The Mystery of Ephraim

Ezekiel Timeline – 390/40 Years according to the Masoretic Text.

God says in Isaiah 46 “Remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is none other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure,’” Isaiah 46:9-10.

God works out the end from the beginning and our endeavour is to understand how are the numbers work out. God gives some clues and hints here and there and the most puzzling of this Ezekiel Timeline 390/40 Years which is found in Ezekiel 4 according to the Masoretic Text.

I’ve always been wondering if there are any thoughts to the contrary? And so my constant updates.

The figures given by the Septuagint (of 150/190/40 years) are slightly different and is evaluated here.

Ezekiel 4

¹ “Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile and lay it before thee, and portray upon it the city, even Jerusalem;

² and lay siege against it, and build a fort against it, and cast a mound against it. Set the camp also against it, and set battering rams against it round about.

³ Moreover take thou unto thee an iron plate, and set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city; and set thy face against it, and it shall be besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it. This shall be a sign to the house of Israel.

⁴ “Also lie thou upon thy left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it: according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it, thou shalt bear their iniquity.

⁵ For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days; so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. — start with the full house of Israel and last for 390 years

⁶ And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year. — after the start of full house of Israel and last for 350 years, the house of Judah join in and, together, proceed on for another 40 to sum up to 390 years

⁷ Therefore thou shalt set thy face toward the siege of Jerusalem; and thine arm shall be uncovered, and thou shalt prophesy against it.

⁸ And behold, I will lay bands upon thee, and thou shalt not turn thee from one side to another until thou hast ended the days of thy siege.

⁹ “Take thou also unto thee wheat and barley and beans, and lentils and millet and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side; three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof.

— from the start with 10 tribes and ends with the full house of Israel: 390 years: why the difference? Perhaps Judah had undergo numerous pogroms and cleanings whereas the ten-tribes of Israel has none since the day when went captivity and into apparent oblivion

A clue for this Ezekiel Timeline – 390/40 Years could be found in a parallel exile. the house of Judah had evidently failed to observe the land’s one-year-in-seven Sabbath for 490 years, so the term of the Babylonian captivity was set at 70 years to make up the deficit.

For in II Chronicles 36:21 it says, “The land enjoyed its sabbath rests; all the time of its desolation it rested, until the seventy years were completed in fulfillment of the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah.” This is a reference to Jeremiah 25:11.

So if the house of Israel is to be penalised for 390 years (a day for a year) and where this length of captivity is a redemption for the years Israel didn’t keep the land Sabbath, it would be for a periof of 390 X 7 = 2730 years.

Given that, by most western reckoning, the house of Israel was exiled in 721 BC and after 2730 years it will bring the time to 2009 AD.

The Global Financial Crisis of 2008 was regarded as the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression of 1929. Predatory lending targeting low-income homebuyers, excessive risk-taking by global financial institutions, and the bursting of the United States housing bubble culminated in a “perfect storm.”

The International Monetary Fund estimated that large US and European banks lost more than $1 trillion on toxic assets and from bad loans from January 2007 to September 2009, resulting in several bank failures and the US unemployment rate peaked at 11% in October 2009.

The stage was set for the gradual decline of the United States amd much of the West. But, eating away like a moth, China has by then accumulated more than a few decades of silent but rapid growth.

China’s ongoing rise has clearly carry enormous implications for both the country itself and was discarding away the industrial prowess of the house of Israel, especially in the face of China’s ability to devote resources to science and innovation, financing overseas infrastructure projects or military spending with new warships and carriers beyond China’s coastal waters.

But in much of the United States, many companies had moved overseas, leaving their industrial land and factories behind.

All these declining scenarios could be categorised by their Biblical intensities: from light to intense . . .

a. light

“Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower, which is on the head of the fat valleys of them that are overcome with wine!” Isaiah 28:1

“I will be unto Ephraim as a moth,” Hosea 5:12

Clarke – I will consume them little by little, as a moth frets a garment.
Gill – which eats garments, penetrates into them, feeds on them privately, secretly, without any noise, and gradually and slowly consumes them; but at last utterly, that they are of no use and profit:

b. more serious

“A third part of thee shall die with the pestilence, and with famine shall they be consumed in the midst of thee; and a third part shall fall by the sword round about thee; and I will scatter a third part into all the winds, and I will draw out a sword after them.” Ezekiel 5:11-12

“And I will cast you out of My sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim” Jeremiah 7:15

c. very intense

“Ephraim shall be desolate in the day of rebuke; among the tribes of Israel have I made known that which shall surely be” Hosea 5:9

“The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under feet” Isaiah 28:3

For I will be unto Ephraim as a lion, and as a young lion to the house of Judah; I, even I, will tear and go away; I will take away, and none shall rescue him. Hosea 5:14

Calvin: “I will not,” he says, “be any longer like a moth and a worm; I shall come like a lion to you, with an open mouth to devour you . . .

Trapp: For I will be unto Ephraim as a lion I, that is, my Assyrian, the rod of my wrath, will be as a lion, or leopard, a creature swift and fierce above measure.

Gill: For I will be unto Ephraim as a lion, and as a young lion to the house of Judah…. being provoked by their above conduct and behavior in seeking to others, and not to him, for help, he threatens to punish them in a more public and severe manner; not be to them only as a moth and rottenness, but as a lion, and as a young lion, creatures strong and fierce, that destroy and devour all that come into their hands, and from whom there is no deliverance: thus the Lord was both to Israel and Judah, by means of the Assyrians and Babylonians; the former are compared to a lion, that devoured Israel; and the latter to a young lion, that broke the bones of Judah.

We’re now in the Hebrew year 5782 and we’ll need another 217 years to usher the Divine Plan into the 7th Millennium as we believe. Of course, this is on the assumption that God’s oracles have been accurately kept since the day Adam was created as the Orthodox custodians claim.

If we add 217 years to the Gregorian calendar year 2022 we’ll come to 2239 when the 7th Millennium starts. Working backward Israel was voided (390 X 7 =) 2730 years plus the last 390 years where the house would gradually slide into decline. So could the year 2009 be the start of the house of Israel’s “iniquity?” — “thus shall the children of Israel start eating their defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them;” Ezekiel 4:13 in captivity to start the last 230 years?

~ by Joel Huan on September 27, 2022.

Posted in Ephraim, Ezekiel, Ezekiel Timeline, Manasseh, Southern Border, UK, US