The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

338 THE GENTILE TIMES RECONSIDERED
accept the Watch Tower explanation, this would mean that his
vassalage to Egypt continued up to his eighth year. Yet both
Jeremiah 46:2 and the Babylonian chronicle B.M. 21946 indicate
that Jehoiakim’s vassalage changed from Egypt to Babylon in the
same year as the battle of Carchemish, or in the fourth year of
Jehoiakim.
In the book Equipped for Every Good Work, published by the
Watch Tower Society in 1946, the arguments against a natural
reading of Daniel 1:1 are repeated on pages 225–227. But
interestingly, the Egyptian vassalage is now discussed:
Jehoiakim was put on the throne by Egyptian decree and was
tributary to Egypt for several years, but when Babylon defeated Egypt
Jehoiakim came under Babylonian control and so remained for three years,
after which three-year period as tributary to Babylon the Judean
king rebelled. 61
Here it is admitted that Jehoiakim’s vassalage changed from
Egypt to Babylon when Babylon defeated Egypt. The real problem,
however, is concealed, as it is not mentioned that Egypt was
defeated in the fourth year of Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 46:2), and not in
his eighth year as the Watch Tower explanation would require!
Another interesting change may also be noted in Equipped for
Every Good Work. Instead of holding to the earlier guess that the
“second year” in Daniel 2:1 originally read “twelfth year,” the
following interpretation is presented:
The time of this dream and its interpretation is stated as the
second year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign. . . . In the nineteenth year
of his reign Nebuchadnezzar was used as God’s executioner to
destroy faithless Jerusalem and end Israel’s history as an
independent Theocratic nation. Then Nebuchadnezzar began
reigning in a unique way, as the first of the world rulers of the
Gentile times. In the second year of his reign in this special capacity
the dream showing the end of Satan’s organization and rule and
the taking over of power by Christ’s kingdom came to
Nebuchadnezzar, as recorded at chapter 2. 62
According to this explanation, the “second year” of Daniel 2:1,
or the second year of the Gentile times, reckoned from 607 B.C.E.,
was actually Nebuchadnezzar’s twentieth regnal year! Why would
61 Equipped for Every Good Work (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society,
1946), pp. 225–226.
62 Ibid., pp. 226–227. This, too, was an earlier idea, suggested already in the Jewish
Talmud (Seder ‘Olam Rabbah; see John J. Collins, op. cit., p. 154). Hengstenberg
(op. cit., p. 54) rejects it because there is “not the slightest trace” of any such
reckoning of Nebuchadnezzar’s regnal years anywhere.