Sabbath Year Cycles & jubilee years

The Sabbath Year Breakthrough For Reliably Narrowing Down the Timing of Prophetic Events

For me, this is one of most exciting Bible prophecy discoveries. Not much trumps being able to immediately narrowdown the list of possible fulfillment years for prophetic milestones, such as the start of the GT, by one seventh. This ismade possible by the fact that the 70th Week of Daniel scripturally must end in a Sabbath year. Consequently, thismeans that: Jesus must return in a Sabbath year. The (post-tribulation) rapture only happens in a Sabbath year. The GT must begin in year 4; the middle year of a Sabbath year cycle (Dan 9:27=Mt 24:15). Wormwood must come very soon before that, probably in year 3 of a Sabbath year cycle. Mystery Babylon falls between Wormwood's passage (year 3 of cycle) and the start of the Tribulation (year 4)

Thus, none of these events can happen “any year now”, but can actually only happen in one out of any given set ofseven years!

Many think that God would never allow us to know his plan that well because “no man knows the day or hour.” Otherssay that to know these things violates “God's sovereignty”. Or perhaps God has to keep us guessing about when the endis so we do not spontaneously start to “beat the menservants and maidens” once we know for certain there is a delay of Xyears (Lk 12:45).Well, we have already covered previously that “not knowing the day nor hour” was not going to remain true foreverfor God's righteous servants. God's sovereignty does indeed limit us from knowing many things now, but it is clear thatthe end times timeline is not one of them because God states in Daniel and Revelation that he wanted his wise servants inthe end times to understand what he was revealing, including many timing figures contained in both books. As far as thehuman tendency to backslide when God's judgment seems far off, that is only a problem when someone is not fully committedto God's way of life anyway. The realization that end time events are not imminent just frees them and their freewill from a false sense of urgency that may be artificially keeping them straight. This is a necessary progression for theirgrowth into a close walk with God when they are ready.Besides, just as Daniel 12:10 says about the wicked not understanding, it's doubtful that just anyone will come acrossthis information, understand it and see its importance unless they believe the Bible and have a close walk with God. It is

hidden, radical and requires a high degree of Bible literacy to see, something the secular or casual, lukewarm or nominalChristian does not yet possess. It will look like foolishness or just another subjective speculation to them.

Sabbath Years in the Torah

Most Christians have not studied the Torah or the OT in detail, so they are unfamiliar with the Sabbath years (Heb.:shmittah), and related Jubilee years (Heb.: yovel). Similar to how the seven day weekly cycle ends in the Sabbath day(Saturday), Sabbath year cycles are a group of seven years ending in a special Sabbath year. Israel was given specific instructionsregarding these years, the primary of which was for farmers not to cultivate or harvest their land, leaving it foronly the poor to eat of.

Exodus 23:10-11 — 10 For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield, 11 but the seventh year you shall let it restand lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat...You shall do likewise with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard.Leviticus 25:2-7 — 2 ... the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord. 3 For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years youshall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits, 4 but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land ... Youshall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. 5 You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of yourundressed vine... 6 The Sabbath of the land shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves and for yourhired servant and the sojourner who lives with you, 7 and for your cattle and for the wild animals that are in your land: all its yield shallbe for food.

Later, these requirements included the release of debts and slaves:

Deuteronomy 15:1-2, 12 — 1 At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release. 2 ... every creditor shall release what hehas lent to his neighbor 12 If your brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you, he shall serve you six years, and in theseventh year you shall let him go free from you.

Incidentally, the reason the Southern Kingdom of Judah was exiled for 70 years is tied to the breaking of this commandment.They were put into exile one year for every Sabbath year they broke during a period of 490 years. When the70-year penalty was fulfilled, King Cyrus of Persia freed the Jews in a sudden change of heart.

Related Jubilee Years and Their 49- Year Cycle (not 50)

Related to this is the Jubilee year, the only other special recurring year in Scripture. It is basically a week of Sabbathyears, in the same pattern as the Sabbath day and Sabbath year cycles, with one difference:

Leviticus 25:8-10 — 8 “You are to count seven sabbatical years, seven times seven years, so that the time period of the sevensabbatical years amounts to 49. 9 Then you are to sound a trumpet loudly in the seventh month, on the tenth [day] of the month; you willsound it throughout your land on the Day of Atonement. 10 You are to consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim freedom in the land forall its inhabitants. It will be your Jubilee, when each of you is to return to his property and each of you to his clan.

This confusing passage leaves you wondering if the cycle spoken of is 49 or 50 years long. Most people understand itto mean 50, but this view actually breaks Scripture: the requirement that Jubilees follow every seventh Sabbath year. AJubilee cycle of 50 years falls out of sync with the Sabbath year cycle since 50 is not a multiple of seven. It falls at theright place for the first Jubilee but with each subsequent Jubilee cycle it drifts a year later each time. Only a Jubilee on a49-year cycle stays in sync (7 x 7 = 49).

49 vs. 50 Year Jubilee Cycles with Sabbath Years

So why does the Bible refer to the Jubilee as a 50th year? It is so when you count it the way it tells you to, not from thelast Jubilee as the 50-year cycle proponents do, but from year one of the Jubilee cycle using inclusive reckoning (as istypical in the Bible). Counting from the wrong starting point breaks the Scripture telling us how to count Jubilees. Thismeans each Jubilee is really the first year of the first Sabbath year cycle of the next Jubilee cycle. In other words, the Jubileeyear does not interrupt the Sabbath year cycle, but is always followed by the second year of that Sabbath year cycle.In this way every Sabbath year remains a multiple of seven years away from any other Sabbath year in history.

The Twist: How the Jubilee Year is like Pentecost Day

That leads to the small difference I referred to above. If the Jubilee were to follow exactly the pattern of the Sabbath dayand Sabbath year cycles, then the Jubilee would happen on the 7th Sabbath year, or 49th year, itself, as a “Sabbath year ofSabbath years”. Instead, it makes the following year, the 50th year, special, in effect giving you a double Sabbath yearevery seventh time (fields rest in years 49 and 50). This is why it emphasizes the number 50, to differentiate it from thepreceding 49th year—not because it is a “50-year cycle”!

By the way, this mirrors the Pentecost “omer count” cycle from the Torah. After counting seven weeks from the morningafter the Sabbath falling during Passover week, you end up with double days of rest on that weekend when Pentecostfalls: the 49th day is always Saturday or Sabbath day and the 50th day of Pentecost is always a Sunday. Further, there issimilarly no instruction to restart the Sabbath day cycle after the day of Pentecost. In other words, Pentecost is always

followed by Monday, not a second Sunday or new first day of the week that is eight days from the first day of the lastweek. With this additional parallel witness we can be sure that the Sabbath year cycle, like the Sabbath day cycle, is anunbroken sequence of years and multiples of seven years apart from each other. Likewise the Jubilee must be every 49years, not 50.

Time-Saving Discernment

By the way, just from properly understanding the Jubilee Cycle, you can save yourself a lot of time when consideringother timelines and chronologies out there. Simply find out if it is based on a 50-year cycle. If it is, there is little chancehaving such a major error that it can come to correct conclusions. And even if it uses a 49-year cycle, it is still probablywrong if it is uses the Jubilee to predict the return of Jesus, as we shall now see.

Proving Daniel's 70 Weeks Are Sabbath Year Cycles

Day of the Lord is at the End of 70 th Week

I explain this all so we can better discern when the Bible mentions a special “year” if it is referring to a Sabbath or Jubileeyear. Once you can do that, it is very easy to demonstrate that the 70th Week of Daniel is not just any group of sevencontiguous years in time, but specifically aligned on the Sabbath year cycle (and with nothing to do with the Jubilee) andtherefore ending in a Sabbath year. We can demonstrate this from both internal and external evidence.The prophecies about the Day of the Lord, the day when Jesus returns to judge, avenge the righteous (Rev 6:10) andreign, provide confirmation. This day is established by the Bible as coming on Yom Kippur, nine days after the rapture(Trumpets), which itself comes right when the GT has ended. Jesus said plainly that the GT was the 42 months starting with the AoD (Mt 24:15, 21, 29). Several verses attest that his Second Coming on Yom Kippurnot only occurs on a special day, but also in a special year.

Day of the Lord in 70 th Week is a Special Day and Year

Isaiah 61:1–2 — 1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor;he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;2 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn;Isaiah 63:3–4 — 3 "I have trodden the winepress alone ... trod them in my anger and trampled them in my wrath; their lifebloodspattered on my garments, and stained all my apparel. 4 For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and my year of redemption hadcome.Isaiah 34:8 — For the Lord has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.

This year that God's day of vengeance comes in, is described by Isaiah three times as a year of God's favor, recompenseand redemption. Both the Sabbath and Jubilee were years that God's favor allowed the people to subsist on theplantings of the previous years. The word “redemption” might tip you in the direction of Jubilee since it was a year whenalienated lands were returned to their original owners, something that did not happen on the Sabbath year. Nevertheless,slaves had their redemption in the Sabbath year as well.However, if the last year, or 7th year of the 70th week is called a year of favor, then it suggests that it is a Sabbath yearrather than a Jubilee year. The Jubilee is never a 7th year, but a 50th or as far as Sabbath year cycles go, an 8th or 1st (dependingon how you look at it). This idea would be confirmed if we could see that final, 7th year of the other 69 weekswere also considered special years, even Sabbath years specifically.

The 69 th Week Also Ends in a Special Year

It turns out that Jesus quoted Isaiah 61:1-2 at the start of his ministry. He called attention to it as a dual prophecy whichwas partially fulfilled in his First Coming and would be later completely fulfilled in his Second Coming. Significantly,Daniel said Jesus' First Coming would occur exactly after a full 69 x 7 years or at the end of 69th weeks (7 + 62 weeks),with him dying after that 69th week passed.

Daniel 9:25-26 — 25 Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem untilMessiah the Prince will be seven weeks and 62 weeks. It will be rebuilt with a plaza and a moat, but in difficult times. 26 After those62 weeks the Messiah will be cut off

I believe this coming of “ Messiah ” was reckoned not from his birth or from his “ triumphal entry ” , but by the year he officially began his ministry as Messiah. This clearly happened after his 30 th birthday and his baptism by John and beganpreaching in full power of the Holy Spirit. His first public announcement after his baptism and fasting came soon after atthe synagogue in Nazareth as Luke records:

Luke 4:16-21 — 16 He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. As usual, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbathday and stood up to read. 17 The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to Him, and unrolling the scroll, He found the place where itwas written: 18 The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me toproclaim freedom to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’sfavor. 20 He then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. And the eyes of everyone in the synagogue werefixed on Him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today as you listen, this Scripture has been fulfilled.”

Notice how Jesus read this passage at the start of his ministry with the claim that, “today this scripture is fulfilled inyour hearing.” For this statement to be true, the year that he read it in also had to be a special year of God's favor, or Sabbathor Jubilee year. Otherwise the “year of favor” would not have been fulfilled. Notice also how he stopped readingfrom Isaiah 61 right before the part about “the day of vengeance of our God”. He could not announce that it was a “dayof vengeance” as he had announced regarding the “year of favor”. This day of vengeance would only be fulfilled whenhe returned on the Day of the Lord to fight the Battle in another “year of favor” or Sabbath year. If he had read that sectionof the verse, he would have invalidated his claim that what he had just read had been fulfilled in their hearing thatday. Jesus' quotation of Isaiah 61 is incredibly significant and helpful. It tells us that both the last year of the 69th Weekwhich he claimed to have partially fulfilled and the last year of 70th Week, which he clearly will come again to fulfill“fully”, are both a “year of favor”. This makes it even more likely that both were Sabbath years, as 7th years can be, andless likely that both of these 7th years are somehow 50th or Jubilee years.

Identifying the Historic Sabbath and Jubilee Year Cycles

Because Jubilee years happen only once or twice a lifetime, we should be able to check history and see if Jesus' ministrybegan anywhere near one. I put it this way because scholars do not agree on when Jesus was born, crucified, or when hisministry commenced. Nevertheless, there are limits to reasonable theories. They all put his ministry as beginning within afew years of 29 AD. However, they are all close enough together that if the historical Jubilee can be known with any accuracyand no Jubilee falls near 29 AD then we can rule out a Jubilee year for the 69th

Week.Identifying the historic Sabbath and Jubilee year cycles is not as hard as it at first sounds. As we covered above, everySabbath year must be a multiple of seven years from any other, just as every Jubilee year must be a multiple of 49 yearsfrom others. So, if you have evidence for enough such years across history, you can easily conclude the correct cycle.Establishing enough historic Sabbath or Jubilee years to do this requires a detailed painstaking study into ancient history,which is not my specialty. When something is not my specialty, I always go to the experts and let them present theircases. Of course, my investigation was greatly simplified by the knowledge that the scriptural Jubilee cycle is 49 yearsand not 50. Fortunately, the majority of the research out there is based on a 50 years cycle, following the traditional majorityview of the Talmud50 so this saved me a lot of time.

Destruction of Temple in 70 AD – Sabbath Year

The best 49-year Jubilee cycle based research I have found is from Qadesh La Yahweh Press, which is available at theirsite for free download51. As far as the Sabbath years go, their research concurs exactly with the research of Christianchronologist Eugene Faulstich. All other scholarly sources I checked were within 6 months of what Eugene Faulstich andYahweh.org separately concluded for Sabbath years (simply because they assert that the Sabbath years begin in the fallinstead of the spring, just as they assert is the case for even normal biblical years).Among many other proof years examined, they both conclude that the year of the destruction of the Second Temple in70 AD was indeed a Sabbath year. They also both date the Feast of Sukkot of Nehemiah 8 as 456/455 BC (other scholarsoften date it a year earlier. Note that because biblical years start in the spring, they always span two Gregorian yearswhich are listed together with a slash). This year is often selected because Nehemiah 8 records that the Torah was readaloud during that Feast of Sukkot, something that the Torah prescribed to be done every 7th time—in the Sabbath year.Although they do not agree on the Jubilee cycle, neither of their cycles places a Jubilee year near 29 AD, ruling out aJubilee year for what Isaiah 61:1-2's “year of favor” is referring to.

28/29 AD Also Historic Sabbath Year

Our case would be even stronger if we knew what year Jesus began his ministry. Jesus read from Isaiah in Nazareth earlyin the beginning of his ministry, which commenced soon after he turned 30 (Lk 3:23). Thanks to the astronomical evidencefor what the Star of Bethlehem was and when it appeared we can be pretty certain that Jesus was born on September11th, 3 BC which appears to be the Feast of Trumpets. This would make him turn 30 in Fall, 28 AD, and “about 30years old” in early 29 AD.If Jesus was baptized, fasted for 40 days, and made it to Nazareth within six months of his birthday, then his announcementof a special “ year of favor ” would have been during the biblical year of 28/29 AD (Spring, 28 – Spring, 29 since biblical years begin in spring, not the dead of winter). If this is correct then 28/29 would be a Sabbath year. Doeshistory bear this out?According to the research presented above, if 456/455 BC was a Sabbath year, then 28/29 AD, some 69 Sabbath yearcycles later, would indeed be a Sabbath year (-456 + 7 x 69 + 1 for no year zero). If Jesus proclaimed a Sabbath year tofulfill Isaiah 61 at the end of the 69th Week, then we can reasonably expect him to fulfill that prophecy fully in anotherSabbath year at the end of the 70th Week.

First Week, Correct Decree to Nehemiah

By the way, this also implies that the Sabbath year of 456/455 BC was the year of the correct decree of Daniel 9:25,which began the 70 Weeks count. This would be the word of Artaxerxes I the King to Nehemiah (in Nehemiah 2:5-8) toboth specifically return and rebuild Jerusalem (something that the other popularly considered first two decrees do notspecifically mention, as Daniel 9:25 requires. The city was still in ruins when Ezra and Nehemiah arrived, 100 years afterthe first return).

The Next Sabbath Year Is...

So when is the next Sabbath year for our times? You can find out by repeatedly adding seven to any other confirmed Sabbathyear. If you go from 70 AD, you will add seven 277 times before you arrive at the first future Sabbath year. Thatnext Sabbath year which has a chance of fulfilling prophecy will be 2016/2017.

If the 70th Week does not start with thatcycle, then the earliest it can begin after that will be 2023.

Or Maybe Not?

Some who have studied Sabbath years may disagree with my 2016 conclusion. To them I would say, you may be right.Yet, please note that getting the Sabbath year cycle right is not important to Knowing the Future. The seals, trumpets andbowls of Revelation give us the sequence of events and do not depend on the Sabbath year cycle. We know from this sequencethat no major prophesied event can happen, including Wormwood or the GT, before Elijah comes. So even without knowing the next Sabbath year, we can always know we have untilElijah appears and tells us otherwise.

There is no sign that the start of the seven-year Sabbatical cycle is a publicevent that we can watch for and respond to. To the contrary, Jesus pointed to an event 3½ years later as the visible signalof the GT: the AoD. This could explain why Jesusdid not tell us to watch for any treaty as the earliest warning sign.

Abomination of Desolation is already atop the Temple mount:

There is surprisinglymuch confusion on the AoD considering that Daniel clearly references two fulfillments of this, including one historicalfulfillment by Antiochus (Dan 11:31) and one for the “time of the end” (Dan 9:27=Dan 8:12-17=Dan 12:9-11

The 69 th Week Predicts the Start of Jesus' Ministry, Not the End :

Daniel 9:25's 69 weeks “until Messiah the

prince” are interpreted by some to have ended with Jesus' death or triumphal entry on Palm Sunday. But Daniel 9 sayshe died after 69 weeks, not at. He was publicly proclaimed by John the Baptist to be the Lamb of God at his baptismso this is a better natural fit for the first fulfillment of “69 weeks until Messiah the Prince”. We will see later that thehistoric Sabbath year cycle confirms this. As does the Gospel account of when Jesus read from Isaiah in the synagogueat Nazareth proclaiming it was a Sabbath year right after his baptism by John the Baptist.

No “360-day Prophetic Calendar” Basis:

You may have seen date setting based on turning the 70 Weeks into yearsmultiplied by a “360 day year prophetic calendar” value which supposedly allows you to pinpoint the very day of Jesus'“triumphal entry” (usually in some year after 30 AD). The major problem with this is that there is no such thingas a prophetic calendar used or defined in Scripture, but this belief comes from allegorizing the literal 1260 days and42 months of the Tribulation because they do not presently fit our 365¼-day year reality (but they will literally fitafter Wormwood passes).

The 69 th Week is a Dual Prophecy:

The 69 weeks not only predict the year by which Jesus would be cut off, but alsogive us the literal week into his ministry after which he was cut off. This would explain why the word seven alonewas used without a qualifier such as “years”. Michael Rood's “70 Week Ministry of the Messiah” series first alertedme to this possibility. It provided the answer to the problem I was having with a 3 BC birth of Messiah, a 30 year ageat start of his ministry in a historically confirmed Sabbath year, and a death in 30 AD followed by exactly 40 years ofcessation of miracles in the temple service before the destruction of it in 70 AD (as the Talmud records). Those timepoints leave only room for a 1½-year ministry. It appears that the traditional “3½ year ministry” is based on two misinterpretedor mistaken verses in the Book of John, which seem to refer to the Feast of Passover but do not.

The GT is only 42 months duration:

You always hear about the “seven-year tribulation”. It oftenmakes me cringe when I hear it because in six places the Bible gives it a length of 3½ years.

The Great Tribulation

The GT is directly tied to the 70 Weeks of Daniel, so it is natural to cover them both together. This also is a very familiar

prophetic term describing the time when the Antichrist will rule from Jerusalem, enforce the Mark of the Beast on theworld, and persecute and “destroy” the holy people. As mentioned earlier, the GT comes soon after the Wormwood episodeends at the 4th trumpet. For the survivors, it will literally be the end of the world as we know it—until the “NewWorld Order” arrives to replace it with Hell on Earth as many Bible prophecies describe.God will bar Satan from Heaven and release him to execute his anger on Earth for a short time of great trouble. Whatmakes it unique? For nearly 6000 years, Satan has deceived the whole world and silently controlled all the governmentsand institutions. Yet there has been tolerance for national sovereignty and biblical faiths. But during the GT, Satan willopenly rule through the Antichrist and enslave the entire Earth with a single world government. He will finally get awaywith requiring the worship of its ruler as god with zero tolerance for the biblical faith (or any other). Those who refusethis idolatry and are not either part of the 144,000 or part of “the Woman” of Revelation 12 hiding at “the place in thewilderness” will be put to death.