divine wisdom. Their worship involved the elements of nature, fire and water.”
“And the man with the rod?”
“Their leader, a Middle Eastern man but of an appearance different from the rest—that would be the prophet Daniel.”
“What would the prophet Daniel be doing with the magi?”
“Daniel lived in the Babylonian exile, in the royal court of Babylon, and then of Persia. The Bible records that Daniel was made chief of the wise men of Babylon.”
“And the images of the lions?”
“The city represented by the lion is Jerusalem.”
“But there were two of them.”
“Signifying two Jerusalems,” said the Oracle, “one that was lost to Israel and the other that was restored.”
“And the two crowns that represented two kings . . . what two kings?”
“One was ancient and the other was not.”
“And the eyes?”
“The pool of water was a well. In Hebrew the word for well is ayin. Ayin is also the Hebrew word for eye. The letter ayin has a numerical value of seventy. It stood for the appointed times.”
“Seventy,” I said, “as in the seventy years. But what does it have to do with Daniel?”
“Daniel lived at the time of the exile of seventy years. And he was shown a mystery linked to the number seventy and having to do with years . . . seventy sevens of years . . . a countdown to the coming of the Messiah.”
“And what was this telling me?”
“That concerning the seventy years in the revelation you were shown, the mystery goes deeper, there’s more to be uncovered.”
“So let’s go deeper,” I said.
“At the end of seventy years in Babylon, Cyrus came to world power, the proclamation went forth to restore Jerusalem and the land to the Jewish people, and the exiles began to return. So in the modern case what happened at the end of the seventy years?”
“At the end of seventy years,” I replied, “a man in the pattern of Cyrus came to world power, and a proclamation went forth concerning Jerusalem and its restoration to the Jewish people.”
“In the ancient case Israel was restored to Jerusalem under Cyrus seventy years after its exile from Jerusalem began under Nebuchadnezzar. So the end of the seventy years saw the restoration of what was lost at the beginning of the seventy years—the nation’s separation from Jerusalem.”
“In other words, the seventy-year period specifically had to do with the nation’s separation from Jerusalem . . . and then the end of that separation.”
“Yes.”
“So is there any parallel in the modern case?”
“The separation of the Jewish people from Jerusalem goes back two thousand years. And yet there is a modern equivalent. When the United Nations passed the Partition Plan, dividing up the land, it was a double-edged sword. On one hand, it would bring about the rebirth of Israel. On the other hand, it would cut off the newborn nation from its Holy City. It would declare Jerusalem a “corpus separatum,” a city separated, under the sovereignty and control of the United Nations—and thus separated from the Jewish nation. 1 There now was to be a nation of Israel in the world—but an Israel cut off from its ancient capital. So the same resolution that brought Israel into the world also began a period of separation, the nation from its Holy City.
“That separation would last until the Jubilee of 1967, when Jerusalem was restored to Israel. But with regard to the world and the realm of nations, authorities, powers, sovereignties, resolutions, and laws, the separation would continue until the Jubilee of 2017. It was only then that the world’s unanimously upheld severance of Israel and Jerusalem was broken.
“So the period began when the United Nations decreed that Israel was legally separated from Jerusalem and ended when the United States nullified that decree by declaring that Jerusalem was legally joined to Israel—from 1947 to 2017. How many years?”
“Seventy years.”
“But your vision was telling us to go deeper. The seventy years began when the United Nations voted on the Partition Plan, on Saturday, November 19, 1947. But on the biblical calendar it was a different date—the sixteenth day of Kislev. And on the biblical calendar the new day begins at sundown. The vote was taken after sundown—the beginning of the next day. The resolution was passed on the seventeenth day of Kislev.
“We have our first marker. The seventeenth day of Kislev constitutes the beginning of the seventy years. And when do the Scriptures say that Cyrus issued his decree?”
“After seventy years.”
“If we take those words literally, on what day would the after