2 Esdras (known as 4 Esdras in the Vulgate) is part of the King James Bible's "Apocrypha" section. Scholars generally agree that an early Jewish Christian wrote it, or major sections of it, and that its original language was Hebrew. You can read it here:
Bible Gateway passage: 2 Esdras 7 - New Revised Standard Version
I liked reading this fascinating text, and based on its authorship, I would like to please ask you in the Messianic section about one of the most confusing parts of this document for me:
Do the 400 years after the Messiah has been revealed refer to (A) 400 years in the period from the 5th century BC up to Christ's crucifixion, (B) a metaphor for Christ's life or ministry, or (C) a futuristic eschatological End Times period following the End Times tribulation comparable to the 1000 years of Christ's reign after His return in the Book of Revelation?
The passage is in 4 Esdras 7, below. An angel gives Ezra the Lord's prediction about signs and about a city full of all good things that has a narrow entrance. Next, the angel says:
Let me briefly explain each of the three interpretations that I came across.
(Option A: A 400 year period in c. 440 BC - 333 AD.)
According to this theory, Ezra's writings or the prophecies in the TaNaKh revealed the Messiah in about the 5th century BC, and righteous Israelites rejoiced over the next 400 years. In the Latin manuscript of 4 Esdras 7:27, the Messiah is called "Jesus." ("For My Son Jesus shall be revealed with those that be with him"). While the other remaining manuscripts (Syriac, Ethiopian, Armenian) don't have the name "Jesus" here, it's still a possibility. Thus, the document could be presenting itself as "revealing" the Messiah. In history, the real Ezra lived in about 480-440 BC. The document says that the Messiah would die after the 400 years, but it doesn't say how long afterwards. The Crucifixion was in about 33 AD, which is about 472 years after Ezra's time.
Stephen W. Kraner in his essay "Allusions to 2Esdras in the New Testament" showed that 4 Esdras 8:62- 9:6 apparently lines up with major elements of
Matthew 24. If the author of the book's middle portion used Matthew 24, he would have been a Christian who intended his reference to the Messiah's death in verse 29 to agree with the New Testament, not to contradict it. Another reason for Option A could be that there are about 400 years in the Intertestamental period between the events of the TaNaKh and those of the Gospels. Further, Daniel 9 gives a similar period of over four centuries that leads to the cutting off of an Anointed One / Messiah.
On the other hand, one of my biggest problems with Option A is that v. 28 says that "my son the Messiah shall be revealed
with those who are with him", and it's hard to see how His companions were revealed in the 5th century BC., since the Jews already knew about figures in heaven like Moses, Enoch, Elijah, Ezra and the angels.
What do you think of
Option A? I want to ask you more about Options B and C in later posts, but you can respond about them here too.
The author of the text was a Kohen, (Priest), and fully understood both the civil and the sacred calendar days, and understood the meaning of the statement,
That your days may be multiplied....as the days of the heavens upon the earth, (Deut 11:21). Moreover he is referring the observant reader to the following statement found in Yeshayah the Prophet:
Isaiah 65:20 KJV
20 There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed.
This
hundred years old is according to the multiplied days upon the earth, which in turn are derived from the sacred calendar day of seven yamim-hours in a yom day, which is so because Yom is Light: and this is not the light of the sun but the true Light which enlightens every man coming into the world, the Light of the Word of the Most High. Yom is rendered in many different ways in the scripture but unfortunately one of the most important meanings is neither understood by scholars nor rendered as such, which is the hour. There is no word for an hour in Biblical Hebrew, (the Aramaic portions use a word which does not mean the same in Hebrew). However, since Yom is Light, (Gen 1:5a, according to its name given by Elohim Himself in the very beginning), whenever it is used as an increment of time it may be any increment of biblically employed meanings for yom. Rhema spoken (and written) word is not the same as Logos. The Logos is the understanding of the Rhema: one may have the Rhema and yet still not understand lacking Logos. Howbeit the Logos reveals when and where words mean what they mean even though such words like yom are used very broadly. The key is in understanding that there is a foundational precept and in the case with yom it is that the first increment is an hour, not a full day, and all the other increments flow from that and essentially enlarge according to the pattern: the full week of seven days derives from the pattern of the seven yamim hours in the yom of creation, in the yom wherein Elohim made Earth and Heavens.
For example we have the most common usage, a day, which is not 24 hours but 12 hours, (and a night is 12 hours). But from there we also find a day for a year, and a year for a day, as when the spies searched out the land for forty days and brought back an evil report upon the land: the breach resulted in forty years in the wilderness, a year for a day. And when Ychezqel, (Ezekiel the Prophet), was commanded to lay on each side a certain number of days, one side for the house of Yisrael, 390 days, a day for a year, and on his other side 40 days for the house of Yhudah, a day for a year. Then again we have, in 2 Pet 3:8, one day is as a thousand years with the Master, and a thousand years are as one day. Then again we find in Psa 90, a Psalm of Mosheh, that a thousand years are as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night which we know is only a mere three hours.
The point herein above: if a yom may be a day, and a yom may be a year, and a yom may be a thousand years, and a yom may be as a watch in the night which is merely three hours, then surely a yom may be an hour. Thus we have in the opening creation account seven yamim-hours in a yom day: six hours of spoken word creation and the Shabbat hour of every day of the year for as long as the earth and the world endure. And this is the base increment, that is, the hour, and the opening creation account contains the sacred calendar day while BaMidbar-Numbers 7 contains the twelve hour civil calendar day: twelve yom-hours in the yom-day wherein the altar was anointed.
Please bear with me if you are still here at CF, (I see your OP post is old, but the thread was resurrected recently, (which is fine by me)). All of this background is absolutely necessary to at least arrive at a basic understanding of the conclusion I am driving toward. A look at the sacred and civil calendar days may go a long way in helping to visualize the seven hours of the sacred calendar day, since that is really what is most important to understand so that the portion within the civil calendar day is what is being counted: these are the little days or abbreviated days, (Zec 4:10 yom qetanot, Mar 13:20).
So then, counting only the sacred calendar day, which is a week of hours singled out within every twelve hour day, we find that for the abbreviated day the number is fourteen full years of 364 days with 104 full days added in the fourteenth year, which 104 days commence at the close of the 24th of the rishon hodesh, (by the Prophets, Daniel foremost), and those final 104 days run up to the 9th of the fifth month, the day when the temple was destroyed both times. The 24th of the first month is the beginning of the final vision of Daniel the Prophet, and is also the day Yakob wrestled with the Malak at Peniel, and is also the day Sha'ul was stopped in his tracks on the way to Damascus, not far from Damascus.
Counting only the sacred calendar day of seven yamim-hours in a yom day:
14 Years *364 = 5,096 Full Days
7*5,096 Full Days = 35,672 Abbreviated Days
7*104 Full Days = 728 Abbreviated Days
35,672 + 728 = 36,400 Abbreviated Days
36,400/364 = 100 Turnings (Years) in Abbreviated Days
These are the abbreviated days of the one whose days have been multiplied upon the earth.
So then, a na'ar, (child, lad, young one, or young man), as according to Yeshayah 65:20, is 100 years in multiplied days when he reaches the 14th year and 104th day of that year. What therefore would be four hundred years? That would be four cycles of fourteen years: 56 years in the surface level way of counting years.
There is a mountain of evidence behind what I have offered here: this is really more like a mere teaser, for although this post is not really that long, (a least imho), it is packed with as much as I could get into it and needs to be unpacked by those who may be interested.
2 Corinthians 12:1-4
1 Surely it is not profitable for me to boast: but I
must come to visions and revelations of the Master.
2 I knew a certain one before fourteen years in Meshiah, whether in the body, I know not, or whether out of the body, I know not, Elohim knows that such a one was caught up to the third heaven.
3 Also I know such a one, whether in the body or out of the body, I know not: Elohim knows (4) that he was caught up into the Paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to speak.
Paul's name means small or little, that is in the supernal sense, humbled. At the time of writing the above passage Paul was fourteen years in Meshiah, at that point in his walk: fourteen years before writing this text he was on his way to Damascus and received the vision. In the vision, Paul is in Paradise, (like the thief at Golgotha and what the Master says to him in Luke 23:43), and Sha'ul is also there, but Sha'ul is the one in the third heaven rather than Paradise, and he is blaspheming, (for he is the old man nature), and the new man Paul hears the old man Sha'ul speaking words that are not lawful for a man to speak.
After that first vision on the road to Damascus, when the fourteen years he mentions in the above text had been accomplished, he ascends up to Yerushalem, but as he says,
according to revelation, (Gal 2:1-2).
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