Editorial

The Sands of Time

Watching the Oppenheimer movie recently, I was struck by the enormous achievements individuals and teams are capable of when faced with a deadline.  Eight decades ago, at the peak of activity the US government employed 130,000 people on the Manhattan project, spending $US2 billion (around $US24 billion in today's dollars) to develop the fission bomb, the invention of which successfully brought an end to the war in the Pacific.  While the ethics of the development of such a dangerous device are complex, it arguably has vastly reduced the cost and scale of war over the last eight decades. For WW2, it is estimated that it shortened the conflict by at least two years and saved tens of thousands of lives. When Einstein saw that the Germans had split the uranium atom in 1938, he wrote to Roosevelt to explain the potential of building a weapon and implored America to create it first.  The world might be a very different place if they had not succeeded.

Earlier in the war, a technological breakthrough of comparable scale also turned the course of the conflict with great impact.  Alan Turing led a project at Bletchley Park from 1939-1941 which essentially created the modern computer to break the Enigma cipher machine.  This work was wonderfully portrayed in the 2014 film The Imitation Game.  Another lesser known character, William Stephenson, was a successful businessman who worked with Churchill and Roosevelt to build much of the intelligence framework that would be key to helping the allies win the war.  His story is a remarkable one and I wouldn’t be surprised if Hollywood one day made a blockbuster of his extraordinary adventures. His exploits were a key inspiration of Ian Fleming’s creation of the character of James Bond.

The measure of time is a concept foundational in scripture.  Genesis begins with the creation week which possibly mirrors the spans of major eras in the biblical timeline.   Working backwards from 2 Chronicles, we find the prophet Daniel in Persia (in 538 B.C.) making note of Jeremiah's "seventy years" (Daniel 9:1-2). It had been approximately 70 years since Daniel arrived in Babylon in 605 B.C. with the first wave of deportees from Jerusalem. Having a copy of Jeremiah's prophecy, he noted that Jeremiah prophesied a 70-year captivity for Judah (Jeremiah 25:11-12; 29:10) and he beseeched the Lord to accomplish their release and return (Daniel 9:3-19).

But why did Jeremiah prophesy a 70-year captivity? Because of his knowledge of Leviticus 25:2-7, the Sabbath-rest ordinance for the land. Every seventh year the land was to lie fallow and rest. God warned Israel if they did not keep the Sabbath year rest he would remove them from the land and enforce the delay (Leviticus 26:34-35, 43). Jeremiah knew it would take "70 years" of rest to accomplish God's judgment, and Daniel knew God's promise: If, when the people were in the land of their enemies, they confessed their sin God would remember His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and restore them (Leviticus 26:40-45). So Daniel confessed the nation's sins and asked God for forgiveness and restoration. God answered by moving Cyrus, the Persian king, to release the captives to begin returning to Jerusalem in 538 B.C. (Ezra 1:1-4).

Psalm 90 is the only psalm attributed to Moses.  A type of Christ, he was used by God to bring the Hebrews out of Egypt to the promised land. Faced with significant delays in both his preparation for leadership and his journey to Canaan, he no doubt wrestled with God’s approach to timelines, which are often so different to our own. While all of us will be provided in this life with varying levels of opportunity, material resource and ability, perhaps time Is the asset we must all learn to use most wisely. At the heart of this passage Moses famously reflects “Teach us the number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (v12). 

Peter Bain

Business Manager