In the Old Testament, the appearance of Jesus Christ is announced exactly to the year. The prophet Daniel recorded this prediction in the form of the 70-year week. Daniel chapter 9 describes the appearance, work and death of Jesus Christ in the future.
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Jesus Christ at the end of the 70th week
One of the most important prophecies in the Bible is the prediction in the book of Daniel, chapter 9. It contains the so-called 70-year week. This prophecy is so insightful that it is at the center of deliberate misinterpretation for misleading people. Revealing because this prophecy in Daniel 9 not only predicted the appearance of Jesus Christ to the exact year, but also because this prediction, which is known to have come true, fully confirms the credibility of the Bible.
The prophet Daniel lived in Jerusalem until he was around 17 years old. In 605 B.C. In the 4th century BC, Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Chaldeans, conquered Judah and the city of Jerusalem. Daniel, a scion of the royal family, was deported to Babylon along with other Judeans. He also witnessed the conquest of Babylon by the Medo-Persians and King Cyrus. Daniel lived to be over 90 years old.
Despite the completely new area of life in the midst of the Gentiles, the prophet remained faithful to God and His statutes. This not only affected the worship of the one true Creator God, but also the instructions for eating only pure food. After Daniel was the only one who, thanks to God’s help, was able to interpret King Nebuchadnezzar’s “mysterious” dream, he was appointed by the king as one of the highest officials in all of Babylon.
Daniel receives the prophecy
In chapter 9, already in his old age, Daniel prayed for his people. The defeat of Judea and Jerusalem was a consequence of the apostate state of his people. Daniel asked for mercy and forgiveness. Before his prayer was even finished, the angel Gabriel appeared to him with a very important message. Gabriel wanted to inform the prophet about upcoming events. Gabriel shared the following prophecy with Daniel,Daniel 9:24-27:
“24: Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.
25: Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
26: And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.
27: And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.“
Description of the 70th anniversary week
In Daniel 9:25, Gabriel explains that the counting of 70 weeks (490 years) begins when the command to rebuild Jerusalem is given. A look at history shows that this was exactly the order given by the Persian King Artaxerxes in 457 BC. BC had given the order. This began with the reconstruction of the destroyed city of Jerusalem and a longer period of somewhat normal life. (7 + 62 weeks). During the reconstruction, the Judeans were constantly exposed to threats from neighboring peoples (“in troublous times”).
The temple, which was also destroyed, was re-inaugurated in advance in 516 BC.
After the 69 weeks (7 weeks + 62 weeks) the announced Messiah (Jesus Christ) appears. 69 prophetic weeks are 483 years. Starting from the year 457 BC, this results in the year 27 AD. It should be noted that there is no year “0”. After 1 BC comes immediately 1 AD. Therefore, another year must be added to the mathematical result 26 AD. This year Jesus Christ was baptized. He began his work of salvation and was then active for 3.5 years. The 70th week of the year has now begun.
In Daniel 9:26 the death of Jesus Christ is announced after the end of the 7 + 62 weeks.
Daniel 9:27 announces that the Messiah will make a covenant with many people (evangelization). In the middle of the week (3.5 years after His baptism) the Messiah will be killed. With the death of Jesus Christ and His resurrection, the sacrificial rituals that had been practiced until then ended. These have become obsolete with their implementation. The “ravager” at the time was Imperial Rome and this power passed smoothly to Papal Rome. Finally the Devastator will be destroyed.
All of the prophecies in Daniel 9 have already been fulfilled except for the last statement. The Devastator’s destruction is yet to come, and he has been at work ever since, right up to the present day.
Misrepresentation of Daniel 9
This prophecy in Daniel 9:27 was already in the sights of the Roman Catholic Church shortly after the start of the Reformation. The Reformers identified the Church of Rome as the “man of sin”, “son of perdition” and also the “whore of Babylon”, often described in the Bible. The associated Antichrist was exposed. The two Jesuits Franciscus Ribera and Cardinal Robert Bellarmine created a new “history”. They interpreted Daniel 9:27 to mean a “destroyer” in the future (futurism).
This would mean that the Antichrist or his anti-Christian teachings would not be causing any mischief. The Church of Rome had to be taken out of sight, according to the motto: “If the Antichrist has not yet appeared, the Roman Catholic Church cannot be.” The bottom line is that both have simply taken the last prophetic week out of context and thrown it into the indefinite future. Today, most evangelical churches even teach this story.
Parallels with Jewish teachings
The fairy tale of a future Antichrist put into the world by the two Jesuits means that the descriptions in Daniel 9:27 cannot actually be the announced Messiah (Jesus Christ). They simply turned the tables and made the announced Jesus Christ a future Antichrist.
So Jesus Christ was not announced in Daniel 9 and that fits very well with the Jewish faith. For them the Messiah has not yet appeared and so they were waiting for his “first appearance” in the future.
To get out of this dilemma, the “Jewish Study Bible” interprets the “anointed leader” described in Daniel 9 as either Zerubbabel or the high priest Joshua. The “anointed one” (Messiah) was the high priest Onias, who was already in 171 BC. Died. Furthermore, “disaster” was proclaimed to anyone who dared to interpret Daniel 9 themselves.
The “future prince” described in Daniel 9:26 is Antiochus IV Epiphanes. However, the Talmud “knows” that Daniel’s statements concerned the Messiah. Because the Messiah was announced, but he simply did not appear (Synhedrin XI).
Ea variant that historically cannot be brought into harmony by anything. Here, too, there are points of contact with a story of the “Antichrist” in the past, also invented by a Jesuit (Luis del Alcázar), the so-called preterism.
Destruction of the Devastator
Since it is already apparent that the “dismantling” of verse 27 in Daniel 9 and the verse into the future were done for calculation, any variants of preterism and futurism can safely be thrown into the shredder. These made-up stories only serve to distract and mislead. Jesus Christ’s ministry at the time predicted in Daniel 9 cannot be denied. The devastator described was already at work in Paul’s time and is still very active today (Info). Of the events predicted in Daniel 9, only the last part of the sentence remains open:
and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
Bible verses from King James Version
