Hosea 6 And The 2nd Coming

Q.  Re: The Gospel of The Kingdom.   Do you think Hosea might have been speaking about two days being 2000 years for the Lord to revive Israel, and the third day might represent the 1000 year millennium in this passage? “After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence” (Hosea 6:1-2).

A. A number of scholars have come to that conclusion, and I also think there’s some merit to it.  Unfortunately the Hebrew calendar is thought to have lost a number of years, perhaps as many as 240, so this is only the year 5773.  Some say much of this “compression”of the calendar was done in the first century AD to make it look like Simon bar Kochba had fulfilled the Messianic prophecies rather than Jesus. Others say it’s because for the Jews time stood still while they were under judgment.

Regardless of the reason, if you assume the traditional date of 4004 BC for the creation and subtract that from the current Hebrew year 0f 5773, you get 1769 years since the First Coming.  Adding back the missing 240 years will bring you to 2009, which means we’re already past the 2000 year point and Daniel’s 70th Week hasn’t even begun yet.

I don’t think we know exactly how many years are missing from the Hebrew calendar so I would only use this interpretation of Hosea 6:1-2 as a rough approximation of when the 2nd Coming could occur.  But when you include this with other hints the Bible offers it adds weight to the belief that it’s not far off.