Daniel 9:24 - 9:27

Daniel — Steve Gregg

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Daniel 9:24 - 9:27

DanielSteve Gregg

In Daniel 9:24-27, the prophecy of the 70 weeks predicts the coming of Jesus Christ and the end of transgression, sin, and iniquity. The seven weeks, sixty-two weeks, and the 70th week are outlined, with the entirety spanning 490 years from the decree to rebuild Jerusalem. Some believe the final week refers to a future tribulation period, while dispensationalists believe it is postponed until the rapture of the church, with an unmentioned gap in the text. As of now, the six things mentioned in verse 24 have not been fulfilled, leading to the possibility of their fulfillment at the second coming of Christ.

Transcript

We're looking at the famous prophecy of the 70 weeks in Daniel chapter 9. Last time, we focused primarily on Daniel chapter 8 and the prophecies there, but we also looked at chapter 9, the early part of it, actually the majority of it. The chapter has 27 verses, and most of the chapter, up to verse 19, is Daniel's prayer. And we looked at that prayer last time, and I wanted to save the last part of the chapter to take by itself, which is that chapter of the 70 weeks.

In Daniel's prayer, well, his prayer was motivated by the desire to see the fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecy, which at the beginning of chapter 9, Daniel was reading Jeremiah's prophecy about how the Babylonian exile would end after 70 years. And Daniel was reading this like 66 or 67 years after his captivity had begun, and therefore he anticipated that the 70 years must be coming to an end, and that therefore it would be time for God to restore Jerusalem back to what it had been before. And so he prayed, and he sort of stood in for the people of Israel.

He repented on their behalf, and he asked God to restore them. Now, while he was praying, he received a visitor, and this visitor brought him one of the very most famous prophecies in the book of Daniel, and one somewhat difficult to identify the fulfillment of, so difficult, in fact, that there are three very different theories about its fulfillment. But although all three theories have convincing arguments they can bring, and therefore we may not be able to decide between them, all of them, any of them, and all of them demonstrate that this prophecy points to Jesus Christ and actually makes a remarkable set of predictions that came true.

Let me begin at verse 20. Daniel 9, verse 20 says, Now while I was speaking and praying and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God to the holy mountain of my God, yes, while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning being caused to fly swiftly, reached me about the time of the evening offering, and he informed me and talked with me and said, O Daniel, I have now come forth to give you skill to understand. At the beginning of your supplications the command went out, and I have come to tell you, for you are greatly beloved, therefore consider the matter and understand the vision.

Seventy weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy. Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. The streets shall be built again and the wall, even in troublous times.

And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for himself, and the people of the Prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood. Until the end of the war, desolations are determined.

Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week. But in the middle of the week he shall bring an end to the sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abomination shall be one who makes desolate, even until the consummation, which is determined, is poured out on the desolate.

Some translations, the last word is poured out on the desolator. That's the least of our worries. So Daniel is told that there is a seventy-week period to be considered.

Now a week, in the Hebrew, it's not the word week, it's the word sevens. We think of a week as being made up of seven days. The word weeks here in Hebrew just means sevens, seventy-sevens.

And I don't know of any commentators who would think that the sevens refer to anything other than seven weeks. That is, I mean seven years, excuse me, seven years. So the weeks are not seven days each, but seven years each.

And seventy such weeks would be four hundred and ninety years. This is pretty much fairly universal, no matter what people think otherwise about the prophecy. The seventy-sevens, which is a better translation, would mean four hundred and ninety of something.

And almost all would agree it's talking about years. Why? Well, because Daniel began his prayers and his concerns because he'd been reading about a period of seventy years. He was reading Jeremiah, and Jeremiah said that the desolations of Jerusalem would be accomplished in seventy years.

And now this prophecy seems to piggyback on that and says, Okay Daniel, you are indeed near the end of the seventy years. But that period of seventy years will end with a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. That's how the seventy years will end, but that will be the beginning of another period.

From the decree to restore and build Jerusalem will be another season, another period of time. Not seventy years, but seventy times seven. Sounds a little bit like when Jesus said, you have to forgive not seven times, but seventy times seven.

But in this case Jesus, or the angel, is apparently giving a statistical number. And although I will say this, some commentators, usually the ones of a slightly less conservative sort, think that the number is symbolic, that it's not really an exact number of years, but seventy and seven are obviously numbers that incorporate the number seven, which has great symbolic value in prophecy. So some think it just means a complete number of years.

And one could argue that way, if not for the way it actually turned out. I mean, one can actually see what happened. Once the 490 years had run their course, we see, well, it happened in the very length of time that was said.

Or depending on which theory you hold, at least in the general period of time. Some people say that the prophecy actually predicted the very date of the triumphal entry on Palm Sunday. We'll explore these theories in detail.

Others say it records the date of the beginning of Christ's ministry and of his crucifixion. In any case, depending on which theory you take, the prophecy is remarkable and the number of years seems to be literal. But if it was not literal, it would still have value, because it predicts events that did happen.

And if 490 years or 77 was symbolic, well, then so be it. But we don't have any reason to have to fall back on that. The period is 490 years we're talking about.

So the captivity of Judah is 70 years, and the remaining history of Judah is another 70 times seven years. And that period will end with the destruction of the temple again. So it begins with the decree that allows the Jews to rebuild the temple, and it ends with the final destruction of the temple.

That is what is stated where it says in verse 26, the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. That is the city of Jerusalem and the temple. So as it had been done by the Babylonians in the time of Daniel, it would be done again at a later time, but almost 500 years into the future for Daniel.

Now, from this prophecy, many people have derived their end times views. They have decided that one of these seven year periods, the last one, the 70th week, is the future tribulation period. And it's that primarily that has given rise to the idea that there will be a seven year tribulation period.

Certainly, Jesus talked about a tribulation in Matthew 24, 21. He said, then shall be great tribulation, such as has not been since the world began, nor ever shall be. And in Revelation chapter seven and verse 14, it says, these are the ones coming up out of the great tribulation.

Twice the Bible speaks of the great tribulation, but neither place mentions how long it lasts. There's no reference in the Bible to how long the tribulation will be. The idea that it will be a seven year tribulation arises from the equation of the 70th week of Daniel with the tribulation.

But that identification seems to me to be lacking in strong support, and we will see why. But you need to know that some people feel that the 70 weeks runs out at the second coming of Christ. And other people believe it runs out at the first coming of Christ.

That shouldn't be surprising from all we've studied in the prophets. There are passages which one group of Christians believe should be fulfilled at the second coming. Others believe they were fulfilled at the first coming.

That's primarily the difference between an amillennialist and a premillennialist. Although the categories, I mean, postmillennialists would feel similarly to the amillennialists and so forth. But let's look at the prophecy and see what it does say, and see what sense we can make of it.

First of all, the whole period is mentioned in verse 4. And then we're told in verse 25 it'll be broken up into seven weeks and 62 weeks. So there's seven weeks, that'd be, if a week is seven years, seven weeks would be 49 years. Then you add to that another 62 of the weeks, that makes it a total of how many weeks? 69.

You've got seven and 62, makes 69. So in verse 25, we deal with the first 69 weeks. If a week is seven years, then 69 of those weeks makes 483 years.

So we've got the 70 weeks divided into three segments. You've got seven weeks plus 62 weeks, and of course there's one week remaining to consider. And that is discussed in verses 26 and 27.

So the whole period is mentioned in verse 24. The two first divisions are mentioned in verse 25, and then the 70th week in verses 26 and 27. What is to be accomplished within the span of these 70 weeks, or 490 years? In verse 24, it says, first of all, they're determined for your people, that would be Daniel's people, the Jews, and for your holy city, that would be Jerusalem.

That is to say, Jerusalem is going to have a career of 490 years, beginning with the decree that comes from somebody allowing it to be rebuilt. One would think that at the end then of this 490 years, Jerusalem will no longer have a career. Jerusalem will no longer be relevant.

Jerusalem will be destroyed, and it would be over for Jerusalem. Now we know Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD, and that's going to come into consideration here. But it's interesting that people think that Jerusalem has a future even now, that is in God, some kind of prophetic future, when the prophecy actually delimits the length of time that Jerusalem will have significance, that this number of years are determined for the remainder of Jewish and Jerusalem significance, prophetic significance.

And what must be accomplished in that time? Six things are mentioned. It says, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up the vision of prophecy, and to anoint the most holy. And by the way, the term the most holy can be translated the most holy place or the most holy one.

If it's the most holy one, then Jesus is the one that all Christians would see as the most holy one. If it's the most holy place, it's talking about the anointing of the holy of holies in the temple. Now, dispensationalists, who are the people who speak most frequently about this subject, and that you're more likely to hear them than anybody else on it, they believe that the first 69 weeks transpired and ended at the triumphal entry of Christ on Palm Sunday.

But that the 70th week did not follow immediately thereafter. The 70th week was postponed. And it is postponed until the rapture of the church.

Now, when the church is raptured, they say, then that will begin the 70th week. Essentially, they say that when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the donkey, that was the last day of the 69th week, and then the clock stopped ticking. And according to them, the clock will start ticking again at the rapture of the church, and the 70th week will then commence.

They say this is true because the things that are listed to take place within the 70 weeks, these six things, they say have not happened yet. They believe the accomplishment of these things will be in the second coming of Christ. And therefore, although the 70 weeks have long since run their course, that is 490 years consecutively have, 2,000 years ago they ended.

Yet, some of the things that need to be fulfilled within the 70 weeks have not been fulfilled. And therefore, the 70th week must be yet future. There must have been some unmentioned gap.

Now, remember the dispensationalists are the ones who tell us they take the Bible literally. But whenever a gap is needed for their theology, they insert one where the Bible doesn't mention one. That's not what I would call taking the Bible literally.

They believe there's a gap at the ankles of the image that Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream, a gap of over 1,500 years between the ankles and the feet. They believe there's a similar gap in the fourth beast of Daniel chapter 7. They believe there's a gap, for example, of 2,000 years in Isaiah 61, verses 1 and 2. You may recall that verse where Jesus quoted it, it's Isaiah speaking. He said, It says, And the verse goes on to say, So, Isaiah 61, 2 says that Jesus was coming to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God.

Dispensationalists believe the day of vengeance is still the future, is the second coming of Christ. And, therefore, they say there's a gap of 2,000 years between the first half of verse 2 in Isaiah 61 and the second half of that verse. Because why? Well, because they believe that a lot of these prophecies are not fulfilled until the second coming of Christ, which a more natural reading would place as being fulfilled at the first coming of Christ.

But the argument that these six things in Daniel 9, 24 have not yet happened, and, therefore, the 70th week has not yet run its course and must be future, well, that's part of the reason why they postpone the 70th week. But let's look at these six things and ask, why should we say that these things have not happened? What are these six things? Okay, what has to happen within the 70th week is that the people of Israel have to finish the transgression. What does it mean to finish the transgression? Well, it may be a bit ambiguous, I have to admit, but it sounds to me that it's talking about what Jesus was talking about in Matthew 23.

In Matthew 23, verse 29, Jesus said, And woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and you say, if we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Therefore you are witnesses against yourself that you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your father's guilt.

Their fathers have been transgressing against God and murdering the prophets through their entire history. He says, you are now going to fill up the remainder of what lacks in your father's guilt. You're going to finish out their history of transgressing.

It seems to me that the crucifixion of Jesus Christ was the capstone of the historical transgressions of Israel against God and against his prophets. And one could certainly see this as the finishing of the transgressions. And, of course, the judgment that came upon them for it was shortly thereafter.

To make an end of sins. Now, if you think that this is talking about, you know, reaching a time where no one sins anymore, then, of course, we'd have to say this has not yet happened. But why should we force that meaning upon this? In Hebrews chapter 9, in verse 26, or verse 25 and 26, it says, not that he should offer himself often as the high priest enters the most holy place every year with the blood of another.

He would then have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world. But now, once at the end of the ages, he has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Well, wouldn't putting away sin finally be roughly equivalent to making an end of sins? You put it away, finally, once and for all? The book of Hebrews, of course, points out that sinning, the continuous sinning and the continuous need for atoning of sin is what required the day of atonement to be repeated year by year.

But what the writer of Hebrews argues, and he does this completely in the next chapter, chapter 10, is that Christ doesn't have to repeat his sacrifice because once and for all, he managed to deal with the sin problem and put it away with his own blood. To me, that's reasonable to be described as making an end of sin. Putting away sin is the words the Hebrew writer uses.

The third thing is to make reconciliation for iniquity. Did Jesus make reconciliation or did he not? I'm not sure how anyone could argue from a Christian point of view that this has failed to come true. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 19, that is, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their transgressions to them and has committed to us the word or the message of reconciliation.

The gospel is the message of reconciliation. That is, it's the message that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. Isn't that making reconciliation for iniquity? To me, it sounds like it.

How about to bring in everlasting righteousness? Now again, if somebody understands this to mean that to bring in a set of circumstances worldwide where there's no unrighteousness, that everything's perfect, we'd have to say that that has not happened, of course. But again, there's no reason to have to impose that meaning on the statement. To bring in everlasting righteousness, well, if righteousness has been introduced through Christ and if that righteousness is everlasting, then we'd have to say he brought in everlasting righteousness.

In Romans 3, 21, Paul said, But now the righteousness of God, apart from the law, is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Even the righteousness of God, which is through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. Now, the righteousness of God has now been revealed in Christ.

And Paul goes on to say in verses 25 and 26, Whom God set forth to be a propitiation by his blood through faith to demonstrate God's righteousness, because in his forbearance, God had passed over the sins that were previously committed to demonstrate at the present time his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. God has brought in righteousness. He's demonstrated his righteousness.

And now there's a righteousness of God, which is not by the law, which has been given to us. This is an everlasting righteousness. I don't believe the Bible teaches anywhere that this righteousness that Jesus introduced is going to have an end some day.

This is everlasting righteousness. It's been brought in. What's the fifth thing has to happen in the seven weeks to seal up vision and prophecy? Now, once again, sealing up is a term that can be used a number of ways.

In fact, in Daniel, a couple of times sealing up the prophecy meant rolling up the scroll and putting a seal on it and put it away. Whether it means that here is hard to say. Some think that sealing up the prophecy means confirming the prophecy.

Some think it means fulfilling the prophecy. It's not entirely clear what it means, but it's not hard to imagine a meaning as reasonable as any other to apply to the phrase that would be, in fact, fulfilled through Jesus. Jesus came and he fulfilled prophecy.

The prophecy that God made about the coming of the Messiah and the kingdom. These prophecies were fulfilled in Christ. And Jesus in particular said that the destruction of Jerusalem, which was well within the lifetime of his listeners, would be the fulfillment of all that was written in Luke 21 and verse 22, that all things that are written might be fulfilled, that Jerusalem would be destroyed.

So it seems to me that whatever seal up the vision prophecy means, if it means you put it away because it's been fulfilled, you don't need to read it anymore, or simply means to fulfill it, then I'd say that's been done. And if it doesn't mean to fulfill it, it's not at all clear what it does mean. The phrase is ambiguous, but to me, the most likely meaning is to fulfill the vision and the prophecy, put the God stamp of approval on it by its fulfillment.

And finally, to anoint the most holy or the most holy one. Now, dispensationists believe that anointing the most holy place in the temple is what this is talking about, and that this is talking about a rebuilt temple in either the millennial temple or a rebuilt temple at the end of the age, and that the holy of holies will have to be anointed and consecrated and put into use. The dispensationists believe that during the millennial reign, when Jesus comes back, there will be temple sacrifices.

The temple in Jerusalem will be rebuilt. There will be a Levitical priesthood again. There will be animal sacrifices again.

The holy of holies will be back into service. Why? Who can say? I can't imagine any reason biblically why the holy of holies in Jerusalem temple would be of any use. The only time it was of use was on the Day of Atonement, when the high priest went once a year to atone for the sins of the people.

That's what the holy of holies was for. And once Jesus has died, for God to go back during the millennium and reintroduce a ritual annually of the high priest going into the holy of holies, a ritual which the writer of Hebrews points out was only done because the job was incomplete and was made obsolete by the fact that Jesus offered himself once and for all. Why God would reestablish that ritual is, first of all, beyond me, and certainly it seems to me anti-scriptural.

This is not about anointing a new holy of holies in a rebuilt temple. This is something else. It's either talking about anointing Jesus, the holy one, or about him anointing the holy of holies in heaven with his own blood, both of which the Bible says have happened.

And Jesus, by the way, is the new temple. Remember he said, destroy this temple and in three days I'll raise it up again. The body of Christ is the temple.

Now that we're the body of Christ, we're the temple. The temple of God is the body of Christ. First, him alone when he was here, then after he sent his spirit, all who are in his body are the temple of God.

So any anointing of the temple would not be of a Jerusalem temple, certainly. And there's not the slightest hint in Daniel chapter 9 that there's going to be a rebuilt Jerusalem temple in the last days. But as far as the anointing of the holy one that Jesus was anointed is a given, but we can actually find scriptures for it if we want actual proof texts.

In Acts chapter 10, Peter is preaching in the household of Cornelius. In Acts 10, 38, as he's telling this story to Cornelius, this is how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed with the devil, for God was with him. He says God anointed Jesus of Nazareth.

He's the holy one. In fact, the New Testament refers to him as the holy one. Peter himself, who's preaching this sermon earlier in chapter 3, referred to Jesus as the holy one and the just one.

So Peter apparently felt the holy one had been anointed. But if we want to make it a reference to the anointing of the holy place, that is of the holiest of holies in a temple, then we have that also confirmed in Hebrews chapter 9. And verse 12, we can read verse 11 and 12. Hebrews 9, 11 and 12 says, But Christ came as a high priest of the good things to come with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is not of this creation, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, he entered the most holy place, once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

So what did Jesus do like the high priest who went into the most holy place, but this time in heaven? What did the priest do in the holy of holies on the day of atonement? He sprinkled blood on the mercy seat. That's what Jesus is recorded to be doing, only he's sprinkling his own blood. And so, in other words, if we want the last phrase in Daniel 9, 24 to refer to the anointing of the holy place, we've got it in Jesus.

When he went to heaven, he sprinkled his own blood in the most holy place in heaven. If we want it to be the holy one, well, then we've got that too. Jesus is the holy one, he is anointed.

In other words, all six of the things that had to take place within 70 weeks happened in the first century, either in the lifetime of Jesus or in the destruction subsequently of the temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD. So that much we can start with. Daniel's 70 weeks, the fulfillment does not have to be postponed to the future, because all the things that have to happen in that period of time are confirmed in the New Testament to have happened already.

Now, what do we see in verse 25 of Daniel 9? Daniel 9, 25. Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem, we're going to have to decide when that command was given, because that's where the 70 weeks begin. From the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah, the prince, there should be seven weeks and 62 weeks, which of course dispenses with the first 69 of the 70, leaves the 70th week unmentioned up to this point.

There will be a total of 69 weeks. Now, they're divided for consideration into seven weeks and 62 weeks, and it's not entirely clear why, because we're not told what the difference is between the first seven weeks and the remaining 62 weeks, but it says the street should be built again and the wall even in troubleous times. Some people believe that the building of the city and the wall is to take place within the first seven weeks or the first 49 years after the decree.

And then there'd be another 62 weeks to run their course until the Messiah comes. In any case, what we can see is there's a command that will go forth to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, after which 69 weeks will run their course. And verse 26 says, after the 62 weeks, which of course, in the previous verse, the 62 weeks came after the seven.

There were seven weeks, then 62. It doesn't say after 62 weeks, but after the 62 weeks, the 62 weeks mentioned previously, that means at the end of a total of 69 weeks. Are we going too fast? This is, this is, some people get their mind all gets tied in knot with this, all this stuff.

We've got a total of 69 weeks here by the time we reach the end of the 62, because there were seven before that. There's seven weeks and 62 weeks, total of 69. So after the 62 weeks, which is after the total of 69, which is 483 years, what happens? The Messiah shall be cut off.

Now, cut off is a term that's used in the Old Testament to mean killed. So this predicts the Messiah's death. The Messiah was mentioned as coming in verse 25.

He would come within the 69 weeks, the Messiah. But now, after the last of those weeks, after the 69th of those weeks, he will be cut off. He'll be killed, but not for himself.

Of course, Jesus didn't die for himself, but for our sins. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Now, the city and the sanctuary are Jerusalem and the temple.

This would be the temple that would be rebuilt in Daniel's time or shortly thereafter. It's going to be destroyed again by some people and a prince who will come. Well, the people who did that, of course, were the Romans.

Their prince, who is the prince who is to come? Well, presumably Titus, he was the Roman general who later became emperor. He could be the prince who is to come. He was the son of the emperor.

He's a prince, and he was a prince over the Roman people, and the Romans came and did this. Titus makes a very good identification for this prince. Although, the word prince is used in a very interesting way in the following chapter of Daniel.

Where an angel who is coming to Daniel is resisted by the prince of Persia. The prince of Persia in chapter 10 is a demonic power. Apparently, some kind of a demon that has some supervisory authority over the nation of Persia.

And as you read through chapter 10, you'll find that not only is there a prince of Persia, but there's also a prince of Greece that's coming. The angel says, after the prince of Persia will be the prince of Greece, which, of course, must have accompanied the rise of the Grecian empire that conquered Persia. It's possible that the following prince was the prince of Rome.

Though he's never mentioned by name, it was the Romans who destroyed Jerusalem, and the prince of the people who are to come could well be that principality, that demonic principality, not the human one. It doesn't matter. It's only a point of interest.

It's not really going to change anything about the way we understand the fulfillment of this. It's just that Daniel's use in chapter 10 of a prince of Persia and a prince of Grecia, and then another prince that will come, if that's talking about the prince that comes after the prince of Grecia, that's a demonic power that will be over the Roman empire. That would fit here, too.

It doesn't matter. It could be talking about Titus. It could be talking about a demonic principality.

But the point is it's talking about the Romans destroying Jerusalem. And we know when that happens. So the fulfillment of this is not going to be real hard to identify.

So then verse 26 goes on and says, At the end of it will be with a flood. And now in prophetic language, a flood sometimes means an invasion. Sometimes it means a dispersion.

Floodwaters can flood in or they can flood out. If it's flooding in, it's the Romans invading the city when they breach the walls. There's this flood of invaders coming into the city.

If it's a flood out of the city, it would be a dispersion. The Jews actually were dispersed throughout the world because of this defeat. In any case, the flood would refer to people, either soldiers coming in or captives going out.

It doesn't really matter. The term flood can be used either way. Until the end of the war, desolations are determined.

So it says there's a war. This is the first time that a war is mentioned, but it's implied when it says they destroy the city and the sanctuary. There's a war.

Until the end of that war, desolations are determined. And the desolation is the desolation of the temple, it would appear. Because it goes on to say, Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week.

Now we are introduced to the 70th week. And a covenant is confirmed with many for this seven year period, this one week, this last of the 70 weeks. But in the middle of the week, he shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering.

And on the wing of abomination shall be one who makes desolate. Now this line is where we get the idea of an abomination that maketh desolate or an abomination of desolation. The abomination of desolation comes from this verse.

It is a term that is repeated in chapter 11 and chapter 12. And it is applied to a different event in chapter 11. In chapter 11, the abomination that maketh desolate is Antiochus Epiphanes sacrificing a pig in the temple.

That will be unambiguously seen when we get to chapter 11. Here, however, this is not a reference to Antiochus because this is after the Messiah has been cut off. Antiochus was 168 years before the Messiah came.

And therefore, Antiochus is not in view here, but the Romans are. They're the ones who destroyed the city and the sanctuary. So there's two abominations of desolation.

There's the one of Antiochus Epiphanes and then there's the one of the Romans destroying the city of Jerusalem. Now, one might say, wait, wait, wait. It doesn't say that this abomination is the Romans destroying Jerusalem.

In fact, many, probably most popular prophecy teachers today are dispensationalists. They say, no, the abomination of desolation here is the Antichrist setting up his image in a future rebuilt temple in Jerusalem. When Jesus said in Matthew chapter 24 to his disciples, when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, then you who are in Judea flee to the wilderness.

Dispensationalists believe that Jesus is talking about an image of Antichrist being set up in Jerusalem in a temple that will be rebuilt in the last days. It's not there now, but they believe that sometime in the near future, probably, the temple in Jerusalem will be rebuilt. The Antichrist will, in fact, make a covenant for one week, for seven years, with the Jewish people.

One of the scenarios that is suggested commonly is that there will be an attack on Israel before the rise of the Antichrist by Israel's enemies, possibly the Gog-Magog war of Ezekiel 38 and 39. Israel will come out of that by miraculous deliverance, but after that, the danger that Israel is in will be so evident to all that the new world leader that will arise, the Antichrist, will come and make an agreement to protect Israel. I'm not sure why this scenario makes sense, since Israel, by this view, has just been protected by divine fire and brimstone from heaven against her enemies, and five, six of her invaders have been wiped out, according to the scenario the dispensationalists believe.

I don't know why they would be looking for some man to offer them protection when God has so signally destroyed their enemies by supernatural intervention. But nonetheless, this is the way it was taught to me as a dispensationalist. After the Gog-Magog adventure, Antichrist will come as a world leader over a ten-nation confederation in Europe, and he will make some kind of a pact with Israel, a seven-year pact.

It is under the terms of that pact that they will feel secure enough to rebuild their temple. So the temple will be rebuilt under the patronage of the Antichrist. But he will violate that pact halfway through the seven years.

After three and a half years, he will show himself faithless to his promises, and he will set up this image of himself in the temple that the Jews have rebuilt, thus desecrating it very similarly to the way that Antiochus Epiphanes did in the 2nd century BC. And this will be the middle of the tribulation period. When Antichrist sets up his image in the temple, this marks the middle part of the tribulation, the middle part of Daniel's 70th week.

And the Jews who are sensible will see that he's no friend, and they'll flee to the wilderness, and they will survive. They will be like the woman who fled in Revelation 12, and is sustained by God in the wilderness until the second coming of Christ for three and a half years. Jesus, in other words, is thought to come at the end of the 70th week.

But the 70th week is the seven years of tribulation just prior to the coming of Christ. This is the dispensational scheme. Now, of course, a great deal of their scenario of the Antichrist is based on a single verse, and that is Daniel 9.27, where it says, Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week.

But in the midst of the week, he will bring an end to the sacrifice and offering. So this is saying that he, the Antichrist, makes this covenant for seven years, but he breaks the covenant in the middle, and brings an end to the sacrificial system by desecrating the temple very much like Antiochus Epiphanes did earlier. Now, if you talk to a dispensationalist, they will always give you this scenario.

There's a seven-year tribulation. The Antichrist is friendly with Israel for the first half. He betrays them in the middle after three and a half years.

He sets up his image in the temple. That's the abomination of desolation, they say. And that's the middle of the tribulation period.

Just three and a half years more will be needed before Jesus comes back after that. But the worst of the tribulation happens after that. Now, if you ask them, show me a scripture where anywhere we read of an Antichrist setting up an image of himself in a temple.

They will be at a loss. There is no reference anywhere to an Antichrist setting up an image of himself in a temple. When we were talking about Revelation, I brought this up.

Revelation 13 talks about the beast, and how the second beast makes an image of the first beast and requires everyone to worship it. That is a part of the scenario. That's a piece of the puzzle that the dispensationalists use to put together the scenario I've described.

You've got the image of the beast is made and all people are required to worship him. Of course, Revelation doesn't say a word about it being in Jerusalem or in a temple. And if you read Revelation by itself, you'd never get any idea that there was a temple that this image was set up in.

But rather, the image just exists. It's just made. It could be anywhere.

It could be in Rome. It could be in New York City. It could be in Hollywood.

It could be in Baghdad. It could be anywhere. But reading Revelation, there's nothing to situate this image anywhere near a temple.

It's just an image that's made that people have to worship. Just like Daniel 3, Nebuchadnezzar made an image and required everyone to worship it. It wasn't in Jerusalem.

It wasn't even in a temple. So, Revelation 13 doesn't really paint the picture, although it gives one element, the image of the beast. In fact, Revelation 13 is the only place in the Bible that mentions an image of the beast.

And so this idea that there'd be a statue or image of the Antichrist must come from that passage because it's not found anywhere else. But where's the temple part come from? That comes from 2 Thessalonians 2. 2 Thessalonians 2 says that the man of sin will sit in the temple of God, proclaiming that he is God. Now, if you had only 2 Thessalonians and not Revelation, you'd never get any impression there's an image here.

The man of sin himself is sitting in the temple of God. That's what it says. And if someone wants to be a literal Bible interpreter, they ought to say not that there will be an image of Antichrist, but that the Antichrist himself, if this is he, if Paul is talking about the future Antichrist, as they think, then we should say that he will sit, not an image of himself.

That's verse 4, 2 Thessalonians 2.4. 2 Thessalonians 2.4 mentions, well, the previous verse mentions the man of sin, the son of perdition. And verse 4 says, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God so that he sits as God, in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Now, I would like to say, first of all, there's nothing in the Bible to necessitate that this son of perdition that Paul speaks of is the same entity as the beast that Revelation mentions.

This is an assumption dispensationalists make. They're welcome to make it, but I just want you to know that there's nothing to support it. There's nothing in the Bible that links these two identities.

Secondly, the beast has a statue made of him, but there's nothing said of being in a temple. The son of perdition himself sits in the temple, but there's no reference to him having an image of himself. So we don't have any of the elements put together the way the dispensationalists have them.

And when you get to Daniel 9, there's no reference to an Antichrist at all. Although the he of verse 27, he should confirm the covenant with many for a week, the dispensationalists say he is the Antichrist. And when it says in verse 27, but in the middle of the week, he shall bring an end to the sacrifice offering.

They say he is again the Antichrist. But there's a problem with this. Grammarically, whenever you read the word he, which is a pronoun, it needs to have an antecedent.

You have to have some noun. You have to have some person who has already been mentioned to whom you are referring back. When you say he, you don't just walk up to someone cold and start saying, you know, he said this to me, that person say, who? You haven't mentioned who you're talking about.

Some people do talk that way, actually, but it's not helpful. When there's a he, there must be an antecedent to the he. If he is the Antichrist, there must be some previous mention of the Antichrist.

Is there? I find none. Where do the dispensationalists find the antecedent to he as the Antichrist? It's in verse 26 where it says, the people of the prince who is to come. They say the prince who is to come, that's the Antichrist, the future Antichrist.

And therefore he, the prince who is to come, makes this covenant with the people. Well, to a man, all dispensationalists will give this exegesis, but is this exegesis? Is this really a reasonable way to make this passage conform to what they want to say? First of all, we saw that the people who destroyed the city of Sanctuary are the Romans, not some future Romans, the ancient Romans back 2,000 years ago. Even dispensationalists admit this.

They recognize that the people, the people of the prince are the Romans in A.D. 70. This is not controversial. But they say the Romans of A.D. 70 are the people of a future prince.

That is, he will be a Roman. The Antichrist will be a Roman, they say, and therefore the people who destroyed the temple 2,000 years ago were the people of this future prince. The same race, the same group.

Well, that could be, but is there anything in the passage to suggest this? Is there anything to suggest that the prince is not the contemporary prince of the people at the time? Well, the only answer that's been given by them is it says, well, it's the prince who is to come. They actually say this. Now, anyone who's a clear thinker would say, what? Do people actually say that? Yes, they do.

They say, we know this is not Titus. We know this is not the ancient Roman leader because it says it's the prince who is to come. That means he's future.

Isn't that a great argument? That's the only argument for making this prince a future Antichrist, because it says he is to come. It does not occur to these people, apparently, that in Daniel's time, Titus was yet to come. This was written before the Romans invaded Jerusalem, and therefore both the people and the prince were yet to come from the standpoint of the prophecy.

To say that something is to come doesn't mean that thousands of years later you can say it's still future. Jesus was to come, and he came. Now we recognize he came, although prophets before him said he was to come.

So, to say that the prince is to come obviously just means from Daniel's point of view it's a future occurrence. And, therefore, there is really nothing there. And, by the way, even if the prince was the Antichrist, which there's absolutely no reason to believe this, even if the prince were identified with the future Antichrist, it doesn't mean he would be the he.

Because the prince who is to come is not a significant part of the previous sentence. The prince who is to come, he's not even the actor in the sentence. It's his people.

It's the people who destroyed the city of the sanctuary of the prince who is to come. That's just a prepositional phrase. The prince who is to come doesn't function in the sentence any more importantly than the object of a preposition.

He's not the subject. Who is the subject of the previous verses? Well, you'll notice the shining star, the focus of attention in verse 25 and 26 is the Messiah. Certainly to say he, in verse 27, without any further identification of who he is, would naturally assume it means the person that's been under discussion, the Messiah.

He's the one who's coming. He's the one who's cut off. He's the one who makes the covenant.

He's the one who causes the sacrifices and offerings to cease. How so? Well, of course, by his death. By Jesus' death, he brought an end to the sacrificial system.

And if someone says, but they kept offering sacrifices after that, so what? Pagans do so to this day in some jungles. That doesn't mean there's anything valuable about them. The point is he brought an end to offerings and sacrifices as far as God is concerned.

People can offer as many as they want afterwards, but God, I mean, they're just pagan sacrifices after that. Jesus put an end to the sacrificial system by his death, and that's confirmed in the book of Hebrews emphatically. So what do we have here? Verse 26 and 27, I think, have confused people because they fail to recognize that they are parallel to each other.

Verse 26 mentions the death of the Messiah and the destruction of Jerusalem. Verse 27 also mentions the death of the Messiah and the destruction of Jerusalem. And therefore, the two verses talk about the same two events, but give different details about them.

For example, verse 26 says the Messiah should be cut off. And verse 27 says in the middle of the week, he'll bring an end to the sacrifice and offering. Well, these are the same things.

The death of the Messiah, the cutting off of the Messiah is what brought an end. Verse 26 mentions the people, the prince who is to come, shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Verse 27 talks about the same thing when it says on the wing of abomination, shall be one who makes desolate.

That is, the abomination of desolation is the Romans coming to destroy the city and the sanctuary. The same two points are made in both verses. They're kind of parallel to each other.

How do I know the abomination of desolation is the Romans coming? Well, Jesus, or we should say Matthew and Luke tell us that. Jesus in Matthew 24, 15 said, when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing where it ought not to be, you who are in Jerusalem flee. But Luke, recording the very same statement, paraphrases it in Luke 21.

It's the very same statement. Matthew 24, 15 is when you see the abomination of desolation. Luke 21, 20, Luke paraphrases and says, when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near.

And if you read the verses before and after this, you'll see it's exactly the same verse that both Matthew and Mark record as the abomination of desolation. Luke has clarified what is meant by that. It is Jerusalem surrounded by armies, which his disciples, some of them, would live to see.

When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, know that its desolation is near. You need to flee then. So Jesus identifies the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet as the armies coming against Jerusalem in the first century.

That means that the 70 weeks of Daniel do not take us any further off into the future than the destruction of Jerusalem. And not surprisingly, that's what the prophecy said at the beginning. 70 weeks are determined upon your people and upon the holy city.

So 490 years are the period of time from Daniel's time until the end of the Jewish order and the holy city. To expect anything beyond 70 AD is to disagree with the prophecy. Now, but like I said, dispensations say, but the 70th week is still future.

There's this gap. The 69th week ended, but then the 70th week didn't come immediately, but it was postponed. Well, as I showed you, there's nothing in the prophecy to suggest such a gap.

To say, well, it has to be future because the six things in verse 24 haven't happened. That's wrong. They have happened.

Well, to say, but the Antichrist hasn't come yet. That's okay. He's not mentioned in the passage.

There's no Antichrist in the whole prophecy. So it's so much simpler than that. It means that the 70th week does the same thing all the other weeks did, followed the previous one.

The angel said 47, I mean, 77s or 490 years is the period of time we're going to discuss. But the dispensations say, but there's this 2,000 year gap in here, so it's not really 490 years. It's more like 2,490 years, a period five times as long as the angel said.

This is called literal interpretation. There's no literal reference to an Antichrist, but he's all over the place in this passage for dispensations. No literal interpretation could render it that way.

Certainly to render 490 years to be more than 2,500 years, actually, that's not literal interpretation either. It's as if I asked you to take me to the airport this Saturday. And you said, well, how far is the airport from here? I said, well, I think it's about 40 miles from here.

It's 40 miles from here. And you said, yeah, I can do that. So we get in your car, and we drive towards Seattle.

And we go 35 miles, 36 miles, 37 miles, 38 miles, 39 miles. You're expecting the airport in the next mile or so. But we go 45 miles, 50 miles, 100 miles, 200 miles.

And you say, I thought you said the airport was 40 miles from here. I said, oh, you didn't understand. Between the 39th and the 40th mile, there's a distance of 200 miles.

There's a gap of 200 miles between the 39th and the 40th mile. So the real distance is really 240 miles. Well, you would probably think I had lied to you rather than had given you any information.

If the angel is really trying to give information, then he shouldn't mislead. The angel said there's a whole period of time. The whole period of time is 490 years.

That's the whole period of time. But the dispensations say actually it's about five times that long. The angel was just hiding some really important details.

Now, if God was in fact misleading about the length of time, the total length of time, it would have been really kinder of God to say nothing about the time at all. Just say, well, these things are going to someday happen, and that would be fine. Instead, he gives a period of time.

And what's interesting is it was fulfilled. But how and when? Now, here's what we have to quickly go over because we're almost out of time. But on your sheet I've given you, there are three theories.

The problem with understanding this is that there's a beginning point and an end point to the prophecy. And the way it's stated is, from the decree to rebuild and restore Jerusalem, that's when the prophecy, the 490 years, begins, from a decree. The problem with that is there have been three such decrees, and there are Christians who attach the beginning of this prophecy to each of them.

That is, there's three different camps. Each begin the prophecy at a different point, from three different decrees. The other problem is that the prophecy ends with the Messiah, the Prince, with the coming of Messiah.

Now, what event in Messiah's life are we talking about? Is it the birth of the Messiah? Is it the beginning of the Messiah's public ministry? Is it his death? That is not stated either. All we know is that Messiah, the Prince, is somewhere at the end of the prophecy, and a decree to restore Jerusalem is at the beginning. And since there are three such decrees, therefore three possible starting points, and there are at least three different ways one could end it, either at the birth of the Messiah, the beginning of his public ministry, or the end of his public ministry, when he died, it becomes almost impossible to know exactly how the starting point relates with the ending point, because the prophecy is sufficiently ambiguous about that.

One thing that can be said, though, is no matter which way you take it, it ends up pointing to Jesus. Now, the most problematic view is the one that sees the decree as the decree of Cyrus. When Cyrus conquered Babylon in 539 B.C., he made a decree after that, and in 536 B.C., he decreed that the Jews could go back and rebuild their temple in Jerusalem.

And that is the most significant of the three decrees that were made, because, of course, it is the one that Isaiah prophesied. It is the one that ended the captivity. And for that reason, many scholars have felt that that is the decree to use.

The problem with it is that if you measure forward 483 years, which is the 69 weeks until the Messiah is supposed to come, remember the Messiah is supposed to come after 69 weeks, measure forward 483 years from the year 536 B.C., and it ends up in 53 B.C., which obviously is 50 years before the birth of Jesus, and like 80 years before his ministry or death. So, many would just rule out the decree of Cyrus, because it just doesn't work. It doesn't reach the proper year.

The next theory, and this was held by Isaac Newton and Haley's Bible Handbook and the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge and others, begins with the decree of Artaxerxes, which is the decree that allowed Ezra to go back and do some restoration among the exiles who had returned to Jerusalem. This was in 457 B.C. If you measure forward from 457 B.C., the 69 weeks or 483 years, you come to the year 26 A.D., which many scholars believe is the year that Jesus began his public ministry. So, if you use this first decree of Artaxerxes in 457 B.C., the 69th week ends at the beginning of Jesus' ministry in 26 A.D. That works pretty well.

But there's a couple problems. One is that decree of Artaxerxes was much less likely to be seen as a significant decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem when Cyrus' decree was much more significant than it had been previously. Artaxerxes' decree is something of an anticlimax and a strange place to begin the counting, but it is a possible place because there is a decree there.

And the prophecy begins with a decree to restore and build Jerusalem. But there wasn't really a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem by this Artaxerxes. The math works out good, but it seems like an unlikely starting point given the nature of that decree and its significance compared to others.

Now, the dispensations all follow a third starting point, which is the second decree of Artaxerxes. This is the one that allowed Nehemiah to go back. These decrees are all mentioned in Scripture.

And in the year 444 or 445 B.C., Artaxerxes made a second decree besides the first one. It's 12 years later. And the dispensationalists, actually following one of the church fathers, Julius Africanus, who was in the early 3rd century, Africanus thought that the decree that started the 490 years was this decree, this third decree of Artaxerxes.

Nehemiah was given permission to go and restore the walls of Jerusalem. And so this could be said to be a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. And if you start there and measure forward 483 years or 69 weeks, you come to the year 39 A.D. Now, 39 A.D. is too late by a few years.

However, Sir Robert Anderson, in a book called The Coming Prince, did some minute calculations, and he realized that we're measuring years by our 360-day year calendar. The Jews used a 360-day year calendar, which means the years passed more rapidly for them than for us. Every year, they're five days ahead of us starting the next year.

And those five days accumulate over hundreds of years. And he had it figured out, including leap years and so forth, he calculated that using the Jewish lunar year, which would understandably be something the biblical writers might count on, this brings the 39 A.D. back seven years, back to 32 A.D. And the suggestion is that's the year that Jesus was crucified. In fact, Sir Robert Anderson said that the decree of Artaxerxes was made on March 14th, 445 B.C. And Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on the donkey was on April 6th, 32 A.D., on Palm Sunday.

And the number of actual days between the decree and Palm Sunday is said to have been calculated out to 173,880 days. 173,880 days between those two decrees. And if you divide that into the years of 360 days each, it comes out to 483 years, or exactly 69 weeks.

So Sir Robert Anderson's calculations have been followed by dispensations pretty consistently. Although Schofield, who is definitely one of the chief dispensations, he held this view first, but he later converted over to believing that Cyrus' decree was the one. And we'll talk in just a moment about why, although we're out of time.

We need to take a little bit of time for this. One of the problems, of course, is that there is not universal agreement among scholars as to what year Jesus died. And therefore, the date of Palm Sunday is not fully agreed upon.

There are scholars who believe that Jesus died in the year 30 A.D. That would be a couple years too early for Robert Anderson's date. They believe Jesus' ministry started in 26 and ended in 30 with his crucifixion. Others believe that he died in 33 A.D., which is again a year later than Sir Robert Anderson's calculations.

Some place Palm Sunday on March 30, 33 A.D., rather than April 6, 32 A.D. In other words, the actual date of Palm Sunday is not really known for sure. And therefore, the calculations of Sir Robert Anderson work out only if he's got the right date for Palm Sunday, which he might. I mean, it works out pretty well.

Assuming we're supposed to take the 360-day year and all those factors that he used. But one of the problems is that this was not a decree to rebuild and restore Jerusalem. This is only a decree to help repair the walls that have been damaged.

The city itself had been built for decades previous to that because of Cyrus' decree. And therefore, Cyrus' decree seems to be the right one. And the view of the dispensationalist is that the 69th week ends at the end of Jesus' ministry, thus Palm Sunday.

Dispensationalists have the first 69 weeks running out at Palm Sunday so that Jesus' ministry is contained within the 69 weeks and ends with the end of the 69 weeks. And then they say there's the postponement of the 70th week. It hasn't even started yet.

The other two ways of calculating this with Cyrus' decree or Artaxerxes' first decree have the 69 weeks ending with the beginning of Jesus' ministry so that the 70th week begins at the beginning of Jesus' ministry. That Jesus appears and is baptized at the end of the 69th week. Not that He dies at the end of the 69th week, but He begins His ministry at that time.

Therefore, His ministry runs through the first half of the 70th week. His three-and-a-half-year ministry is the first half of the 70th week. The second half... It's hard to know what happened.

Remember, this was... The 70 weeks were God dealing with Jews. And after Pentecost, Jews alone were evangelized for a period of time until the conversion of Paul. And no one knows exactly when that was, but three or three-and-a-half years after the crucifixion is not a bad estimate.

It is possible that the second half of the 70th week would run its course with simply preaching to Jews before the Gentiles are evangelized. And that would fulfill the 70th week dealing with Israel. Others feel that the second half of the 70th week, after the crucifixion of Christ, was postponed and that it is the Jewish war because the prophecy does talk about the destruction of Jerusalem.

So that the Jewish war was the second half of the 70th week and there was something of a generation gap. One generation between the first half and the second half. That may be susceptible to the same mockery as the dispensational idea of a 2,000 year gap, but I should think the mockery should be somewhat subdued.

Because to say that something was postponed for 35 years is not the same thing as saying it was postponed for 2,000 years. And we do have a precedent for this in Exodus. When God made the covenant with the Jews at Sinai, they expected to directly go into the Promised Land and could have gotten there in 11 days.

But because of their rebellion, there was a whole generation postponement. And that was unanticipated. It's possible that there was a generation also postponed after the new covenant was made before the complete destruction of Jerusalem and the fulfillment of the prophecy.

I don't stand by either one of these. I say there's more than one possible explanation for the second half of the 70th week. But to have Jesus begin his ministry at the beginning of the 70th week and be cut off in the midst of the week makes sense.

Now, verse 26 says after the 62 weeks, which means 69 weeks total, the Messiah will be cut off. That's why the dispensationalist says that Messiah dies at the end of the 69th week. But it doesn't say he dies at the end of the 69th week.

He says after the 69th week. It does not say how long afterward. The 69th week runs its course.

And after that, we lose the Messiah. How long after that? What we were told in verse 27, in the midst of the 70th week. So to have the 69 weeks run out at the beginning of Jesus' ministry seems to make more sense than at the end of his ministry.

And therefore, it's a different assumption than the dispensationalist make. This is complicated. That's why I gave you notes on it.

Let me just say this. Cyrus' decree would be the most logical decree. But the problem is the dates.

It runs out 50 years before the birth of Christ. And yet, it is Cyrus' decree that is credited in the New Testament with being the one that released the Jews from captivity. The end of the captivity was with Cyrus' decree.

Isaiah predicted it. It would be Cyrus who would say to Jerusalem, you will be rebuilt. Remember Isaiah 44 and 45? So Cyrus is my servant saying to Jerusalem, you will be rebuilt.

Cyrus' decree was that Jerusalem would be rebuilt. Josephus says that Cyrus gave leave to the Jews to go back to their own country and to rebuild their city and the temple of God. And in a letter that Cyrus himself wrote to the governors of Syria, Cyrus said, I have given leave to as many of the Jews that dwell in my country as please to return to their own country to rebuild their city and to build the temple of God at Jerusalem on the same place where it was before.

So Cyrus says that he gave a decree that the Jews should go and rebuild Jerusalem. And Isaiah said it would be Cyrus who would do that. To make any other decree the starting point would be seemingly unnatural because all other decrees afterwards were relatively inconsequential.

The end of the captivity took place with Cyrus' decree. And therefore it seems to be the decree to restore and build Jerusalem. But how can we work it out mathematically? Well, there's a couple of ways to go.

One is to say it's not necessarily supposed to be that mathematical. That it's a general statement of time period rather than an exact period. But there's another thing that many scholars have pointed out.

And that is that the dates that we have for Cyrus and all the dates I've been giving you are based on calculations from a Greek astronomer named Ptolemy. Ptolemy lived in the second century A.D. And all of our ancient dates are based on his calculations. Now if you try to work out a chronology of ancient history it's a very complex thing to do.

And Ptolemy's dates are the ones that are generally followed by scholars today. The problem is that Ptolemy did not necessarily know how long the Persian empire lasted. He said there were ten kings of Persia after Cyrus.

Around the same time Clement of Alexandria said there were eight kings after Cyrus. Daniel's prophecy seems to say there would be three or four after Cyrus. We'll see that in chapter 11 when we get to it.

That there would be three or four more kings. And this is chapter 11 verse 2 of Daniel. And now I will tell you the truth.

Behold three more kings will arise in Persia and the fourth shall be far richer than them all. Now it sounds like there's only about half as many kings or less than Ptolemy said. The records of Ptolemy and his sources have come into serious question by many historians.

And it's possible and some believe it is so that Ptolemy extended in his calculations the Persian empire 80 years longer than he should have. That he had bad sources and that in fact we should move all those BC dates forward by 80 years because of Ptolemy's miscalculations. Now no one knows for sure.

I mean Ptolemy didn't know and we don't know. We can't really argue that it is so that he made a mistake. All we can say is that he gave different information than Josephus, than Clement of Alexandria, than Daniel and others as far as the length of the Persian reign.

And if the Persian reign was 80 years shorter than he thought, he calculated it 206 years, the Persian empire before Alexander. If it was rather 126 years or something thereabouts, then, and no one knows, so this is totally unknown, then Ptolemy's dates could be off by that factor. And therefore all the dates BC that we're using are mistaken and should be moved forward 80 years or so.

Whether this should be done or not is anybody's guess. But there are a significant number of older scholars who believe that Cyrus' decree is the one that was referred to and should be the only one that makes sense to be the one referred to. And if Ptolemy's dates were wrong, and nobody can attribute inspiration to Ptolemy, but we can to Daniel.

If Ptolemy thought there were 10 more kings of Persia but Daniel said there'd be three or four, then the Persian reign could be much shorter than Ptolemy thought. And therefore the decree of Cyrus might in fact have come 483 years before the beginning of Jesus' ministry. This is a could be, we can't argue that it is so.

And so we're going to have to leave it at that, uncertain. What we can say is no matter which calculations you use, the 70 weeks runs out in or near the lifetime of Jesus, certainly within a century. So the same century that Jesus came is when the Messiah would have to have come.

The exact dating is subject to a number of variables. And as I said, we can't really know for sure, although some claim to.