The first two verses are interesting. They show that when facts are already revealed by inspired writing, it is from that inspired writing the man of God will get the information revealed. Daniel, the vessel in an extraordinary way of inspired writing, did not despise, or neglect, that which was already given. So we find Daniel carefully studying Jeremiah's prophecy and gleaning the information that seventy years was the time determined upon by God for the chastisement of His people in giving them to be captives in the hands of the Babylonians, and for the restoration to the land of her stolen sabbaths. As one sabbath stands in relation to a week of seven days, so seventy years stand in relation to four hundred and ninety years.
Daniel knew that this period was drawing to a close. Daniel 10 begins with the third year of Cyrus; the book of Ezra begins with the first year, and is taken up with the return of a small party of the Jews into their own land.
Daniel, knowing the time of governmental exile was running out, gave himself to prayer and confession. Why Daniel did not participate in the movement of return to Palestine we cannot say. God chose Ezra for that purpose; Daniel's work apparently was in Babylon.
Daniel's confession is touching in the extreme. In it he owns the sin of his people as his own sin, even sins committed long before he was born. Since a youth he had been captive, though put at times in high office and standing in great favor. He had seen the Babylonian Empire crumble in a night. Now an old man, at the very end of his career, he shines never brighter than when on his knees in this chapter. He says so touchingly, “We do not present our supplications before Thee for our righteousnesses, but for Thy great mercies” (vs. 18), and pleads, “O Lord, according to all Thy righteousness...let Thine anger and Thy fury be turned away” (vs. 16).
As the result of his prayer Daniel becomes the recipient of a most remarkable communication. No sooner does Daniel begin his supplication than Gabriel is sent quickly to give him skill and understanding.
If seventy years were determined upon as the limit of God's governmental dealing with Israel in exile, Daniel is now informed as to how long it will take according to the divine way of reckoning to the end of God's dealing with His people resulting in the personal reign of Christ in the Millennium.
And yet so much is packed in these verses, so much said, so much unsaid, that they need very careful examination to glean from them all that is contained therein. The most stupendous events are described in a line. We read: “Seventy weeks [= periods of seven] are determined upon thy [Daniel's] people, and upon thy holy city [Jerusalem], 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” (vs. 24).
This clearly points to the introduction of the Millennium, when Christ shall sit as a Priest and a King upon His own throne, and reign as Messiah over His ancient people, and as Son of Man over the whole earth.
Seventy weeks or seventy sevens equals four hundred and ninety. We are familiar in Scripture symbols with the idea that a thing or a time stands for a year in fulfillment.
The seven well-favored kine, and the seven rank and full ears of corn, stood for seven years in Pharaoh's dream. When Ezekiel was told to lie on his side three hundred and ninety days for the iniquity of Israel, and forty days for the iniquity of Judah, he was plainly told by God, “ I have appointed thee each day for a year” (Ezek. 4:6).
If this is the interpretation in the present case the test is too plain to admit of any mistake. If the interpretation is correct it will stand the test; if wrong it will break down.
A starting date and a finishing date are both given. The start is the commandment to restore and rebuild Jerusalem (about B.C. 445), the finish is the cutting off of the Messiah, of Christ. Sixty-nine weeks or periods are said to be between these two events. Now sixty-nine weeks or periods of sevens equal four hundred and eighty three, and if the year for a day interpretation stands good they would stand for the same number of years.
The starting point is evidently given in Nehemiah 2, when Artaxerxes arranged for Nehemiah to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the wall. Others have written at length and in great detail as to these dates, notably Sir Robert Anderson in his well-known work, “The Coming Prince,” but if we take the date at the top of our Bibles in Nehemiah, B.C. 445, and add to it the thirty-six and a half years of our Lord's life, we get four hundred and eighty-one and a half years, which is near enough to the four hundred and eighty-three we require.
It looks as if the seven weeks, which together with the sixty-two make up the sixty-nine weeks, are reckoned as the period allowed for the troublous times in which the street and the wall were to be built.
It distinctly tells us that Messiah should be cut off, but “not for Himself”; that is, “should have nothing” (JND). How blind must the Jews be in reading the Old Testament Scripture not to see plainly that their Messiah was to be cut off; and that event to take place at the end of sixty-nine sevens after the decree of Artaxerxes. If they had applied a year for each of the four hundred and eighty-three periods, they would have been happily guided in their search.
To the end of the time there remains but the seventieth week or period to be fulfilled; in other words, a period made up of seven parts. We believe it to be seven years.
But nearly two thousand years have rolled by since Christ was crucified. What becomes then of the seventieth week? This is only explainable by observing that in Old Testament prophecy the present Church period is reckoned as a dies non; that is, as a period it is not reckoned at all in relation to Old Testament prophecy.
Old Testament prophecy has to do with the Jew, and, if it affects Gentile lands and times as well, it is as in relation to the Jew and God's ways in the world in government.
So we find Daniel 9:26-27, treat events as they affect the Jew. Verse 26 tells us of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. This took place A.D. 70.
The agents of this destruction are described as “the people of the prince that shall come”; that is, the Roman power.
It is not here stated that “THE PRINCE of the people” encompasses the destruction, but “THE PEOPLE of the prince that shall come”; that is, of the great Emperor of the revived Roman Empire.
In other words, the prince is yet to come, but the people out of whom the prince is to spring was to be the instrument in the destruction of Jerusalem. How exact is Scripture! Surely verbal inspiration is amply proved.
Then, completely ignoring the Christian era as being out of range of this Scripture's purview, the history moves on from A.D. 70—the date of Jerusalem's destruction under Titus—to what is still future, “the end thereof.”
Evidently “the prince that shall come” is looked upon as present in verse 27. We are told that he shall confirm the covenant with the many for one week or period composed of seven parts; that is, we believe, for seven years.
In the middle of the week, that is, at the end of three and a half years, he will treat his covenant as “ a scrap of paper,” break his plighted word, persecute the Jew, bring to an abrupt termination the worship of the Temple, and set up the overspreading abomination of desolation; that is, we believe, his own image set up for worship. The Antichrist will give breath to the image and make it speak, and cause as many as will not worship the image to be killed.
The late Wm. Kelly gives a literal translation of the words, “for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate,” as follows: “for [on account of] the wing of abomination, a desolator.”
A wing in scriptural symbol speaks of protection, and that protection in this case is of idolatry, and that of the most flagrant kind.
Hosea prophesies that “the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim” (Hos. 3:4); a remarkable passage showing what is literally true, that the Jews would be without a ruler of their own, without their true worship, and without idolatry.
This last is all the more remarkable as idolatry was Israel's great and constant snare.
But here in the last days under the leadership of the false prophet they will lapse into idolatry, and because of this idolatry God will bring upon them the desolator, probably the King of the North.
This will continue even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate (desolator); that is, God will use the desolator as His scourge upon His idolatrous people until the end of the seventieth week, when the desolator himself shall meet with his doom at the hand of God.
So that until the Roman Empire is revived, and the head of it makes a treaty with the Jewish nation for seven years, we have no dates to go upon as to the future. We have often heard it said that between the Lord's coming for His heavenly people and appearing with them to reign over His earthly people there will be a period of not less than three and a half years and not more than seven years. But this is not so. The second coming of Christ for His heavenly saints fixes no date in reference to a closing one.
It begins a period, the period of “the things which shall be hereafter,” a time when God's judgments shall sweep the earth. Until the Jew is back in his own land, his Temple service in full swing, the Roman Empire revived, and its head making this seven years treaty, we have no event fixed in reference to a closing date. When that seven years begins, the enlightened will be able to count to the end when Christ shall deliver His earthly people out of their great sorrows, but not till then.