Introduction to the Chronology Tables
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The dates in these chronologycal tables are based on the classic work of Archbishop James Ussher (1581–1656), an Irish Anglican scholar who carefully arranged the biblical genealogies and events into a continuous timeline called Anno Mundi (AM, “Year of the World”), beginning from Creation.
These AM dates are then correlated with Before Christ (BC) and Anno Domini (AD) years, aligning the biblical record with well-known historical milestones such as the call of Abraham, the Exodus under Moses, the Babylonian captivity, and the decrees of Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes.
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This approach allows the genealogical tables of Genesis, together with later Old and New Testament historical markers, to form a unified chronology that stretches from Creation to Christ and into our present age.
The larger picture reveals a divine framework of 7,000 years: the first 6,000 years of human history, culminating in the last days and the return of Christ, followed by the final 1,000 years—the Millennium—when Christ will reign on earth.
In this way, the chronology is not just about numbers and dates, but about understanding the flow of God’s redemptive plan from the beginning to the end of time.
The 7,000-Year Pattern in Scripture”
Hosea 6:1–3 — Exegesis
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v.1 – “Come, and let us return to the Lord; for He has torn,
but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up.”
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The prophet Hosea speaks to Israel, a nation wounded because of sin and exile. God Himself is portrayed as the one who has judged (“torn… stricken”), yet also as the only one who can restore.
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This is the covenant God: He disciplines but promises healing. It foreshadows Christ, the promised Messiah, who would bear the wounds of His people and provide ultimate healing (Isaiah 53:5).
v.2 – “After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will
raise us up, that we may live in His sight.”
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Immediate meaning: A promise of quick restoration for Israel — after a brief period of affliction, revival will come.
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Prophetic meaning: Using the “day = 1,000 years” principle (Psalm 90:4; 2 Peter 3:8), many interpreters see this as pointing to the Messiah’s timeline:
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Two “days” (≈2,000 years) of dispersion and waiting since Christ’s first coming.
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On the “third day” (the 7th millennium), revival and resurrection — the Messiah returns, raises His people, and establishes His Kingdom (cf. Revelation 20:4–6).
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Thus, Hosea 6:2 becomes a prophetic witness to the chronology: history unfolds in two great millennia of preparation, followed by the reign of Christ.
v.3 – “Let us know, let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord. His going forth is established as the morning; He will come to us like the rain,
like the latter and former rain to the earth.”
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This verse seals the prophecy with hope: God’s coming is as certain as the morning sunrise.
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The imagery of the rain points to Pentecost (former rain) and the end-time revival (latter rain), framing both the Messiah’s first coming (bringing salvation and the Spirit) and His second coming (bringing the fullness of the Kingdom).
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Psalm 90:4 — Exegesis
“For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday
when it is past, and like a watch in the night.”
This psalm is attributed to Moses, the man of God, and is unique because it is the oldest psalm in the Bible, composed in the wilderness generation. In it, Moses contrasts man’s frailty with God’s eternity. Human life quickly passes like grass that flourishes in the morning but withers by evening (Psalm 90:5–6).
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In the middle of this reflection, verse 4 gives us a profound key: God does not view time as humans do — a thousand years to Him is as brief as yesterday or even as the short three-hour divisions of a night watch.​ This is not simply poetry but a theological principle. By compressing a millennium into a single day in God’s perspective, Scripture gives us a prophetic scale by which to understand redemptive history.
Just as God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh (Genesis 2:2–3), so human history is unfolding in six “days” of a thousand years each — 6,000 years of labor, struggle, and redemption — followed by a seventh “day” of rest, the 1,000-year reign of Christ (Revelation 20:4–6).
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2 Peter 3:8 —Exegesis
“One day is with the Lord as a thousand years.”
Peter addresses a church wearied by delay and mocked by scoffers who ask, “Where is the promise of His coming?” He answers by anchoring history in God’s past interventions—creation and the flood—proof that the Lord does, at His choosing, break into time with judgment and mercy.
The apparent delay is not divine slackness but divine patience, giving space for repentance. Into that tension Peter drops his interpretive key: “with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” The phrase “with the Lord” deliberately shifts the vantage point from human clocks to divine eternity; and the repeated “as” marks a simile, not a mechanical conversion table.
Peter is not handing us a stopwatch; he is giving us a theological scale that rebukes unbelief, steadies hope, and summons holiness. Because time is in God’s hands, believers are to live in reverent conduct and mission-ready obedience, “hastening” the Day even as they await the certain unveiling of the new heavens and new earth.
Read canonically, this Petrine key permits (it does not force) the millennial reading of redemptive history: Scripture already speaks in thousand-year “days” (Ps 90:4), patterns history after the six-day work and seventh-day rest of creation, and names a future “thousand years” of Messiah’s reign (Rev 20:1–6).
In that light, 2 Peter 3:8 coheres with the Sabbath-millennium motif—six “days” (≈6,000 years) of human labor and divine patience followed by a seventh “day” (1,000 years) of Messianic rest—and harmonizes with Hosea 6:2, where “after two days… on the third day” promises revival and raising up in God’s presence.
Peter is not date-setting; he is legitimizing a prophetic scale by which the genealogies and the broad sweep of Scripture can be read as one story moving toward Christ’s return and the Kingdom’s consummation.
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Conclusion:
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Taken together, these three passages form a prophetic harmony. Hosea promises revival and resurrection “after two days” and life in God’s presence “on the third day,” which, read through the lens of Psalm 90:4 and 2 Peter 3:8, becomes a clear witness to a millennial scale of history.
Moses in the Psalms declared that a thousand years is like a single day before the Lord, and Peter applied that very truth to the question of Christ’s return, assuring the Church that delay is not denial but design.
The convergence of these voices—prophet, psalmist, and apostle—gives us a unified biblical key to read the genealogies not merely as lists of names but as time-markers pointing to God’s 7,000-year plan: six millennia of human labor and wandering, followed by the Sabbath-rest of the Messiah’s reign.
What is striking is that this is not a modern invention. More than a century ago, Archbishop James Ussher, the Irish Anglican vicar, labored to arrange the genealogies into a chronology beginning Anno Mundi, from Creation itself.
His interpretation of Scripture yielded a framework remarkably similar to what we still recognize today: a world history of approximately 6,000 years culminating in the return of Christ, and a seventh millennium of rest, the age of His Kingdom.
That such a view could be drawn independently by men separated by time yet united in the same Scriptures only strengthens the case. History and the Bible together bear witness: God’s redemptive plan is precise, coherent, and steadily moving toward its consummation in Christ’s reign and the dawn of eternity.
