Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Daniel 9 | Date: June 2, 2019 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Daniel Chapter 9

Daniel chapter 9. I’d like to reiterate what Pastor Greg said about having your Bible with you. In fact, that will be particularly needful this morning. If you forgot your Bible, please feel free to get up now, go to the back, find one of our Bibles that we have back there for you to use. We will be looking at Daniel chapter 9 and a number of other Old Testament passages this morning. You’ll want to keep your Bibles handy to look through that together. We come now to the long-anticipated Daniel chapter 9 and the prophecy of the 70 weeks. Take the time to read through the entire chapter.

“In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, by descent a Mede, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans—in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, 70 years.

Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying, ‘O Lord, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.

To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us, open shame, as at this day, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, in all the lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery that they have committed against you. To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you. To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God by walking in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets.

All Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside, refusing to obey your voice; and the curse and oath that are written in the Law of Moses the servant of God have been poured out upon us, because we have sinned against him. He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us and against our rulers who ruled us, by bringing upon us a great calamity. For under the whole heaven there has not been done anything like what has been done against Jerusalem. As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us; yet we have not entreated the favor of the Lord our God, turning from our iniquities and gaining insight by your truth. Therefore the Lord has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us, for the Lord our God is righteous in all the works that he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice.

And now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and have made a name for yourself, as at this day—we have sinned, we have done wickedly. O Lord, according to all your righteous acts, let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city Jerusalem, your holy hill, because for our sins and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a byword among all who are around us. Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy, and for your own sake, O Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.’

While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my plea before the Lord my God for the holy hill of my God, while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the first, came to me in swift flight at the time of the evening sacrifice. He made me understand, speaking with me and saying, ‘O Daniel, I have now come out to give you insight and understanding. At the beginning of your pleas for mercy a word went out, and I have come to tell it to you, for you are greatly loved. Therefore consider the word and understand the vision:

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. 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. 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. 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.'”

Let’s bow together for prayer. Our Father, we come to this marvelous portion of your word, and we pray that you will open our eyes and our hearts to it. Give us understanding. We pray that through it we will come to a deeper sense of worship of our God and a greater appreciation of the Messiah whom he has sent. In his name we pray. Amen.

As I said, we come now to this long-anticipated Daniel chapter 9, which very frankly I’ve been scared to death to get to. It may take us 70 weeks to get through it. One writer, Desmond Ford, writes that Daniel chapter 9 is the devotional heart of the book of Daniel. I have no doubt that’s correct, particularly with reference to verses 3 through 19, where as we’ve read, Daniel makes his profound confession of sin to the Lord on his own behalf and on behalf of his people and even the fathers before him. The same writer refers to the prophecy of the 70 weeks as the crown jewel of Old Testament prophecies. Another writer says, of all the prophecies in the Bible, Daniel’s 70 weeks is the most wonderful and the most important. Yes, I agree with all of that, but as we will see, particularly beginning next time, there’s more to the story than that. It’s also the most complicated, I think, of the prophecies. But today we will look at these first 23 verses that lead us up to the prophecy. And then we’ll only touch the 70 weeks prophecy itself in verses 24 through 27.

Daniel Perceived in the Books

You’ll notice in verse one, Daniel gives us, as he typically does, the time of this event. He dates it as the first year of Darius the king, so we are now about 539 BC. You’ll remember that Darius took the throne back in Daniel chapter 5. You remember when Belshazzar was overthrown and the Medo-Persian armies came in and took over. Darius now is installed as king in Babylon. Cyrus is the king over Persia.

Now in verse 2, it says, “In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books”—notice that plural, “books,” that may be significant. I’ll come back to that in a minute. “But in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely 70 years.”

So you remember the setting here. Israel has been taken captive. They’ve been led into exile into Babylon. They have been taken from their homeland. They are there in Babylon. Daniel and some others have been brought through the education process to serve in government. As advisors to the king, Daniel is still there now, with the change of rule to Medo-Persia. He was greatly beloved of the Lord, as we read in this chapter, and he was also highly respected of those whom he served. And he served faithfully, and he served well. But here he is studying, he says in particular, the scrolls from Jeremiah the prophet.

Now, that then takes us back to Jeremiah, and we’re going to spend some time in some previous prophecies that have been given before this time. So take your Bible and look back to Jeremiah chapter 29. What Daniel tells us here is that he has been looking at Jeremiah’s prophecy and he sees that the prophecy was 70 years. And he does the math and he says, “Hey, that time is about up.”

Now let’s look back at Jeremiah’s prophecy. Jeremiah chapter 29. In verses 1 and following, Jeremiah tells us that he wrote and then sent some letters—that is, his prophecies—to the exiles in Babylon. The exiles in Babylon then were the recipients of those prophecies, Daniel himself being one, and he is now reading some of the prophecies that Jeremiah had sent. So we see that here in Jeremiah 29, beginning with verse one:

“These are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders of the exiles and to the priests and the prophets and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. This was after King Jeconiah and the queen mother and the eunuchs and the officials of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen and the metal workers departed from Jerusalem. The letter was sent by the hand of Elasah… whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.”

So Jeremiah has written some prophecies on a scroll; he has a book; he has sent it then to the exiles in Babylon. Daniel now has a copy of that and he is reading it. And what he calculates, you remember, in Daniel chapter 9, the first couple of verses there, he says, “I’m looking to see where Jeremiah said the exile would be 70 years.” So look on down in chapter 29 here, and we get to verse 10: “Thus says the Lord: When 70 years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.”

So here we have a prophet of God just after the exile writing to those in exile, sending it to them. And now Daniel is reading the prophecies coming from God himself through the prophet Jeremiah. Ah, Jeremiah says it’ll be 70 years. Now you want to look back; we’ll see another time where he says that. Look at Jeremiah chapter 25, verse 11. Jeremiah now is prophesying ahead of time and says, “This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon, mark it, 70 years.” And then verse 12, “Then after the 70 years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation.”

So this sounds a lot like the prophet Habakkuk, that God has brought Babylon to punish Israel. When he’s done, he’ll punish Babylon for what they have done to Israel. And Jeremiah specifies now in chapter 25 and in chapter 29 that that exile will be 70 years.

Now, remember in Daniel 9 verse 2, he says, “I was reading the books,” plural. “Plural books.” That might mean that all he had was multiple scrolls from Jeremiah. I rather suspect—I can’t prove this, but I rather suspect that it means more than that—that he is reading not only Jeremiah. What he specifies is that Jeremiah specified there would be 70 years, but I suspect that he was reading some of the other Old Testament books as well. And I think there is some evidence for that when later on he speaks of Moses the prophet saying that these things would happen to us.

At any rate, we have some prophecies of Moses that have direct bearing on what’s going on here. So let’s back up again: Leviticus chapter 25. Leviticus chapter 25, we have the laws for the Sabbath year. Remember, Israel was given not only a weekly Sabbath to observe, but a yearly Sabbath to observe. That is, every seven years the land was to lie dormant and God would provide for them from the sixth year in its harvest. Well, here he’s giving the law for that. Verse 1 of Leviticus 25:

“The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai saying, ‘Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord. For six years you shall sow your field and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather its fruits. But in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest or gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. The Sabbath of the land shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves and for your hired worker and for the sojourner who lives with you, and for your cattle and for the wild animals that are in your land; all its yield shall be for food.'”

Then beginning in verse 8, we have the instructions for the Year of Jubilee. That is, there is to be the seven-year cycles of Sabbath, but then after seven cycles of seven-year Sabbaths (49 years), after the 49 years, there’s to be a 50th year, and that was the Year of Jubilee. And he gives instruction upon that. This is the Year of Jubilee. It’s announced with a trumpet, he tells us in verse 9. The Day of Atonement is observed, proclaiming liberty, and everything reverts back to its original owners, both the slaves and the land and everything else. This is actually verses 8 through 17, but let’s pick up the reading with verse 8:

“You shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you 49 years. Then you shall sound the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land, and you shall consecrate the 50th year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan. That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you. In it you shall neither sow nor reap what grows of itself, nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines, for it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you. You may eat the produce of the field. In this year of jubilee, each of you shall return to his property.”

Now notice in verses 18 to 23, we have it reiterated for us: “Therefore you shall do my statutes, and keep my rules, and perform them, and then you will dwell in the land securely. The land will yield its fruit, you will eat your fill, and dwell in it securely. And if you say, ‘What shall we eat in the seventh year if we may not sow or gather in our crop?’ I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating some of the old crop. You shall eat the old until the ninth year when its crop arrives. The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. You are strangers and sojourners with me.”

Well, as you know, the Sabbath was of central importance to Israel. It was the sign of the Mosaic Covenant. And it was not only a weekly Sabbath that was important; God had given them this yearly Sabbath, this every-seven-year Sabbath. And then after that, the 50th year, the Year of Jubilee, another year of Sabbath rest for the people. Now this was enormously important, primarily because this was the sign of the Mosaic Covenant. To violate the Sabbath in any way is to violate the covenant itself. It is to spurn the oversight of the Lord God, and it is to violate in the most awful kind of way. I think you’ve heard me before give the illustration: it would be like if I had an argument with my wife. It would be bad enough to throw my slipper at her, but it’d be pretty bad to throw my wedding ring at her. That’s the covenant sign, and that’s what the violation of the Sabbath was. To violate the Sabbath was to violate the covenant itself. It had serious implications, and that is taken up for us in Leviticus chapter 26.

In Leviticus 26 we have this famous passage of the covenant blessings and cursings. That is, if you keep this covenant—and often, particularly in view is the Sabbath issue itself—if you keep the covenant, then you’ll be blessed. And God will watch over you, and he’ll take care of you. If you violate this covenant, you don’t want to hear what will happen. That’s the long and short of it, but let’s see some of the specifics. Leviticus chapter 26. By the way, if you would like, you can jot down, those of you who are taking notes: Deuteronomy chapter 28 through 31, we have much of the same kind of thing.

Leviticus 26, beginning with verse 3: “If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase. The trees of the field will yield their fruit. Your threshing shall last till the time of the grape harvest, and the grape harvest shall last till the time for sowing, and you will eat your bread to the full and dwell in your land securely. I will give peace in the land. You will lie down and none shall make you afraid, and I will remove harmful beasts from the land, and the sword shall not go through your land. You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. I will turn to you and make you fruitful and multiply you and will confirm my covenant with you.”

That’s what you get for obedience. “I’ll bless you in every possible dimension.” And then in verses 14 and following, we have the flip side, the warnings and the curses that will come for violation of the covenant. Verse 14: “But if you will not listen to me and will not do these commandments, if you spurn my statutes and if your soul abhors my rules so that you will not do my commandments but break my covenant, then I will do this to you. I will visit you with panic, with wasting disease and fever that consume the eyes and make the heart ache. You will sow your seed in vain. Your enemies shall eat it. I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down before your enemies. Those who hate you shall rule over you. You shall flee when no one pursues you. And if, in spite of this, you do not listen to me, then I will discipline you again”—mark it—”sevenfold for your sins.”

Verse 21: “And if you walk contrary to me, and you will not listen to me, I will continue striking you sevenfold for your sins.” Verse 24: “Then I also will walk contrary to you, and I myself will strike you sevenfold for your sins.” Verse 28: “Then I will walk contrary to you in fury, and I myself will discipline you sevenfold for your sins.” You keep this covenant, you will be blessed beyond measure. Violate this covenant and you will be cursed. The covenant curses will fall upon you.

Verses 33 and following then, he warns of exile if Israel will not keep the covenant and obey this Sabbath law. Verse 33: “I will scatter you among the nations. I will unleash the sword after you, and your land shall be desolation, and your cities shall be a waste. Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths.” That is, you’re gone now. You’re scattered to the nations. “Then the land will enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemy’s land. Then the land shall rest and enjoy its Sabbaths. As long as it lies desolate, it shall have rest, the rest that it did not have on your Sabbaths when you were dwelling in it.” That is, this land will enjoy its Sabbaths one way or another.

Well, all of this, then, is why Israel was defeated by the Babylonians and taken off into exile. Moses had warned them of it ahead of time, but verses 40 and following, still in Leviticus 26, promises that when Israel will humble herself before the Lord and repent, then God still will remember his covenant. Verse 40: “But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery that they have committed against me, and also in walking contrary to me so that I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies, if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac, and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. But the land shall be abandoned by them and enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them. And they shall make amends for their iniquity because they spurned my rules and their soul abhorred my statutes. Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not spurn them, neither will I abhor them so as to destroy them utterly and break my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God. But I will for their sake remember the covenant with their forefathers whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am the Lord.”

Well, here then is why they were taken away into exile. God had warned them of it ahead of time. They now, having violated the Sabbath years, have been taken away so that the land will enjoy its Sabbaths. But God says, “If they repent, I still will bring them back.”

Now, for those of you taking notes, if you would like, 2 Chronicles 36 verses 20 and 21 pick this up again. This was written after the fact, after the time of Daniel, and it specifies for us exactly the 70-year captivity, but it also gives the rationale for it. Not only was it 70 years, but it tells us why it was 70 years. There he tells us: “He took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate, it kept Sabbath to fulfill 70 years.”

Now, it just might be, returning now to Daniel, it might be that Jeremiah himself had studied all of this and reasoned these prophecies and that’s how he came up with 70 years, with his prophecy that the captivity would be 70 years. It may be that it was just direct revelation from God about that. But these 70 years correspond exactly to the 70 Sabbaths of years that Israel has neglected. It may be that Daniel, now in chapter 9 and verse 2, when he refers to the “books” that he was studying, is referring not only to Jeremiah, but to all of this from Moses; and at any rate, Jeremiah did specify 70 years, and this was God’s reason for it. They had violated the Sabbaths; count them up, they will be carried into captivity so that the land will enjoy the Sabbaths that had been neglected.

Well now, coming back to Daniel chapter 9, Daniel studies all of this. He reads Jeremiah, he reads the books, and he does the math, and he makes all of these connections. He now has lived and experienced the fulfillment of these warnings, these threats, these prophecies, and awful as it has been, now at this point, he sees all of this, makes the connection, does the math. 70 years. Wait a minute. 605 BC is going to be… hey, that’s coming up here pretty quick. And so as awful as his exile is, at this point now, there’s some excitement. And he takes Jeremiah’s prophecy at face value. This is going to be 70 years. That’s about up. And so he begins to pray.

Now before I go any further, the preacher in me just has to make a note here. And that is, simply, Daniel studied his Bible. He studied it carefully. He studied it in depth. And don’t get the idea that Daniel was a preacher that had to do that for a living so he could give a sermon on Sunday. Daniel was a government official. He had a day job. And yet Daniel studied his Bible, and he studied it carefully. He’s an inspired prophet, one who receives direct revelation from God, and yet he studies his Bible. And as he studies it, he learns the reason for the exile, he learns the time frame for the exile, he sees that time should be about up, and so, verse 19, he prays.

Confession of Sin

Now in this prayer, what he wants, of course, and what he’s going to be asking for is the release from captivity and that God would bring them back to their land. But, first things first, Daniel sees that God has made a promise: 70 years. He sees that that time is up. But for Daniel, it is not just “name it and claim it.” First things first: for Daniel, there must be confession of sin. In verses 3 through 14, we have this marvelous extended confession of sin, this corporate confession where Daniel, on behalf of all of his people, confesses their sin to God and acknowledges that they have deserved what they have gotten.

So let’s look through this again, beginning with verse 4. He begins with God, who on the one hand is great, he’s gracious, and he’s faithful: “O Lord, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments.” Verses five and following, Israel on the other hand has only rebelled: “We have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame, as at this day to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, to those who are near, and to those who are far away, and all the lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery”—an interesting word that he uses here; you violated the covenants, it’s infidelity, it’s treachery—”that they have committed against you. To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, to our fathers, because we have sinned against you… and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God by walking in his laws which he set before us by his servants the prophets. All Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside refusing to obey your voice.”

In other words, then, before he begins asking for deliverance, before he gets to this, “Lord, you’ve promised, will you do what you promised?” he acknowledges that God is only doing what he had warned he would do if Israel would disobey. But Israel did not listen. And so, picking up again with verse 11: “And the curse and the oath that are written in the Law of Moses”—it seems he was reading Leviticus—”the curse and the oath that are written in the Law of Moses, the servant of God, have been poured out upon us because we have sinned against him. He has confirmed his words which he spoke against us and against our rulers who ruled us by bringing upon us a great calamity. For under the whole heaven there has not been done anything like what has been done against Jerusalem. As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us. Yet we have not entreated the favor of the Lord our God, turning from our iniquities and gaining insight by your truth. Therefore, the Lord has kept ready the calamity that has brought it upon us. For the Lord our God is righteous in all the works that he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice.”

Before asking for mercy, before asking God to fulfill his promise, he acknowledges the reason for their captivity, and that is just divine chastening. In essence, Daniel says through all this, “We are the reason this has happened. God told us if we disobeyed, he would do this. We didn’t listen. We persisted in our disobedience, thinking it was okay, thinking it was okay, year after year, Sabbath year by Sabbath year going by, and we thought we were fine, but now it is because of our sin that we have been brought here in exile, and God has been just. We have deserved what we have gotten. God repeatedly warned us, we didn’t listen, we violated the covenant.”

This is a model of confession. There’s none of this, “Why’d God do this to us?” Yeah, I know I’ve sinned, but we have a model of confession: humbles himself before God, tells the truth about the situation. We don’t live in an Old Covenant frame of reference. We don’t have this “do this and I will bless you, do that and I’ll curse you” situation. God has promised to bless. But repentance for the Christian is still just as much required. And we are required when we sin to confess our sins to God just as openly and just as honestly as Daniel has. And we may do it in the knowledge that he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Oh, I wonder how much of this kind of honest confession of sin before God is really experienced among us.

Plea for Mercy

Well, “We’ve gotten what we deserved,” he says. Still, God is merciful. And God has said that if we repent, he’ll remember his covenant. And God has said, “70 years.” And 70 years is about up. So in verses 15 and following, we finally come to a plea for mercy, where he asks God to turn away his wrath and be done with his punishment.

Verse 15: “And now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and have made a name for yourself, as at this day—we have sinned, we have done wickedly. O Lord, according to all your righteous acts, let your anger and wrath turn away from your city, Jerusalem, your holy hill.” Notice he calls it “your city, Jerusalem,” kind of reminding God of promises that he’s made. “Your city, Jerusalem, your people. Turn away, let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city, Jerusalem, and your holy hill, because for our sins and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a byword among all who are around us. Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy, and for your own sake, O Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.”

“You brought us out of Egypt. You gained quite a reputation for yourself. We’ve sinned, we’ve ruined that, and now it threatens to besmirch your name, God. For your sake, do as you have said and bring us home.”

And what’s fascinating here is that before Daniel even finishes praying, he tells us in verses 20 and following, God responds. Gabriel shows up again. This is the angel that showed up in chapter 8 that we saw. “While I was speaking,” verse 20, “while I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my plea before the Lord my God for the holy hill of my God, while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the first, came to me in swift flight at the time of the evening sacrifice. He made me understand, speaking with me and saying, ‘O Daniel, I have now come out to give you insight and understanding. At the beginning of your pleas for mercy, a word went out, and I have come to tell it to you, for you are greatly loved.'”

Notice verse 22 there, it says, “come to give you insight and understanding,” that is, understanding of what God’s plan is that’s now being revealed to him, and then he spells it out for him in verses 24 to 27. That plan is this prophecy of the 70 weeks.

Prophecy of the 70 Weeks

Verse 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. 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. 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. And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to the 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.”

Seventy weeks of prophecy still to be fulfilled. Seventy weeks. Seventy weeks of years. Seventy times seven. Four hundred and ninety years yet to come. Jeremiah’s seventy years, seven times over now, is coming, that also happens to be a tenfold jubilee. 490 years—the 49 years of the seven cycles of Sabbath, 10 times over. The long and short of this prophecy that we’ll begin to look at next week—and as I say, it is very complex, it’s packed, it’s compact; there’s even some translation issues I’m going to have to deal with in it—the long and short of it is, over the centuries, God will bring Israel’s sin to an end. But boy, in the meantime, there are going to be some hard times.

God has promised that he would bring Israel back to her land, and he will. The 70 years are about up, but a sevenfold punishment was predicted for violating the sabbatical years, and that is still to come. And in the end, God’s purposes for Israel and for the world will culminate in a grand tenfold jubilee. Well, those are the details we’ll work through next time, beginning next time. I don’t think it will take 70 weeks, but it will take a few. But what we will find out, I trust, is that not only has this prophecy seen exact fulfillment—that is, in the parts that are historically behind us—but more significant, it brought about a fulfillment in a timeframe that establishes the messianic credentials of the Lord Jesus himself.

Let’s bow together for prayer. Our Father, we are challenged by this prophet of old to take seriously our sin. We pray, Lord, that you would so stir our hearts, so make us sensitive to sin, that we come before you with our sin, we come honestly, acknowledging our sinfulness so that we may all the more praise you for your mercy. We thank you for Jesus, the one in whom we have forgiveness of sins. We ask that you would give us a greater, firmer trust in him, and through this prophecy, a greater sense of anticipation of his return. Until then, we pray that you will keep us faithful. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.