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Kingdom vision, part 18

The number 2,520 was discovered by the Greeks a few centuries before Christ. It was a sacred number to them, partly because it was divisible by all of the factors from one to ten (and 12 also). To put it another way, 2,520 is the lowest common denominator of all these factors.

2,520 divided by 1 = 2,520

2,520 divided by 2 = 1,260

2,520 divided by 3 = 840

2,520 divided by 4 = 630

2,520 divided by 5 = 504

2,520 divided by 6 = 420

2,520 divided by 7 = 360

2,520 divided by 8 = 315

2,520 divided by 9 = 280

2,520 divided by 10 = 252

2,520 divided by 12 = 210

So far, I have focused primarily on the prophecy of the “seven times,” which is 7 x 360. A prophetic year in Scripture is 360 days/years. Why not 365? It is because 360 is the mean distance between a solar year (365.25 days) and a lunar year (354.36 days). Therefore, too, a prophetic month is 30 days/years. The word month is derived from the word moon.

But Scripture also uses the number 210, which is 2,520 divided by 12.

The Prophetic Number 210

First, the number 210 itself can be broken down into 21 x 10, or even further to 7 x 3 x 10. For our purposes, its main purpose is to link it with “the time of Jacob’s distress” (Jeremiah 30:7). Jacob had two times of distress (“trouble,” KJV), each 21 years long. First he worked for his Uncle Laban for 20 years and then left him in the 21^st year, which was a Sabbath year. The result was that his labor served as the dowry for his two wives, Leah and Rachel.

A few years after returning to Canaan, Joseph was sold as a slave to Egypt, and Jacob’s distress was seen in his anguish, thinking that Joseph had been killed by a wild animal (Genesis 37:33, 34). The book of Jasher tells us that Joseph crossed the border into Egypt on his 18^th birthday. He was 30 when he was elevated to power under Pharaoh. There were 7 good years in which they stored grain. Then Joseph and his father were reunited in the second year of the famine, when Joseph was 39, ending the second 21-year cycle of Jacob’s distress.

These cycles were repeated on a longer-term prophetic cycle of 210 years each. The Israelites spent 210 years in Egypt proper, the latter part of that time serving as slaves in Egypt. However, when they left Egypt under Moses, he took them to Mount Sinai, where Israel married God. So God got a wife out of it. In that sense, Pharaoh played the role of Laban, and their time of bondage in Egypt could be seen as the price of a dowry.

The second 210-year time of distress was defined by the Divided Kingdom. Solomon died in 931 B.C., and then the kingdom was divided. 210 years later, Samaria fell, and Israel was taken to Assyria in 721 B.C. Joseph was given the Birthright, and the Ephraim was the primary Birthright holder. So the Divided Kingdom was where Joseph was “separate from his brethren” (Genesis 49:26 KJV) for 210 years.

These were the two times of “Jacob’s distress” for Israel as a whole, following the earlier pattern of Jacob’s 21-year times of distress. As we see, when we move from the individual to the national fulfillment, the number 21 is multiplied—in this case, by ten—because it has a more long-term fulfillment. So we move from the microcosm to the macrocosm, and the two are prophetic fractals.

All such cycles (other than the longest) are what the Bible calls prophetic types and shadows. The longest cycle is always the antitype, that is, the final fulfillment of the prophetic cycle.

The Reunification of the Tribes

As I have shown, Israel’s tribulation was a cycle of 2,520 years, having two starting points, 745 and 721 B.C., culminating with the fall of Samaria. The endpoints come to 1776 and 1800 A.D., which shows that America is essentially the regathering and reconstitution of the 12 tribes of Israel. There were actually 13 tribes, if one includes Levi. So we too started out with 13 colonies.

The Israelites who had been exiled to Assyria ultimately immigrated into Europe in huge waves. Although God had stripped them of their Birthright name, Israel, it is well known to historians that these Caucasians were so named because many of them traveled through the Caucasus Mountains between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.

In other words, the graveyard of Israel was also the birthplace of the Caucasian Europeans.

These European nations provided America with the original colonists. So it is clear that from one perspective, America was the start of the reunification of all the tribes after Israel’s 2,520-year cycle of tribulation and scattering. America’s motto: e pluribus unum, (“out of many, one”) thus takes on new significance when viewed prophetically. God appointed America as the place where His promise to David was to be fulfilled, saying, “I will also appoint a place for My people Israel” (2 Samuel 7:10).

The timing of America’s establishment in 1776 and the construction of the nation’s capital in 1800 is an indisputable fact of history.

The Longest Known Cycle of 210

As I showed earlier, 210 x 12 = 2,520. Therefore, when we speak of the “seven times” prophecy of tribulation for either Israel or Jerusalem, it is also about the time of Jacob’s distress. In this case, it speaks of distress (tribulation) for all 12 tribes of Israel.

Of course, we know that tribulation has a positive side, because God does not merely punish. He disciplines in order to correct. Correction implies a positive result in the end. The positive side for Jerusalem occurred in 1917 when General Allenby took the city from the Ottoman Empire. The positive side for Israel and Samaria was when the New Israel reconstituted the tribes, declared Independence (1776), and built a new capital city (1800).

Consecrating the Sanctuary

The main biblical precedent for the 2,520-year cycle (210 x 12) is found in Numbers 7:1-3,

¹ Now on the day that Moses had finished setting up the tabernacle, he anointed it and consecrated it with all its furnishings and the altar and all its utensils; he anointed them and consecrated them also. ² Then the leaders of Israel, the heads of their fathers’ households, made an offering (they were the leaders of the tribes; they were the ones who were over the numbered men). ³ When they brought their offering before the Lord, six covered carts and twelve oxen, a cart for every two of the leaders and an ox for each one, then they presented them before the tabernacle.

This was the original pattern for the building of Moses’ tabernacle in the wilderness, which they consecrated a year after leaving Egypt. The 12 leaders of the tribes, called “princes” in the KJV, furnished the tabernacle with its vessels, or “utensils.” Each tribe offered the same vessels, each on a different day, the first being from the prince of Judah. Numbers 7:12, 13, 14 says,

¹² Now the one who presented his offering on the first day was Nahshon the son of Amminadab, of the tribe of Judah; ¹³ and his offering was one silver dish whose weight was one hundred and thirty shekels, one silver bowl of seventy shekels, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, both of them full of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering; ¹⁴ one gold pan of ten shekels, full of incense.

The total weight of each tribe’s offering was 210 shekels. (130 + 70 + 10 = 210). When all 12 princes had given their offering over the course of 12 days, the total weight of their offerings was 2,520 shekels. If you read the rest of the chapter, you will see that the same wording is used of the offering from all 12 of the tribal princes.

The Weight of Glory

In verse 13, “the shekel of the sanctuary” was the official shekel that was placed in the sanctuary which set the standard of weight for “just weights” by the law of equal weights and measures in Leviticus 19:36.

Weights and measures apply to physical weight and distance, but prophetically also to time and the “weight” of justice. Jesus used this metaphor in Matthew 23:23 when He said,

²³ Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness…

In other words, justice, mercy, and faithfulness carry more “weight” with God.

Likewise, the Hebrew word kabod, “glory,” comes from the root word kabad, which literally means “weight.” For this reason, Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:17,

¹⁷ For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal [aionios] weight of glory far beyond all comparison.

Paul was not telling us that this “weight of glory” was “eternal,” but that its weight was yet unknown, or hidden—an indefinite amount, because it was still accumulating. The Greek word aionios and aionian is the equivalent of the Hebrew word olam, whose root word, alam, means “to hide.” This, I believe, is how Paul was using the word aionios in this case.

The point is that there is a prophetic (or spiritual) relationship between weights (210 shekels) and measures of time (210 years). If we learn these biblical measurements, they offer us another very useful tool in interpreting Scripture and in understanding prophecy.