This investigation was inspired by the observation that the marking of the start of the 4000-year span in 4003/4002 BC, and the marking of its end in 3/2 BC, both fall at the same point on the lunar calendar – on day 3 of month 7. There’s a continual, gradual shifting of the cycles of the planets with respect to the seasons and the calendar, caused partly by the precession of the equinoxes, and partly by the shifting of each planet’s own cycle. The precession of the equinoxes results in such observations as Rosh Hashanah falling about one month earlier on the Julian calendar when a span of 4000 years has passed.
In light of this shifting, it seems surprising at first to see these two markings, 4000 years apart, both falling at the same point on the calendar. But it’s because the marking in 4003 BC was accomplished by Mars, while the marking in 3 BC was accomplished by Jupiter. The cycle of each of these planets was perfectly tuned for marking the period of history for which it was intended. Mars readily produces short-span triple conjunctions in months 6 and 7 of the lunar calendar back around 4003 BC, at a time when Jupiter’s triple conjunctions were falling much too early in the year to be close to Rosh Hashanah. And conversely, 4000 years later Jupiter readily produces short-span triple conjunctions in months 6 and 7 of the lunar calendar, at a time when the triple conjunctions of Mars are falling much too late in the year to be close to Rosh Hashanah.
So the purpose of this investigation is to more clearly document this gradual shifting down through history, beginning with the markings of Mars being most dominant – but with the dominance of Mars gradually lessening, as the dominance of Jupiter and Saturn increases.
The strategy used here was to first list all of the short-span triple conjunctions beginning in month 6 or 7 (within a month of Rosh Hashanah) involving any of the three major planets Mars, Jupiter or Saturn, placing them in chronological order, and then for a given time span counting how many occurrences we have for each of the planets – and determining from these counts, which one is “winning” in that time span, by having the most occurrences falling in this particular time of year.
The list of occurrences is on the left, and then on the right, in the columns labeled “Mars,” “Jupiter,” and “Saturn,” are the counts, with the colored highlighting of these columns showing which one is showing the strongest presence for that time period. Just to the right of these three columns is the number “1000”, which is the time span being used for the counts. You can type other numbers into this cell to see how the choice of time span will affect the results. When I did this, the span of 1000 seemed to end up showing the most stable and meaningful results, so I settled on this as the default.
Notice that though the 4000-year span was initially marked by Mars, Mars is unable to retain its prominence all the way through – with Jupiter reaching a tie with Mars from time to time along the way, and then finally overtaking Mars in the year -1764, just 59 years before the birth of Judah. Looking at just these most prominent markings occurring in month 6 or 7, we find the next marked event to be in the year -1639, when Jacob blesses Judah just before his death – revealing that a descendant of Judah would be the Anointed Ruler, the One who was to come at the close of that 4000-year span. Briefly let me clarify for you here in case you’re not familiar with the astronomical standard for representation of ancient dates, that -1639 is exactly the same date as 1640 BC (see footnote 1).
From here on, though triple conjunctions of Mars with Regulus continue even into our present day, they no longer ever occur early enough in the year to fall in the favored months just preceding or following Rosh Hashanah – so Mars never regains the prominence that it once had. That position of prominence is held by Jupiter from just before the time of Judah, up until sometime after the coming of the Anointed descendant of Judah. Then between that time and our present day we see Saturn coming alongside Jupiter, sometimes matching its prominence, and less frequently, overtaking it in prominence.
from “Mars, Jupiter, Saturn progression.xlsx”
One column of this spreadsheet – column E – is hidden in the above view, just to make the chart narrower for better readability online. It involves cryptic labels to account for the astronomical patterns and the time spans between conjunctions, so for many purposes isn’t really needed. It’s not necessary to understand the cryptic labels – with the main thing being just to know that for each of these three planets there is a pattern, and the label is for tracking where each occurrence falls in the pattern for that planet.
But I do want to comment on the time spans involved in each of these patterns. To see the hidden information about time spans, a search can show some of it if you know what to search for. Click somewhere on the chart and press Ctrl-F, tell it to find ” = “, and press “Find All”. The list of matches will then show you these cryptic equations that define the patterns. Then a search for 427 can show you all the equations involving that time span, or 972 can show you all the equations involving that time span, and so on. But the best thing to do if you want fuller access to this information, is to just download the spreadsheet, open it on your own computer, and change the width of column E from 0 to about 25.
So, about the time spans – In the pattern of most relevance at the very beginning, the pattern of Mars, there are typically two or three occurrences in a row with 32 years between them, then we get two or three such spans of occurrences, with 363 years between the spans, and finally from the last occurrence in a given cluster of spans, 190 years later we see a new cluster of spans beginning.
The next pattern to become relevant before this Mars pattern fades, is the pattern of Jupiter. This pattern typically has two to four occurrences in a row with 83 years between them, then three or four such spans of occurrences, with 427 or 510 years between the spans, depending on how we’ve chosen to count things, and then when one such cluster has finished, a new one begins, with the starting point of the new cluster being 700 years from one of the occurrences in the previous cluster.
And then, developing alongside the Jupiter pattern, is the pattern of Saturn. This pattern typically has two or three occurrences in a row with 59 years between them, then three or four such spans of occurrences, with 972 or 1031 years between the spans, and then when one such cluster has finished, a new one begins, with the starting point of the new cluster being 707 years from one of the occurrences in the previous cluster.
Now, the difference between 427 and 510 is just that 510 includes one more 83-year span – and similarly, the difference between 972 and 1031 is just that 1031 includes one more 59-year span. No need to include the combined span of 510 when it can be readily calculated from the other two – and similarly the combined span of 1031 can be left out, as long as we’re accounting for both the 972 and 59 that it comes from. So looking at these details all together, we have the following basic parameters which give shape to the patterns of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn:
32 363 190 – Mars
83 427 700 – Jupiter
59 972 707 – Saturn
And now you can see just what it is that I was seeing, which made it so important to describe these details in writing, rather than just glossing over and ignoring them.
Even just in these numbers we’ve been given some clues about the relative importance of the things that we’ll see marked by the cycles of each of these planets. Mars is the one whose cycles were most prominent at the very beginning – but then before its prominence begins to fade, we see a cycle taking shape which is specially marked by the number 700 – to hopefully make us look up and take notice, and not gloss over the important things that we’ll see marked by this cycle. And then the other cycle which steps in alongside this is even more specially marked, by the number 707.
These aren’t just numbers. They are the signature of the Creator Himself. If it weren’t for His careful, intentional design of all these things, there’s no way that we’d be seeing these two numbers here. Random-looking things like 329 or 417 – sure. But the One who designed all these things and set them in place put these numbers 700 and 707 here for a purpose – that they might be seen and understood – that we might recognize Him as Author of all these things – and so that we would know to pay close attention to that which He has marked for us by these two cycles.
Footnotes
[1] The BC/AD representation of dates is the standard that lets us connect with ordinary historical information, so to avoid confusion we often need to express dates in this way. But what we’re examining here is astronomical data, which by mathematical necessity uses a slightly modified system in which the year 1 BC is the year 0, the year 2 BC is the year -1, the year 1000 BC is the year -999, the year 1001 BC is the year -1000, and so on. Since both representations are necessary, both having their place and purpose, you’ll sometimes see one, and sometimes the other. Just remember as you read, that when you see a date with a minus sign on the year, to get the BC date, you just drop the minus sign and add 1.
Signs and Seasons, Days and Years 