'Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image,
or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above,
or that is in the earth beneath,
or that is in the water under the earth:
Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them:
for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God,
visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children
unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me,
and keep my commandments.'
(Exodus 20:4-6)
Hello
@Jay Ross,
Thank you for your input.
Would you please explain how you computed the words of Exodus 20 (quoted above), that you referenced in your entry, to the sum of 490 years. Remembering please, that I find it hard to relate to anything numerical, so it will have to be explained simply.
Thank you.
In Christ Jesus
Chris
Hi Charity,
Let me create a word picture: -
Exodus 20:4-6 creates a timeline which spans four ages/Days of the Lord, i.e. approx. around 1,000 years each, where the first age begins with the birth of Isaac at the beginning of the third age of mankind. The second age by co-incidence, by my reckoning, begins with the birth of King David. These two ages constitutes the time of the "Fathers" in the Exodus 20:4-6 where the majority of the fathers indulged in idolatrous worship.
By my reckoning the third age began with the birth of Christ, at the beginning of the third age of the descendants of Abraham/Isaac/Jacob and is described in the Exodus passage as the fathers children, with the fourth age of the descendants existence described as the age of the children's children, which brings us to the end of this present age, the end of the fourth age of the existence of the descendants of Abraham.
The end of this present age will see the judgement against the heathen nations for their 2,300 years of trampling the sanctuary of God and His hosts, i.e. all of Israel, when Paul in Romans 11:25-26 tells us that all of Israel will be saved.
Now the question that you have asked is how I am able to interweave Exodus 20:4-6 with Daniel 9:24?
In 9:24 Daniel informs his countrymen that they have period of grace of 490 years to repent of their iniquities of idolatrous worship before the visitation of the fathers iniquities would be visited upon their children and the children's children.
This verse can be broken up into two parts: -
The first part this verse is a call for
Israel to repent of and put an end their iniquity: -
"Seventy weeks are determined, i.e. 490 years, For your people and for your holy city, To finish the transgression, To make an end of sins,
The second part of this verse falls into the providence of Christ to modify and improve the process of salvation from sin: -
To make reconciliation for iniquity, To bring in everlasting righteousness, To seal up vision and prophecy, And to anoint the Most Holy.
The Starting point of God's Grace towards Israel started in the year 494 BC, based on the consensus understanding that Christ was born in 4 BC and the seventy weeks (of years) being for a period of 490 solar years.
Now since Israel as a whole did not stop their idolatrous worship even after the birth of Christ, the visitation of their iniquities has fallen on the father's children and the children's children which included the destruction of the temple so that their was no longer any place where the yearly sin sacrifice could be presented. Isaiah 65 is a good passage to read with respect to the iniquities of Israel being remembered by God and His response to their iniquities.
Isaiah also tells us that after the completion of the period of the visitation of the iniquities of the fathers being visited upon their children and the children's children, God will turn and hear their call to Him and will set about redeeming them and making like new again the Kingdom of Priest, a Holy Nation and His Possession Among the Nations, Covenant for the period of the Summer Harvest of Souls.
Shalom
