The Goel Comes Home

A man stood on the Mount Scopus ridge, just north of the Mount of Olives, in the pre-dawn hour, in the closing days of the year 2034.

He had not slept. He had been on the ridge since the closing minutes of the previous day. He was an Israeli citizen of the orthodox community in Bozrah who had, against the counsel of his rabbis, started moving north a week earlier when reports from the wilderness began to indicate that something was about to break. He had come up the ridge alone. He had brought a flask of water and a folded prayer shawl. He had positioned himself, by some instinct he could not have explained, on the same ridge from which the prophet Ezekiel had described the glory of God leaving the city twenty-six centuries earlier. He had been told, in a series of dreams in the rocks of Bozrah, that on this morning he was to face east and wait.

The east was lightening. The dawn behind him on the Jericho road was a pale grey wash. The walls of the Old City below — Suleiman's walls, the same walls that had been the western horizon of every photograph of Jerusalem since the sixteenth century — stood quiet in the final dark. The Eastern Gate, shut for centuries and completed in stone in the sixteenth century by the masons of an Ottoman emperor, was visible across the Kidron valley as a darker patch of the same wall.

The man on Mount Scopus did not yet know what he was waiting for. He only knew the hour.

This chapter is about that hour. It is the closing hour of the dial this book has been walking around since chapter two. It is the morning the Bridegroom comes home, the Eastern Gate opens, the Mount of Olives splits, Our Father's appointment that has been on His desk for six thousand years is kept, at the latest on the day before the sabbath of the kingdom, and the long story of human history under the curse closes and the long story of the renewed earth begins. No one knows the day and the hour (Matthew 24:36), and whether He comes first to Bozrah and then to the Mount of Olives, or the other way round, Scripture does not say.

The household reading this paragraph is, by the most careful reckoning of the calendar, a few short years from the morning the man on Mount Scopus is waiting through.

Now to what he saw.

The split of the mountain

Open the prophet Zechariah at chapter fourteen. Zechariah's dated prophecies fall in 520–518 BC — that is, before the dedication of the second temple, which followed around 516/515. He is not speaking back on a finished house; he is addressing a half-built house, and pressing for its completion. He belongs in the cluster of post-exilic prophets the Hebrew tradition calls the trei asar — the twelve — and he is the second-to-last of them. He gives us, in his closing chapter, the most specific topographical prophecy in the entire Old Testament concerning the day the master clock closes:

Then the LORD will go forth and fight against those nations, as He fights in the day of battle. And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two, from east to west, making a very large valley; half of the mountain shall move toward the north, and half of it toward the south. (Zechariah 14:3–4)

Read it slowly. Our Father is naming the geographical feature on which the closing event of the dial will land. Not a metaphorical mountain. The Mount of Olives. The same ridge from which Ezekiel watched the glory depart in chapter eleven of his book. The same ridge from which Yeshua ascended in a cloud at the end of Acts chapter one. The same ridge over which the angels said He would return in like manner as you saw Him go. Our Father has been pointing to this ridge for two and a half millennia.

And He has been pointing to a single specific event. The mountain splits. The split is not metaphorical. From east to west. A geological fault opens across the ridge, and one half of the mountain moves north and the other half moves south. The valley that opens between them runs east, away from Jerusalem, into the wilderness toward Bozrah.

A geological event of that magnitude is unmistakable. It is also, by any reading of plate-tectonic geography, exactly the kind of event the eastern Mediterranean would experience at the activation of the Dead Sea Transform — the long fault line that runs from the Gulf of Aqaba up through the Jordan rift valley and on into Lebanon and Syria. The Mount of Olives sits on the western edge of that fault. A major rupture along the Dead Sea Transform would, by the geophysics of the region, do exactly what Zechariah described: split the ridge from east to west and offset its halves laterally.

The prophet did not know the geophysics. He was given the geography. Our Father, who designed the geography, gave the prophet the topography of the day of return.

The man on Mount Scopus, twenty-five centuries after Zechariah's writing, was standing close enough to the ridge to feel the ground shift in the closing minutes of the dawn.

The seal of Suleiman breaks

The geological event has a second consequence. The Eastern Gate, completed in stone by Ottoman masonry in the sixteenth century — possibly in 1541 — sits at the foot of the Mount of Olives across the Kidron valley. The gate is built into Suleiman's wall, which itself rests on much older Herodian and Hasmonean foundations, which themselves rest on Iron Age and even Bronze Age courses. The whole eastern face of the Old City is built on the same geological substrate that is about to rupture.

When the Mount of Olives splits, the wall in front of it cracks.

The masonry that Suleiman's masons laid against the openings of the gate in the sixteenth century breaks. The graves of the Muslim cemetery in front of the gate, which already lay there before Suleiman, are torn up and scattered. The Ottoman seal, which according to tradition was to hold back the Hebrew Messiah, is shattered by the very Person whom, according to that story, it was to keep out.

The prophet Ezekiel had told us, more than twenty-one centuries before Suleiman's masons reached the gate — the vision dates from around 573 BC — that the seal would hold until the Prince Himself came to enter:

This gate shall be shut; it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter by it, because the LORD God of Israel has entered by it; therefore it shall be shut. As for the prince, he shall sit in it as prince to eat bread before the LORD; he shall enter by way of the vestibule of the gateway, and go out the same way. (Ezekiel 44:2–3)

No man shall enter by it. The seal is honoured for the long captivity of the gentile age, by Islamic rulers, as the unwitting instrument of the prophecy. As for the prince, he shall sit in it. The prince, ha-nasi, sits in the gate as prince (44:3); the same prince brings a sin offering for himself (45:22) and has sons (46:16). He is not the Messiah, but His mortal viceroy.

The seal of the long afternoon is, in the reading of this book, the seal of Ezekiel 44 — an INTERPRETED identification, not a documented one. The word of the prophet has been waiting since around 573 BC; the stones that fulfil it have stood since Suleiman, nearly five centuries. They were raised by hands that did not know they were keeping prophecy. They are broken on the morning of His coming by the geological hand of the Architect Himself, and the Lord enters through them.

Feet on the ridge

What the man on Mount Scopus saw, in the small minutes after the dawn, is described in two passages of the New Testament with overlapping vocabulary.

Open the closing chapters of Revelation:

Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. (Revelation 19:11–14)

The Bridegroom comes down from the open heavens with the Bride following. The Bride — the Church of Jew and gentile, gathered home at the sixth seal, early in the seven-year window and before the abomination — has been at the wedding banquet of the Lamb in Our Father's house ever since. Now the procession returns. The Bridegroom rides in front. The Bride rides behind. The robe of the Bridegroom is dipped in blood — the blood, in the prophet Isaiah's earlier image, of the squatter's last armies that He has crushed at Bozrah on the way to Jerusalem.

His feet land on the ridge.

The Mount of Olives splits east to west. The valley opens between the two halves of the ridge. The wall of the Old City cracks across the eastern face. The seal of Suleiman shatters. The Eastern Gate stands open, for the first time in centuries; the sultan's masons had completed it in stone in the sixteenth century, possibly in 1541. The Glory returns by the gate from which it departed (Ezekiel 43:1–5); after that the gate stays shut, for the LORD has entered by it (44:2).

The departure of chapter four of this book, run in reverse, lands here.

Our Father moves back in

Chapter four showed Our Father walking out of the temple in four reluctant stages. The threshold. The east gate. The geographical centre of the city. The Mount of Olives.

The pattern of His departure is the route of His return. He left the Mount of Olives. He returns to the Mount of Olives. The same eastern direction that was the road of His departure is the road of His arrival. Our Father, who walked out slowly because He intended to walk back, has been walking back along the same road for two and a half millennia. The gate He came in by, after His exit, has been the gate the prophets and the apostles and the watching Bride have been pointing to ever since.

He arrives.

The Glory of Yahweh, which had been resident in the inner room of the temple from year 3000 of the master clock to year 3380, returns to the geography from which it withdrew. Ezekiel 43:1–5 — written by the same prophet who watched the departure — describes the return:

Afterward he brought me to the gate, the gate that faces toward the east. And behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east. His voice was like the sound of many waters; and the earth shone with His glory [...] The glory of the LORD came into the temple by way of the gate which faces toward the east [...] and the glory of the LORD filled the temple. (Ezekiel 43:1–2, 4–5)

Read it carefully. The same direction. The same gate. The same Glory. The same temple — in Ezekiel's vision, the Sabbath-millennial temple of the renewed earth. Our Father, who has been managing the calendar from outside the geography of His own holy ground for two and a half thousand years, takes up residence again on the morning the Goel comes home.

The four faces of Exodus 34 are still the four faces. Our Father is still Our Father, the Architect, the Sovereign, the Covenant-maker. But the geography catches up to the Person. The God who has been dwelling in the heavens and walking among His lampstands by His Spirit, on that morning, walks the floor of His own temple again.

The flag is back on the palace.

The marriage feast on the renewed earth

The seventieth week has closed. The bowls of Revelation 16 — poured out in the closing forty-five days from day 1290 to day 1335 — have done their work. The squatter's kingdom is broken. The two beasts of Revelation 13 have been thrown alive into the lake of fire. The dragon has been bound and cast into the abyss for a thousand years, by the hand of the same angel who held the keys to the bottomless pit in Revelation 20.

The Bride dismounts.

The wedding banquet that opened in the throne room earlier in the seven-year window — the marriage of the Lamb of Revelation 19:7 — moves to its second venue. The first venue was Our Father's house above. The second venue is the renewed earth below. The Bride and the Bridegroom take up residence on the ground that was made for them, with Our Father whose Glory has come back to His own city.

The festival of Sukkot, which had been kept for two and a half millennia as a one-week annual remembrance, opens at the historical scale. Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. (Revelation 21:3). The festival of Tabernacles — the festival of Yahweh moving in — runs from the autumn of 2034 forward across the thousand years of the millennial reign.

Zechariah's closing chapter describes the new arrangement:

And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, on them there will be no rain. (Zechariah 14:16–17)

Annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem, by every nation on earth, for the festival of Tabernacles. The pilgrim feast that the Galilean farmer of chapter nine had walked the road three times a year for becomes, in the millennial economy, the annual festival of the entire planet. Yahweh dwelling with men is the festival the master clock had been pointing to from Adam onward. The closing day of the dial opens onto the festival without end.

The tree restored

There is one more closing image Our Father has placed at the end of His own book.

In Genesis 3, after the fall, Our Father set a guard at the entrance of Eden — cherubim and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life (Genesis 3:24). The tree was withdrawn. The way to the tree was sealed. Adam's children, for the next six thousand years, lived under a curse that no human pilgrimage could undo. The way home was closed.

In the closing two chapters of Revelation, the tree comes back.

And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. (Revelation 22:1–2)

The river runs from the throne. The tree stands on either side of the river. Twelve fruits. One for each month of the year. The leaves are for the healing of the nations — the same nations that had been disciplined under the long captivity of the gentile age, gathered now under the shade of the tree Our Father had withdrawn from Adam.

The fall is reversed. The tree is restored. The flaming sword that guarded the entrance is laid aside. The cherubim — the same beings whose images had been embroidered on the inner curtain of the temple — stand by the river, witnessing the household coming home.

That is the closing image of the dial. A river. A tree. A throne. A planet healed. A Bride at her Husband's side. A Father whose face is again visible on the ground He made.

The six tasks of Daniel 9:24

Chapter seven walked through the master contract of 490 years. There Gabriel, in a Babylonian study around 538 BC, handed Daniel six commands as the assignment of the seventy weeks:

Command	Hebrew	Meaning
To finish the transgression	lekalle ha-pesha	Bring rebellion to its conclusion
To make an end of sins	ulehatem chattaot	Seal the cosmic ledger
To make reconciliation for iniquity	ulekapper avon	Pay the legal price
To bring in everlasting righteousness	ulehavi tsedek olamim	Inaugurate justice that does not erode
To seal up vision and prophecy	velachtom chazon ve-navi	Bring every Old Testament forecast to fulfilment
To anoint the Most Holy	velimshoach kodesh kodashim	Consecrate the ultimate dwelling of God with man

Three of the six were finished at the cross. Reconciliation for iniquity was paid in blood at Passover 31. An end of sins was sealed in the cosmic ledger when the centurion's spear opened the side of the Lamb. Everlasting righteousness was inaugurated at the Resurrection on the morning of Firstfruits.

Three of the six were not.

Finishing the transgression could not be completed until the long captivity ran its course. Sealing up vision and prophecy could not be completed until every prophecy had landed. Anointing the Most Holy could not be completed until the dwelling of God with man was consecrated on the renewed earth.

On Hoshana Rabbah 2034, all three close.

The transgression is finished — the squatter is gone, the dragon is bound, the rebellion of Adam's race is brought to its appointed end. Vision and prophecy are sealed up — every word the prophets handed down has landed, and the prophetic library closes because there is no more future to forecast. The Most Holy is anointed — the dwelling of God with men is consecrated by the Glory that returns through the eastern gate.

The 490 years of Gabriel's contract close. Not — this book says it plainly, once — on the day: the master contract of chapter seven yields year-precision, and the closing day of the dial rests, moreover, on the calendar assumption chapter twelve has stated out loud. What closes, closes on the year and on the feast. Six tasks completed. The signature on the contract honoured.

A Bride at her Husband's side

Let me close this chapter where I want to close every chapter — with what the morning of His coming means for the reader on the page.

You are reading this paragraph in the closing decade of the long engagement. The man on Mount Scopus is, by the projection of the master clock, a few short years from the dawn he is waiting through. The Bride has been weaving her dress for two thousand years. The cup pledged in the upper room has stood undrained on the table. The carpenter from Nazareth, who walked out of His own farewell meal twenty centuries ago to prepare a place, has been on the building project all along.

The morning the Goel comes home is the morning the long story closes.

It is also the morning the long story opens.

A reader who is meeting the architecture of this book for the first time often slows down at the closing day and asks what comes next. The answer is more than the human imagination can quite hold. The Sabbath millennium is not the end of the master clock; it is the seventh day of the master clock. The seventh day is the day for which the previous six days were made. The Sabbath millennium opens onto the new heaven and new earth — the further dwelling of God with His Bride that runs not for a thousand years but for the unfading endlessness of His own Person. The closing day of the dial is the threshold of an eternity that no chapter of any book can describe.

What can be described is the morning. A Bride dismounting at the foot of a ridge. A Bridegroom whose feet have just landed on the geography He left from. A gate opened. A wall of the long afternoon broken. A Father whose glory has come back through the same gate from which He withdrew. A marriage feast that runs into a thousand-year festival of Tabernacles. A tree restored to a river that runs from a throne. A planet healed. A creation that has been groaning under the bondage of corruption set free into the liberty of the children of God.

That is the morning your great-grandchildren may live in. By the projection of the master clock, you may live in it. Our Father, who has kept every appointment from Adam onward, is keeping this one.

What does that change?

It changes the way you read your own household. The small obediences of the years you are living now are the threads of the dress you will wear at the table. The patience you are exercising in the long stretch of the engagement is the discipline of a Bride who knows the building project is nearly finished. The dim seasons of the long afternoon — the disappointments, the unanswered prayers, the slow attrition of the years — are the centuries of Suleiman's wall in personal miniature. They are the long captivity of an honest household waiting for the dawn. They are not the end. Our Father's footstep is on the ridge.

It changes how you read the suffering you have been carrying. The man on Mount Scopus has not slept. The orthodox remnant in Bozrah has been fasting through the forty days. The Bride, riding behind her Husband on that morning, is wearing the linen woven out of every prayer that no one in your life ever knew you prayed. Our Father misses nothing. The thread you have been weaving in the dim hours is, on this morning, finally visible in the daylight at the table.

The chapter ahead is the last chapter of the book. It does not extend the architecture; the architecture is finished. What remains is one short word to the household standing on the page. Our Father's calendar has been surveyed from end to end. He has been seen to keep every appointment from Adam to the close of the dial. The long bridge from the cross to the morning of return has been walked. The remaining question is what a household standing in the closing decade is to do with what it has just read.

The next chapter is for the household. It is the pastoral close. It is what the long story asks of you, on the night before the dawn.