Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 67:3 (Sep 2024)
Article: Ezekiel’s Jubilee: Real Or Rabbinic Fiction? Part 1: Ezekiel 40:1 And 1 Kings 6:1
Author: Rodger C. Young

JETS 67:3 (September 2024) p. 475

Ezekiel’s Jubilee: Real Or Rabbinic Fiction? Part 1: Ezekiel 40:1 And 1 Kings 6:1

Rodger C. Young*

* Rodger C. Young is an independent scholar. He may be contacted at [email protected].

Abstract: This is the first of two articles dealing with the text and chronology of Ezekiel 40:1, showing that the verse implies the beginning of a Jubilee Year, and the timing of that Jubilee Year is in exact agreement with the date of the Exodus derived from 1 Kings 6:1 when the Kings text is taken as it was originally meant to be interpreted. Considerable attention is devoted to the five temporal phrases in Ezekiel 40:1, showing they all are consistent with Ezekiel’s vision occurring on the first day of a Jubilee Year. It is also shown that 1 Kings 6:1 continues a tradition, started in the Pentateuch, of measuring time by means of an era: the Exodus Era.

Key words: Ezekiel 40:1, 1 Kings 6:1, Jubilee Years, Sabbatical Years, date of Exodus, Documentary Hypothesis

Over twenty years have passed since there appeared in JETS my initial article dealing with the Hebrew text of Ezekiel 40:1, presenting the idea that the verse implies that Ezekiel saw the vision of chapters 40–48 at the beginning of a Jubilee Year.1 It further maintained that the Jubilee calendar that this implies is in agreement—exact agreement—with the date of Israel’s entry into Canaan as derived from 1 Kings 6:1 and the following forty years in the wilderness. In these twenty-plus years, new evidence, both inscriptional and archaeological, has appeared that agrees with this thesis, namely that a Jubilee, the seventeenth, was due at the time Ezekiel saw the vision of Ezekiel 40–48. If, in accordance with Leviticus 25:1–4, Israel counted from the beginning of the agricultural year after they entered the land in the spring of 1406 BC, “year one” of the first Sabbatical and Jubilee cycle

JETS 67:3 (September 2024) p. 476

would have started in Tishri of 1406. The first Jubilee would start forty-eight years later (Tishri of 1358) and the seventeenth 16 x 49 years after that, Tishri of 574 BC, which was the time of Ezekie...