Ezekiel 4's Prophecy Fulfillment

420 Years of Punishment

In Ezekiel 4 we see that the prophet is instructed to complete a visual demonstration of a prophecy against Israel. He first places a brick and labels it Jerusalem. Then, he "lays siege to the city" at which point he is instructed to lie on his left side for 390 days as punishment for the wrongdoing of Israel. Then he is instructed to lay on his right side for 40 days for the wrongdoing of Judah. This is a total of 430 days of punishment (390 + 40). In verses 4 and 6 the text explicitly states that these are days representing years. In verse 12 we learn that the siege is at some point followed by exile and scattering among the nations.

Prophetic Year Explanation

Prophetic years are initially established in the account of the Great Flood in Genesis. In Genesis 7:24 we see that the waters of the flood abated for 150 days which is associated with a 5 month span between Genesis 7:11 and Genesis 8:4. This averages out to 30 day months and therefore a 360 day year. This day count is further confirmed in considering prophetic chapters all speaking of one half of the seven year tribulation period: Daniel 7:25 (time, times and a half), Daniel 9:27 (half of a "week" of years), Daniel 12:7 (time, times and a half), Revelation 11:2-3 (42 months, 1260 days), Revelation 12:6 (1260 days), and Revelation 13:5 (42 months).

70 Years Served, 430 To Go

In Daniel 9:2 the prophet Daniel gives us confirmation that after the siege of the Babylonians the nation of Israel was in captivity in Babylon for 70 years. As it happens, these 70 years are related to a different prophecy fulfillment of Jeremiah 25:11-12 and Jeremiah 29:10. But, for the purposes of this page we'll accept the 70 years as paid in full during the Babylonian captivity with gives us a remainder of 360 years (430 punishment year - 70 years in Babylon = 360 punishment years remaining

Punishment Multiplied

In Leviticus 26:14-18 we learn that God promises to multiply Israel's sin seven times more if they continue to sin. Unfortunately, following the Babylonian captivity in 2 Chronicles 36:5-14 we learn that the kings, leaders, priests, and people became increasingly unfaithful and therefore their punishment is multiplied by seven moving forward (360 x 7 = 2,520 prophetic 360-day years). When we convert these years into 360 day years we come up with a total of 907,200 days or 2,483 years 9 months, and 21 days by our 365 day year reckoning. What major event do you suppose we find that many days after the end of the Babylonian captivity?

The Fulfillments of Ezekiel 4

It should be noted that the exact day the Babylonian captivity ended is not known via achaeological confirmation but is estimated to be around 536 BC. If you count forward the 2,483 years and from the 536 year end date (adding 1 year to account for no year 0) you land on 1948 — the very year that Israel became a nation again. Chuck Missler speculates further that the additional 9 months and 21 days counted from the exact day Israel became a nation again on May 14, 1948 would indicate that the Babylonian conflict ended a few months earlier than where we started the count on July 23, 537 BC.

Alternatively, Chuck points out that if you begin the count from 518 BC, which is the year the desolations of Jerusalem ended (by the conquesting Persians), and count the same amount of time forward as above you land somewhere in 1966. If you then assume the 9 months and 21 days translates to 1967 you land in the same year as the Six Day War at the end of which Jerusalem was added back to the nation of Israel on June 10, 1967. This would imply the siege was broken on or within days of August 20, 518 BC. Regardless of not knowing the exact day, it's still an amazing level of precision for a prophet writing in the 6th century BC to proclaim a timeframe from a future event to occur around 70 years to another future event nearly 2500 years later.