67 CE: A Year of Signs

1. Introduction

67 CE is a year of signs from God, warning of the impending destruction of Jerusalem. The first day of Passover marks the start of the following prophecies:

• three-and-a-half-years prophecy of Daniel 7
• 1290-day prophecy of Daniel 12
• 1335-day prophecy of Daniel 12
• 42-month prophecy of Revelation

A. Previously

In our Introduction to the Great Tribulation, we answered these questions:

1. When was the Great Tribulation and why will it never happen in our lifetime?
2. What was the Abomination of Desolation?
3. Had the gospel been preached to all nations before the Great Tribulation?
4. Why does Revelation equate Jerusalem to Sodom and Egypt?
5. Who was Josephus, and is he a credible historian?

We then examined the Seven Seals of Revelation and their relationship to the Great Tribulation of 66 CE to 73 CE. We answered these questions:

1. What are the Seven Seals and how do they connect to the Great Tribulation?
2. Was a quarter of the population killed, as Revelation states?

In our third lesson, we studied the 144,000 and determined that they were Jews of the first century prior to and during the Great Tribulation.

Then we examined the essential elements of various calendars from the first century to understand the historical view of the Great Tribulation.

Our lessons on Daniel’s Seventy-Weeks Prophecy revealed that the seventy weeks aligned precisely with the start of Jesus’ ministry. By understanding the different calendars, we can determine the beginning of the New Covenant, Stephen’s martyrdom, and subsequently, Jesus’ birth in 4 BCE.

Then we learned that the Bible does not say that the Euphrates army consisted of two hundred million soldiers; it comprised a unit of ten thousand horsemen and another unit of ten thousand men. These details match exactly what historians agree happened. A legion of horsemen called the Legio Equestris, and a second legion of 10,000 men, came from the Euphrates to attack Jerusalem.

In the last lesson, we learned that the Great Tribulation was the 2300-day prophecy of Daniel. It started with Nero declaring the destruction of all the cities of Israel, including Jerusalem on 27th December 66 CE, and finished when the last city Masada fell on April 10, 73 CE.

2. 67 CE: A Year of Signs

A. The Jewish Day

67 CE was a year marked by many signs. When considering the dates of these signs, it is vital to remember that the Jewish day begins at sunset on Friday. For example, we know that Passover in 67 CE started on 18 April around 6 pm, and the light shining occurred at the ninth hour on the Jewish date of 18 April. However, for us, it would be the following day, 19 April 67 CE.

B. Table of Events 67 CE

In the table above, I have listed two of the three signs on April 19th according to our calendar. Passover began on the 18th, but I arranged them according to the Gregorian calendar for clarity, as our day starts at midnight, while the Jewish day begins at dusk the night before.

3. The Glory Departs

A. Glory of the Latter

The prophet Haggai states that the new temple will be more glorious than the previous one.

“For thus says the LORD of hosts: ‘Once more (it is a little while) I will shake heaven and earth, the sea and dry land; and I will shake all nations, and they shall come to the Desire of All Nations, and I will fill this temple with glory,’ says the LORD of hosts. ‘The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine,’ says the LORD of hosts. The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former,’ says the LORD of hosts. ‘And in this place I will give peace,’ says the LORD of hosts.”

Haggai 2:6-9

Some people mistakenly believe that the latter temple is connected to the Second Temple. However, this prophecy shows that it isn’t the case, as history reveals Solomon’s Temple was far more splendid in silver and gold than the Second Temple.

Our lesson on Tabernacles teaches us that the Temple of the Holy Spirit fulfils this prophecy in both individual and collective believers.

B. East Gate Opens

At midnight on the first day of Passover 67 CE, the east gate to the inner courtyard swung open all by itself.

Moreover, the eastern gate of the inner [COURT OF THE] temple, which was of brass, and vastly heavy, and had been with difficulty shut by twenty men, and rested upon a basis armed with iron, and had bolts fastened very deep into the firm floor, which was there made of one entire stone, was seen to be opened of its own accord about the sixth hour of the night. Now, those that kept watch in the temple came hereupon running to the captain of the temple, and told him of it: who then came up thither, and not without great difficulty, was able to shut the gate again. This also appeared to the vulgar to be a very happy prodigy, as if God did thereby open them the gate of happiness. But the men of learning understood it, that the security of their holy house was dissolved of its own accord, and that the gate was opened for the advantage of their enemies.

Flavius Josephus 6.293-295

C. Joy Turned to Mourning

Their initial excitement about the gate opening came from some rabbis’ belief that it signified the Messiah’s arrival to fully establish His Kingdom. However, He did not arrive as they had hoped. The prophecy in question is found in Ezekiel.

And the LORD said to me, “This gate shall be shut; it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter by it, because the LORD God of Israel has entered by it; therefore it shall be shut.

Ezekiel 44:2

This verse shows that the Lord God of Israel has already passed through it to enter the Second Temple. It is to stay shut until the Lord leaves. Therefore, the sign at midnight on Passover 67 CE indicates that the gate is open for the Lord to depart.

This is the first sign of the Lord’s glory leaving the Temple.

D. Bright Light

The sign of the bright light shining for thirty minutes after the gate was opened, and the light’s departure symbolises the glory of God leaving the Second Temple. This occurred three hours after the gate opened at 3 am on 19 April 67 CE (the first day of Passover).

…before those commotions which preceded the war, when the people were come in great crowds to the feast of unleavened bread, on the eighth day of the month Xanthicus [NISAN], and at the ninth hour of the night, so great a light shone round the altar and the holy house, that it appeared to be bright day time; which light lasted for half an hour. This light seemed to be a good sign to the unskillful, but was so interpreted by the sacred scribes as to portend those events that followed immediately upon it.

Flavius Josephus 6.290,291

E. The Glory Departs

It is crucial to recognise that the light is outside the Holy of Holies, where the cherubim dwell under the Old Covenant. It could no longer stay there because the Old Covenant had become outdated and was fading away. The events about to unfold were, of course, the destruction of this very Temple, as it was no longer needed, having been replaced by our own bodies filled with the Holy Spirit.

In that He says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

Hebrews 8:13

Now, let us examine Ezekiel’s prophecy, which underscores the same point.

Then the glory of the LORD departed from the threshold of the temple and stood over the cherubim. And the cherubim lifted their wings and mounted up from the earth in my sight. When they went out, the wheels were beside them; and they stood at the door of the east gate of the LORD’s house, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them.

Ezekiel 10:18-19

4. Thirty Minutes of Silence in Heaven

As the light shone outside the Temple for 30 minutes, the Book of Revelation records a corresponding 30-minute period when the seventh seal was opened.

When He opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and to them were given seven trumpets. Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel’s hand.

Revelation 8:1-5

When we read this through our Western-trained minds, we tend to think of saints as Christians from the past two thousand years. However, this is not proper hermeneutics. We should remember the close link between Revelation and Daniel, and that Revelation was mainly written for Jewish believers. These saints refer to faithful Jews and Gentiles, as seen in Daniel.

Then the kingdom and dominion,
And the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven,
Shall be given to the people, the saints of the Most High.
His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
And all dominions shall serve and obey Him.’

Daniel 7:27

The connection between the departing light and the thirty minutes in Revelation becomes evident when we read Daniel 9:27 in the context of Revelation 8 and the signs of 19th April 67 CE. The hope shared by all Old Testament saints and Jews today is the arrival of the kingdom. The Old Covenant Temple, along with its laws and feasts, needed to become obsolete, die, and disappear before the fullness of the kingdom could come, along with the millennial reign that would begin shortly thereafter. We discuss this more in our lesson on the millennium. 

The fading light signals the second sign of glory leaving.

5. Sign of the New Covenant

The third sign to occur on Passover was that a heifer births a lamb.

A. Red Heifer

Dispensationalists get overly excited about the qualifying red heifer because of Numbers 19, which is seen as a sign of the coming Messiah. 

“This is the ordinance of the law which the LORD has commanded, saying: ‘Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring you a red heifer without blemish, in which there is no defect and on which a yoke has never come.

Numbers 19:2

Jesus has already come and is seated at the right hand of the Father. Continuing to search for the red heifer is an insult to Jesus, and that is why this sign was given. The heifer is to be slaughtered soon to purify the people in preparation for Passover. 

B. Heifer Gives Birth to a Lamb

At the same festival, a heifer, as she was led by the high priest to be sacrificed, brought forth a lamb in the midst of the temple.

Flavius Josephus 6.292

The heifer in this sign represents the Old Covenant and has no symbolism under the New Covenant. This sign reminds people that the Messiah was slain on the same day, yet it brought new life (the lamb that was slain is alive). 

The heifer’s unlikely birth of a lamb is a strong symbol of the end of the Old Covenant and its sacrificial laws, and the new birth found only through the lamb of God.

Three signs appeared during Passover; now, the next sign occurs at Pentecost, which, 37 years earlier, marked the beginning of the church, the collective Temple of God.

C. Sacrificial Heifer

As soon as the Heifer produced the lamb, it was sacrificed.  This was a powerful message to the Jews. The Old Covenant system was dead, so that the New Covenant (the Lamb) may be born.

6. The Angels Depart the Temple

A. Let Us Go Hence

Seven weeks after the three signs of Passover in 67 CE, during Pentecost, another sign took place. First, there was an earthquake, a loud noise, and then the sound of voices.

Moreover at that feast which we call Pentecost, as the priests were going by night into the inner [COURT OF THE] temple, as their custom was, to perform their sacred ministrations, they said that, in the first place, they felt a quaking, and heard a great noise, and after that they heard a sound as of a great multitude, saying, “Let us remove hence.”

Josephus 6.299-30

The multitude of angelic beings responsible for the Holy of Holies departs. The earthly temple no longer has a purpose for their presence.

There was a multitude of beings with voices declaring, “Let us remove hence.” These were not ordinary people; they were angelic beings. For them to be removing indicates that they were leaving. When we read this alongside the light that lasted only thirty minutes, we understand this as a reference to the glory departing. Prophetically, this is shown in Ezekiel, where we read about the glory leaving.

B. Book of Revelation Account

John clarifies this event in the Book of Revelation:

Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and threw it to the earth. And there were noises, thunderings, lightnings, and an earthquake.

Revelation 8:5

The word for noises here is

φωνή phōnē; an address, saying or language: — voice, noise, sound.

It is translated as ‘noise’ only once here in Revelation 8; mostly, it is translated 131 times as ‘voice’ or ‘voices’, as Josephus described. So the noises described in Romans are the same voices that declare “Let us go hence”

C. Church Becomes the Temple of God

Israel is no longer the Wife of God, having been divorced several hundred years before. Instead, the Church, made up of Jew and Gentile together, is to become the wife of Jesus. And members of the Church are now sons and daughters of God. This was always the original intention of God.

7. Summary

1. The 2300-day Great Tribulation starts four and a half months earlier on 27 December 66 CE when Nero, the Antichrist, declared war on the Jews.
2. Passover 67 CE had three signs.
3. The signs of 67 CE are incredibly important as they start the 1260-day, three and a half year, 1290-day and 1335-day prophecies of Daniel
4. They also start the forty-two month prophecy of Revelation.
5. The Red Heifer, before being sacrificed, birthing a Lamb symbolises the end of the Old Covenant, and the start of the New Covenant

© Use by Permission Awakening Impact Ministries / Dr Neville Westerbeek van Eerten D.Miss, 2026