[507] The 390 year error of Israel and the 40 year error of Judah

Now the extent of the error of the Jews is prophesied by Ezekiel in Ezekiel 4:4-6, which tells us that the error for Israel is 390 years and the error for Judah is 40 years:

And as for you, lie upon your left side, and you must lay the error of the house of Israel upon it. For the number of days that you will lie upon it you will carry their error. And I myself must give you the years of their error to the number of 390 days, and you must carry the error of the house of Israel. And you must complete them. And you must lie upon your right side in the second case, and you must carry the error of the house of Judah 40 days. A day for a year, a day for a year is what I have given you (Ezekiel 4:4-6).

And Jehovah went on to say: Just like this the sons of Israel will eat their bread unclean among the nations to which I shall disperse them (Ezekiel 4:13).

When I have broken for you the rods around which ring shaped loaves are suspended, 10 women will then actually bake your bread in but one oven and give back your bread by weight (Leviticus 26:26).

To the intent that they may be lacking bread and water and they may look at one another and rot away in their error (Ezekiel 4:17).

As for those remaining among you, they will rot away because of their error in the lands or your enemies, yes, even because of the errors of their fathers, with them they will rot away (Leviticus 26:39).

These two error periods are the temporal extent of the breaching of the contract in Leviticus 26.

Judah’s 40 years of sin

Furthermore, they built the high places of Baal that are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, in order to make their sons and their daughters pass through [the fire] to Molech, a thing that I did not command them, neither did it come up into my heart to do this detestable thing, for the purpose of making Judah sin.' (Jeremiah 32:35)

The only king in the bible said to make Judah sin was Manasseh.

Twelve years old was Manasseh when he began to reign, and for fifty-five years he reigned in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Hephzibah (2 Kings 21:1).

And he made his own son pass through the fire, and he practiced magic and looked for omens and made spirit mediums and professional foretellers of events. He did on a large scale what was bad in Jehovah's eyes, to offend him (2 Kings 21:6).

For the reason that Manasseh the king of Judah has done these detestable things, he has acted more wickedly than all that the Amorites did that were prior to him, and he proceeded to make even Judah sin with his dungy idols (2 Kings 21:11).

And there was also innocent blood that Manasseh shed in very great quantity, until he had filled Jerusalem from end to end, besides his sin with which he caused Judah to sin by doing what was bad in the eyes of Jehovah (2 Kings 21:16).

He ruled for 55 years, so the 40 years of Judah’s sin must have been a part of his reign from 699 to 645 (regnal years). 

It was only by the order of Jehovah that it took place against Judah, to remove it from his sight for the sins of Manasseh according to all that he had done (2 Kings 24:3).

There was only one Jubilee in his reign starting in 674Tishri. Manasseh repented later on in his reign:

Finally Jehovah brought against them the chiefs of the army that belonged to the king of Assyria, and so they captured Manasseh in the hollows and bound him with two fetters of copper and took him to Babylon.

And as soon as it caused him distress, he softened the face of Jehovah his God and kept humbling himself greatly because of the God of his forefathers.

And he kept praying to Him, so that He let himself be entreated by him and He heard his request for favor and restored him to Jerusalem to his kingship; and Manasseh came to know that Jehovah is the [true] God.

And after this he built an outer wall for the City of David to the west of Gihon in the torrent valley and as far as the Fish Gate, and he ran [it] around to Ophel and proceeded to make it very high. Further, he put chiefs of the military force in all the fortified cities in Judah.

And he proceeded to remove the foreign gods and the idol image from the house of Jehovah and all the altars that he had built in the mountain of the house of Jehovah and in Jerusalem and then had them thrown outside the city (2 Chronicles 33:11-15).

When God abandoned Josiah to Pharaoh Nechoh, which was his abandonment of Jerusalem and Judah we read:

Nevertheless, Jehovah did not turn back from the great burning of his anger, with which his anger burned against Judah over all the offensive things with which Manasseh had made them offend.
But Jehovah said: Judah, too, I shall remove from my sight, just as I have removed Israel; and I shall certainly reject this city that I have chosen, even Jerusalem, and the house of which I have said: My name will continue there
(2 Kings 23:24-27).

So presumably the first 40 years of his reign were the sinful years and he repented after 40 years, a length of time often used for cleaning (whence the word quarantine), and then he got 15 years more like his father Hezekiah. So the sabbath years between

699 and 660 were:

Judah: Sabbath error

696Tishri 695Tishri Sabbath
689Tishri 688Tishri Sabbath
682Tishri 681Tishri Sabbath
675Tishri 674Tishri Sabbath
674Tishri 673Tishri Jubilee
667Tishri 666Tishri Sabbath
660Tishri 659Tishri Sabbath

Obviously if one plants seed in the first six months of a land Sabbath, one has broken the entire Sabbath so the sin cannot have ended until 659Tishri. So we take the 40 year error period as running from 699Tishri until 659Tishri.

Israel’s 390 years of sin

From the Chronology of the Kings of Judah and Israel we know that Jeroboam took over in 997. We also know that:

And it came about that as soon as all Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, they at once sent and called him to the assembly and made him king over all Israel. None became a follower of the house of David except the tribe of Judah by itself (1 Kings 12:20).

And Jeroboam began to say in his heart: Now the kingdom will return to the house of David. If this people continues going up to render sacrifices in the house of Jehovah in Jerusalem, the heart of this people will also be bound to return to their lord, Rehoboam the king of Judah; and they will certainly kill me and return to Rehoboam the king of Judah. Consequently the king took counsel and made two golden calves and said to the people: It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here is your God, O Israel, that brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Then he placed the one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan. And this thing came to be a cause for sin, and the people began to go before the one as far as Dan.
And he began to make a house of high places and to make priests from the people in general, who did not happen to be of the sons of Levi.
And Jeroboam went on to make a festival in the eighth month on the fifteenth day of the month, like the festival that was in Judah, that he might make offerings upon the altar that he had made in Bethel, to sacrifice to the calves that he had made; and he put in attendance at Bethel the priests of the high places that he had made
(1 Kings 12:26-32).

So the sin had certainly started by Tishri since none of the subjects of Jeroboam would have celebrated the festival of booths in the 7th month in the face of the wonderful new improved festival arranged so conveniently for the 8th month. So the sin of the house of Israel started in 997Tishri and therefore ended in 607Tishri 390 years later. It is interesting to see that in Josiah’s reign Ephraim & Manasseh did have some loyal worshippers:

And they proceeded to come to Hilkiah the high priest, and bring the money that was being brought to the house of God, which the Levites and the doorkeepers had gathered from the hand of Manasseh and Ephraim and from all the rest of Israel and from all Judah and Benjamin and the inhabitants of Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 34:9).

In the 390 year period, from 997Tishri to 607Tishri, the Jubilees were:

Israel: Jubilee errors

624Tishri 623Tishri
674Tishri 673Tishri
724Tishri 723Tishri
774Tishri 773Tishri
824Tishri 823Tishri
874Tishri 823Tishri
924Tishri 923Tishri
974Tishri 973Tishri

We know this because the promised land was entered in 1473Nisan, and so the 1st sacred year ran from 1473Tishri to 1472Tishri, so the 50th sacred year ran from 1424Tishri to 1423Tishri. Therefore Jubilees, were xx24Tishri to xx23Tishri, and xx74Tishri to xx73Tishri.

So we have 7 fifty year periods plus the two periods from 997Tishri to 974Tishri, and from 623Tishri to 607Tishri. These latter two periods had Sabbath years as follows:

975Tishri  974Tishri
982Tishri  981Tishri
989Tishri  988Tishri
996Tishri  995Tishri

617Tishri  616Tishri
610Tishri  609Tishri

In total we have 49 Sabbath years in the 7 fifty year periods (excluding the Jubilees), we have 8 Jubilees and we have the 6 Sabbaths above. This makes a total of 49+8+6=63 Sabbath years.

So we can now break the sin years down as follows:

Judah: 40 years from 699Tishri to 659Tishri, 7 of which were Land Sabbaths
Israel: 390 years from 997Tishri to 607Tishri, 63 of which were Land Sabbaths

So the combined Land Sabbath error was 70 years, and the combined false worship error was 33 (40-7) + 327 (390-63) = 360 years.

Putting this another way:

Total error = Sabbath Error+ False Worship Error = Judah error+ Israel error
430 years = 70 years + 360 years = 40 years + 390 years

The national idolatry error of Israel ended in 607Tishri, because this was the beginning of the first agricultural year without God as king through any vassal. So although their behaviour may have been just as bad as it was in the preceding 390 years of error, it was no longer counted as a national error when they were no longer God's nation from a regnal standpoint.