The Hebrew concept of time found in the Old Testament is concerned more with the
quality of time as it relates to hail, rain, summer, and harvest or to “evil days” or “prosperous
times.” Clock or calendar time certainly is tracked in the Old Testament. Believing Jews as well
as Christians believe the Old Testament is an accurate account of actual historical events and real
people.
The Old Testament teaches by means of stories, by personal examples from the lives of
individuals, and by case histories of God’s dealings with men and angels. Scripture uses poetic
images, dreams, visions and providential arrangements of circumstances to indicate God’s
invisible workings in human affairs from behind the scenes of history. The Hebrew year cycles
around seed time and harvest and commemorative feasts and festivals. These call to mind the
redemptive deeds of God and his blessings upon his chosen people Israel.
The feasts of Israel have great symbolic import both for the nation of Israel and for the
Church. Many details concerning dates and length of these feasts are given in the Torah
(Leviticus 23).
The Old Testament gives us a record of patriarchs and races, nations and kings. It is a
selective record narrowing down to focus on the bloodline leading to the Messiah. Israel is at
stage center, all directions are measured from Jerusalem, and the relationship between the
Israelites and their God determines their prosperity or adversity in the land (eretz yisrael). The
historical record of the Old Testament reveals national deterioration and repeated failures by
men, but persistent, gracious intervention by God who sovereignly works out his grand strategy
down through the ages. Israel typifies God’s dealings with the nations. From Israel the Messiah
has already come once, and through Israel will come the ultimate salvation of the nations when
Messiah returns.
The Old Testament does not often speak at all about the affairs of other nations unless
they impinge on events concerning Israel. Little is said about earthquakes, natural disasters,
wars, the rise and fall of empires and nations, storms, or cosmic events—unless such happenings
relate directly to Israel. In addition, the purpose of the biblical record is mostly moral and ethical.
Because he is a personal God who makes covenants, Yahweh is evidently much more interested
in helping men to know him and to understand themselves than he is in teaching us details of
science or all the fine points of history.
Concerning the Old Testament, Paul plainly says in First Corinthians, 10:11, that “These
things happened to them (to the Old Testament fathers) as types, but they were written down for
our instruction, upon whom the end of the ages has come.” In his letter to Romans, (Romans
15:4), Paul also wrote, “Whatever things were written in former times were written for our
instruction, that through patience and the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.”
Interruptions in Time Recorded in the Bible
The Hebrew language has no verb tenses in the usual sense familiar to us who speak
English. In the Jewish way of thinking, the quality of an event or happening becomes more
important than the minutes or hours (the measure) the event occupies in our familiar four
dimensions of length, width, height and time.
For example, in the Old Testament there is Joshua’s “long day,” (which occurred about
1420 BC). On that day, the sun conveniently stood still for about a whole day, so Joshua could
finish an important battle against the Amorites. (The battle is described in Joshua Chapter 10.)
The LORD also conveniently arranged an exceptionally heavy hailstorm at the same time,
suggesting that something radical happened to the earth’s normal weather patterns at that time.
What actually took place in nature would be, to us, of enormous scientific importance to learn
more about. However, the Bible makes the stopping of the earth’s rotation on its axis and the fall
of enormous, deadly hailstones incidental to the main purpose of the narrative, which was
recorded to show how God can use supernatural means to deliver his people. Conceiving in the
mind the possibility that God actually stopped the earth’s rotation and coordinated
simultaneously all the forces and effects that would have been accompanied such a happening
staggers the imagination—we simply don’t know what actually happened except that the record
says the length of one particular day was stretched by divine intervention.
Some day perhaps we will discover some supporting evidence for an unusual historic
event such as a large meteor striking the earth, or a great volcanic explosion, or a close-passage
of the planet Mars, which would correlate conclusively with Joshua’s Long Day. The idea that
God should interrupt the normal flow of time for a moral reason may strike us as “unreasonable,”
and, of course, explaining how he does it, (the laws of physics being what they are), is not an
easy task. Critics have felt the earth would fly apart instantly if its rotation were ever stopped or
even slowed. But this assumes that God lacks sufficient power to coordinate and control all
related forces such as tides and stresses in the crust.
About 714 BC King Hezekiah faced the crisis of early death and asked God for help (2
Kings 20). He granted the king fifteen more years of life. As a sign, God caused the sun dial in
the palace to move backwards “ten steps.” Perhaps the reversed motion of the sun dial was
caused by some sort of wobble in the earth’s rotation? Who knows? God doesn’t bother to tell us;
apparently it isn’t important for us to know how it happened.
The Hebrew idea of continuous present tense is found in the covenant name of God (one
of many names for God in the OT). This is the God who revealed himself to Moses at the
burning bush in Sinai saying, “I am Who I am. Tell Pharaoh, ‘I AM’ has sent you.” This could be
translated equally well as “I Will be Who I Will Be.” The name YHWH (Yahweh, or Jehovah) is
simply derived from the verb “to be.” God is the great “I AM” in the sense that each of us is a
little “i am.” In reading the Gospel of John it is helpful to note that Jesus used the term “I am” a
number of times in the sense of the meaning of Yahweh. For instance he said, “…before
Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). Jesus was much more aware of the eternal dimension than we are. He dwelt in eternity in some sense the whole time he was present on earth as the Man Christ
Jesus. Thus, some of the accomplishments by Jesus at points in time while he was on earth sent
ripples into eternity, which changed both the past and the future! As God is eternal and outside of
time, so our human spirits are also eternal. However, our bodies are fallen, subject to death, and
not yet redeemed. It is the fact that our spirits live in bodies that places us in contact with the
physical world and limits our experience of time.
To illustrate how the verb tenses in English can be either past or prophetic-future in the
Hebrew in some cases, consider the prayer of Habakkuk in Habakkuk Chapter 3. This passage
can be read either as a record of God’s great and mighty deeds in the past, which the prophet
recalls—or the passage can be read as predictive of God’s mighty acts in the future. Either past or
future meanings are correct. God has delivered his people Israel by great acts in history on their
behalf. And, God will deliver Israel in the future by even greater deeds and mighty works. In any
case, there is reason for God’s people to hope for their salvation in those times when things get
worse before they get better. Habakkuk lived in one of those times when there is little on the
immediate horizon to give one hope.
