Prophetic timing CENTERS around Israel in both a cyclical and linear way.
Cyclical in the life cycle in both the Feasts of The Lord coinciding with the agricultural yearly calendar.
Linear, in the pacing of end-time events.
Time and space, and all reality, find its construct in God's spoken Word!
God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by [His] Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of [His] glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high... Heb 1:1-3
By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. Heb 11:3
God keeps time! More importantly, His time, as He has given and defined it to be. He has provided us with His calendar and written within it His calendar events that are past, present and future. As mentioned in the The Jewish Wedding, His appointed Seven Feasts are His big-picture calendar of events.
God has created time as a finite period and in its prophetic fulfillment, God will once again create beyond our time and space, the new heavens and earth and we will no longer know time as we know it now. Some might argue that the earth and the heavens are much older than the Bible says, regardless on what side of the argument you land on, God, Who is beyond time and space, has given a predetermined time period that He says He will fulfill His prophetic word. It is this time period, that the entire Bible is written within and God will require an account within that time period. Here is a basic glossary of His timing terms:
An Appointed Time: a predetermined period of time.
Any time you see the Bible use the term "an appointed time" you are seeing the very construct or genome of the reality of time itself -- another words, pay attention!
Time: is a measured finite time period that is between infinite eternity past and infinite eternity future. According to the Bible, time and space has a beginning and an ending -- it is a temporary given period.
Day: the measurement of one (1) unit of time – ranging from a 24 hours to a thousand years (millennia) count. A biblical day was from sundown (evening) to sundown (evening).
Month: measured by a combination of the rotation of the moon (29 ½ day rotation), and the sun (by adding a leap year). There are civil months, beginning in Tishri, and there are seven holy months, beginning in Nisan. All the Feasts happen within the holy months.
Year: measured by the Lunar (moon) calendar of 360 days, with a leap year added.
Week: the word week in the Bible refers to the count or measurement of seven, whether in days, weeks, months, years or millennia. The seventh (day, week, month, year or millennia) is always referred to as the Sabbath. For an example, God rested on the seventh day. The land is to rest every seventh year and the earth will enter into rest on the seventh millennial day, known as the Millennial Reign of Christ.
Sabbath: to cease or rest from all work or strivings. A holy convocation can either be another word for Sabbath or an extra Sabbath. The only day in the Jewish week that has a name is Sabbath. Every other day is a called by its relationship to Sabbath, such as: Sunday is called the morrow after the Sabbath or the first day after Sabbath. Monday is called the second day after Sabbath and so forth. Friday is called the day before Sabbath. The obvious focal point was the Sabbath, whether Sabbath past or Sabbath future.
In kind, the Seven Feasts of the Lord, each individually, were to be like the Sabbath. In this amazing imagery, God is pointing towards the fulfillment of His Sabbath Rest, which is in Messiah finished works and His reign upon the earth! The focal point of Scripture finds its full completion in the Sabbath rest of salvation and union with God – don’t miss it!
Sabbatical (Shemittah) Year: every seventh year the land was to rest. The land was not to be worked during the seventh year. God promised a bumper crop in the sixth year to feed them through the seventh, eighth and partially through the ninth year!
Year of Jubilee: the year following a cycle of seven sabbatical years (7 x 7 = 49) which is the completion of seven sevens and the the year after is the 50th Year of Jubilee. On the Day of Atonement the Jubilee Trumpet (The Great Trump) would sound as a declaration of liberty! All land would be restored to its original inheritors, slaves set free and debts cancelled! It is a prophetic type and shadow of the its ultimate fulfillment being The Lord's Second Coming.