The prophecy of the "seventy weeks" is a most remarkable one, the proper understanding of which will enable the child of God to have a better grasp of His purposes concerning the earth and His earthly people Israel. While the present time in which God is gathering out of the earth a people for heaven is not mentioned in the prophecy, yet there is a break into which it fits.
It will be well to notice the state of Daniel's soul and his deep exercises prior to the receiving of this wonderful prophecy. God chose the vessels to whom He would communicate His mind, and He also prepared them beforehand to be suitable instruments for the reception and communication of His truth. A careless or indifferent person was incapable of knowing the mind of God. He carefully prepared those He would use. Neither is a careless or worldly-minded Christian now in a state to understand the things that are revealed to us by God, for they are revealed unto us "by His Spirit." If a child of God is going on in a way that the Spirit of God is grieved with his walk, then the Spirit is not free to show him the "things that are freely given to us of God." May we then, as we approach this prophecy, be before God to judge what is not of Him and seek from Him a "wise and understanding heart."
Daniel had been born in a day when the "two tribes" were in a sad state. The kings and the people had alike departed from the Lord, and He in His righteous government gave them into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who destroyed the temple and carried many captives to his land. Daniel was one of these captives when he was a very young man. But in spite of all the failure and the terrible darkness of the day, Daniel sought to honor God, and God honored him. The principle is ever true, "them that honor Me I will honor." Daniel was a man who had a true and honest purpose to please God, and he did not plead any expediency for doing otherwise. Times had changed but he knew that God had not.
Although many direct prophecies were given to Daniel, he did not fail to read the Scriptures for himself. He used the same means that are open to us-he read the Word of God. From the book of Jeremiah (ch. 29:10) he understood that the desolations of Jerusalem, which were then present, would last only seventy years from their beginning. He believed God and therefore he understood that the time was at hand for his people to return to Jerusalem. We have the same opportunity—"through faith we understand." It was not by outward observation that Daniel perceived the time was nearing for their return. There may have been nothing on the horizon then to indicate it, but Daniel believed what God said. So we today should understand that "the coming of the Lord draweth nigh." We should be able to understand that by believing what God has said in His Word and not by observations, although we do see the storm clouds gathering which will break after the Lord has come for us. Our faith should be in God and His Word rather than in the darkening skies. So in this second verse of the ninth chapter we see Daniel not as the prophet but as the devout student of prophecy given through others.
The immediate result of his reading and understanding the time that had been reached was to put Daniel on his face before God in the most earnest prayer and supplication. The fasting, sackcloth, and ashes bespoke the inward state of his soul—that moral state which truly feels the condition of God's people and identifies itself fully with it in any day of ruin.
Although Daniel was not much more than a boy when he was carried away captive, and although he had sought to live for God in that strange land, yet he confesses the sins of the people as his own. He does not say "they have sinned," but "we have sinned." He looked round about and saw the deplorable state they were in and saw it in God's righteous dealings with them. As one of "Wisdom's children" he justified God in all His dealings with them and confessed their sin. He, feeling his own part in the failure and confessing it, was in a position to intercede with God on behalf of the people. He pleaded with God for them on the ground of His mercies. Such a spirit of pleading for the people of God is one that is according to His heart and mind. We see the same spirit in Moses, Samuel, David, and other true servants of God. While God may have to chastise His children according to His government, yet His heart is toward them, and we are never in the current of God's thoughts if it is otherwise with us. Nor can we ever properly separate ourselves from the failure of the Church of God on earth. That which was blest beyond anything else on earth (the Church) has surely failed most grievously. Everything is now in ruins and each one of us who are saved is a part of that failure. If we had a deeper sense of the failure and our part in it, there would be more intercession for the saints of God and also a deeper entering into His thoughts about them.
Daniel was a man given to prayer. It was not something that he did in days of special stress and trial. In the sixth chapter when storms were gathering around his head, "He went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime." v. 10.
The man of God is sure to be a man of prayer.
Sometimes Daniel did not receive his answer at once; in the tenth chapter he was kept waiting "three full weeks" for the answer. But in the chapter we are considering the answer is immediate:
"And while I was speaking, and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplications before the LORD my God for the holy mountain of my God; yea, while I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation. And he informed me, and talked with me, and said, 0 Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee skill and understanding." Chap. 9:20-22.
So we may sometimes receive answers to our prayers at once or we may be kept waiting for a long time. A delay is not a reason for concluding that our prayer was not heard. God in His wisdom may withhold an answer to deepen our exercise of soul, or it may be for any one of a number of reasons; but we can rest assured that when God withholds or waits to answer our requests it is done in His perfect wisdom of what is best and is withheld according to His true love which wants to do the very best for His own.
Daniel's exercises of soul were concerning his people Israel and their getting back into their own land from Babylon at that time, but God was about to give him a deeper revelation than that which related to their soon-coming return to Jerusalem. God was going to unfold the whole future of Israel to Daniel right down to the time when Israel would be blessed under their Messiah in a day that is yet future. What a signal favor to be thus let into God's secrets and plans! And has not God opened up the future to us? Surely He has! And while all the prophetic unfoldings of His Word do not relate to us (the Church) they should interest us as being part of what God is going to do, and we should desire to know what He has been pleased to reveal to us. It is surely a mark of distinct favor to be told all in advance.
Now we should bear in mind when considering the "seventy weeks" that Daniel's people are in question. Much confusion has resulted from failure to remember this fact. To try to bring either Gentiles or Christians into the picture would only spoil what is clear and understandable. This is distinctly stated in the 24th verse where the prophesy proper begins:
"Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city." Nothing is vague or uncertain here; the special objects of this prophecy to Daniel are Daniel's people (Israel) and Daniel's holy city (Jerusalem). Christians are not called Daniel's people, nor do Christians have a holy city on earth. Nevertheless, we as Christians should be interested in God's earthly people and in the revelation He has been pleased to make to us. This prophecy is for "our learning" and will most certainly be profitable as we enter into God's thoughts.