Israel - and the number 22 - by David Wills- 2024

While Prophecy can be both forth-telling and fore-telling, we are primarily just looking at the fore-telling aspect that looks at the Promises of God that are yet to be fulfilled. The bible is very explicit about what these promises are, so the question that always remains is not the “What”, but the “When”.

In this regard, I believe that God has built in some amazing clues based upon both His number patterns in Scripture and the Sequence of Historical events that have been progressing His Plan of Redemption since Creation, and Israel and the number 22 is central to this.

An example of this comes from noting that AD 70 was the year that Israel began to be scattered all around the world when the Roman General Titus destroyed the Temple and Jerusalem. Fast forward to the year 1878, in an amazing reversal, some Jews established a settlement that they called Petah Tikvah, which means “Door of Hope”. They did this in the belief that it was fulfilling the prophecy in Hosea 2:15 where God promises to begin to call the people home and give them the valley of Achor, as a Door of Hope. Today it is actually officially recognized as the first modern city in the Land of Israel following over 1800 years of the Diaspora. Significantly, if you take the two dates in the events 70 AD and 1878 as being bookends of the Diaspora, you actually have a hidden clue to the ultimate fulfilment of Prophecy in Isaiah 66:7-8 that asks "can a nation be born in a day" because:

70 + 1878 = 1948 (Israel)

And

1+9+4+8 = 22 (Israel)

That the numbers 1,9,4, and 8 both represent the year that Israel was reborn in the modern era and that they add individually to 22, a number that will be seen to represent Israel seems way beyond coincidence when one notes that Jesus is seen in Matthew 2:13-15 as the fulfilment of Hosea 11. Here He is seen as the faithful Israel, who succeeded where the old covenant Israel had failed, and His very last on the Cross came from Psalm 22:

​¹ My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Psalms 22:1

And then you note that the book of Psalms, which Jesus revealed as being prophetic, is the 19^th book from Genesis and the 48^th book from Revelation.

Additionally, Jacob, who was the renamed as Israel, by God was the

22^nd generation from Adam:

1. Adam

2. Seth

3. Enosh

4. Kenan

5. Mahalalel

6. Jared

7. Enoch

8. Methuselah

9. Lamech

10. Noah

11. Shem

12. Arphaxad

13. Shelah

14. Eber

15. Peleg

16. Reu

17. Serug

18. Nahor

19. Terah

20. Abram (Abraham)

21. Isaac

22. Jacob (also known as Israel)

Also, the official language of Israel is Hebrew, which is comprised of an alphabet with 22 letters.

22 and the End-Times

One of the significant things to note about the number 22 is the way it connects Israel with the End-Times in that it can be demonstrated biblically that Mankind in Adam walked with God Righteously for 98 years (see further details here); and fell when Adam was 99 years (see further details here) old.

This means when God declared to Noah that He would not always walk or strive with mankind, yet his years would be 120, He revealed a number of things.

³ And the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” Genesis 6:3

Firstly, in Hebrew the words that represent 120 are מֵאָה עֶשְׂרִ֖ים and importantly in the Hebrew and Greek Languages each letter has a numerical value and amazingly if you add up the Hebrew letters, you get an end-time number as follows:

מ - 40

אָ - 1

ה - 5

עֶ - 70

שְׂ - 300

רִ֖ - 200

י - 10

ם - 40

Total for all letters = 40+1+5+70+300+200+10+40 = 666

So literally God's reference to 120 being a symbol of His limit to striving with sinful man, who is indeed flesh, means it is connected numerically to the end- of-days, with it pointing directly to the Tribulation and the Anti-Christ, whose number is 666.

 Importantly, this explains an intriguing and significant passage later in Deuteronomy 34:7:

⁷ Moses was one hundred and twenty years old when he died. His eyes were not dim nor his natural vigor diminished. Deuteronomy 34:7

Here Moses had reached the symbolic end-time number 120 and not because he was physically weak, or sick, he dies - essentially his allotted time is up.

What is really important about this is the identity of the person who takes over the leadership role from him and what this person does. It is Joshua whose name in Hebrew is Yehoshua (יְהוֹשׁוּעַ), which is exactly the same as Jesus' name in Hebrew, noting that the more familiar form of Yeshua (ישֵׁוּעַ) for Jesus is simply the abbreviated form of Yehoshua, as Nehemia 8:17 shows, when it calls Joshua the Son of Nun - Yeshua.

The important takeaway from this is that God, in this very unique pattern of 120, in relation to Moses and Joshua and the end-times is showing that when God's symbolic period of 120 is reached, that Jesus (Yehoshua / Yeshua) like Joshua before Him will be the one to take His people into the Promised Land, which at the Time of the Rapture that precedes the Tribulation will be to Heaven, just as Jesus promised in John 14: 1-3:

¹ “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. ² In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. ³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. John 14:1-3

Significantly then, in returning to considering how this relates to the 98 years that Adam walked with God, before falling into Sin, we can see that 120, which symbolically represents God's limit, minus the 98 years that Man was actually right before God leaves the number 22.

And as above, this is the symbolic number that represents ISRAEL, Gods vehicle for Redeeming Man because ISRAEL gave the world the Messiah / Saviour and the Bible and as a nation they have been the prime target of Satan's attacks for this very reason.

Intriguingly, as Israel in modern times has been dealing with the enemies that threaten its very existence and God has been giving them many victories, we note that the year of so many victories 2024, as a number, is a product of 22 (22*92=2024).