Day 19 – Don’t Despair, the Messiah is on the Way

Read Daniel 9: 20 – 27

In response to Daniel’s prayer, God sends the angel Gabriel to reveal his plan to Daniel whom God describes as “greatly beloved.” The verses of today’s reading cover one of the most significant prophecies recorded in all of scripture called “Daniel’s Seventy Weeks” and it lays out God’s plan for how he will deal with Israel. The term “week” refers to a period of seven years and the prophecy covers a total period of 490 years (7 x 70 = 490) which have been set aside for God to deal specifically with the Jewish people.

The prophecy can be outlined in this way: Verse twenty-four is the entire scope of the whole prophecy. It is a summary statement. In verse twenty-five we have the information about the first sixty-nine weeks of Daniel’s Seventy Weeks. In verse twenty-six we understand the period we are in right now which is often referred to as “The Church Age”. Verse twenty-seven deals with all the information of the Seventieth Week.
Nehemiah 2:1 records the decree that starts the prophecy. King Artaxerxes issues a decree that states the Jews will be released from their exiled captivity and they will be able to return and rebuild the city. This decree would start God’s time clock and at the end of sixty-nine weeks (i.e. 69 x 7 = 483 years) God would reveal the next step in his plan for his chosen people. On that date, 483 years in the future, God would officially present Messiah the Prince, i.e. his son Jesus Christ, to the sounds of “Hosanna” as he made a triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Up until that day, Jesus refused to allow His disciples to make Him known as the Messiah and would often admonish followers to “Go and tell no one.” On this glorious day (we call the day Palm Sunday) when he is to be revealed, he tells His disciples “that if people don’t say he is the Messiah, even the rocks will cry out.” Why the change? Because this is the day Daniel had prophesied. This day had been determined by God many years before.

History tells us that Artaxerxes began his reign in 465 B.C. and Nehemiah tells us that the command to rebuild the walls came in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes’ reign – 445 B.C. He actually says it was the first day of Nisan which on our calendar would be March 14. If you add the exact number of days Daniel refers to, keeping in mind leap years and the fact that Jewish calendar was 360 days (not 365 like our calendar) you would stop counting on April 6, in the year 32 A.D. Many scholars, using biblical and historical references, agree that this was the date Jesus Christ rode into the city for His Triumphal Entry.

Final thought: Many Jews don’t accept Jesus as the true Messiah because they have a problem with perspective. They expected the Messiah to come on the scene and lead them to victory over their enemies and reestablish them in their Promised Land. The problem is analogous to looking at a mountain range from many miles away. The peaks look very close together. But when we climb to the top of the first peak, we see that actually there is a vast valley in between the two peaks. The two peaks can be thought of as the first and second comings. The second peak is much further away. That’s the problem that can cause folks to miss the distance between the first and second coming of the Messiah.