Prophecy of Moses on the Ages of the World and the Universe
In Psalm 90:4, Moses prays: "A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night." This verse appears to be a figurative speech concerning the time in God's sight. This seems to indicate that God exists from eternity to eternity and is thus timeless. But when the author of this book mediated on this verse, he had a feeling that it might be related to the ages of the world and the universe, which Moses learned from God. In a poetic form, "day" in the first half of this verse should refer to the daytime to form a contrast to "night" in the last half. The Hebrew word "day" originally means the daytime. In John 11:9-10, Yeshua answered, "Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if one walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him." In verse 9, Yeshua confirms that there are twelve hours in a day. Here, the word "day" must mean the daytime because he talked about the night in verse 10 to form a contrast to the "day" in verse 9.
How many years should have passed from the creation of the world to the coming of the Messianic Kingdom. According to the Biblical chronology, there are 6,000 solar years (Chapter 10). The world was created by God in the spring of 3970 BC. 6,000 solar years shall have passed from the creation of the world to the beginning of the Messianic Kingdom according to God's clock. On the other hand, when we use the human clock (e.g., an atomic clock) to measure the same period, it would be much longer if the tick rate of the atomic clock were to slow down over time. Indeed, we have experimentally demonstrated that the tick rate of the atomic clock, which is intrinsically proportional to the speed of light, slows down over time (see Appendix B).
If the speed of light was extremely large before the fourth day of the creation week in Genesis, the atomic clock should have ticked extremely quickly. On and after the fourth day, God should have slowed down both the speed of light and atomic clocks so that humans should have seen the world similarly to what we see today.
Before we provide our interpretation to the prophetic words of Psalm 90:4, let's review the creation week of God, which is recorded in Genesis 1:1-39:
In the second chapter of the book of Genesis, the first three verses are also related to the creation week (Genesis 2: 1-3):
Genesis 1:1 clearly says that in the very beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The word "create" means "bring something into existence." God brought the heavens and the earth into existence in the beginning of the universe. In the second verse, it was stated that the earth was without form and it was void and had no light. Before the first day, the earth was covered by waters and there was no dry land.
The Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters on the first day of His creation week. In verse 3, God said, "let there be light" and there was light. It is likely that God might have initiated nuclear fusion in some stars like the Sun and some planets. These bright stars and/or planets were able to luminate the earth to separate day from night. On the second day, God made the firmament (atmosphere), seas, lands, and mountains on the earth. The word "make" means "do something for," which is different from the word "create." It is possible that God initiated tectonic movement processes to form the dry lands, mountains, and seas on the earth. On the third day, God brought forth grass, herbs that yield seeds, and fruit trees that yield fruits. On the fourth day, God made the Sun, the Moon, and the other stars. Just like the Earth, these heavenly bodies had already existed before the first day of the creation week. On the fourth day, God may have perfected them and placed them at optimal positions so that the conditions on the earth should have been perfect for every living creature on the earth. Having made the Sun and the Moon perfect in the fourth day, God created the living creatures in the sky and seas on the fifth day. On the sixth day God created the living creatures on the earth and created man in His own image. On the seventh day, God ended His creation work and rested. God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it.
From the creation sequence, we can see that the solar system had already existed before the first day of the creation week. The other eight planets revolving around the Sun had already existed but did not emit light. The waters had already existed before the Spirit of God was hovering above the surface of the waters on the first day. The radiometric dating of the meteorites from the solar system consistently indicate that the ages of the meteorites are 4.566 billion years [J. Baker et al., Nature 436, 1127 (2005)]. The first day of the creation week should have been less than 4.566 billion years ago.
One of the oldest detrital zircons from Jack Hills of Western Australia was radiometrically dated as 4.404 billion years ago [S. A. Wilde et al., Nature 409, 175 (2001)]. This suggests the existence of the continental crust of the earth about 4.404 billion years ago. The oxygen isotope ratios found in the oldest detrital zircon also imply the existence of the continental oceans (waters) about 4.404 billion years ago. Since the waters had already existed before the first day of the creation week and the oceans were made on the third day, the age of the world may be about 4.400 billion years.
According to Moses, 1,000 years in God's sight are like a daytime that has just gone by. A daytime is equal to half a day when the day and night have the same length at the Vernal and Autumnal Equinoxes. If Moses referred to the daytime at the Equinoxes, then 1/2 day (12 hours) in God's clock is equivalent to 1,000 years in the human clock, or a whole day (24 hours) in God's clock is equivalent to 2,000 years in the human clock. Since the world was created about 6,000 years ago according to the Biblical chronology (in God's clock), this first equivalence principle of Moses implies that the age of the world should be about 6,000 $\times 365.24 \times 2,000$ years = 4.383 billion years according to the human clock, which is in excellent agreement with the radiometrically dated age of the earth.
Moses also said that 1,000 years in God's sight are also like a night watch. This second equivalence principle of Moses implies that a night watch in God's clock is equivalent to 1,000 years in the human clock. We know that a whole day is equal to 8 night-watches at the Equinoxes. But at the Winter Solstice, the night is longest, and one night-watch in Israel is equal to 3.496 hours at present and 4.0 hours at the beginning of the world (Enoch 72:26). If the night length decreases linearly with time, one night-watch in Israel is calculated to be 3.79 hours in the time of Moses (around 1457 BC). Then, the whole day (24 hours) is equal to 6.33 night-watches at the Winter Solstice in the time of Moses. If Moses referred to the longest night-watch in his time, the second equivalence principle of Moses suggests that a whole day in God's clock should be equal to 6,330 years in the human clock. Since God created the heavens and the earth (the universe) about 6,000 years ago in terms of His clock, this second equivalence principle of Moses implies that the age of the universe should be about 6,000 $\times 365.24 \times 6,330$ years = 13.87 billion years in terms of the human clock. It is remarkable that the age of the universe inferred from our modified cosmological model is very close to 712 years = 13.84 billion years (see Appendix C). Within the standard Lambda-CDM concordance model, the age of the universe was calculated to be 13.799±0.021 billion years in 2015 (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_universe). In both models, the age of the universe is close to 13.8 billion years, in excellent agreement with 13.87 billion years inferred from Psalm 90:4.
Moses' two equivalence principles about the relativity of time in Psalm 90:4 are thus the prophetic words about the ages of both the world and the universe in terms of the human clock. According to our Biblical chronology (see Chapter 10) or in God's absolute clock, the ages of both the world and the universe are about 6,000 years, but in the human clock, they are about 4.4 and 14 billion years, respectively.
The radiometrically dated age is proportional to the lifetimes of the radioactive elements, which should be inversely proportional to the speed of light. When the speed of light should have approached infinity before the fourth day, the lifetimes of the radioactive elements should have been very short. If this is the case, the very long time of the world before the fourth day, which is measured by various radioactive elements with the present lifetimes, should have been just a few days in terms of God's absolute clock.
We have shown that both the speed of light and the atomic clock are slowing down with time (see Appendix B). About twenty years ago, some cosmologists proposed a theory of varying speed of light [J. Magueiyo, Rep. Prog. Phys. 66, 2025 (2003)]. In order to resolve the horizon problem usually tackled by inflation, they assumed that the speed of light should have approached infinity at the very beginning of the universe. In a similar manner, we propose that the speed of light should have approached infinity prior to the fourth day in which God placed the Sun, the Moon, and other planets around the earth at the optimal positions to mark the seasons, days, and years. God may have very quickly slowed down the speed of light and the atomic clock before that day. The slow-down rate should have become negligibly small on and after the fourth day.