Reconstituting the Sabbatical and Jubilee year cycles
Introduction
Even though the Bible enjoins the observance of the Sabbatical and Jubilee years, practically they have almost never been respected, not even by the ancient Hebrews. However, we believe reconstituting the Sabbatical and Jubilee year cycles has a great importance with respect to the Biblical chronology. We believe to have succeeded in reconstructing both cycles based on the 70 weeks as well the 2300 days prophecies from Daniel 8–9 chapters and their classic Seventh Day Adventist interpretation, with very surprising results!
The Sabbatical and Jubilee years in the Bible
The Leviticus 25 chapter pronounces a blessing on the observance of these special years: the Sabbatical year was supposed to be a year of rest to be kept every seventh year, in very good analogy with the Seventh-day Sabbath:
1 And the Lord spake unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying, 2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the Lord. 3 Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof; 4 But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the Lord: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard. 5 That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land. (Leviticus 25)
The 50-th year following seven seven-year cycles carried a special significance:
8 ‘And you shall count seven sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years; and the time of the seven sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years. 9 Then you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall make the trumpet to sound throughout all your land. 10 And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you; and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family. 11 That fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee to you; in it you shall neither sow nor reap what grows of its own accord, nor gather the grapes of your untended vine. 12 For it is the Jubilee; it shall be holy to you; you shall eat its produce from the field. (Leviticus 25)
This is very similar to the day of Pentecost, representing the 50-th day counted from the day following the Passover Sabbath:
15 ‘And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering: seven Sabbaths shall be completed. 16 Count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath; then you shall offer a new grain offering to the Lord. (Leviticus 23)
When is the Sabbatical year?
This can be accurately determined from the 70 weeks prophecy of Daniel 9, which together with the 2300 days prophecy of Daniel 8 represents the very back-bone of the adventist prophetic timeline. Indeed, the very language of the 70 weeks prophecy clearly suggests 70 complete Sabbatical year cycles, with both the starting year: 457 (beginning in autumn 458) as well as the end year: 34 AD (beginning autumn 33 AD) being Sabbatical years. This is easily extended to the present time, giving 2001 (= 281*7 + 34), 2008, 2015, 2022 as Sabbatical years. In particular, the ministry of Jesus happened during the last week of years of the 70 given by the prophecy: AD 28 — AD 34, and His death on the cross took place in the very middle of that last week, in spring AD 31, again precisely as foretold by the prophecy. This is also in harmony to rabbinical Judaism and the way the Shmita year is being celebrated in modern Israel, this being yet another argument for the correctness of the 70 weeks prophetic interpretation.
The year 1844 is another major prophetic milestone, representing the end of the 2300 prophetic days from Daniel 8. The Millerite proclamation and the birth of Seventh Day Adventism happened during one sabbatical year cycle: 1841–1847 and the year 1844 lies in the very middle of this week of years.
It seems some of the most important contemporary events are also connected with the Sabbatical cycle: several major disasters have happened at the end of the Shmita year in 2001 (the 9/11 terror attacks), but also 2008 (the stock market crash) and 2015 (visit of pope Francis to America). Also, the second world war: 1939–1945 took place during a single Sabbatical cycle, as did the fall of communism and the end of the cold war: 1988–1994.
When is the Jubilee year?
The Jubilee year can be precisely determined from the same 70 weeks prophecy. First of all, we have to understand the Jubilee cycle is only 49 years long (and not 50!), the Jubilee year being the first year following the seventh Shmita year, that is the first year of the 8th weekly cycle. The Shmita cycle itself is not reset and continues in the same way. This is very clear given the 70 weeks = 70x7 years of the prophecy, which would have counted differently with a 50 year Jubilee cycle! The analogy with the Pentecost day is very significant: just as the daily week cycle is not interrupted or reset, the yearly week cycle follows the same pattern!
This means the 490 years (= 10 x 49 = 10 entire jubilees) started off with a Jubilee year: 456 BC (beginning autumn 457) and also ended with a Jubilee year: 35 AD. This is the Jubilee year that Jesus was referring to at the very start of His ministry:
16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. 17 And there was delivered to him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, 18 The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, 19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. (Luke 4)
But this means the Millerite proclamation also ended with a Jubilee year: 1848 AD and this represents a huge milestone in contemporary history. The revolutions of 1848 have dealt a deadly blow to the feudal system in Europe and ever since mankind has been living in an epoch of freedom, corresponding to the ministry of Jesus in the most holy place of the heavenly sanctuary.
Graphically, this can be represented as follows:
On the other hand, if 456 BC was a Jubilee year, the same thing can be said about 701 BC (245 = 5*49 years earlier), and this is when the Assyrian invasion against Judea and Jerusalem took place, in accordance to the Biblical reference from Isaiah:
30 “This shall be a sign to you:
You shall eat this year such as grows of itself,
And the second year what springs from the same;
Also in the third year sow and reap,
Plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them. (Isaiah 37)
If we accept the Sabbatical year cycle as just described, there are basically 7 different ways of setting the Jubilee year and we believe this is the only way it can be computed harmoniously, such as to connect both with the ministry of Jesus and the Assyrian invasion. Any other one of the six remaining possibilities will be disconnected with at least one of these two events. Also, this is the simplest and best way we can think about the 70 weeks timeline: 70 weeks = 10 entire Jubilee cycles, starting with a Jubilee year and ending with another Jubilee year! It doesn’t make any sense in our opinion for instance to put the Jubilee at the beginning of the ministry of Jesus, when afterwards there followed harsh trials, betrayal and death on the cross! But in the end the cross actually represents a huge victory for God and His plan of salvation, and it is only fitting to have a Jubilee year right after the weekly Shmita cycle that marked the sacrifice of Jesus for our sins as well as the successful start of the Gospel message! The same applies to the Millerite preaching of the 1840s followed by the birth of Seventh Day Adventism.
If we add integer multiples of 49 to year 35 we reach in contemporary history years 1946 (=35+39*49) and 1995 (=35 + 40*49), that can be said to mark the end of maybe the two greatest catastrophes of the 20th century: fascism and communism, and respectively WWII and the cold war. Further back in time, the 1799 (=35 + 36*49) jubilee marks the end of the 1260 years of papal persecution that started in 538 AD.
What can this tell us about the significance of year 2019?
As a very interesting application, let us see what the knowledge of the Sabbatical and Jubilee cycles tells us about the message some brethren have recently brought before the church, as to the imminent approach of persecution during spring 2019?
I am personally aware of at least two such messages:
“Even at the Door” by Uncle David Gates
National Sunday Law Coming in the Spring of 2019
Can the position of year 2019 within the Sabbatical and Jubilee cycles tell us something about the possibility of persecution being imminent, as claimed by the messages of these brethren?
The fact is spring 2019 lies at the very middle of the current 2016–2022 Sabbatical cycle, and also at the very middle of the current 1995–2043 Jubilee cycle! According to the Bible, Jesus declares:
13 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. (Revelation 22)
We expect therefore God to be in control at the beginning and the end of the Sabbatical and Jubilee cycles, but their middle represents an opportunity for Satan! Jesus has been killed in spring 31 AD in the very middle of the 27–34 Shmita week. Likewise, the year 1844 lies in the middle of the 1841–1847 week, and Miller’s proclamation during that year was followed by very bitter disappointment!
The answer is therefore positive: the imminent persecution warning during spring 2019 is being confirmed by the knowledge of the Sabbatical and Jubilee cycles. The likelihood of this happening by chance is 1 in 49, so this fact alone should strengthen about 50 times (almost two orders of magnitude!) our previous conviction on this subject! (the confirmation is actually even stronger, as explained in the paragraph below about the higher order Jubilee cycles)
Graphically, the position of year 2019 within the Sabbatical and Jubilee cycles can be represented as follows:
How this can help establish a precise chronology since the Creation of the World?
Another very interesting application of the Jubilee cycle is establishing a precise chronology since the Creation of the World. The way this works is pretty simple: we know for instance the first coming of Jesus happened after 4000 years of sin, so we reasonably expect the 4000 AM (Anno Mundi) year to lie somewhere during the life span of Jesus, or at least not very far away from it. According to the accepted Seventh Day Adventist chronology, Jesus lived in between 4 BC and 31 AD; on the other hand we have seen that both 35 AD and 15 BC were Jubilee years and it is just reasonable to expect the 4000 AM year to lie in between those two jubilees. We can also very reasonably assume both the Sabbatical and Jubilee cycles started from the very Creation of the world, with the 1 AM year being a Jubilee year, as the first year of both the first Sabbatical as well as Jubilee cycles and this of course means the years 1 + 1*49 = 50, 1 + 2*49 = 99, .., 1 + 81*49 = 3970 were also Jubilee years. But 3970 AM is the last Jubilee before 4000 AM and it must coincide with 15 BC according to our above assumptions!
Let us write this equivalence like this: 3970 AM ~ 15 BC
Now this remains true if we add a number of years on both sides:
4000 AM = 3970 AM + 30 ~ 15 BC + 30 = 16 AD !
(at this date Jesus was living on earth, being about 19 years old!)
6000 AM = 4000 AM + 2000 ~ 16 AD + 2000 = 2016 AD
6003 AM = 6000 AM + 3~ 2016 AD + 3 = 2019 AD
The result is very surprising: the expected Millennium has already begun a couple of years ago, the human history has already ended and the Second Coming of Jesus is imminent!!!
Certainly, this also confirms the imminent persecution warning for spring 2019!!!
Higher order Jubilee cycles
Assuming the proposed chronology since Creation is correct, we can observe some other interesting facts about year 2019: it lies not only in the middle of the current Sabbatical and Jubilee cycles, but also in the middle of the higher order Grand Jubilee as well as Mega Jubilee cycles, composed each one of 7 Jubilees = 7 x 49 = 343 years and respectively 49 Jubilees = 49 * 49= 2401 years! Indeed, the base 7 representation of 6003 is “23334”, and this means the year 2019 lies in the very middle of the 3rd Mega Jubilee cycle since Creation, the middle of the 4th Grand Jubilee Cycle, the middle of the 4th Jubilee Cycle, middle of the 4th Sabbatical cycle! If we just count the Grand Jubilees, the current one is the 18th since Creation, and 18 = 6 + 6 + 6 is a clear reference to the number of the Beast: 666, most probably a hint as to the character of the events to unfold starting with year 2019!
(in contrast the ministry of Jesus happened during the 12th Grand Jubilee cycle since creation, and 12 = 3 x 4 is one of the numbers of God, as in 12 apostles, 12 tribes of Israel etc.)
The likelihood of this happening by chance are less than 1 in 2400, and this should strengthen in proportion the case for the sinister significance of year 2019!
