The 390 and 40 Years of Ezekiel 4:4-6 :: By Randy Nettles
Ezekiel was among the Jews from the southern kingdom of Judah captured and exiled to Babylon in 597 BC. Four years later, in 593 BC, Ezekiel had his first vision and prophecy, in which he saw the Cherubim and God’s glory. God called Ezekiel and commissioned him to proclaim the word of the LORD to the rebellious House of Israel (Ezekiel 3:1).
This was Ezekiel’s first prophecy, and it occurred seven years before the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple and the death of thousands of Jews. Those who survived were deported to Babylon in 586 BC. 137 years earlier, in 723 BC, the city of Samaria (and what was left of the northern kingdom of Israel) was taken by the Assyrians, and the inhabitants were killed or deported throughout the Assyrian kingdom. However, some of them remained or made their way to the southern kingdom of Judah.
Ezekiel’s word from God was a prophetic warning of judgment on Jerusalem, a city that would soon be besieged. The entire prophecy, found in Ezekiel 4:1-7, carries the weight of impending doom. This prophecy, delivered by Ezekiel, would be fulfilled in the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem starting in 588 BC and ending in 586 BC (some say 589-587 BC).
Ezekiel 4:1-3 vividly describes how the prophet was to re-enact the siege. He was to take a clay tablet on which the city of Jerusalem was drawn and build a miniature siege wall against his clay Jerusalem, along with the camps of siege armies and their battering rams. This was not a mere re-enactment but a symbolic act of immense responsibility, as Ezekiel was to lay siege to the miniature replica of Jerusalem, bearing the weight of his people’s destiny.
Ezekiel was also instructed to set an iron plate between himself and the city. This symbolized the barrier between God and Jerusalem, meaning God would not intervene in the coming siege. Verse 3 says, “This shall be a sign to the house of Israel.” The absence of God’s intervention in this prophecy underscores the inevitability of the coming siege, a fact that would have been deeply unsettling to Ezekiel’s audience.
In verse 3, ‘Israel’ stands for the kingdom of Judah. After the captivity of the ten tribes (the northern kingdom of Israel) by the Assyrians in 723 BC, the kingdom of Judah (the southern kingdom) represented the whole nation. Hence, prophets writing after this event constantly addressed their countrymen as the house of Israel without distinction of tribes. In the Book of Ezekiel, the name ‘house of Israel’ occurs 83 times and ‘house of Judah’ only five times. However, God distinguishes between the two ‘houses’ (kingdoms) in verses four and five. One of the five mentions of the house of Judah is found in Chapter 4, verse 6.
God told Ezekiel, “Lie you upon your left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it: according to the number of the days that you shall lie upon it you shall bear their iniquity. For I have laid upon you the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days: so shall you bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. And when you have accomplished them, lie again on your right side, and you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed you each day for a year” (Ezekiel 4:4-6).
The days Ezekiel was to lie on his sides corresponded to the years of iniquity (a day was symbolic of a year) for the two kingdoms of the 12 tribes of Israel. So, the 390 years of iniquity refer to the northern kingdom of Israel (10 tribes), and the 40 years of iniquity refer to the southern kingdom of Judah (2 tribes). The nation of Israel split up into two kingdoms after the death of Solomon in 930 BC. Solomon’s sins, as an old man, are revealed in 1 Kings 11 and are the reason God tore 10 tribes out of his son’s hands. God didn’t do it in Solomon’s life because of his love for David.
“For it was so, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not fully follow the Lord, as did his father David. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, on the hill that is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the abomination of the people of Ammon. And he did likewise for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods” (1 Kings 11:4-8).
These numbers of years of ‘iniquity’ are a mystery for most students (and scholars) of prophecy, especially for the House of Israel, as their kingdom lasted for only 207 years. So, how do you get 390 years out of 207 years? The House of Judah was in existence for 344 years, but which 40 years of iniquity was Ezekiel referring to? There were many evil kings of Judah (and their citizens) recorded in the Bible, such as Rehoboam, Abijah, Jehoram, Ahaziah, Ahaz, Manasseh, Amon, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah who reigned collectively far more than 40 years. So, which 40 years of iniquity was God referring to for the House of Judah?
The English word ‘iniquity’ means immoral or gross injustice or sin. The Hebrew word from which iniquity is translated is ‘avon.’ In the KJV, avon is translated as iniquity 220 times and as punishment five times. There are two main theories regarding how this word is used in Ezekiel 4:4-6 and which translation is correct.
THE YEARS OF PUNISHMENT THEORY
The first theory is that the numbers 390 and 40 represent the years that the two kingdoms must atone for and are, therefore, the lengths of their punishments. With this theory, the two numbers are added together (390 + 40 = 430 years) and are the Israelites’ collective punishment.
If the punishment was to begin at the time of Ezekiel’s prophecy or when Jerusalem was besieged in 588 BC or destroyed in 586 BC and was to last for 430 years, then the end of the punishment phase would be 158 or 156 BC. The Jews were still fighting the Greek/Syrian armies of the Seleucid dynasty at this juncture. It appears their punishment was still ongoing, so this can’t be the correct interpretation.
Most adherents to the punishment theory believe the 70 years of judgment (punishment) that Jeremiah spoke of in Jeremiah 25 & 29 must be figured in and subtracted from the 430 years. This leaves 360 years of punishment for the children of Israel. It is thought that the 70 years of Jeremiah 29 started in 606/605 BC when the first Babylonian invasion of Judah and Jerusalem began. This invasion led to the captivity and deportation of tens of thousands of Jews. The 70 years ended in 537/536 BC when more than 40,000 exiles returned to their homeland (the first regathering of the Jews).
The majority of Jews did not repent of their sins after 70 years and did not return to Judah. They stayed as colonists in what is now Iraq-Iran. 360 years later, the Jews still did not fully return to Israel, and many were still “going after other gods.” Nothing significant happened regarding an end to their punishment from God at this time. They were still under the subjugation of foreign nations.
However, I first encountered an interesting idea in Grant Jeffreys’ book Armageddon—Appointment With Destiny (2004), which addresses why Ezekiel’s prophecy wasn’t fulfilled at this time. Since nothing historically significant occurred for Israel after the 360 years, Grant and other Bible scholars believe this prophecy foretold the second major regathering of Israel, not the first regathering after Babylon.
The reasoning behind this theory is found in the Book of Leviticus. Four times in chapter 26, God tells the children of Israel that if they did not repent and obey God’s commandments, they would be punished seven times more for their sins. Now, take the 360 years and multiply it by 7, and the product is 2,520 years.
Grant (and many others) believed these are not regular 365.25 calendar years but are biblical years of 360 days per year. Many scholars believe there are several instances in prophetic scripture where biblical years (or prophetic years) are used, such as Daniel’s 70 sevens prophecy (Daniel 9:24-27). Author’s note: I no longer adhere to a ‘prophetic year’ either with Ezekiel’s or Daniel’s prophecy. I believe these timelines are reckoned by the Jewish lunar-solar calendar that the children of Israel have always used.
According to this theory, the end of the banishment/punishment and subsequent regathering to Israel would be accomplished in 2,520 years, each 360 days long. Multiply 2,520 years by 360 days, and the product is 907,200 days. Converting this figure into our Gregorian calendar year of 365.25 days, by dividing 365.25 into 907,200 days, we reach a total of 2,483.8 calendar years.
Therefore, Israel’s worldwide captivity would end after 2,483.8 years had elapsed from the spring/summer of 537 BC (at the end of Jeremiah’s 70-year prophecy). This was the year Sheshbazzar led more than 40,000 exiled Jews from Babylon to their homeland after Cyrus the Great, the Persian King, proclaimed the Jews could go home and rebuild their Temple. Now add the 2,483.8 years to 537 BC (during the spring/summer season), and we come to the spring of 1948. On May 14, 1948, the Jews proclaimed the independence of the reborn state of Israel.
“The Jewish people celebrated the end of their tragic worldwide dispersion and captivity at the exact time prophesied thousands of years earlier by the prophet Ezekiel.” {1} Armageddon – Appointment With Destiny by Grant Jeffrey.
Grant figured 536 BC for the start of the 2,520 prophetic years. I think he is off by one year, as it should be 537 BC. Using the calendar converter at 360calendar.com Calendar Converter, if we subtract 907,200 days from May 14, 1948, BC, we come to July 21, 537 BC (on the Julian calendar) or Av 16, 3224 AM on the Jewish calendar.
Although interesting, I don’t think that the 390 + 40 years is the number of years in which Israel was judged/punished for several reasons. For one, it requires three prophecies by three prophets, Moses (Leviticus 26), Jeremiah (Jeremiah 25 & 29), and Ezekiel (Ezekiel 4:4-6), to fulfill the required timeline. Another reason is that I don’t believe ‘punishment’ is the correct translation in this particular scripture. I believe ‘iniquity’ or ‘sin’ is what the author (ultimately God) had in mind. Also, the northern kingdom of Israel had been conquered and dispersed throughout the Assyrian kingdom for 186 years before the start of the 2,520 years (in 537 BC). How could these years not be included in the ‘collective’ punishment?
Jeremiah had this to say about the ‘punishment’ longevity of the Babylonian captivity:
“For thus saith the Lord, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.
“Then shall you call upon me, and you shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And you shall seek me, and find me, when you shall search for me with all your heart. And I will be found of you, saith the Lord: and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you, saith the Lord; and I will bring you again into the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive” (Jeremiah 29:10-14).
This doesn’t sound like punishment to me, but reconciliation toward the House of Israel after only 70 years.
The Jews were allowed to return to the land of Judah and build a new Temple, which was completed in 516 BC. They had relative peace under the reign of the Persians and then the Greeks under Alexander. In 142 BC, under the leadership of Simon Maccabeus, the Jews secured their independence from the Seleucid empire and established the Judean Hasmonean dynasty, which endured until the Roman general Pompey conquered Judah and Jerusalem in 63 BC. The Romans allowed the Jews to remain in their homeland until 135 AD, when the entire Jewish population of Judah was deported and replaced with Gentiles. This was when the great Jewish diaspora throughout the nations commenced.
However, playing devil’s advocate, there are some interesting parallel typologies between the first regathering (beginning in 537 BC) and the second major regathering of the Jews (beginning in 1948 AD) to their ancestral homeland. The regathering of the Jews to Judah and Jerusalem began in 537 BC. 79/80 years later, in 458/457 BC. Artaxerxes, the king of Persia, sent Ezra to Jerusalem to oversee the Jews in ensuring the proper observance of the Mosaic Law and to supply needed material for the temple. Some say this was the start of Daniel’s 70-weeks prophecy (I personally believe it was in 444 BC when Nehemiah was sent to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls and the city).
1948 AD is the second major ‘aliyah’ (regathering) of Jews to their homeland. If you adhere to Grant’s theory of 2,520 years (360 days per year) of banishment or punishment for Israel, then 1948 could be the fulfillment of Ezekiel 4:4-6, as the Jews are once again in possession of their ancestral homeland. When 79/80 years are added to 1948 AD (second regathering), the year 2027 or 2028 AD comes into view. See Sevens (rev310.net) for more information regarding this timeframe.
Regardless of whether this is the correct interpretation of Ezekiel’s prophecy, the number one sign that we are living at the end of the age is Israel’s rebirth as a nation in 1948. In Matthew 24:32-34, Jesus said that the generation being born when the first signs (of the end of the age) appeared would not pass away before all was fulfilled. That means that at least some of the people who were born around 1948 will still be alive when He returns.
In Psalm 90:10, Moses gives 70 years as the average lifespan and 80 years for the strong. According to several sources, the current average lifespan (for both sexes) for the world population is 73.4 years. In 2024, we are currently 76 years from 1948. Given Israel’s current situation, it’s not too far-fetched to assume something historical and prophetic might occur regarding the nation in the coming years.
Sometime in the near future, Israel will build a third temple in Jerusalem in which the Mosaic Law will be reinstated (near the beginning-middle of the 70th week of Daniel 9:27), and sacrifices and offerings will be made on the altar there. I don’t know when or even how it will become possible, but I know by the word of God that a temple will be built in Jerusalem during the end times, and then the man of sin will do his dirty deed (read Daniel 9:27, 12:11; Matthew 24:15; 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4).
In the next article, we will examine the years of Iniquity theory regarding the 390 and 40 years of Ezekiel 4:4-6.
Randy Nettles
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