Jacob's Trouble and the Seven-Year Tribulation

**The Time of Jacob's Trouble**

The first event we discover on the Feast of Trumpets is the Time of Jacob's Trouble — what many know as the seven-year tribulation period. So many people are talking about the Rapture, and that is beautiful; it is our blessed hope. But we have to understand how all of that fits together with the prophecy.

The last seven years of the age will be a shemitah cycle. God operates on these patterns: a seven-day week, a seven-year plan, a seven-millennial plan, and in between all of that, fifty-year Jubilees. That is how He calculates time in the Holy Bible — by seven days, seven years, seven millennia, and the fifty-year Jubilees in between. We must understand the Seventieth Week of Daniel.

The tribulation is a block of seven years that cannot be interrupted. It did not start this year because no agreement has been made between Israel, the Antichrist, and the nations. In my opinion, it will not start until either 2029 or 2036 — keep doing the math. It cannot start in 2025. God is on His shemitah cycles, His Jubilee cycles, His seven-thousand-year millennial cycles.

First and foremost, we must understand that the Antichrist cannot rise, according to Daniel 7, until the Ten Kings are in place. Ten Kings must be established — then the little horn rises and conquers three of them. Four will come out of Turkey; three will come from North Africa — Libya, Sudan, and Egypt, as described in Daniel 11:43. Until those Ten Kings are in place in the Middle East and North Africa, there is no point speculating about who the Antichrist is. It is not Trump, not Obama, not Putin, not Erdogan, not any world leader currently on the scene. The Ten Kings must come first, and then the one who conquers Egypt, Libya, and Sudan will be unmistakable.

The last shemitah — the seven-year tribulation — will begin on the Feast of Trumpets and end on the Feast of Trumpets. We know this because if Messiah is returning on the Feast of Trumpets, you simply do the math: back exactly seven years and you arrive at another Feast of Trumpets. On that opening Feast of Trumpets, an agreement will be made between the Antichrist, Israel, and other nations (Daniel 9:26–27). He will break that agreement at the midpoint of the tribulation, just as Messiah says in Matthew 24.

The prophet Jeremiah gives us a vivid picture of the Time of Jacob's Trouble in Jeremiah 30:

> *Thus says the Lord: "We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear and not of peace. Ask now and see whether a man is ever in labor with child. So why do I see every man with his hands on his loins like a woman in labor, and all faces turned pale? Behold, for the day is great, so that none is like it; and it is the time of Jacob's trouble, but he shall be saved out of it."*

Notice the symbolism: Jeremiah connects this event to a pregnancy and delivery — the nation of Israel born in one day, as Isaiah 66 describes, occurring on the Feast of Trumpets. Seven years begins on the Feast of Trumpets and ends on the Feast of Trumpets. The midpoint, during Passover, is when the two witnesses will be killed; they will be resurrected on the Feast of First Fruits. This is why understanding the calendar and the feast days is essential.

Jeremiah continues: *"For it shall come to pass in that day — the day of the Lord — that I will break his yoke from your neck and will burst your bonds. Foreigners shall no more enslave them, but they shall serve the Lord their God and David their king, whom I will raise up for them."* David will serve as prince in the Millennial Kingdom, as described in Ezekiel 43–48.

When you read Jeremiah 30 and 31 together — removing the chapter break, because it is one continuous prophecy — you see that as the tribulation is occurring, God declares: *"I will be the God of the families of Israel, and they shall be my people."* That is New Covenant language from Jeremiah 31. So Jeremiah 30–31 moves from the seven-year tribulation and the Antichrist directly into the New Covenant reality: Yeshua will be God over the children of Israel, they will receive Him, He will be their God, and they will be His people.

The New Covenant is found in Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36, and it is made with the Jewish people — the house of Israel and the house of Judah. We born Gentiles are grafted into these covenants: the Abrahamic, the Davidic, and the New Covenant. That is why Paul says in Galatians that if you are a seed of Christ, you are a seed of Abraham and an heir according to the promise. We are all saved by the blood of the New Covenant because of what Messiah did at Passover.

However, we are not yet living fully in the New Covenant in the sense that Jeremiah envisioned — not until the Jewish people accept Him as their Savior as a corporate nation, which will occur during the tribulation and at the Second Coming. Yeshua said in Matthew 23:39: *"You will see Me no more until you say, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.'"* Until that moment, we are not living in the New Covenant in its complete fulfillment. The Millennial Kingdom is that fulfillment, because that is when the Jewish people as a corporate nation receive Him as Messiah and King.

Joel 2:1–11 gives us another powerful picture of the Time of Jacob's Trouble beginning on the Feast of Trumpets:

> *"Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in My holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble; for the day of the Lord is coming, for it is at hand: a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, like the morning clouds spread over the mountains. A people come, great and strong, the like of whom has never been; nor will there ever be any such after them, even for many successive generations. A fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns; the land is like the Garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness. Surely nothing shall escape them. Their appearance is like the appearance of horses; and like swift steeds, so they run. With a noise like chariots over mountaintops they leap, like the noise of a flaming fire that devours the stubble, like a strong people set in battle array. Before them the people writhe in pain; all faces are drained of color."*

Notice — Jeremiah said all faces turned pale; Joel says all faces are drained of color. These are speaking of the same event. Joel continues:

> *"They run like mighty men, they climb the wall like men of war; everyone marches in formation and they do not break ranks. They do not push one another; everyone marches in his own column. Though they lunge between the weapons, they are not cut down. They run to and fro in the city, they run on the wall; they climb into the houses, they enter at the windows like a thief. The earth quakes before them, the heavens tremble; the sun and moon grow dark, and the stars diminish their brightness. The Lord gives voice before His army, for His camp is very great; for strong is the One who executes His word. For the day of the Lord is great and very terrible; who can endure it?"*

This is the Time of Jacob's Trouble. It begins on the Feast of Trumpets — *"Blow the trumpet in Zion"* — and it is during this time, as they look forward to the King returning, that they will call on the Messiah to deliver them.

The prophet Zephaniah closes out this theme in Zephaniah 1:14–16:

> *"The great day of the Lord is near; it is near and hastens quickly. The noise of the day of the Lord is bitter; there the mighty men shall cry out. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of devastation and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet and alarm — Yom Teruah — against the fortified cities and against the high towers."*

Zephaniah is telling you: the tribulation begins on a day of trumpet and alarm — the Feast of Trumpets. And when Messiah returns on the Feast of Trumpets, it is a day of wrath and a day of war. As any truly victorious king throughout history demonstrates, there must be war before there is peace. Messiah is coming to war for ten days — alone, as Isaiah 63 describes — and then we will join Him at Revelation 19 on Yom Kippur. This is why understanding the feast days is so critical: that is how all of these events align.

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