Daniel 9:20-27
English Standard Version (ESV)
Gabriel Brings an Answer
20 While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my plea before the Lord my God for the holy hill of my God, 21 while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the first, came to me in swift flight at the time of the evening sacrifice. 22 He made me understand, speaking with me and saying, “O Daniel, I have now come out to give you insight and understanding. 23 At the beginning of your pleas for mercy a word went out, and I have come to tell it to you, for you are greatly loved. Therefore consider the word and understand the vision.The Seventy Weeks
24 “Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place.25 Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. 26 And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed. 27 And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.”Accompanying sermon by Richard DeMass: Gabriel's Good Tidings
Accompanying sermon by John MacArthur: Isreal's Future Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 as well as a standalone sermon The Arrival of the King
Accompanying sermon by Ray Pritchard: A Peek into God's Calendar
The beginning of our passage tells us that God hears our prayers, particularly when prayed using the model Daniel gave us in the preceding passage. Here, specifically, God send Gabriel to answer Daniel's prayer in a far grander scale than Daniel could have imagined.
God spells out some very specific prophesy in v24-27.
The seventy weeks are weeks of years and, therefore, add up to 490 years. The first 7 weeks (49 years) begin at the decree for the city of Jerusalem to be rebuilt. This happened in Nehemiah 2 March 14th, 445BC. They rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem amongst turmoil, but they finished it in 49 years, in 396BC which also marked the ending of the ministry of Malachi and the close of the OT canon.
Now, these are years that are 360 days according to the Jewish calendar. So, 69 years of weeks is 483 years that are 360 days each which would equal 173,880 days. This is a bit complicated but it's very fascinating.
MacArthur:
The decree comes on March 14th, 445 BC. Sir Robert Anderson, who particularly did monumental work on this prophesy of the triumphal entry of Jesus Christ, has identified, by looking at the Jewish calendars of Passovers and so forth, that the time in which Passover was held can be determined rather easily, at least through using his method. And he finds, backing up from that, the triumphal entry of Jesus must have occurred on April 6, 32 AD; the month of Nisan.
And so, all we need to do is calculate it a little bit. If Daniel is correct, for March 14, 445 BC to April 6, 32 AD is gonna be 173,880 days. Well, let's think about it. From March 14, 445 to April 6, 32 AD is only 477 years and 24 days. So we're a few years short. We have to deduct a year because 1 BC and 1 AD is the same year. So we really have 476 years and 24 days. Now, we have to convert to our calendar of 365 days, so we multiply that all out, plus 24 days, and we get 173,764; and we're still short. But we have Leap Year every four years. So 476divided by 4, gives us 119 Leap Years, so we add 119 more days to 173,664, and we get 173,883 days, 3 days too many.
You say, "Close is good enough for me." Close is not good enough for God. Sir Robert Anderson went to the Royal Observatory in England and he found out that according to their solar calculations, a year is 1/128 of a day longer on the calendar than a solar year, 1/128 of a day longer. So every 128 years, we have to lose a day. And if you're dealing with 483 years, that'll be 3 of those. So you drop those out and you have 173,880 days. Just exactly as the Word of God said.
Now, it has been interesting, in recent years, Dr. Harold Hoehner has written a book called The Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ. And when I heard that somebody else had done work on this, I was a little bit nervous to find out whether or not he would come up with the same answer. So Hoehner did his work, and I tell you this because it's the truth and you must know it so that you can understand the issue.
He decided the that the first year of Artaxerxes had to be an accession year so you couldn't count it. So the decree had to happen March 5 of 444 BC, so he moved it a year back - a year up, rather, going this way. He also calculated, from his New Testament studies, and he is a top of the list of New Testament study scholars and chronology that the Lord was crucified on April 3, 33 AD. So he backed up from there to the triumphal entry, started calculating from March 5, 444, to his established date in 33 AD, came up with exactly the same figure, 173,880 days. So either way....
The point is simply this: when Jesus rode into the city of Jerusalem, this was not some would-be self-styled Messiah, adlibbing his own festival, pulling off his own mob scene. This was one spoken of hundreds of years before by the prophet Daniel.
v26 tells us that there is a gap between the 69th and 70th weeks, that 26 And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing.The 69th year culminated the day Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, and only a handful of days later He was killed, cut off, not for anything He did because He was sinless, but for us.
And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed.
We know this was fulfilled in 70AD when Titus Vespasian, the Roman general, destroyed Jerusalem with a flood of soldiers. It was utter devastation - History tells us Titus attacked with Roman artillery, he smashed the walls. They caught everybody they could that was outside of the city and mercenaries crucified as many as 500 a day until there was a forest of people crucified all outside the city. And the historians tell us that an unbearable stench hung over the countryside. A million died, 100,000 bodies were thrown out over the wall.
The city was then sealed off and the people left inside were starved to the point where they actually ate their own children. And robbers ran through the streets, says Josephus, and stole the clothes off the dead bodies. I mean, they were just devastated and the Romans did it. The Romans did it in 70 just as Daniel said they would.
the people of the prince who is to come.... shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.
The Roman empire destroyed Jerusalem, and out of the revived Roman empire (spoken of in Daniel's previous prophecy) will come a prince who will make a covenant for that 70th week, the Anti-Christ, with the Jews. But half way through he puts an end to their religion and completely desecrates the temple by putting up an idol to call the people to worship him, which kicks off the Great Tribulation, the final holocaust of the world. Until the decreed end - when sin will be destroyed forever, righteous will reign forever, and all believers will be perfectly reconciled with God.
But we don't know when that 70th year will start - no timeline is given because no one knows the hours except for God the Father. We are living in the gap between the 69th and 70th year. But we know that 70th year is coming, because God has declared it and He always keeps His promises.
Happy St Patrick's Day!
“Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.”
― St. Patrick
“I pray to God to give me perseverance and to deign that I be a faithful witness to Him to the end of my life for my God.”
― St. Patrick
Tomorrow's scripture focus: Daniel 10
1 comment:
Wow! Love how exactly those prophecies have been fulfilled. God does always keep his promises.
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