One of the topics that I have been requested to talk about is the timeline of history. A few years ago, I did a study on the timeline of history (“The Timeline of History” - 09-Oct-2005). Today I would like to take another look at the timeline of history in the Bible.
[Note: this written transcript has been updated and edited in places to remove references to people who were in the room when the original audio was recorded and to simplify a few statements for the sake of clarity.]
This will be from a little bit of a different angle than what I did before. A lot of it will be the same because it is the same Bible that we are going to look at, but I would like us to get familiar with the numbers in the Scriptures to understand the dating of creation as well as a few of the main events that happened in history leading up to the end of time.
A lot of us are very familiar with the end of time. If you are not, try to listen carefully. When we are done with this study, you should be able to see where it all ends. By the time that we are done, you should know the year, the month, and the day of the return of Jesus Christ.
[Note: a diagram of this Biblical timeline of history can be viewed at http://www.ebiblefellowship.com/sunday_bible_study/2005.10.09_McOwen.htm. This chart is very helpful in understanding the Biblical timeline as it is discussed here in this study.]
I will open this timeline up with Genesis 5. I would like to define a few terms and then we will do some math. I am going to prove to you that this is very easy to do, whether or not you are a mathematician.
We know that God created all things and we know that He created the first man, Adam. This is the Word of God, and we will begin with Adam in Genesis 5:3:
And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth:
At this point, I want to reintroduce the words qara shem. These are the Hebrew words for “called his name.” What this Hebrew term qara shem really means is that an immediate child of the father is being referred to.
I want to show you another verse in the Bible that uses qara shem, which is Genesis 21:3:
And Abraham called the name of his son…
Here is the phrase qara shem again:
And Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac.
We know that Isaac was a direct son of Abraham. So when we see the words qara shem or the English translation “called his name,” we will know that the child was an immediate son of the man indicated.
One other word that we need to be familiar with is the word “begat.” We saw this word not only in Genesis 5:3 but also here in Genesis 5:32:
And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
We know that Shem, Ham, and Japheth were the direct sons of Noah; however, the term used here is the word “begat.” This means that the word “begat” can mean a direct son or child relationship, or the word “begat” can also be referring to a descendent who is further down the generational line. For instance, it could be referring to a great-great-great-great grandson of the man.
For example, we see this word “begat” in Genesis 10:21 [Note: the same Hebrew word which is translated as “begat” and also as “born”]:
Unto Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder, even to him were children born.
The next ten verses in this chapter talk about all of the descendants of Shem after the flood, but they are not Shem’s direct sons.
Look at what it says in Genesis 10:31:
These are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations.
If you look at the ten verses preceding this verse, there are many names given of a grandson, a great-grandson, a great-great-grandson, etc., and it says that they are the children of Shem, “even to him were children born [begat].” This means that this word “begat” can mean that the child is an immediate son of the father or it can mean that the child is a descendant of the man.
The names that we will find listed in Genesis 5 and Genesis 11 are what we refer to as generational markers, and the ancient peoples measured time by using these names. Having said this, I am going to ask a question. What generation are we living in today? Is it Generation X? No, we are living in the generation of Jesus Christ.
Let us turn to Matthew 24:34. Here we read:
Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
Today we tend to break things into 20-year generational markers. In our modern world, we talk about the Baby Boom Generation or Generation X, but here Jesus says:
…This generation shall not pass…
This means that all of the people from this time forward are all part of the same Biblical generational marker, which is the generation of Jesus Christ. This is because Christ was the last generational marker given by God. This also means that when the generation of Jesus Christ is over, the world is also done. There will be no other human being that will come along for God to use as a generational marker to mark future time. So we are currently living in the last Biblical generation, the generation of Jesus Christ.
Let us go back to the very first generation of humanity. Who was the very first man? It was Adam. So we begin with the generation of Adam.
As we look at these generational markers, we will go down a long list of names. From these names, we will be able to arrive at certain dates that tie into our modern calendar. As these are major pillars in the timeline of history, this will allow us to date creation, the flood, and the end of the world.
I am going to attempt to set this forth into easily identifiable and understandable subsets. The first subset will include ten numbers. Oddly enough, we are going to find that there are ten generations from creation to the flood.
From the flood, we are going to find that there are fifteen generations given that will take us from the flood to dates in history that will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt the death of Solomon and the date of the division of the kingdom of Israel. I will be able to show three different sources that we can rely on to prove this date in history. All of these dates will allow us to build our calendar from the Bible.
So to begin with, there are ten generations given from Adam to the flood, and then fifteen are given from the flood all the way up to Solomon’s death. We start in Genesis 5:3:
And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth:
God is telling us through this that the first generation was the generation of Adam and that the length of Adam’s generation was not the length of his age. His generation was not for how long Adam lived, it was for how long he lived until he had Seth. This also tells us that Seth was an immediate son.
Remember that there are going to be ten numbers. This means that the first number that we are going to start with is the number 130. This is because the Bible tells us that Adam lived 130 years and then he “begat” a son and “called his name” Seth. Therefore, we know that Seth was an immediate son of Adam.
This also means that the next generational marker in history is going to be Seth. So we go next to Genesis 5:6 to pick up Seth’s line:
And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enos:
Here we only find the word “begat.” Does the Bible tell us whether or not Enos is a direct son of Seth? Perhaps Enos came later and was maybe a grandson or a great-great-great-grandson. We do find that Enos was a direct son of Seth when we read Genesis 4:26:
And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos…
Here we find the linking phrase qara shem, “called his name.” Whenever we see this phrase in the Bible, it means that the child was a direct son. [Reiteration: When we see the words “called his name” (qara shem), God is always referring to a direct father/son relationship. When we see the word “begat,” we can know that God is most likely referring to a child born further along the generational line but that He might be referring to a direct father/son relationship if other statements in Scripture give evidence of that.]
We know from this that in the very beginning, God is giving us the direct sons of these men, which are the generational markers. Later He transitions into the great-great-great-great-grandson idea when the timeline links to someone who is in the line of a particular person.
We now know that Enos will be the third generational marker, so how long did Seth live before he had Enos? We saw from Genesis 5:6:
And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enos:
Since we know that Enos was a direct son of Seth, the second number we add is 105. We started with 130 (Adam) and now we add 105 (Seth). The third marker is Enos.
To pick up the line of Enos, we read in Genesis 5:9-10:
And Enos lived ninety years, and begat Cainan: And Enos lived after he begat Cainan eight hundred and fifteen years, and begat sons and daughters:
We can see that this language has changed and that God is using the word “begat.”
Then we read in Genesis 5:11:
And all the days of Enos were nine hundred and five years: and he died.
Because we do not see the term qara shem, we know that God is transitioning into the word “begat,” which directs us to a later descendant of, in this case, Enos.
So it said in Genesis 5:9:
And Enos lived ninety years, and begat Cainan:
Would I add 90? No, I would not add 90 because Enos’ generation will be his entire lifespan. Genesis 5:9-11 is telling us that when Enos was ninety, he had a child and that child eventually sired another child, on down the line, until Cainan was born.
What this verse is telling us is that someone who would be the progenitor of the next generational marker in the line of Enos was born when Enos was ninety. What we have to understand from this is that Cainan was born in the year that Enos died. Because the line of Enos is pointed out, Enos is our third generational marker. This also means that Cainan will be the next generational marker. Cainan will be the fourth generational marker. But what number do we add for Enos? For Enos, we add his entire age span, which is 905. The third number then is 905.
So from Enos, we move to Cainan’s line where we read in Genesis 5:12:
And Cainan lived seventy years, and begat Mahalaleel:
This is telling us that Mahalaleel was not Cainan’s direct son because it says that Cainan “begat” Mahalaleel. The Hebrew phrase qara shem is missing, which means that Mahalaleel was a descendant of Cainan and not a direct son.
So here we see that Cainan lived 70 years and had a progenitor in the line of Mahalaleel. In Genesis 5:13, we read that Cainan begat “sons and daughters.” This means that he had other children. Out of his children, he had a son who had another son who had another son, and so on. At some point in the generational line of Cainan, Mahalaleel was born.
Since Mahalaleel was not a direct son, this means that we need to know how long Cainan lived. We read in Genesis 5:13-14:
And Cainan lived after he begat Mahalaleel eight hundred and forty years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Cainan were nine hundred and ten years: and he died.
We find that Cainan’s lifespan is 910 years long. This means that this will be the next number that we will add to the Biblical timeline because God is indicating that his generation is his whole lifespan. Cainan lived for 910 years, so the fourth number to add is 910.
From here, we move to Mahalaleel. We read in Genesis 5:15-17:
And Mahalaleel lived sixty and five years, and begat Jared: And Mahalaleel lived after he begat Jared eight hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Mahalaleel were eight hundred ninety and five years: and he died.
Once again, we only see the word “begat,” which means, therefore, that Jared is a descendant of Mahalaleel and not a direct son.
So God is using the whole lifespan of Mahalaleel to indicate time and to use him as a generational marker. This tells us that the lifespan of Mahalaleel was 895 years. This means that the fifth number we add is 895.
We next go to Jared. We know that this means that Jared was born in the year that Mahalaleel died, so Jared is the next generational marker. We read in Genesis 5:18:
And Jared lived an hundred sixty and two years, and he begat Enoch:
He did not “call his name” Enoch. This means that Enoch is not a direct son, but instead a descendant of Jared’s.
Then we read in Genesis 5:19:
And Jared lived after he begat Enoch eight hundred years, and begat sons and daughters:
God does the math for us, as we read in Genesis 5:20:
And all the days of Jared were nine hundred sixty and two years: and he died.
So Jared is the sixth generational marker and his lifespan was 962 years. This means that the sixth number that we are to add is 962.
We now know that Enoch was born in the year that Jared died. God will now mark time with Enoch’s generation. We read in Genesis 5:21-24:
And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah: And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.
So Enoch’s lifespan was 365 years. This means that the seventh number that we are to add is 365. This means that Methuselah was born in the year that Enoch was taken away from this earth.
We read next in Genesis 5:25-26:
And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years, and begat Lamech: And Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech seven hundred eighty and two years, and begat sons and daughters:
In Genesis 5:27, God does the math for us:
And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died.
As far as we know in the Bible, Methuselah is the oldest person who ever lived. So Methuselah is the next generational marker and we know that his lifespan was 969 years. This means that the eighth number that we will add is 969.
So we know that Lamech was born in the year that Methuselah died, and then we read next in Genesis 5:28:
And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two years, and begat a son:
But we read in Genesis 5:29:
And he called his name Noah…
At this point, we again find this phrase “called his name” or qara shem.
As with Adam—because he “begat” Seth but “called his name” Seth—we did not add Adam’s entire lifespan. We only added the 130 years until Adam had Seth. Once again, this is God’s way of marking time by using these generational markers.
So Lamech “called his name” Noah. We know from this that Lamech was the father of Noah. Noah was Lamech’s direct and immediate son. This means that we do not add Lamech’s entire lifespan. We only add his age to the point at which he had Noah. This also means that Noah is the next generational marker that God is using.
So for Lamech, we have 182 years. This means that the ninth number that we will add is 182.
I had said that there were ten generations leading up to the flood, so we have one more generation to go. The next one, of course, is Noah.
At this point, let us turn to Genesis 7:6, which tells us when the flood occurred:
And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.
We now know that Noah was 600 years old at the time of the flood. This means that the tenth number we add is 600.
We now have a long list of ten generations. We started with creation and Adam and are now up to the flood of Noah’s day. When we add all ten, the total is 6,023 years. So 6,023 years pass from the creation of Adam up to the time when the flood was upon the earth.
The second subset will involve fifteen numbers. These are the fifteen time periods given from the flood, up to the time of Solomon’s death. At this point, we move to Genesis 11. Genesis 11 is the next chapter that picks up from the flood of Noah’s day. We will be able to see that the ten ages from Adam to the flood and the fifteen ages from the flood to Solomon’s death are neatly segmented together. We start in Genesis 11:10:
These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood:
We need to take note of the fact that two years after the flood is when Shem “begat” Arphaxad.
Then we read in Genesis 11:11:
And Shem lived after he begat Arphaxad five hundred years, and begat sons and daughters.
So Arphaxad was a descendant of Shem. At this point, it gets a little tricky because God is no longer doing the math for us. We are picking up after the flood. Shem is the eleventh generational marker or the first generational marker after the flood. Shem “begat” Arphaxad, so this means that we need Shem’s lifespan. So how long did Shem live after the flood?
At this point, we will begin to add the next 15 generational markers to arrive at a second subset of numbers. So we need to know Shem’s lifespan. We know that Shem lived 500 years after he begat Arphaxad. We also know that he lived two years after the flood before he begat Arphaxad. This means that from the flood until Shem died, 502 years had transpired. Our first number in this second subset will then be 502.
So Arphaxad was born in the year that Shem died, and we read next in Genesis 11:12-13:
And Arphaxad lived five and thirty years, and begat Salah: And Arphaxad lived after he begat Salah four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters.
What was Arphaxad’s lifespan? From this point, God will be giving us the age at which a child was begat and then the number of years afterward in that person’s lifespan. We will now be responsible for adding these two numbers together to arrive at someone’s total lifespan. At this point, we need to add 35 (Arphaxad lived five and thirty years, and begat Selah) to 403 (Arphaxad lived after he begat Salah four hundred and three years). This means that Arphaxad’s lifespan was 438 years. So the second number in this second subset is 438.
Salah was born in the year that Arphaxad died, so Salah will be the next generational marker. Then we read in Genesis 11:14:
And Salah lived thirty years, and begat Eber:
Notice that this does not say that he “called his name” Eber. Salah “begat” Eber; therefore, Eber is not a direct son of Salah. Eber is a descendant of Salah’s who was born in the year that Salah died.
We read next in Genesis 11:15:
And Salah lived after he begat Eber four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters.
So how old was Salah when he died? We add his 30 years to his 403 years to equal 433 years. This is our third number in this second subset.
So Eber was born in the year that Salah died, and then we read in Genesis 11:16-17:
And Eber lived four and thirty years, and begat Peleg: And Eber lived after he begat Peleg four hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters.
So how old was Eber when he died? He lived 34 years and he “begat” Peleg. Eber had a son who eventually became the progenitor of Peleg, and then Eber lived after he begat that son another 430 years. When we add 430 to 34, we get 464. So the fourth number after the flood, the fourth number in this second subset, is 464.
Peleg is listed as the next generational marker. Peleg is born in the year that Eber dies. Then we read in Genesis 11:18-19:
And Peleg lived thirty years, and begat Reu: And Peleg lived after he begat Reu two hundred and nine years, and begat sons and daughters.
So how old was Peleg when he died? We add his 30 years to his 209 years to arrive at his total lifespan of 239 years. Peleg is now our fifth generational marker from the flood. This means that the fifth number in this second subset of numbers is 239.
Notice that the lifespans are getting shorter all of a sudden. We are now seeing lifespans in the two hundreds instead of in the eight or nine hundreds. So at this point, the lifespan of man has become shorter.
Let us now pick up with Reu, the next generational marker that God gives us. We read in Genesis 11:20
And Reu lived two and thirty years, and begat Serug:
We have to keep in mind that God is not using the phrase “call his name” or qara shem. Reu “begat” Serug, so Serug was not his immediate son.
Then we read next in Genesis 11:21:
And Reu lived after he begat Serug two hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters.
So we add Reu’s 32 years to his 207 years to get his total lifespan of 239 years. Oddly enough, Reu lived 239 years, just like his progenitor Peleg. So the sixth number in this second subset of numbers is also 239.
The next generational marker is Serug, and we read in Genesis 11:22-23:
And Serug lived thirty years, and begat Nahor: And Serug lived after he begat Nahor two hundred years, and begat sons and daughters.
So how old was Serug when he died? We add his 30 years to his 200 years to arrive at his total lifespan of 230 years. This means that 230 is the seventh number in this second subset of numbers.
In the year that Serug died, Nahor was born. We read next in Genesis 11:24-25:
And Nahor lived nine and twenty years, and begat Terah: And Nahor lived after he begat Terah an hundred and nineteen years, and begat sons and daughters.
So how old was Nahor when he died? We add his 29 years to his 119 years to arrive at his total lifespan of 148 years. This means that 148 is the eighth number in this second subset of numbers.
We now move on to the next person who was born in the year that Nahor died, and we read in Genesis 11:26-27:
And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot.
We might think that Terah was possibly just a progenitor of Abram because of this word “begat,” but look at what we read in Genesis 11:28:
And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.
This tells us that Haran died before his father. In other words, Terah was his direct father. We read that Terah “begat” Abram, Nahor, and Haran, and that Haran died before his father Terah. Therefore, these were Terah’s direct sons.
Then we read in Genesis 11:29:
And Abram and Nahor took them wives…
Since Haran had died, these were the two remaining sons of Terah. We know that Abram’s wife was Sarai (Sarah).
At this point, we do not know how long to use Terah as a generational marker. We are going to find out that we use Terah’s lifespan up to the point that Abram is born. This is the pattern that God has established for a direct father/son relationship. God gives the lifespan of an individual until he has a direct son. When that son is born, the son becomes the next generational marker.
We read in Genesis 11:32:
And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran.
We do not add the total lifespan of Terah because he had a direct son born to him who was the next generational marker that God uses, which was Abram. We do not use this 205 because the Bible is not telling us that a descendant was born in Terah’s line in the year that Terah died. [Note: We know from Genesis 11:26 that Terah “lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.” However, because Genesis 11:26 mentions all three sons of Terah, we cannot tell from this verse exactly when Abram was born.]
We read in Genesis 11:31-32 that Terah’s sons had come with him from Ur of the Chaldees:
…they went forth…from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there. And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years…
Since Terah is the next generational marker, we need to find out how old Terah was when Abram was born. Remember that when using a direct father/son relationship, we use the age of the father up to the time that the son was born. Abram was told to depart out of Haran as soon as his father, Terah, died. Terah died and Abram came out of Haran. So we can figure out the age of Terah at the time that Abram was born from Genesis 12:4.
So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.
Terah’s total lifespan was 205 years. Abraham was 75 years old when Terah died. We know this because the same year that Terah died, Abram departed out of Haran. Therefore, we subtract 75 from 205 to get Terah’s age at the time of Abram’s birth, which was 130. So Abram was born when Terah was 130 years old. This means that 130 is the ninth number in this second subset of numbers.
The next generational marker will be Abraham. We will now need to follow through the Scriptures at this point, and it is not going to be as easy as it has been in Genesis 5 and Genesis 11. Things will not be as tightly knit.
The Bible has much to say about Abraham, so we will need to go further into Scripture to search out Abraham’s age. We need to find out how long Abraham lived until he had a son who would be the next generational marker.
In the next chapters, God begins dealing with His chosen people and He is starting to talk a lot about them. The question that we need to answer is: how long did Abraham live until he begat his son who was going to be the next generational marker? We pick up Abraham’s line in Genesis 21:5 where we read:
And Abraham was an hundred years old, when his son Isaac was born unto him.
We know from the language in the Scriptures that Isaac was a direct son of Abraham. So Abraham was 100 at the time that Isaac was born. This means that the tenth number in our second subset is 100 and that Isaac is the next generational marker.
So how long did Isaac live until he had his son who was going to be used as the next generational marker? At this point, we go to Genesis 25:26 where we read:
And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau’s heel; and his name was called Jacob: and Isaac was threescore years old when she bare them.
If you remember, Isaac and Rebekah had twin sons. One of them was named Jacob, and Jacob will be the next generational marker. We know that Isaac was the direct father of Jacob, so how old was Isaac when Jacob was born? This tells us that Isaac was 60 years old when Jacob was born. So the eleventh number in our second subset will be 60.
As far as Jacob is concerned, we need to find out how long he lived until the next time clue is given in the Bible. At this point, we need to go all the way up to Genesis 47:1 where we will read about Joseph in Egypt:
Then Joseph came and told Pharaoh, and said, My father and my brethren, and their flocks, and their herds, and all that they have, are come out of the land of Canaan; and, behold, they are in the land of Goshen.
If you remember, there was a great famine in the land. This is what caused Jacob to come down out of Canaan into Egypt.
Let us now look in the same chapter at Genesis 47:9:
And Jacob said unto Pharaoh…
Jacob the father of Joseph is speaking to Pharaoh in Egypt and he says:
…The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been…
Jacob is indicating that he is 130 as he came into Egypt. This is a huge time clue because God is going to give us an exact timeframe for when the Israelites entered into Egypt until the exodus.
From this direct statement here, we know that Jacob was 130 at the time that he came into Egypt. This means that the twelfth number in our second subset will be 130. This is how much time had passed until they wind up in Egypt. How long were they in Egypt? We know that they were in Egypt an exact 430 years. We can prove this by going to Exodus 12.
This is all fitting together perfectly because God does not leave any wiggle room in years. Either there is a direct father/son relationship or in the year that one person dies, the next generational marker is born. Then when He gives these long time clues, we wind up with exact dates.
So in Exodus 12:40-41, we read:
Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years. And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years…
And just to make sure we understand how exact He is being here, He says:
…even the selfsame day…
This was the anniversary of exactly 430 years from the day that Jacob came into Egypt. It continues:
…that all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.
This means that our next time clue is this 430 years, which is the time that passed until the exodus from Egypt. So the thirteenth number in our second subset is 430.
In our modern history records, do we have anything that shows when the exodus was? Not necessarily, so we cannot stop here. We cannot say yet, at least from the scientific and archeological records, that we can give an unequivocal date of the year of the exodus. This means that we need to continue to build a date from the Scriptures so that we can finally say that it is locked in solid to the calendar of our day.
So we are trying to find how much time passed from the time that the Israelites came out of Egypt with Moses until some other major event that is marked in the Bible. Does God give us any more clues as far as the next timeframe? Yes, He does. From this point, we need to go to our next time clue, which is all the way up to 1 Kings. Thankfully, we can pick up another time clue that we find in 1 Kings 6:1. We read there:
And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD.
This means that the building of the temple in Jerusalem by Solomon was started 480 years after the exodus through the Red Sea. We now have another timeframe given. So the fourteenth number in our second subset will be 480.
We are now at the point in history when the temple at Jerusalem is being built at the direction of King Solomon. We also find a clue in this verse as to how long Solomon had been reigning when this date occurred in history. By this date in history, Solomon was in the fourth year of his reign.
I said that there were going to be fifteen numbers that went from the flood all the way up to the death of Solomon, so we have one more to go in this subset. We find this last number in 1 Kings 11:42-43, which says:
And the time that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years. And Solomon slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David his father: and Rehoboam his son reigned in his stead.
We now have a timeframe for when Solomon died and when the kingdom of Israel was split under Rehoboam.
So how many years from the starting of the temple building did Solomon reign until he died? He had reigned for four years before the temple building began. He reigned for a total of 40 years. This means that he lived 36 years after the temple building began. This means that the fifteenth and last number in our second subset is 36.
The summation that we now have is 4,059. So 4,059 years passed from the flood of Noah all the way up to Solomon’s death. The next big question is in what year did Solomon die? When was the kingdom of Israel split in two? The kingdom of Israel was split in two in the year 931 B.C. [Note: There is universal agreement among historians and archaeologists that 931 B.C. is the date of Solomon’s death.]
I have three references that I am going to give you. You can trust that these three references will give you correct information. I am very confident that 931 B.C. was definitely the year that Solomon died.
Edwin Thiele wrote the first book and it is entitled, Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings. He has Solomon’s death at 931 B.C. The second book is Nelson’s Illustrated Encyclopedia of Bible Facts, which also lists 931 B.C. as the death of Solomon. The last book is by Arthur Weigall entitled, Guide to the Antiquities of Upper Egypt.
Weigall was an Egyptian scholar and an expert in the history of Egypt. The Egyptians left some of the greatest records in the history of this world. They were meticulous in their recordkeeping. Weigall recorded that it was Pharaoh Thutmose III who died in the Red Sea at the time of the exodus. This was because he was the only pharaoh who did not have a tomb built for himself.
The pharaohs always had tombs prepared well in advance of their deaths. All of these tombs were prepared as ornate structures to preserve their bodies. Apparently, Pharaoh Thutmose III had more buildings and structures than any other pharaoh before him. It is no doubt that the reason for this was because he had the Hebrews as slaves working for him. Yet it is odd that he did not have his own tomb built for him.
Why is that? It is because he had died unexpectedly in the Red Sea. The whole army of Egypt died, including this pharaoh. And Weigall has this dated at 1447 B.C., which is the exact year that we would conclude also if 931 B.C. is the year of Solomon’s death. This means that 1447 B.C. is the exact year of the exodus from Egypt, and we have another solid date that locks this in for us.
[Note: We now know that the first subset of numbers, the 6,023 up to the flood, and the second subset of numbers, the 4,059 up to Solomon’s death, ends at 931 B.C. We arrive at this second independent tie-in of 1447 B.C. by then adding the 480 years from the exodus to when the building of the temple was started, plus the 36 additional years of Solomon’s reign, plus the 931 years, to equal 1447 B.C. for the date of the exodus. At this point, it is possible to assign a B.C. date to any of these events in this Biblical timeline.]
If this is the case, let us look at the first two numbers in our subsets. From the creation of Adam all the way up to the flood was exactly 6,023 years. From the flood all the way up to Solomon’s death was exactly 4,059 years. If we add these two periods together, we get 10,082 years. So 10,082 years transpired until Solomon’s death, which we now know was in 931 B.C. If we now add these 10,082 years to the 931 years, we arrive at 11,013 B.C. We now know that Adam was created in 11,013 B.C.
I hope you can see how this worked out. It was pretty simple. It was plain arithmetic. There was no algebra or calculus. It was simple arithmetic.
So we now know that 11,013 is the year of creation. If we now start with 11,013 B.C. and subtract the first set of numbers, the 6,023 up to the flood, we arrive at 4990 B.C. as the year of the flood.
What does all of this mean? We have talked about how the end of the world will come in 2011. I am just about out of time, so I have to wrap this up quickly. In 2 Peter 3:3-4, God talks about the end of time and how people will scoff at this:
Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
He tells us elsewhere that “as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking…and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away.”
Then we read in 2 Peter 3:8:
But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
Under the inspiration of God, Peter was writing about the flood and the end of time within the same chapter and within a few verses of each other. And what is the clue that God gave to Noah in Genesis 7:4:
For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.
From there, Noah and his family enter the ark and all of the animals are brought into the ark.
So this is a clue that He gives us in Genesis 7:4. A second clue that He gives us is this one from in 2 Peter 3:8:
But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
If the clue for the end of time is this verse and a day equals 1,000 years, seven days would equal 7,000 years. 7,000 years from 4990 B.C. moves us into our A.D. calendar. There is no year 0, so we subtract 1 year. This means that when we add 4990 B.C. to 2011 A.D. and subtract a year because there is no year 0, we arrive at 7,000 years.
This gives us an exact account from the flood of 7,000 years. This is why we talk about the year 2011 A.D. as being the end of time. It is because it is exactly 7,000 years from the flood. We know this because we proved that the flood happened in the year 4990 B.C. This is without question when you look at this Biblical calendar.
May 21, 2011 is also the 17th day of the 2nd month of the Biblical Hebrew calendar, which is the same month and day that the flood came in Genesis 7:11. Genesis 7:11 reads:
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.
So the flood started on the 17th day of the 2nd month, and the end of time, as we now know, will begin exactly on May 21 in 2011. Just as the flood waters were upon the earth for 150 days or five months of Noah’s calendar, so, too, will the wrath of God that we read about in Revelation 9:5 be upon the earth for five months of our modern calendar:
…they should be tormented five months…
We now know that October 21, 2011 will be the date of that great eternal hellfire, that geenna fire [in the Greek] that will burn up the heavens and the earth and all of the people on the earth on that last day. They will be no more. They will be eternally dead.
There are also other clues that prove that 2011 will be the time of the end. These clues show dates that match up incredibly. We will have to study these clues another day.
I will leave you with these proofs that the history of the Bible gives us. Adam was created in 11,013 B.C. The flood happened in 4990 B.C. Solomon died in 931 B.C. When we project 7,000 years from the flood to 2011 A.D., we can say that we have very solid evidence that the end of the world is under two short years away.
We should feel the terror and the urgency of this reality. This is really going to happen! Our lifestyle for the rest of our days on this earth should correspond to what God wants us to do. We need to urgently pray to Him for our own salvation and for the salvation of those whom we know.
When that day comes, pray that you will find yourself forgiven of your sins and eligible for entrance into the new heavens and the new earth. Amen.