607--1914 chronology origin and modifications summarised
by jeandeau 11 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Calebs Airplane
Einstein... not sure if you're still around but I'm sure you've come across this precious gem found in the 1925 Watchtower book Comfort for the Jews (pages 58-60)
A literal Jewish “time” means a year-twelve months of thirty days each, or 360 days. If the time is symbolic, a day stands for a year. Seven symbolic “times” therefore would mean 2520 years. The divine rule for counting symbolic time on the basis of a day for a year is announced in Numbers 14: 33,34 and in Ezekiel 4: 6. It follows then that the seven times of punishment that must come upon Israel, which would mark the period of her warfare, must be either seven literal times or seven symbolic times. These seven times could not be literal for the reason that Israel was in Babylon not seven years but seventy years, and that her punishment continued many centuries thereafter. It follows then that these seven times, without a question of a doubt, are symbolic. One symbolic time being 360 years, seven symbolic times would aggregate 2520 years. This period of 2520 years began in the year 606 B. C. with the overthrow of Zedekiah, and necessarily ended with the year 1914 A. D. Reckoning by Jewish time, and having in mind the atonement day, at the end of which the jubilee trumpet was sounded, this period of 2520 years must end about August 1st, 1914. If this calculation is correct, and it must be, then something should have occurred in 1914 to mark the end of God’s favor to the Gentiles and something to indicate shortly thereafter that God’s favor was returning to the Jew. We find it even so.
On the first day of August, 1914, the Gentile nations of earth became angry; and the great World War began, even as the Lord had foretold. Some leading Jews, particularly Dr. Chaim Weizmann, were pressing the Jewish interests in Palestine at that time . Turkey was in control of Palestine. Turkey must first be expelled before the Jews could accomplish much in Palestine. In the latter part of 1917 the allied armies, under the leadership of General Allenby of the British army, drove back the Turk and forthwith entered and took possession of the holy city. Great Britain is, and for a long time has been, the greatest world-power of the Gentile nations. A short time before this the British government, acting through Mr. Balfour, signified its purpose of aiding the Jews in reestablishing themselves in Palestine.
The Balfour Declaration, which has now become an historical document, was issued on the 2nd day of November, 1917, or about a month before the allied armies drove out the Turk. While this was not the first effort of the Jews to get possession of the land of Palestine and to rebuild it, this was the first official recognition by the Gentile powers of the right of the Jew to rebuild his homeland. And be it noted that this first recognition was given by the greatest world-power amongst the Gentiles. Exactly on time then, in 1914 and at the end of the seven times, the war began; and the good that resulted to the Jew from this war was the recognition of the world-powers of the right of the Jews to return to Palestine and rebuild their country .