So
I have been studying Daniel and had been thinking about posting some
recent thoughts on the 70 weeks over the past couple weeks.
Then
I was reading a post from Humblehorse. On RITAN today and it caused me
to finally put some of my thoughts together on this.
So Humblehorse asks the question -"OK
First
I must call into question Andersons work on the 69 weeks of Daniels 70
weeks, having added the 7 and 62 weeks together to make 69. Why would
Gabriel say there are 7 and 62 if he meant 69??"
Funny because I have been wondering the same thing but may have come up with a slightly different conclusion.
Here is what I have been thinking and I hope I don't ramble too much trying to explain my thought process.
So fact 1 - the angel tells Daniel that 70 weeks are determined unto his people.
Fact
2 - the angel tells Daniel that there will be 7 weeks and 62 weeks
until Messiah is cut off. Yet the angel never mentions any details
about the 70th week or its timing - it is almost left out except for the
simple math that 70-7-62=1 week remaining.
Fact
3 - Daniel 9 is all about UNDERSTANDING - Daniel had been praying to
understand the 70 years captivity spoken of by Jeremiah and what was to
happen to his people- the angel came to give Daniel UNDERSTANDING as it
says in verses 22,23 and especially verse 25 “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 street shall be built again, and the wall, Even in
troublesome times. (Daniel 9:25 NKJV) back to this verse again in
a minute.
Fact
4 Daniel promises us that in end times knowledge will increase (Daniel
12:4) which may even mean the unlocking of some of the prophetic secrets
regarding the timing of these events.
Here
is what I have concluded regarding the facts that I have presented
above. The timing of the 70 weeks is both to be known and understood -
this includes the timing of the final week, known as the tribulation
period. I feel this is substantiated and supported by the statement of
Jesus in Mark
13:14 “So
when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the
prophet, standing where it ought not” (let the reader understand), “then
let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.
There
is that word again UNDERSTAND in reference to Daniel's 70th week - so I
am convinced that while the timing of the rapture might be hidden, the
timing of the 70th week might not be and it might be something we are
supposed to UNDERSTAND.
So
back to Daniel 9:25“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 street shall
be built again, and the wall, Even in troublesome times. (Daniel
9:25 NKJV)
Notice it is two things that intrigue me about this verse- it is what it DOES NOT say and what it DOES IMPLY.
Here is what it DOES NOT SAY - it does not say "there shall be seven weeks and sixty two weeks AND ONE WEEK"
Yet
it DOES SAY to know and understand so if we are to know and understand
the seven and sixty two weeks is it then not also implied that we are to
know and understand the remaining one week as well? It would seem so
since even Jesus admonished the reader of Daniel to understand regarding
the events that would take place during that week.
So
now lets look at what the verse IMPLIES - the first implication as I
have already stated is that there is a 70th week and that just as we are
to understand the timing of the seven and sixty two weeks (easy now
because it is in the past) we should also be able to have some
understanding of the seventieth week.
The
next implication is that the timing of these events will revolve around
the command to rebuild Jerusalem - we know this to be true again in
regard to the sixty nine weeks already in the past - but have we fully
explored its implications for the 70th week remaining.
Lets dig a little deeper - what else is implied?
The
angel specifically lays out the timeframe of seven weeks and sixty two
weeks and this division of the first sixty nine weeks has boggled bible
scholars for years. Again, as I was reading Humblehorse's post it
brought me back to this puzzle that I just kept thinking about the past
few weeks.
I
kept thinking that in Daniel 7 weeks isn't weeks at all but when Daniel
refers to weeks he is referring to שבעים (shevuim) or a packet of
"sevens" usually referring to seven days in a week, the most common
packet of sevens- but in this case it's not a packet of days, but a
packet of seven years being referred to.
So
I kept thinking to the Hebrew/Jewish mindset that Daniel had what would
a packet of seven years imply and more specifically if I were to
suggest seven shevuim or seven packets of seven years what would that
imply?
According
to the law of Biblical interpretation known as "first mention" by which
everything else is placed into context - correct me if I am wrong but
first mention is made in Leviticus 25 in regards to sabbatical years
(every seven years) and Jubilee years (at the conclusion of 49 years,
seven sevens or seven sabbatical years).
So
what I think Daniel 9 implies is that there is some connection to the
fulfillment of these events with a jubilee year - this may be the great
mystery of the division of the sixty nine into seven and sixty two, is
that I believe the seven implies a jubilee year in the fulfillment of
the final 70th week.
-pause to apologize for the length of this post: I didn't realize that the rabbit hole went this deep-
So
now I started thinking about jubilee years and how knowledge would
increase in the end times. I thought about how up until just a few years
ago we had very little knowledge of when an actual Shmitta sabbatical
year was much less a jubilee year - but then Jonathan Cahn's work came
out and coupled with Mark Biltz's tetrad blood moon work seemed to
proved beyond a shadow of a doubt when the Shmitta is - even Israel is
observing the Shmitta for the first time in a long time.
This
also now have us an observable verifiable clue as to the next actual
Jubilee year - coming up next year, beginning next Yom Kippur.
This also now verifies the prophecy made by the rabbi
Judah
ben Samuel - “When the Ottomans (Turks) – who were already a power to
be reckoned with on the Bosporus in the time of Judah Ben Samuel –
conquer Jerusalem they will rule over Jerusalem for eight jubilees.
Afterwards Jerusalem will become no-man’s land for one jubilee, and then
in the ninth jubilee it will once again come back into the possession
of the Jewish nation – which would signify the beginning of the
Messianic end time.”
In
short we can now recognize that the ottomans ruled Jerusalem until
1917, it was then a no mans land until 1967 which was the last known
jubilee on Israel's calendar when Jerusalem was regained- the next
Jubilee will begin in the fall of 2015-2016; this is obviously because
the Jewish year and the Gregorian calendar year do not always synch.
So
I set out to verify what are the jubilee years on the Jewish calendar
so I could begin to backtrack and overlay them with events from Daniel
9.
Using
the time periods of 1517 when the Turks took Jerusalem from the
mamluks, 1917 the Balfour declaration and 1967 the liberation of
Jerusalem overlaid on the Jewish calendar it appears that jubilee years
occur on the 26-27, 76-77 year cycle. (In other words the next jubilee
will occur on the Jewish calendar in
5776-5777 and the following would be
5826-5827) - again this time frame seems very strongly to be supported by the recent work of Jonathan Cahn and Mark Biltz.
Now
that I had the time frame I went back to see if any of the sixty nine
weeks of Daniel in fact began on a jubilee year. The only one that
came close was the first decree of Cyrus (Ezra 1:1-3) in 536 bc which
was
3226 on the Jewish calendar.
The others were - the decree of Darius affirming decree of Cyrus (Ezra
4:24) occurred in 520 bc 3242 on the Jewish calendar.
The first decree of artexerexes (Ezra 7:8) 457bc, 3305 on Jewish calendar.
And
the famous second decree of artexerexes based upon which Sir Robert
Anderson based his case for the first sixty nine weeks upon (Nehemiah
2:1-8) occurred in 444bc or according to Anderson
March 14 445
would equate to 3316 or 3317 on the Jewish calendar- but
that would still be ten years shy of the established
3326-3327 (26-27 or 76-77) jubilee year.
So
now more than ever I am convinced that Daniel 9 implies that to
understand the timing of the last packet of seven years it is tied in
with a jubilee year since it does not seem that a jubilee had much
relevance with the first sixty nine weeks of years but seemingly was
important enough to be implied in the text according to the law of bible
interpretation known as first mention.
Well
at this point you are one of three things- bored out of your mind and
aggravated that you wasted your time reading all this, fascinated or
totally confused.
If
this turned out to be a let down and a bore, I apologize but if it
fascinated you or left you a little confused let me offer my own
opinion/interpretation as to what I feel I have learned from all this.
Those
that have studied the blood moon tetrads have noted that during the
last two tetrad periods in 1948 Israel regained her land, in 1967 she
regained her holy city Jerusalem and many have predicted that this
current tetrad period of 2014-2015 will result in the rebuilding of the
Temple at Jerusalem.
Seeing
that the tetrad will conclude at the beginning of a jubilee year in
5776 I tend to agree as this lends even further evidence to the timing.
Daniel
9 talks about the command going forth to restore and build Jerusalem -
this was NOT accomplished in my opinion in 1967 as the Temple was not
authorized or rebuilt - Jerusalem cannot be fully restored and built
without the Temple.
I
am now of the opinion that the command to rebuild the Temple may in
fact come from the Antichrist and may signal the seven year covenant
marking the final 70th week which he will break in the midst - in
context now if you re-read Daniel 9 and Jesus' words in Mark 14 doesn't
it make perfect sense that we are to understand that the seventieth week
has a relation to a jubilee year and when the command goes forth to
rebuild the Temple?
If
these implications are indeed correct we may now know the timeframe
coming shortly when these things will take place, as we were promised
that knowledge would increase in these end times.
Wow,
well if you have read all of this, thank you- I knew it would be long,
but egads! I didn't even think it would run this long!
Feel free to forward this or reproduce it to any other forum where it might be an encouragement or blessing to somebody.
Keep looking up- surely our redemption draws near!