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Alexander, Christ, daniel, God, israel, Jeremiah, Jesus, Lord, Nebuchadnezzar, prophecy, Prophecy of Seventy Weeks, seventy, Temple
First off please understand this is not date setting, or my theories on the math of “well if you calculate from this date in antiquity…”, no this is exposing certain scriptures and looking at them. Are we in the last days, according to some, yes. You see when Jesus became flesh the last days began. One must always take into account the already- not yet dynamic. So in many noticeable ways the last days and the Kingdom are now upon us and yet there is the dynamic of the passage of linear time. Unlike the time travelers we can’t just flit through time and space even if Einstein’s theories and those of the men who have built upon him say that it can be done. Happily we don’t have the technology for it either. Add to this the fact that prophecy can repeat itself in pattern application time and again to certain points in history and still apply to the time of the “beasts”. Having said all this lets take another look at Daniel.
The weeks of prophecy:
Dan 9:24 Seventy weeks are decreed upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy.
To make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness… finish transgression and make an end of sins…. All of these have a peculiar familiarity don’t they? For instance the Hebrew word for reconciliation is Kaphar… one of its definitions is to expiate and another is to cover. That’s the Cross Work of Jesus Christ. This is Atonement for …. Iniquity and the Hebrew word here, Amon, has to do with perversion and that bent toward evil. Humanity can get really fascinated with the dark secretive world of occult. It can applaud the daring do of the really clever thief or even the murderer. But all this is an affront to a Holy God so we have this interior flaw. Iniquity because it is so ingrained in us from the Fall and the Curse, needs to worked out from within by the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, but it starts with a need to “cover over” the mess within until there is no more need to be “covered” for the Sanctification is complete. Bringing … Everlasting (Olam) or the vanishing point wherein time goes “out of memory” or is “incalculable”, in other words… Forever. Righteousness or tsedek meaning right, equity, prosperity, justice etc; which is the Crux of Salvation. This is the Plan of long ago which God the Son fulfills in human flesh for all time without end. To finish transgression and make an end of sins… this is further on then Salvation and yet Salvation does exactly this. Yet within the Church transgression still happens and so does sin and iniquity. Why? Because the work is both done and complete and still in progress, the point of the work is the cleansing of the Bride and the Land and God’s People Israel. When the Seventh Trump was sounded we heard a statement: “Rev 11:15 And the seventh angel sounded; and there followed great voices in heaven, and they said, The kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ: and he shall reign forever and ever.” Actually it reads that the Kingdom of the world is become of our Lord and His Christ… this is a literal change of possession. What was done in a Spiritual sense from the Cross is completed in the Physical sense. We will see it with the Lady who give birth and the “baby” is caught up. Now after all the dust of the birth and the catching away of the Baby and the Dragon who she faced off with during her great Labor and Delivery not only losing the baby but being defeated in combat with Archangel Michael and his “warrior group” and the Dragon trying to kill the woman, which fails spectacularly, as the dust settles and a furious Dragon finds himself deposed as Prince of the Power of the Air…. There is another statement. It reads: “Rev 12:10 And I heard a great voice in heaven, saying, Now is come the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, who accuseth them before our God day and night.
Rev 12:11 And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony; and they loved not their life even unto death.” Now while this is the beginning a massive campaign of persecution against the Believer’s which even makes the Holocaust, or anything more recent to now, pale in comparison, this one line “Now is come the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ” completely matches the function of the prophesy of Daniel: “To finish transgression and make an end of sins” because at this point the reality hits. You see the Kingdom of the world was owned by someone… and changed owners. But now the “Power” and the “Kingdom” of the Godhead is established. You see? Therefore in the first place of the seventy weeks, we find the historical data of the second Temple in the time of Zerubabel being built with Joshua as the new high priest. After that we have this countdown that matches the statue of Nebuchadnezzar in that it is a countdown of kingdoms until Christ. We also know it was a “week /year” ratio. Seventy years of time or Ten Sabbath years of fallow time was determined to let the land rest. That was the prophecy: “Jer 25:11 And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
Jer 25:12 And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith Jehovah, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans; and I will make it desolate forever.” The Seventy Years unto the time when the Temple was complete did finally happen.
Dan 9:25 Know therefore and discern, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the anointed one, the prince, shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: it shall be built again, with street and moat, even in troublous times.
The Anointed one in this instance is Cyrus whose edict sent Israelis home. But we have this curious split of seven years and sixty two years.
Dan 9:26 And after the threescore and two weeks shall the anointed one be cut off, and shall have nothing: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and even unto the end shall be war; desolations are determined.
Dan 9:27 And he shall make a firm covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease; and upon the wing of abominations shall come one that maketh desolate; and even unto the full end, and that determined, shall wrath be poured out upon the desolate.
Now what you need to understand is that there is a whole chapter dedicated to explaining these weeks. It has to do Alexander the Great and the rise of the Seleucid Ptolemy wars over Israel and the final person of Antiochus Epiphanies and the reaction of those Jews who felt the desolation of the pig’s blood and the idol that was stood up in the Temple and the Maccabean revolt that got the Temple back… even Channukah. But there is a wider circle here… the second Temple was rebuilt and we have Jesus who is “cut off” in the middle of things. We are finally left with three and a half years.
Some interpretations take this as a cycle of Sabbaths or 490 years. Some say that from the time of the edict of Cyrus to the rise of one Alexander Yannai, the last Hasmonean high priest who in his brutal rule slaughtered some fifty thousand Pharisees, is the time of the last Anointed One or legal high priest. Others add that the finishing up of the iniquity is the rejection of Christ, to which Jesus does allude that there was to be a “filling up” of the sins of the people, Mat 23:32 “Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.”, though I find this to be quoted out of its context of a real punishing tirade against the leaders of the Temple of His day. Yet there is a sense that this rejection factors into this prophecy.
Assuming that nothing in Scripture is “up for grabs” then I have some grave misgivings about a lot of the interpretations of these texts. You see Scripture MUST be the Source of its own interpretation as wisdom is given by the Holy Spirit. In light of this I will confess to looking online in Wikipedia to find out just what was being said. Jewish thought regards the seventy years as seventy Sabbath cycles. Thus departing from the Seventy year/week idea we look at the possibility at of actual time lapse. First off one must understand that the Old and New Testament fit together as hand in glove or as a right and left glove (matched set). They must be regarded TOGETHER. So to understand the seventy week prophecy which in all fairness if you truly look at it, seventy years is NOT how long the Babylonian Diaspora was, one must look at the starting point and understand the Torah or Mosaic Law. This is the law of Sabbath (Shabbat) Lev 25:2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto Jehovah.
Lev 25:3 Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruits thereof;
Lev 25:4 but in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath unto Jehovah: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard.
Lev 25:5 That which groweth of itself of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, and the grapes of thy undressed vine thou shalt not gather: it shall be a year of solemn rest for the land.
The “bumper crop” of the previous year would last and the land would “go to seed” for one year. I won’t pretend to understand how the complexities of a farming system and cattle management if the land is to truly “lay fallow”, but the point is the observance of a marked out year. Now then, the math goes something like this: Seventy times seven equaling four hundred and ninety years, will be marked out and the land will enjoy its Shabbats.
However this is the prophecy as it is recorded in 2 Chronicles. 2Ch 36:21 to fulfil the word of Jehovah by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its sabbaths: for as long as it lay desolate it kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years. The words here are precise. Seventy literal years of fallow time for the land, not seventy cycles of years. But Daniel records….Dan 9:24 Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.
Something has to give… More in the next section.
Looking At The Last Book Of The Bible 