The Shepherd's Gathering

What Scripture Teaches About the Timing of the Rapture and the Last Trumpet

“How long shall it be to the end of these wonders?” — Daniel 12:6 (KJV)

Author’s Note on Terminology: This paper uses the traditional Christian terms “Old Testament” and “New Testament” for clarity. The author recognizes that the books of the Old Testament are the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh, which Jewish tradition holds as complete Scripture in its own right, and quotes them with respect for that tradition.

1. The Question, and How Scripture Answers It

When will Christ’s people be gathered to meet him? Daniel asked the same question in his own words: “How long shall it be to the end of these wonders?” (Daniel 12:6). The answer he received came in three steps, three mileposts: “a time, times, and an half” (12:7), “a thousand two hundred and ninety days” (12:11), and “Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days” (12:12). Revelation picks up the same mileposts and marks each one in its own words.

This paper lets Scripture explain Scripture, from the Old Testament to the New. For each key word it gives the original Hebrew or Greek, its Strong’s Concordance number, and the places Scripture uses it. It sets the wording of William Tyndale, the first to translate the New Testament into English from the Greek, beside the King James Version, where his phrasing makes the sense plainer. And it relies on Scripture’s own ordering words (“first,” “then,” “till,” “immediately after,” “finished”) to fix the sequence of events.

A note on what follows. The interpretation in this paper is my best understanding of Scripture, reached by following its own examples and patterns. It is held to one rule above all others:

Rule 1: No Scriptural conflicts. No conclusion here may contradict any passage of Scripture. Where Scripture does not settle a detail, I say so plainly.

This is a sensitive subject. It touches the hope of many Christians who believe, sincerely and in good faith, that God’s people will be taken away before the great tribulation. This paper is offered with respect for them, and its purpose is not to frighten but to comfort: Scripture shows that God does not abandon his people in the tribulation, but shepherds them through it.

The theme is the same one that runs through all of Revelation: God is in control. The throne is shown before the troubles (Revelation 4), every power acts only as it is given, and the end comes “until the words of God shall be fulfilled” (17:17).

2. Who Is Gathered

Scripture calls the people who are gathered by many names, and they are one people:

• His saints: “at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints” (1 Thessalonians 3:13).
• His elect, his chosen: “they shall gather together his elect from the four winds” (Matthew 24:31); Tyndale renders it “his chosen.”
• The children and sons of God: “when he shall appear, we shall be like him” (1 John 3:2); “the manifestation of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19).
• The bride: “the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready” (Revelation 19:7).
• His sheep: “My sheep hear my voice… neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand” (John 10:27-28).
• Those written in the book: “thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book” (Daniel 12:1).

3. The Shepherd Through the Storm

For many believers, this is the hardest part of the subject. A great many Christians hold, sincerely and in good faith, that God’s people will be taken away before the great tribulation begins, and the thought of living through it can bring real fear. This paper does not ask anyone to face that fear alone, and neither does Scripture. From the first book to the last, Scripture’s answer is the same: God does not abandon his people in the trouble. He shepherds them through it.

The Old Testament shows the pattern. David did not ask to be spared the valley; he wrote, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me” (Psalm 23:4). God did not promise Israel a life without floods and fire; he promised his presence in them: “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee” (Isaiah 43:2). In Babylon, when three faithful men were thrown into the furnace, the king looked in and saw “four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God” (Daniel 3:25). And in the first exodus, “the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light” (Exodus 13:21), while the plagues fell on Egypt and Goshen was spared.

Hidden through the indignation. Isaiah heard the invitation: “Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast” (Isaiah 26:20). The word “indignation” is za’am (H2195), the same word Daniel uses for the time in which the end-time king prospers, “till the indignation be accomplished” (Daniel 11:36). The very indignation the last king rides is the one God hides his people through.

Gathered in the cloudy and dark day. Ezekiel records the Shepherd’s promise: “As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day” (Ezekiel 34:12). The words “cloudy” (’anan, H6051) and “dark” (’arafel, H6205) are the same two words the prophets use for the Day of the LORD: “A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness” (Joel 2:2); “a day of clouds and thick darkness” (Zephaniah 1:15). The Shepherd gathers his scattered flock on that day itself. “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom” (Isaiah 40:11); “I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all countries whither I have driven them” (Jeremiah 23:3).

The New Testament carries the same promise to the end. “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep” (John 10:11), and “neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand” (10:28). In the wilderness of Revelation 12, the woman has “a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there” (12:6). For the elect’s sake, the days of trouble are measured and shortened: “but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened” (Matthew 24:22). And Jesus’ last promise in Matthew reaches all the way to the harvest: “lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew 28:20). “The end of the world” is synteleia (G4930), the same phrase Jesus used for the harvest (“the harvest is the end of the world,” 13:39) and the phrase in the disciples’ question about his coming (24:3). He is with his people until the very day he gathers them. “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5).

The Lamb who shepherds. Of the great multitude, Revelation says: “These are they which came out of great tribulation” (7:14), and then: “For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes” (7:17). The word “feed” is poimainō (G4165), “to shepherd.” It is the same verb Revelation uses for Christ ruling the nations “with a rod of iron” (2:27; 12:5; 19:15). The Shepherd’s rod that breaks his enemies is the same rod that comforts his flock (Psalm 23:4).

So the Shepherd does not send his flock into the storm and wait on the far side. He goes before them, walks with them through the fire, feeds them in the wilderness, hides them through the indignation, and gathers them in the cloudy and dark day. “And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).

4. The Words of the Gathering

Gathering together: episynagōgē (G1997). Used in 2 verses of the New Testament: 2 Thessalonians 2:1; Hebrews 10:25. Paul writes of “our gathering together unto him” (2 Thessalonians 2:1). The noun appears only twice.

Gather together: episynagō (G1996), the verb of the same word. Used in 7 verses of the New Testament: Matthew 23:37; 24:31; Mark 1:33; 13:27; Luke 12:1; 13:34; 17:37. It is Jesus’ own word for the gathering that comes “Immediately after the tribulation of those days”: “he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds” (Matthew 24:29-31; Mark 13:27). Paul’s gathering and Jesus’ gathering are named with one word, and Jesus places it after the tribulation.

Caught up: harpazō (G726). Used in 14 verses of the New Testament: Matthew 11:12; 12:29; 13:19; John 6:15; 10:12; 10:28; 10:29; Acts 8:39; 23:10; 2 Corinthians 12:2; 12:4; 1 Thessalonians 4:17; Jude 1:23; Revelation 12:5. It means to seize or snatch away: “caught up together with them in the clouds” (1 Thessalonians 4:17), and Philip “caught away” by the Spirit (Acts 8:39). It is also Jesus’ word for his sheep: “neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand” (John 10:28). No one can snatch his sheep away, because he himself will catch them up.

To meet: apantēsis (G529). Used in 3 verses of the New Testament: Matthew 25:6; Acts 28:15; 1 Thessalonians 4:17. Two of the three are pictures of the gathering: “Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him” (Matthew 25:6), and “to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thessalonians 4:17). The gathering is the bride going out to meet the bridegroom. Tyndale’s “goo out against him” used “against” in its old sense of “toward.”

Trumpet: salpinx (G4536). Used in 11 verses of the New Testament: Matthew 24:31; 1 Corinthians 14:8; 15:52; 1 Thessalonians 4:16; Hebrews 12:19; Revelation 1:10; 4:1; 8:2; 8:6; 8:13; 9:14. The gathering comes with a trumpet: “with the trump of God” (1 Thessalonians 4:16); “at the last trump” (1 Corinthians 15:52); “with a great sound of a trumpet” (Matthew 24:31). In Tyndale: “at the sounde of the last trompe. For the trompe shall blowe.”

Harvest and sickle: therismos (G2326) and drepanon (G1407). Harvest: Matthew 9:37; 9:38; 13:30; 13:39; Mark 4:29; Luke 10:2; John 4:35; Revelation 14:15. Sickle: Mark 4:29; Revelation 14:14; 14:15; 14:16; 14:17; 14:18; 14:19. “The harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels” (Matthew 13:39). Revelation 14 has two reapings: the Son of man on the white cloud reaps “the harvest of the earth” (14:14-16), gathering his people, and an angel gathers “the vine of the earth” into “the great winepress of the wrath of God” (14:17-20). Tyndale renders the harvest “the corne of the erth is rype”: grain, the wheat of Jesus’ parables (Matthew 13:30).

5. The Great Falling Away

Paul told the Thessalonians not to be shaken “as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition” (2 Thessalonians 2:2-3). Tyndale’s 1534 New Testament reads: “the lorde commeth not, except ther come a departynge fyrst, and that that synfull man be opened.” This is not a new idea in Paul. Scripture teaches it from the Old Testament to the New, and every account runs in the same order: a falling away first, growing until it is full, and then the abomination.

The Old Testament pattern. Daniel states the order directly: “when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up” (Daniel 8:23). And again: he shall “have intelligence with them that forsake the holy covenant” (11:30); then they “shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate” (11:31); while “such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries: but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits” (11:32). It had already happened once. Before Babylon destroyed the first Temple, “all the chief of the priests, and the people, transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen; and polluted the house of the LORD” (2 Chronicles 36:14). Ezekiel was shown “the great abominations that the house of Israel committeth here, that I should go far off from my sanctuary” (Ezekiel 8:6). “They mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against his people, till there was no remedy” (2 Chronicles 36:16). God’s people fell away, abomination filled the sanctuary, and desolation followed.

What this shows: Daniel did not invent a new idea about the end. He described a pattern Israel had already lived through. First God’s people turned from him, then the sanctuary was defiled, and then desolation came. Scripture teaches that the same order will repeat at the end.

Falling away: apostasia (G646). Used in 2 verses of the New Testament: Acts 21:21; 2 Thessalonians 2:3. Its only other use is Acts 21:21: “thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses”, a departure from God’s law. Its related verb, aphistamai (G868), is used for departing spiritually: those who “in time of temptation fall away” (Luke 8:13); “in the latter times some shall depart from the faith” (1 Timothy 4:1); “an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God” (Hebrews 3:12). Tyndale’s “departynge” is a departing from the faith.

In the Greek translation of the Old Testament that the apostles read, apostasia is the word for Israel’s rebellion against God: “if it be in rebellion, or if in transgression against the LORD” (Joshua 22:22), and “thy backslidings shall reprove thee” (Jeremiah 2:19). Paul’s readers knew it as the Old Testament word for turning from God. Tyndale’s “departynge,” the King James “falling away,” and “rebellion” all name the same thing.

Jesus gives the same order. “And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold” (Matthew 24:10-12). Only after that: “When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation” (24:15). He asked, “when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8).

Paul returns to it again and again. To the Ephesian elders: “grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them” (Acts 20:29-30). To Timothy: “in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils” (1 Timothy 4:1); “in the last days perilous times shall come” (2 Timothy 3:1), with men “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof” (3:5); “the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine… And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (4:3-4). To the Thessalonians, the fullest account: the man of sin’s “coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders” (2 Thessalonians 2:9), and those who fall away do so “because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie” (2:10-11).

Paul’s warnings all describe the same thing from different angles: people who knew the truth turning from it, teachers who draw believers away, and in the end a “strong delusion” for those who “received not the love of the truth.” That is the falling away, and Paul says it must come before the Lord’s coming.

Peter, John, and Revelation. “There shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming?” (2 Peter 3:3-4). “Even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. They went out from us, but they were not of us” (1 John 2:18-19). “And all the world wondered after the beast” (Revelation 13:3).

The same order appears at both of the abomination’s fulfillments, the first in AD 70 and the final one at day 1,290. The table shows which is which:

In other words, the falling away is not a single event but a pattern God shows twice. Before Rome destroyed Jerusalem, many in Israel turned from the covenant, and Jesus warned his followers to watch for it. Before the final abomination, the same turning happens on a world scale. Each time, the faithful are not surprised, because Scripture told them the order in advance.

Why the falling away is not the gathering. Some teachers read Tyndale’s “departynge” as the gathering itself, a departure of believers before the man of sin appears. Paul’s own sentence rules that out. He writes about “the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and… our gathering together unto him” (2:1), and then says that day will not come until the departing comes first (2:3). If the departing were the gathering, Paul would be saying the gathering cannot come until the gathering comes. And every account above shows the falling away as people turning from God, not being taken to him. Tyndale’s own translation shows the order: “the lorde commeth not, except ther come a departynge fyrst” (2 Thessalonians 2:3), and the catching up happens when “the Lorde him selfe shall descende fro heve with a showte” (1 Thessalonians 4:16).

The man of sin “as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God” (2:4), and he continues until the coming destroys him: “whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming” (2:8). The falling away grows until it is full; the man of sin is revealed; and the coming ends his rule. Through it all, “the people that do know their God shall be strong” (Daniel 11:32).

6. Daniel 11: Where Scripture Turns to the End

Prophecy often telescopes time, moving across centuries from one verse to the next. Isaiah 61:2 spans two comings of the Messiah in one verse (Luke 4:19-20); Zechariah 9:9-10 moves from the King “riding upon an ass” to his dominion “from sea even to sea”; Daniel 9:26 moves from the Messiah cut off to desolations “unto the end of the war”; and Matthew 24 weaves the destruction of Jerusalem together with the end of the age. The reader finds the seams by Scripture’s own markers: “the time of the end,” “the time appointed,” “at that time,” “the latter days,” and a change of subject. Daniel 11 turns to the end at verse 36, and Daniel marks the turn himself.

Put simply: through 11:34, Daniel’s “ends” and “appointed times” belong to the history of the kings. At 11:35 the full phrase “the time of the end” appears, and from then on every marker points to the final end. That is how Daniel signals the turn.

Daniel 11:35 is the hinge. (The Story of the End paper divides Daniel the same way: the first part, Daniel 10:1–11:35, was written for the believers who would live in Jerusalem before it fell in AD 70.) It is the only verse in the chapter that carries all three markers: “even to the time of the end: because it is yet for a time appointed.” From there on, the passage stays in “the time of the end” (11:40; 12:4, 9).

At 11:36 the subject changes. Through 11:30 the rulers are “the king of the north” and “the king of the south.” At 11:36 it is simply “the king” (ha-melekh), a new figure: “And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.” The New Testament reads this verse as the man of sin, still future:

“Accomplished” in 11:36 is kalah (H3615), the word of Daniel 12:7’s “finished,” and “the indignation” points back to 8:19: “what shall be in the last end of the indignation: for at the time appointed the end shall be.” The king’s own end is marked the same way: “yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him” (11:45). And immediately: “And at that time shall Michael stand up… and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book” (12:1).

Before the turn: Rome and the desolation Jesus foretold. “The ships of Chittim shall come against him” (11:30) marks Rome’s entry, and with it those who “forsake the holy covenant.” Then: “arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate” (11:31). Scripture itself sets the requirements for this abomination:

The first-century Jewish historian Josephus, writing after AD 70, said the same: Daniel wrote of the Roman government, “and that Jerusalem should be taken by them, and the temple laid waste” (Antiquities 10.11.7). Then comes the long persecution of the faithful: “they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil, many days… to try them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end” (11:33-35).

So Daniel 11 runs in Scripture’s own order, the same order as 2 Thessalonians 2 and Matthew 24: the falling away (11:30), the desolation (11:31), the long persecution “to the time of the end” (11:33-35), the end-time king who exalts himself above every god (11:36), his end with none to help him (11:45), and “at that time” the deliverance of everyone written in the book (12:1). The abomination Jesus foretold came in AD 70; the final abomination, the man of sin’s, comes at the second milepost, day 1,290 (Daniel 12:11; 2 Thessalonians 2:4).

7. The Two Witnesses

In plain words. Revelation’s two witnesses are not two old prophets returning from heaven. They are God’s Word in its two testimonies, the Old Testament and the New, made alive by the Holy Spirit and carried to the whole world by God’s sealed servants, the 144,000. Most of those servants give their lives for that message. They are the martyrs John sees waiting under the altar, and they are the first to rise when the last trumpet sounds. The rest of this section shows, step by step, where each part of that picture comes from in Scripture.

(These are offered as interpretation, but every part rests on Scripture’s own definitions and wording, laid out below.)

Before the first milepost can be understood, one question has to be answered: who are the two witnesses? Revelation says, “I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth” (Revelation 11:3). Their 1,260 days of testimony are the first milepost itself. Many teachers expect two literal prophets to return from heaven, often Moses and Elijah, or Enoch and Elijah, and to preach in Jerusalem. Scripture gives good reason to read the passage another way, and it also gives a warning from history about expecting a literal figure where God meant something greater.

The same mistake was made once before. The last book of the Old Testament ends with a promise: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD” (Malachi 4:5). By Jesus’ day, the religious leaders were waiting for Elijah himself to come back. When they asked John the Baptist, “Art thou Elias?”, he answered, “I am not” (John 1:21). Yet Jesus said of John, “if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come” (Matthew 11:14), and “Elias is come already, and they knew him not… Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist” (Matthew 17:12-13). How can both be true? The angel who announced John’s birth explained it: John would “be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb,” and would “go before him in the spirit and power of Elias” (Luke 1:15, 17), as “the voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD” (Isaiah 40:3). The promised “Elijah” was not the old prophet returning in person. It was the same Spirit and the same message, poured out on a new messenger. Those who waited for the man himself missed the fulfillment standing in front of them. Expecting two resurrected prophets in Revelation 11 risks the very same mistake.

Reading the picture one piece at a time. Revelation tells us plainly what picture it is drawing from: “These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth” (Revelation 11:4). That points straight back to Zechariah 4, and Scripture explains nearly every part of the picture itself:

Put together in plain terms: the olive trees supply the oil, and the oil is the Holy Spirit. The lampstands hold up the light, and the light is the Word of God. Moses and Elijah appear in the picture not as two men coming back, but because their signs stand for the Law and the Prophets: that is how they appeared beside Jesus at the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:3), and how Jesus described the Scriptures, “written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me” (Luke 24:44). “Search the scriptures,” he said; “they are they which testify of me” (John 5:39).

Revelation names the two testimonies itself. Throughout the book, John keeps pairing the same two things: “the word of God, and… the testimony of Jesus Christ” (1:2); “for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ” (1:9); “slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held” (6:9); “the commandments of God, and… the testimony of Jesus Christ” (12:17); “beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God” (20:4). The Word God spoke through Moses and the prophets, and the testimony of Jesus: God’s Word in its two testimonies, the Old and New Testaments.

So who are the two witnesses? The evidence points to Scripture itself: God’s Word in its two testimonies, the Old and New Testaments, lit by the Holy Spirit and carried to the world by his people. This agrees with the Story of the End paper, which reads the witnesses as the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, spoken through the 144,000: the olive trees supply the Spirit, the lampstands hold up the Word, and God’s people carry both. In Zechariah’s own day, the “two sons of oil” were first two anointed leaders, Joshua the high priest and Zerubbabel the governor (Zechariah 3–4); Revelation carries the same picture forward to the end, the near-and-far pattern of prophecy again. (This identification is interpretation, but every part of it rests on Scripture’s own definitions.)

What happens to them. “When they shall have finished their testimony,” the beast makes war against them and kills them (11:7), and the world celebrates: “they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth” (11:10). The Word torments only a conscience that has refused it. Then “after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet,” and they heard, “Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud” (11:11-12). However completely the world silences God’s Word, God raises it up again before everyone’s eyes: “the word of our God shall stand for ever” (Isaiah 40:8).

Who are the 144,000? Revelation introduces them just before the trumpets: “Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads” (Revelation 7:3), and “I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand” (7:4). In plain terms, they are God’s servants, marked as his before the trouble begins, the way a shepherd marks his own sheep. Ezekiel saw the same thing before Jerusalem’s judgment: an angel was told to “set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations,” and the destroyers were ordered, “come not near any man upon whom is the mark” (Ezekiel 9:4, 6).

Why they are not only one nation. Many read the 144,000 as Jewish men only. But the list of tribes in Revelation 7 is not the list of Israel’s tribes by inheritance: Dan and Ephraim are missing, Levi (which had no land) is included, and both Joseph and his son Manasseh are named. A list built that way points beyond ancestry. Scripture itself says who God’s Israel is: “if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:29); “he is a Jew, which is one inwardly” (Romans 2:29); and Paul blesses “the Israel of God” (Galatians 6:16). James wrote his letter to believers in Christ as “the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad” (James 1:1). The number itself tells the same story: twelve tribes on the gates of the New Jerusalem, times twelve apostles on its foundations (Revelation 21:12, 14), times a thousand. As The Five Exoduses paper sets out, the 144,000 are God’s sealed servants drawn from every people, and the “great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues” (7:9) is the harvest gathered through their witness.

What they do. They “follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth,” and “in their mouth was found no guile” (14:4-5). They carry the two testimonies to the whole world, which is why the two witnesses’ work and theirs are the same 1,260 days.

The messengers who carry the testimony are slain. The Word itself cannot be destroyed, but those who carry it can be killed, and Scripture says they will be. When the testimony is finished, the beast “shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them” (11:7); he is given power “to make war with the saints, and to overcome them” (13:7). “They loved not their lives unto the death” (12:11).

They are the souls under the altar. At the fifth seal, which opens with the sixth trumpet, John sees “under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held” (6:9): the very two testimonies the witnesses carried. They cry, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” (6:10). “And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled” (6:11). Their number is being completed, as the sealed were counted: “I heard the number of them which were sealed” (7:4).

Blessed, and resting until the last trump. Right after the three messages, Revelation adds: “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them” (14:13), the same rest the souls under the altar were given. Their waiting ends at the gathering, when “the dead in Christ shall rise first” (1 Thessalonians 4:16), and John sees them named by the same two testimonies: “the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God… and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years” (Revelation 20:4). “These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb” (14:4).

Daniel saw them first. “They that understand among the people shall instruct many: yet they shall fall by the sword” (Daniel 11:33); “some of them of understanding shall fall, to try them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end” (11:35). “They that understand” (maskilim, H7919) is the same Hebrew word as “they that be wise” in 12:3, and “make them white” (laban, H3835) is the same as 12:10’s “made white.” The wise who instruct many fall, are made white, and then “shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever” (12:3). Revelation’s white robes are Daniel’s “made white.”

The Shepherd does not lose them. “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints” (Psalm 116:15). “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul” (Matthew 10:28). “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life” (Revelation 2:10). “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit” (John 12:24): the great multitude is the harvest of their witness.

(Scripture does not name the 144,000 among the slain in so many words. The identification rests on its shared wording: the witnesses killed when their testimony is finished (11:7), the souls slain “for the word of God, and for the testimony” (6:9), and those raised under the same two names (20:4).)

Why this matters: two witnesses make an equal judgment possible. Under God’s law, no one could be condemned on the word of a single witness: “At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death be put to death; but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death” (Deuteronomy 17:6). God holds his own final judgment to the same standard. The two witnesses are the two testimonies by which every person is measured: God’s Word, which comes to a person from outside, and God’s Spirit, who speaks to a person from within.

• The Spirit witnesses to everyone. “When he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment” (John 16:8). Christ is “the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (John 1:9), and even those who never had the Scriptures have “the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness” (Romans 2:15).
• The Word goes to everyone before the end. The everlasting gospel goes “to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people” (Revelation 14:6), and “then shall the end come” (Matthew 24:14). Jesus said the Word itself will be the standard: “the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day” (John 12:48).
• Each person answers for the light they were given. “That servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself… shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not… shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required” (Luke 12:47-48). “If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth” (John 9:41). “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin” (John 15:22). “The times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent” (Acts 17:30).

That is how God can judge every person equally, even though people receive very different amounts of light: each one is measured by the same two witnesses, by what God made known to them of his Word and by how they answered the pleading of his Spirit. “The dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works” (Revelation 20:12). “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Genesis 18:25). “For there is no respect of persons with God” (Romans 2:11).

And that is also the Shepherd’s call through the whole 1,260 days. The two witnesses are not a threat to those who hear them; they are the voice of the Shepherd calling his sheep. “To day if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your hearts” (Hebrews 3:7-8). Those who answer are sealed, kept through the storm, and gathered at the last trump.

8. The First Milepost: 1,260 Days

Daniel’s first answer: “it shall be for a time, times, and an half; and when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished” (Daniel 12:7). Revelation writes the same span as “a time, and times, and half a time” and as “a thousand two hundred and threescore days” (Revelation 12:6, 14).

Revelation marks the 1,260 milepost with the same word, twice. The two witnesses (Section 7) “shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days” (11:3), and “when they shall have finished their testimony,” they are killed, lie dead “three days and an half,” and rise (11:7, 11). Then: “The second woe is past; and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly” (11:14). And the mystery is finished “in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound” (10:7). The Greek for “when he shall begin to sound” is hotan mellē salpizein, “when he is about to sound”: the seventh angel has “days,” and his trumpet sounds at a point within them. The “mystery” that is finished is the gospel itself, for the verb that follows, “as he hath declared to his servants the prophets,” is euangelizō, “to preach the good news.” “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come” (Matthew 24:14).

When mercy closes. The seven last plagues bring the close: “no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled” (15:8). The plagues fall on those “which had the mark of the beast” (16:2), who “repented not” (16:9), and the word goes out: “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still… and he that is holy, let him be holy still” (22:11). Scripture fixes the order (the witnesses’ testimony finished, their three and a half days, the third woe and the plagues), but it gives the close of mercy no day number. Lining up the witnesses’ 1,260 days with the start of the 1,335-day count, as Story of the End does, places the close at the end of their testimony, about day 1,260 to 1,264, with the plagues running about seventy days to day 1,335.

The door of the Ark. Scripture shows the close of mercy once before. God told Noah, “Come thou and all thy house into the ark” (Genesis 7:1), and when they were inside, “the LORD shut him in” (7:16). The door was closed by God, not by Noah, and it was closed before the rain: “it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth” (7:10). For 120 years “the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water” (1 Peter 3:20). Then the door shut, and the choice each person had made stood: “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still… and he that is holy, let him be holy still” (Revelation 22:11). Jesus said the end will be the same: “until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matthew 24:38-39). He told the same story in the parable of the ten virgins, “and the door was shut” (Matthew 25:10), and again, “When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door” (Luke 13:25). And notice where Noah was when the storm broke: not taken out of the world, but shut in with God, carried safely through the flood. That is the shepherding pattern of this whole paper.

9. The Second Milepost: 1,290 Days

Daniel’s second answer: “from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days” (Daniel 12:11). The Hebrew words: “taken away,” sur (H5493); “the daily,” tamid (H8548); “abomination,” shiqquts (H8251); “that maketh desolate,” shamem (H8074). This is the second of the abomination’s two uses: the first was Rome’s desolation of Jerusalem in AD 70, which Jesus foretold (Matthew 24:15; Luke 21:20); the second is the abomination of the end. It is a death decree set up against everyone who refuses the mark of the beast: “as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed” (Revelation 13:15). Daniel shows what drives it: “tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him: therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many” (Daniel 11:44). Behind it stands the power Paul describes, who “as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God” (2 Thessalonians 2:4).

Why is this not the close of mercy? Because Daniel says the separation is already complete just before he gives the 1,290 days: “Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand” (Daniel 12:10). The death decree is an act against those who have already chosen, the pattern of Pharaoh, whose harshest orders came during the plagues, and of Haman, whose decree set a day to destroy God’s people. In Esther, on the very day appointed, “it was turned to the contrary” (Esther 9:1).

10. The Ten Kings and Babylon’s Hour

The brittle coalition of Daniel 2, the feet “partly strong, and partly broken” that “shall not cleave one to another” (Daniel 2:42-43), appears in Revelation 17 as ten kings who “receive power as kings one hour with the beast. These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast” (Revelation 17:12-13). What holds them together is not their own unity: “God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled” (17:17). Even the rebellion serves God’s purpose, and only until his word is fulfilled.

Babylon. In Revelation 17, John saw “a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast” (17:3), named “MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT” (17:5). As in the Story of the End paper, Babylon is read as a one-world church-state, the union of religious and political power that rides the beast until the kings turn on her.

One hour. In Revelation the phrase “one hour” appears exactly four times: once for the kings (17:12), and three times for the fall of Babylon: “in one hour is thy judgment come” (18:10); “in one hour so great riches is come to nought” (18:17); “in one hour is she made desolate” (18:19). The kings’ brief time of power is Babylon’s hour, and 17:16 says why: “the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.” Scripture does not say how long “one hour” lasts, and this paper does not assign it a length; it is a brief, sudden time within the final days.

The river dried up. Ancient historians record that Cyrus took Babylon by diverting the Euphrates, and it fell in a single night: “In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain” (Daniel 5:30). The sixth bowl dries up the same river, “that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared” (Revelation 16:12), and the kings are gathered “to the battle of that great day of God Almighty” (16:14). At the seventh bowl, “great Babylon came in remembrance before God” (16:19). The second exodus, the fall of Babylon, is replayed at the end.

”Come out of her, my people.” Before Babylon’s plagues fall, God calls his people out: “Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues” (Revelation 18:4), as Jeremiah heard long before: “My people, go ye out of the midst of her, and deliver ye every man his soul from the fierce anger of the LORD” (Jeremiah 51:45). It is the call that comes before the gathering, as Lot was called out of Sodom and Israel out of Egypt. The call comes before the plagues, while mercy is still open: “that ye receive not of her plagues.” So it is heard before the seven last plagues begin, near the close of the witnesses’ 1,260 days.

11. The Third Milepost: 1,335 Days

Daniel’s third answer: “Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days” (Daniel 12:12). The Hebrew words: “Blessed,” ashrei (H835); “he that waiteth,” chakah (H2442); “and cometh to,” naga (H5060), “reaches.” The blessing belongs to the one who waits and reaches the end of the count. And Daniel 12:1-2 says what happens then: “at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake.” “Delivered” is malat (H4422), “to escape”; “written in the book” is katuv ba-sefer (H3789, H5612). Deliverance, the book, and the resurrection all come at the end of the count.

Four descriptions of one moment. Several passages describe the end of the count in the same words:

The same earthquake, the same moving of mountains and islands, the same darkened sky, and the same hail: these describe one event, the Lord’s appearing, at the end of the 1,335 days.

Two responses to one appearing. The same moment is terror to some and joy to others, and Scripture describes both. At the sixth seal, the unrepentant “hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb” (Revelation 6:15-16). Hosea had foreseen the same words: “they shall say to the mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall on us” (Hosea 10:8). Isaiah saw them flee “into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth” (Isaiah 2:19): the same great earthquake. “Then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn” (Matthew 24:30). Those who refused him would rather be buried by the mountains than face him. This confirms what is happening: the Lord himself is appearing, visible to all. His people answer the same sight in the opposite way: “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us” (Isaiah 25:9); “look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).

The last trumpet. The seventh angel’s days began at the first milepost; at the end, his trumpet actually sounds. That is “the last trump” (1 Corinthians 15:52). Scripture shows the pattern twice. The Jubilee trumpet sounded on one day to proclaim a whole year: “Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month” (Leviticus 25:9). And at Jericho the priests blew the trumpets for seven days, and on the seventh day came the final signal: “when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when ye hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city shall fall down flat” (Joshua 6:5). The walls fell, and God’s people went in. Paul describes the gathering the same way: “the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). Tyndale: “the deed in Christe shall aryse fyrst: then shall we which live and remayne be caught vp with them also in the cloudes to mete the Lorde in ye ayer.”

Three prophecies meet. At that moment the stone strikes the image “upon his feet that were of iron and clay” (Daniel 2:34), and “in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed” (2:44). The ten kings “shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them” (Revelation 17:14; 19:19). And his people are gathered: the harvest of the earth is reaped (14:14-16), followed by the vintage (14:17-20). The man of sin is destroyed “with the brightness of his coming” (2 Thessalonians 2:8), and the ones who waited reach the blessing of the 1,335th day.

Christ has not come during the plagues. At the sixth bowl, after the plagues have begun, he says: “Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments” (Revelation 16:15). And those raised in the first resurrection include those “which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark” (20:4-5): the resurrection comes after the time of the mark.

12. The Full Chronology

(The order comes from Scripture’s own words. Where a day number rests on lining up two periods, as with the close of mercy, it is marked “about.”)

13. Scripture’s Patterns: Deliverance on the Day of Judgment

• Lot: “the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven… Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed” (Luke 17:29-30).
• Noah: “until the day that Noe entered into the ark… so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matthew 24:38-39).
• Goshen: Israel was protected through the plagues (“I will sever in that day the land of Goshen, in which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there,” Exodus 8:22) and went out after the last one.
• Esther: the day appointed for destruction “was turned to the contrary” (Esther 9:1).
• The harvest: “Let both grow together until the harvest” (Matthew 13:30).

In each pattern, God’s people are kept through the judgment and delivered at its height, not removed long before it.

14. Other Views, Answered Fairly

The views below are held by many faithful believers, and they are presented here with respect. Each is weighed by the same standard as everything else in this paper: what Scripture itself requires.

”I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation” (Revelation 3:10). Many read this as removal before the tribulation. But Jesus used the same Greek construction (tēreō ek, “keep from”) in his prayer: “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil” (John 17:15). Tyndale renders both the same way: “kepe ye fro the houre” and “kepe them from evyll.” Being kept through the trouble, not taken out of the world, is Scripture’s pattern.

Scripture knows only two comings of the Messiah. The first was his coming in the flesh; the second is his appearing at the last trump. “So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation” (Hebrews 9:28): “the second time,” not a second and a third. That coming is visible to all: “this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11); “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him” (Revelation 1:7). Jesus warned against any hidden coming: “if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matthew 24:26-27). The resurrection of his people happens at that one coming, not years before it: “every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming” (1 Corinthians 15:23). Four times in one chapter Jesus promised to raise up his own “at the last day” (John 6:39, 40, 44, 54), as in “I will raise him up at the last day” (6:40): at the last day, not seven years before it. A gathering before the tribulation would require a third coming, which Scripture never describes.

God judges all alike. “For there is no respect of persons with God” (Romans 2:11). Scripture offers the same salvation on the same terms to everyone, “behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2), and “it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). It never describes one group of believers spared the last trial while another faces it, or a second opportunity for those who were undecided when the first group was taken. The same Shepherd leads the whole flock through the same days.

”God hath not appointed us to wrath” (1 Thessalonians 5:9). This is true, and it is a promise of protection, not removal. Revelation calls the final judgments God’s wrath (“the great day of his wrath is come,” 6:17; “thy wrath is come,” 11:18; “in them is filled up the wrath of God,” 15:1). Through them God’s people are sealed and kept, not taken away: the earth is not to be hurt “till we have sealed the servants of our God” (7:3), and the locusts may harm “only those men which have not the seal of God” (9:4). Israel was not removed from Egypt before the plagues; the plagues fell around Goshen while God’s people were kept within it. Tribulation, the persecution believers suffer from the beast, they do endure: “These are they which came out of great tribulation” (7:14). Paul places their relief at the same moment as the judgment on their persecutors: “to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance” (2 Thessalonians 1:7-8).

Antiochus IV and Daniel 11. Many scholars read Daniel 11:21-31 as Antiochus IV, who defiled the Temple in 167 BC, because several details of his campaigns resemble the text. But Scripture holds its own prophecies to a strict rule: a prophecy is fulfilled only when every part of it is fulfilled. “One jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled” (Matthew 5:18); “all things must be fulfilled, which were written” (Luke 24:44); “There failed not ought of any good thing which the LORD had spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass” (Joshua 21:45). Measured by that rule, Antiochus fails. Jesus spoke of Daniel’s abomination as still future around AD 30 (Matthew 24:15); Luke ties it to armies surrounding Jerusalem (Luke 21:20); and Daniel says the city and the sanctuary would be destroyed (Daniel 9:26). Antiochus lived two centuries before Jesus, and his defilement lasted about three years before the Temple was cleansed and rededicated; he destroyed neither the city nor the sanctuary. Nor was he the only one to defile it. Long before him, King Manasseh “built altars in the house of the LORD” (2 Kings 21:4), and Jeremiah said, “they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to pollute it” (Jeremiah 7:30). After him, the Roman general Pompey entered the Holy of Holies in 63 BC. A defilement alone does not fulfill Daniel’s prophecy. Only Rome in AD 70 fulfilled every part of it, and Scripture’s requirements decide.

”To meet” as an escort back to earth. Some scholars note that apantēsis was used for going out to meet an arriving dignitary and escorting him back, as the brethren “came to meet us” and brought Paul to Rome (Acts 28:15), and they read the gathering as the church escorting Christ to earth. The word allows that reading, and it is stated here fairly. But Scripture’s own picture of the meeting, the bride going out to meet the bridegroom, ends with “they that were ready went in with him to the marriage” (Matthew 25:10), and Jesus promised, “I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:3). This paper follows that promise.

15. After the Gathering

Jesus promised where his people are taken: “In my Father’s house are many mansions… I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:2-3). Scripture then describes what the gathered do.

They sit with him in judgment. “Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world?… Know ye not that we shall judge angels?” (1 Corinthians 6:2-3). John saw it: “And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them” (Revelation 20:4). Daniel saw it long before: “judgment was given to the saints of the most High” (Daniel 7:22). Jesus promised his apostles, “ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matthew 19:28). The people who were judged and condemned by the world are given a share in God’s judgment, even of the fallen angels.

They reign as kings and priests. “They lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years… This is the first resurrection” (Revelation 20:4-5); Tyndale: “This is that fyrst resurreccion.” “They shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years” (20:6). And beyond the thousand years: “And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth” (5:10), on the earth made new, where “they shall reign for ever and ever” (22:5).

They are gathered to a feast. The great multitude “which no man could number” (7:9) is called to the wedding: “Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb” (19:9). The bride who went out to meet the bridegroom goes in with him to the marriage (Matthew 25:10).

And the Shepherd’s work is complete. “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death” (Revelation 21:4). The Story of the End paper follows the events from there.

16. What This Paper Shows

Scripture states: the falling away and the man of sin come first (2 Thessalonians 2:3); the gathering is “immediately after the tribulation” (Matthew 24:29-31) and “at the last trump” (1 Corinthians 15:52); Daniel 12 gives three mileposts in order; Revelation marks them with the same words, “finished” (teleō) and “one hour”; and the first resurrection includes those who refused the mark (Revelation 20:4-5).

The pattern: Lot, Noah, Goshen, Esther, the harvest, and Jericho all show God’s people kept through judgment and delivered at its height, and the Shepherd goes through the storm with his flock (Psalm 23:4; Isaiah 43:2; Ezekiel 34:12; Revelation 7:17).

Interpretation: the identification of the two witnesses as God’s Word in its two testimonies, lit by the Spirit and carried by his people; the identification of the 144,000 as God’s sealed servants from every people, most of whom are martyred and wait under the altar; the day numbers of the close of mercy (about 1,260 to 1,264) and the lining up of the witnesses’ 1,260 days with the 1,335-day count; the placement of the kings’ “one hour” within the final days; and that the gathering takes Christ’s people to be with him for the thousand years. These are offered as my best understanding, held to Rule 1.

For every believer who fears the days ahead, Scripture’s answer is not escape from the storm but the Shepherd in it. He walks ahead of his flock, feeds them in the wilderness, hides them “until the indignation be overpast,” and gathers them “in the cloudy and dark day.” When the last trumpet sounds, the same arm that carried the lambs will gather them to himself.

“Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days” (Daniel 12:12). “And so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17).

Sources and References

Scripture: quotations are from the King James Version (KJV), except where William Tyndale’s New Testament is quoted for comparison. Strong’s numbers are from James Strong, Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible.

Tyndale: William Tyndale’s New Testament (1526; revised 1534), quoted from the parallel texts at textusreceptusbibles.com (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, marked Tyndale 1534), published quotations of his 1534 text (2 Thessalonians 2:3), and the public-domain Tyndale text in the scrollmapper Bible databases (the other verses).

Original-language data: the Greek New Testament (SBL edition, as tagged by the MorphGNT project) and the Hebrew Old Testament (the Westminster Leningrad Codex, as tagged by the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible project). The Greek text behind the KJV differs from the SBL edition in a few places, which does not affect the words studied here.

History: Herodotus and Xenophon, on Cyrus’s capture of Babylon by diverting the Euphrates; Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 10.11.7, on Daniel and the Roman desolation of Jerusalem.

The Greek Old Testament (Septuagint): its use of apostasia in Joshua 22:22 and Jeremiah 2:19.

Larry W. Wilson: Wake Up America Seminars, for the ordering of the seals, trumpets, and bowls, and the length of the plague period; and The Antichrist and the Mark of the Beast (2021), for the trumpets lasting about 1,264 days and the bowls about 70 days, the Ark’s door closing before the flood as a picture of the close of mercy, the saints reigning with Christ as judges during the thousand years (1 Corinthians 6:2-3), and the 144,000 as largely martyred during the tribulation. Wilson quotes the New International Version; this paper quotes the King James Version throughout.

Continuous Jubilee Calendar: Welsh, Chip. The CJC Research Kit and the CJC papers The Jubilee Calendar and the Story of the End, The Brittle Coalition, The Five Exoduses, and The Four Horsemen, available at https://greysmokez.github.io/CJC-Website/