The Patriarch
Jacob, as we showed in the second chapter, coincided the times of the coming of
the Conciliator with the time that the descendants of Judah would lose their
political independence. The time of the coming of the Messiah was defined more
precisely by the prophet Daniel in his prophecy of the seventy weeks.
The Prophet Daniel wrote the prophecy of the time of the Messiah’s coming while
he and other Hebrews were in Babylonian captivity. The Hebrews
were led into captivity by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, who destroyed
the city of Jerusalem in 588 BC. The prophet Daniel knew, that the 70 year time
period of captivity predicted by the prophet Jeremiah (in the 25th
chapter of his book), was coming to an end. Desiring a rapid return of the
Hebrew nation from captivity to its native land and the restoration of the Holy
City of Jerusalem, St. Daniel often began to ask God for this in fervent
prayer. At the end of one of these prayers the Archangel Gabriel suddenly
appeared before the prophet and said, that God had
heard his prayer and will soon help the Hebrews restore Jerusalem. Along with this, the Archangel Gabriel announced even
more glad tidings, specifically, that from the time of the issuance of the
decree to restore Jerusalem, the calculation of the year of the coming of the
Messiah and the establishment of the New Testament would begin. Here is what
the Archangel Gabriel said to the Prophet Daniel:
“Seventy times seven “weeks” has been designated for
your people and your Holy City, so that the crime might be veiled, the sins sealed and
lawlessness erased so that eternal truth would be brought about and the prophet
and prophecies would be sealed and the Holy of Holies anointed. Therefore know
and comprehend: that from the moment that the decree is given for the
restoration of Jerusalem up until the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ will be
7weeks and 62 weeks. The people shall return and streets and walls shall be
rebuilt in difficult times.
At the end of the time of 62 weeks
Christ shall be delivered for death, and shall no longer exist: but the city
and temple shall be ruined by the people of the commander who shall come and
whose end shall be as from the flood and until the end of the war there shall
be devastation. During one seventh shall affirm the New Testament for many, And
in the half of the seventh sacrifice and offerings shall cease, and at the
entry of the sanctuary there shall be abomination and desolation and a final
predestined perdition shall befall the ravager” (Dan. 9:24-27).
In this
prophecy, the entire time from the decree to restore Jerusalem to the establishment of the New Testament and the second
destruction of this city is divided into three periods. The time frames of each
period are measured in “week” years, i.e. seven-year spans. The Hebrew
word for “week” is “shavua” and literally means “seven.”
Seven is a holy number, symbolically meaning fullness, completeness.
The meaning of the given prophecy is this: for the Judaic nation and for the
holy city are determined 70 “weeks” (70x7= 490 years), until the coming
of the Holy of Holies (Christ), who will erase lawlessness, bring eternal truth
and fulfill all the prophecies. The order for the new construction of Jerusalem and the temple will serve as the beginning of these weeks,
and the end — a second destruction of both. In the order of events these weeks
are divided in the following manner: during the first seven “weeks”
(i.e. 49 years) Jerusalem and the Temple will be rebuilt. Then, toward the end of the 62 weeks
(i.e. 434 years) Christ will come, but He will suffer and will be put to death.
Finally, in the course of the last “week” the New Testament will be
established and in the middle of this “week” regular sacrifices in the Temple
of Jerusalem will cease, and there will be abomination of desolation in
the sanctuary. Then will come a people, guided by a
leader, who will destroy the holy city and the Temple.
It is interesting and instructive to trace, how in fact the historical events
unfolded in the time period designated by the Archangel Gabriel. The decree for
the restoration of Jerusalem was issued by the Persian king Artaxerxes of the dynasty
Archaemenidae in 453 BC. This momentous event is described in depth by Nehemiah
in the 2nd chapter of his book. The enumeration of Daniel’s “weeks”
should begin from the moment of the issuance of this decree. By the Greek
method of numbering the years, this was the 3rd year of the 76th
Olympiad, by the Roman method — the 299th year after the founding of
Rome. The restoration of the walls and Temple was protracted for a about 40 or
50 years (seven “weeks”) because several heathen nations, living in the
regions neighboring Jerusalem, hindered the restoration of this city in every possible
way.
In accordance to the prophecy, the Messiah was to suffer for the cleansing of
human sins in the period between 69 and 70 weeks. If one adds to the year of
the issuance of the decree of the restoration of Jerusalem 69 weeks, i.e. 483 years, then this equals the 30th
year of the Christian method of numbering years. It was around this time, from
30 to 37 AD, according to the prophecy, that the Messiah was to suffer and die.
The Evangelist Luke writes that the Lord Jesus Christ came out to preach in the
15th year of the rule of the Roman emperor Tiberius. This coincides
with the 782nd year from the founding of Rome or with the 30th year after the birth of Christ. The Lord
Jesus Christ taught three and a half years and suffered in the 33rd
or 34th year of our era, precisely during the time, indicated by St.
Daniel. The Christian faith began to spread very quickly after the Resurrection
of Christ, so that, truly, the last, 70th Week involved the
establishment of the New Testament among many people.
Jerusalem was destroyed a second time in the 70th year of
this era by the Roman military leader Titus. During the siege of Jerusalem by the Roman legions, complete chaos ruled this city
because of the discord among the Judean leaders. As a result of this strife,
religious services in the Temple were conducted very irregularly, and finally, in the Temple, as predicted by the Archangel to
the prophet Daniel, reigned “abomination of desolation.”
The Lord Jesus Christ in one of His discussions reminded Christians of this
prophecy and warned His listeners, that, when they will see in the Holy Place
“abomination of desolation,” they should run from Jerusalem as soon as
possible, because the end has come to it (Mat. 24:15). Christians living in Jerusalem did just that, when the Roman armies, due to the election
of a new Emperor, by the order of Vespasian, temporarily lifted the siege of
the city and retreated. For this reason Christians did not suffer during the
subsequent return of the Roman army and destruction of Jerusalem and, in this manner, avoided the tragic fate of many
Judeans remaining in the city. The prophecy of Daniel about the weeks comes to
an end with the destruction of Jerusalem.
In this way, the coincidence of the given prophecy with the subsequent
historical events in the life of the Hebrew nation and with the narration of
the Gospel is astonishing.
Here it should be mentioned that the Hebrew rabbis very often forbade their
fellow countrymen to count the weeks of Daniel. The rabbi of Gemar even
subjected those Hebrews, who would calculate the year of the coming of the
Messiah, to the following curse: “May the bones shake of those, who
calculate the times… Perish all those who calculate the end, for men will say,
since the predicted end is here and the Messiah has not come, he will never
come!” (Sanhedrin 97b). The severity of this ban is
understandable. For the Daniel weeks point directly to the time of the activity
of Christ the Savior, which for those not believing in Him is unpleasant to
admit.
In the
Prophet Daniel we also find more prophetic evidence about the Messiah, written
in the form of a vision, in which the Messiah is portrayed as the eternal
Sovereign. This is written in the seventh chapter of his book. “I saw in the
night visions, and behold, One like the Son of man
came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they
brought Him near before Him. And there was given Him dominion, and glory, and a
kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve Him: His dominion
is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom that
which shall not be destroyed” (Dan. 7:13:14).
This vision speaks of the final fates of the world, of the termination of the
existence of the earthly kingdoms, of the last judgment of the nations,
gathered before the throne of the Ancient of Days, i.e. God the Father. and of the beginning of the glorious time for the Kingdom of
the Messiah. The Messiah here is called “Son of man,” which points to
His human nature. As we know from the Gospels, the Lord Jesus Christ often
called Himself the Son of man, with this name reminding the Jews of the
prophecy of Daniel (Mat. 8:20, 9:6, 12:40, 24:30 and so on).
The prophecies of the other two great prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel are found
in the appendix, where the prophecies about the Kingdom of the Messiah are
listed. To conclude this chapter we present only the prophecy of Baruch, pupil
of Jeremiah, in which he writes of the coming of God to earth: “This is our
God, and there shall none other be of in comparison him. He hath found out all
the way of knowledge, and hath given it unto Jacob his servant, and to Israel his beloved. Afterward did he shew himself upon earth, and
conversed with men” (Bar. 3:36-38). Unfortunately, in the times of the Babylonian
captivity the Hebrew original of the prophet Baruch was lost, which is why the
Greek translation of his book was placed on the list of non-canonical books.
For this reason, the prophecy of Baruch does not receive the prestige it deserves
among Biblical experts of other faiths.
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