The Seventy Weeks III

Daniel 6

25 Then king Darius wrote unto all people,

nations, and languages, that dwell in all the

earth; Peace be multiplied unto you.

26 I make a decree, That in every dominion of my

kingdom men tremble and fear before the G-d of

Daniel: for he is the living G-d, and stedfast

for ever, and his kingdom that which shall not be

destroyed, and his dominion shall be even unto

the end.

27 He delivereth and rescueth, and he worketh

signs and wonders in heaven and in earth, who

hath delivered Daniel from the power of the

lions.


Some things in the book of Daniel are easier to

see than others. But it helps to keep things in

context. In an earlier post I suggest that the

chronology is not so much to provide an exact, to

the minute description of events, but to set

the kingdom of man into its proper place, being

subject to the rule of Heaven. We see the period

of history from Daniel's day until the time of

Jesus, and then a long pause in the chronology.

It's helpful to keep in mind the language of the

text -- seventy sevens. It reminds me of Jesus'

prophecy of his resurrection where he said, on

the third day. From the language, it's fairly

clear that he didn't mean 72 hours. The same

idea should be applied to the book of Daniel.

Seventy sevens represents seventy periods,

although I haven't ever seen it broken down into

a sequence of seventy periods of time. What we

can break it down to is, a period of 483 years to

be followed by a seven year period. There is so

much more here, but I think that the main points

have been mentioned over the past week.


Then notice in the passage above in verse 26.

Look at the language used there; '...in every

dominion of my kingdom...' Good ol' King Darius

was a typical kingdom of man kinda' guy. Yet he

plainly declares that his kingdom will be

outlived by the Eternal kingdom. And in verse

25, the use of the words 'all the earth', which

really mean, all the people under my rule. It's

curious to me how kingdom of man guys see things.

(Do they really believe they're in control?)

But more important, it's a good example of how

the language of the passage has to be taken in

context in order to get a clear idea of how to

interpret that language.


I only go through all of this to express my

notion that the exactness of these prophecies are

not determined by a counting up days, but by the

historic fact that they did, after all, come to

pass. It reminds me of the passage in the

description of Solomon's Temple where numbers are

given for the diameter of the shape of a circular

article used in the Temple. The numbers don't

come out to exactly equal the value of 3.14159...

= pi. The point is that the scripture is not a

mathematics text, and to treat it as such is, at

least in my mind, to miss the significance of

what it has to say -- that G-d is firmly in

control of all events.


"Taken as a whole, the "seventy sevens" of

Daniel's prophecy present the whole history of

Israel from the time of Nehemiah in 444 B.C.

until the second coming." p.258


More than that this prophecy of Daniel ties

together the destiny of the nation of Israel with

the destiny of the gentile world. If you will,

it ties together the chronology of the kingdom of

man and the kingdom of heaven. "In Daniel's

vision, then, he not only covered the sweep of

Gentile prophecy terminating in the Second

Coming, but he revealed that the "seventy sevens"

of Israel will conclude with the same event, the

Second Coming." p.258 In the end, the kingdom of

man, which is always at odds with the kingdom of

heaven, will be superceded by the eternal city of

G-d, the New Jerusalem, which is what has always

been represented by the nation of Israel and the

covenant people.


"The fact that Israel is already back in the

land, that a world government is already current,

and that there is already a world religious

movement combine to indicate that the time of

fulfillment of end-time events may not be

distant." pp.258-9 Walvoord concludes in this

quote, what I would consider an understatement.

Given that Daniel was able record an

unquestionably accurate sequence of prophetic

proclamations that identify every major world

empire from the time of the Babylonian Empire,

that he played a role in, to the Roman Empire at

the time of Christ, which coincides with the

collapse of the nation of Israel and more

significantly, the destruction of the Temple and

the cessation of Temple worship, is nothing less

than incredible. To conclude anything other than

the revival of the nation of Israel signals that

the 'time of the end' has arrived is to

completely reject the significance of the book of

Daniel. We are just waiting for the moment that

the prophetic stop watch restarts the countdown

of the final week of the seventy weeks.


Daniel on its own, provides everything that we

need to understand the history of the kingdom of

man. If all we had to go on was the book of

Daniel, it is enough, along with the testimony of

Jesus regarding the end times, to direct our

attention to current events. But the fact is

that it's not just the book of Daniel. Daniel

provides a chronological outline, but there are

many other references to the end of the kingdom

of man. If I'm not mistaken, this is what Jesus'

disciples were anticipating. They were expecting

that Jesus was here to bring the kingdom of man

to an end. They were a little early and not yet

aware of the plan of G-d to include gentiles in a

covenant relationship.