Chance, 23 Apr 2023) Re Jacob's Trouble

Also, what adds to my belief that the 70th Week has not been completed is what Jesus said and did when he went to enter Jerusalem/the Triumphal Entry…

In Luke 19:41, 42 "And when He drew near and saw the city, He wept over it saying, "Would that you, even you, had known on THIS DAY that things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children with you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because YOU DID NOT KNOW THE TIME OF YOUR VISITATION."

This tells me that the prophecy of the 70th Week could not be fulfilled at that time. I see a pause in the Daniel 9 prophecy. For the time of the Gentiles. Then the Trib would bring in the final Jacob's Trouble – dealing with the Jewish people and Jerusalem.

Hi Chance, I’m afraid I don’t see any connection between what Jesus said and did, when he went to enter Jerusalem in AD 30 (i.e., weeping over the city), and what you seem to think will happen two thousand years later, in the end time, (when—‘the Trib would bring in the final Jacob’s trouble—dealing with the Jewish people and Jerusalem.’

Jesus wept over Jerusalem, because he knew what punishment and disaster would shortly engulf Jerusalem in the days [that] will come upon you [i.e., in AD 66–74]; [1] this was because Jerusalem had not borne any spiritual fruit of righteousness, even after Jesus’ ministry for three years!

(See EAR Five Doves post—JESUS’ TIME OF VISITATION —> for SALVATION, 11 June 2023.)

If Jesus had found a city that was penitent, in tune with God, spiritually alive, and showing any fruit of righteousness, those would have been the things that make for [Jerusalem’s] peace on THIS DAY!

But He already knew He wouldn’t find any of those things when He visited the temple later, on THIS DAY, and that is why He wept! (Instead, the chief priests, scribes and elders plotted to take Jesus… and kill Him. Matt. 26:3–4)

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See Your house is left to you desolate… (Matt. 23:37–38; Luke 13:34–35); cf. Daniel 9:26b, 27b.

As a result of Jesus’ examination of the Temple, Jerusalem would be made desolate (first, by her own people’s rebellion and uprising in AD 66 –>) then, it would be besieged (April 14 to 8 September AD 70 –>) by Rome. During the days to come upon the city—it would be laid bare to the ground and its stones would be torn down; exactly as Jesus told His disciples in His Sermon on the Mount shortly before His last Passover, trial and execution (Matt. 24:1–2; 26:3–4).

As I have set out in my book – The Curse and the Covenant – THE CURSE AND THE COVENANT (fivedoves.com) because the Jews (as a Nation) were not willing to accept Daniel’s 70^th week as God’s VISITATION FOR THEIR SALVATION via the work and witness of their Messiah and His disciples (AD 27–34), they would later on (as a Nation) suffer an ‘alternative week of destruction and desolation’ in the days [that] will come upon you via God’s VISITATION FOR JUDGEMENT (i.e., AD 66–74).

Thus, Jerusalem and its children would remain outside of God’s presence or protection until Jesus returns as King and Judge at His 2^nd Coming (cf. Rev. 19:11–16). When the Jewish people can genuinely say… ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ (Matt.23:39), the implication is: on that day they will accept Jesus Christ as their Messiah who confirmed the New Covenant promised by Jeremiah, when He took away their sins. (See Romans chapters 9–11, especially 11:5–7, 19–23, 26–27; and Romans 9:25–28.)

And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ There they shall be called sons of the living God.’ (Romans 9:26)

I know that Dispensationalist interpretation states that the time of Jacob’s trouble is still future—in the end time… However, there is only one Old Testament verse that refers to the time of Jacob’s trouble, and Jacob’s trouble (distress) was occurring right then, at the very hour Jeremiah wrote those words down! [2]

Jerusalem was—at that moment—being besieged by Babylon, and it would soon be destroyed!

Alas! For that day is great, so that none is like it; and it is the time of Jacob’s trouble, but he shall be saved out of it. (Jere. 30:7)

While Jeremiah was writing his book OF HOPE to the Jews (i.e., chapters 30–33), he says in Jeremiah 32:1 that it was the 10^th year of Zedekiah (587/6 BC), which is the exact year that Jerusalem was being besieged by Babylon (again): this time, lasting for more than 18 months! Thus, Jeremiah’s phrase Jacob’s trouble refers to the fast approaching and imminent day when Jerusalem would fall, and be destroyed (viz., that day is great—Tisha B’Av, 586 BC) when the Nation would be taken into exile. Jeremiah is simply informing the Jews that even though catastrophe was striking at the walls of Jerusalem—at that very moment, comprising Jacob’s trouble—God will save them out of it in the future.

The words below were to be read to the Jewish captives (who had been taken as slaves to Babylon ten years earlier in 597 BC), and to those who would soon be joining them after the city was razed by the Babylonians (587/6 BC).

Dispensationalists have taken these verses about Jacob’s trouble right out of their scriptural context—i.e., the fall of Jerusalem in 587/6 BC—and put them into a future end time scenario: largely because of the false theoretical ‘physical and spiritual separation’ they have constructed to divide between Israel and the Church! As well as their denial that Daniel’s 70^th week Covenant was fulfilled by Messiah. This separation/division does not agree with Paul’s teaching:

For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. (Romans 10:12) [3]

Chance, if you look at what I have highlighted, you will see that the gist of this particular passage, and indeed, the remainder of the special BOOK OF HOPE that Jeremiah wrote to the captives, is all about how they were presently suffering Jacob’s Trouble; BUT God will restore the Jews to Israel; God will break the yoke of Babylonian slavery right off their necks; He will burst off the shackles that bound them on (yet another) ‘that day’ that lay in the future; it is thus contrasted with ‘that day’ of Jacob’s Trouble(above). This is the context of Jacob’s trouble.

In the midst of their current plight (i.e., the Babylonian siege), and their looming slavery (while Babylon was at the peak of its power), the people of Israel and Judah were literally shaking with fear—they were scared stiff—even the men were acting like women in labor, moaning and groaning, pale faced, and clutching at their bellies, afraid their pains would only get worse! In a sense, Jeremiah (speaking on behalf of God) agrees with them… but cynically, I think… hence my take on Jere. 30:4–7, 12–15). It’s as if Jeremiah is saying:

Oh yeah! God says he’s heard your voice of trembling… it’s a fearful, dreadful situation; but there won’t be any peace during Jacob’s trouble (i.e., during the current siege and invasion by the Babylonians when the temple and Jerusalem will be destroyed [9^th Av, 587 BC]; there [will be] no other day like it; but cheer up men, stop complaining and acting like women in childbirth; all this is being imposed on you—via your worst cruel enemy—as God’s punishment for your sins. (You wouldn’t listen to my warnings!) There is no one who can help you; not your medicines; not even your lovers, because it is God that has done these things to you!

To understand the cynicism: Jeremiah had warned Judah for 10 years about the sins of the nation (Jere. 25:3–11) and what would befall them if they continued to sin. Earlier, during the rise of Babylon in the North around 605/4 BC, in the fourth year of King Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, God commanded Jeremiah to speak His words, and his scribe Baruch would write down all the warnings against ISRAEL AND JUDAH, AND ALL THE surrounding NATIONS in a scroll (cf. Jeremiah 36).

The scroll was to be read on a Day of Fasting in the Lord’s House. The following year it was apparently read again: a listener (Michaiah) was so alarmed he took the scroll and read it to the princes of the kingdom; they decided it should be taken to the King. So it was, but even as the scroll was being read to Him, King Jehoiakim cut it into pieces and burned it; then he tried to seize Jeremiah, and Baruch his scribe, to punish them. As a result, God said Jehoiakim would have no heirs to sit on the throne of David, and his dead body would be cast out to the heat of the day and the frost of the night.

I will punish him, his family, and his servants for their iniquity; and I will bring on them, on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and on the men of Judah all the doom that I have pronounced against them; but they did not heed. (Jere. 36:31) Cf. Jere. 6:22–30; Amos 5:18–20; Dan.9:11–14.

Moses spoke of similar warnings (that they did not heed) with consequential punishments for their sins in the future; (try reading Deut. 28, especially 36–37, 41, 47–68 out loud)! It describes in terms of absolute horror and terror… what a siege (and therefore by inference), what the time of Jacob’s trouble, would be like if they didn’t repent and turn back to God. By 605/4 BC—> Judah’s sins had overcome them; Babylon was rising to power; some Jews would die, but others would suffer the consequences of slavery and exile in Babylon for up to 70 years (cf. Jere. 25:11; and his letter to the exiles, Jere. 29:10), then they would be freed to go home!

Thus, Jeremiah wrote a book of HOPE to the Jews who would survive Babylon, to tell them that God was going to release them from their captivity, and restore them to their homeland. Jeremiah wasn’t warning his fellow Jews (Jacob’s descendants) about a ‘far off’ future time of Jacob’s trouble… they were already deep in it—at that very moment—some of them already with chains around their necks! God said He was going to ‘Save them out of it’ and He did, but not until the Persian King Cyrus conquered Babylon in 539 BC.

If Dispensationalists think Jacob’s trouble has to be transposed into another time for the Jews, why didn’t they choose:

1. The historical repeat siege in AD 66–74, which started with the Jewish civil war, when thousands of Jews were killed, causing another siege of Jerusalem (by the Romans this time), and the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, when millions were killed, together with the Jews’ subsequent enslavement! (Jesus called this period the Days of vengeance!)

2. OR perhaps the expulsion of Jews from Jerusalem in AD 135 during Hadrian’s rule, when he razed the city to build his own Roman town!

3. OR maybe the inquisition by the Roman Catholic Church against Jews (AD 12^th century onwards);

5. OR last, but by no means least, the Nazi programme to solve the ‘Jewish question!’

That is all Jacob’s troubled history! Jacob’s trouble has been going on for 2,500 years during their Diaspora: from 586 BC–AD 1948!

BUT today, we can truthfully say that God finally did what He promised to do during the original time of Jacob’s Trouble… He saved them out of it all, and with the establishment of the re-born, Jewish nation in 1948 (Ezek. 36:1–24), surely God has kept His promise! Now they can defend themselves!

Israel’s national cleansing is promised, at the resurrection, at the return of Jesus Christ their Messiah, when they will receive God’s Spirit (Ezek. 36:24–37:28; Dan. 12:1–3). Ezekiel says:

Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them, and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; I will establish them and multiply them, and I will set My sanctuary in their midst forevermore. My tabernacle also shall be with them; indeed I will be their God, and they shall be My people. The nations also will know that I, the LORD, sanctify Israel, when My sanctuary is in their midst forevermore. (Eze. 37:26–27)

[1] In this context: the days will come upon you… refers to God’s visitation for judgement after Daniel’s 70^th week covenant period had concluded. Whereas, Behold the days are coming, (as used in Jere. 31:31–34) refers to God’s visitation for salvation in Daniel’s 70^th week—to confirm the New Covenant—during Jesus’ and His disciples’ ministry to the Jews.

[2] Whenever Jacob is referred to in scripture, it usually means all of Jacob’s 12 sons’ and their descendants, otherwise the words Israel or Judah would be used to differentiate between the Northern and Southern kingdoms.

[3] The Early Church comprised thousands of Jewish and Gentile converts, with whom Jesus Christ had unique relationships: Prior to the Cross, Jesus’ relationship with the Jews was through the promises made to the fathers, (viz., Abraham, Isaac and Jacob). Post-cross, His relationship with the Jews was via the New Covenant to forgive their sins (as in Jere. 31:33–34 and in Daniel 9:24, 26a, 27a), thus making the old covenant redundant (Heb. 10:1–18). The New Covenant was extended to the Gentiles/Romans (by the Holy Spirit); they were to glorify God for his mercy. (Romans 15:4–13)