Rabbi Isaac's four reasons for six millennia; juniors' additions from Genesis 6, Moses, Jericho, Esdras, Apocalypse

The reasons by which the Rabbis defend the truth of this saying, Rabbi Isaac on Genesis chapter 1 offers four. (1) Because the first verse of Genesis contains א six times, by which a thousand is denoted. (2) Because God made heaven and earth in six days and rested on the seventh; but a thousand years before God are as one day. (3) Because God, both in days and in years, indicates by the sixfold the time of labor and by the sevenfold the time of rest. For he commanded us to work six days and on the seventh to rest from all work: he also granted a six-year period to agriculture, but in the seventh year enjoined rest both on the field and on the cultivator. (4) Because the six first makers of the human race died — namely Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalalel, Jared — but Enoch, who is the seventh, happily translated into a place known to God, still lives.

To which reasons some of the juniors add: (5) Because when the human race was corrupted God said (Genesis 6:3), My spirit will not remain in man forever, for he is flesh: and his days will be one hundred twenty years — where first they understand the time of repentance granted before the flood, which was 120; if you take it fifty times, the number of six thousand results. (6) They also gather the same from Moses' age. For he lived 120 years (Deuteronomy 34:7): forty years in Pharaoh's court (Acts 7:23), forty in exile with Jethro (Exodus 2:15 and 3:1), by which two thousand years under the law are adumbrated; likewise he ruled the Israelite people forty years in the desert (Exodus 16:35), by which two thousand years under Messiah's empire are signified. (7) To these they add that Noah's ark rested in the seventh month (Genesis 8:4); that Moses was in the cloud six days and on the seventh was called by the Lord (Exodus 24:16); that when the Israelites had gone around Jericho six days, on the seventh day its walls fell (Joshua 6:16); likewise that the angel foretold to Esdras (4 Esdras 7:30) that the age would be of seven days; further that seven trumpets (Revelation 8:2) and seven bowls (Revelation 16:1) are commemorated, and certain other things of the same kind. Therefore what Christ said to the Apostles present, let us think said also to us: It is not yours to know the times which the Father has put in his own power (Acts 1:7).