In this chapter we see Daniel interceding in prayer for his nation. We
must notice that even though he himself is a very righteous man, he
includes himself as a sinful person in Israel. This is an important fact
when praying on behalf of a nation or even the church. The one who prays
should come before the Lord in humility by associating himself with the
sin of those he is praying for.
This chapter probably takes place around 532 B.C..
In verse 2 we note that Daniel was reading from the book of Jeremiah,
probably Jer. 25:12. He understands that the captivity of Judah would last
for 70 years and the 70 years about to expire. It is interesting to note
Daniel’s response to this prophecy. He didn’t just wait for it to
happen. He prayed intensively for the prophecy to be fulfilled. In light
of the day in which we live today and the prophecies yet to be fulfilled,
Christians would do well to pray for their fulfillment as Daniel did, yet
this doesn’t happen as often as it should. In some church circles people
are encouraged to not even think of end time prophecy in the name of the
present Kingdom of Gad. By that I mean they are encouraged to think about
the work of the Lord today and not be concerned about the future. This was
not the way Daniel thought.
It is also important to understand just why God sent Judah into
captivity. 2 Chron. 36:20 – 21 speaks of the land’s Sabbath rest as
mandated by the law. Every 7 years Israel was to stop growing crops on
their land and give it a rest but they were not obeying this law. For 490
years Israel ignored this Sabbath of the land. Therefore some see 2 Chron.
36:20-21 as saying that the 70 years equals 70 Sabbaths that were missed
during those 490 years.
In verse 4 Daniel begins his prayer with recognizing that God is an
awesome God and that He keeps His covenants with those who love Him. As in
any time when we come to the Lord in intercessory prayers, we should never
jump in and give our requests right away like spoiled children. We should
take the time and give praise and thanks to Him for who He is. Besides
this acknowledgment, Daniel’s point concerning God’s covenant could be
interpreted as a reminder from him to God, that He had promised something
and now Daniel is requesting the promise to be fulfilled.
As I said earlier, Daniel in his prayer uses the pronoun
"we". He says, "we have sinned, we are wicked, we have
disobeyed, we have not listened to your servants, and so on. Daniel being
righteous associates himself with the general public of Israel who are
sinful and disobedient.
In verses 7 through 11 we see Daniel telling the Lord that Judah and
Jerusalem are in great shame due their sin and the resulting judgment of
God. All Jews that have been scattered because of this judgment are seen
in the eyes of the world as a shameful and lost people.
The shame that Daniel speaks of is not only a refection on Israel but
also could be a reflection on the God of Israel by the rest of the world.
Even so today in the church, when the church goes astray it becomes
shameful and pathetic which in turn reflects on our Lord.
In verses 11 through 14 Daniel admits that Israel has failed to obey
the Law of Moses and thus has reaped the consequences that are spoken of
in the Law when the Law is not obeyed. Great destruction came to Israel
because of their disobedience. It is important to understand that God is
not afraid to destroy that which He made. He was not afraid to destroy His
people’s city and temple, which in fact were His, and if He wasn’t
afraid to do it back then, He isn’t afraid today. It’s my thinking
that God has in fact destroyed many Christian movements over the centuries
because they’ve failed to live as they should.
Daniel begins to plead with God in verses 15 through 17. He says that
God’s people have become a scorn to the rest of the world. He pleads
that God would rescue Israel as He did when He brought them out of Egypt.
In verses 17 through 20 the intensity of Daniel’s prayer increases.
He is requesting, and at this point fairly boldly that God intervene, but
not because Israel deserves it, but because God is merciful and that
Jerusalem is His city, the Temple is His Temple, and that the people are
His people. Daniel is basically saying, "do it for yourself, not just
for us". In the long run this is what happened, and in the long run
of the church God, He will do the same. He will intervene and His people
will triumph, but not before His judgment is complete.
First of all before we look at the rest of this chapter we need to
understand the idea of a week. We in western culture understand a week to
be a week of seven days. That is to say, one week equals seven days. Yet
to the Jew in Daniel’s day a week could mean more than just seven day.
You could have a week of months, meaning seven months makes one week. Or,
you could have a week of years, meaning, seven years equals one week.
Simply put, a week mean any seven periods of time. This is vital to
understand or else you will not understand the rest of this chapter.
Something else to consider before we get into the following verses is
that a year in this time frame, whether in Jewish or Gentile history
consisted of twelve thirty day months. One year then had three hundred and
sixty days. This began to change in centuries following, but in Daniel’s
day he would have understood one year to have three hundred and sixty
days.
In verse 20 we that Daniel say that he was confessing "my
sin". Prior to this he was confessing "our sins", that is
the sins of Judah. Now we know Daniel to be a righteous man, so why would
he confess his sins, and not just associate himself with Judah’s sin.
Well he understood what Paul understood and wrote about in the first two
chapters of Romans. Both men understood that no one is really righteous in
the eyes of God. Everyone has fallen short, and Daniel was no exception,
and he knew it.
Anyway, Daniel says that while he was confessing his sin and the sin of
Judah Gabriel the angel came and spoke with him. In verses 22 and 23
Gabriel told Daniel that he is highly esteemed, and that as soon as he
began to pray Gabriel was commanded to go to Daniel with God’s answer to
his petitions.
In verse 24 Gabriel told Daniel that "seventy sevens" were
decreed for both Israel and the city of Jerusalem The word
"sevens" can also be translated as "weeks" and that is
how we should think of this numbers. The weeks spoken of here should be
understood as "seventy weeks of years". This means that the
weeks spoken of consist of seven years, not seven day. That equals 490
years.
Among end time scholars there is no real controversy over the idea that
these seventy weeks means 70 weeks of years, or 490 years (70 weeks x 7
years). The controversy is concerning the 70th week. I will
explain this in the next two verses from the Futurist view point.
These 70 weeks are needed to finish, or restrain transgression, put and
end to sin, atone for wickedness, to bring everlasting righteousness, seal
up the vision, and to prophecy and to anoint the most holy. Pretty well
everyone believes the "most holy" is Jesus.
Most everyone says that whatever the 70 weeks of years represents, it
will take that long to accomplish all of these things listed. The
controversy comes when trying to determine just "when all these
things are, or will be accomplished". There’s basically two camps.
One camp is that all these things were finished, or accomplished on the
cross. The Historical view believes this to be the case. Futurists believe
all these things won’t be accomplished until the return of Jesus to
earth, which I tend to believe. In some respects some of these things
might have been accomplished on the cross in one sense of the word. Sins
and transgressions were dealt with in the eyes of God so that when looking
on the believer He sees what Jesus did for them instead of their sin. In
that sense those two things have been accomplished, But in another sense,
there is still sin, wickedness and transgressions. They have not been
completely gotten rid of within the lives of both the believer and the
unbelievers. Thus Futurists believe that the 70 weeks end with the return
of Christ to earth.
In verse 25 there’s something else Gabriel wants Daniel to know.
Gabriel now speaks of "7 weeks, plus 62 two weeks". That’s 69
weeks altogether. He says that when these 69 weeks are complete then the
Anointed One will come. There’s no controversy over who the Anointed One
is. It is Jesus. Also Gabriel actually tells Daniel where to start
counting these 62 weeks. You start counting when Israel has been granted
permission to rebuild Jerusalem.
There is some misunderstanding on this point. Some have counted these
69 weeks from the time Cyrus let Israel free to rebuild the Temple, but
Gabriel is not speaking about rebuilding the Temple, but rebuilding the
city of Jerusalem. Israel was given permission to rebuild the Temple
before they were given permission to rebuild Jerusalem. You must begin the
count from this point.
Then once these 69 weeks have been finished, the Anointed One will
come, then "He will be cut off". I’m sure you can understand
this to be the death of Jesus. He was cut off from among His own people.
Now without getting into detail, Futurists say the following. Gabriel
speaks of 69 weeks, of which we understand to be 69 weeks in which every
week has 7 years. This totals 483 years. (7x69) When you consider
calendars back then had 360 days, the total number of days in 483 years is
173,880 days. So what Futurists have done was began there count at April
14, 445 B.C when Israel was given permission to rebuild the city of
Jerusalem. When adding the days from that point it comes close, but not
exactly to the day Jesus entered Jerusalem for the last time which was
April 6, 32 B.C. But after calculating other things such as leap years
Futurists calculate the exact day when Jesus entered the city of
Jerusalem. It was this day that Israel for a few brief moments recognized
Jesus as being their King – Apr. 6, 32 A.D.. This is not beyond logic.
This probably is exact math, and why not. If you believe God has a time
table then this formula works. Besides, if Gabriel did not want Daniel or
us to try to figure this out, he would not have given us this formula, and
especially he would not have given us the date to start from God wanted us
to calculate this figure out.
The April 14, 445 B.C. date and the April 6, 32 A D. date is not
accepted by everyone, but those who derive other dates are not too far off
of these dates. Most importantly they all refer to the same events, that
is, the time of rebuilding Jerusalem to the time Jesus enters Jerusalem.
Concerning the separation of the 69 weeks into 7 and 62 many believe
that the 7 weeks represent the time it took to rebuild Jerusalem.
Then Gabriel says the people of the ruler will come and destroy the
city". The people of the ruler are the Roman soldiers that totally
devastated and destroyed the whole city of Jerusalem just as Jesus Himself
prophesied. This took place in 70 A.D.
At this point the separation in thinking comes between the Historic
view and the Futurist view. The rest of the chapter says that wars will
come, the end will come like a flood until the desolation has been
completed. The Historic view believe all this and what is mentioned in the
next verse all took place around 70 A.D. when Rome sacked Jerusalem
Futurists believe that it has not yet taken place, and that there is a gap
between the 69th and 70th week which they call the
"church age", where God’s dealing is with the church and not
with Israel exclusively. Along with this explanation they say this vision
is directed towards the Jews, not the Gentiles, thus the gap is not
important to the vision. The Gentiles already had their visions in prior
chapters of Daniel.
In verse 27 it says, "he will confirm a covenant with many".
Futurists believe the "he" refers to the anti-christ. It is also
in reference to the ruler just spoken about in the verse before, and he
would be the emperor of the Roman Empire. Futurists see the anti-christ as
a re-emerged emperor of the re-emerged Roman Empire.
The covenant that this anti-christ confirms is for 7 weeks, or 7 years,
but in the middle of the seventh week according to Gabriel, this man will
put an end to sacrifices. The idea goes like this. The anti-christ
confirms a covenant with Israel, helps them rebuild their temple and the
institution of sacrifices, but in the middle of the last week, or the last
7 year period, that’s the 70th week, this anti-christ will
change his mind and stop all of these sacrifices and turn against Israel.
At this point he will do something in the temple to bring an abomination
to it, much like Antiochus Epithemy did when he offered a pig as a
sacrifice and put idols in the holy place. This as Gabriel says will
eventually lead to the downfall of the anti-christ.
When understanding the book of Revelation from a Futurists viewpoint
one can see how Revelation and Daniel, especially chapter 9 fit together
perfectly.
Once again we should note Jesus’ words in Matt. 24:15 where He speaks
of the "abomination of desolation" that will take place and that
He referred us back to the book of Daniel to help us understand what He
meant. Obviously in Jesus’ mind this event had not yet happened, even
though it did under Antiochus Epithemy. Thus the double meaning to the
term "abomination that causes desolation".