2010

In last month’s YAVOH, February 2010, we examined the prophecy of Daniel’s 70 weeks. Instead of rendering the word “shavuim” as the number “sevens” as many do, we considered the possibility of it being a reference to the Feast of Weeks, thus “weeks.” “Shavuim” is the masculine gender for the word we use for the holy day “Shavuot.” We also looked at the entire prophecy as counting backward from the Messianic kingdom and laying out a sequence of events leading up to the kingdom. To quickly review, the entire prophecy illustrates the last seventy years leading up to the kingdom by counting the annual observance of Shavuot as years.

The year 2010 is now upon us. While the world is still recovering from 2009 and the hype for 2012 has just started, I have a whole different perspective of the future. Let me come right to the point of this article. There is a set of seven years before us that seems to fit so many end-time concepts that must be considered very seriously. I am referring to the set of seven years beginning now through 2016. Are these the seven years that lead us to Jerusalem and Messiah’s kingdom?

The burden of the word of the Lord concerning Israel. Thus declares the Lord who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him, behold, I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that causes reeling to all the peoples around; and when the siege is against Jerusalem, it will also be against Judah. And it will come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who lift it will be severely injured. And all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it.

For the past 62 years there has been conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Israel's neighbors. This conflict has at times erupted into open warfare beginning with Israel's war of independence, which the Palestinians call “the catastrophe.”