Daniel 12:5-7 “Wow”

 Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses: 

⁵And I, Daniel, looked and Behold! – two others standing, one this to the bank of the river and one that to the bank of the river. ⁶And one said to the man clothed [in] linens who [was] from above to the waters of the river, “Until when the end of the wonders?” ⁷And I heard the man clothed [in] the linens, who was from above the waters of the river, and He lifted His right [hand] and His left toward the heavens and He swore by [the] One living [to] the ages that [it will be] to a time, times, and a half, and when it is completed [and the] hand of [the] people of holiness [is] broken up, the all of these [things] will be completed.

As I said in the last blog, this is a crazy passage to study. As I’ve slowed down and really sought to understand it, it is like a bomb going off in my hands. The challenge now has been to try to gather up my frazzled brain and record what I believe the Lord has shown me. In the last blog, I tried to record a number of observations I want to remember. Now, this time, I will attempt to record what to me is the biggest bombshell in my head.

As I sit here typing, I’m afraid it’s too big to even communicate. It is a sweep of the entire Bible, earth history, and God’s great Plan of Redemption. It will be the Lord’s doing if I succeed in writing anything down that is understandable or helpful to anyone else. I will try. No one has to agree with me. I’m just recording what I think I see. If you feel you don’t agree, then you yourself must “search the Scriptures” and “see if these things be so” (Acts 17:11).

Ok. Here’s the deal. God’s great Plan of Redemption is all about Jewish history. It is all about Abraham and his descendants. The Church (us) is only a giant parenthesis in that great Plan. We like to think we’re all very important, that, in the New Testament, we’ve all become equal to (and perhaps even a little better than) the Jewish people. There is a huge swath of Christendom that even thinks we’ve replaced the Jews. We think from here on out, it’s all about us and the Jewish people get to sort of hitch their wagon to our train.

That entire attitude is so wrong. Ever since Daniel’s prophecy of the “Seventy Weeks” (lit. “Sevens”) (9:25-27), earth history has been about a 490 year period of Jewish history. The Messiah was “cut off” at the end of the 69^th week (483 years). That means there is one last “Week” of seven years to fulfill God’s Plan of Redemption for the Jewish people. What is this period from Jesus’ crucifixion to the fulfilment of that last seven years? It is the Church Age in which we are living. It is, in fact, massively important. It is God’s great mercy of allowing us Gentile “dogs under the table” to “eat the children’s crumbs” (Mark 7:28). However, notice that we are the dogs and it is the children’s crumbs.

As important as is the Church Age, yet again, this great mercy is only a parenthesis in time. In it, God is fulfilling His promise to Abraham to not only bless his descendants, but also “the whole world” (Gen. 12:3). In our wonderful Lord’s infinite mercy, this parenthesis has now been going on for 2,000 years – but, may I emphasize one more time, this is only a parenthesis. If at this point, you’re doubting my words, go read for yourself Romans chapter 11. Also, if you’re doubting all of this, take your Bible and pinch the pages from Acts 1 to Revelation 22. What do you notice?

One more thing – even from the book of Daniel, if you read it from beginning to end, please notice that the prophetic timeline repeatedly refers to “your people.” In 9:24, Daniel is told, “Seventy ‘sevens’ are decreed for your people…” In 10:14, the angel informs him, “Now I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the future…” In 12:1, he’s told, “At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people will arise…” Who are Daniel’s “people?” The Jews, of course. And if you doubt that, notice when you’re reading through the entire book that, if there is any specific geographic or national reference to what “people” are in view, it is a people associated with Jerusalem and “the beautiful land.”

So, why am I going on about this? Back to boggling my mind – I’ve never really realized just how true this is – that the whole sweep of earth history is Jewish. The timeline is Jewish. The prophetic timeline is Jewish. Through this entire Church Age, though it has lasted 2,000 years, it all has been awaiting the Seventieth “Seven,” what we call the “Seventieth Week of Daniel.” Even Jesus, just before the Cross, was prophesying about that “Seventieth Week” – “So when you see standing in the holy place the abomination that causes desolation, spoken of through the prophet Daniel…” (Matt. 24:15ff). 

I doubt I’m boggling your mind, but it is just crazy for me to step back and really see that the Bible from cover to cover (and earth history, for that matter) has been about God’s great Plan centered on the Jewish people. From the Garden of Eden, the “Seed of the Woman” who would “crush the head of the serpent” was destined to be Jewish. From Abraham on, it was all about his descendants, the Jewish people. Earth’s timeline is inevitably regulated according the God’s great Plan for the Jewish people. For us to have this idea that somehow we’re very important and “it’s all about us,” is actually to completely misunderstand what is going on. We are a parenthesis.

That, in itself, boggles my mind. However, what is really, really making my head spin is to realize that that “Seventieth Week” is Jewish. It is “the day of Jacob’s trouble” (Jer. 30:7). Go and read the entirety of Jeremiah chapter 30. What does that chapter say is God’s purpose especially for that final 3 ½ year period of “Jacob’s trouble” – the last half of what we call “the Great Tribulation?” See what the Lord says to the Jewish people, “Your wound is incurable, your injury is beyond healing…I have struck you as an enemy would and punished you as would the cruel, because your guilt is so great and your sins so many” (vv. 12-14).

And then what does He accomplish? “I will restore the fortunes of Jacob’s tents and have compassion on his dwellings; the city will be rebuilt on her ruins…From them will come songs of thanksgiving…So you will be My people, and I will be your God…The fierce anger of the Lord will not turn back until He fully accomplishes the purposes of His heart. In days to come, you will understand this” (vv. 18-24).

The Lord’s purpose for the Great Tribulation is for Him to finally break the pride of the Jewish people’s heart. You and I grossly underestimate the enormity of the pride in our hearts and just how much pain it takes to finally break us. I believe it’s true for most of us in our waning years – it’s almost shocking to think back how much we made the Lord crush us just to finally be able to say, “We are His people, and He is my God.” It is shocking to me to realize how much the Lord has had to crush me. However, what’s more shocking is the enormity of His love. He loved me so much, He Himself endured the parental pain of crushing me, knowing it was the only way to truly change me. In fact, He even crushed His own Son so He could save me! Reminds me of the song, “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.”

Sadly, that same love is what it takes for Him to finally save the Jewish people. They have to be finally crushed. Reading through the Bible, I’ve always been horrified by verses like Isaiah 14:1,2: “A day of the Lord is coming when…I will gather all nations to Jerusalem to fight against it; the city will be captured, the houses ransacked, and the women raped. Half of the city will go into exile…” Again sadly, just like us, that’s what it takes to finally save them. We are no better than them. We have the same stony hearts, but what I’m boggling at is the realization the Great Tribulation, the “Day of Jacob’s Trouble,” is specifically and very deliberately Jewish. It is God’s great love for them.

I don’t think I’ve ever really comprehended the enormity of all of this. As I said above, no one has to agree with me and I am 100% ready to acknowledge that prophecy is just cryptic enough we’d better all hold our views humbly and with open hands. However, where all of this leads me is to say that, if I’m right, then the Rapture makes perfect sense. The Seventieth Week is the Day of Jacob’s Trouble – not ours. At some point, the parenthesis has to end and that ancient Jewish timeline has to resume. Consistent with that is the observation: from Revelation 4:1 on, that book reads like the Old Testament, not the New. From then on, if any specific people group is in view, it is the Jews. The “us” becomes people already in heaven: “And they sang a new song: You were slain and with Your blood You purchased us for God from every tribe and language and nation…You have made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God…” (5:9-10).

Daniel was a Jew. The book of Daniel is a Jewish book. You and I have MUCH to learn from it, but let us humbly acknowledge we are the dogs and what we get to eat are the crumbs that have fallen from the children’s table. We are the wild olive branch unnaturally grafted in. The main focus of earth history and God’s great Plan of Redemption is Jewish. If, like that Syro-Phoenician mother, we would humbly admit who we are and who they are, the whole world would hold the Jewish people in the very highest of respect. Yes, they need to be crushed, but then so do we. We, the Church, are generally crushed individually, but the Jews are a nation and ultimately must be crushed as a nation. Right now, as Paul said, God is somehow using us to cause them envy, but in the end, His Plan is about them.

Just as in His promise to Abraham (Gen. 12:2,3; 17:6-8), the focus of that promise was his descendants “and they shall be My people and I will be their God.”) Thankfully, through Jesus, we got included: “...and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

I hope some of this makes sense to you. My head is still spinning. I feel like, for the first time, I really do see the sweep of human history and the when’s and the why’s. Wow. “All praise to Him who reigns above in majesty supreme…” As Daniel says, “The Most High rules!”