Jesus
said:
Mt 24:37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man
be.
He
had earlier stated in reference to these same days just before He returns:
Mt 24:21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this
time, no, nor ever shall be.
Is
it therefore unreasonable that there should be a tribulation before the flood
and with this tribulation ending when the flood began in 4990 B.C.?:
Ge 7:11 In the six
hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the
great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. {windows: or,
floodgates}
Now,
let us delve a bit further into this matter. God stated to Himself (before Noah
was saved):
Ge 6:3 And the LORD said,
My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh:
yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
Some
of the reasons that God made this decision in His eternal councils are:
Ge
6: 5 And GOD
saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that
every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil
continually. {every…: or, the whole imagination: the Hebrew word signifieth
not only the imagination, but also the purposes and desires} {continually:
Heb. every day}
6 ¶ And it repented the
LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
7 And the LORD said, I will
destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast,
and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I
have made them. {both…: Heb. from man unto beast}
However,
God made one exception to His decree:
Ge 6:8 ¶ But Noah found grace in the eyes of
the LORD.
This
is the point (within the early portions of the start of the 120 years,
somewhere just after 5110 B.C., Noah being just over 480 years old) that Noah
became saved for we are told:
Eph 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of
yourselves: it is the gift of God:
After
this point, we read about the effects of God’s salvation in Noah’s relationship
with Him:
Ge
6: 9 These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and
perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God. {perfect: or,
upright}
Next,
we read that Noah begat sons:
Ge
6:10 And
Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Shem
is named first as the prominent son because He would be the next calendar
reference patriarch and also it was from his loins that Jesus Christ would
eventually come forth a man. However, we know that the firstborn was Japheth as
Noah had his first son when he was 500 years old in 5090 B.C.:
Ge 5:32 And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and
Japheth.
Shem
was born two years later in 5088 B.C. as he was 98 years old at the flood in
4990 B.C. and gave birth to his first born in 4988 B.C., two years after the
flood at which time he was 100 years old:
Ge 11:10 These are
the generations of Shem:
Shem was an hundred years old, and
begat Arphaxad two years after the flood:
We
also know that Ham (whose date of birth is not given) was younger than Japheth
because we read that Noah found out what his younger son (Ham) had done:
Ge
9: 20 And Noah
began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:
21 And he drank of the
wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.
22 And Ham, the father of
23 And Shem and Japheth
took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went
backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were
backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness.
24 ¶ And Noah awoke from his wine,
and knew what his younger son had done unto him.
25 And he said, Cursed be
26 And he said, Blessed be
the LORD God of Shem; and
27 God shall enlarge
Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and
(Note,
the scope of this study does not include going into all the spiritual
implications of the above verses, they are only mentioned to show that Ham was
the younger son.)
Continuing
in our study, we are now up to about 5088 B.C. or 98 years before the flood!
We
next read in Gen 6, that at this time the earth was still unchanged in its
wickedness:
11
¶ The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with
violence.
12
And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had
corrupted his way upon the earth.
God,
therefore now at this point (sometime after 5088 B.C. and less than 98 years
before the flood in 4990 B.C. after the births of Noah’s three sons) reveals
His secret to Noah about His impending judgment which he had earlier decided
(in 5110 B.C.) in His eternal councils to exact upon the whole earth:
Ge
6:13 ¶ And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the
earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them
with the earth. {with the earth: or, from the earth}
God,
has therefore remained true to His eternal principle of:
Am 3:7 Surely the Lord GOD
will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his
servants the prophets.
Even,
as He is currently doing in our days.
God,
then gives Noah the blueprint for building the ark:
Ge
6: 14 Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and
shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. {rooms: Heb. nests}
15
And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length
of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty
cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.
16
A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above;
and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower,
second, and third stories shalt thou make it.
17
And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy
all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and
every thing that is in the earth shall die.
However,
at the time of giving this blueprint, we find that Noah’s three sons are grown
and married with wives:
Ge
6:18 But
with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou,
and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons’ wives with thee.
Therefore,
time has progressed well beyond 5088 B.C. (98 years before the flood and the
year that Shem was born) and assuming these sons are now in their mid-twenties
(for them to be married) then it means that the time would be around 5060 B.C.
or about 70 years before the flood in 4990 B.C. This would mean that the ark
would be started somewhere around 5060 B.C. with only about 70 years to go!
These
70 years would therefore mirror Israel’s 70 years of tribulation in the days
beginning with the severe affliction and captivity inflicted by Babylon and
Nebuchadnezzar:
2Chr
36: 15 And the
LORD God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes,
and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling
place: {by: Heb. by the hand of} {betimes: that is, continually and
carefully}
16 But they mocked the
messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the
wrath of the LORD arose against his people, till there was no remedy. {remedy:
Heb. healing}
17 Therefore he brought
upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in
the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden,
old man, or him that stooped for age: he gave them all into his hand.
18 And all the vessels of
the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the LORD,
and the treasures of the king, and of his princes; all these he brought
to Babylon.
19 And they burnt the house
of God, and brake down the wall of
20 And them that had
escaped from the sword carried he away to
21 To fulfil the word of
the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for
as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years.
During
these approximately 70 years before the flood, Noah was a preacher of
righteousness and would have preached to no avail (no one believed him) about
the impending flood:
2Pe 2:5 And spared not the
old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon
the world of the ungodly;
And,
thus coming under great ridicule and deriding!
Now,
recall we started this study with the fact that Jesus stated that our days
before He returns would be just as Noah’s days. Well, the similarity follows
even in timing. We find that 70 years is 840 months and the length of the
tribulation in our days is 23 years which is exactly 8400 days! So the 70 years
of Noah’s tribulation and the 70 years of
Lu 2: 36 And there was one
Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser: she was of a
great age, and had lived with an husband seven years from her virginity;
37
And she was a widow of about fourscore and four
years, which departed not from the temple, but served God with
fastings and prayers night and day.
38
And she coming in that instant gave thanks likewise unto the Lord,
and spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in
The
tribulation of Father Jacob was also 7 years (84 months):
Ge 41:30 And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be
forgotten in the land of Egypt; and the famine shall consume the land;
We read that these were 7 years or 84 months of great tribulation:
Ac 7:11 Now there came a
dearth over all the
Also,
in Rev 11:
9 And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead
bodies three days and an
half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves. 10 And they that
dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send
gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on
the earth. 11 And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God
entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon
them which saw them.
These
three and a half days are 84 hours again!
Thus,
we see that all the tribulations identified in this study are linked together
by the number 84.
Additionally,
we also find that the length of time from the year (1877 B.C. See Biblical Calendar—page
14) that Jacob entered Egypt in his 7 year tribulation to the
possible start of the great tribulation in 1988 A.D. is 3864 actual years which factors to 23 X 2 X 84 indicating
judgment (23) on the churches (2—the two witnesses in Rev 11:3-4) at the start
of the GT (84)!
The end.
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