To All
In understanding God’s teachings in any part of the Bible, we know we have not arrived at a satisfactory conclusion until every phrase of the passage in question can be understood. In other words, while it may be readily possible to find a solution that aligns with a few of the key phrases in a passage, we can know that our conclusion is still pos-sibly unsatisfactory if it does not harmonize with all the phrases of the passage.
Moreover, a further test must be applied. Our conclusion must harmonize with the other teachings of the Bible that relate in any way to the passage in question. We will suggest a solution to the 70 weeks which we believe meets the above criteria. Every phrase in these verses finds its logical place within this solution. The solution as a whole agrees with everything else the Bible offers insofar as the nature of God’s salvation program is concerned, including the coming of Christ.
A most serious problem in interpreting this passage is to discover the meaning of the words of Daniel 9:25:
Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore
and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore
and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
The event of the setting forth of the commandment to build Jerusalem appears to be the beginning of the 70 weeks or sevens. In order to obtain any light from the rest of the passage it does appear that we must determine when this commandment was given.
Most Bible students, theologians, and writers of commentaries understand the language of restoring and building Jerusalem to refer to a physical rebuilding of the literal city of Jerusalem. However, as we shall see, this kind of understanding is not required by the Bible, nor is it possible to find a solution to the 70 weeks by this means. We shall discover that the key to the 70 weeks is to understand that the Bible frequently uses Jerusalem as a figure or type of Christ’s body of believers. The command to restore and to rebuild, therefore, will be found to mean that the Word of God was proclaimed so that believers could come into the Kingdom of God. We shall develop this as we go along.
Is Nehemiah a Candidate?
One of the most commonly accepted beginning points for the 70 weeks is the year 445 B.C., when Nehemiah, who was the cup bearer for the Persian King Artaxerxes, asked the king for permission to go to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls. In a period of 52 days, he did indeed rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
Nehemiah, however, is not a possible answer to our question of when the 70 sevens began. First of all, while King Artaxerxes gave Nehemiah permission to build the walls, he did not command the re- building of the walls. Moreover, nowhere do we read that God gave such a command either to the Persian king or to Nehemiah. Therefore, Nehemiah cannot be related to Daniel 9:25, where God states that a command was given. Furthermore, no matter how we try, we cannot go through the 70 sevens from a time standpoint and arrive at anything that properly relates to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
There is one solution, beginning with Nehemiah, that has been suggested; namely, that we take all the days between 445 B.C. and A.D. 32, assuming 365¼ days in a year, and then divide this product by 360 days. By following this computation, we get exactly 69 sevens, or 483 years of 360 days, from 445 B.C. to A.D. 32. One can read about this in almost any study on the 70 weeks of Daniel 9. While this solution may seem interesting and intriguing, it does not appear at all valid. There is no place in the Bible where this kind of computation, wherein time is first calculated on the basis of 365¼ days in a year and then divided by 360 days, is utilized. Therefore, we have no Biblical authority for it.
Christ was Crucified in A.D. 33
Moreover, Christ was not crucified in A.D. 32. We know from the Bible that He was crucified in A.D. 33. In Luke 3:1, as God describes the preaching of John the Baptist at the time Jesus was baptized, we read:
Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being
governor of Judaea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip
tetrarch of Ituraea and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of
Abilene
. . .
This piece of information give us an historical time clue. We know from very accurate secular records that Tiberius Caesar began to reign alone in the year A.D. 14. His fifteenth year, therefore, was A.D. 29. We also know from carefully reading the Gospel of John, that Jesus actually preached for about 3½ years. Since He was crucified at the Passover, which was observed in the spring of the year, His baptism would have been in the fall of a previous year. Thus, 3½ years following A.D. 29 brings us to A.D. 33, when He was crucified.
Furthermore, because of the moon phases which governed the timing of the Jewish feasts, the year A.D. 32 could not possibly have been the year He was crucified. The timing of the Passover Feast was related to the full moon. Only A.D. 30 or A.D. 33 were possible years that would agree with the timing of the Passover observed at the time Jesus was crucified. Therefore, the Biblical evidence appears to point to the year A.D. 33 as the year that Christ was crucified. When we understand the 70 sevens of Daniel 9, we will see that it also shows us that A.D. 33 was the year of His crucifixion. For all of the foregoing reasons, therefore, we must reject Nehemiah’s activity in Jerusalem as being a solution to our problem.
Is King Cyrus a Possibility?
A second solution has been suggested by some. While it appears to be attractive in some ways, it, too, will not meet all the criteria demanded by Daniel 9. This solution involves a predecessor of Artaxerxes, a king named Cyrus, who defeated Babylon in 539 B.C. We read about him in II Chronicles 36:22-23:
Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD spoken
by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, the LORD stirred up the spirit
of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom,
and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, All the kingdoms
of the earth hath the LORD God of heaven given me; and he hath charged me to
build him an house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all
his people? The LORD his God be with him, and let him go up.
Indeed, in 537 B.C., about 50,000 Israelites who had been captives in the land of Persia, as a result of the command given by God to Cyrus to rebuild His house in Jerusalem, did return to Jerusalem; and they did lay the foundation of the temple. Significantly, this activity of Cyrus was predicted almost 200 years earlier by Isaiah, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, when he declared in Isaiah 44:28:
That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to
Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid.
Thus, we see that Cyrus meets two qualifications demanded by Daniel 9:25; namely, that the command was of the Lord and that the command concerned itself with the rebuilding of Jerusalem. Unfortunately, there is one fatal flaw to his candidacy being considered the beginning of the 70 weeks. There is no possible way to relate the year 537 B.C., on a 70-week basis, to the Lord Jesus, who was baptized in the year A.D. 29 and crucified in the year A.D. 33. Thus, Cyrus, as well as Nehemiah, must be reluctantly set aside as a solution to Daniel 9:24-27.
Ezra Returns to Jerusalem
Now we must consider a third possibility, which, we shall see, meets all the requirements of Daniel 9. This solution relates to the return of Ezra to Jerusalem in the seventh year of King Artaxerxes. This was the year 458 B.C., at which time Ezra returned to Jerusalem to reestablish the law. While preaching the Word of God or teaching the law of God seem quite unrelated to building a city, we will see that the Bible does show us an intimate relationship between these two activities. Therefore, we should examine the Scriptures to show that a command to reestablish the law was indeed equivalent to a command to build Jerusalem.
Let us look at Cyrus again. As we study the language concern- ing him, we will begin to see the close relationship that exists between the physical building of Jerusalem and the sending forth of the Gos- pel. While he was commanded to build Jerusalem and lay the foundation of the temple, the prophecy of Isaiah 44:28 quoted above speaks of Cyrus as God’s shepherd. King Cyrus was not a shepherd. He was a king. When the Bible speaks of a shepherd, we immediately think of the Lord Jesus Christ, who was the Good Shepherd. While God uses the name Cyrus in Isaiah 44 and 45, and while in a physical sense the prophecy of Isaiah concerning Cyrus was fulfilled when the foundation of the temple was laid about 537 B.C., in another sense the language is pointing altogether to the Lord Jesus Christ. God uses Cyrus as a type of figure of Christ. Even as Cyrus, the king of the Persians, destroyed Babylon in 539 B.C., so Christ, typified by Cyrus, destroyed the kingdom of Satan by going to the cross. We know, of course, from passages such as Revelation 18, that the kingdom of Satan is typified by Babylon. Cyrus was commanded by God to build a literal house of God, and Christ was commanded by God to build a spiritual house. The temple and the city that Christ came to build is His body. This can be seen in Isaiah 45:13, where God, in speaking of Cyrus, declares:
I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways: he shall build
my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward, saith the LORD
of hosts
. He goes on in verse 17:
Israel shall be saved in the LORD with an everlasting salvation: ye shall not be
ashamed nor confounded world without end.
Thus, God is equating the building of a city with salvation, which is everlasting. Therefore, when God speaks in the Book of Isaiah about Cyrus building a city and a temple, in its spiritual fulfillment, God has in mind the Lord Jesus Christ, who builds Christ’s body
The Body of Christ: A Temple and A City
The concept that the temple of God and Jerusalem are figures of the body of Christ is amply seen in the Bible. For example, God speaks of Israel and the fact that peoples from the world will come to build its walls, and says in Isaiah 60:14: “they shall call thee, The city of the LORD, The Zion of the Holy One of Israel.” In Isaiah 62:12, we read:
“And they shall call them, The holy people, The redeemed of the LORD: and thou
shalt be called, Sought out, A city not forsaken.”
In both of these passages, God equates Israel with a city. In the New Testament, we see the same truth as God uses the word Jerusalem. In Revelation 21, God presents the picture of the bride of Christ coming down out of heaven. The bride is called the Holy City, the New Jerusalem. The bride of Christ is a people, the people who are the body of Christ. The bride cannot be a physical city, and yet it is portrayed in Revelation 21 as a city with foundations, gates, and a wall. In the New Testament, God speaks about building walls and building the ruins and doing so in the context of sending forth the Gospel. For example, Acts 15 gives an account of the leaders of the New Testament church puzzling about and wondering what to do with the Gentiles who were coming into the body of Christ, so they held a council in Jerusalem to discuss the problem. Finally, James stood up to speak about the phenomenon of the Gentiles coming in. He said in verses 15-17:
And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is writ- ten, After this I will
return, and will build again the tab- ernacle of David, which is fallen down;
and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up: That the residue
of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name
is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things.
James saw that the inclusion of Gentiles in the body of Christ was a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies about the rebuilding of the walls and the ruins of Jerusalem. In other words, bringing the Gospel is an effort to build the city of Jerusalem. The same figure is used in Ephesians 2, which speaks of the believers as building blocks in the temple of God. We are not a physical temple, of course, but we read about the body of Christ in Ephesians 2:20-22:
And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself
being the chief corner stone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth
unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an
habitation of God through the Spirit.
God also speaks of believers as lively stones in the house of God in I Peter 2:4. In the Bible, God distinctly uses the figures of Jerusalem and the temple to refer to the body of believers. I believe that this is the clue with which we can break open, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the 70 sevens of Daniel 9. This is the key to the correct solu- tion of these 70 weeks.
Unfortunately, most theologians get tangled up looking for a command to rebuild a literal city. So often, in relation to salvation and in relation to God’s salvation program, we keep our eyes on this sin-cursed world, and we never look beyond. We never look at the true nature of salvation. Salvation is concerned with something far more precious and exciting than this sin-cursed world. Salvation has to do with the people of God; salvation is eternal in character. When we understand that Daniel 9:25, where God speaks about rebuilding Jerusalem, relates to bringing the Gospel, then the 70 sevens can be understood in every detail.
Ezra’s Bringing the Law Equals Building the City
Returning to Ezra, you will recall that in the year 458 B.C., Ezra was commanded by King Artaxerxes to reestablish the law in Jerusalem. We read of Artaxerxes in:
Ezra 7:12-13: Artaxerxes, king of kings, unto Ezra the priest, a scribe of the law
of the God of heaven, perfect peace, and at such a time. I make a decree, that
all they of the people of Israel, and of his priests and Levites, in my realm, which
are minded of their own freewill to go up toJerusalem, go with thee.
Ezra 7:23: Whatsoever is commanded by the God of heaven, let it be diligently
done for the house of the God of heaven: for why should there be wrath against
the realm of the king and his sons?
Ezra 7:10 tells us: “For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the LORD,
and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments.”
To reestablish the law is the equivalent of bringing the Gospel, and bringing the Gospel is the equivalent of building the city, as we have just seen. Therefore, God, through the king, had effectively given a command to Ezra to rebuild the city. This command agrees with the statement of Daniel 9:25, which places the beginning of the 70 weeks at the time when the command was given to rebuild the city. Therefore, we are on very safe Biblical ground to begin the 70 weeks at the year 458 B.C., when Ezra was given the command to reestablish the law in Jerusalem.
In fact, Ezra, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, relates the teaching of the law to a literal building activity. Ezra 7:10 indicates that Ezra, the priest of God, was first concerned with teaching the law of God, but in Ezra 9:9, in a prayer concerning the command of God through King Artaxerxes, Ezra uses language that relates to normal building activity.
Ezra 9:9: For we were bondmen; yet our God hath not forsaken us in our bondage, but
hath extended mercy unto us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to give us a reviving, to
set up the house of our God, and to repair the desolations thereof, and to give us a
wall in Judah and in Jerusalem.
From this verse, we see that God’s command to King Artaxerxes to send Ezra to reestablish the law, in the year 458 B.C., meets all the requirements of Daniel 9:25, where it speaks of a command going forth to restore and build Jerusalem. We read in Daniel 9:24:
Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.
We have learned that the holy city actually refers to the people of God, but to what do the other phrases in this verse refer, and when do they find fulfillment?
An Exact Path is Found to Satisfy Daniel 9:24
By answering the question as to when the phrases of Daniel 9:24 find fulfillment, we will also discover to what they refer. When did God demonstrate the finishing of the transgression on behalf of those who are being saved? When did He demonstrate making an end of our sins? When did He demonstrate making reconciliation for iniquity? Immediately you might say, “Why, it was at the cross, of course. Christ hung on the cross to demonstrate how before the foundation of the world He paid for our sins. This verse is speaking of the cross.” Yes, indeed, this verse is pointing to the cross. At the cross, Christ demonstrated how He made reconciliation for iniquity. He demonstrated how He made an end of our sins. He demonstrated how He suffered under the judgment of God in order that we might be saved. Does the timing of the crucifixion of Christ in A.D. 33 re-late to 458 B.C.? Indeed it does! From 458 B.C., when Ezra was mandated by King Artaxerxes I to go to Jerusalem to reestablish the law (that is, to bring the Gospel or to build the spiritual city), to A.D. 33, when Christ hung on the cross to demonstrate making atonement for sins, is precisely 490 years. Let us see how this computation works out.
In going from the Old Testament to the New Testament, we must add the Old Testament years to the New Testament years. From this sum, we must subtract 1 to get the actual number of years be- tween the two events, one of which took place in the Old Testament and the other in the New Testament. This is because there is no year 0.
Ezra to the Cross Equals Seventy Weeks
Ezra went to Jerusalem to build a city, that is, to reestablish the law, in the year 458 B.C. Christ hung on the cross in A.D. 33. If we add 458 to 33, the sum is 491. Subtract 1 from 491, and we have 490 actual years from the going forth of the command to rebuild the city to the time of the cross when Christ demonstrated he He brought in everlasting righteousness, when He made reconciliation for iniq- uity, when He finished the transgression. God put His seal on the vision and prophecy at the cross. And 490 years equals 70 weeks; that is, 70 x 7 = 490. Immediately we see the precise fulfillment of Daniel 9:24-25. The phrase “seal up [or seal] the vision and prophecy [or prophet]” can be understood to mean that when Christ hung on the cross, God demonstrated how He put His seal on the whole program of salvation and upon Christ as the Savior. It was the official declara- tion that God’s salvation program was absolutely certain. The phrase “anoint the most Holy” points to the cross, at which time Christ es- tablished His Kingship. The “most Holy” identifies with the “holy of holies.” Inasmuch as Christ is the sanctuary (John 2:19: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up”), He is the one who is anointed in the sense that He is officially our King, as well as Everlast- ing Prophet and High Priest. Four hundred and ninety years equal 70 sevens, as called for in Daniel 9:24. Therefore, we see a direct path from 458 B.C., when Ezra was commanded to reestablish the law, that is, to rebuild the city, until Christ hung on the cross. Thus, we have discovered one certain solution to the 70 weeks of Daniel 9. That is only part of the prophecy, and in the next chapter, we will see that God has laid out another path which also goes from the time of the command to Ezra to reestablish the law to the time of the coming of Christ.
WE WILL SEE THAT THE OTHER PATH IN DANIEL 9 BRINGS US TO THE END OF TIME, WHEN CHRIST COMES AGAIN!
To God Be The Glory
