Daniel 9:24-27 is the key to modern Middle Eastern politics. The whole understanding of the Premillennial, Dispensational view of eschatology hangs upon the interpretation of this passage. What I am going to attempt to do in two posts is summarize about 40 hours of lectures that I will cite at the end. Why should we care about this topic? Many of the leaders of our country subscribe to this flawed world view and make decisions that affect our future based upon these ideas.
There is one basic hermeneutic that runs throughout scripture. The whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation is about the redemptive work of Jesus. It is incredible that so many learned men can miss this point. The first corollary to this principle is that Jesus and the Apostles, in the New Testament, interpret the Old Testament for us; the Old Testament does not tell us how to interpret the New Testament. This notion is called Christocentricity and is the proper way to interpret scripture. One of the best descriptions of this I heard recently was from Rod Rosenbladt who said that when we read the OT today, it is like watching the movie “The Sixth Sense” for the second time; we already know the ending and we can now see how the OT events clearly point forward toward the first Advent.
Dispensationalists have a different hermeneutic. They claim to interpret the Bible literally. While this sounds faithful and proper on the surface, it is not exactly what Jesus and the Apostles did. Frequently, we find Jesus quoting OT passages and referring them to himself. The Apostles likewise do this from Acts to Revelation. But the Dispensationalist will argue that you cannot do this because it changes the clear and obvious meaning of the text. The best example of this is the term Israel. While Israel means ethnic and political Israel in the OT, it is clearly expanded by Jeremiah and Isaiah as well as Jesus, Peter and Paul to mean all of the elect in the whole world, Jews and Gentiles. This is the beginning of our problem.
In the lead in to the passage in question, I’d like to bring up a couple of points. First, the genre of Daniel is apocalyptic literature. It is written with allegory and symbolism. You clearly need to understand the historical background behind the passage and also which OT passages are being cited and quoted in order to understand the meaning. Daniel is having a prophetic vision. This is not a clear snapshot of the future, but rather a dream. Another example of this genre is Revelations, which will be discussed as we go along.
As far as this apocalyptic literature goes, the key item of interest is the Book of Life. Daniel is told to close it, but John gets to open it and have a look. This is a very important point. If John gets a better look at the book, then it is John who should be used to interpret Daniel, not the other way round. Going back to the movie analogy, if you know that Bruce Willis’ character died at the beginning of the movie, you can no longer make assumptions that his wife hears their conversation during the earlier portions of the movie. The end has changed our understanding of the beginning. Such is also the case concerning Revelation and our understanding of Daniel. But it can also be said that Jesus speaks prophesy regularly and that all of the New Testament should be viewed as relevant to the interpretation of the Old Testament. Since Jesus fulfills the OT prophesy, what he says about the OT matters. This is also true of the Apostles. Putting on blinders to the NT makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
To begin our discussion of Daniel 9, let’s look at verses 4-5. In this section, Daniel makes two key points: God is a covenant maker, but He expects the other side to keep the Commandments. He is talking about the Sinai Covenant and this refers back to Deuteronomy 7. Israel in that passage is clearly national and ethnic Israel. Let us continue and see what happens next.
I often wonder if Dispensationalists have actually read the next ten or so lines of Daniel. Daniel describes in no uncertain terms that Israel has broken the Sinai Covenant and that God, as promised, has already delivered His wrath, in accordance with the broken Sinai covenant, upon his people. It is already done. This is why Daniel is praying for Israel. He is already in captivity in Babylon. What is remarkable is that Daniel records that the angel Gabriel answers his prayer and Gabriel’s response is recorded in verses 24-27.
24 “Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. 25 Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. 26 And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed. 27 And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.”
Now we need to break down the reply. The first and most obvious question to ask is whether 70 weeks means a literal 70 weeks. There seems to be some consensus on this point that a week is actually a year, and that there is an implied multiplication by 7 meaning that the actual time frame is 490 years. I have cited a chart that discusses the possible interpretations of each of the three main eschatological systems. Notice that after the 70 years of captivity, the next 483 years added brings us up to about one group of 70 from Christ’s life on earth. The starting point of these years is variably held to be based on a decree of Cyrus versus a decree of Artaxerxes. Let’s compare the differences between these two passages in Ezra.
In Ezra 1, we read the decree from Cyrus for the Israelites to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. The next 5 chapters are about the red tape and obstruction that came to hinder the effort. In Ezra 7, Ezra is commended by Artaxerxes to return to the now completed temple and teach. The number of years of this gap is 80. What 80 years does is close the gap in the number of years between Daniel 605 B.C. to Christ’s life and ministry 26-33 A.D. Therefore, to literalists, it makes sense to number the years from Ezra’s arrival with the later decree rather from the first decree, for mathematical reasons. The point here is that both sides are going to have to do some funny business with numbers, because there is this extra 80 years.
Next, the issue is the word “week.” Since we have already decided to deal with this term figuratively, a week is a year, perhaps we should investigate whether a week is some other measurement. Let’s start with the captivity. Jeremiah prophesied the captivity as 70 years and this is supported in three other places in the Bible. Therefore, it seems that those 70 years are literal. Particularly important in this regard is that the historical years of the exile are known and rooted in the lives of non-Jewish kings. Cyrus existed and is documented in literature outside of the Bible. But what of the gap?
Ezekiel 4:5-6 uses days to mean years, so it is reasonable to accept this idea of prophetic speech having symbolic uses for numbers when dealing with Daniel. There is much agreement on this issue. So what does Gabriel actually say to Daniel in the vision. The time from the setting out with the decree to rebuild to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, shall be 7 weeks. I’ve tried several times to make 49 years fit much of anything, but the 80 years between Cyrus’ edict and Ezra’s arrival in Jerusalem seem to fit the best. What can we say about this apparent discrepancy? First, once we start saying that the numbers are not exact, this will affect all of the calculations. Second, it seems rather clear to me that Gabriel is talking about the edict from Cyrus. There is no 80 year gap in the Passage the way that I read this. Is there a translation issue for this word “week?” Maybe, there is some use of the word “seven” in place of week. With this type of thinking, 7 is the number of the Sabbath, the number of perfection, the number of God. One less is 6, repeated three times is the number of another. So 70 x 7 is a period that symbolizes God, but is not meant to be an exact number. There is help in this vein from Jesus in discussion over the timing of His second Advent. If we are not to know the exact timing of His second Advent, perhaps the exactness of the prophesies concerning his first Advent are also purposefully vague. There are many other theories of how to calculate these sevens or weeks, and each runs into a problem. So, let us shift our conversation to the issue of the second gap, the Dispensationalists' gap between the 69th and 70th week. End part one.
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