The essence of Paul’s exhortation to the Thessalonians is as follows. Don’t be shaken by rumours claiming that the Day of the Lord has begun (2.2). The Day of the Lord can’t possibly have begun, because it has to be preceded by ‘the rebellion’, which hasn’t taken place yet. Moreover, the aforementioned act of rebellion will cause ‘the man of lawlessness’ to be unveiled (2.3), and that hasn’t taken place either.

What’s Paul referring to here? The observations set out below should help us to get a sense of that.

Observation 1: Paul’s subject matter is ‘the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ’ and ‘our being gathered together to him’. The latter of these phrases seems to envisage Jesus’ bodily return. True, the ‘ingathering’ of God’s people can refer to the gradual salvation of the elect. But the text of 2.1 seems to refer to a discrete event, namely the moment when all God’s people are ‘caught up together’ with him, at which point they’ll ‘always be with the Lord’ (I Thes. 4.17).

Observation 2: In his first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul mentioned ‘the Day of the Lord’. That Day, he said, would come ‘like a thief in the night’. In other words, it wouldn’t be preceded by specific signs (I Thes. 5.2). As a result, the Thessalonians had to live in a constant state of readiness to meet the Lord.

Apparently, however, some of the Thessalonians have become convinced that the End of All Things has in fact come upon them, possibly spurred on by prophetic utterances (2.2). As a result, they’ve abandoned their daily labours and become ‘busybodies’ (3.6, 3.11).

Observation 3: Paul refers to a ‘man of lawlessness’ who’s being ‘restrained’ in some way, even as Paul is writing. (‘You know what’s currently restraining him, in order that he might be revealed at the [appointed] time’: 2.6.) Whoever he is, then, the ‘man of lawlessness’ seems to have been alive in the 1st century. (You could possibly argue otherwise, but it’s a tough sell.)

Observation 4: Paul’s description of ‘the man of lawlessness’ is distinctly reminiscent of Daniel 11.36’s king. Paul describes an individual ‘who exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship’ (2.4), while Daniel describes a king who ‘exalts himself and magnifies himself above every god’ (Dan. 11.36). This allusion to Daniel 11.36 is instructive.

Daniel 11’s vision describes Judah’s existence on the frontier of the Syrian-aka-Seleucid empire to the north and the Ptolematic-aka-Egyptian empire to the south. Three different ‘kings of the north’ pass through Judah, each seeking to take control of Egypt. But none of them accomplishes his aim. The first king makes it as far as ‘the fortress’ (but is rebuffed) (11.11); the next makes it a bit further, but his invasion fizzles out (11.13–19); and, finally, Antiochus tries to take Egypt, with the same result (11.20–35), in large part due to the intervention of Rome (11.30).

Against this backdrop, a second Antiochus-like figure appears in Daniel’s vision (11.36ff.). This king is marked out by exactly the same pride and ungodliness as Antiochus, so we expect him to be a ‘king of the north’. But he’s not. He’s a Judaean anti-Christ—Herod. That’s why he’s referred to simply as ‘the king’—a title that immediately distinguishes him from every other king in Daniel’s vision.1 He’s not a king of the north or the south. He’s the (Rome-appointed) ‘king of the Jews’.

All this is highly relevant to Paul’s subject matter in II Thessalonians 2. Whereas Daniel 11 is a largely continuous vision of Seleucid and Ptolemaic history, the fall of Antiochus in 11.35 is separated from the rise of Herod by over a century. Just as something is ‘restraining’ the rise of an anti-Christ in Paul’s day, so something seems to have restrained the rise of Herod (11.36), namely the Jewish remnant who resisted Antiochus’s paganism. Paul’s man of lawlessness isn’t, therefore, a historical singularity. He’s one in a long line of anti-Christs.

Observation 5: According to Paul, the reason why the Thessalonians couldn’t have been plunged into the Day of the Lord was that ‘the rebellion’ hadn’t taken place. This was a rebellion that the Thessalonians had already heard about. Where? Most likely, in the Olivet Discourse. According to Jesus, the state of affairs in Judah in the aftermath of his death would go rapidly downhill. Jesus’ followers would be subject to intense hatred and persecution (Matt. 24.9–10); many would fall away (24.10); lawlessness would increase (24.12a); the love of many would grow cold (24.12b); an abomination of desolation would be erected in the Temple (24.15); etc. In other words, Judah would rebel against the rule of both God and the emperor, and would pay the price for it.

Observation 6: The nature of the Olivet Discourse provides a plausible explanation for the Thessalonians’ distress. The Olivet Discourse consists of two distinct blocks of teaching—Matthew 24.4–35 and 24.36–25.46. These blocks of teaching describe different events. The first describes the coming of the Son of Man at the end of an era that will: a] be marked out by specifically Judaean signs (e.g., events in the Temple), b] conclude in the days of Jesus’ own generation, c] be cut short for the sake of the elect, and d] culminate in a military invasion (Matt. 24.15–16 || Luke 21.20–24), which Jesus’ followers are told to escape from by fleeing. The second block of teaching also concerns the Son of Man’s ‘coming’, but it differs from the first at almost every point. It describes the sudden appearance of the Son of Man out of the blue to judge the nations at the end of a ‘long’ period of time (that’s perceived as a ‘delay’ on God’s behalf), in light of which Jesus’ followers aren’t to flee (because you can’t flee from a worldwide event), but are to live in a state of constant readiness. It’s therefore fairly clear that 24.4–35 describes the AD 30–70 era, while 24.36–25.46 describes the rest of the Church age.

With the above backdrop in mind, we can see why some of the Thessalonians might have been shaken up. Days of the Lord are preceded by tumultuous times. Some of the Thessalonians could, therefore, have thought that their trials were the beginning of the End of All Things—that the Day of the Lord had come upon them like a thief in the night, and that life in Thessalonica would now get worse and worse until Jesus returned, at which point all life’s problems would suddenly be over. This could explain both why they were ‘shaken up’ (2.1) and why they’d abandoned their daily labours. (Why bother working in such circumstances?)

Paul had many things to say about this (3.1ff.), but the point he makes in chapter 2 concerns the particular eschatology that underlay the Thessalonians’ thinking. His basic point is as follows. If the Thessalonians were going to be caught up in any of the events described in Matthew 24.4–35 and 24.36–25.46, then it would be the events described in the latter block of teaching (24.36–25.46), since that was the flood-like judgment that would overtake the whole earth. But the Thessalonians couldn’t be caught up in that event, because ‘the rebellion’ described in Matthew 24.4–35 hadn’t taken place. Jesus would first judge Israel (24.4–35) and then the nations (24.36–25.46), and so the Thessalonians couldn’t experience a Day of the Lord until Israel had.

After this, Paul informed the Thessalonians about other features of ‘the rebellion’. Jerusalem’s rebellion, Paul said, would cause an Antiochus-and-Herod-like emperor to be ‘unveiled’, which is precisely what it did. Rome portrayed itself as a benevolent guardian and a guarantor of peace in the Levant. But, when Jerusalem rebelled, the world saw what happened to nations that rebelled against Rome the Benevolent. And it was a brutal sight to behold.

This brings us to the issue of ‘the restrainer’. Why did God unleash Rome against Jerusalem in AD 70? Why not in the AD 40s or 30s? What restrained him?

My guess is that it was the same thing that generally restrains God—the presence of a faithful remnant. Sodom and Gomorrah could have been spared by ten righteous people in their midst. Jerusalem could have been saved by men like Noah, Job, and Daniel in her midst (had things not already gone too far). The faithful remnant in Judah’s midst that stood up to Antiochus restrained the rise of Herod (in that they prevented 11.36–45’s events from following immediately on from 11.35’s). And a faithful remnant was evidently functioning in a similar way in Paul’s day, though was rapidly disappearing. What was judged in AD 70 wasn’t merely a city (Jerusalem); it was the old covenant world (Matt. 24.35, Heb. 8.13). That world consisted of thousands of faithful Israelites dispersed throughout the Roman empire, who were gradually being converted as the Gospel went forth (Matt. 24.14), in which sense they were being removed from the old covenant world (to become part of a different world). Consequently, at the time of Jerusalem’s rebellion, there was no longer an old faithful remnant. What had previously stayed God’s hand had ‘gone from the midst’ of the old world (ek mesou genetai) (2.7). And so God’s judgment finally fell upon it and consumed it.

The answer, like many things in the book of Revelation, is typological in nature. The latter half of Revelation describes part of the Yom Kippur ritual—specifically, the part where atonement is made for Israel’s sins.1 (That the priestly part of it isn’t described is intuitive, since, in Revelation, the role of the priest is played by linen-clad angels, whose actions don’t require atonement.) The relevant part of the ritual is summarised below.

• Two goats and a ram are chosen out as sacrifices for the people. One goat is earmarked for the LORD, and the other for ‘Azazel’, which seems to be associated with the demonic realm in some way (Lev. 16.5–10).2

• The priest then takes a censer full of coals from the altar and adds a couple of handfuls of incense to them, causing a cloud of incense to arise before the LORD (Lev. 16.12–13).

• Next, the goat chosen for the LORD is slain, and its blood is sprinkled on the mercy seat (seven times) (Lev. 16.15–16).

• At this point it’s said that no-one other than the priest can enter the Tabernacle until the work of atonement is complete (Lev. 16.17).

• The goat’s blood is now sprinkled on the altar (seven times), which makes atonement for it (Lev. 16.19).

• The live goat is sent out into the wilderness (Lev. 16.20–22, 17.7).

• And, finally, the ram is burnt up as an ascension offering (Lev. 16.24).

These events have a notable echo in the latter half of Revelation’s visions.

• An angel mixes the saints’ prayers with incense and pours them out on heaven’s altar (8.3–4 with 5.8). The angel then fills its censer with ‘fire’ from the altar, and casts the fire down to the earth (8.5).

• In response the beast arises from the abyss and wages war against the two witnesses, who rise up to heaven in a cloud (11.6–12).

• Next comes the slaughter of the 144,000 martyrs, whose blood stains the earth, and leaves it in need of decontamination (14.19–20).

• At this point it’s said that the sanctuary is filled with smoke, preventing anyone from entering until the bowls have been outpoured—bowls that have been filled up by means of the martyrs’ blood (14.19–20, 15.8).

• The seven bowls are thus poured out, which corresponds to Yom Kippur’s sevenfold ‘sprinkling’, but is a sevenfold outpouring of unavenged blood on the beast’s throne (16.3, 4, 10).

• Immediately afterwards, we’re shown the martyrs’ counterpart in the wilderness (the harlot), where the beast and demons are at large (17.3ff., 18.2). While the martyrs are clothed in white (7.9ff.), the harlot is clothed in scarlet because she must bear her own sin (17.4) (Isa. 1.18).

• And, finally, the ram-like false prophet3 is burnt up as an ascension offering in the lake of fire (13.11, 19.20, 20.10).

Revelation’s finale thus describes a Yom Kippur ritual. But it’s a Yom Kippur with important differences: the blood is the blood of the martyrs; their blood doesn’t result in the cleansing of God’s mercy seat and tabernacle (since that’s already been done: Heb. 9.23–26), but in the destruction of the beast’s throne and kingdom; and the object of God’s act of atonement isn’t merely the Temple, but the entire earth.

These differences might seem unusual, but in light of Revelation’s overall flow they make perfect sense. God’s temple is the entire earth (21.22) (Isa 66.1, Hab. 2.20).4 That earth has been stained with blood (Deut. 21.1–9), which God atones for by outpouring his wrath (16.1–21, 18.1ff., etc.), and hence prepares the earth for the arrival of his new creation (19.7, 21.1ff.). Just as God descended in a cloud on Solomon’s Temple at the conclusion of seven years’ work, so he descends at the culmination of Revelation’s seven-year week, enveloped not in a cloud but in his people (21.2–5) (I Kgs. 6.38). (Compare the ‘It is done!’ of the seventh bowl with the ‘It is done!’ of the world to come: 21.5–6.) Needless to say, God’s new creation exceeds the glory of its foreshadow. Solomon’s Temple defined a space of 144,000 cubits³ (60 x 20 x 120) (II Chr. 3.3–4), which is dwarfed by the mere surface area of the temple-city, i.e., 144,000,000 stadia² (12,000 x 12,000). Compared to its predecessor, the temple-city involves whole new dimensions of glory. And, unlike its forerunner, it will never be defiled (21.27).

And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn. On that day the mourning in Jerusalem will be as great as the mourning for Hadad-Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. The land shall mourn, each family by itself: the family of the house of David by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Levi by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the Shimeites by itself, and their wives by themselves; and all the families that are left, each by itself, and their wives by themselves.

The text of Zechariah 12.10–14 describes a distinctly Passover-like event: a firstborn son has been slain; an overlord has been disposed of; and each family in Israel has gathered together in response. (Israel’s mourning at Megiddo refers to the death of Josiah: Zech. 12.11, II Kgs. 23.29, II Chr. 35.24.)

But if this is a Passover, then it’s a Passover with a major difference. It’s not the Egyptians who’ve lost their firstborn son, but the Israelites; it’s not an ungodly Egyptian ruler who’s been disposed of, but a godly Israelite (and he’s been disposed of by a Pharaoh); and, rather than each family gathering together to eat the Passover, each family has gathered together to mourn their loss, just as the Egyptians did (Exod. 12.21, 29–30).

These oddities make Zechariah 12.10–14 a remarkably apt depiction of Israel’s Passover in AD 30, when the Israelites looked upon the God whom they had pierced (John 19.33–37). In one sense Jesus’ death was Israel’s loss (since Jesus was her king and Messiah). Yet at the same time it was the means by which Israel could have life and could be redeemed from the curse of the old covenant (Gal. 3.10–14, Heb. 9.15ff.). The water that flowed forth from Jesus’ side became ‘a fountain’ by means of which Jerusalem could be ‘purified’ (John 19.33–37, Zech. 13.1ff., Lam. 1.17), like the water that flowed forth from underneath the ‘shoulder’ of Ezekiel’s Temple (Ezek. 47.1).

True, not many of the chief priests or Pharisees mourned Jesus’ death at the time of the Passover in AD 30 (Isa. 53.8). But some new covenant Israelites did so (Mark 16.10). And over time this trickle became a river. Thousands joined the disciples at the time of Pentecost (Acts 2). And, apparently, thousands more did likewise as disaster befell Jerusalem in AD 70 (Matt. 24.30), all of which foreshadows a greater harvest to come (Rom. 11.23ff.).

Israel’s history thus reflects a spread of mourning that will ultimately extend ‘from the least to the greatest’ (Jer. 31.34), encompassing kings and priests (the houses of David and Levi), well-known and lesser-known lineages (the houses of Nathan and Shimei) (Exod. 6.17, II Sam. 5.14), husbands and wives.

Yet Israel’s isn’t a mourning that goes uncomforted. It’s a godly sorrow that leads to salvation—a sorrow that’s ultimately turned to joy (Isa. 61.1–3, II Cor. 7.11).

Typologically, this reflects the book of Esther. Haman and the king sit down to drink wine while mourning overtakes the Jews (Est. 3.14, 4.3). But by the end of the book the roles have been reversed. Haman mourns (6.12) while the Jews’ mourning is turned into feasting—feasting that has a distinctly Passover-esque feel in that it occurs on the fourteenth day of the month (9.17, 9.22).

And this drama will ultimately be played out on a much wider stage. The world that passed Purim-like gifts to one another as the Church suffered (Rev. 11.9–10) will lament and mourn at the fall of her beloved Babylon (18.1ff.). Meanwhile, a Hallelujah chorus will break out in heaven as the marriage feast begins (19.1ff.).

I’d like to explore this observation a bit. Here goes.

God’s Promise to David

Back in the 11th century BC, David wanted to build God a house—which was no bad thing to want to do. But of course houses need people to inhabit and keep them. And so God decided that he first needed to build David a ‘house’, i.e., a dynasty (II Sam. 7.1–17).

God thus raised up a son for David (from an unlikely source, namely Bathsheba). And this son would one day sit on David’s throne, which God would establish forever. Solomon would also build what David had wanted to build in the first place, namely the Temple.

Towards the end of David’s life, however, God’s promise seemed to be foundering. Adonijah had proclaimed himself king, and secured the backing of (half) the priesthood. Nathan and Bathsheba therefore had to take action. They approached the king and informed him about Adonijah’s coup. And, happily, David had enough support to appoint Solomon in Adonijah’s place—support that he lacked at the time of Absalom’s coup (I Kgs. 1).

David could thus go his way in peace. ‘Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel’, he said, ‘who has granted a man to sit on my throne this day, my own eyes seeing it’.

Interestingly, David hadn’t seen Solomon’s dynasty established, but he’d seen the initial fulfilment of God’s promise, and he trusted that God would complete what he’d begun.

This is where Matt’s observation comes in.

God’s Promise to Simeon

In Simeon’s day, as Simeon was growing old, it again started to look like God’s promise was foundering. The Hasmoneans had been and gone, and an Adonijah-like usurper had now claimed the throne (Herod). Furthermore, the usurper in question had the backing of many of the priests. What had happened to the reign of David’s ‘forever dynasty’?

Against that backdrop, God chose to fulfil his long-awaited promise, this time raising up a son for David from an even more unlikely source—a virgin named Mary. ‘He will be great’, God said, ‘and will…be granted the throne of his father David’.

As soon as Simeon entered God’s house (which Solomon had been allowed to build by virtue of God’s promise to David), and he saw in Jesus the king whose reign would establish David’s throne forever.

Fittingly, therefore, the elderly Simeon’s words echoed the elderly David’s. ‘Lord, you are thus letting your servant depart in peace’, he said, ‘…for my eyes have seen your salvation’. (If Simeon was speaking Hebrew, he’d have said, ‘My eyes have seen your Yeshua’!)

Like David, Simeon hadn’t seen the full outworking of God’s promise (since Jesus was only a child), but Simeon had seen its initial fulfilment, and he trusted that God would complete what he’d begun. He saw with the eyes of faith (Heb. 11).

Simeon’s Prophecy

Simeon then went on to utter a prophecy of remarkable profundity. ‘Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rise of many in Israel’.

Falling and rising had been a feature of God’s promise to David from its outset. David had fallen into sin with Bathsheba, and had lost a child as a result. And yet after that death (and even by means of it), another child had arisen (II Sam. 12.13–14). Solomon had likewise fallen into sin, and yet children had arisen from his loins. David’s entire dynasty had then fallen (at the hands of the Babylonians), and yet by God’s grace it had arisen from the depths of the exile. And things would be the same for Jesus. He too would fall. And yet he would rise again and thereby establish the throne of David forever (Rom. 1.1). Furthermore, on the far side of his resurrection, Jesus’ work would continue, bringing down Herods from their thrones and raising up the poor to heaven’s dizzy heights.

It’s by means of falling and rising that God brings his purposes to pass.

• Just as Eden is a garden, so too is the New Jerusalem. And yet the New Jerusalem is more than a garden: it’s a garden-city, housing and bringing together the entire people of God.

• Just as a river waters the garden of Eden, so a river waters the New Jerusalem. And yet this river doesn’t merely nourish trees and plants; it’s the water of eternal life, as bright as crystal.

• Just as the downstream Edenic world is rich with gold and precious stones, so too is the New Jerusalem. And yet in the New Jerusalem these materials have been unearthed and are being used to beautify God’s world.

• And, just as Eden includes a tree of life, so too does the New Jerusalem. And yet it apparently includes more than one of them; it includes trees of life (plural) that can stand on both sides of the river (Rev. 22.2).

All this is well-known. But there’s a feature of the New Jerusalem that’s often overlooked.

In terms of Revelation’s literary flow, the New Jerusalem is populated with two distinct groups of resurrected people—those who were raised in ‘the first resurrection’ (since they remained true to Christ on earth and didn’t take the mark of the beast) (Rev. 20.4), and those who were united with Christ over the course of the millennium and were raised in the second resurrection (20.15). On pre-millennialism, both of these resurrections are physical. Hence, what’s spoken about elsewhere in the New Testament as if it’s a single event—the resurrection (John 5.28–29)—is filled out in more detail in Revelation 20. In Revelation 20, we find out that the resurrection involves two separate events.

Interestingly, all this follows the pattern of Genesis 2, where God plants and fills the garden of Eden. The creation of Adam and Eve are, figuratively, resurrection events. Adam is made from non-living material (dust), and Eve from Adam’s rib (which was extracted from him while he was in a death-like sleep). Hence, what’s described in Genesis 1 as if it’s one event—the simultaneous creation of man and woman (Gen. 1.26–31)—is filled out in more detail in Genesis 2. In Genesis 2, we find out that Adam and Eve’s creation involved two separate events.

With this in mind, a further parallel between Genesis 2 and Revelation 21’s events can be noted. Just as Adam is created outside the garden and then witnesses the garden being formed (Gen. 2.7ff.), so those who partake in the first resurrection are raised before Revelation’s garden-city appears and then witness it descending from heaven. Meanwhile, just as Eve is created within the garden, which is the first thing that she sees, so the first thing that those who partake in the second resurrection see in their glorified bodies is God’s new garden-city.

In sum, then, what’s often regarded as a bizarre or ad hoc feature of pre-millennialism turns out to follow an expected pattern, i.e., the pattern of creation. The new creation is like the old creation, only better.

Yet the name Yahweh doesn’t occur until we get to Genesis 2 (it’s all Elohim until then), which many commentaries claim, with a breathtaking lack of imagination, must be because Genesis 1 and 2 have different authors.

But, as Peter Leithart has pointed out in his book Creator, while the name Yahweh doesn’t occur in Genesis 1, the signature of Yahweh is present everywhere.

To see this, consider the Pentateuch’s portrayal of Yahweh. When Yahweh reveals himself to Moses in the burning bush, he doesn’t describe himself via a series of adjectives, but by reference to his being. ‘I am who I am’, Yahweh says—a phrase constructed from the verbal root of his name (Hebrew H-Y-H). Yahweh is the God who is, and who will be what he will be (Exod. 3.14). His name also marks him out as a God who causes other things to be (given a slightly different interpretation of ‘Yahweh’), which is precisely what Yahweh does. He is the God who calls Abraham forth from the backdrop of Babel, who promises to bless and multiply his seed (Gen. 12.1–3, 7, 13.14–16), and who hovers above Abraham’s descendants as he leads them out of a formless wilderness and brings them into their land (Deut. 32.10–12).

Suffice it to say, this notion of God is clearly prefigured in Genesis 1. In the very first verse of Scripture, at the beginning of all things, we find Elohim already present. (‘In the beginning, God…’: Gen. 1.1, Psa. 90.2.) He too is the God who is. And, like Yahweh, he is a God who causes other things to be. He hovers above his creation, calls life to emerge from a lifeless world via the word of command yehi (‘Let there be…!’), and blesses creation’s seed.

That Genesis 1’s use of the verb H-Y-H is significant can be shown statistically. Genesis 1 has 27 occurrences of H-Y-H, which is more than any other chapter of Genesis. (H-Y-H also occurs most frequently in Genesis 1.) By contrast, Genesis’s last chapter has only one occurrence of the verb H-Y-H, which puts it in (joint) last place. And this too is significant.

While the book of Genesis begins with seven days of creation (Gen. 2.1), it ends with seven days of mourning (after the death of Jacob), and with Israel still small in number (Gen. 2.2, 50.10). It thus raises the question of whether Israel will survive in a foreign and unruly land—which is answered decisively in the opening chapter of Exodus. The God of Genesis 1 (Elohim) makes Israel fruitful. The Hebrews ‘multiply’, ‘swarm’ (Gen. 1.20), and ‘fill the land’ (of Egypt!), (Exod. 1.7). Despite Pharaoh’s best efforts, Exodus 1 literally teems with ‘life’ (KH-Y-H)—a word that sounds almost identical to H-Y-H and underlies the name ‘Eve’. As the Hebrews multiply (Exod. 1.15ff.), KH-Y-H occurs five times (as it does in Genesis 1), one of which is an unusual description of the Hebrew women as ‘lively’ (‘Eve-like’) as they give birth (Exod. 1.19).

In sum, then, Genesis 1 and 2 are cut from the same theological cloth. The name of Yahweh may, technically, be absent from Genesis 1, but its root and semantics are everywhere, as is Yahweh’s nature.

It feels like such a thing should exist because the book is replete with heptads (groups of seven), but, unfortunately, almost everyone who analyses the book sees a different structure in it.

Perhaps the structure outlined below will simply be another one to add to the list (or perhaps it’s already been proposed; I don’t know). Either way, I think it’s defensible and intuitive.

My proposed structure emerges from three simple observations.

Observation 1

The book of Revelation starts with an prologue and closes with an epilogue, and these ‘bookends’ mirror one another:

• they both describe the book as a soon-to-be-fulfilled revelation that’s been given to John (by Jesus’ angel) and that now needs to be passed on to John’s fellow men (1.1, 22.6);

• they both pronounce blessings on those who ‘keep’ the book’s contents (1.3, 22.7);

• in case we missed it, they both reiterate that the time of the fulfilment of John’s visions is ‘near’ (1.3, 22.10); and

• fittingly, they both declare that God is ‘the Alpha and Omega’ of history (1.8, 22.13).

So far so good.

Observation 2

Revelation is built around four heptads—the visions of the seven churches, the seven seals, the seven trumpets, and the seven bowls (ch. 16)1—, and each of these heptads is preceded by a concrete event that occurs in heaven and explains what’s about to come.

• Prior to the vision of the seven churches (chs. 2–3), Jesus speaks to John and shows him a vision of the lampstand-churches that he’s about to address (1.9–20).

• Prior to the seven seals (6.1–8.1), Jesus takes a scroll from the Father’s hand and prepares to open it (chs. 4–5).

• Prior to the seven trumpets (8.6–11.19), seven trumpets are given to seven angels, and the prayers of the saints are poured out on a heavenly altar (8.2–5).

• And, prior to the seven bowls, the heavenly sanctuary is opened, and seven bowls are given to seven angels (15.5–8).

Treating each of these heptads-and-preludes as an individual unit, the structure below emerges.

01.01--01.08: Prologue

# 01.09--01.20: [Prelude to the Seven Churches]
  02.01--03.22: [1] The Seven Churches

# 04.01--05.14: [Prelude to the Seven Seals]
  06.01--08.01: [2] The Seven Seals

# 08.02--08.05: [Prelude to the Seven Trumpets]
  08.06--11.19: [3] The Seven Trumpets
  
  12.01--15.04: [4] The Church & Beast's Battle

# 15.05—15.08: [Prelude to the Seven Bowls]
  16.01--16.20: [5] The Seven Bowls

  17.01--22.05: [6] Babylon's Fall, Jesus' Return, & New Creation

22.06–21: Epilogue

Observation 3

This structure is relatively attractive. The only problem with it is that the final section of the book seems to include too much material. It feels like chapter 20, where Satan is bound in the aftermath of his defeat and the beleaguered saints are finally vindicated, should mark the start of a new section.

Suppose, then, we divide 17.1 to 22.5 in half. We now have seven sections of roughly equal length, which seem appropriate to arrange in a chiasmus given the symmetrical nature of the book’s epilogue and prologue, as is done below.

01.01--01.08: Prologue

# 01.09--01.20: [Prelude to the Seven Churches]
  02.01--03.22: [1] The Seven Churches

  # 04.01--05.14: [Prelude to the Seven Seals]
    06.01--08.01: [2] The Seven Seals

    # 08.02--08.05: [Prelude to the Seven Trumpets]
      08.06--11.19: [3] The Seven Trumpets
  
        12.01--15.04: [4] The Church & Beast's Battle

    # 15.05—15.08: [Prelude to the Seven Bowls]
      16.01--16.20: [5] The Seven Bowls

    17.01--19.21: [6] Babylon's Fall & Jesus' Return

  20.01--22.05: [7] Resurrection & New Creation

22.06–21: Epilogue

The central element of this chiasmus is, aptly, the Church and beast’s battles.2 And other features of it also seem apt (though are beyond the scope of this short note to explore).

The structure outlined above is also attractive for two further reasons. First, it means that the seven sevens around which Revelation is based echo the seven schematic ‘weeks’ around which the Gospel of John is based. Second, it means that every section of the book of Revelation has a connection with the number seven. This is the case because the sections between the book’s heptads have a discourse-related connection to the number seven. The book of Revelation is punctuated by John telling us that he’s seen certain things (‘And I saw…’)—(kai) eidon/eida (or in one case idon)—, which John does seven times in each of the book’s non-heptadic sections.3 That is to say, John uses the phrase (kai) eidon/eida/idon seven times in 12.1–15.3, seven times in 17.1–19.21, and seven times in 20.1–22.5, as shown below.

• kai eidon (13.1, 13.11, 14.1, 14.6, 14.14, 15.1, 15.2)

• kai eidon (17.3, 19.11, 19.17, 19.19), kai eida (17.6), idon (17.6), eidon (18.1)

• kai eidon (20.1, 20.4, 20.11, 20.12, 21.1, 21.2), kai ouk eidon (21.22)

The last of these makes a particularly apt final marker, since it describes something that John doesn’t see. John doesn’t see a temple in the new Jerusalem, ‘since its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb’.

The lives of the two witnesses are closely connected with those of the prophets since the two witnesses are individuals who proclaim the Word of God. Like Jeremiah, they speak words of fire to those who disbelieve them (Jer. 5.14). Like Elijah and Moses, they bring a curse on disobedient nations (Exod. 7.19, I Kgs. 17.1, Jas. 5.17). And, in true prophetic style, they die in Jerusalem (Rev. 11.8, Luke 13.33–34).

At the same time, the two witnesses’ lives are portrayed as a miniature of the wider Church’s life. They’re likened to ‘two olive trees’—namely Zerubbabel the governor and Jeshua the priest (Zech. 3–4)—, in which respect they’re kingly and priestly (though not quite a ‘kingdom of priests’) (Rev. 1.6, 5.10). They’re referred to as ‘lampstands’, which connects them back to the churches in Revelation 2–3 (although there are only two of them rather than seven of them). Just as the beast ‘makes war on and conquers the saints’, so he conquers and kills the two witnesses (11.7, 13.7). And, just as the Church at large is vindicated at the end of a three-and-a-half-year period of time (20.1ff.), so the two witnesses are (visibly) raised to life at the end of three-and-a-half units of time (though the units are days not years), which turns the beast’s apparent victory into defeat (11.9–13).

As such, the two witnesses’ lives are a microcosm of the book of Revelation as a whole. History is fractal, and so Revelation is fractal. What’s played out on the stage of world history is also played out on smaller scales. Jesus warned one church that he’d come and snuff them out (2.5), another that he’d come and fight against the Nicolaitans in their midst (2.16), a third that he’d visit them like a thief in the night (3.3), etc. These warnings don’t envisage a global ‘day of the LORD’. They refer to particular points in time when Jesus comes and settles account with individual churches (Mal. 3.18).

Revelation 11 is similar in that it depicts local rather than global events. At certain points in their lives, many churches will look like they’ve been overcome by the world/beast (or simply run out of steam), yet these churches will suddenly receive new life—life that will serve as the sign of Jonah to those around them (11.13).

Viewed as such, the vision of Revelation 11 is an important picture of churches’ individual struggles, framed within the Church’s overall story.

[The Lord]: Your words have been hard against me!

[Judah]: How have we spoken against you?

[The Lord]: You have said, It is vain to serve God. You have asked, What is the profit of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the Lord of hosts?…

Malachi’s prophecy was directed to a people who were at a particularly low ebb. They saw the service of the Lord as pointless. It had done them little if any good. It was merely a burden on them.

These sentiments were baseless. (The people had long ago decided that tithing was unnecessary, that it wasn’t a problem for them to abandon their wives, that diseased and stolen animals would suffice for the Lord’s offerings, etc.) But at some level the people’s sentiment was understandable. It could even have been justifiable in individual cases. David uttered very similar words in one of his Psalms.

While God is no man’s debtor, he settles accounts with people in his own time. As a result, there isn’t always a straightforward relationship between godliness and prosperity in life. And so it can feel like it’s not doing us any good to keep the Lord’s commands, and that we may as well not bother.

‘Those who feared the Lord’ in the book of Malachi no doubt felt like this from time to time, living as they did among a godless generation.

Nevertheless, they spoke well of their Lord.

And the Lord is said to have heard their words.

This statement marks a significant departure from what’s happened previously in the book of Malachi. We’re not told what the aforementioned God-fearers said, which we are in the case of previous speakers. (What mattered to God was the tenor of their words.) And while in previous chapters the Lord was ‘wearied’ by his people’s words, on this occasion he paid attention to them. He even chose to record them in a book of remembrance.

That the Lord chose to record his people’s words in a book is an unusual idea, both in Scripture and in principle. Its significance, however, is hinted at in the book of Esther.

The Jews were in serious trouble in Esther’s day. They were about to be wiped out—and with the king’s blessing. By a stroke of luck, however, the king had a sleepless night before the slaughter was due to begin. He therefore asked for ‘a book of remembrance’ to be read to him, which reminded him of the good deeds of a Jew named Mordecai. Mordecai had done the king a good turn, and hadn’t been rewarded for it. And when the king ‘remembered’ this, things started to change for the better in the book of Esther.

The faithful Judaeans in Malachi’s day must have felt a lot like Mordecai had. They were godly men and women, who feared their Lord and spoke well of him despite difficult circumstances. And yet it seemed like their godliness had been forgotten about and would ultimately go unrewarded.

By means of Malachi’s prophecy, God reminded his people that this wouldn’t be the case. It couldn’t be the case. God is no man’s debtor.

‘In the future’, God declared, ‘you will once again see a distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between the one who serves God and one who doesn’t’.

There were times in the past when the Judaeans had seen God act powerfully in history, punishing the wicked and rewarding the righteous. And there’d soon come a time when he’d do that again.

In the meantime, the Judaeans simply needed to keep the faith—to keep meeting together, keep speaking about the Lord together, keep fearing the Lord together. Indeed, there are times in life when we can’t manage a lot more than this.

But the Lord knows our feeble frame, and hears our words, even and especially when others don’t.

A State of Separation (Ezek. 4.1–3)

Ezekiel 4 describes a series of ‘sign acts’. The first is found in 4.1–3, and introduces us to what’s to come. Ezekiel is told to take a brick, engrave an image of Jerusalem on it, and lay siege to it (with the help of battering rams and the like). He’s then told to take an iron griddle and set it up as a wall between himself and the city.

It’s not too hard to work out what’s depicted here. Judah’s days are over. Jerusalem will soon be besieged, and will eventually fall.1

Also reflected in Ezekiel’s sign is the reason for Jerusalem’s fall. Ezekiel depicts both himself (in his role as a prophet) as well as the God who called him to be a prophet. Jerusalem has refused to listen to Ezekiel and by extension to her God, and so God now won’t listen to her. (Jeremiah will soon be told not to pray for Judah, if he hasn’t already: Jer. 7.16, 11.14, 14.11.)

Ezekiel’s sign is, therefore, all about separation, which is signified by the iron griddle-turned-wall. Judah’s sins have ‘separated her from her God’ and led God to ‘hide his face’ from her (Isa. 59.2). The notion of ‘an iron wall’ likely alludes to Leviticus 26, where God says that if his people don’t listen to him, he’ll shatter their pride and power, and make their heavens ‘like iron’ (Lev. 26.18–19).

Israel’s 390 Days (Ezek. 4.4–5)

Next Ezekiel is told to lie on his side for 390 days and to ‘bear Israel’s iniquity’. Two questions are raised by God’s command. First, what does it mean ‘to bear iniquity’? And, second, what does the term ‘Israel’ denote here?

The first question isn’t too hard to answer. In the context of Ezekiel, ‘to bear sin’ means ‘to suffer the consequences of sin’ (e.g., Ezek. 14.10, 18.19, 44.10). Ezekiel is made to feel the consequences of Israel’s sin and hence to enter into God’s own sense of grief, as prophets often do.

The second question concerns the referent of ‘Israel’. The term ‘Israel’ can denote Israel as a whole, or can denote Judah insofar as Judah is what’s left of Israel in the land (e.g., Ezek. 3.1, 4.3, I Chr. 9.1–2ff.), or can single out the northern kingdom. Which of these senses is in mind here in Ezekiel 4.4–8? The last one seems the most likely since: a] the text distinguishes Israel’s 390 days from Judah’s 40 days, which suggests that ‘Israel’ denotes a different entity to Judah, and b] Israel’s 390 days are associated with Ezekiel’s left side and Judah’s 40 days with his right side, which makes sense if ‘Israel’ denotes the northern kingdom and ‘Judah’ the southern kingdom, since the Hebrew for ‘left’ can also mean ‘north’ and the Hebrew for ‘right’ can also mean ‘south’ (e.g., Ezek. 16.46).

The Significance of the 390 Days

We thus come to the issue of what the aforementioned 390 days signify. According to Ezekiel, they signify ‘the number of the years of Israel’s iniquity’. This could, theoretically, look forward to a future sin or period of punishment. (The word translated as ‘iniquity’ can denote either an act of sin or its penalty/consequences.) But given that, in Ezekiel’s day, Israel had already been ousted from her land, she clearly had some major transgressions in her past, so it seems reasonable to ask, ‘Did anything significant happen 390 years prior to the events of Ezekiel 4 (or thereabouts)?’. The answer is revealing. Yes. Israel started to splinter away from the tribe of Judah. In c. 977 BC, 390 years prior to the exile, Absalom ‘stole the people’s hearts’, ousted David from his kingdom, and laid claim to the throne (II Sam. 15).2 David soon regained control (II Sam. 16–19), but the seeds of division had been sown. Sheba ben Bichri immediately incited the northern tribes to revolt against David (II Sam. 20), and when Israel finally splintered in two (in Jeroboam’s day), the northern tribes repeated Sheba’s words, namely ‘We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse’ (I Kgs. 12.16).3

What we’re supposed to make of all this isn’t immediately obvious, since Absalom’s revolt doesn’t seem a very significant event in Israel’s history (given all the other things that took place). But there are a number of reasons why we should give it serious consideration as a start-date for Israel’s 390 years.

First, the purpose of prophecy isn’t to portray history in the way that we’d naturally be inclined to portray it. It’s an act of revelation. It lifts up the curtain, and reveals God’s perspective on history, which might well differ from ours.

Second, Absalom’s revolt against David was anything but an insignificant issue. Back in c. 2000 BC, God called one man forth (Abraham) from a mass of nations, and promised him that a king would arise from his loins who would bless and rule the nations (Gen. 12.1–3, 17.6–8, 16, 22.17–18, 28.11–15). And that king, it turned out, would arise from the Davidic dynasty (Gen. 49.8–10, Num. 24.9, 17, II Sam. 7.1–16, Psa. 2, Isa. 9.6, Rev. 5.5–10). David’s lineage was thus one of cosmic significance, in and through which God’s purposes for the world would be realised. So Israel’s rejection of David’s dynasty was a massive issue.

Third, the idea that Israel’s 390 years began with Absalom’s revolt makes good sense of the text of Ezekiel 4. Absalom’s revolt was an act of sin whose consequences persisted for c. 390 years—i.e., from c. 977 BC to the exile in 587 BC—, at which point Israel’s rebellion against David’s lineage was effectively brought to an end (since Judah’s autonomy was brought an end). Indeed, after the exile, none of Judah’s leaders is referred to as a ‘king’ in the Old Testament. The reign of the Gentile colossus had begun (Dan. 2).

Judah’s 40 Days (4.6–8)

We thus come to the issue of Judah’s forty days. Given our interpretation of Israel’s 390 days, we’d expect these forty days to envisage a forty year period when Judah rejected a God-ordained Judahite king, and we’d expect that forty year period to post-date the exile (given that the forty days begin after the 390 days have ended in Ezekiel’s sign act). Yet, as we noted above, no post-exilic rulers of Judah are referred to as ‘kings’ in the Old Testament. To find the fulfilment of Ezekiel’s prophecy, we therefore have to turn to the New Testament, where we encounter a man who’s born ‘king of the Jews’ (Matt. 2.2) and is crowned with glory and honour on Golgotha’s hill (Matt. 27.37, Heb. 2.9). Judah categorically rejected this Davidic king. Just as Israel said ‘We have no inheritance in David!’, so Judah said ‘We have no king but Caesar!’ (John 19.15). And then, forty years later, Jerusalem was besieged and sacked (Matt. 22.7). Judah’s forty days thus depict Judah’s rebellion against king Jesus, and Ezekiel’s forty days of prophesying against the city of Jerusalem depict the preaching of the apostles (Ezek. 4.7)—e.g., ‘The sun shall be turned to darkness…before the great and terrible day of the LORD! Save yourselves, therefore, from this crooked generation!’ (Acts 2).

Conclusion

Ezekiel 4’s sign act depicts three main states of affairs:

• the state of Jerusalem in Ezekiel’s day, i.e., shut off from God and about to be besieged (Ezek. 4.1–3),

• the state of Israel in Ezekiel’s day, i.e., languishing in a state of exile for 390 years (Ezek. 4.4–5), and

• the future state of Judah in 30–70 AD (Ezek. 4.6–8), who ultimately fall prey to the same sin as her wayward sister (Ezek. 16.51–52).

True, the view that Ezekiel 4’s sign act looks forward to 30–70 AD isn’t a widely held one, but it’s not out of keeping with Ezekiel’s overall message. Many of Ezekiel’s prophecies look beyond Judah’s return from exile in the 6th century BC towards a time when a new Israel arises and undergoes a second wilderness experience (to purge out the transgressors from their midst) (Ezek. 11.14–21, 20.33–44), which is precisely what happened in the period 30–70 AD (Heb. 4, etc.). This new Israel didn’t, however, arise out of thin air. She was born in and through the resurrection of an Ezekiel-esque ‘son of man’, who was both the king whom his people rejected and the priest who (vicariously) bore their sin (Ezek. 16.53–63). Importantly, therefore, our interpretation of Ezekiel 4 resonates with the numerical properties of Ezekiel’s sign act. Just as at the end of Israel’s 430 years in Egypt Israel acquires her promised inheritance (Exod. 12.40–41), so too did a new Israel at the end of Ezekiel’s 430 days (Gal. 3).

References

Young, R. C. (2004). When did Jerusalem fall? JETS, 47(1), 21–38. Young, R. C. (2005). Tables of reign lengths from the Hebrew court recorders. JETS, 48(2), 225–248. Young, R. C. (2007). Three verifications of Thiele’s date for the beginning of the divided kingdom. AUSS, 45(2), 163–189.

A fathered B,
B fathered C,
C fathered D,
D fathered E,
etc.

…which is interrupted on various occasions in order to draw our attention to four women—Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. Their inclusion sticks out:

A fathered B,
B fathered C,
C fathered D via Tamar,
D fathered E,
etc.

Why does Matthew do this? One suggestion is that he wants to include some shady goings-on in Jesus’ ancestry in order to make Jesus’ righteousness shine forth all the more brightly.

Perhaps. But that doesn’t seem entirely satisfying as an explanation. We’ve already got wayward kings like Manasseh and Amon in Matthew’s genealogy. And Ruth’s not connected with shady goings-on.

The most obvious connection between Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba is that they’re Gentiles (or closely connected with them). And of course the inclusion of Gentile believers in Israel is a major theme of Matthew’s Gospel. For instance, in chapter 2 the Magi come from the east (in Isaiah-60-esque fashion). In chapter 3 we have an axe at the root of Israel’s tree (Isa. 6, 10), which means that just being a son of Abraham isn’t good enough. (‘God can raise up children for Abraham from stones’.) In chapter 4 Jesus settles in ‘Galilee of the Gentiles’ and light begins to dawn on those beyond the Jordan (Isa. 9). In chapter 5 Jesus’ followers are called to be ‘the light of the world’ (cp. ‘a light to the nations’: Isa. 42, 49). And then in chapter 8, against the backdrop of a Roman centurion’s great faith, Jesus starts to talk about people who’ll come from the east and west and sit at Abraham’s table (while the ‘sons of the kingdom’ are excluded) (Isa. 43, 56).

Part of the point of Matthew’s genealogy is, therefore, to note that the inclusion of Gentiles in Israel is no new thing. It’s in Israel’s blood. Israel has always admitted Gentiles into its ranks (per its purpose to bless the nations: Gen. 12), and those Gentiles have often played major roles. Judah’s line could have come to a dead end in Canaan but for the actions of Tamar, and Elimelech and Naomi’s line would have come to a dead but for the actions of Ruth.

But there seems to be something else going on here, which is pretty much the opposite of ‘the shady goings-on theory’. Matthew wants to draw our attention to a righteousness that’s found in unusual places and outshines most of Israel’s.

When Judah fails to do his duty and continue his line, Tamar steps us, and, according to Judah, she acts more righteously than he does (Gen. 38.26). After almost a whole generation of Israelites have failed to believe that God will give them the land, Rahab simply takes God at his word. And, while Elimelech and Naomi are set on leaving God’s chosen land, Ruth wants to relocate there and be associated with Israel’s God.

That leaves Bathsheba, who doesn’t have an obvious connection with righteous behaviour, but, tellingly, she’s not referred to as ‘Bathsheba’; she’s referred to as the wife of Uriah, who fits the above pattern to a tee. While David behaves wretchedly, Uriah shows loyalty to God and his people. And so Yahweh’s light (which is what the name Uriah means) shines out more brightly from a Hittite than it does from Israel’s king.

Righteousness is thus found in unexpected places in Matthew’s genealogy. And that continues to be the case as Matthew’s Gospel unfolds.

Jesus doesn’t find as great faith in Israel as he does in chapter 8’s Roman centurion, and he’s equally amazed by the faith of the Canaanite woman in chapter 15. Indeed, the Canaanite woman is the New Testament equivalent of Ruth insofar as she’s moved by a desire to help her family, thrice turned away when she seeks to associate herself with God’s people (Ruth 1.8, 11, 15, Matt. 15.23, 24, 26), and ready to cast herself at the feet of an Israelite redeemer. (In Matthew 21 Jesus then warns Israel that he’ll lease her vineyard out to people who’ll give him the fruits that he deserves.)

Righteousness is thus found in unexpected places in Matthew’s Gospel. And in a sense that’s what Jerusalem’s leaders need to grasp. Jesus does his work outside ‘the establishment’, calls his followers to practice a righteousness that exceeds the Pharisees’, and will be crucified outside the camp. His resurrected life and called out Church then become the ultimate example of righteousness that arises from unexpected places (Matt. 28).

Introduction

Historically, the vast majority of Bible commentators took the book of Daniel to be the memoirs of a 6th century BC exiled prophet. Sadly, that’s no longer the case. Many modern-day commentators take the book of Daniel to have been completed in the days of the Maccabees, i.e., in 165 BC or thereabouts.

A helpful summary of this view can be found on the website infidels.org, part of which is reproduced below. For convenience, I’ll simply call it ‘the Late Date view’.

The original purpose of the book of Daniel was to comfort and encourage persecuted Jews during the Maccabean revolt. It all began in December of 167 BC, when the Seleucid emperor Antiochus Epiphanes desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem with an idol bearing his likeness. He went on to force his Jewish subjects to abandon the Sabbath, circumcision, and food laws, torturing and killing all who opposed him. At this, the Jews revolted under Judas Maccabeus, driving the Seleucid armies out of Palestine and recapturing the Temple…in December of 164 BC.

During the revolt, pious Jews began to circulate an anthology of stories allegedly written four hundred years earlier by a Jewish hero named Daniel. …The prophet Daniel supposedly predicted that four great empires were to rise and fall in succession between his day and the end of history: Babylonia, Media, Persia, and Greece. Alexander the Great’s Greek Empire was to break up into four smaller empires, the most important being the Seleucid Empire in Syria to the north and the Ptolemaic Empire in Egypt to the south. After seven Greek kings had ruled in succession, the eighth was to snatch the throne from three candidates with more right to it. This king, Antiochus Epiphanes, provoked the Maccabean War.

The book of Daniel predicted that God would miraculously destroy Antiochus Epiphanes, resurrect the righteous dead, and set up an everlasting, worldwide Israelite Empire three and a half years after the desecration of the Temple. …The Messianic Age should, therefore, have begun in June of 163 BC. Since these predictions largely came true until the middle of the war (and failed thereafter), we know that the author lived in Seleucid times, not Babylonian times.

In other words, advocates of the Late Date view claim to have identified an important phenomenon in the book of Daniel. Daniel is hazy about the details of life in 6th century Babylon, gets things right when he talks about the events of his own time (such as the desecration of the Temple in 167 BC), and gets things wildly wrong when he talks about post 165 BC events (such as the demise of Antiochus), all of which is neatly explained by the Late Date view.

Trouble at the Ranch

Needless to say, there are a number of problems with the Late Date view, not least of which is its denial of Biblical inerrancy together with its incompatibility with the words of Jesus (Matt. 24.15–16, Mark 13.14).

But suppose we set those issues aside for the moment. Does the Late Date view stack up from the point of view of someone who’s not a committed Christian? Not to my mind. Below, by way of illustration, I’ll highlight three of the more major problems with the Late Date view, the first of which has recently been brought into sharp focus by the use of AI.

Problem #1

Our earliest copies of the Hebrew Bible are typically dated to the 2nd century BC (or thereabouts), and include the book of Daniel. That’s always been a tough sell for Late Daters since it requires us to envisage a sequence of events like those set out below.

1. Daniel is finalised in 165 BC, presumably somewhere in the vicinity of Jerusalem (in and around the Temple).

2. Daniel comes to be canonised despite the failure of its prophecies soon after 165 BC.

3. Daniel gets copied and disseminated as far afield as Qumran, where the powers-that-be in Jerusalem were seen as corrupt.

4. Daniel gets accepted as Scripture in Qumran by the late 2nd century BC.

As I say, that strikes me as a tough sell. What could make it even tougher is the fact that a team of researchers have recently published a paper claiming that our earliest copies of Daniel date to 230–160 BC. If that’s correct—which it might be even despite its use of AI—, then we’d need the above events to have transpired over the course of five years in the midst of a heated battle even as Daniel’s prophecies were being falsified, which would move the Late Date view from the category of ‘unlikely’ to ‘pretty much unthinkable’. Indeed, one advocate of the Late Date view has argued that the scroll 4Q114 (which contains portions of Daniel 8–11) simply can’t have been written prior to 167 BC due to the Late Date view, so the calibrated date range of 230–160 BC is (in his view) demonstrably ‘too early’. I don’t want to be overly critical of his claim. (I’m not familiar with all of the presuppositions entailed in dating the Dead Sea Scrolls, of which there are no doubt many, and I take a lot of the results of radiometric and palaeographic dating to be mistaken anyway.) I do, however, want to point out that debates over when Daniel was written aren’t a case of biased Bible-believers on one side shouting at unbiased text critics on the other. Everyone in the debate has to deal with evidence that appears to point in different directions (as we’ll see below), and everyone has presuppositions that they bring to the table, whether consciously or otherwise. Indeed, one wonders if the AI-driven method of dating 4Q114 arrived at an earlier-than-usual date because no-one told it about the Late Date view.

Problem #2

The second issue I want to mention is related, viz. the argument that Daniel gets things wrong when he talks about the 6th century, but not when he talks about the events of his own time (the 2nd century). At first blush this argument sounds pretty convincing, but it turns out to be predicated on a highly selective reading of the text. For instance, Daniel’s depiction of a ten-horned beast, three of whose horns are subdued by a later (eleventh) horn, has no obvious referent in the Seleucid era (Dan. 7.7–8, 20). Late Daters therefore interpret Daniel in a very sympathetic way, which they do by taking ‘ten’ to simply mean ‘lots’, interpreting co-existent horns as successive rulers (rather than co-regents), and allowing Daniel’s three subdued horns to be put down by rulers other than the beast’s eleventh horn. When it comes to Daniel’s accounts of 6th century history, however, these same interpreters become decidedly unsympathetic. For instance, they insist that Daniel portrays Belshazzar as Nebuchadnezzar’s immediate successor (which he wasn’t), and then charge Daniel with historical inaccuracy.

Problem #3

The final issue I want to mention is one that often seems to be overlooked. Suppose, like the Late Daters’ Daniel, you’re a prophet with no real prophetic ability writing under the moniker of a bona fide prophet in 165 BC. What kind of thing might you predict? The imminent demise of Antiochus? Why not? It was likely to happen, and would go down well with your hearers. What you wouldn’t predict is that Antiochus would conquer Egypt, Libya, and Ethiopia (which is how the Late Daters interpret Daniel 11.42–43)! Of all the scenarios that could have played out after 165 BC, that was the least likely. Antiochus was a spent force; Rome was the undisputed superpower of the day; Egypt was a paid-up member of Rome’s protectorate; and Antiochus had just been warned by the Romans that he’d have them to deal with if he set foot in Egypt again. Antiochus was about as likely to conquer Egypt in 164 BC as Syria is to conquer Turkey and Georgia next year.

Conclusions

The tides of scholarly opinion frequently change, as does the state of ‘the evidence’ (not least because all evidence has to be interpreted, which has to be done by fallible human beings). Deciding to base our view of when Daniel was written not on the words of Jesus, but on the latest view of the relevant manuscript evidence (and/or ‘what most scholars believe’ about Daniel) isn’t something we’ll be proud of when we come to stand before our Lord. Besides, research that’s founded on the words of Jesus will ultimately bear fruit (if we persevere with it), which can’t be said of research that goes against them.

First, the text of II Sam. 11–12 consists of five basic ‘moments’, which give it a decidedly Genesis-3-like feel. If Genesis 3 recounts Adam’s fall, then II Samuel 11–12 recounts David’s. We have:

• a dereliction of duty (David doesn’t go out to fight), on the back of which temptation comes,

• an act of sin, in which David takes the forbidden fruit,

• a failed cover up (in one case with leaves and in the other with lies),

• God’s verdict and curse, and

• God’s remedy.

These similarities aren’t a mere literary flourish. They’re intended to portray David’s sin in proto-typical terms. While David’s sin has certain particularities, the main ingredients of his sin are common to every man’s sin.

Second, the information we’re given about Bathsheba’s ‘uncleanness’ might initially seem superfluous, but it’s not. Bathsheba’s uncleanness was most likely ‘menstrual impurity’, which makes it one of the most contagious types of uncleanness described in Leviticus: it continues for seven days, spreads to anyone or anything the unclean woman touches, and can even spread via indirect contact (Lev. 15.19–23). As such, it’s the perfect metaphor for David’s sin. What starts as a sinful desire soon leads to adultery, deceit, and murder, and the results of David’s sin will affect his men and his household for generations to come (II Sam. 12.10).

Third, David’s sin is dealt with in cursory fashion in II Samuel 11; the majority of the chapter is devoted to David’s cover-up (II Sam. 11.5–25). David puts as much distance as he possibly can between him and Uriah’s death: he sends Uriah off to Ammon with a letter in his hand, which instructs Joab to send Uriah into the thick of the battle so the Ammonites can dispose of him while David is still in his palace, hundreds of miles away. Yet in II Samuel 12 it is God’s turn to ‘send’ a message (via Nathan the prophet), which slices through David’s layers of secondary causation with a single sentence: “You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword…and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites” (II Sam. 12.9).1 It is a statement of remarkable power. Uriah may ostensibly have been struck by an Ammonite sword, but the hand on the hilt was David’s.

Fourth, the text of II Sam. 12.13 is highly significant. David is worthy of death, and yet God ‘transfers’ (העביר) his sin/penalty onto an innocent party. At one level, that seems awkward, and shocks us. Yet if God does not have the prerogative to act in such a way, then the foundations of penal substitutionary atonement are at stake. And the flow of the text is quite clear: David will not die; his child will die in his place (12.14).2

Tragic though they may be, therefore, the events of II Sam. 11–12 point us forward to the arrival of God’s Messiah—the Bathsheba-like ewe, destined to be slaughtered (Isa. 53.7), the Uriah-like servant, sent to the battlefield with orders to be slain, the Son born into a house from which the sword would not depart until it was finally satisfied in His death (II Sam. 12.10).