A recent article found at the propheciesoftheendtimes blog suggests that end times prophecy will be fulfilled in 2017. But despite a conclusion that falls within my own 2016-2019 time frame, I think this conclusion was reached through faulty logic, and I’m not going to applaud what could be a right answer if I clearly see it was reached in error.
In: “Ancient Secret of Daniel’s 70 Weeks Predicts End of Days Will Come This Year” – Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz notes: “It is written in the Zohar (the foundational source for Jewish mysticism) that in the days preceding the Messiah, all secrets will be revealed, and even small children will be able to explain explain prophecies and the most obscure sources,” Rabbi Berger concluded. “Now, in our day, everything is being opened up. We are discovering these sources that hint at the Messiah that have existed for generations, and only now can we interpret them properly. This is a clear sign that they are now being intentionally revealed.”
This is one of the few things I do agree with from the article. For example, there are prophecies that refer to the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, a holiday which is based on events just 200 years before Christ. Daniel lived six centuries before Christ, so those events and comparisons were “sealed” in Daniel’s time; they could not have been fully understood yet. As the events prophecy refers to come to pass, more interpretations are “unsealed.” I agree that we are gaining greater understanding in the final years now that Israel was recreated as a nation in 1948, and Jerusalem was retaken by the Jews in 1967, and an Islamic Caliphate was formed in 2014.
Unfortunately in the article above we are then told that 17th century Rabbi Meir Halevi Horowitz thought that Daniel’s “Time, times, and half a time” from Daniel 12:7 refers to 3.5 times of 700 years per “time.” There is no scriptural or logical basis for this interpretation, and no school of thought accepts it. Most scholars believe that one of Daniel’s “times” refers to 360, the number of days in a biblical year – with 3.5 times being equal to 1260. In the first fulfillment of this prophecy, 1260 years pass. In the final fulfillment, 1260 days pass.
But “Rabbi Horowitz calculated this as meaning 700 multiplied by 3.5, or 2450. Yernanen Yaakov calculated the beginning of the exile from the first stage of the Babylonian Exile, which began in the Hebrew year 3327 (434 BCE). He added 2,450, the result of his calculations for “time, times, and a half” from the Book of Daniel, and arrived at the result that the Hebrew year in which the Messiah should arrive is 5777 – the current [Hebrew calendar] year.”
I disagree that a “time” is 700 years, and I totally disagree that 434 BC is the beginning of the Babylonian Exile. Scholars almost unanimously agree the Exile began sometime between 587 and 582 BC, and in End Times and 2019 I cover several pages of evidence clarifying why 584 BC is the right year. (Even using Babylonian astronomical records and astronomical software to prove when events recorded by their astronomers line up with Babylonian historical records.)
Is there any reason to think we are in the final 3.5 years of end times Bible prophecy – YES – and I have written a few books reviewing the evidence pointing to 2016-2019. But not for the reasons Rabbi Horowitz described centuries ago.
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