel will witness the return of Yahshua—the One they “pierced” in crucifixion—coming back to the earth in royal splendor. Zechariah speaks specifically of Jerusalem here, for this will transpire upon the Mount of Olives, just east of the temple mount. The event will be followed in short order by the Battle of Armageddon, so it’s pretty obvious that the Day of Atonement doesn’t in itself usher in a thousand-year “day of rest.”

However, five days later on the Hebrew calendar—after the Battle of Armageddon—the last Miqra—the Feast of Tabernacles—is scheduled. The last three convocations, by the way, come in the autumn: collectively, they’re known as the “Fall Feasts.” Trumpets is on the first day of the month of Tishri, which falls in our September or October (depending on where we happen to be in the intercalary cycle). Yom Kippur, a.k.a. the Day of Atonement, falls on the tenth, and our final Miqra, the Feast of Tabernacles, comes on the fifteenth day of Tishri. In real time prophetic fulfillment, it’s evident that the Feast of Trumpets, fulfilled in the rapture of the Church, will fall at least seven years—perhaps much longer—before the last two Miqra. But I believe that both the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles will occur five days apart in the same year—2033.

The timing aspects of this Feast were prescribed as follows: “The fifteenth day of this seventh month [Tishri] shall be the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days to Yahweh. On the first day there shall be a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work on it. For seven days you shall offer an offering made by fire to Yahweh. On the eighth day you shall have a holy convocation, and you shall offer an offering made by fire to Yahweh. It is a sacred assembly, and you shall do no customary work on it.... When you have gathered in the fruit of the land, you shall keep the feast of Yahweh for seven days; on the first day there shall be a sabbath-rest, and on the eighth day a sabbath-rest. And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of beautiful trees, branches of palm trees, the boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before Yahweh your God for seven days. You shall keep it as a feast to Yahweh for seven days in the year. It shall be a statute forever in your generations. You shall celebrate it in the seventh month. You shall dwell in booths for seven days.” (Leviticus 23:34-36, 39-42)

Put into our vernacular, Yahweh was telling his people to camp out in the backyard and have a week-long party—a huge barbeque. He Himself was to be the Guest of Honor, so to speak. In marked contrast to the Day of Atonement, when they were instructed to “afflict their souls,” mourning over their nation’s past rejection of their Messiah, now they were to “rejoice before Yahweh their God for seven days.” Why do you suppose Yahweh would want people to build palm-frond booths, temporary shelters to live in for a week when they had perfectly good homes they could stay in? As usual, it’s a picture, a metaphor, for something He was planning to accomplish in their presence. In this case, it’s a picture of Yahweh Himself leaving heaven behind and camping out among men.

It would seem that the Feast of Tabernacles will have two fulfillments, reflecting the two last advents of Yahshua. Many Christians today realize that Yahshua wasn’t actually born in late December, but since the Gospel record doesn’t overtly give us a date, we’re left to piece together the clues. Note that since the birth of Yahshua as fulfilled in the Feast of Tabernacles came out of order in the Levitical program, it can’t be the final realization of the Miqra, but rather should be viewed as a precursor or partial accomplishment of the prophecy. Chuck Misler, in his informative online newsletter K-House News, offers the following insightful analysis:

“Most serious Bible students realize that Jesus was probably not born on December 25th. The shepherds had their flocks in open fields, which implies a date prior to October. Furthermore, no competent Roman administrator would require registration involving travel during the season when Judea was generally impassable.

“If Jesus wasn’t born on December 25, just when was he born? Although the Bible doesn’t explicitly identify the birthday of our Lord, many scholars have developed diverse opinions as to the likely birthday of Jesus.

“The early Christian church did not celebrate Jesus’ birth, and therefore the exact date was not preserved in festivals. [Actually, being Jews, they did celebrate it with a festival, as we shall soon see. Whether or not they realized this was Yahshua’s birthday remains a matter of conjecture.] The first recorded mention of December 25th is in the Calendar of Philocalus (AD 354), which assumed Jesus’ birth to be Friday, December 25th, AD 1. This was subsequent to Constantine’s Edict of Toleration in AD 313, which officially ended the government-sanctioned persecution of the Christians. The date of December 25th, which was officially proclaimed by the church fathers in AD 440, was actually a vestige of the Roman holiday of Saturnalia, observed near the winter solstice, which itself was among the many pagan traditions inherited from the earlier Babylonian priesthood.

“The year of Jesus’ birth is broadly accepted as 4 BC, primarily from erroneous conclusions derived from Josephus’ recording of an eclipse, assumed to be on March 13, 4 BC, “shortly before Herod died.” There are a number of problems with this in addition to the fact that it was more likely the eclipse occurred on December 29, 1 B.C. Considerable time elapsed between Jesus’ birth and Herod’s death since the family fled to Egypt to escape Herod’s edict and they didn’t return until after Herod’s death. Furthermore, Herod died on January 14, 1 BC. Tertullian (born about 160 AD) stated that Augustus began to rule 41 years before the birth of Jesus and died 15 years after that event. Augustus died on August 19, 14 AD, placing Jesus’ birth at 2 BC. Tertullian also notes that Jesus was born 28 years after the death of Cleopatra in 30 BC, which is consistent with a date of 2 BC. Irenaeus, born about a century after Jesus, also notes that the Lord was born in the 41st year of the reign of Augustus. Since Augustus began his reign in the autumn of 43 BC, this also appears to substantiate the birth in 2 BC. Eusebius (264-340 AD), the ‘Father of Church History,’ ascribes it to the 42nd year of the reign of Augustus and the 28th from the subjection of Egypt on the death of Anthony and Cleopatra. The 42nd year of Augustus ran from the autumn of 2 BC to the autumn of 1 BC. The subjugation of Egypt into the Roman Empire occurred in the autumn of 30 BC. The 28th year extended from the autumn of 3 BC to the autumn of 2 BC. The only date that would meet both of these constraints would be the autumn of 2 BC.

“Another approach in determining the date of Jesus’ birth is from information about John the Baptist. Elizabeth, John’s mother, was a cousin of Mary and the wife of a priest named Zacharias who was of the ‘course’ of Abijah (Priests were divided into 24 courses and each course officiated in the Temple for one week [at a time, twice a year], from Sabbath to Sabbath). When the Temple was destroyed by Titus on August 5, 70 AD, the first course of priests had just taken office. Since the course of Abijah was the eighth course, we can track backwards and determine that Zacharias would have ended his duties on July 13, 3 BC. If the birth of John took place 280 days later, it would have been on April 19-20, 2 BC (precisely on Passover of that year). John began his ministry in the 15th year of Tiberius Caesar. The minimum age for the ministry was 30. As Augustus died on August 19, 14 BC, that was the accession year for Tiberius. If John was born on April 19-20, 2 BC, his 30th birthday would have been April 19-20, 29 AD, or the 15th year of Tiberius. This seems to confirm the 2 B.C. date and, since John was five months older, this also confirms the autumn birth date for Jesus.

“Elisabeth hid herself for five months and then the Angel Gabriel announced to Mary both Elisabeth’s condition and that Mary also would bear a son who would be called Jesus. Mary went “with haste” to visit Elisabeth, who was then in the first week of her sixth month, or the fourth week of December, 3 BC. If Jesus was born 280 days later it would place the date of his birth on September 29, 2 BC. If Jesus was born on September 29, 2 BC, it is interesting to note that it was also the First of Tishri, the day of the Feast of Trumpets.”

The only issue I have with these conclusions is that Elizabeth didn’t become pregnant the instant Zacharias stepped out of the Holy of Holies. He finished his priestly course before returning home to her (Luke 1:23-24). Pushing Mr. Misler’s whole schedule back fourteen days, though, makes everything fit like a glove: It would place Yahshua’s birth at the Feast of Tabernacles, also known as Sukkoth, two weeks after the Feast of Trumpets. This fits perfectly with Yahweh’s prophetic plan: Immanuel is God “camping out” among men. John, in fact, told us as much: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) The word for “dwelt” tells the tale. Skenoo means “to tent or encamp, that is, to occupy or to reside, as God did in the Tabernacle of old, a symbol of protection and communion, to dwell.” (Strong’s) Yahshua was born in the autumn of 2 BC, began His ministry when he was “about 30” (Luke 3:23) i.e. any time after the autumn of A.D. 29 (remember, there’s no year 0), and was crucified three and a half years later, in the spring of A.D. 33. He may have been camping out, but this was no vacation.

Furthermore, Luke records that “[Mary] brought forth her firstborn Son, [Yahshua] and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger [a feed trough], because there was no room for them in the inn.” (Luke 2:7) The only place you’d find a manger is in a stable or corral, a place for housing livestock. It is not without significance that the Hebrew word for such a place is sukkoth, the very word used to describe the temporary shelters the Jews were to construct during the Feast of Tabernacles (or Booths), and thus the Hebrew name for the seventh miqra. The fulfillment of the miqra’s prophecy is therefore absolutely literal. Yahshua was born on Sukkoth, the Feast of Tabernacles.

But as I said, there must (and will) be another fulfillment of the prophecy of the Feast of Tabernacles, because Yahweh placed it at the end of the annual series, not the beginning. (In confirmation of this whole line of reasoning, Yahshua described Himself as “the First and the Last” in Revelation 1:11.) The second and ultimate fulfillment of this miqra will occur when Yahshua the King returns to earth to reign in glory. (To be perfectly precise, the return happens on the Day of Atonement and the reign begins on the Feast of Tabernacles, five days later.) As I said, the Feast of Tabernacles is a week-long party. And what’s the occasion? In context, the harvest is now complete; the bountiful provision of God has been gathered; the work is done. I don’t know how Yahweh could have made it any clearer. This is a perfect picture of the seventh millennium. The final milestone will have been crossed when Christ reigns personally on earth, and we’ll be with Him! Our work, and His, is finished. There’s nothing left to do but celebrate. “Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.” (Revelation 20:6)

***

Recapping, then, I have made several assumptions—reasonable and scripture based, but assumptions nevertheless: (1) The six-plus-one pattern found in the creation narrative, the Law of the Sabbath, the sabbatical year, and Jubilee (and mirrored in less blatant ways scores of times in the Bible) is not accidental, incidental, or pointless, but was specifically designed to inform us of the timeline of God’s redemptive plan. (2) The statements in II Peter 3:8 and Psalm 90:4 equating one day to a thousand years in Yahweh’s eyes are not purely metaphorical, but are also literal indications of the milestones in God’s schedule. (3) The anchor date of these milestones is 33 A.D., the year of Yahshua’s atoning sacrifice. The other millennial mile markers are found spaced in thousand-year increments from this date. (4) The first day of the week-long Miqra of Tabernacles is prophetic of the beginning of the seventh millennium—the Millennium corresponding to the “day of rest” spoken of in both the creation account and Sabbath Law. If I’m mistaken about any of those things, then the dates in this appendix will be wrong as well—I’ll leave it to you to figure out what Yahweh was really getting at. If my observations are correct, however, it means Yahweh has told us how to calculate the very day of His assumption of the government of earth, the commencement of His Millennial reign. The date falls—as required by scripture—on a Sabbath: October 8, 2033.

By the way, the 2033 date is confirmed (sort of) in the Levitical Law of Jubilee. The last recorded celebration of Jubilee coincided with the commencement of the last great Jewish revolt against Rome under Shimeon ben Kosiba, better known as Bar Kochba (“Son of a star”) in 133 A.D. The basic Jubilee program (as outlined in Leviticus 25) instructed that (1) Israelites weren’t to sow or reap that year, but rather live off what had been provided by Yahweh already; (2) land that had been “sold” would revert to its original owner; and (3) indentured slaves were to be released from their servitude. Jubilee meant a fresh start, a second chance—a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have the slate wiped clean. It’s a poignant picture of our salvation as well as a great prophetic metaphor for the Millennium.

Jubilee was supposed to be observed every fifty years. So if Jubilee occurred during the first year of Bar Kochba’s revolt, on the Day of Atonement in 133, then the year of Yahshua’s death and resurrection (33) was also a Jubilee year. (In His very first sermon, recorded in Luke 4, Yahshua proclaimed that He Himself would be the fulfillment of Jubilee—“setting at liberty those who are oppressed.”) The next one (from our perspective) will begin on October 3, 2033—the very Day of Atonement on which Yahshua will reveal Himself to Israel on the Mount of Olives—five days before the final Feast of Tabernacles on October 8. Thus precisely forty Jubilees will separate the first advent from the second. And that number is significant as well. Forty in scripture is a number invariably associated with testing, trial, and preparation—as in forty days and nights of rain during Noah’s flood, forty years in the wilderness wanderings of Israel, or forty days of Yahshua’s fast and temptation. It’s a perfect description of the plight of Israel during the intervening years.

One of the reasons I didn’t slam the brakes on this whole timeline inquiry—numbly chanting the mantra “No man knows the day or the hour” over and over again—was that Yahweh provided dozens of blatant chronological statistics relating to the Last Days. Some indicate the order of things: this will happen, then that will happen. Others give specific time frames: this will happen precisely 1,260 days after that happens, or this condition will persist for exactly five months. Call me overeager, but I couldn’t get past the idea that Yahweh was very careful to tell us when many of these things would happen. He apparently wants us to have some specific knowledge about His schedule—besides the mere fact that He has one.

Figuring the whole thing out, however, is like working a big jigsaw puzzle. You have to figure out where each piece goes—not independently, but in relation to the pieces that interlock with it. My wife likes jigsaw puzzles; she always has one going. When she starts a new one, she’ll divide the pieces into piles based on their general characteristics: these are the blue sky pieces; these are the bright flowers in the lower left; these are in this nondescript textured area over here; and these are edge pieces that’ll help me get my bearings. We would do well to make use of the same technique: these are “edge pieces” we need to establish a chronological framework; these interlock with the abomination of desolation; this one is the same color as the two witnesses....

We just established two of the key dates in the whole affair. The first day of the Millennial reign of Christ will fall on Saturday, October 8, 2033. (You’ve heard the caveats already; from now on when I state something as a certainty, bear in mind the assumptions I’ve listed.) The Day of Atonement—the actual day of Yahshua’s return—will fall five days before this. We’ll come back to this, because lots of puzzle pieces lock into October 3. But for now, let’s concentrate on finding the rest of the “edge pieces.”

If the first day of the Millennium is October 8, 2033, then counting backward, we can determine precisely when the Time of Jacob’s Trouble will begin. If you’ll recall, Daniel 9 laid out the last seventy “weeks” or septades of Israel’s destiny—490 years of 360 days each, the first 483 of which are behind us. “Then [after the sixty-two weeks] he [the prince who is to come, i.e., the Antichrist] shall confirm a covenant with many for one week; but in the middle of the week he shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering.” (Daniel 9:27) The 70th septade, then, is defined as the period of a seven-year “covenant” that will be confirmed by the Antichrist with “many” (presumably nations or peoples, not individuals). The Hebrew word for “confirm” is gabar, which means “to be strong; by implication, to prevail, act insolently, exceed, confirm, be great, mighty, or valiant.” The idea is that the Antichrist will push the covenant through, steam-rollering all opposition before him with insolence and an unstoppable force of will. Treaties come and go, but this particular one will signed/ratified/implemented (we’re not quite sure which) exactly 2,520 days before October 8, 2033. That comes out to Saturday, November 14, 2026. Black Sabbath.

As long as we’re digging out the “edge pieces,” lets determine precisely when the middle of the Tribulation is. It’s not only mentioned here in Daniel 9, it’s alluded to quite a few times in scripture—indeed, it marks a paradigm shift of catastrophic proportions for the earth, when it moves out of the Tribulation into the Great Tribulation. 1,260 days (forty-two months, or three and a half years) before October 8, 2033 works out to April 27, 2030.

And just for the sake of being thorough, let’s figure out the last possible date for the rapture. (I just can’t leave it alone, can I?) The Feast of Trumpets in 2026 falls on Saturday, the 12th of September. That’s about two months before the “covenant with many” is confirmed, beginning the tribulation. However, not only are there an awful lot of things to accomplish in the gap between the rapture and the Tribulation (it took me an entire chapter to explain it all in Future History) there’s another reason this date seems highly improbable to me. You see, if it’s the last possible date for the big day, then somebody’s going to be expecting it, and a