End Times Series
Daniel Chapter Nine
By Liaf
So far, we’ve been doing quite a bit of study in the book of Daniel regarding empires and Antichrist. If we turn to Daniel chapter nine, we see that we shift gears somewhat and the context of that prophecy is more what Antichrist will do. This section of Daniel chapter nine does not even involve many verses. But this passage is where we get the idea of a seven-year tribulation. Actually, there are other hints in the Bible regarding this timeframe. The most obvious one is the "seven times" punishment of Israel for disobedience in the book of Leviticus. Theologians believe there is a long fulfillment of this time consisting of 2520 years, and a short, literal seven-year punishment that will be realized during the tribulation to come.
In Daniel chapter nine, Daniel was confessing the sins of his people (all Israel) and asking for God’s mercy when an angelic visitor came and made a prediction we find in the last few verses of the chapter.
Daniel 9:20-27: And whiles I was speaking, and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the LORD my God for the holy mountain of my God;
Yea, whiles I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation.
And he informed me, and talked with me, and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee skill and understanding.
At the beginning of thy supplications the commandment came forth, and I am come to shew thee; for thou art greatly beloved: therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision.
Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.
Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.
And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
I hope my readers like mathematics, or at least a little arithmetic, because we are going to do some here. I am probably the only Sunday school teacher on the East Coast that brings a calculator to Sunday school class. Now I’m not one to flaunt calculus around with an "I know more math than you" attitude. It’s not how much (or the depth) of mathematics that one uses, per se, but how one uses what he or she does know. I’ve seen "egg-head" math types that have no common sense, and I have seen people who know little or no formal geometry or trigonometry, yet they can draw diagrams well. They use what they do know to manipulate figures or diagrams to my amazement. My father was such a person. He did not know the Pythagorean theorem, but he knew how to draw diagrams as well as any draftsman and from that he planned our cottage and built it to the envy of any carpenter. It is a shame that little or no mathematics is used to interpret the Bible. Many evangelists and theologians even scoff at the idea and claim instead that one must have more "heart knowledge" than "head knowledge" when believing the Bible. Yet, the Bible is replete with numbers and gematrias. I believe strongly in the possibility of a hidden, statistical code as well. It is no wonder. The same God who created the universe that can be explained mathematically also authored the Bible. But the Bible uses easy math and difficult math. God made the mathematics accessible to everybody who is willing to put his or her mind to it a little. If you don’t comprehend the difficult equations required to understand the Bible Code, do not worry. God probably put that there to convince those who have more understanding. For the rest of us, we can settle for some arithmetic here. You only need to add, subtract, multiply and divide to understand this message. The neat things about numbers are that they are a little more black and white. Actually, when one considers the more difficult math, that is not quite true. However, for the most part, the result is more quantitative than "gray area" interpretations involving language. Even though the value of PI cannot be expressed exactly and in that sense is tad "gray", we can approximate the value to 3.1415926 and nobody believes PI is less than 3.14 or greater than 3.15. In that sense it is an exact region. Likewise, mathematics can place a clamp in an exact region that language would otherwise allow greater variation of interpretation. For the evangelists who like "black and white" interpretations, one would think they would feverishly embrace the mathematics the Bible offers because it would place an exact limit on certain interpretations. The abhorrence of mathematics (because that is "head knowledge") is the rejection of the very ally needed to support their views. Nothing like cutting off the nose to spite the face. In any regard, let’s continue with the interpretation of this passage.
First of all, notice that this prophecy is divided into three timeframes of weeks, i.e., 7 weeks, 62 weeks, and one week. Prophets have an understanding in that when they speak of a time, it means a year consisting of 360 days (or "prophetic" year of 12 months of 30 days). Likewise, in the context of this language, a week represents a week of prophetic years. In other words, a week is a "week of times" where a "time" represents a "day" of that "week". Hence, 7 weeks is 7x 7 (years to a week) or 49 years. Likewise, 62 weeks is
62 x 7 years or 434 years. We must be a little careful here because a prophetic year is a little less than a full solar year where the day to a year conversion was given in Ezekiel 4:6 that says, "I have appointed thee each day for a year." In this case, the year is an actual solar year. A year is a year and that averages 365.2422 days. God did not say, "I have appointed thee each day for a time". However, the "week" of "times" is a similar concept. When we speak of times and weeks, we are using prophetic language. When we speak of days and years, we mean it literally. Everybody clear on that? Like mud, I’m sure. We shall see an actual demonstration soon.
Now the angel said to Daniel that they have 70 weeks that are "determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to [1]finish the transgression, and to [2] make an end of sins, and to [3] make reconciliation for iniquity, and to [4] bring in everlasting righteousness, and to [6] seal up the vision and prophecy, and to [6]anoint the most Holy. [Place in the temple]"
This is a big list. This is addressed to Daniel’s people (Israel) and the Holy City (Jerusalem). The first item about finishing the transgression has the Hebrew meaning of revolt, hence a rebellious attitude. The second item in the angel’s list about sins means an offence or act of sin. The third has to do with moral evil from the heart. The forth item is very clear. The fifth item about sealing up the prophecy means to end or close it up, hence all this must happen to make the vision come to a conclusion. Lastly, anointing the most holy means the holy place inside the temple. I have not taught much yet on the symbolism of the wilderness tabernacle in Moses’ day and by extension the temple of Solomon. However, there were several temples already and in the end times more will be constructed. For your information, there was Solomon’s temple (that was destroyed during the Babylonian captivity), the temple from the returned Jews, and another temple made by Herod (destroyed in 70 AD by the Romans and the remains of which consists of the "wailing wall" of today). There will be two future temples. One that will be constructed during the early phase of the tribulation where Antichrist will allow the Israelites to sacrifice again (we will get into that shortly), and finally the "millennial temple" spoken by the prophet Ezekiel. As for the big list, some people think this was realized by Jesus’ atoning death on the cross. No it was not. There is an end to sin in God’s eyes in the sense that the believer in Christ no longer has to fear future guilt and condemnation. However, anybody can clearly see that for all this to be fulfilled literally, there must be God’s government controlling this earth. Therefore, the last week takes place in end times. I will say more on that soon.
The first division of seven weeks is from the "going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem". The commandment (or edict) for the Jews was given to Nehemiah by Artaxerxes in 444 BC. You have to read the book of Nehemiah. He was burdened to repair the broken walls of Jerusalem when he heard of their condition (and later surveyed them). Nehemiah was a cup bearer to the King and the King saw that he was troubled. He allowed Nehemiah to go forth for this task. This would take 49 years
"in troublous times" because there was severe
opposition from the surrounding neighbors. The next 62 weeks of
years would be from that completion date until Messiah. Notice
that he would be cut off so that is reference to his death
and not birth or some other point in his life. Therefore, from
the edict to Messiah is 69 weeks of years. Everybody see that?
However, these are prophetic years of 360 days. This is where
some calculations come in handy. First of all, we must do a
simple computation as to how many prophetic years are involved in
69 weeks. That is 69 x 7 or 483 prophetic years from 444 BC. To
convert to solar years (the kind of year we are familiar
with), we must do a little manipulating. This way we can come out
to an actual BC or AD date. I think we shall use this approach.
We shall convert as follows: prophetic yearsà actual days à solar years. 483 prophetic
years x (360 days/ 1 prophetic year) =
173880 days. I don’t know about you, but in my school days,
we were taught that if you want to make a unit conversion of any
type, you should write it in a fraction equal to one. Write the
fraction in such a way as to cancel one of the units. For
example, in this case, 360 days = one prophetic year. If I write
it as (360 days/ 1 prophetic year), that fraction is a form of
the number one showing that 360 days = one prophetic year. I
wrote it so that the "prophetic year" is in the
denominator of the fraction so that it cancels out the
"prophetic years" in the numerator of the number 483.
If you multiply by some number and divide by it again, you are
back to where you started, and "units" are no
exception. Therefore, only the "days" units are left.
Now we shall convert to solar years. 173880 days
x (1 solar year/365.2422 days) = 476.068
solar years. We’ll just round that to 476 years. What
this prophecy is saying is that 476 years after the decree (in
444 BC) is the crucifixion year of Messiah. Let’s test that.
If we take the 444BC date, and add 476 years, we will obviously
cross over to an AD year. To do this, the concept is similar to
the "number lines" we studied in algebra class. And you
thought you never had to use that again, eh? If we assign
a negative value to the BC date (imagine those to the left
of the center of the line) and add the desired number of
years, we will cross over to the positive values (on the right)
since in this case 476 years is greater than 444 years. However,
unlike an algebraic number line, there is no zero in the center
of the line. We must add one year since 1 BC turns over to 1 AD
and not 0 BC or 0 AD. In other words, if we designate 1 BC as
(-1) and add one year, (-1)+1=0 algebraically, but +1 if we are
talking about years (1 AD). Therefore, the formula must add
one to get the actual AD year. The formula is: BC+(# of
yrs)+1= AD (assuming we are adding enough to cross over).
Lets start putting values into the formula: (-444)+476+1=33AD. Check that out on your calculators. This is the same year that the Great Pyramid pointed to and recent scholarship is slowly accepting the 33 AD date as the year Christ was crucified instead of the traditional 30 AD (which is only approximate).
OK. We figured out the first 69 weeks. What about the last week? This week will take place in end times and there exists a gap of time between Daniel’s 69th week and 70th week. The justification for this is found in Luke 4:18-20 where Jesus is reading a prophecy in Isaiah about himself: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book. Now Jesus was quoting Isaiah 61:1-2: The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;
Notice he closed the book before mentioning anything about vengeance or comfort. That was because that would be fulfilled at his Second Coming. If Jesus can break the prophetic passage where there is only a comma by maybe thousands of years, the same principle can be applied here. Do you want more proof? Let’s continue reading our passage in Daniel: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. The people of the prince that shall come are the Romans. Remember the prophecies of the revived Roman Empire? They destroyed Jerusalem and the temple in 70 AD. These are the same people of "the prince that shall come". This prince is Antichrist. Then this passage in Daniel concludes by saying: And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate. What does all this mean? This passage means that Antichrist would make a covenant with Israel for seven years where they would be allowed to rebuild their temple (in Jerusalem) and sacrifice again. This "one week" is where we get the idea of a "seven year tribulation". Antichrist must obviously appear very "pro-Jewish" and befriend Israel in order for this to happen. He will appear as the Middle East problem solver. Nevertheless, halfway through this week of years he will turn on them and stop the sacrifices while placing himself and an abominable image in the temple. When we take a closer look at Revelation, we shall indeed see that in the middle of the Tribulation all hell literally breaks loose and several terrible things start to happen. This incident historically occurred with Antiochus Epiphanes but after that incident Jesus again made reference to it as something that would happen in end times. This is what is called the "Abomination of Desolation". The apostle Paul also made reference to this incident and Antichrist in II Thesolonians 2:4: Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. Thus, Antichrist will place an abominable image and even set himself in the temple mid-way in the tribulation.
I sense that this "gap" between Daniel’s 69th week and 70th week bothers some of my readers yet despite the references to Isaiah 61 and the coming Antichrist. The mystery can be found in Romans 11. I’ll let my readers read that part of the Bible for themselves. However, Paul speaks about the "wild olive branch" graphed in. This "gap" of time prophesied the "church age". Up to the crucifixion of Christ, Israel was under the Law. Now we are all under grace until the church is taken away in the rapture. This is another reason why I believe in a "pre-trib" rapture. This "gap" is parenthetical until a different age of the Great Tribulation commences. In other words, the "gap" is the "church age" sandwiched between the order of the Law Covenant and the final order of the Great Tribulation. The weeks of years do not include the "church age".
In the last message of Daniel, we shall find some detail about Antichrist that will be very helpful. This will be found in Daniel chapter 11. Up to now, we know Antichrist’s general origins. When we conclude this study, we shall see specifically where he will originate. After that, we shall be in a position to better understand the book of Revelation.