One of my all-time favorite Bible teachers is Chuck Missler. He appeals to me because he’s very cerebral. By that I mean he digs into Biblical prophesy, mathematics and science and relates them all. One of my favorite lessons concerns the 70 Weeks of Daniel as are outlined in Daniel 9. The material I’m covering for this topic is from Chuck’s book “Cosmic Codes.”
Daniel 9 is simply astonishing in the fact that it details “history in advance,” as Chuck states. Moreover, what is so exciting is that Daniel 9 speaks of the age we are currently living in. In fact, Jesus Himself highlights a passage in Daniel 9 as the key to end-time prophecy.
The last four verses of Daniel 9 are the structure:
- 9:24 The scope of the entire prophesy;
- 9:25 The 69 weeks (of years)
- 9:26 An interval between the 69th and the 70th week;
- 9:27 The 70th week
What the reader must understand, is that these 70 “weeks” are not literal, 7-day weeks nor are they all contiguous. Verse 26 includes a specific interval that takes place between the 69th and the 70th week.
VERSE 24: THE SCOPE
“Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place.”
What needs to be understood here, is that seventy “shabu’im” (sevens, or “weeks”) is speaking of weeks of years. Hebrew traditions include a week of days, a week of weeks (“shavout”), a week of months, and a week of years. In this passage, seventy sevens of years are determined on Daniel’s people and the city of Jerusalem.
There are six major items which have yet to be completed:
- to finish the transgressions;
- to make an end of sins;
- to make reconciliation for iniquity;
- to bring in everlasting righteousness;
- to seal up (close the authority of) the vision;
- to anoint the Holy of Holies.
At this point, it must also be understood that in order to properly calculate these weeks, the 360-day year calendar must be used. Chuck explains:
All ancient calendars were based on a 360-day year–those of the Assyrians, Chaldeans, Egyptians, Hebrews, Persians, Greeks, Phoenicians, Chinese, Mayans, Hindus, Carthaginians, Etruscans, Teutons, etc. All of their calendars were originally based on a 360-day year; typically, twelve 30-day months.
The calendar in ancient Chaldea was based on a 360-day year, and it is from this Babylonians tradition that we have 360 degrees in a circle, 60 minutes to an hour, 60 seconds in each minute, etc.
In 701 B.C., all calendars seem to have been reorganized. Numa Pompilius, the second King of Rome, reorganized the original calendar of 360 days per year by adding five days per year. King Hezekiah, Numa’s Jewish contemporary, reorganized the Jewish calendar by adding a month in each Jewish leap year (on a cycle of seven every 19 years).
In any case, the Biblical calendar, from Genesis to Revelation, uses a 360-day year.
VERSE 25: THE 69 WEEKS
“So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress.”
When Daniel received this prophesy, Jerusalem was in ruins. Ultimately, it was to be rebuilt. So to understand this properly, it must be viewed in terms of a mathematical statement:
(7 + 62) times 7 times 360 = 173,880 days
Therefore, between the commandment to rebuild Jerusalem and the until the presentation of the Messiah (Jesus), there would be 173,880 day interval. We know from historical record, that the trigger for this prophecy–the authority given to rebuild Jerusalem–was the decree of Artaxerxes Longimanus, given on March 14, 445 B.C. This is also found in Nehemiah 2:5-8, 17, and 18.
The event that completes this first 69 weeks is the presentation of the Messiah. If you read the gospels closely, you will see that the people attempted to make Jesus the King occurs on several occasions. However, he repeatedly declines and states that His “hour has not come” until one occasion.
500 years earlier, Zechariah gives a prophesy in Zechariah 9:9:
“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! South in triumph O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, humble, and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
On this one day, Jesus allowed and arranged Himself to be proclaimed as King. The people were singing from Psalm 118. The Pharisees, of course, didn’t like it one bit and said told Jesus to tell the people to be quiet as they felt it was blasphemy.
But Jesus answered and said, “I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out!”
This event occurred on the 10th of Nisan (by the Hebrew calendar), or April 6, 32 A.D. Here’s the magical part of this: when you convert the Hebrew text into the terms of our calendar, you will find that there are exactly 173,880 days between the decree of Artaxerxes and the presentation of the Messiah.
Next installment will review the destruction of Jerusalem and why, and the interval prior to the 70th week. May He increase!
