A Dramatic Fulfillment of Prophecy
In Leviticus 26, God repeatedly told the ancient Israelites He would punish them “seven times more for their sins.” This means He would punish them with extra intensity if they, who had known God, rebelled against Him. But it also means that His promises of blessings, including ownership of the Holy Land, would be withheld for “seven times.” In Hebrew, a “time” is also a specific duration: a 360-day year. For example, compare Daniel 12:7, where the expression “a time, times, and an half” (31/2) is used to describe a period of 1,260 days (31/2 x 360 = 1,260). This same period of time is described as Revelation 11:2 and 13:5 as “forty and two months” (42 months x 30 days = 1,260 days).
Seven 360-day “times” is 2,520 days. But the books of Moses also introduce us to the day-for-a-year principle. Israel’s spies spent 40 days scouting out the Promised Land before Israel refused to enter. God punished them by withholding the Promised Land for 40 years. By this same principle, Leviticus 26 prophesies that God would withhold the land from Israel for 2,520 years.
Ten tribes of Israel broke off from the tribe of Judah (from whom the Jews descend) and formed a separate kingdom. These northern tribes were conquered by the Assyrians and became lost to history. The kingdom of Judah was conquered by the Babylonians sometime later, in 605 B.C. For most of history, they were no longer an independent state. The land of Judea was a Persian satrap, a Greek territory then a Roman province.
Going forward in time 2,520 years from that captivity brings us to 1917, the very year Britain conquered the modern land of Israel. As Herbert W. Armstrong proved in his book The United States and Britain in Prophecy, the English are also descended from the people of Israel—from a tribe of the northern kingdom. Thus, the land returned to Israelite rule, fulfilling God’s prophecy. In fact, the prophecy was fulfilled to the exact day. Nebuchadnezzar formerly accepted the surrender of the Jews on what would be Dec. 9, 604 B.C., on the modern calendar. The Turks made their formal surrender to the British on the same day, Dec. 9, 1917, 2,520 years later.
