Daniel 9 – A Look Into the Future

From being a genuine role model for us in these trying times that we live in to the amazingly accurate prophecies in the latter part of the book, the ancient book of Daniel lives on today.

This past Sunday, our final week in our Daniel series centered around the incredible, detailed prediction of the Messiah dying hundreds of years before it happened. The fulfillment is unveiled for us in Luke 19:28 – ff (Palm Sunday through the entire Passion Week). In Luke 19, as people rejoiced and praised Jesus as the Messiah, the King, others tried to stop them. Then in Luke 19:40, Jesus told the ones who wanted to stop the people from praising him as Messiah that if these people didn’t do this – then the stones around them will cry out. Why did Jesus say that? It all has to do with the Daniel 9:24-27 prophecy about the Messiah, the Anointed One and King, being recognized as such as he entered Jerusalem. The prophecy had to be fulfilled. So, if the people didn’t recognize him as the Anointed One, the stones would – since the prophecy had to some true.

Then, in v.42, Jesus passionately says to the unbelievers – “… Would you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace!” Then in v.44, Jesus makes a reference to the unbelievers not knowing “the time of your visitation.” This is another reference to the Daniel 9 prophecy. If they would have known this prophecy, they would have been expecting the Messiah to come at this time. As we discussed this past Sunday, you can actually take the wording of the prophecy and calculate to almost the very day when the Messiah would come into Jerusalem and die as a sacrifice for us. God lays it out clearly for a anyone who read the Daniel 9 prophecy to know “the time of [His] visitation.”

In summary, the time of the rebuilding of Jerusalem that’s mentioned in the prophecy began in the month of April, 444 BC (Nehemiah 2) plus 483 Jewish calendar years (or 173,880 days) equals the time when the Messiah would die or be “cut off.” When you adjust for some calendar things (e.g., Christ was born in 4 BC), you actually arrive at 33 AD. In Luke 19, Jesus was trying to remind them of the Daniel prophecy, but many of the people didn’t get it. He actually wept over the city because they wouldn’t believe in Him (Luke 19:41).

If you want a more complete discussion on the Daniel 9:24-27 prophecy, I recommend the book – Daniel’s 70 Weeks by Alva McClain. It’s a great, short book on the topic.