Dan. 9 :24
“Seventy ‘sevens’ are decreed for your
people and your holy city to:
(1.)
finish transgression,
(2.)
to put an end to sin,
(3.)
to atone for wickedness,
(4.)
to bring in everlasting righteousness,
(5.)
to seal up vision and prophecy and,
(6.)
to anoint the most holy place.”
The time cycles of Israel are
proclaimed in Leviticus 25, where we find the “seven” consisting of six normal
years and a seventh, which is the Sabbatical year. These seven years make up the “seven”, which
is called a “week of years” or the “year week”. The cycle is then extended to make up seven
such weeks of years, or “seven sevens”, comprising forty nine years. The fiftieth year is proclaimed as a year of
celebration of restoration and named the year of Jubilee - the Yovel. The cycle then repeats itself.
Seventy such sevens - that is
490 years - are forecast for the full range of expectation, created by Yahweh
through His prophets, to come to fruition - in the Yom Yahweh. Commencing with the proclamation by the
Persian king Cyrus, that Jerusalem and the Temple be rebuilt (Isa.45:1-5 and
Ezra 1:1-5) - as we shall see.
Dan.9 :25
“Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore
and rebuild Jerusalem until an
Annointed Prince - a Messiah -
comes, there will be “seven sevens” and “sixty two
sevens”. It will be
rebuilt with streets and a
trench.”
Thus, a total of 69 “sevens”
up to the arrival of the Anointed Prince - 483 years.
It would take 49 years for
Jerusalem and the Temple to be rebuilt, after the return from Babylon, in the
time of Joshua, Zerubabel, Ezra and Nehemiah. And it was done amid severe and continuous
attack and provocation. They built with
the truffle in one hand and sword in the other. Their main enemies were Sanballat, Tobiah, the
Arabs, the Ammonites and the men of Ashdod, who all plotted together to fight
against Jerusalem. But Israel prayed to
God... (Neh. 4:7-9 and Neh. 15-18).
Do we not have the same
situation today? Israel has built the
land and the city now for 60 years since its proclamation - with truffle in the
one hand and sword in the other. Yahweh
had sent the highly esteemed Nehemiah - the humble king, riding on his donkey -
to build the wall in the face of extreme provocation. Will Yahweh not now send the Branch – the esteemed
Son of David - to build the Temple? To
do so under extreme provocation from all sides - the Sanballats, Tobiahs and
Arabs of this age, namlely Hezbollah,
Hamas, Syria, Iran and... Saint Peter?
Israel still prays to God.
Dan.9 :26. AFTER the sixty two sevens (a total of sixty nine - therefore inside
week 70) the Anointed Prince (the Messiah) WILL BE CUT
OFF
AND WILL HAVE NOTHING...
Who is he, this Anointed
Prince? A person of great stature would
have had to appear in Israel some 480 years after the Babylonian captivity -
and be revealed seven years before the fulfilment of the great expectation in
Israel. He would be cut off before that great
culmination - and disappear from, and take no further part in the climax of
Israel. Apart from 2 Jesus, history reveals no one of such
description or stature.
This 2 Jesus is the Prophet Messiah, who denies that he is the
Conquering Messiah (the Conquering Messiah only arrives at the completion
of week 70). 2 Jesus is also the Suffering Messiah who was cut off - the Lamb of
God. His ministry introduced week
70. It began with his Mikvah (baptism)
by John the Baptist. This mikvah
had to be part of the normal national mikvah at the time of Yom Kippur and
Sukkoth, at John’s call to repentance. He was crucified (“cut off”) some 3 ½ years
later - at Pesach. When the “delay”
is revoked, we find that 42 months, 1260 days will remain of week 70. Time must have stopped for Israel, more or
less at the time of the “cutting off” of this Anointed Prince - and has
remained stagnant ever since. Mankind
has lived in a time vacuum for some 2000 years, in the middle of Yahweh’s
proclaimed 70th week. Always
a mere 3 ½ years from fulfilment, should the “delay” be revoked and real time
resume for Israel.
Dan.9 :26 ...The people of a prince who
will come, will destroy the city and
the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until
the end and desolations are
decreed.
Dan.9 :27 He
(this future prince) will confirm a
covenant with many for one
‘seven’, but in the middle of that
seven he will put an end to sacrifice
and offering. And one who causes desolations will place
abominations
on
a wing (of the temple) until the end
that is decreed is poured out on
him.”
Who is this “ruler” or
“prince” and who are these people that he represents, who will subject the
people of Israel, the city and the sanctuary in the very end game of Israel’s
expectation, before everything is fully and finally restored? By the very nature of the breakdown of the
people, city and sanctuary, orchestrated by this person, one can also sense the
breakdown in the time sequence of this 70th week. This wholesale
destruction, so close to final fulfilment, must inevitably point to an
interruption of the proclaimed sequence of events. A breakdown which, of necessity, would entail
“delay” of the final fulfilment of this 70th week.
The different interpretations
of this 70th week of Daniel has resulted in various, often opposing,
Theological constructions of numerous groupings that have existed through the ensuing centuries. These opposing constructions have often
culminated in the most violent persecutions and wars. The most notable of these were the whole range
of Crusades from the tenth century onwards, of which the Popes of the Catholic
Church said: “Deus Vult - God wills it”. History reveals the endless persecutions of the Pogroms and Inquisition, which culminated
in the horrors of the Shoah - the Holocaust.
And, within the Church, the Hundred Years War and persecution of the
French Huguenots. There has been a
Bartholomew Night. And there has been a Kristal
Nacht... as the Church struggled with its identity.
These mega events have had a
marked impact on world history. And they
all have their origins in... The Bible.
Surely, something must be wrong!
We can identify at least three
major groupings. They have all produced
numerous grandchildren who have all - through the centuries - tried to explain
what appears to be the inexplicable: if the “delay” is not discounted.
1. The Synagogue and Judaism
They are the custodians of the
Bible story. They are the recipients of
Torah and the body of
prophetic promise. They are the people of the Covenants. Yet, having failed to recognise
their Suffering Messiah (the Anointed
Prince, cut off after week 69) - largely due to the
misrepresentation of him by
much of the New Testament and the Church - they cannot
possibly understand the 70
weeks and where they stand in relation to it. They have to, of
necessity, find themselves in
a pre-69th week position, not
knowing where it is headed.
2. The Anti-Chiliastic Church
This vast grouping is made up
of the Roman Catholic Church and her
rejected offspring, the
Church of the Reformation with
its Lutheran and Calvinistic branches. These
various sections
make up the largest Christian community
in the world and, despite having fought each other
tooth and nail these past five
centuries, there is, in fact, very little difference between them.
They all rest on the same three Creeds, namely
the Apostolic, Nicean and Athenasian Creeds.
These three creeds, in essence,
state that Daniel’s 70 weeks have been fully accomplished... IN THE
ANTI-CHILIASTIC CHURCH.
Catholic and Reformed
commentary on this 70th week reads as follows:
a. The anointed prince of week 69,
who was cut off after the 69th week, is the high priest Onias III, who was killed by assassination
in the year 171 BC.
b.
The “ruler”, who would destroy Jerusalem and desecrate the sanctuary,
stop the daily oblation in the middle of week 70 and present the “abomination
of desolation” is Antiochus Epiphanus
with his rampage of 163 BC.
c.
The death and resurrection of Jesus represents the culmination of week 70,
at which time the “Restored Kingdom of Israel” came about. This “Kingdom” resides fully in the Church and
God has taken His covenant from Israel and placed it on the Church, which is
now “Spiritual Israel”. This Church has
believed through the centuries that God has poured out His irredeemable wrath
on Israel for being “Christ killers” and “God killers”. It sees no future for the people of Israel,
the State of Israel, Jerusalem as God given capital of that state... nor, of
course, the Temple. There cannot be a
further fulfilment of week 70 for Israel, because that would necessitate a
complete change of “faith”, with the belief
that the circumcision Covenant had been “fulfilled” in the Church 2000 years
ago.
This Anti-Chiliastic Church
has deemed the 69 weeks to last some 300 years and the
singular last week a massive
200 years. And it has raised the curse
of Anti-Semitism, all as a
result of its
misrepresentation of Daniel’s 70th week. How did they arrive at their
conclusions? That, as part of the major question of this
study, will be addressed shortly.
A major question which the
Anti-Chiliastic Church faces, concerns its understanding of
the “Anti-Christ”. Our study will show that this illusive figure
is limited to appear and
exist within the 70 weeks. How this church, in its post 70th
week position, can expect a
“future” Anti-Christ is beyond
understanding.
3. The Chiliastic Church
This major, vociferous
grouping finds itself in the Charismatic movement with its many
branches. Those who favour Believers Baptism to the
Infant Baptism Covenant of the
Anti-Chiliasts. They are the friends of Israel and believe in
the future Kingdom of Israel, yet
do not grasp the need for the integrity
of Brit Milah - the Circumcision Covenant - for that
Kingdom to come about.
This group finds themselves,
time-wise, mostly at the interface between weeks 69 and 70,
where Jesus was crucified and
where time must have become delayed. Week
seventy, with its
great tribulation and hoped
for “rapture” is in the future - pending the exposure of the
Anti-Christ, who is found in
the First Seal of Revelation. The first
of Billy Graham’s book
“The Four Horsemen of the
Apocalypse”…all in the future.
This study, however, shows
that the world has already witnessed the first five Seals in
history, as predicted by 2 Jesus in his Prophetic Sermon. It awaits the Sixth Seal – the
preceding signs of Yom Yahweh.
That first white horse actually began
riding a long
time ago.
Three groups emerge, all
seeking to serve the God of the Bible with sincerity, finding themselves in
three different, incompatible timeframes. The Synagogue finds itself in an
incomprehensible pre-69th week position. The Anti-Chiliastic Church is in a post-70th
week position and the Chiliastic Church is in a post-69th/pre-70th
position.
These timeframes all have
different characteristics. And so they
talk to each other from within their own timeframes, yet always failing to
understand each other. They are separated by their differing Theological
constructs because they are unwittingly separated by time, which is the
cause of their differing understanding of the Bible. Daniel did say there would be one who would
“...try to change the set times and the laws”.
Who then could this person,
this “ruler” of a future nation be? One
who would appear after the “cutting off” of
the anointed Prince - apparently in the middle of week 70? And if he appears in mid week 70, how could he
“confirm a covenant with many for one seven”, if only 3 ½ years remain before
Yom Yahweh? Let us look at Daniel’s
other vision which reveals something similar:
a vision of a ram and a goat:
Dan. 8 sees the king of Persia
(the ram) defeated by the king of Greece (Alexander the Great - the goat). Four kingdoms follow and then a powerful king - a master of intrigue - will arise.
Dan.8 :9 Out of one of them came another horn, which
started small but grew in
power to the south and to the
east and toward the Beautiful land.
:10 It grew until it reached the host of the heavens, and it threw
some of the
starry host down to the earth
and trampled on them.
:11 It set itself up to be as great as the Prince of the host; it
took away the
daily sacrifice from him, and
the place of his sanctuary was brought low.
:12 Because of rebellion, the host (of the saints) and the daily sacrifice were
given
over to it. It prospered in everything
it did, and truth was thrown
to the ground.
:13 “...How long...?”
:14 “...2,300 evenings and mornings...”(1150 days)
Is this not the “rebellion”
caused by 1 Paul’s “man of lawlessness”, by whom “truth was thrown to
the ground” - the one who must be revealed for Yom Yahweh to come? One who would start small and grow... throughout
the time of “delay”?
He will:
1. Strike
out to the Beautiful land
2. Present
himself equal to the Prince of the Host - the Conquering Messiah, the Prince of
Princes
3. Take away the daily sacrifice from the Messiah
4.
Desecrate the sanctuary built by
Messiah toward the end of “delay” – the
sanctuary to
which the Messiah will return
(Mal. 3:1)
5. Cause deceit to prosper
6. Inspire rebellion that causes desolation
7. Consider himself superior,
8. Destroy many
9. Be destroyed supernaturally - not by human power (Dan. 8:25)
It is a vision of the “end
time”, concerning the “distant future”. After
2300 mornings and evenings - 1150 days - the Messiah’s sanctuary will be
reconsecrated. This agrees with our
study of the Temple.
This “ruler” seems to be the
same one as the one of mid week 70. It cannot speak of Antiochus Epiphaphanus of
163 BC, for the following reasons:
1. Antiochus was part of the four kingdoms that came from Alexander
the Great, which
preceded the advent of
this ruler.
2. His demise did not herald the advent of the “Prince of Princes.”
3. His demise did not come supernaturally but by the (inspired) human
hand of the
Maccabean revolt.
4. 2 Jesus, speaking almost
200 years later, placed these events in the future.
5. The Lamb, in revealing the sixth shofar of the seventh seal, in 96
CE, places it further in
the future - beyond the
destruction by Titus of Rome in 70 CE.
6. Conversely: the Romans did destroy the city and sanctuary in the
middle of week seventy
- inside the time vacuum
of the “delay”. Who then would their
future leader be in the
continued “delay?” One who would see his demise at the end of the
70 weeks?
All Daniel’s end time visions
focus ultimately on that last 3 ½ years (42 months, 1260, 1150, 1290 or 1335 - Dan.12:11 - days) period - the latter half
of week 70. When we come to the last two
chapters we find a similar end result though in somewhat convoluted form. It concerns a succession of kings, who
originate in Persia and transcend the Greek and Roman Empires. This king then eventually manifests
himself in what appears to be the same
latter half of week 70 of Israel’s timetable. There are numerous similarities between this
vision and the others:
Dan.11:30
.He will return and show favour
to those who forsake the holy
covenant.
:31 His
armed forces will rise up to desecrate the temple fortress and
will abolish the daily sacrifice. Then they will set up the
abomination that causes desolation.
:32 With flattery he will corrupt those who have
violated the covenant,
but the people who know their God will
firmly resist him.
:33 Those who are wise will instruct many,
though for a time they will
fall by the sword or be burned or
captured or plundered.
:35 ...until
the time of the end, for it will still come at the
appointed time.
Is this “a time” of persecution not what 2 Jesus prophesied about in what we have
discerned as the “delay” in the middle of week 70? History bears witness of the suffering - and
survival - of the Jewish people. Yet...
:45 “...he
will come to his end, and no one will help him”
Now we find a wonderful link with Revelation, at the time of the
revoking of the “delay”:
Dan.12:1
“At that time (Yom Yahweh) Michael, the great
prince who protects
your people, will arise. There will be a time of great distress such as
has not happened from the beginning of
nations until then.”
Rev.12 :6 “...where
she might be taken care of for 1260
days.
:7 And there was war in heaven, Michael and
his angels fought against
the dragon...
:8 ...and they (the dragon and his angels) lost their place in heaven”
Continuing in Daniel, we arrive at the same conclusions;
Dan.12:11
“From the time that the daily
sacrifice is abolished and the
abomination that causes desolation is set
up, there will be 1290 days.
:12 Blessed is the one who waits for and
reaches the 1335 days.”
The events of Dan. 11 - the continuous conflict
between the kings of the North and South - preceding the appearance of
Archangel Michael at the revoking of the “delay”, have to occur within the
extended 70th week. Does the
“North” and the “South” not signify Rome and Mecca - Crusade and Jihad? This conflict continues even to the present
day in the form of Fundamentalist Islamic terrorism, with the War against
terror being the response of the perceived “Christian” world?
The common denominator in these visions of Daniel is
the appearance of a ‘strong man’ who will dominate Jerusalem and the sanctuary
in that extended 70th week, reaching his climax in its second half
and his demise at its end. This is borne
out by the seals of Revelation, which sees his appearance in the first seal - a
rider on a white horse. A False Messiah...
before the revoking of the “delay”.
Is this not exactly what 1 Paul was referring to when he stated his huge pre-condition for
the coming of Yom Yahweh... before he lost his innocence to another - 2 Paul?
Let us revisit 2 Thessalonians
and make some comparisons:
2 Thess. 2:3,4
“Don’t let anyone deceive you in
any way, for that day (the
Day of the Lord - Yom Yahweh) will not come until;
(1.) the rebellion occurs and
(2.) the man of Torahlessness is revealed, the man
(3.) doomed to destruction, who
(4.) opposes and exalts himself over everything
that is called God
(5.) sets himself up in God’s temple
(6.) proclaiming himself to be God
These are all derived from the visions of Daniel:
1. The
rebellion occurs:
Dan. 8 :12 Because
of rebellion, the host of the saints and the daily sacrifice
was given over to him.
11 :32 With
flattery he will corrupt those who violated the covenant -
those who rebelled
2. The man of Torahlessness / lawlessness
Dan.7 :25
He will... try to change the set times
and the laws. The
saints (of Israel) will be handed over to him for a time, times and
half a time
(3 ½ years… and he will corrupt those who
violated the
covenant - Torah - 11:32)
(The Holy City will be
trampled on by the gentiles for 42 months -
Rev. 11:2)
3. The man
doomed to destruction
Dan. 8 :25 ...Yet
he will be destroyed, but not by human power
11 :45 ...Yet
he will come to his end, and no one will help him.
4. Opposes and
exalts himself over everything that is called God
Dan.11:36 ...He
will exalt and magnify himself above every god and
will say unheard-of things against the God
of gods.
5. Sets himself
up in God’s temple
Dan.8 :11 “It (he) set himself up to be as the Prince
of the host, took away the
daily sacrifice from him, and the
place of his sanctuary was brought low.
6. Proclaiming himself
to be God
Dan.8 :25 He
will cause deceit to prosper, and he will consider himself to be
superior.
1 Paul saw this process already in the making. And he knew that there was “one” who was
hiding it. “One” who had to be removed
before the “lawless one” could be revealed - to be destroyed by, who has to
be, 3
Jesus, the Conquering Messiah on his white horse... in the Yom Yahweh.
2 Thess.2:7
For the secret power of
Torahlessness is already at work; but the
one who holds it (the
secret power) back - hiding
it - will continue
to do so till he is taken out of
the way. And then the “lawless one”
will be revealed...” (And
then - Yom Yahweh)
All of this has to take place
in that extended middle part of week 70, culminating in its latter half. Who is “he”, the “one” who is (still) holding
back - hiding - the “secret power”? The one whom 1 Paul knew was still to be removed?
The question evolves into
this: Who is the “Anti-Christ?” Is he the elusive figure expected by the
Church in the future, or has he been with us, in cleverly disguised form, for nearly
2000 years, desperately awaiting his demise?
Surely when the 70 weeks are
completed, this “Anti-Christ” would have expired. How can the Church, especially the
Anti-Chiliastic Church in its post-week 70 position, anticipate an Anti-Christ
figure in the future? We have been
grossly deceived - by one who would... “change the set times and the laws”. We will analyse him shortly.
The closing consideration of
Daniel’s 70 weeks - and more particularly the latter half of week 70 - must
inevitably concern present-day Israel. Following
their multi-century diasporah, the people of Israel would have to reveal a
marked return to, and recovery of their covenant land, city and sanctuary. This restoration of the pre-70 CE scenario is
essential for the final conclusion of the multi-evidenced events associated
with Yom Yahweh to come about. Amazingly...we
live in the generations of these events!
Population figures for 1970
and 2007 by the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute show the
following figures:
World
Jewry 1970: 12,633,000 2007: 13,155,000
In
Israel 1970: 2,582,000 2007: 5,393,000
The Report shows diminishing numbers of Jewish people in most of the
major
countries of the world:
Russia 1970: 808,000 2007: 225,000
Other countries 1970: 2,325,000 2007: 799.000
The last some 130 years have
seen these events unfold. The
rudimentary beginnings of alliyah - return - came from the Russian diasporah,
from a people desperate to escape the unending cycle of persecution; the
Pogroms. These people began to recover
the land from desert and mosquito-infested swamps. They began cultivating a land, occupied for
centuries by Arabian peoples who failed to develop it. In Europe, a significant event took place. The
Dreyfuss affair.
The Dreyfuss saga arguably
started the Zionist movement. Dreifuss,
a soldier of Jewish descent and captain in the French army, who had served his
country with distinction, was persecuted on trumped-up charges in an outrageous
act of Anti-Semitism. The entire event
was witnessed, and reported on by a Swiss journalist by the name of Theodor Herzl. Herzl was shocked, not only by the false
nature of the charge, but by the general reaction of the public at large. He sensed a new current of emerging
Anti-Semitism that bode ill for the Jews of Europe. Theodor Herzl became the father of Zionism.
Herzl and his associates
established the Zionist movement towards the end of the 19th century
and they campaigned tirelessly for the right of the Jewish people to return to
Palestine. The alliyah began to get momentum despite the expected opposition. They achieved a major success through the
office of the British Foreign Minister, Lord Balfour. Palestine was a British Protectorate at the
time and the proclamation of the Balfour Declaration, in 1917, sanctioned the
alliyah. Lord Balfour was indeed a
modern King Cyrus of Persia, who sanctioned the alliyah from Babylon some
500BCE.
The rest is well known
history. Following the Holocaust of
World War II, the alliyah became a flood, albeit not without severe opposition
from the locals... and the British who seemed to do an about turn on the
Balfour Declaration. Nevertheless, the
State of Israel was proclaimed by David Ben Gurion on 14 May 1948 under the
sanction of the United Nations. The
people of Israel had to literally recover their land (and their Holy City in
1967) with the sword in the one hand and the hoe in the other - from the Sanbalats,
Tobia’s and Arabs of this age, just like they had to do in the days of Ezra and
Nehemiah, under the sanction of King Cyrus and King Darius.
The last century - in our
lifetime - has witnessed the setting of the stage. Everything is in position; only the Temple
remains. It is a given. There is nothing in modern history that proves
the truth of the Bible more than these progressive events. The
hand of Yahweh is evident.
