Discovering God’s timetable (Dan. 9:20–27)

 

We don’t know at what time of day Daniel began to pray, but he was still praying at the time of the evening burnt offering, which was about 3 o’clock in the afternoon. He was living in Babylon but was still measuring time by Jewish religious practices! His body was in Babylon, but his mind and heart were in Jerusalem. Had the temple been standing and the priests still officiating, this would have been “the ninth hour” when the lamb was offered as a burnt offering (Ex. 29:38–41; Acts 3:1; 10:30). It was one of the three occasions during the day when Daniel set aside time to offer special prayer to the Lord (Dan. 6:10; Ps. 55:17). This was also the time when Ezra the scribe prayed for God to forgive the sins of the Jewish remnant that had returned to the land (Ezra 9:5). There is a sense in which prayer is seen by God as a spiritual sacrifice to Him (Ps. 141:1–2). 

While Daniel was praying, the angel Gabriel came swiftly to him, interrupted his prayer, touched him, and spoke to him. Daniel had met Gabriel before after seeing the vision of the ram and the goat, and Gabriel had explained its meaning to him (Dan. 8:15ff). Now the angel had come to explain to Daniel what God had planned for Jerusalem, the temple, and the Jewish people. The phrase “fly swiftly” (v. 21) has given rise to the idea that angels have wings and fly from place to place, but arrows, bullets, and missiles fly swiftly and don’t have wings. Angels are spirits and therefore don’t have bodies (Ps. 104:4; Heb. 1:7). When they appear to humans, they take on temporary human form. The angelic creatures seen by Isaiah (Isa. 6:2) and Ezekiel (Ezek. 1:6, 8, 11) did have wings, but they were special creatures performing a special ministries. The NIV translates the phrase “in swift flight” and makes no mention of wings. 

The seventy “weeks” (Dan. 9:24). The word “weeks” means “sevens,” so Gabriel was speaking about seventy periods of 7 years, or 490 years. Keep in mind that these years relate specifically to Daniel’s people, the Jews, and their holy city, Jerusalem. In his prayer, Daniel’s great concern was that his people be forgiven their sins against the Lord, the city be rebuilt, and the temple be restored (v. 16); and these are the matters that Gabriel will discuss. To apply this important prophecy to any other people or place is to rob it of its intended meaning. 

Gabriel explained that during those 490 years, the Lord would accomplish six specific purposes for the Jewish people. The first three have to do with sin and the last three with righteousness. The Lord would “finish the transgression,” that is, the transgression of the Jewish people, and “make an end of” Israel’s national sins. This was one of the main burdens of Daniel’s prayer. Israel was a scattered suffering nation because she was a sinful nation. How would the Lord accomplish this? By making “reconciliation for iniquity,” that is, by offering a sacrifice that would atone for their sin. Here we come to the cross of Jesus Christ, Israel’s Messiah. 

When Jesus died on the cross, He died for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2; John 1:29), and therefore we can proclaim the good news of the Gospel to sinners everywhere. But He also died for the church (Eph. 5:25) and for the people of Israel. “For the transgression of my people was he stricken” (Isa. 53:8). Jesus died for sinners in every tribe and nation (Rev. 5:9; 7:9), but in a very special way, He died for His own people, the Jewish nation (John 11:44–52). 

The last three divine purposes focus on righteousness and the future kingdom of Messiah. When Jesus returns, He will establish His righteous kingdom (Jer. 23:5–6; 31:31–34) and rule in righteousness (Isa. 4:2–6). In that day, the Old Testament prophecies of Israel’s glorious kingdom will be fulfilled, and there will be no need for visions or prophets. “To anoint the most holy” refers to the sanctifying of the future temple that is described in Ezekiel 40–48. 

These six purposes declare the answers to Daniel’s prayer! Ultimately, Israel’s sins will be forgiven (Zech. 12:10–13:1), the city of Jerusalem will be rebuilt, and the temple and its ministry will be restored, all because of the atoning death of Jesus Christ on the cross. All of these wonderful accomplishments will be fulfilled during the 490 years that Gabriel goes on to explain. He divides the seven sevens—490 years—into three significant periods: 49 years, 434 years and 7 years.

Period #1–49 years (Dan. 9:25). During this period, the Jews will rebuild the city of Jerusalem in troubled times. The key issue here is the date of the decree. This is not the decree of Cyrus in 538 permitting the Jews to return to their land and rebuild their temple (Ezra 1; Isa. 44:28), because the emphasis of this decree is on the city of Jerusalem. While some students opt for the decree of Artaxerxes in 457, sending Ezra to Jerusalem (Ezra 7:12–26), that decree also emphasized the temple and its ministry. The decree of Daniel 9:25 is probably that of Artaxerxes in 445 authorizing Nehemiah to go to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls and restore the gates (Neh. 2:5–8). 

Period #2–483 years (Dan. 9:26). Gabriel affirmed that 483 years are involved from the giving of the decree to the coming of “the Anointed One, the ruler” (7 × 7 = 49; 7 × 62 = 434; total = 483). When you count 483 solar years from the year 445, you end up with A.D. 29/30, which brings us to the time of Christ’s ministry on earth. But this Anointed One, the Christ, will not be permitted to rule; for His people cried out, “We have no king but Caesar” (John 19:15). “We will not have this man to reign over us” (Luke 19:14). The Messiah will be “cut off, but not for himself” (“and will have nothing,” NIV). This speaks of His rejection by the Jewish nation (John 1:11; Luke 13:33–35) and His crucifixion as a criminal, turned over to the Roman authorities by His own people and one of His own disciples. But He died for the sins of the world, including the sins of the Jewish nation.

 We know that Jesus arose from the dead and returned to heaven. He sent the Holy Spirit to empower His people to bear witness to the whole world (Acts 1:8), beginning in Jerusalem (Luke 24:46–53). But the same nation that allowed John the Baptist to be slain and asked for Jesus to be crucified went on to persecute the church and themselves kill Stephen (Acts 7). In A.D. 70, the prophecy in Daniel 9:26 was fulfilled when the Roman armies destroyed Jerusalem and the temple, and the Jewish nation was scattered. The Romans are “the people of the prince that shall come,” and that prince is the future Antichrist that Daniel described as “the little horn” and the blasphemous king (7:8, 24–25; 8:23–27). This takes us to the third period. 

Period #3–7 years (Dan. 9:27). The pronoun “he” refers to “the prince that shall come” (v. 26), this is, the Antichrist. We are now in the final seven years of the prophetic calendar that Gabriel gave Daniel, the period that we know as “the Tribulation” or “the day of the Lord.” While the world has always known wars and desolations (Matt. 24:3–24), the end of the age will introduce a time of terrible suffering that will climax with the return of Jesus Christ (Rev. 6–19; Matt. 24:15–35). 

The event that triggers this last seven-year period is the signing of a covenant between the Antichrist and the Jewish nation. At this time, the Antichrist is a key political figure in Europe—one of the ten toes of the image in Daniel 2, and the “little horn” who emerges from the ten horns in 7:8, 24ff—and he has the authority and ability to end the “Middle East problem.” He covenants to protect the Jews from their enemies, probably so they can build their temple and restore their sacrifices. The spiritually blind Jewish leaders, ignorant of their own Scriptures, will gladly enter into the covenant. “I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me,” Jesus told the Jewish leaders of His day; “if another comes in his own name, him you will receive” (John 5:43, NKJV). 

After three and a half years, the Antichrist will break the covenant, seize the temple, and put his own image there, and will force the world to worship him (2 Thes. 2; Rev. 13). This is the “abomination of desolation” (Dan. 11:31; 12:11, NKJV) that Jesus spoke about that marks the midpoint of the Tribulation period (Matt. 24:15; Mark 13:14). The “man of sin” and “son of perdition” (2 Thes. 2:3) who up till now has deceived the world by playing a shrewd political game will now reveal himself as a tool of Satan and a cruel world dictator. Christ will defeat him when He returns to establish His kingdom (Rev. 19:11–21). 

The strange parenthesis. Whether Daniel understood all that he heard is not revealed to us, but Gabriel’s message assured him that the nation of Israel would be restored to their land, the city of Jerusalem and the temple would be rebuilt, and God would make provision for the cleansing of the nation. But Gabriel didn’t tell Daniel what would happen between the sixty-ninth and the seventieth “weeks.” Between Daniel 9:26–27 there is a strange parenthesis. Why? 

Because this prophecy has to do with the Jews, the Jewish temple, and the city of Jerusalem (v. 24). But the period of time between the sixty-ninth and seventieth weeks has to do with the church, the body of Christ, which was a mystery God had hidden in Old Testament times and didn’t reveal until the time of Christ and the apostles (Eph. 3:1–13).7 Daniel wasn’t told that the rejection and death of the Messiah would bring about a new thing, a spiritual body that would include Jews and Gentiles and in which all natural differences would be unimportant (Eph. 2:11–22; Gal. 3:22–29). One reason the Jewish legalists opposed Paul was because he put Jews and Gentiles on the same level in the church, and the traditionalists wanted to maintain the “superiority” of the Jews as revealed in the law and the kingdom prophecies.

 Some of the prophecy in Daniel 9:24–27 has already been fulfilled, and the rest will be fulfilled in the end times. We are today living in the age of the church, when Israel has been partially blinded and temporarily set aside (Rom. 9–11). Like Paul, we must have a heart concern for the Jewish people, pray for them, and seek to share the Gospel with them. Gentile believers have a debt to the people of Israel (Rom. 15:24–27) because they gave us the knowledge of the true and living God, the inspired written Scriptures, and the Savior, Jesus Christ.

(Source: Wiersbe Bible Commentary 2 Vol Set by Warren W. Wiersbe)