24Seventy sevens are determined
upon your people and upon your holy city to end the rebellion and to finish
sins and to atone for perversion and to bring in righteousness of ages and to
seal vision and prophecy and to anoint [the] Holy of Holies. 25And
know and have insight – from issuance of a word to restore and to rebuild
Jerusalem until Messiah [the] Prince [shall be] seven sevens and sixty-two
sevens, and again a plaza and a moat will be built even in times of trouble. 26And
after the sevens of sixty and two, Messiah will be cut off and nothing to Him
and a people of a coming prince will spoil the city and the sanctuary and its
end in the flood and until end war being determined desolations. 27And
he will confirm a covenant with the many [for] one seven and [in] the half of
the seven, he will stop sacrifice and offering and upon a wing of abominations
one making desolate, even until [the] end, and [the] one causing to be decreed
will pour out upon [the] desolator.
One thing I’ve tried to do is to see this passage from Daniel’s perspective. We have the luxury to read it from this side of the Cross and after nearly 2,600 years have passed. Much of it might seem crystal clear to us, but probably not so much to Daniel. I wonder if, as Daniel pondered this prophecy that Messiah would be “cut off” and “have nothing,” if he connected it with Isaiah 53? I’ll bet he did. Interesting though that we have at least three prophecies in the Bible which predicted the Messiah’s suffering – Gen. 3:15 that the serpent would “strike His heel,” the “suffering servant” of Isa. 52:13-53:12, and here in v.26, that He will be “cut off,” and yet, by Jesus’ time, all the Jews seemed to have expected was a glorious conquering king!
I don’t doubt it was very perplexing to reconcile those “suffering” prophecies with prophecies like Isaiah 9:7, “Of the greatness of His government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.” We can acknowledge it would be difficult to see how their glorious King could also be “cut off” and “have nothing.” However, once again, that is what it says. If they would have minded this one simple rule: “Let it say what it says,” they could have been quick to realize that was exactly what the Crucifixion was about. We also see in v.24, as mentioned before, that clearly Messiah’s purpose in coming was first of all spiritual, that it was first of all a matter of dealing with the sin issue, and had they let that “say what it says,” they’d not have been so determined to see Him as a champion to free them from Rome.
What all of this tells us is that their ignorance was not only spiritually fatal, it was actually inexcusable – but then, has the Church been any different? As I lamented above, this passage has almost as many interpretations as people writing about it, yet I would suggest most of the time that is because they don’t just “let it say what it says.” There is no doubt in my mind that Daniel would have. He may not have understood it, but he would have let it “say what it says.” He would have been one of those of whom Peter spoke: “Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing…” (I Pet. 1:10). The Jews should have followed the prophets’ example, but then so should you and I!
I would start by suggesting we probably don’t know for sure exactly when the “decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem” was issued, or why there were “seven sevens and sixty-two sevens.” It would seem reasonable that the restoring and rebuilding of Jerusalem somehow took forty-nine years (seven sevens), but then I don’t think there is anything in the Bible to mark that endpoint. Surely at the time it was some very important and clear date, so that pious Jews could have recognized it as fulfilled prophecy, but, as far as I know, that information is lost to us.
We then make the assumption that there was no gap between the “seven sevens” and the “sixty sevens,” so that we only have to deal with the total of sixty-nine sevens equal to 490 years. As far as chronology, that appears to have been the case, based on our (not entirely reliable) understanding of the ancient timeline. I guess I’m suggesting, had we lived at those times, things could have been crystal clear as we observed them unfold, but the exact details are lost to us now.
Just think, though, what this would have meant to Daniel. Ever since the Garden of Eden, believers had lived hoping for the coming of the Messiah. I wonder sometimes if Adam and Eve would have thought perhaps He would be one of their sons? Yet here sits Daniel probably some three to four thousand years later and He hasn’t come yet. It was revealed He would come from Abraham’s family, then Isaac’s, Jacob’s, Judah’s, and finally David’s, but even David lived something like 500 years before Daniel. As Daniel receives this prophecy, for the first time ever, the actual timeline of Messiah’s coming is revealed. Here we sit as New Testament believers and “no man knows the day or the hour.” The Church has had to live just like the early believers, expecting the coming of the Lord but given no idea of the timeline. As of this prophecy, believing Jews could actually do the math, look ahead, and know when to expect Him!
On the other hand, he would have known it’s going to be the 490 years! If we were told today that Jesus would return for us in 490 years, wouldn’t that seem like a terribly long time? I wonder if it isn’t a blessing for us not to know, so we can get up every morning and say, “Maybe today…!” For whatever reason, the Lord saw fit to actually date the time of Messiah’s coming for the Jewish people. What a marvel that must have been for Daniel.
Then notice, as far as the rebuilding of Jerusalem, Gabriel said it would be “in times of trouble.” That has always perplexed me. It surprises me to see how much opposition Nehemiah had to deal with, trying to rebuild the wall. In my simple mind, I would have thought that was such a noble endeavor, it would have gone smoothly for him.
I suspect my problem is underestimating the enormity of the sin problem in our world. Everything we do, even the noblest of undertakings, has to be done facing two realities, the sin in our world, and the sin in us. As far as the sin of our world, the fact is that Satan in the “prince of the power of the air,” that we “wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against…spiritual wickedness in high places.” We should not be surprised if we find the demonic forces of this world opposing our every effort to pursue goodness. On the other hand, there is us. The Lord promises to make all things work together for good, but what is that good? “That we should be conformed to the image of Christ” (Rom. 8:29). We should never forget that, even as we would seek to do good, the Lord is working on us.
My sin problem is infinitely greater than I can possibly imagine and the Lord would use the troubles of this world as His chisel to sculpt away those sin issues and slowly, patiently, progressively form in me the image of His Son. Interesting that Daniel came into this exchange focused on an end to the seventy years of Captivity and finds out there are still 70x7 years left! Perhaps the Jewish people had thought the Messiah would return at the end of that first seventy years? What a great way for the Messiah to come – to conquer this Babylonian kingdom which had so wickedly defiled and destroyed the Temple and the city. Yet, no, that is not to be the case. There are still 490 years ahead. Only the coming of the Messiah can put “an end to sin.” In the meantime, it is a powerful enemy which the Lord allows in order to accomplish His great eternal purposes, and, for us, that often takes far longer than our feeble minds could have anticipated. Obviously, “we have need of patience!”
There is so much to consider in these few simple verses, I will stop here and ponder more later.
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