...how do we know they aren't just saying it to throw us off? did anyone else think they may have been lying so that we wouldn't know what to expect? like they more or less said they wouldn't really do anything with the numbers anymore, but we now know they were the numbers of candidates - imagine if they'd told us that they would've been explaining the numbers, it wouldn't've been such a surprise.
also, i just had a small theory: maybe MIB was a candidate and he can't die/leave the island/whatever because he has work to do, but he's trying to rebel against jacob? like maybe in the same way richard can't age, MIB got touched by jacob and can change forms