Days vs. Years and the Babylonian Exile

In the Bible, days can represent years and years can represent days. Let’s begin in the book of Numbers:

In keeping with the forty days you spied out the land, you shall bear your guilt forty years—a year for each day—and you will experience My alienation. (Numbers 14:34)

This scripture says, “A year for each day.” In regard to, “A day for each year,” let’s go to Ezekiel:

4 “Then lie on your left side and put the sin of the people of Israel upon yourself. You are to bear their sin for the number of days you lie on your side. 5 I have assigned you the same number of days as the years of their sin. So for 390 days you will bear the sin of the people of Israel. 6 “After you have finished this, lie down again, this time on your right side, and bear the sin of the people of Judah. I have assigned you 40 days, a day for each year. (Ezekiel 4:4-6)

Ezekiel had to lay on his side for 390 days to represent Israel’s 390 years of sin, then he had to lay on his right side for 40 days to represent the number of years of Judah’s sin. Let’s use the concept of ‘a year for each day’ and ‘a day for each year’.

The Babylonian Exile

Let’s go to the first chapter of Matthew, the genealogy of Jesus Christ, to see why the Babylonian exile is important:

In all, then, there were fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ. (Matthew 1:17)

In this scripture, the Babylonian exile is used as a marker. It’s the mid-point from David to Jesus Christ. Scholars have different ideas on the date of the Babylonian exile. If we found the true date, we could possibly predict the year of the beginning of the final 7 years. In Daniel 12:11-12, there’s a 45-day difference in the 1290 days and the 1335 days. Let’s read the scriptures:

11 And from the time the daily sacrifice is abolished and the abomination of desolation set up, there will be 1,290 days. 12 Blessed is he who waits and reaches the end of the 1,335 days. (Daniel 12:11-12)

Let’s have the 1290 days and 1335 days represent years first and add them together: 1290 + 1335 = 2625 years. If we subtract the 2625 years from the date of the Babylonian exile, whatever it is, we will come up with a common year, such as 2020 or 2021.

Now let’s switch back to days for the 1290 days and 1335 days. We know the time of the great tribulation and God’s wrath will be 7 years, the one week from Daniel 9:27, the 70th week. If we take the number of years in the final week (7) and multiply them by the number of days per year (365) we get 2,555 days. If we subtract the 2,555 days from the 2,625 days from Daniel 12, we get 70. Seventy was the number of years that Jerusalem was to lie in ruins from Daniel 9:2, and Daniel knew this from reading Jeremiah:

And this whole land will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon for seventy years. (Jeremiah 25:11)

In regard to the number 70, let’s read the following excerpt:

Seventy has a sacred meaning in the Bible that is made up of the factors of two perfect numbers, seven (representing perfection) and ten (representing completeness and God’s law). As such, it symbolizes perfect spiritual order carried out with all power. It can also represent a period of judgment. Biblestudy.org

So, using this formula, if we set the date of 604 BCE for the Babylonian exile, as some believe and as we see in this video: https://youtu.be/AVLkUS-1foE (@3:39), we could say the great tribulation should’ve begun in 2021. If the date of the Babylonian exile was 603 BCE, we could say the tribulation should’ve begun in 2022, and so on. But let’s read this quote from Wikipedia:

Nebuchadnezzar’s siege of Jerusalem, his capture of King Jeconiah, his appointment of Zedekiah in his place, and the plundering of the city in 597 BCE are corroborated by a passage in the Babylonian Chronicles.

So, if the captivity was in 597 BCE, that would give us the date of 2028 CE.

We may never know the exact date of the Babylonian exile until the end begins. So, let’s not wait to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and savior and turn from wrongdoing. Let’s love the Lord our God and do the right thing in life, obeying the commandments. Let’s receive God’s promise of eternal life no matter what happens in this futile world.