I was recently told that an excellent example of prophecy fulfillment in the Bible is the prophecy that the nation of Israel would be restored, as recorded in Ezekiel 4. If true, that would be a huge boost to the Bible’s credibility, so let’s dig in and see how it fares.
In Ezek 4:4-6, God tells Ezekiel to do the following:
4 “Lie also on your left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it. According to the number of the days that you lie on it, you shall bear their iniquity. 5 For I have laid on you the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days; so you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. 6 And when you have completed them, lie again on your right side; then you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days. I have laid on you a day for each year.”
A little context is probably in order. Ezekiel lived during the time that the nation of Judah was taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Much of his writings talk about the captivity that the Jews are under, and in this passage, he prophesies about when they’ll return from captivity. As the end of verse 6 says, each of these days represents one year.
The Case For This Being a True Prophecy
The person who pointed me to this prophecy gave this link as a good explanation of how this prophecy works, so I’ll be referring to its points throughout this post.
First, we take these two periods and add them together: 390 years for Israel + 40 years for Judah = 430 years.
Next, Babylon took Judah captive in 606 BCE for exactly 70 years leaving 360 years left to go. But how do we explain this leftover 360 years?
Well, it turns out that Leviticus 26 lays out all these conditions on the Israelites. There, God tells them that as long as they serve him faithfully, he’ll bless them. But if they don’t serve him faithfully, then he’ll punish them “7 fold” or “7 times” for their sins (Lev 26:18-33). So if we take those remaining 360 years and multiply them by 7, we get 2,520 years.
But we’re not done yet. We must remember that the Jews used a calendar based on both lunar and solar years. They had 12 30-day months and would occasionally add in leap-months as needed to keep the seasons lining up correctly. So to understand what Ezekiel meant by “year,” we need to convert these 2,520 years into days, which comes out to 2,520 x 360 = 907,200 days.
Now to find out how many actual years this represents, we need to convert back to the standard 365.25 day/year calendar that we use today. This comes out to 907,200 / 365.25 = 2,483.78 years.
We can finally connect all the dots:
606 BCE – 70 years = 536 BCE
-536 (since it’s BCE) + 2,483 + 1 (since there’s no year 0) = 1948 CE
And 1948 is the year that Israel was again made a nation! Furthermore, Jerusalem fell to Nebuchadnezzar in 587 BCE, 19 years after he took Judah. And Jerusalem was restored to Israel in 1967 CE — exactly 19 years after they reclaimed the nation of Israel! So the numbers work out for Jerusalem as well!
So that’s the case for the prophecy being legit. But are there reasons to be skeptical?
The Case Against This Being a True Prophecy
There are actually a number of problems with what I laid out above, and those familiar with the Old Testament may have already seen them.
First of all, why should the years in Ezekiel’s prophecy be added together at all? Ezekiel says there will be 390 years for Israel and 40 years for Judah — it’s no accident that he separated them. According to Jewish tradition, all 12 tribes of Israel were united when they took the land of Canaan. They remained united through all 15 judges and through kings Saul, David, and Solomon. But after Solomon died, the nation split into two kingdoms: the nation of Israel, consisting of the northern 10 tribes, and the nation of Judah, consisting of the southern 2 tribes. So far, the archaeological evidence leans away from this story. It appears that Israel and Judah were never united into one large kingdom, but that’s outside the scope of this article, so we’ll leave it at that for now.
Israel was taken into captivity by the Assyrian Empire in 722 BCE. Many passages in later parts of the OT predict those lost tribes being restored, and it seems that this is what Ezekiel is referring to in this passage. That’s why they’re given a different period of time than Judah is — they were taken captive almost 150 years before Judah was. So it does not make sense to add these years together as though they refer to one specific thing. Israel and Judah were being dealt with separately here.
Secondly, the starting date of 606 BCE for Judah’s captivity isn’t accurate. In 606 BCE, Judah was its own kingdom, though it was a vassal state to Egypt and had been for 2 or 3 years. Egypt and Babylon were butting heads in the region during this time. Nebuchadnezzar came to the throne in 605 BCE, and he defeated Egypt at Carchemish that same year. That’s when Judah changed allegiance from Egypt to Babylon, as it was suddenly clear that they were now the most powerful force in the region. But it wouldn’t be appropriate to say they were under captivity at that time. They were still a separate kingdom that paid homage to Babylon. If we were to make the case that such a scenario equaled captivity, then Judah’s captivity would actually have begun in 609 or 608 BCE under Egypt.
In 601 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar tried to invade Egypt, but his forces were driven back, which caused several of the kingdoms in the Levant to rebel against him. Judah was one of them. In 599 BCE, Babylon besieged Jerusalem, and the city fell in 597 BCE. But at this point, Judah still retained its status as a vassal kingdom, and Nebuchadnezzar appointed Zedekiah as king. But several years later, Zedekiah revolted, aligning the kingdom with Egypt once again. This time, when Nebuchadnezzar took the city, he practically leveled it, and much of the population was taken off into captivity. This was in 587 BCE.
Considering this information, the most likely candidate to mark the beginning of Judah’s captivity is 587 BCE. Even if you try to push it back further, it’s hard to make a case for any time before 597 BCE, and this causes problems for the math that was laid out above.
One of the problems has to do with the 70 years of Babylonian captivity that was talked about above. When you were reading the above arguments, it may have struck you as odd that 70 years got subtracted for Judah’s captivity to Babylon, when Ezekiel said 40 years. The reason 70 was brought up is because of Jeremiah 29:10, where Jeremiah prophesies that Judah would be in captivity for 70 years. But that’s not what happened.
When the Persian Empire overthrew Babylon in 539 BCE, they allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem that same year (Ezra 1:1). The numbers differ depending on when you count Judah’s captivity as beginning, but this makes Judah’s captivity as few as 48 years (the more likely figure) or as many as 66 years. This again causes problems for all the equations that were used above.
There’s also the issue of multiplying the years by 7. There’s some discussion about whether the passage in Leviticus means that punishments would be multiplied by 7 years, or whether it would mean 7 separate punishments (like 7 additional plagues, etc). There’s also the issue that this kind of language is often taken to be more symbolic than literal. Furthermore, if this is how God was going to mete out the punishment, perhaps that’s already been calculated into the numbers he gives Ezekiel. Again, the passage has God say “a day for each year,” and there’s no indication that it should mean anything else. But I view those as side points.
The main problem I have is why does the multiplication of 7 only apply to 360 of the years? Why wouldn’t it have applied to all of them? So if we add the years together, and multiply by 7, we would have 3,010 years, not 2,520. Even if we continue to use 360-day years, that calculation comes out to 2,966.74 years, which puts us around the year 2431 CE. Of course, that isn’t helpful to those who want this prophecy to be true.
There’s another issue that should be mentioned as well. It turns out that the Septuagint doesn’t use the same figures as the Masoretic text. The Septuagint records Ezekiel 4:4-6 like this:
And thou shalt lie upon thy left side, and lay the iniquities of the house of Israel upon it, according to the number of the hundred and fifty days during which thou shalt lie upon it: and thou shalt bear their iniquities. 5 For I have appointed thee their iniquities for a number of days, for a hundred and ninety days: so thou shalt bear the iniquities of the house of Israel. 6 And thou shalt accomplish this, and then shalt lie on thy right side, and shalt bear the iniquities of the house of Juda forty days: I have appointed thee a day for a year.
It’s hard to say if 390 is the correct number, or if 150 is. Some people think that 150 is original, but that later scribes changed it once that amount of time had passed. But who knows? Unfortunately, there’s not a way to know which number is original to the text, which makes it very hard to base predictions upon.
Finally, the last piece of this that should be questioned is using a 360-day calendar. The Hebrew calendar was based on both the cycle of the moon as well as the solar year. Therefore, it is said that their calendar consisted of 12 30-day months, and every couple of years they would add a 13th month to keep the years aligned correctly with the seasons. But this isn’t exactly right. A lunar month follows the phases of the moon, which does not work out to 30 days exactly. Instead, it will alternate between 29 and 30-day months, meaning that the Hebrew calendar year came out to 354-355 days (or 385 days on leap years). This calls into question using a 360-day calendar to recalibrate the years in Ezekiel’s prophecy.
Furthermore, the Jews still understood that a year consists of 4 seasons (which is why they used intercalary years), so it seems bizarre to redefine “year” every time it’s used in prophecies. And it’s easy to see how big a 5.25 day variance can be. In the example at the beginning of this post, it took us from 2,520 years to 2,483.78 years. Daniel 12 and the Book of Revelation are the only places in the Bible I’m aware of that use a 360-day average in reference to a year. But I think it’s hard to argue that those references mean every time “year” is used in a prophecy it should be recalculated using 360-day years. Most calendars in the ancient world did not operate that way, and 360 days per year was a good generic estimate when referring to how many days are in a year at that time. Just as today we refer to a year as 365 days, when we realize that an extra day is needed every 4 years. That doesn’t mean when someone says something will happen in 20 years we have to recompute it to 19.98 years — we know they mean 20, regardless of how the leap years fall. I’m sure there are some Christians who would argue vociferously over the need to use 360-day “prophetic” years, but they have to. Without them, too much fails.
Conclusion
This was a really long post, and we’ve covered a lot of ground. I certainly can’t speak for everyone, but I personally do not find this prophecy to be a good example of a real prophecy. When taken at face value, Ezekiel talks about 390 years for Israel and 40 years for Judah. Neither of those figures work out correctly. Since they don’t, many different explanations have been sought after to make this prophecy point to something significant. The beginning of this post laid out one of those arguments, and on the surface, it seems pretty impressive. It gets us to the years 1948 and 1967 which are definitely important to the nation of Israel. But to get there, we’re making several sacrifices, like what year Judah went into captivity, adding the years together, multiplying some of them by 7, and converting the years to a 360-day format that almost certainly wasn’t the intent. And there’s still the issue of whether or not that translation is even accurate.
To me, this prophecy is simply too vague to be of any use. And the method used to create a connection to modern-day Israel is too problematic to be anything but evidence against prophecy-fulfillment, in my opinion.
Resources used in this article:
http://www.alphanewsdaily.com/mathprophecy2.html
http://www.theskepticalreview.com/JFTProphecyEzekiel4.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezekiel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Judah
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_%28587_BC%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebuchadnezzar_II_of_Babylon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_calendar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_calendar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunisolar_calendar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_month
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophetic_Year
Finding Truth 
Like I said, Mike…. enlighten us, if you can…
We’ll be waiting for you to prove how clear this prophecy was…..
LikeLike
“Like I said, Mike…. enlighten us, if you can…”
No big boy pants? 🙂
LikeLike
@JZ,
by all means, if you know a single person who named the dates “before” they arrived then present this evidence….
I’ve googled it every way to Sunday and haven’t been able to find anyone who named the dates before they arrived. I know that’s not the be all, end all, but I haven’t come up with a thing. I’ve come up with lots and lots of sites that say it is a fulfillment, and lots and lots of sites that say it isn’t a fulfillment, but nothing of anyone who pulled a Nostradamus on the dates.
LikeLike
“I’ve googled it every way to Sunday and haven’t been able to find anyone who named the dates before they arrived.”
this might come as shock to some but the internets wasn’t around in in the early 1900s much less before 🙂
LikeLike
And no one would have to pull a nostradamus (love the objectivity that quip reveals though ) . they’d just have to do the calculation.
LikeLike
they have to do the calculation backwards. they’re forced to start with the end date they want so that they know how many years to multiple by 7, and then figure out what to subtract or to what, etc, etc – then you claim “it’s so clear” then claim “I never said it was excellent evidence” then say, “it’s not the only prophecy I mentioned” then go on to act like it’s excellent evidence.
and you and kathy keep talking about “objectivity.” I dont think you know what that really means… Much like how kathy uses “liberal” – incorrectly.
being object is being fair minded, but i think you and kathy use it to mean “having an objective”/ a preconceived conclusion in mind. In that sense, i agree, you’re both quite “objective.”
again, if you cant even admit that things like john saying jesus was crucified before passover and mark saying he was crucified during can at least look like constrictions to some people, then you are either not honestly objective (in the true meaning) or are just sadly stupid – which ever happens to be case, it really hinders productive conversation.
LikeLike
Ruth, it’s patently clear that no one ever arrived at the dates or else apologists would be all over it, screaming their names and holding it up as proof. Mike knows the nonsense he’s peddling has been exposed, and now he’s dancing as best as he can to avoid facing the truth.
LikeLike
Yes, and him questioning the objectivity of others is a joke. People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
I know the internets weren’t around before the 1940’s. There’s so very much information available on it, though, that was written prior to it’s invention. Just about anything anyone thinks is of some relevance can be found there. It would be quite relevant if someone calculated those dates before the events, would it not?
LikeLike
LOL you two are a complete joke. 🙂 🙂
I’ve already stated I don’t know one way or the other so I have no need to dance. You claimed to know for a fact so ahem put it up. Whats so hard? i mean you do make statements of fact only after you have verified something is fact right? Honesty and all that moral stuff you say you believe in? lol
Further its not an issue that matters that much to me because of what I wrote before which Ruth and yourself just ducked answering. here since you need a refresher –
“That said if I wrote you a note about what was going to happen to one of your children and you didn’t read it closely and even forgot it then opened it up and realized it had nailed everything that had happened to your children how would not reading before have made a difference to the fact it states what it does? if it involved legit calculations in its predictions and the calculations worked out based on your childs age at different juncture it still would be significant.
Even in science we have found significant patterns after the fact (the periodic table) so whether anyone realized it or not if the numbers are legit and the multiplications and techniques are called for then the significance remains. In the church we’ve had people for centuries forget the teaching of saved by Grace through faith and it couldn’t be more clearly in there. So again I presently don’t have that info
So I don’t kow that your claim is true. I’ve never had time to do much research in Jewish books but they have some fascinating stuff”
So again since YOU claim to know then answer – put on your big boy or big girl pants and give the proof of your claim of fact.
Or for once in your atheist lives admit to lying because you really don’t know what you claimed to know as fact.
LikeLike
It’s really quite simple Mike: show us a single person who arrived at the dates “before” they happened. Show us a single person who worked the “ever so clear prophecy” out before the event.
If you can’t, then just shut up.
LikeLike
“There’s so very much information available on it, though, that was written prior to it’s invention. Just about anything anyone thinks is of some relevance can be found there.”
Rubbish. If you think that scholarly research is all done freely on the internet now because everything has been digitized and put up online for public access you have no idea of what you are taking about even when you talk about the internet. Furthermore you know darn well you have not had the time to read through Jewish literature which is thousands of pages so cease from your lying like you have already exhausted reading even what IS available online. You are not fooling anyone.
I do hope one day to have the time to do that kind of research but it would most likely take many months (and some of it is in Hebrew – read Hebrew now Ruth?). Frankly though I don’t know one way or the other I WOULD be surprised if the people who popularized it recently were the first. No strike against them but even from your wrong perspective of it being contrived I don’t think some of them are sophisticated to have made it up.
LikeLike
mike, you’re being pathetic. You’re stating something as clear fact, and continue to avoid putting any supporting evidence.
you’re claiming to know the answer. You claim god wrote the bible because of prophecies like this.
LikeLike
“It’s really quite simple Mike: show us a single person who arrived at the dates “before” they happened.”
Sorry Non negotiable. You claimed to know something for a fact so if you don’t own one go borrow a big boy pair of pants and put up YOUR data to back it up.
You are right – Its really quite simple.
LikeLike
“Rubbish. If you think that scholarly research is all done freely on the internet now because everything has been digitized and put up online for public access you have no idea of what you are taking about even when you talk about the internet. Furthermore you know darn well you have not had the time to read through Jewish literature which is thousands of pages so cease from your lying like you have already exhausted reading even what IS available online. You are not fooling anyone.
I do hope one day to have the time to do that kind of research but it would most likely take many months (and some of it is in Hebrew – read Hebrew now Ruth?). Frankly though I don’t know one way or the other I WOULD be surprised if the people who popularized it recently were the first. No strike against them but even from your wrong perspective of it being contrived I don’t think some of them are sophisticated to have made it up.” -mike
interesting strategy. claim others dont know what they’re talking about because they havent read everything, and then say that you havent read everything either…
If both of those are your true feelings, maybe you should say something like, “well, i dont know as i am not very educated on the subject. I think you’re wrong, but that’s on my faith and pure conjecture. I encourage you to continue studying the topic, as I will do the same…”
instead, you opt for the idiot. typical.
LikeLike
“you’re claiming to know the answer.”
You must lie for breakfast lunch and dinner sparky
I am on record on here saying I don’t know who first figured it out. Your pals claim to know the facts on that so they should put it up. simple
as for not putting up any data in this thread
ROFL…..
LikeLike
Furthermore you know darn well you have not had the time to read through Jewish literature which is thousands of pages so cease from your lying like you have already exhausted reading even what IS available online. You are not fooling anyone.
Wow, did I make that claim? I certainly don’t think so, since I said very plainly that I knew that a google search wasn’t the be all, end all.
You really do know how to twist words.
LikeLike
Your pals claim to know the facts….
This is what I actually said:
I’ve googled it every way to Sunday and haven’t been able to find anyone who named the dates before they arrived. I know that’s not the be all, end all, but I haven’t come up with a thing. I’ve come up with lots and lots of sites that say it is a fulfillment, and lots and lots of sites that say it isn’t a fulfillment, but nothing of anyone who pulled a Nostradamus on the dates.
That’s far from making a claim of anything being a fact. Except for the fact that I haven’t found it. I never said it wasn’t there.
LikeLike
No, William, Mike is right. He didn’t claim to have the answer. He said the answer didn’t really matter. Big difference.
LikeLike
I’m not sure why you’re having trouble with this. Cyrus took Babylon in 539 BCE. Since Ezra says the decree was given in his first year, I said we could “give an extra year,” which means we could assume the decree might have been given in 538 BCE. According to Wikipedia’s sources, 538 seems to be the correct year.
You’re wanting to give an extra year on top of that, but why? 538 BCE is the year. And since you believe 606 BCE is the starting date (though that’s dubious), that gives us 68 years. But since you’re looking for 70 “prophetic” years, which is 69 regular years, you’re still a year short.
LikeLike
“You must lie for breakfast lunch and dinner sparky” – mike
this mistake is mine, but not for being wrong, but for being unclear. I should have more clearly stated that you claim to have the answer other things, but continually dodge providing any real or credible evidence and in some cases, putting up anything at all.
I just it’s hypocritical to blast someone for something you do as a habit.
LikeLike
I agree, John. Any proponent of any view, including apologists, look for specific information to bolster their claims. The fulfillment of this prophecy would have been quite significant and anything anyone had to bolster it’s veracity would certainly use it.
Furthermore, there have been accusations of lying when the truth is that the information being given from the Bible can be interpreted many different ways as is evidenced by the number of different interpretations. If one person interprets the information differently it doesn’t mean they’re lying. It means they’re processing it differently.
Grandiose statements and proclamations about lying and hypocrisy seem to be the fallback claim of those who can’t handle anyone thinking differently than them. And here I thought God didn’t create robots. Apparently I was wrong about that. He wants us all to think the same.
LikeLike
“Sorry Non negotiable. You claimed to know something for a fact so if you don’t own one go borrow a big boy pair of pants and put up YOUR data to back it up.” – mike
so stupid. Someone asked why their hasnt been a formula liek teh one you pointed to as evidence until the 67 or whenever… you said that couldnt be proven.
now you’re asking for proof that nothing’s there? is that what you’re asking?
I must have missed something.
but people are looking for this formula, in an earlier time, and you’re saying that since they cant find that it wasnt used, then maybe it was? you’re using absence of evidence as evidence of presence?
I missed something, what was it? what was claimed and what is being looked for?
LikeLike
Ultimately, our dear friend Mike, doesn’t want to be embarrassed. That is his greatest fear, and we must respect that. What he doesn’t understand is that no atheist is going to belittle him when he finally admits the truth. We’re not here to chastise, rather to welcome him home, to the real world.
LikeLike
“”I’m not sure why you’re having trouble with this. Cyrus took Babylon in 539 BCE. ”
I’m not having any problems Nate. I am just sitting here smiling to myself watching you trying to squirm out of your own words
“Ezra 1:1 is clear that Cyrus GAVE HIS DECREE in his 1st year, which was 539 BCE. Even if we give an extra year, just in case, that puts us at 68 years, not 70.”-Nate”
You can lie all you want. the above words you wrote have reference to the decree and You point blank said that was 539. and then YOU gave a year “to be safe”
Only when you realized you goofed and the decree was actually a year later and you knew “to be safe” would result in 69 years then ooops you had to retract if because you didn’t like where being “safe” led. 🙂
Now your pretending like you never said what you said. You are sooo honest Nate. What can I say?
“And since you believe 606 BCE is the starting date (though that’s dubious), that gives us 68 years. But since you’re looking for 70 “prophetic” years, which is 69 regular years, you’re still a year short.”
Actually Nate fixing the date of the return isn’t even necessary to the calculation as I have said before. the calculation only requires the start date and the numbers. What you miss is that strictly speaking Cyrus saying you can go back home doesn’t immediately end the desolations caused by the Babylonian conquest. jerusalem is still in ruins and the land is still in ruins. SO all thats really needed is 606 bc. Sorry
“You’re wanting to give an extra year on top of that, but why? 538 BCE is the year. ”
538 is the first year of Cyrus and he gives the decree in that year NaTe. Further at this point AGAIN you are showing your total dishonesty. It was YOU that gave the extra year when you thought it was 539. Yep I’ll be posting your own words again (until you stop being so obviously dishonest)
“Ezra 1:1 is clear that Cyrus GAVE HIS DECREE in his 1st year, which was 539 BCE. Even if we give an extra year, just in case, that puts us at 68 years, not 70.”-Nate
So YOU gave another year but as soon as that made 69 due to Cyrus first year coinciding with 538 instead of 539 you are asking me why I put an extra year
PLus I’ve been meaning to tell you that you can stop your lying on the post date fixing as well – as if 606bc is contrived to get to the dates. It really is just TERRIBLE fibbing you do. Its not me or apologist fixing a date. the date of 606 bc is in some commentaries PRE 1948 NATE. 🙂
Why is that? they were fixing it for a date that had not happened yet?
Meanwhile AGAIN
the curious abscence of any talk about the 1967 date from you. You realized the calculation nails it eh Nate? NO issue with dates there you could find.
LikeLike
“Ultimately, our dear friend Mike, doesn’t want to be embarrassed. ”
So then….still no long pants???
LikeLike