Biblical Significance of
120 Days/Years

Numerous prophecies in the Bible make the point that a day can be prophetic of a year. Consider these examples:

· For their unfaithfulness after the forty days that the Israelites spied in the Promised Land, they had to wander in the desert for forty years

· Ezekiel had to lie on his side for forty days in prophecy of the forty-year period before Jerusalem would be destroyed (Ezekiel 4:6)

· The prophesies of the ‘Seven Times’ and the ‘Seventy Weeks’ as found in the Book of Daniel, count each day as a year in their fulfillments.

120 days of Commandments and Fasting

One important prophetic 120-day period mentioned in the Bible started when Moses went up Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments. He spent forty days on the mountain (Exodus 24:18), and then on his return, he found that the Israelites had built a golden calf to worship, upon which Moses broke the tablets. Apparently shortly thereafter, Moses started a forty-day fast to beg God to forgive the people (Deuteronomy 9:18). And then he went back up the mountain to create duplicate stone tablets, where he stayed for another forty days (Exodus 34:28). Following that, the people ratified the Sacred Agreement.

What was the significance of this 120-day period? Well, it does have to do with the creation of God’s Sacred Agreement with His people – from its inception to its acceptance – and it was a time of turmoil and testing. Does this 120 days symbolize a significant 120-year period? Time will tell.

120 Years of Moses

There’s also a 120-year period, which had to do with Moses. It started at his birth in Egypt – when the Pharaoh decreed the death of all the newborn Israelite male children in the land (Exodus 1:15, 16). Then, when he was about forty years old, he killed an Egyptian and fled the country to live in the land of Midian. It was there, approximately forty years later, that God spoke to Moses from the burning bush and gave him the commission that led to the Israelites being set free and the establishment of God’s Sacred Agreement with them. And finally, there was the last 40-year period, which the Israelites spent wandering in the desert. So, at the end of exactly 120-years (see Deuteronomy 34:7), Moses died and the Israelites entered the Promised Land.

Joshua (Moses’ successor) also played a part in that 120-year period. He was forty-years old when he served as one of the spies in the Promised Land; he survived the 40-year trek in the desert; and he led God’s people into the Promised Land. However, he lived for just thirty years after that. Still, as Moses’ successor (and someone who pictured Jesus), it shows the rulership extending into the Promised Land after the 120-year period.

What is the possible significance of the 120-years of Moses’ life? Well, if you haven’t read it already, consider the observations made in the Note included on this site titled ‘Armageddon – When?’ As it points out, this could be the same time period as ‘the last days’ of this ‘age.’

Now, the fact that the 120-years of Moses’ life started with an attempt to kill him as a newborn baby is quite interesting, for we read of a similar event at the time of Jesus’ birth, and once again of a symbolic birth in Revelation 12:4. For there, when speaking of God’s Kingdom, it speaks of a time when the Slanderer will try to devour the ‘seed’ (or baby) of God’s ‘woman.’ So, could the start of the last days have been symbolized by the 120 years of Moses? If so, it appears significant that Moses’ life ended with God’s people entering the Promised Land.

Is Moses a fitting symbol of Jesus, or more specifically, of his Kingdom? Well, Moses was God’s appointed ruler over His people during that entire 120-year period, for he served in that position first as a member of the household of Pharaoh, and then as God’s leader of the nation of Israel. The Israelites were also ‘baptized’ into Moses at the Red Sea (see 1 Corinthians 10:2). In addition, he was the mediator of God’s Sacred Agreement with His people (Hebrews 12:24). So, there could be no one more fitting to symbolize Jesus than faithful Moses.

Questions Raised

If any of the above is significant, it raises many other questions that deserve further investigation. Some of these are:

1. Exactly what does the 40-year period ‘in the desert’ signify for God’s people today?

2. What events mark(ed) the beginnings or ends of the other forty-year periods?

3. And what were the significant features that mark(ed) each of these periods?

One view that has been offered about the last 40-year period is as follows: Since the number forty represents a period of cleansing and qualifying (which is what the 40-day Downpour of Noah’s time, the Israelite’s 40-year trek in the desert, and the 40-days that Jesus spent in the desert before starting his special ministry pictured), the last forty years may be symbolic of the unnumbered years of trial that each of us must undergo from the time of our baptism until we reach ‘the promised land’ or a cleansed condition.

However, 40-years is also the typical length of the life of a single adult generation, as the 40-year trek in the desert shows. So, when Jesus said ‘that generation will not pass away,’ he may have been speaking of one of the 40-year periods in the 120-year total that appears to lead up to (or surround) Armageddon.

The 120 Years of Kings Over United Israel

Another interesting (but usually overlooked) 120-year period that is broken into three 40-year parts, is the combined reigns of Saul, David, and Solomon. Each reigned for exactly forty years.

Since the 40-year reign of King David was one of turmoil, war, and the defeat of Israel’s enemies, this period is thought to be prophetic of the 40-years of cleansing that leads up to Armageddon. Then the peaceful 40-year reign of Solomon (during which God’s Temple was built) is thought to picture 40-years of cleansing following Armageddon. But if this is true, then what did the first 40-year reign (that of Saul) picture?

This is surely significant, because Saul was selected and anointed by God (although he wasn’t of the kingly tribe of Judah), and his reign lasted for exactly 40 years. There is too much that is prophetic and planned here for it to be unimportant history. So, it must picture a period of imperfect rulership that leads up to the second in the 40-year periods… the coming of the greater David, Jesus.

Also, notice how the second of the three 40-year periods in Moses’ life ended with the release of the Israelites and the destruction of Pharaoh and his army (Armageddon?). So this indicates that Armageddon could come at the end of a second 40-year period, and thereafter we will see a final 40-year period. For, if the destruction of Pharaoh and his army pictured Armageddon, then the last 40-year period must be one of cleansing of the survivors… but (if it follows the type), it is also a period of peace and relying on God for our sustenance. So, it appears as though a third 40-year period comes after the Battle of Armageddon. For more information, see the linked document Similarities between the Exodus and the Events of Revelation.

And if these conclusions prove true, then perhaps the suggested 120 year mentioned in our linked document Armageddon - When? is wrong… or, perhaps (as in the case of Noah) there is a 120-year period that leads up to Armageddon, and the three 40-year periods we just discussed are a refinement of what will actually happen both before and after Armageddon.

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