Time - The Fourth Dimension -- Biblical Proof

I have always been fascinated by time. I think this is because it has always been a profound dimension in my life. I think that most people feel this way, but don't take the time to sit and think about it. Time effects people in peculiar ways. When we're kids we can't wait for time to pass so that school will be over. At that same age we can't wait for time to pass so that we'll become an adult and do some of the things that children are prohibited from doing because of their inexperience and also because of restrictions dictated by law. When school starts we can't wait till the next holiday brings around a week off and when spring comes along we can't wait for summer vacation. When summer starts we first ignore time but later wish that it would slow down or even stop so that we don't have to go back to school.

When we're adults we start to work and realize that being an adult isn't all it's cracked up to be. We sometimes wish that we were children again, protected by our parents and living carefree. But at the same time, we tend to look forward to the day when we reach a ripe old age and are able to retire from our labors. We go to work on Mondays bemoaning that we have a whole five days to suffer through until we can have those scant two days off to refresh our minds and souls. As Sunday starts to come to a close we start to lament that the whole weekly process is about to start all over again.

When we are old, we enjoy our retirement but we have the aches and pains that old age brings. We sit and remember the days when we had more energy and were able to channel that energy without the resistance that the aged body brings. We sit and think about our age and perhaps wonder how many days we have left until our bodies finally give up their fight against entropy and succumb to the sleep of death, or if we're believers in Yeshua, when we will enter Glory.

Time has other strange properties which seem to touch our lives. How many can agree with me that weekends go way too fast and the work days tend to go slow. Have you ever heard of the phrase, "time flies when you are having fun?" How come the day will pass so quickly when you're working on a project that you enjoy yet when something is tedious or annoying it takes forever for the day to pass. Well, I really don't know the answers to those questions. Perhaps our spirits are revved up when we're happy and content and they slow down when we're trying to make things go faster. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but it happens way too often to me to be just a coincidence. What do you think?

The prospect of time travel has always piqued my interest. When I was a child I always wished that I could travel back in time and visit people like George Washington, or Abraham Lincoln to see what they were really like. I also found myself wishing that I could bring them to our present time so that they could see the accomplishments that their country has wrought throughout the world. Later I would find myself wishing the same thing, but only so that they could see the decadence that has taken over out lands. I mused that if it could be done, they could go back and fix things to help out their progeny. But then I thought about time paradoxes. For instance, what if they knew about organized crime and put some sort of provision to halt Italians from immigrating to the States. My ancestors would have never left Italy and my mother would have never met my father and I would have never become a reality. Interesting huh?

I've always found myself drawn to movies or books about time travel. The draw is strong, very strong and at times I've found it irresistible. But when I became a believer in Messiah Yeshua my priorities became different and I changed my focus. In recent years though, the prospects of time, its manipulation and travel through it have again become strong. The focus is different though, in that I want to know what Yahweh thinks about it and if HE would manipulate it for HIS purpose. My thought was that if I didn't find something in the Bible about it, I would write it off. The thing though is that Yahweh has in the past, and will in the future manipulate time, even ending it for a short time toward the end of the Tribulation Period, documented in the Book of Revelation.

Science has come to the conclusion, and rightly so, that time is a fourth dimension in our reality. We are versed in the knowledge that we live in a three dimensional world; and that is not bad science, but might be classified as ignorant science. Scientifically speaking, we draw conclusions based upon what can be observed and can be proved in laboratory conditions. I once heard a wonderful description of our three dimensional world. If you walked in a straight line, that would be one dimension. If you walked in one line and then made a right hand turn, you would be acting in two dimensions. If you walked in a straight line, made a right angle turn and then walked up a flight of stairs, you would be walking in three dimensions. It's a clumsy analogy, but one that gives a less versed person an idea of what a three dimensional world is like. But one thing is missing in the equation, at least in its explanation. There was the act of walking and in that act, work was performed, therefore it wasn't just a thought, but a action, and actions require time to be accomplished.

Another way to look at it is to imagine a river or stream. If the river flows straight it is acting in one dimension. If it makes a turn it is flowing in two dimensions, but if it suddenly falls over a cliff and creates a waterfall, it is then in three dimensions. Actually, the fact that it is flowing shows that it is seeking its own level, meaning that it is flowing in a very long waterfall. But the water is flowing too, and that is an action. The water had to start at a point of origin and had to take time to get to the waterfall. Therefore, the flow is a dimension that manifests itself within other dimensions. That flow is called TIME.

Some might argue that you can have three dimensions without time, but I dispute that. Look at anything that has two or three dimensions and you will see the result of some sort of work being done to make those dimensions. Even if you have something flat that is drawn at a right angle, some act had to be performed to draw or make such an object. Nothing just appears, but all things have had some effort put into them to make them. If you want to get a simple idea of what three dimensions are, look at any corner in your house where your ceiling and two walls come together. In that corner you have three lines that intersect at right angles; height, width and length. Now, that wall didn't just appear through some supernatural means, it was built. Some construction workers were paid hourly wages to perform that work. First there was the framer who put up the skeleton of the wall. Then the drywall guy came in and put up the boards of sheetrock. After that the taper came in and taped the joints between the drywall sheets. Then someone came in and put texture on the wall and finally, someone came in and painted the whole thing. That whole process was time working with length, width and height to make three dimensions. You can't have the three dimensions without the fourth.

We walk through this dimension every day, whether we're awake or asleep. When you're asleep you walk through time, not only in that time is ticking away while you lay in bed or in a comfortable chair. But the very blood that is coursing through your veins is moving in time with your beating heart, second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour, it is flowing nonstop. When you dream, the neurons in your brain are moving at light speed producing your dream imaginations, casting you in a play that is produced, directed and choreographed in your own head. When you wake in the morning, rise from bed and stumble into the kitchen to start the coffee brewing you've walked in four dimensions. And if you do these things when you're relatively docile, how much more are you walking through time when you're active during the day.

Science calls our reality "space time" and it is an apt description. Space is the medium in which time happens and time dictates what happens in that medium. Whether it's the electrons that orbit the nucleus in a part of your body, the car that takes you to your job, or two stars that orbit each other in a distant constellation, they all need two things to happen; space and time. Space is the first three dimensions and time is the dimension that sets it into action. Or perhaps better put, space is the watch body, the watch face and the gears of the watch and time is the windup spring (or in modern terms - the watch motor) that sets everything in motion.

I am one of those peculiar people that thinks that the Bible has the answers for everything. I believe that it is a model for each and every generation that has lived, is living, or will live upon Earth. Many will argue that the Bible is outdated; that it doesn't fit into the mold of our 21st century civilization. As usual, people tend to get things backward. It is people who change, not Yahweh and not HIS Word:

Because many people tend to hold to the Bible being an ancient and nondescript book, they tend not to look to it for answers. Take for instance the issue of "space time," something that modern science claims to have discovered. Is there something in the Bible that refers to this supposed "recent new discovery?" Well, yes there is, and it says:

Well, if you know anything about me by now it's that I have to tear things apart to see what makes them work. Hey, I'm a guy, that's what we're supposed to do, isn't it? The same is true when it comes to scripture. The scripture above shows us four dimensions of Yahweh's love for us. That's right, count them, there are four. I have no doubt that there are many more, but our puny brains couldn't understand it anyway.

As mentioned above, Ephesians 3:16-19 talks about the love of Yahweh toward us. It measures the height, length, width and the all encompassing dimensions of that love. That is four dimensions of His love. Science speculates that there may be as many as ten dimensions in our reality, so in actuality, there could be six other ways to show Yahweh's love, but we probably could not understand it with our limited understanding capability.

When looking at the Greek words in geometric terms, we have to work in three dimensions to be able to understand. Those of us who have worked in any type of construction know that when working in a two plane scenario, like figuring out the square footage of a floor, you multiply length by width. When working in a three dimensional plane, like figuring out the cubic footage to lay a concrete slab, you have to multiply length, by depth by width in order to know how much concrete to order from the cement plant.

Now in a three dimensional world we have a certain advantage over a two dimensional setting in that we can see three sides to just about everything. If you look at a cube and it is tilted a certain way you can see the top, side and length of the cube. But in our perception, we can't really see the back of such an object. We have to actually manipulate the cube to see the backside of that object, but when we do so, one of the previous aspects of the view then disappears from sight. The manipulation of the cube involves time, the fourth dimension.

Let's examine this in the case of a sphere, like that of a globe of our very own earth. If you were some distance out in space you could make out two dimensions, length and height. We take those two angles and call them latitude and longitude. But when we look at it further, the latitude is also the width of a two dimensional view, but it in all actuality we have to call it the diameter because the earth is three dimensional. Diameter multiplied by Pi gives you the circumference; or the Breadth. Knowing that the earth is a sphere and isn't flat we add a third dimension, which is depth. We can consider the depth as being from the beginning of the atmosphere to the center of the earth. Some might ask why we don't consider the full thickness of the earth to be the depth? Well, we really can't because the length measurement is considered in the latitude figure at the equator and that is the width, or the diameter, speaking three dimensionally. Also, we must remember that once you reach the very center of the earth and you continue to pass through the sphere, you are actually moving toward the outside again. If two people were equidistant on the surface of the earth and decided to check the depth at the same time, and they encountered the same barriers during their mission they would both arrive at the center of the earth at the same time. I think another way to describe it better is in the analogy of building an "in wall" book shelf system in a couple of adjoining bedrooms in a new home. It would make much more sense to construct a large two sided bookshelf and incorporate it into the wall while the house was being built. It would be the same bookshelf, but in two different rooms. Now, a few years later, if I wanted to take measurements of those shelves because I want to redecorate one of the rooms I would just measure the depth of the shelf in the room I wanted to redecorate. The depth of the shelf in the other room doesn't matter. If I measured farther I would exceed the depth of my room's shelf and I would be exiting my room and entering the other. Thus explains three dimensional depth measurements.

The same deduction can be seen when considering a phrase that we've all heard; that being a hole called a bottomless pit. If such a hole in the earth was possible it could never be called bottomless because once an object reached the center it would traveling up and out of the other side. It is true that the Bible in The Book of Revelation talks about a bottomless pit, but using the reasoning above, a physical pit cannot be bottomless. My contention is that the pit mentioned in Revelation, in the Greek pronounced; abussos {ab'-us-sos}, is a spiritual place and is not subject to all of the restrictions of our present reality. While some adhere to the hollow earth theory, I've had no proof that it exists. Therefore, if the Earth is a solid structure, hell would have to exist as a spiritual place. Spiritual beings (angels) don't seem to be restricted by physical realities while they remain in the spiritual realm. When they manifest in the physical realm as physical objects they are then bound by physical laws. This can be seen with the case of angels when they manifest as flesh and bones. They eat and walk and talk like common human beings, but when they enter again the spiritual realm they become spirits. Demons cannot manifest in the physical realm so they seek physical bodies to inhabit. So, the bottomless pit can exist, but it can't be a physical place, it can only be a place outside of physical reality. Only spiritual beings could exist in such a place, and they must be manifest in the spiritual.

Finally we come to the fourth dimension of our sphere; that being the breadth. The Greek word for breadth, "platos" is defined as meaning "breadth," but the definition is in such a way that it "suggests a great extent." So, what does that mean? Normally, breadth would mean the width of something. But if one looks up the word "extent," one finds that it means: "the amount of space or surface that something occupies or the distance over which it extends." So, to put the meaning in its proper perspective, we could define "breadth" as; "suggests the great amount of space or surface that something occupies or the distance over which it extends." So, it could be used to define the amount of space that Earth takes up or displaces in the space-time fabric. It could also mean that it defines the total land area of Earth or any object when the other three dimensions are added up to their full potential. A few years ago NASA launched a satellite that mapped Earth using radar. The satellite orbited the earth in such a way that every square foot of Earth was mapped accurately. It could be said that it mapped the whole breadth of the Earth. Since any perspective of an object is really only seen in three dimensions (we can't see the other side of a solid object) then in order to see the breadth requires the fourth dimension for us to see the whole picture. If we were in a geosynchronous (stationary, always over one spot) orbit above Earth we would miss out on the whole view. But, if we use time, in that we move around the sphere of the earth, or stay put and let Earth orbit so that we can map out the hidden side, then we have exercised the fourth dimension, that being time.

I won't go into this too much because we have another article on the site that talks about the fallacy of the "Big Bang Theory," for the creation of the universe. We have to understand in layman's terms what science is trying to promote when they mention the "Big Bang."

In a nutshell, those who promote that theory say that before the universe began, there was something the size of a dot that was spinning very fast. This dot supposedly contained all of the sub-atomic particles that would some day form into matter. Anyway, this spinning dot somehow exploded and created the universe; not just the matter in the universe, but the universe itself. This material somehow (without any any intelligence whatsoever) all came together to make the elements, that formed the stars and planets and space itself as well as all of the galaxies. Now, let's take a break, fall to the floor and laugh till it hurts. Okay, now that we're back under control, let's proceed. Okay, you can fall down laughing again, but come back for the rest.

The same science that is inculcating our society with the trash above then turns around and tells us that we are living in at least four dimensions and probably more. And don't forget that all of these ten little strands of our present reality were created by the big bang too, so in addition to creating all we see, feel and experience, this supposed bang also created six other dimensions that we speculate are there but can't understand. But as we learned above, the four dimensions that we are able to see make up what is called space-time. This has to be true because science says it and it is backed up Biblically. You can't get much more true than that.

But do you see a problem here? Time and space have to exist together, right? So, isn't spinning an act of time? Spinning denotes a certain rotation and rotation is measured in minutes, hours or some sort of time sequence. But if the universe didn't exist then there could not have been space, therefore there was no time, so there could not have been a spin. And then there is the question of the ignition of the bang; a bang being the sound that happens because of an explosion. Any ignition has to have an igniter and both denote time. Then we have to examine what sound is. Sound is measured in waves and waves need a medium to travel through. That medium would have to be space. Even then, sound doesn't move very well through space. It moves well through an atmosphere and even better through a medium such as water, but as the 1979 movie trailer for "ALIEN" once mentioned, "in space, no one can hear you scream."

So here's the summary of this. We had a spinning dot that couldn't be spinning. This dot explodes without an ignition source and it caused a bang, that could not be heard because there was no space-time continuum yet. Sort of makes the idea of a Divine Creation seem a bit more credible, doesn't it.

Actually, I just used that title to get your attention. Those of us who live in free societies (or those that pretend to be free), and have some sort of capitalistic system in place probably know about property rights. It used to be (here in America) that when someone bought property, their rights were protected not only on the surface of the land, but under the land also. So, if oil was found under your yard you had the right to drill and market that oil, or to be compensated when someone else tapped into the oil. This was known as mineral rights and had other names also. In modern times mineral rights aren't always implied in the sale of land and those rights have to be stipulated in the land purchase agreement.

Where nations are concerned, the rights extend to other spheres of influence. For instance, a nation that is surrounded by international waters has sovereignty over the waters out to twelve miles from the low water mark of it's coastline. If a ship of any kind has hostile intent, the nation that controls those waters has the right to destroy it without facing prosecution from international law.

All nations have what is known as their sovereign national airspace. It too extends out twelve miles horizontally out to sea. The height of a nations sovereign airspace is not clearly defined. Research has showed me that it extends to the reaches of outer space. So what is the altitude where the atmosphere ends and outer space begins? The Federation Aeronautique Internationale has established the Kármán line at an altitude of 100 km (62 miles) as a working definition for the boundary between atmosphere and space. The United States designates people who travel above an altitude of 50 miles (80 km) as astronauts. During re-entry, 400,000 feet (75 miles or 120 km) marks the boundary where atmospheric drag becomes noticeable. So, pick a number.

So now that we see that property owners, states and nations have rights to their property that extend above, below and around their property, what are Yahweh's property rights.

Where Yahweh, and the property title of the earth are concerned; Yahweh's proclamation have made things quite clear:

Let's quickly break down the meanings of the words in this scripture. The Hebrew word for earth is "eretz" and in this context, it means the whole earth. The word for LORD is Y'HOVAH, or could be rendered YHWH or Yahweh. It is capitalized when it denotes, "The LORD GOD" of Israel. The word for "fulness," is "m'lo" pronounced {melo} and it literally means, "the entire contents." The word for "world" is "tebel" pronounced {tay-bale'} and it could infer "the habitable part." And finally, the Hebrew word for "they that dwell," is "yashab," pronounced {yaw-shab'}, and it means, "they that live, or abide."

Taking all of the word meanings into account, there can be no dispute by anyone who is honest and takes the Bible to be the inspired word of The Living God; that Yahweh owns the earth, its entire contents, both the inner regions, the atmosphere and the habitable regions, and all of the creatures living on it. But let's jump down and see that Yahweh's presence is everywhere.

O lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.

If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee. For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.

Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God: depart from me therefore, ye bloody men. For they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain. Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Psalm 139:1-24

The scripture above shows how Yahweh is present no matter where anyone might go or when they might go there. After all, HE's outside of time and space so HE's not bound by the laws of His own creation. I sort of equate it to looking at one of those trinkets that we have all seen at least once. It is a ball filled with water and it has a scene and when it is shaken little snow flakes invade the scene. Well, Yahweh probably looks at the universe like that; a tiny clear ball that when compared to eternity, is very insignificant. I could do a whole other section on this passage of scripture, but time restraints keep me from making this into one very long document.

We can look at this whole thing from two different perspectives and get the same result. One could look at it from a heavenly perspective; speaking of Yahweh's Heaven, His abode outside of time and space. From that view nobody could really argue that Yahweh is the God of Space and Time because He (Yahweh) would be looking at His property from the grand view; not just the Earth, but His whole creation.

The other way to look at it would be from the Earth and looking outward toward the very edges of the universe. Earlier we talked about property rights of those who own the property; the mineral rights that go down under the house and such. We also examined air space rights of nations. Imagine if you would, that the lines of a nation, let's say The United States would extend into the reaches of outer space, sort of like a raised map. Every cubic foot of airspace above this nation belongs to that nation. But on a grander scale, let's do that with the whole Earth, but instead of stopping at the reaches of space, let's continue to infinity.

The best way that I could explain it is for the reader to take a flashlight, turn it on and place it against the wall. Now, gradually pull the light away from the wall and notice what happens. As the light moves away from the wall, the beam against the wall gets bigger. That is because the light is diffusing. It's basically the same thing that happens during a cloudy day. The light hits the clouds, causing the light to spread out evenly (in most cases) and casting light everywhere. That is why you can't see your shadow when the sky is overcast. Yahweh's property rights continue to shine as they leave the surface of the earth but they diffuse so much so that they extend to the very ends of the universe. That is how the Scripture can refer to Yahweh as the Lord of Heaven and Earth. Whether looking at it from a Heavenly perspective or of one from the very center of His creation itself, Yahweh owns the turf. The exciting part is that some day soon, He'll come back to stake His claim of property ownership.

Finally for those who would need more proof from scripture, I present to you what is called, "Joshua's Long Day." Here is the scripture:

What the history above illustrates is what is commonly referred to as a miracle. Yahweh suspended time, and in theory everything should have stopped, including the soldiers in the battle. But what Yahweh did is He showed his supremacy over time and space by allowing activity on earth to continue while suspending the time in the rest of the universe for the period of about a day. I don't know how He did it, and perhaps He'll explain it to me some day in Glory, but it was done. There has been some talk about those who have used computers to look at time back through history (events in time) have found Joshua's Long Day, but other accounts tell of this finding being an urban legend, so I reserve judgment on that find until I see solid proof. But I believe the Bible, so that is enough proof for me.

Let's take a look at the map above. Gibeon is the red dot farthest to the right. It was where the battle ensued the day before the one mentioned in the Joshua scripture above. At the time of the account in Joshua, Israel's troops were located somewhere between Gibeon and Bethhoran (the middle red dot). So when Joshua commanded the sun to stand still he was looking to the east. Now it stands to reason that battles in Joshua's day probably started at the same time that battles do in the present day; that being at dawn. How many times have we heard, "we attack at dawn." When Joshua was looking east at dawn, the sun would have been very low in the sky and it would have appeared to have been right on top of Gibeon. So, we can rightfully attest that dawn was the time when Joshua gave the commandment to the sun and moon. I've put a red on the town of Aijalon just as a reference point for where the moon sat during the course of the time. We read that the moon was commanded to stay in the Valley of Aijalon. It is not clear whether Joshua was using that wording to mean that the moon was low in the valley, thus appearing to be in the valley, or if he meant that it was above the valley. To the best of my recollection, the only time that the sun and moon are on opposite horizons is during a full moon and I've only seen that during nighttimes. So, my thought in this matter is that the moon was in the sky in the general direction of the valley of Aijalon.

Now the following times and dates are pure conjecture. We don't know exactly what season, month or day that Joshua's long day occurred. I only use the following season, dates and such to point out a view. Let's say for the sake of argument that the attack took place on the summer solstice of that year. In order to get proper times for sunrise we have to look at latitudes of our location. The latitude for Gibeon is roughly the same as it is for Jericho, Israel; or El Paso, Texas. Jericho's latitude is 31.9 degrees and El Paso is 31.8 North Latitude. With this in mind, we can look up the length of day in El Paso, its sunrise time and since they are so close in latitude, we can interchange the values. On the summer solstice at that parallel, the sun rises at six o'clock local time. So Joshua probably gave the command to the sun and moon right around that time on the day of battle. Now bear in mind that the scripture in Joshua says that the sun stood still for about a whole day. The word for day, YOM means a literal day. So, the sun and moon stood still for about a full day's time. But the word "about" means that it wasn't an exact 24 hour period. I submit that the sun stood still for 23 hours and 24 minutes. I will explain below; but first a couple of other things.

Another miracle can be seen in Joshua's Biblical account. I think that everyone reading this has been in a hail storm at least once in their lives. Have you ever seen the hail discriminate between people? I sure haven't. When it falls, it falls on everyone who is outside in the storm. The miracle that I see is that Yahweh had the hail stones deliberately hit the Amorites but the stones missed the Israelites. Some say that perhaps the hail stones were actually a meteor shower. Well, then that's even more a miracle because Yahweh caused meteors to travel millions of miles through space, fall at the exact time that they were needed to fall and only hit the bad guys. This is a good object lesson for those who would purposefully pick a fight with the God of Israel.

And what about Hezekiah's long day. Well it wasn't as long as Joshua's long day, but as we can see below; Yahweh can manipulate time:

Well, when I first read this I marveled. Up to the writing of this article I had never heard of Hezekiah's long day. But a brief look at the internet found it for me while I researched Joshua's Long Day. By looking at Hezekiah's long day we can calculate how long Joshua's long day probably was. Remember that in the scripture in Joshua, it says that Yahweh stopped the sun and moon from moving for "about a day." That tells us that it wasn't exactly a full day. Knowing that Yahweh does everything perfectly, I really don't think that He'd leave the universe out of sync without making the time up at one time or another.

Some simple math can be used to show us how long Hezekiah's Long Day really was. The sun dial was a circular object, thus it had to have a circumference of 360 degrees. We need to break the dial up from degrees to percentages. So, by simply dividing the degrees by 100 (for 100 percent) our calculations show us that each degree on the dial was 3.6 minutes long. Multiplying that 3.6 percent by 10 (the percentage the shadow on the dial moved back) shows us that the shadow on the dial moved back 36 minutes. Thus, that one day for Hezekiah was 24 hours and 36 minutes long. So to calculate Joshua's day, we take 36 minutes off of a 24 hour day and we find out that the actual time that the sun stood still was 23 hours and 24 minutes. The scripture account says that the sun "hastened not" to go down about a whole day. Hastened is defined as "accelerating," so what the scripture was saying is that the sun didn't start to move until that 23 hours and 24 minutes had elapsed. At that time the sun started it's rise above Gibeon and started it's course across the sky; hence there was another 14 hours and 50 minutes until it actually set. Remembering that the Hebrew day starts at sundown each day we have to take that into account. So, the day actually started at sundown the day before the sun stood still and technically, the next day couldn't start until the sun set after the long day event. Here's the scenario:

I know what you're thinking. You're surmising that I've forgotten about the extra 36 minutes from Hezekiah's long day. If we were to be good mathematicians we have to add that time into the figure above and we come up with 48 hours and 36 minutes. Well, what are we to do with that. Does the Bible stipulate a time where earth's spin was retarded in order to bring the figures back to normal. After an extensive search, and I mean real extensive; I cannot find such an occurrence. But there is one thing that might make sense if you would be so bold as to entertain my thoughts.

It is pretty well accepted that the calendars of the ancient world changed around the year 720 BC. Before that time most calendars were made up of 360 day years. Even the Bible used a 360 day calendar as a basis for calculating time. Currently, the actual year is 365.2422 days long. But to make things easier, let's just say that the current year is 365 days, 14.5 minutes long. Something happened in circa 720 BC to retard the earth's rotation around the sun by 5 days 14 minutes and 30 seconds.

One theory is that circa 720 BC, the sun shifted in its position just enough to affect the orbit of the earth, slowing it down to the 365+ day year that we now have. Incidentally, this is right around the time that Hezekiah's long day occurred. Another theory that Chuck Missler from Koinonia House, at www.khouse.org provides is that Mars had a more elliptical orbit before 720 BC that would have allowed it to come much closer to the earth than it now does. He proposes that at or around 720 BC the orbits came very close and effected the yearly rotation for both planets. For earth, it slowed down our orbit and for Mars it caused it to correct its orbit to where it now is. In either case, something happened at that time to change the way that men wrote their calendars. I think that the extra 36 minutes is somehow figured into the events of that year. That would solve the problem of the extra 36 minutes and bring things back to the 48 hours for Joshua's long day.

And finally, now some of you are thinking that the 365 day year is not what God intended for our year to be, so there is yet a discrepancy. Well, that is true, but who is to say that the 365 day year will remain that way. Both the book of Daniel and the Revelation both reckon time using 360 day years. Perhaps when Messiah Yeshua comes back he will set the orbits back into a correct stasis and the solar system as well as the rest of the universe will again be what Yahweh originally created it to be. We'll just have to wait and see I guess.

To recap, we have shown that time is the fourth dimension. We have talked about how the four dimensions that we are aware of, are actually illustrated in the Bible by the Apostle Paul's description of the four dimensions of Yahweh's love for humankind. We looked at how the other dimensions really can't operate without the dimension of time. And, we've even talked about how the creator of the dimension of time can manipulate it in special ways. Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to study along with me. Be blessed in Yeshua our Messiah.