Geula (redemption) blogger, Yeranen Yaakov, made an astounding announcement on Thursday: the “Messiah Clock” has clicked one minute forward and is now one step closer to the “end”, standing now at 12:45; five hours and forty-five minutes before the latest possible moment that the Final Redemption can come.

Yeranen Yaakov presented a “timeline” on his blog showing the last six “hours” preceding the arrival of the Messiah. His “cosmic clock” is based on the idea of 1000 human years equaling one day from God’s perspective. This may seem unusual but it is based on an explicit verse in Psalms:

For in Your sight a thousand years are like yesterday that has passed, like a watch of the night. Psalms 90:4

In his commentary on the Bible (Genesis 2:3), Rabbi Moses ben Nachman, the 13th-century Spanish Biblical commentator known as Nachmanides or the Ramban, explained that “the six days of creation are all of the days of the world – since their duration will be six thousand years”. The Ramban correlates each day of creation to eras in history;  the first day corresponding to the thousand years of Adam “who was the light of the world” the second day and the division of waters corresponding to the generation of Noah in which he and his righteous children became separated from the evildoers that were judged with water, etc. The Ramban continued, marking off 5,000 years which began one hundred seventy-two years after the destruction of the Second  Temple when “the nations will have dominion, and man will be made as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them.”

The end of the 6,000the year corresponds to the seventh day, the sabbath, and is the Messianic era. 

Yeranen Yaakov cites Rabbi Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, the 18th century Torah scholar known as the Vilna Gaon who expands on this concept, saying how the hours of the Sixth Millenium correspond to the different hours of the sixth day of Creation.  The Vilna Gaon centered his calculations around the Jewish tradition that the Messiah must arrive by the year 6000 in the Jewish calendar which would be before the “Sabbath.”

Based on a 24-hour clock, an hour equals 41.666 years. The clock begins at year one since that is when Creation began because there was no year zero. Every 15 minutes of the Cosmic Clock equals 10.41666 years, or 10 years and 5 months. 

“The sixth day ends at sunset and the seventh day begins,” Yeranen Yaakov wrote. “This year, 5782, puts us at 12:45 PM in a day that ends at 6:00 PM.”

The blogger believed the current “hour” was auspicious.

“I believe it to be significant since it’s not only one of the rare 15-minute markers on the clock, but also one-eighth of the way from mid-day to sunset,” he wrote. “Hashem could bring the Final Redemption at any time, but perhaps, His time that He wants to bring it always was and continues to be sometime after the one-eighth point of the ‘afternoon’ hours of the sixth millennium.  If that’s the case, it will make for quite an interesting immediate future.”

According to the Shulchan Aruch, the basic work of Torah law, one may light candles and accept Shabbos starting at plag hamincha, which is one and a quarter hours before sunset. According to the chart set out on Yeranen Yaakov’s website, the final “Shabbat” can be brought in early if we choose (or merit it) in the month of Elul, 5948, which corresponds to August 24, 2188. This is the earliest date when Man can proactively choose to bring in the Messianic early however God can choose to do so based on our merit.

“The Shabbat preparations are well underway.,” Yeranen Yaakov wrote enthusiastically.