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Judged Time, part 2

The Israelites left Egypt on the day of Passover (April) of the year 2,448 on the Creation Jubilee calendar (from Adam). 1 Kings 6:1 says,

¹ Now it came about in the four hundred and eightieth year after the sons of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel… that he began to build the house of the Lord.

By adding 480 years to the year 2,448, we see that Solomon began building the temple in the year 2928. This was the fourth year of Solomon. The first year of Solomon was three years earlier in 2925.

Previous to Solomon’s reign, David reigned 40 years, and Saul reigned 40 years before David. So if we subtract 80 years from 2925, we see that 2845 was the first year of Saul. His 18^th year was 17 years later—the year 2862. This was when God told Saul to bring judgment upon the Amalekites who had attacked Israel while they were coming out of Egypt (in the year 2448).

Recall that God put a curse on Amalek, saying, “I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven” (Exodus 17:14). God told the Israelites not to forget it. But then God seemed to forget it for 414 years. It was precisely 414 years from the curse in 2448 until the 18^th year of Saul in 2862. (2862-2448 = 414).

When Amalek’s grace period ended, judgment was to be executed upon Amalek, and King Saul was God’s judge at the time.

Saul failed to execute King Agag of the Amalekites—the king who represented the Amalekite nation. A judge does not have the authority to dismiss a case and forgive the sinner. He is only allowed to forgive if he is willing to pay the penalty himself. (Jesus did this on the cross.) When Saul spared Agag (1 Samuel 15:9), he took upon himself Agag’s Cursed Time penalty, and I believe he would have died shortly.

But “Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord at Gilgal” (1 Samuel 15:33), doing what Saul had failed to do. (Agag was beheaded.) This was an act of mercy, for instead of Saul being placed on Cursed Time, his sentence was modified to late obedience—Judged Time. Hence, Saul died on Judged Time, dating from the Israelite refusal to enter the Kingdom from Kadesh-barnea.

We see in this story how God blends different themes into a single story: Cursed Time for Amalek and Judged Time for Saul. There are a number of moving parts to the story, which, if we understand how these judgment time cycles work, can teach us many principles of timing that are valuable in understanding prophecy.

The Monarchy on Cursed Time

As I showed earlier, Saul’s first year was in 2845, and he ruled 40 years. He died in 2884, which was 434 years after the Israelites refused to enter the Kingdom at Kadesh-barnea in 2450. (David’s first year was reckoned as the year 2885.)

But the night before Saul’s battle with the Philistines (where he fell on his sword and died), Saul consulted the witch of En-dor (1 Samuel 28:7). Saul’s final act before his death was to put the monarchy of Judah on Cursed Time. David’s rule was good, though not without problems, but his successors gradually degraded the spiritual quality of the throne. When 414 years had passed, Jehoiachin paid the penalty for the Cursed Time brought about by Saul’s foolishness.

In the eighth year of his reign in Jerusalem, Jehoiachin was taken captive by King Nebuchadnezzar (2 Kings 24:12). At the same time, Nebuchadnezzar also took all the golden vessels of the temple and placed them in the temple of the gods in Babylon.

Jehoiachin’s deportation to a Babylonian dungeon occurred in the year 3298, which was 414 years after 2884, when Saul consulted the witch. Jehoiachin was on the throne when the grace period for the monarchy expired. So he was the one who had to deal with the problem. He remained in a Babylonian dungeon for 37 years, as we learn from 2 Kings 25:27-30,

²⁷ Now it came about in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, that Evil-merodoch king of Babylon, in the year that he became king, released Jehoiachin king of Judah from prison; ²⁸ and he spoke kindly to him and set his throne above the throne of the kings who were with him in Babylon. ²⁹ Jehoiachin changed his prison clothes and had his meals in the king’s presence regularly all the days of his life; ³⁰ and for his allowance, a regular allowance was given him by the king, a portion for each day, all the days of his life.

By this time, of course, Jerusalem had fallen, and the people of Judah and Benjamin had been taken captive to Babylon. Hence, Jehoiachin had no throne to return to in Jerusalem. Yet Evil-merodoch “set his throne above the throne of the (captive) kings who were with him in Babylon. It seems that Nebuchadnezzar had spared other kings who had not tried to fight against him.

What is most fascinating about the story of Jehoiachin is that in paying the penalty for Saul’s sin, he could also be classed as an intercessor—one who bears the sin of another by paying the sinner’s debt. In this case, he was put in prison to pay the debt incurred by Saul, but the 37 years was derived from an entirely different debt extending back to the time of Joseph. That story is too long for our current study, but anyone can read it in chapter 6 of Secrets of Time.

The point to remember now is that Jehoiachin’s experience was a prophetic type and shadow of the restoration of the monarchy through Christ, who is the great Intercessor (Hebrews 7:25). It is also a lesson showing how sin-debt is never forgotten, but is always “reconciled” through payment, either by the debtor (sinner) or by an intercessor.

Our Captivity to Mystery Babylon

Jehoiachin’s captivity was a type of the more recent captivity to Mystery Babylon, that final form of beast system in the Babylonian succession of empires (Daniel 7).

The year 1986-1987 was the 120^th Jubilee on the Creation Jubilee calendar. It marked the start of the countdown toward the fall of Babylon and the rise of God’s Kingdom. It appears that the 121^st Jubilee cycle (1986-2035) could well see the outpouring of the Spirit and the establishment of Christ’s throne in the earth. We are now in 2023 and are within 12 years of that endpoint.

Jehoiachin’s 37 years in the Babylonian dungeon may well be represented by the years from 1986/87-2023/24. If so, the years 2023-2024 could be pivotal insofar as restoring divine authority is concerned. Time will tell, but early revelation strongly points to this.

If so, we could see a change of garments, shedding our prison clothing, and we could see God’s provision at the King’s Table for the rest of our lives.

Chronology of Judah’s Kings

Running concurrent with the Cursed Time cycle for the monarchy of Judah and Jerusalem is a factor of Judged Time. This is a bit complicated, because we must calculate the years that are actually attributed to each king, even though some of those years overlapped with their fathers (i.e., co-regencies).

Secondly, we must understand that this calculation has to do with the debt incurred when the land did not keep its Sabbath rests or its Jubilees. By the 38^th year of David Israel owed God 62 rest years and 8 Jubilees, for a total debt of 70 years. That is why God motivated David to number the people (2 Samuel 24:1). As a result, 70,000 people died (2 Samuel 24:14), a thousand for each year that was owed.

This reconciled the debt, but the people still did not keep their rest years or Jubilees after this. Hence, the debt began to accumulate once again after the 38^th year of David.

David’s final years, after numbering the people         2 years

            1. Solomon                 2 Chron. 9:30              40 years

            2. Rehoboam               2 Chron. 12:13            17 years

            3. Abijah                     2 Chron. 13:2                3 years

            4. Asa                          2 Chron. 16:13            41 years

            5. Jehoshaphat            2 Chron. 20:31            25 years

            6. Jehoram                  2 Chron. 21:5                8 years

            7. Ahaziah                   2 Chron. 22:2                1 year

            8. Athaliah (Queen)    2 Chron. 22:12              6 years

            9. Joash                       2 Chron. 24:1              40 years

          10. Amaziah                 2 Chron. 25:1              29 years

          11. Uzziah                     2 Chron. 26:3              52 years

          12. Jotham                    2 Chron. 27:1              16 years

          13. Ahaz                        2 Chron. 28:1              16 years

          14. Hezekiah                 2 Chron. 29:1              29 years

          15. Manasseh                2 Chron. 33:1              55 years

          16. Amon                      2 Chron. 33:21              2 years

          17. Josiah                      2 Chron. 34:1              31 years

          18. Jehoahaz                 2 Chron. 36:2                          3 months

          19. Jehoiakim               2 Chron. 36:5              11 years

          20. Jehoiachin               2 Chron. 36:9                          3 months, 10 days

          21. Zedekiah                 2 Chron. 36:11                           9 years (to 589-588 B.C.)  

                                                 TOTAL:                               433 years, 6 months, 10 days

As a legal matter, this time ended in 598-588, when God gave Jerusalem the opportunity to keep their final Sabbath year. If they would do so, God would cancel the entire debt that had accumulated over the years. The story is recorded in Jeremiah 34:8-11. King Zedekiah agreed to release the servants to keep a rest year, but then he changed his mind and brought them back into captivity. The principle of forgiveness (on a legal level) is that we are forgiven as we forgive others (Matthew 6:12; 7:2; 18:32-34). The people of Judah did not release their debtors (slaves), so neither did God release Judah from its debt. He then sent them into captivity to Babylon.

Thus, by adding all the legal years of each of these kings in Jerusalem from the 38th year of David to the ninth year of Zedekiah (589-588 B.C.), they total nearly 434 years. It is the same if we begin with the death of king David in his 40th year and go to the actual fall of Jerusalem in the 11th year of Zedekiah. The time period is equivalent, except that it begins and ends two years later than what is calculated in the table above.

This Judged Time cycle for the monarchy of Judah suggests that the debt was paid by their 70 years of Babylonian captivity. This cleared the debt and allowed Judah to return to Blessed Time when Daniel’s seventy weeks restarted their calendar. This 490-year cycle, in turn, led to the great declaration of Jubilee when Jesus died on the cross to pay for the sin of the whole world (1 John 2:1, 2).