26. TIME RECKONING - APPOINTED TIMES
Revelation 1:3: "... the (appointed) time is at hand."
Time Reckoning – Appointed Times
The
mechanics of time reckoning are related to the philosophy of time. Biblically,
the basic idea was that of reconciling the heavens and the earth, copying the
Pattern of the Heavens
into the fabric of life. This took the form, geometrically, of reconciling the
circle and the line. This system recognized the fact that time has both a cycle
and an arrow;
that is, that the time-telling heavens re-circle as does a wheel, but that “wheel”
is moving along a line, so to speak, that has direction and purpose.
The English concept of
grammatical tense depends upon the basic notion of time as a line.
On a time-line we can speak of past, present, future, etc., however, if time is
viewed in relation to space, as a dimension of space, and as a whole circle,
tense does not function in the same way.
While Christ is Universal Light and Time in the Book of
Revelation, the message is specifically addressed to “His servants”
and speaks of an imminent earthly event, albeit with cosmic significance. “The
time,” as mentioned in Revelation 1:3, is an appointed time, a time
previously set and agreed upon by a signal, (testimony or witness),
not an indefinite time.
Although
that time had been long foreseen, at the writing of the Book it was not for a
remote, distant, indistinct future, but was “soon,” “at hand,” “no longer delayed.” The Book
announces the arrival of a time
previously set and foretold, an appointed time that was set with
reference to the then existent, earthly Temple as a time-piece.
(See also “Must” Commentary on Rev. 1:1.)
The word “time”
in Revelation 1:3 is a
translation of the Greek kairos, meaning “a set or proper
time.” A form of the Greek word kairos is also used in Revelation 11:18;
12:12, 14 (twice); and 22:10. It is to be distinguished from chronos, (used in Revelation 10:6),
meaning “a space of time,” and from aeon,
meaning “an age or interval of time.” The word horae, used in 14:15, means “an hour, or a season.”
The corresponding Hebrew word môw‘êd is used not only for an “appointed
time”, (as above), but also for an “appointed place,” as in Psalm 74:4, “thy holy place,” also translated
by the Greek kairos. As the movement of the heavenly
time markers is constant, there must be a designated place on earth over
which these markers pass, (“come to pass”),
in order to set a definite appointed time. In other words a time must be
designated with reference to some place.
For example,
the earth is now divided by the meridian of Greenwich, known as the prime
meridian. This arbitrary line is used conventionally to mark the passing of one
day into another for purposes of telling time. In ancient Israel the Temple, and perhaps more precisely, the Holy of Holies, served to mark the prime meridian for time reckoning.
The meridian was marked in reference to the pole star, the equatorial line
being established from the equinoctial rising of the sun, the zenith being
perpendicular to the Temple. In this relationship we see how the lights of the
heavens are the prime, established points of which earthly establishments are
only the secondary images or witnesses. The mapping of the heavens corresponds
to the mapping of the earth extended into space.
The
magnificence of the Temple, therefore, was not in its material construction but in
its relationship to Light and its ability
to internalize Light. Materially it was quite an ordinary structure compared to
the buildings of the Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, and Egyptians. Its glory lay in quite another realm. It was “beautiful
for situation;” that is, it was oriented to the Lights of the Heavens. God had
placed His Name there.
Solomon’s
Temple was dedicated on
the day of the spring equinox, (as was the Tabernacle of Moses), and was so oriented that the first rays of the rising
sun on that day shone from the Mount of Olives through the
Eastern Gate, then through the doors of the Temple all the way
through into the Holy of Holies, striking the mercy seat. The gold plated cherubim and
the gold lined inner walls would have made a display of reflected light that
was indescribably beautiful.
There were
other orifices, windows or portals through which light entered, as an
instrument of time-reckoning. No doubt the zenith would have been marked by a path
for light to enter from directly above. This ray may have entered in such a way
as to strike the brazen sea so that the light reflected through the water would
have created a rainbow of color, the water acting as a prism.
The
important components of time reckoning, the equinoxes, solstices and the points
of the moon’s movements were probably marked by portals so arranged that the
entrance of the significant ray of light would create its own unique display.
The gold plated interior and instruments would have acted somewhat as mirrors,
but with a softer, diffusing golden glow.
This beauty
was symbolic of the glory of God that fills ones being when his life is
properly oriented to the Light of God. The
ultimate reflection of God, as Light, was in Man himself. The glory is not in
the material outward Man, but in the internalization of the Light, Jesus Christ. Ultimately, our bodies are the Temple, but the greater glory comes from the Light we reflect,
the image of God. Just as the physical structure of the Temple was a
time-piece, Man’s intellect was the reason for that time-piece; without the
intellect, the time-piece would have neither meaning nor value, indeed would
not exist.
The visible
glory of the various displays of Light within the Temple was
indescribable; yet, as a human experience, it served as an analog by which the
spiritual visions of God could be related in words, insufficient though they
might be. (See “Visions of God,” Commentary on Revelation 1:11-20.)
Psalm 74 is better
understood when we realize that the destruction of the Temple was the
destruction of their means of telling time precisely and especially for
determining the time of the sacred feasts. 74:4: “Thy foes have roared in the midst of thy holy place,
(môw‘adkâh) they set up their own
signs for signs,” (RSV). That is, they had set up their army banners,
probably obstructing the significant rays of light and destroying the
time-telling function which required visibility of the signs of the heavens as
observed from the Temple.
In fact,
Genesis 1:14 teaches that
the lights of heaven were created for time-telling signs:
To separate the day from the night; and let them be for
signs and for seasons and for days and years,” (RSV).
The Psalmist refers to this:
Thou hast made the moon to mark the seasons [môw‘edim, plural
of môw‘ed, Greek kairos]; the sun knows its time for setting.
Thou makest darkness, and it is night, (Psalm 104:19 RSV).
Indeed God dwells in Light:
Thou art clothed with honor and majesty, who coverest
thyself with light as with a garment, who hast stretched out the heavens like a
tent, (Psalm 104: lb-2).
But when “…they burned all the meeting places
(môw‘adey) of God in the land. We do not see our signs; there is no and
the sun longer any prophet, and there is none among us who knows how long,”
(Psalm 74: 8b-9).
The
destruction of the Temple created a
disorientation so complete that it was as if the sun and moon had been darkened
and the stars had fallen from their place. The Temple was the bond between
heaven and earth, on earth, as the reference point for time and space. When it
was destroyed and the priests and prophets who knew how to read the
time-telling signs had been taken captive or had betrayed their people, it was
a cosmic event. (See Commentary 6:13 “Shaking of the Heavens.”)
The Psalmist
reviews God’s work in creation and so is inspired to hope, for times are in God’s
hand:
Thine is the day, thine also the night; thou hast
established the luminaries [mâ‘ôr]
and the sun. Thou hast fixed all the bounds [gebûlôth, perhaps meaning the orbits of
the earth]; thou hast made summer and
winter, (Psalm 74:16-17 RSV).
The
penultimate Lament of Jeremiah is the plea: “Restore us to thyself, O Lord, that we may
be restored! Renew our days as of
old!” (Lam. 5:21 RSV). The New Year celebration
included the counting of the times, the renewal of the covenant vow and the
return through repentance to God. Thus the New Year was thought of as a renewal
or restoration of life, of time that had run out. In a symbolic sense it was
the Day of the Lord, a time of reckoning and accountability.
Second Esdras 3:18, reflects
the traditional view that spiritual events cause a cataclysmic change in the
times:
Thou didst
bend down the heavens and shake the earth, and move the world, and make the
depths to tremble, and trouble the times, [at Mount Sinai].
In 1I Esdras 4:36, Ezra has asked the
question as to how long the evil seed is to prevail:
And
Jeremiel the archangel
answered them and said, “When the number of those like yourselves is completed;
for he has weighed the age in the balance, and measured the times by measure,
and numbered the times by number; and he will not move or arouse them until
that measure is fulfilled.”
The verb of being
is the verb of existence in time. Being and living are
essentially the same. Renewal of time was therefore a renewal of life.
God’s revealed Name, Yahweh, is the verb of being, of life, of time.
(See
also Introductory Articles: “Calculating the Seventy Weeks” and Commentary 1:8 “Alpha and Omega” and 1:1 “Revelation: Definition – Hebrew.”)
See also Stephen Jay Gould, Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle, Myth and Metaphor in the Discovery of Geological Time, (Cambridge, Mass. and London, England, Harvard University Press, 1987).
This
might also be expressed in terms of dimensions. The circle requires a
two-dimensional plane; however, if that plane is rotated in such a way that we
view it from the edge, it appears to us as a line.
See Strong’s #3974, mâ‘ôr, derived from the word for 'light.'
