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.” Daniel 9:20-27
Notice that Daniel prayed at the time of day that God had commanded His people to pray – at the time of the evening sacrifice. Even though the temple was destroyed, Daniel still honored the “time for prayer” as God had commanded. When does God ask us to pray? The answer is found in such verses as 1 Thessalonians 5:17 – “pray without ceasing.”
God now gives Daniel a prophetic map of the history of Israel from his day until the end of history as we know it. Where Daniel had been reading about “70 years”, God now maps history in “70 weeks.” Each “week” is seven years. Notice that the purpose of the seventy weeks is to “finish the transgression” – complete the time of Israel’s rebellion against God.
The first period of seven weeks began with the king’s command to Nehemiah to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem (Nehemiah 2). The city and the place of the Temple again belonged to Israel. The prophecy of sixty-two weeks gives us the exact day that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, offering them the Kingdom (Mark 11, Luke 19, and John 12). Within days “after that” Jesus was crucified – “cut off” from His people. (For further explanation of this fulfillment go to https://www.gotquestions.org/seventy-weeks.html)
Jesus spoke of the “times of the Gentiles” in Luke 21:24, a period of time between the “cutting off” of the Messiah until the time of the last “week” for Daniel’s people, Israel. This is the time in which we live now. Daniel’s seventieth week will begin when a “prince” makes a covenant with Israel (Daniel’s people) for one week – seven years. This is known as the Great Tribulation.
*What makes you certain that you will not have to face the Great Tribulation?
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