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Re: JONAH 2 post# 9910

Wednesday, 08/21/2013 10:17:07 PM

Wednesday, August 21, 2013 10:17:07 PM

Post# of 19749
1914 a marked year in Bible prophecy --Daniel 4 --
"The tree symbolism and God’s sovereignty.--- The symbolisms used in this prophetic vision are by no means unique. Trees are elsewhere used to represent ruling powers, including that of God’s typical kingdom at Jerusalem. (Compare Jg 9:6-15; Eze 17:1-24; 31:2-18.) A stump’s being caused to sprout and the symbol of “a twig” or “sprout” are found a number of times as representing the renewal of rulership in a certain stock or line, particularly in the Messianic prophecies. (Isa 10:33–11:10; 53:2-7; Jer 23:5; Eze 17:22-24; Zec 6:12, 13; compare Job 14:7-9.) Jesus spoke of himself as both “the root and the offspring of David.”—Re 5:5; 22:16.

The fact is evident that the key point of the vision is Jehovah God’s exercise of irresistible sovereignty in “the kingdom of mankind,” and this provides the guide to the full meaning of the vision. The tree is shown to have an application to Nebuchadnezzar, who at that point in history was the head of the dominant World Power, Babylon.

Yet, prior to Nebuchadnezzar’s conquest of Jerusalem, the typical kingdom of God ruling out of that city was the agency by which Jehovah expressed his rightful sovereignty toward the earth. It thus constituted a divine block or impediment for Nebuchadnezzar in attaining his goal of world domination. By allowing that typical kingdom at Jerusalem to be overthrown, Jehovah permitted his own visible expression of sovereignty through the Davidic dynasty of kings to be cut down. The expression and exercise of world domination in “the kingdom of mankind,” unhindered by any representative kingdom of God, now passed into the hands of the Gentile nations. (La 1:5; 2:2, 16, 17)

In the light of this-- “the tree” is seen to represent, beyond and above its application to Nebuchadnezzar, world sovereignty or domination by God’s arrangement.

Renewal of world domination. ---God, however, here makes clear that he has not forever delivered up such world domination to the Gentile powers. The vision shows that God’s self-restraint (represented by the bands of iron and of copper around the stump of the tree) would continue until “seven times pass over it.” (Da 4:16, 23, 25) Then, since “the Most High is Ruler in the kingdom of mankind,” God would give world domination “to the one whom he wants to.” (Da 4:17) The prophetic book of Daniel itself shows that one to be the “son of man” to whom are given “rulership and dignity and kingdom, that the peoples, national groups and languages should all serve even him.” (Da 7:13, 14)

Jesus’ own prophecy, in which the reference to “the appointed times of the nations” occurs, points definitely toward Christ Jesus’ exercise of such world domination as God’s chosen King, the heir of the Davidic dynasty. (Mt 24:30, 31; 25:31-34; Lu 21:27-31, 36) Thus, the symbolic stump, representing God’s retention of the sovereign right to exercise world domination in “the kingdom of mankind,” was due to sprout again in his Son’s Kingdom.—Ps 89:27, 35-37.

Seven Symbolic Times.--- In Nebuchadnezzar’s personal experience of the vision’s fulfillment the “seven times” were evidently seven years, during which he became mad, with symptoms like those of lycanthropy, abandoning his throne to eat grass like a beast in the field. (Da 4:31-36) Notably, the Biblical description of the exercise of world domination by the Gentile powers is presented through the figure of beasts in opposition to the holy people of God and their “Prince of princes.” (Compare Da 7:2-8, 12, 17-26; 8:3-12, 20-25; Re 11:7; 13:1-11; 17:7-14.)

Concerning the word “times” (from Aramaic ?id·dan'), as used in Daniel’s prophecy, lexicographers show it here to mean “years.” (See Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros, by L. Koehler and W. Baumgartner, Leiden, 1958, p. 1106; A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, by Brown, Driver, and Briggs, 1980, p. 1105; Lexicon Linguae Aramaicae Veteris Testamenti, edited by E. Vogt, Rome, 1971, p. 124.) The duration of a year as so used is indicated to be 360 days, inasmuch as three and a half times are shown to equal “a thousand two hundred and sixty days” at Revelation 12:6, 14. (Compare also Re 11:2, 3.) “Seven times,” according to this count, would equal 2,520 days.

That a specific number of days may be used in the Bible record to represent prophetically an equivalent number of years can be seen by reading the accounts at Numbers 14:34 and Ezekiel 4:6. Only by applying the formula there expressed of “a day for a year” to the “seven times” of this prophecy can the vision of Daniel chapter 4 have significant fulfillment beyond the day of now extinct Nebuchadnezzar, as the evidence thus far presented gives reason to expect. They therefore represent 2,520 years from 607 BC when the rule by kings in Israel ceases as Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and the temple-to when Jesus would be given the kingdom as Daniel
7:13,14 refers to--
At that tine world war would be involved as Revelation 6 speaks of -also Matthew 24 -

-- on the basis of the points and evidence above presented, the March 1880 edition of the Watch Tower magazine identified the year 1914 as the time for the close of “the appointed times of the nations” (and the end of the lease of power granted the Gentile rulers).(Psalm 110:1,2)
This was some 34 years before the arrival of that year and the momentous events it initiated. In the August 30, 1914, edition of The World, a leading New York newspaper at that time, a feature article in the paper’s Sunday magazine section commented on this as follows: “The terrific war outbreak in Europe has fulfilled an extraordinary prophecy. For a quarter of a century past, through preachers and through press, the ‘International Bible Students’ . . . have been proclaiming to the world that the Day of Wrath prophesied in the Bible would dawn in 1914.” "

The events that took place from and after the year 1914 C.E. are well-known history to all, beginning with the great war that erupted, the first world war in mankind’s history and the first to be fought over the issue, not of the domination of Europe alone, nor of Africa, nor of Asia, but of the domination of the world.—Lu 21:7-33; Re 11:15-18--

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