Because no clear length of time is allotted to the present church age, when we study prophecy it’s
much easier to know a fair amount about what will happen in the future than it is to know when it
will happen. Yet isn’t it human nature for us to itch to get some idea of when these things will come to pass. We can only speculate that like us Daniel may also have desired to understand the
timeframe of the prophetic revelations given to him. If so then such a desire was largely gratified, for in Daniel chapter 9 he tells us how God revealed to him the timetable for key prophetic events
related to Israel’s future. At the time of it being given it wasn’t the distant future of the nation that Daniel specifically had in mind, but an expectation of the very imminent fulfillment of a prophecy
given by Jeremiah. In the first part of the chapter Daniel recounts how he understood by the book of Jeremiah that the captivity of the Israelite nation in Babylon would last 70 years (Jeremiah 29:10).
Realizing that the time of their deliverance was drawing near, Daniel set himself to pray, to confess sin on behalf of his nation, and to ask for God’s mercy. But while Daniel was focused on the
immediate deliverance of the nation, the vision he received was of a much greater deliverance to
come at a later time when Israel would again be under the foot of the gentiles and would again be
delivered. The time in which “all things” would be fulfilled. While the duration of the Babylonian
captivity was to be seventy years, this new prophecy concerned seventy times seven years. These
490 years are God’s prophetic timetable. These important prophecies are contained in just four long verses, 9:24-27, and they are among some of the plainest prophetic verses in the bible. Let’s see
what they say:
Seventy weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city, to finish transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy.
(Daniel 9:24)
This first verse sets the big picture that seventy sevens1 were appointed for all things to be fulfilled.
That this includes events beyond the works of Christ’s first coming is clear from the phrase “to bring in everlasting righteousness”.
P a g e 24
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)
This part speaks clearly of the time covered by the books of Nehemiah, Ezra, etc. While previous
allowances had been made by the Persian kings for the rebuilding of the temple and for people to
return to the land, the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem itself was given by Artaxerexes2 in 444BC. From this time until Messiah the Prince was to be sixty-nine sevens (483 years). It is perhaps significant that Christ is referred to here as “Messiah the prince”, not “Messiah the king”. In his first coming he was heir to the throne but did not receive the kingdom at that time. It is widely believed that this period of sixty-nine sevens was fulfilled to the day when Jesus entered Jerusalem on a
donkey (Matthew 21). Certainly the approximate timing seems about right to coincide with the end
of Jesus’ ministry. One might ask why the sixty-nine sevens is divided into seven sevens, followed by sixty-two sevens? The former period seems to coincide with the rebuilding of the city, in which case the latter part would be the interval from the rebuilding of Jerusalem to the coming of Messiah.
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, and till the end of the war desolations are determined.
(Daniel 9:26)
One thing that can be potentially confusing here is the reference to the sixty-two weeks, without
mention of the first seven. But it is not sixty-two from the start of the prophetic timetable, but as made clear by the preceding verse the sixty-two comes after the seven, so this verse is also
predicting events that would occur after sixty-nine sevens (483 years from the command to rebuild
and restore Jerusalem). These verses contain two amazing things, the exact timing for the Messiah’s (first) coming and also a clear prophecy concerning the death of Messiah and that it would in some
way be for others, not for himself (his death for our sins). After this we are told that the prince who would come would destroy the city and the temple. This clearly predicted the Wars of the Jews3
which culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70AD by the armies of Titus.
(Titus was indeed a prince, for his father Vespasian had just been made emperor in Rome at this
time4.) From this point onwards desolations are predicted upon the nation, the one hint in the
passage that there would be an intervening time between Messiah being cut off and the
reconfirming of the covenant for the last week (7 years).
P a g e 25
Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week; but in the middle of the week he shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes
desolate, even until the consummation, which is determined, is poured out on the desolate.
(Daniel 9:27)
“He” shall confirm a covenant with many. Who is “he” and what is the covenant? Well, it would
seem to relate to the covenant given in verse 25 as the starting point of the whole seventy week
prophetic period. In some manner the covenant of support between Artaxerexes (in 444BC) and
Israel is renewed in a future time and context. This could be in the form of some agreement
between the dominant gentile power of the day and Israel. “He”, in this scenario, would therefore
presumably be that powers’ dominant leader. Now, remember that Jesus said:
I am come in my father's name, and you receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him you will receive".
(John 5:43)
Does Israel make some kind of covenant with the Antichrist? Maybe. Either with the Antichrist or a
preceding figure with the power to support and protect Israel in the way that Artaxerexes did in the days of Nehemiah. This will be the one who the Daniel 9:27 verse described as coming in on the wing of abominations and making (the nation) desolate. Not surprisingly some Christians are “on watch”
for such an event. While it would make sense to take an event that fit this criteria seriously, it’s also worth considering that the covenant does not necessarily have to be public to be effective. It may
well be public, but it’s also possible that the covenant could be entered into behind closed doors.
Now, there is one more fascinating thing that should not be overlooked about this prophecy. It says in verse 27 that in the middle of the week “he” shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering”. This would fit very well with the abomination that makes desolate spoken of in Matthew 24 and with the
Antichrist in II Thessalonians 2:4 who “sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God”. It seems that at some point the Jews will have a temple again, and even resume some form of
the Old Testament sacrifices, but that the Antichrist will take control of the temple three and a half years into the covenant making it in some way a place of glorification to himself.
At the very end of the chapter we see the outpouring of God’s wrath on the world. At the point
where the Antichrist assumes the place of God he will be at war with God. His side of this war will be to attack every aspect of the knowledge of the true God in the world, especially God’s people, Jew
P a g e 26
and Gentile5, who are in the world at that time. God’s part of the war will be to pour out terrible judgments on the kingdom of the Antichrist. In this respect there is general similarity with the
conflict between Pharaoh and God back in Egypt where Pharaoh increased the afflictions of the
Israelites while God judged the kingdom of Pharaoh with plague after plague.
P a g e 27
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WARS OF THE END