The Prophecy of the 70 Weeks

Jeremiah had prophesied that the desolations of Jerusalem would be 70 years. (Jeremiah 25:11) Daniel read that part of Jeremiah’s prophecy and determined that the 70 years were by that time completed. Therefore he began supplicating, fasting, praying, and seeking the Lord about the restoration of Jerusalem. (Daniel 9:3) God sent the angel Gabriel to give Daniel insight and understanding in this matter. Through Daniel and Gabriel God gave another prophecy called the prophecy of the 70 weeks. Now it was weeks, not years, but most agree that this meant weeks in the sense that each day of those weeks represents one year. This time-frame was decreed by God to “finish (or restrain) transgression, to make an end (or to seal up) sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up the vision and the prophecy, and to anoint the most holy. (Daniel 9:24) The Jews were permitted to return to Jerusalem around 538 B.C. The temple there was rebuilt, but was not completed until after 520 B.C. Artaxerxes I authorized both Ezra to return to Jerusalem with many goods around 458 B.C. and Nehemiah around 446 B.C. See Ezra 7:11-26 and Nehemiah 2:1-10. The first decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem (Daniel 9:25) was probably in 458 B.C. Gabriel states that from the issuing of that decree until the Messiah there will be 7 weeks and 62 weeks (or 69 weeks [of years]) which would mean 483 years. But since Jesus the Messiah was born about 5 B.C. on our Gregorian calendar this would take us up to the time when Jesus began His public ministry The prophecy continues, “Then after the 62 weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing.” This is pretty much what happened after about three and a half years of his public ministry. “And the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary.” This happened in 70 A.D. Gabriel stated, “And its end is with a flood even to the end there will be war, desolations are determined.” When Israel as a whole rejected their Messiah, their King, the prophetic time clock entered a kind of hiatus or suspension until the Jewish people as a whole would repent and receive their Messiah and King. Although the state of Israel was reestablished in 1948, most of its inhabitants still do not believe in or receive Jesus as their Messiah and King. Has God, therefore rejected them forever, except for the believing remnant? Hardly, for He says, “As I live, declares the Lord GOD, surely with a mighty hand and with wrath poured out, I shall be King over you. I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you from the lands where you are scattered, with a mighty hand and with an outstretched are and with wrath poured out; and I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will enter into judgment with you face to face; as I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will enter into judgment with you, declares the Lord GOD. I will make you pass under the rod and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant; and I will purge from you the rebels and those who transgress against Me; I will bring them out of the land where they sojourn, but they will not enter the land of Israel. Thus you will know that I am the LORD.” (Ezekiel 20:33-38)

What will it take to bring the Jewish people, as a whole, into “the bond of the covenant”; that is the new covenant made possible by their Messiah and ours? Though scattered among the nations of the world they have not found rest. The apostle Paul, himself a believing Jew, states, “For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery so that you do not be wise in your own estimation, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; just as it is written, ‘The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will remove ungodliness from Jacob. This is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins.’” (Romans 11:25-27 and Isaiah 59:20,21) This tells us that when the full number of Gentiles are saved, God will then have a deliverer to remove ungodliness from Jacob. Then they also will be in a saving covenant relationship with God. Whether or not the deliverer will be the “two witnesses”, “the two olive trees”, or “the two lampstands” of Revelation 11 is God’s call. Of the two witnesses (Israel and the church) God intends to create “one new man”. (Ephesians 2:15) Israel needs the church and the church needs Israel. For me one simple illustration of that came after a late supper on a Boeing 747 from New York City to Tel Aviv, Israel. The night was about two hours long, if that. When we landed in Tel Aviv, it was about 5:00 P.M. in Israel. After going through customs, we boarded a bus and were taken to a small seaside town north of Tel Aviv, and were put up in a hotel there. Tired and sleepy we went to the dining room for supper again. When our food arrived, one Jewish man stood up and proceeded to sing the blessing in Hebrew, giving thanks to God for our food. Boy, could that man sing! For me it was a “kairos” moment. When at last, God fully brings forth this “one new man”, the church will get so very much from Israel and vise-versa.

When God sets the “time clock” for the final week of years to ticking, after the full number of Gentiles have come into the covenant, then the prophetic word through Gabriel is this: “And he (the prince who is to come) will make a firm covenant with many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and the grain offering; and on the wing of abominations, there is one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decree, is poured out on the one who makes desolate.” Webster defines the word “abomination” as being anything (a person or a thing) that is hateful and disgusting. Biblical references to this person or thing are these: Daniel 9:27, 11:31, 12:11, Matthew 24:15 and Mark 13:14. We ask, who is “the prince who is to come”? The Roman general Titus destroyed Jerusalem and killed many, many Jews is one possibility. But after another Jewish revolt against Rome in 135 A.D. the Roman emperor sent another army that not only destroyed Jerusalem again, but the emperor also exiled the Jewish survivors to live anywhere except in the land of their fathers. He renamed the land of Israel, calling it Palestine and he also renamed Jerusalem. The name he gave Jerusalem did not stick, but the name he gave the land of the Jews did stick. This one might also be another possibility. But I believe the “prince who is to come” is not any of these, but will be a leader or a prince who comes to power at or near to the end of the church age “interlude”, but when there are a significant number of Jews living in the land of their forefathers. After the Jewish people as a whole rejected their Messiah, for them “war, desolations” were determined. (Daniel 9:26) But during the final seven year period of this prophecy this coming prince makes a “firm covenant with many” for the seven year period of time, but in the middle of this seven year period he breaks his covenant with them and his true colors are revealed that he is indeed an abomination that desolates, and not the true Jewish Messiah as probably many orthodox Jews had hoped. If the almost naked men “gay pride men or women” are permitted to march through the streets of Jerusalem, the Muslims who live there promise they will riot and the whole business will be an abomination. The current nation of Israel has trouble with their supreme court as we do with ours. But the one who is referred to in the book of Daniel and of whom Jesus speaks causes such desolations on earth that “unless those days had been cut short, no flesh would have been saved.” (Matthew 24:22a) Many have assumed that when the number of Gentile believers is complete and God’s grace is then extended to the Jews, that at that time the Lord will remove the Gentile church from the earth, together with the remnant of the Jewish people that are believers in Jesus the Christ. This is referred to as the “rapture” although that word does not occur in the Bible. However I can find no clear teaching in the Scriptures to this effect. In the synoptic gospels, Jesus clearly teaches that His gathering His people unto Himself is after the abomination that desolates. We need to remember that the Lord intends to make of His body, the church, “one new man” (Ephesians 2:15) that is both Gentile and Jewish. At maturity His church will have no divisions as is the situation right now. No more Jew and Gentile, no more denominational divisions, no more racial divisions, and no social or economic divisions, etc.

God really cares about His people, “for he who touches you, touches the apple (pupil) of His eye.” (Zechariah 2:8) He does protect His people from His wrath, even though He scourges every son He receives. (Hebrews 12:6-9) But when the abomination that desolates finds himself frustrated by God’s witnesses (Revelation 11) or the unified church after the tares are removed, (Matthew 13:43) the devil’s agent in the world, the abomination that desolates will lash out against God’s people with unbridled fury, this within the limits of what God will let him do. He has authority “to make war with the saints and to overcome them, and authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him.” (Revelation 13:7) But we are also told, “If anyone is for captivity, to captivity he goes, if anyone kills with the sword, with the sword he must be killed. Here is the perseverance and the faith of the saints.” (Revelation 13:10) To me that sounds like the saints are still on this earth when this takes place, in whatever time or place this persecution occurs. Moreover the saints that are taken to heaven at the time of the end, (Revelation 7:9-17) the angel tells John that “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” (Revelation 7:14b) Also “they will no longer hunger, nor thirst anymore; nor will the sun beat down on them, nor any heat.” (Revelation 7:16) If they came out of the great tribulation, they had to be in it before they could come out of it.

This is my current understanding of the prophesy of the 70 weeks in the ninth chapter of the book of Daniel. To those who understand it differently, God bless you. No, God will not pour out His wrath on His own people, but the devil will to the fullest extent that God permits him to, as the book of Job makes clear. I believe the church age we now live in, anytime the church is truly revived, repentant, forgiving, unified in spirit and full of God’s life in them, such a church is a persecuted, suffering church. “Are ye able, said the Master, to be crucified with Me? Yea, the sturdy dreamers answered, To the death we follow Thee. Lord we are able, our spirits are Thine. Remold them, make us like Thee divine. Thy guiding radiance above us shall be a beacon to God, to love and loyalty.” (Hymn by Marlatt)