The Talmud in Sanhedrin 97b presents a grand timeline for human history—and then admits no one truly knows when it ends.
The Sages taught: the world is destined to exist for six thousand years. Two thousand years of chaos (tohu). Two thousand years of Torah. Two thousand years of the Messianic era. The plan was elegant. But the Talmud immediately concedes: "Due to our many sins, the years that have elapsed since the four-thousandth year have passed, and the Messiah has not come."
Elijah the prophet told Rav Yehuda: the world will exist no fewer than eighty-five Jubilee cycles—at least 4,250 years. In the final Jubilee, the son of David will come. Rav Yehuda asked: at the beginning or the end of that Jubilee? Elijah said: "I do not know." Will it end before the Messiah or after? "I do not know." The prophet who announces the Messiah cannot name the date.
A soldier in the Roman army found a scroll in the imperial archives. Written in Hebrew, in the sacred Ashurit script, it stated: after 4,291 years from creation, the world will end. There will be wars of the sea monsters, wars of Gog and Magog, and the remaining years will be the Messianic period. Then the world will be destroyed, and God will renew it after seven thousand years. Another tradition says after five thousand.
Rabbi Natan quoted (Habakkuk 2:3): "Though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come; it will not delay." The Messiah will not arrive according to any of the calculations the rabbis have offered. Not according to those who computed from Daniel, not from Psalms, not from any system.
The conclusion is paradoxical: the Messiah is certainly coming, but calculating when is both irresistible and futile.