A Broken Heart and a Prophetic Word

Daniel is continuing to serve in captivity when he remembers the words of Jeremiah, the prophet, who gave a time frame for when exile would end. He fasted and mourned when he realized how close they were to returning home. Why wasn’t he happy? Daniel knew his Scriptures, and it was promised that there wouldn’t be restoration unless God’s people repented. Daniel realizes he is part of the story, so he repents on behalf of God’s people and gives us a model prayer.

He starts with adoration, acknowledging who God is and His covenant and steadfastness. He knows there is a problem because they haven’t kept the commandments, so he moves on to confession. He owns their sin, where they have missed the mark, twisted God’s ways, acted wickedly, turned from God, and ignored the prophets calling them to repentance. Confession is admitting what is with no excuses. They didn’t just violate a law; they violated a relationship. Next, Daniel petitioned and asked God for His grace and mercy. He asks for God’s mercy based on His character and His cause. He created them as a people for a purpose. He ends the prayer with a beautiful recognition of what God can do.

Was God going to respond to Daniel’s prayer?

While he was still praying, God sent Gabriel to him. When a child of God confesses and repents, God runs in with mercy. Gabriel came to give him understanding. The first thing that God has Gabriel say to Daniel is that he is greatly loved. He also gave him further insight.

What are the 70 weeks? We must understand that the angel keeps saying 70x7 because seven represents weeks. So he is saying a set of 70 sevens. To a Jewish person, this makes sense because it’s two groupings of times that are significant to their way of life. Seven days is a week, but they also grouped seven years. Every seventh day is the Sabbath, and every seventh year is a Sabbath year or Jubilee. The people never honored Jubilee by not working the land, so God removed them from the land to let it rest. Most commentators agree that after 70 years, the people would go back and rebuild the Temple and that the 70x7 represents 490 years. It will be 490 years before salvation would come. Daniel asks the little question of when he gets to go home, and Gabriel tells him when all sin will be atoned for.

Gabriel takes the 70 weeks and breaks it into three pieces. Seven weeks, sixty-two weeks, and one week. After the seven weeks and the sixty-two weeks comes the anointed one. One view says this is a summary of what happened under Antiochus Epiphanes. This is when God’s people went home, Antiochus committed the abomination of desolation, and Judas Maccabeus hammered them down and brought righteousness back to the Temple. This view kind of works, but the numbers don’t fit. Many would say that the numbers are symbolic, but that doesn’t change the fact that Judas Maccabeus didn’t end all sin. Most importantly, Jesus didn’t subscribe to this view. In Matthew 24, He implies that the abomination of desolation is in the future.

Another view is that these weeks are about Jesus. The Temple will be rebuilt in those first seven weeks, but there will be troubled times during the next sixty-two weeks. Then the Anointed One will come, but He will be cut off. When He is, sin will be atoned for. Then, one day, He returns to make things right again. That last week extends symbolically through history as God atones for sin.

This last view takes into account how specific Gabriel is with the numbers. There are sixty-nine weeks, and then the Anointed One comes. That clock started from the decree to rebuild the Temple in Nehemiah. If you take that and add 483 years, using the Jewish Calendar, you land on the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, the exact day Jesus came in riding on a donkey as the Messiah they were waiting for. He gets cut off as He is murdered, but He atoned for sin. It’s in the last week that the prince comes. For half of that week, he will end the worship of God. Then, there will be an abomination of desolation, a guy where he should not be. Paul explains this in 1 Thessalonians and implies it is in the future. When the Antichrist comes, God’s people will suffer, but the decreed end of him will come when Jesus returns. So, in this view, we see the literal prediction of the first and second coming of Jesus.

What do all these views agree on? That we are loved and going home, but it’s not the end yet. It’s still a broken world, but the anointed one has come and atoned for our sins. We are living in the days of grace when we can repent. Difficult days will come, but sin will cease, and the Antichrist will fall when Jesus comes again.