Day of the Lord & Rosh Ha Shanah Year 6001

By William Riley
Olive Tree Ministries
ot.waxahachie@yahoo.com

Q. In past columns you have stated that the beginning of Day of the Lord (Millennium) will occur on Rosh Ha Shanah year 6001 after creation. It is currently 5767 on the Hebrew calendar. Does that mean that the millennium will not start for approximately 234 years?

A. The Hebrew calendar is not an exact accounting of the years from creation. In the book called “Seder Olam Rabbah” which means the “Great Book of the World” it says that when chronicling the years they did not count the years of the Persian kings not mentioned in the Scriptures. There are only four mentioned. As a result, there is approximately 210 to 250 years not included in the years. If you take the minimum number of 210 and add it to the current year 5767 you have 5977 and any number after that could put us right up to the year 6000 so we are closer than what the calendar says.

There are other sources to verify this information like the Artscroll Yom Kippur Machzor p. 336-337, Mesorah Publications “History of the Jewish People” p. 211-212, the Artscroll Tanach “Bereshit” p.357 and the genealogies of the Bible itself all testify to the fact that we are very close to the end of the 6000 years from creation. God gave a blueprint for the history of man in Genesis chapter 1-2. He makes the world in 6 days and rests on the seventh. This is the pattern we are to follow by working the first through the sixth day (Sunday through Friday) and resting on the seventh day, which is Saturday. By doing this God says we acknowledge Him as creator, and it is an eschatological picture. Man-made traditions have hidden this picture over the years and that is why these articles have consistently tried to get the truth of God’s word out to those that hear. The six days of creation were seen in the first century as 6000 years based on Psalm 90.4. Peter reinforces this idea in his epistle so this idea is nothing new.

Paul uses this idea of a “Sabbath rest” to teach the idea that a believer has spiritual rest in the Messiah, based on the literal seventh day weekly Sabbath which he kept all his life and taught others to do, unlike modern day teachers who teach it has been “done away with.” He also talks about a literal “day” (1000 years) of the Lord which is known as the “Millennium” by many prophecy students. When the 6000 years from creation is complete, earth will enter the seventh day. Biblical days begin at sundown, or darkness. This “Day of the Lord” will also begin in “darkness” called the “Birth-pains of the Messiah” or the tribulation period. There is much more to this as you can see but there is no inconsistency in the years on the Hebrew calendar and Jewish history, there was just a certain way it was calculated.