Daniel
9:24
NASB "Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your
holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to
make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness,
to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place.”
I have
come to understand that the lead-in to the 70th year includes:
The
catching away of the bride.
The
introduction of the antichrist.
The
unleashing of God's wrath upon Israel and the nations.
And,
has to include the beginning of the millennial reign.
All of
which comprise that 70th year.
The
problem with understanding lies in preachers who weakly try to
explain what to do with this over 2000-year-old gap. Daniel 9:26
tells us that the people of the
prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. This
event, which happened once, is a definition of the event that is yet
to come. Paul, writing to the church in Thessalonica, a place where
he initially only spent three weeks, went deep rather quickly as he
explained to them that the antichrist
will not come on the scene until the church is removed.
You have to go into the Literal
Translation of the Holy Bible
or the Geneva Bible to find this
clearly laid out.
Since
we will not witness the antichrist making his moves, then it would
make sense that this transition to the 70th week brings about the
removal of the church, the advent of the antichrist, and the
unleashing of God's wrath.
Sir
Robert Anderson tells us this about the 70th week:
Seventy
weeks. Note: “That is, seventy weeks of years, or 490 years,
which, reckoned from the seventh year of Artaxerxes, coinciding with
the 4256th year of the Julian period, and in the month Nisan, in
which Ezra was commissioned to restore the Jewish state and polity
(Ezr_7:9-26), will bring us to the month Nisan of the 4746th year of
the same period, or A.D. 33, the very month and year in which our
Lord suffered, and completed the work of our salvation. Sir Robert
Anderson has since given a detailed calculation regarding the seventy
weeks, a period which begins March 14, B.C. 445, and for the
sixty-ninth week, ends Sunday, April 6, A.D. 32, the day of the
triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem (Luke_19:28-40) in
fulfillment of Zechariah_9:9” (Anderson, The Coming Prince, pp.
vi., 128).
In
spite of all this horror that precedes God's wrath, it is also a time
of much healing and freedom.
Pay
attention to the following assertions.
To
finish the transgression
-
If the wrath has to be poured out upon Israel, up to and including
the time Jesus comes back on the white horse, then it is safe to
say that the transgression is NOT over. Clearly, the war, which
Jesus fights with the sword in His mouth, is an aspect of this
transgression being finished.
To
make an end of sin -
This, I conjecture, took place in that time between the cross, Jesus's death, His resurrection, and His placement upon the throne, where He now sits. Matthew 26 has Jesus telling
the disciples that the wine was a symbol of His blood, which takes
away the sin of the world. During the time between the cross and
the throne, Jesus
poured out His blood upon the mercy seat, in the heavenly temple,
for all of us.
(This one time act is the culmination of our salvation if
we will
accept that He came to earth and did all that for our benefit.)
Now, if you are saying to yourself, but I keep on sinning, first
off, you would be correct because that attraction to sin is part of
your DNA, thanks to Adam, and it is one of the primary reasons that
in the twinkling of an eye, we who arise to go with Christ to meet
Him in the air will be changed from air breathers to spiritual
beings made wholly in the image of God. I would not be too hard on
Adam because God needed a pathway into the earth by which He could,
once and for all, eliminate Satan and his cohorts; Adam's actions
gave Him just that opportunity. Now God, knowing full well the
tribulations that are a part of our daily lives, made a covering
for us, and that was the cross.
To
make atonement for iniquity
-
There, once again, goes that cross; and God, in the form of Jesus,
put Himself on that cross, paying the outlandish price, once and
for all.
To
bring in everlasting righteousness
-
Every minute we spend on this earth is an opportunity to show God's
grace and mercy to others. This grace, mercy, and justice is the
essence of God's character, and we have the privilege of sharing
that. Eventually, and by that I mean sooner than you think, we will
partake in His everlasting righteousness.
To
seal up the
vision
and prophecy -
Some translations add the word "the." I think it makes
more sense as the vision and the prophecy are not in the control of
any one human being; it belongs to all who believe, receive, and
redistribute the vision to others.
And
to anoint the Most Holy Place
-
The writer of the book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus did just
that. Our struggle is to envision that this took place on His
traverse from the cross to the throne.
Daniel
9:25 BSB
“Know and understand this: From
the issuance of the
decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem,
until the Messiah, the Prince, there will be seven weeks and
sixty-two weeks.
It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of
distress.”
Trying
to ascertain this particular moment in time (the
decree to rebuild Jerusalem)
has always been a cloudy issue for me. I can tell you that my
personal cloud lay in my hesitation to look at the wording of the
statement, "from
the issuance of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem."
There
were four decrees from the mouth of the kings, but three of them were
specific to the temple alone. Finally,
Artaxerxes I made his last decree in 445 BC and specified that
Jerusalem be rebuilt. There
the clarity was all along.
The
Bible Knowledge Commentary informs us of this: “Artaxerxes’
permission to rebuild the city of Jerusalem is the decree Daniel had
prophesied 95 years earlier in 539 b.c. This decree was issued on
March 5, 444 b.c.
(See comments on Daniel_9:25).
Daniel
9:25
goes on to say, "From
the issuance of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, until
the Messiah, the Prince, there will be seven weeks and sixty-two
weeks."
This
is 69 weeks of years, or 490 years.
Do you
realize that Jesus did not have to struggle to understand this bit of
history and put Himself on that donkey's colt and rode through the
Eastern Gate, the Sheep Gate, on that specific morning.
Why
point out that it was the sheep gate?
Because
the Lamb of God, the King of Kings,
the Son of God, the son of man, and the savior of the world, the
Messiah, rode into town that day. Jesus was not caught up in
all the accolades because He knew their hearts. He also knew how much
this was going to cost Him.
Here
we are, once again, staring at those 69 weeks of years out of 70.
Jesus died, rose again, and walked the earth for a short period of
time after He rose, demonstrating that He is God. This gap between
the 69th and the 70th week would require preparations and the
hardening of hearts in order to bring everything into alignment. As I
pointed out earlier, the church would have to be retrieved, battles
would have to be prepared, the attempts to split Jerusalem would be
made, and the world would have cried peace and security, while others
screamed out, for no good reason, their hatred of the Jews and
Israel.
Is
that happening?
Oh,
you bet it is.
Back
to the Bible Knowledge Commentary:
“The
divisions of the 70 “sevens” (Daniel_9:25-27)
“Important
revelation was then given to Daniel about the inception of this
important time period and its divisions. The 70 “sevens” would
begin, Gabriel said, with the
issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. This
decree was the fourth of four decrees made by Persian rulers in
reference to the Jews.”
“The
fourth decree was also by Artaxerxes Longimanus, issued on March 5,
444 b.c. (Nehemiah_2:1-8).
On that occasion Artaxerxes granted the Jews permission to rebuild
Jerusalem’s city walls. This decree is the one referred to in
Daniel_9:25.”
“This
prophecy of the 70 sevens, then, ends not with the First Advent of
Christ, as some suggest, but rather with the Second Advent and the
establishing of the millennial kingdom.”
Daniel
9:26 BSB
Then
after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and will have
nothing.
Then
the people of the prince who is to come will
destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood,
and until the end there will be war; desolations have been decreed.
Once
again, ignoring the seven weeks that initiated this course of action,
we are told that AFTER the 62 weeks the Messiah will be cut off.
What
does that mean?
That
means Jesus would be falsely accused, beaten severely, and nailed to
a cross; this was the price paid for all of our sins—past, present,
and future.
Moving
on.
Daniel,
in the interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's vision, which Daniel saw,
is told that the
people of the prince that is to come will destroy the city and the
sanctuary.
The
religious explanation of the prince, is to say that the revised Roman
Empire will rise up and we should see someone from that region rise
up. This also implies that we may see a pope take this role. Don't be
so cloddish.
The
Ultimate Cross-Reference Treasury also
takes the safe, traditional path when giving an answer about whom
they think will take the lead as the antichrist; they do this by
pointing us, incorrectly, back to Rome.
The
answer as to the nationality and region from which this "prince"
will come is found in Daniel when he interprets the golden image for
Nebuchadnezzar.
Historians
such as Josephus and
Tacitus
recorded
that Assyrians,
as conscript troops who had an intense hatred of the Jews, waged a
war against the Jews temple, in spite of orders from Titus.
“AI”
informs me of this: "While Emperor Vespasian was the Roman
Emperor during the time of the First Jewish-Roman War and the events
leading to the siege of Jerusalem, his son Titus commanded the Roman
legions that besieged and destroyed Jerusalem and the Second Temple
in 70 AD." Josephus
recorded that the Assyrian troops ignored the commands from Titus to
cease and desist in their destruction.”
So,
the people of the prince also included Assyrians, a fact that
was documented by two historians. So
when you generalize and say it will be a Roman that will return as
the Antichrist, you are ignoring the obvious: Assyrians.
Back
to Daniel and the interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream statue.
One
more piece of evidence about the people of the prince that is to
come.
Micah
5:5 NASB This One will be our peace. When
the Assyrian invades our land, When he tramples on our citadels,
Then we will raise against him Seven shepherds and eight leaders of
men.
You
can make the broken assumption that the Assyrian is a generalized
statement about anyone from the Middle East attacking Israel, an
event we have been watching for several months. Micah speaks about
the end of time.
Daniel's
explanation to Nebuchadnezzar went as follows.
Daniel
2:31-35
BSB As you, O king, were watching, a great statue appeared. A
great and dazzling statue stood before you, and its form was awesome.
(32) The head of the statue was pure gold, its chest and
arms were silver, its belly and thighs were bronze, (33)
its legs were iron, and its feet were part iron and part clay. (34)
As you watched, a stone was cut out, but not by human hands. It
struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay, and crushed them.
(35) Then the iron, clay, bronze, silver, and gold were
shattered and became like chaff on the threshing floor in summer. The
wind carried them away, and not a trace of them could be found. But
the stone that had struck the statue became a great mountain and
filled the whole earth.
The
specifics about the first head read like this:
Daniel
2:38 BSB
"Wherever the sons of men or beasts of the field or birds of the
air dwell, He has given them into your hand and has made you ruler
over them all. You
are that head of gold."
The
second kingdom is best defined in the Amplified Bible.
Daniel
2:39 AMP "And after you shall arise another kingdom [the
Medo-Persian], inferior to you, ..."
The
Amplified Bible continues to explain.
Daniel
2:39 AMP “…and still a third kingdom of bronze [Greece
under Alexander the Great], which shall bear rule over all the
earth.”
And
though the AMP Bible declares that the Greeks “shall bear rule over
all the earth,” we don't see that; and, like the Romans that are
yet, in this narrative, to come, they, like the Greeks, will come to
a crashing halt.
Now
lets examine the Macedonians/Greeks for a moment.
They
initiated their foray into world domination under a powerful man,
Alexander,
but he, like everyone else, eventually died. Upon
his death four generals grabbed control.
Even they collapsed down to two, Ptolemy
1 in the South, Egypt, and Seleucus in the North.
In
trying to find some depth to backup my assertions I found this
https://biblehub.com/topical/t/the_four_successors_of_alexander.htm;
there it says the “Seleucus'
dynasty is noted for its attempts to integrate
Greek and Eastern cultures.”
Eastern
culture has effectively come to be known as Islam.
If
you are struggling to understand the implications of an assertion
such as this; then I suggest you consider what is happening to
America where Muslims are concerned. Perhaps this website will open
your eyes.
https://www.theunitedwest.org/2017/06/27/islams-conquest-of-america-one-town-at-a-time/.
Consider the opening statement from this website,
“Minneapolis
(MN) to Hamtramck (MI) to Falls Church (VA) to Paterson (NJ) and many
other towns and cities across the fifty states, the Islamic Movement
is quietly conquering America (Just
as they have done in the UK.)
The
federal government sleeps, many state governments – including those
controlled by Republicans – do their best to accommodate Muslims
waging Civilization Jihad against America, and the hard-left Marxists
– including nearly all of the local and national media – are
collaborators in the enemy’s efforts.
Did
you notice the phrase, “Republicans,
do their best to accommodate Muslims waging … Jihad against
America...”
It should not surprise you to know that a powerful Imam from America,
recently told the world, from his mosque, that soon, Muslims will
have full control of our governmental systems, up to the White House.
Let me remind you that the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, had a
Muslim woman, Huma Abedin who
as an
American former political staffer, an intern in First Lady Hillary
Clinton's office in 1996. Internet information shows that after four
years in the White House, she moved on to the U.S. Senate as senior
advisor to Senator Clinton and was traveling chief of staff for
Clinton's 2008. She was also the vice chair of Hillary Clinton's
2016 campaign for President of the United States. During much of this
time she
was the wife of Anthony Wiener, who served on the New York city
council. Mrs.
Clinton allowed that woman to access and process state secrets.
(This
information can be freely accessed on the internet.)
So,
the Seleucid empire had attempted to integrate into the Assyrian
culture, a powerful and deadly culture, that affected “nations”
such as the Ninevehites,
whom Jonah was willing to commit suicide to prevent God showing these
people, whom Jonah hated, mercy, which He did.
We are
given NOTHING that indicates that the Assyrians ever extracted
themselves from attempts at controlling this region of the world.
The
fourth empire is a transition from the Grecian empire as it dissolved
into the two legs and feet of iron. The iron shows the influence of
Islam.
Daniel
2:41-43 AMP And as you saw the feet and toes, partly of [baked]
clay [of the potter] and partly of iron, it
shall be a divided kingdom; but there shall be in it some of the
firmness and strength of iron, just as you saw the iron mixed with
miry [earthen] clay. (42) And as the toes of the feet were
partly of iron and partly of [baked] clay [of the potter], so the
kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle and broken. (43)
And as you saw the iron mixed with
miry and earthen clay, so they shall mingle themselves in the seed of
men [in marriage bonds]; but they will not hold together [for two
such elements or ideologies can never harmonize], even as iron does
not mingle itself with clay.
A
key word that many miss, simply because it is relatively common, is
the word mixed.
‛arab,
is an
Aramaic verb meaning to mix, to mingle, to join together. (Word
Study Dictionary.)
When
I, an American, see these letters I only think of two things, Middle
Easterners and Muslims. You should know that Muslims and Islam did
not come on the scene until some time after 600 AD.
Also
consider what God had to say about Ishmael.
Genesis
16:11-12 NASB The angel of the LORD
said to her further, "Behold, you are with child, And you will
bear a son; And you shall call his name Ishmael, Because the LORD has
given heed to your affliction. (12) "He
will be a wild donkey of a man, His hand will be against everyone,
And everyone's hand will be against him;
And he will live to the east of all his brothers."
So we
already had a picture of what we are seeing now in the Middle East.
We are
never given any information to define any furtherance in kingdoms
beyond Alexander.
Since
God never promoted the Roman Empire why do we?
I
suppose the obvious, The Roman Empire ,did play a role in the rule
and law of Israel; and, under the rule of Titus Vespacian, the temple
was destroyed for the second time in 70 AD. This information still
gives me no right to declare Rome to be the empire that will bring on
the antichrist.
History
and the writings etched into stone tell us that the Medes and
Persians were the second kingdom. Here is an oddity that no one will
tell you: the Babylonians,
the Medes, and the Persians all had the Assyrians as their common
ancestry, and
they were descendants of Noah.
Take a
read into Micah's writings where it informs us that one of the names
of this "prince" is the Assyrian. (Note: Not Roman.)
Micah
5:5 KJV “...when the
Assyrian shall come into our land: and when he shall tread in our
palaces, ...”
Consider
that it would be rare if you found someone who agreed with the Word
of God, that this man who destroyed the temple in 70AD is the
Assyrian, nor will they agree that the “prince that is to come”
will be the Assyrian.
Isaiah
31:8 NASB “And the
Assyrian will fall by a sword not of man, And a sword
not of man will devour him. So he will not escape the sword, ...”
In
Revelation 19 we see Jesus coming back to earth on a white horse, and
He has a sword coming out of His mouth.
Revelation
19:11-15 KJV And I saw
heaven opened, and
behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful
and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.
(12) His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head
were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he
himself. (13) And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in
blood: and his name is called The Word of God. (14) And
the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses,
clothed in fine linen, white and clean. (15) And
out of his mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the
nations: and he shall rule
them with a rod of iron: and he treads the winepress of the
fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
While
many are killed, we are only told that He kills
two people and throws them
into the lake of fire; the
antichrist and the false prophet.
“A
sword not of man” is Jesus, and it is the antichrist that fits the
description of the Assyrian.
So,
there you are, stuck without a satisfying answer, while at the same
time you have a somewhat vague answer that points to the vast Muslim
community. We will not know who this man is, and he will not be
released into public view until the Church has made their escape from
this earth.
antecedent
|
The
483 Years in the Jewish and Gregorian Calendar
|
|
Jewish
Calendar
(360 days per year)*
|
Gregorian
Calendar
(365 days a year)
|
|
(7
x 7) + (62 x 7) years = 483 years
|
444
b.c. to a.d. 33 = 476 years†
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
483
x
360
|
years
years
|
|
|
476
x
365
|
years
days
|
|
|
173,880
|
days
|
|
173,740
+
116
+ 24
173,880
|
days
days
in leap years†¡
March 5-March 30
days
|
|
*See
comments on Dan_9:27
for confirmation of this 360-day year.
|
|
† Since
only one year expired between 1 b.c. and a.d. 1, the total is 476,
not 477.
|
|
†¡A
total of 476 years divided by four (a leap year every four years)
gives 119 additional days. But three days must be subtracted from
119 because centennial years are not leap years, though every
400th
year is a leap year.
|
