“I will go away and return to My place, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek My face; in their affliction they will earnestly seek Me…He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bandage us. He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day, that we may live before Him.” (Hosea 5:15 to 6:2)
Hosea instructs us concerning the length of the long gap following the 69th week of Daniel. Instead of weeks, we are looking at days. The Hebrew word for day is yom, as we see in Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). Significantly, according to the context of a given verse, English translations of the Hebrew Old Testament translate the word yom into one of many different periods of time. In the creation account in Genesis, the word yom is translated as day, as it evidently refers to a 24-hour day. We know this, because each yom is qualified with the words “there was evening and there was morning.” In 1 Kings 1:1, the Hebrew reads that King David was advanced in yamim (days). This is translated as years due to the context.
There is much in the prophetic Scriptures about the period of God’s judgement upon the world during the Last Days. The term used by the prophets is day of the Lord (Yom Jehovah).[1] The context makes it clear that this yom is not a 24-hour day. Isaiah describes a glorious and beautiful period of the rule of the Branch, the Messiah, following a harrowing period of tribulation, akin to the Holocaust.[2] This will be a time of great fruitfulness. He refers to this occurring on that day (b’yom ha-hu). It is not a literal 24-hour period, but the 1,000-year millennial reign of Jesus, and we can see this from the context.
Hosea 6:2 speaks of the third yom on which God will raise Israel up, so that they may live before Him. Israel as a nation has never so far walked with the Lord in humble repentance beyond a faithful remnant.[3] What period of time could God be referring to for this national revival after two days, to be followed by a period of obedience? What does yom mean here? Such a time is plainly still future. This time of Israel’s obedience will last for the 1,000 years known as the Millennium. This, in turn, suggests that the preceding two days, during which time Israel will wait for this event, is 2,000 years. This is the approximate length of the interval between when Jesus ascended into heaven and the time when He will return to set up His millennial kingdom. This interpretation of Hosea is only acceptable among those who believe that the 1,000 years in Revelation 20 is a literal, rather than a symbolic, period[4]...
[1] Amos 5:18-20; Zephaniah 1
[2] Isaiah 3:24 to 4:2
[3] Romans 11:5
[4] the.mysteryofisrael.org, Reggie Kelly, How Close are we?; Hosea 5:14 to 6:2
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Scripture quotations taken from the NASB © The Lockman Foundation. www.lockman.org