DANIEL - CHAPTER NINE

(The 70 Weeks)

   I.       INTRODUCTION

A.   This is perhaps the most important prophetic passage in the Word. It gives, in minute detail, the events and times of future happenings.

  II.       DANIEL’S PERCEPTION (vs. 1-3)

A.   As Daniel reads the Word, namely the prophecies of Jeremiah, he is made aware that the judgment of the Babylonian Captivity was in fulfillment, would last 70 years, and was coming to its conclusion.

 III.       DANIEL’S PRAYING (vs. 4-23)

A.   It contains all the elements of what a prayer should.

1.    Confession

2.    Contrition

3.    Worship

4.    Self-examination

B.   As soon as the praying started, the answer came.

C.   It is a model for us.

IV.       DANIEL’S PROPHESYING (vs. 24-27)

A.   The time period - the decree of Artaxerxes to the coming of Christ in glory

B.   The 70 weeks are weeks of years, not days.

1.    Literally - seventy sevens

a.    Week of days (Exodus 20:8-11)

b.    Week of years (Sabbaths) (Leviticus 25:3-7)

c.    Week of 7 x 7 years (Jubilee) (Leviticus 25:8-13)

C.   The prophecy concerns the Jews and Jerusalem.

1.    It has nothing to do the Gentiles.

2.    It has nothing to do with the Church - the Church Age was not made known until the days of Paul.

D.   The division of the 70 Weeks (v. 25)

1.    Seven Weeks, or 49 years - from the going forth of the commandment to rebuild the city of Jerusalem until its accomplishment

a.    The commandment of Artaxerxes (Nehemiah 2:1-6)

b.    Date: The 20th year of Artaxerxes’ reign

c.    March 14, 445 BC

2.    Sixty-two weeks or 434 years (vs. 25, 26)

a.    From the completion of the construction of Jerusalem

b.    To the crucifixion of Christ (particularly the Palm Sunday rejection)

c.    The death of Christ came immediately after the close of the 69 weeks, or 483 years.

d.    These years took in all of the life and death of Christ.

3.    One week of seven years (the 70th week) v. 27

a.    Will be the week or seven years of the Tribulation

b.    Presided over by the “prince that shall come” not Christ, but the antichrist.

c.    The week will be divided into two equal parts.

1)    3 1/2 years; 1260 days; 42 months

2)    The first half - Antichrist befriends the Jews

3)    The second half - breaks the covenant with Israel

4.    The Church Age parenthesis

a.    God’s timepiece deals only with the Jews as a nation.

1)    The Jews have been set aside.

2)    God’s time calendar has stopped.

3)    It will begin again when God deals once more with Israel as a nation.

b.    There has been 2000 years of parenthetic time.

1)    God has been dealing with the Gentiles.

2)    This parenthesis will end at the beginning of Daniel’s 70th week.

3)    The 70th week is still to come.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

THE SEVENTY WEEKS

In Daniel 9 we find one of the most notable predictions in the Bible. In verses 24-27 Daniel is told that “seventy weeks (sevens) are determined” on his people. From the going forth of the “commandment to restore to build Jerusalem” to the time when the Messiah should be “cut off” would be “seven weeks, the threescore and two weeks’, or sixty-nine weeks in all; that is 483 years. The seventieth week is treated as distinct. In it an evil ruler violates covenant with the Jews and desecrates Jerusalem.

To understand this prediction we must ascertain when the “command to restore Jerusalem was issued, so as to know the starting point of the 483 years. We must also know whether the years are solar or lunar or lunisolar. Three decrees affecting Jerusalem are mentioned in Ezra--that of Cyrus in 536 BC, that of Darius Hystaspis about 510 BC, and that Artaxerxes Longimanus about 458 BC (1:1; 6:3; 7:11). None of these can be the decree foretold to Daniel, for all three related only to the temple and worship. The one edict in history for the rebuilding of the city itself is that which was issued by Artaxerxes at the appeal of Nehemiah--”That thou woudst send me unto Judah, unto the city of my fathers’ sepulchers, THAT I MAY BUILD IT” (Nehemiah 2:5). Nehemiah himself gives the date--”the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes” (Nehemiah 2:1). This, then, is the starting point: Nisan, 445 BC. Nisan is the first month of the Jewish year. The first of Nisan is New Year’s Day. As Nehemiah names no other day, the prophetic period must be reckoned, according to common Jewish custom, from the New Year’s Day. Now as the Jewish year was regulated by the Paschal moon, the date of any Nisan can be definitely calculated in relation to our own Julian dating. In his book, The Coming Prince, Sir Robert Anderson has shown, with the corroboration of the Astronomer Royal, that Nehemiah’s date was the 14th of March, 445 BC.

And now, what kind of years are we to reckon? We are not left in doubt. The interrelation of Daniel’s visions and those of John is patent to all; and a comparison of the two will settle it that the prophetic year is a lunisolar year of 360 days. Both Daniel and John speak of “a time, and times, and half a time” (that is three and a half ‘times’); and both make it clear that three and a half ‘times’ are three and a half years (compare Daniel 7:25; 9:27; Revelation 12:14; 13:5). But John goes further and splits up the three and a half years into days (compare Revelation 11:2, 3; 12:6, 14), showing us that the three and a half years equal 1,260 days. This settles it that the prophetic year is one of 360 days.

So then, from the edict to rebuild Jerusalem, down to the cutting off of the Messiah, was to be 483 years of 360 days each. Was the prophecy fulfilled? It was. Once only did our Lord offer Himself publicly and officially as Israel’s Messiah. It was on that first, memorable “Palm Sunday”. Sir Robert Anderson rightly emphasizes the significance of this. “No student of the Gospels can fail to see that the Lord’s last visit to Jerusalem was not only in fact but in intention the crisis of His ministry. From the time that the accredited leaders of the nation had rejected His Messianic claims, He had avoided all public recognition of those claims. But now His testimony had been fully given, and the purpose of His entry into the capital was to proclaim openly His Messiahship, and to receive His doom. Even His apostles themselves had again and again been charged that they should not make Him known; but now He accepted the acclamations of “the whole multitude” of the disciples. And when the Pharisees protested He silenced them with the indignant rebuke, “I tell you that if these would hold their peace, that stones would immediately cry out.” These words can only mean that the Divinely appointed time had arrived for the public announcement of His Messiahship, and that the Divine purpose could not be thwarted.” It is was on this day that our Lord looked on Jerusalem and exclaimed, “If thou also hadst known even on this day, the things that belong to thy peace...!” (See R.V.) And we are expressly told that this day was the fulfillment of Zechariah 9:9 (Matthew 21:4, 5). Such concentrated emphasis on this day surely cannot be mistaken. This was the predicted day of His public offer to the nation; and which directly occasioned His being “cut off”. Here then we find the terminus of the 483 years, emphasized too clearly to be misunderstood.

See now how exactly Daniel 9 was fulfilled. No date of history is made clearer than the commencement of our Lord’s public ministry. Luke tells us that it was “the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar” (3:1). Now the reign of Tiberius began 19th August AD 14, so that the fifteenth year of his reign, when our Lord commenced His public ministry, was AD 29; and the first Passover of our Lord’s ministry was in the month Nisan of that year. Three passovers after this, in AD 32, our Lord was crucified. We give a final quotation from Sir Robert Anderson: “According to Jewish custom, our Lord went up to Jerusalem on the 8th Nisan (John 11:55; 12:1; and Josephus, Wars, book 6 chapter 5, paragraph 3), which, as we know, fell that year upon a Friday. And having spent the Sabbath at Bethany, He entered the Holy City the following day, as recorded in the Gospels. The Julian date of that 10th Nisan was Sunday the 6th April, AD 32.” What then was the length of time between the decree to rebuild Jerusalem and this climactic public advent of Christ--between the 14th March, 445 BC and the 6th April, AD 32? Sir Robert tells us that it was EXACTLY 173,800 DAYS, THAT IS 483 PROPHETIC YEARS OF 360 DAYS! Again, if this is not evidence of Divine inspiration, then nothing is.

What about that seventieth week? It is yet to be. Between the Messiah’s being “cut off” and that seventieth week, the whole of the present “Church” age intervenes. As we have said before, the Church of the present dispensation is nowhere the subject of direct prediction in the Old Testament. It was the “secret” kept “hidden” during preceding ages (Ephesians 3). Again and again in the Old Testament we find both advents of Christ foretold in the same verse or passage, but with no light given as to the intervening of the present age between them (see Genesis 49:10; Isaiah 53:11, 12; Micah 5:3; Isaiah 61:1, 2 with Luke 4:17-19; Zechariah 9:9, 10; Malachi 3:1; 1 Peter 1:10, 11).

We cannot here go further into Daniel’s prophecies; but we hope that our brief study of the two basal passages may serve as a useful beginning to some for further investigation. Meanwhile, with that seventieth week in view, we await the trumpet blast from heaven, the voice of the archangel, the possessing of the kingdom, and the glory that shall follow.

“Explore the Book” by J. Sidlow Baxter

                                                                              Vol. 4, pp. 83-86

                                                                             End of Chapter 9