The Promise of God (The Morning Star - Part 2) So we are in our in part two of series entitled The Morning Star, a series that really is about light. Why? Because the morning star has meaning only in as far as there is darkness. Darkness creates longing for light and the morning star is that beacon of hope that precedes the rising sun. It's the harbinger, the precursor. The morning star announces the soon to rise sun which will just flood the earth with that long anticipated light. But this series of course is not about physical light but prophetic light. Last week we talked about the prophetic darkness that Daniel was living under. Daniel was living in pitch black darkness. If you were to point your finger at a moment of history where the darkness was just inky black, it would be hard to find a time where there was more darkness. I want you to imagine his life. Imagine being Daniel. It's so hard to imagine since we don't live in a political situation anything like what he experienced. But just imagine it. Imagine that we as Americans are the modern equivalent of ancient Israel. And let's suppose further that China is the modern day equivalent of ancient Babylon. Here you are living your life, shopping at Kohls scooping up all the black Friday deals and this foreign power lands on our soil. And this isn't just happen-stance. God has promised that since we abandoned the founding principles of our nation, since we encourage homosexuality and abortion and greed and hedonism and materialism, it's time to pour out the judgments of Deuteronomy 28 on us.
And so in come the invaders. China sends in the airforce and navy. A nuclear bomb destroys New York city. War breaks out, not over there, but on Fairview Avenue and Eagle. The village is blown up. The airport is bombed. On Capitol blvd, the actual Capitol building, this historic monument is leveled. All of the sudden the president of the United States is killed and you see your new leader on TV speaking through an interpreter. That would be shocking. But then you get hauled off to China. And you are sent to a Chinese school and you had to learn Chinese and you are in the court of the Chinese emperor. And all these gods you've never heard of are surrounding you. And you are tending to the emperor. Your country is gone. Your church is gone. You have all these songs in your head from church that you like singing. But nothing is familiar. You turn on the radio and it's all Chinese. You are surrounded by: strange customs, strange foods, strange clothing, strange smells, strange gods. You are a foreigner in every sense of the word. And you wonder where God is? Will I ever get to go home. Will America ever be restored? But it gets worse. China is then destroyed by yet another foreign power. North Korea. So now you start all over again. A new country. More new customs, more new smells, another new language, different clothes. This was the world of Daniel. Can you imagine.
He was hauled off to Babylon under the Babylonians. A few years later he would get news that his home town was leveled the walls broken down and his beloved temple was destroyed. Then the Babylonians were sacked by the Persians. What is God doing in all this? Daniel in this moment is experiencing prophetic darkness. There's nothing. There's no hope. If you look around all you could possibly conclude is that God had abandoned his people and that all was lost. You could not get any more bleak than that. Your in the spiritual equivalent of a black hole. And so that was last week. Here Daniel is in the thick, inky black, prophetic darkness. And in today's passage a candle is lit. A piercing stream of light miles away is seen. And this morning star of hope is not even dawn. It's pre-dawn, but predawn signals that dawn is coming, and dawn signals that the sunrise is coming and the sunrise signals the full
bloom of day. Turn in your Bibles to Daniel 9 and we will take a look at this passage. Now as your turning their let's fix a date in history. When was Daniel Deported? This becomes important for a few reasons. There were three waves of Babylonian conquest that overran the Judean territories. Daniel was captured in the first wave in 606BC, Ezekiel in the second and the destruction of Jerusalem, it's walls and the Jewish Temple in the third. These are important anchor dates and here's why: You will remember from last week that Daniel was sitting in Babylon, in the midst of his deportation. And Daniel has been in captivity for many, many years now. The opening lines of chapter 9 fixes Daniels prayer and prophesy at the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus. So that's something like 539BC which means that Daniel has been in captivity for 66 years. Daniel is probably something like 80 years old right now. So don't picture the kid that
gets thrown into the lions den. This is the Daniel the white. And he's looking and longing for some prophetic insight before he dies. And it's at this low point of darkness that Daniel opens his Bible. Now look at Daniel chapter 9: Where is he reading from? He's reading from Jeremiah which for us is an ancient book but for Daniel it was only a few decades old.. Daniel is reading from Jeremiah about the Judgment of God that will be poured out upon Israel for her disobedience. And Daniel is experiencing the fulfillment of that prophesy. But not only Jeremiah's prophesy. They were reaping the consequences Moses predicted clear back in Deuteronomy 28. If you obey, I will bless you, but if you disobey I will curse you. But there is something that Jeremiah adds that Moses does not - the length of time they would be in ruin. So Jeremiah speaking to his people and speaking of the land of Israel says,
And then a few chapters later God says it again:
Now if you are Daniel, the one living in darkness, these aren't just words on a page. This means something. Seventy years? We must be getting close. Daniel asked himself, When did those seventy years begin? Because if I can start the timer at a fixed date here, I can know when they will end. Did God start it at 605 with me? Or maybe with Ezekiel? Or maybe it starts with the destruction of Jerusalem? Not sure. But if it starts with my deportation, we are mere three years away! Daniel is very likely getting excited because he can see political shifts taking place. He can see forces in place that might cause this to happen. Not only did he have the prophesy of Jeremiah. He had another prophesy written 200 years earlier from the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah predicted that a man named Cyrus will arise and set his people free.** And Daniel is watching this unfold before his eyes. You see, Babylon had a little neighbor to the North: Persia.
And guess who had just brilliantly overthrown his uncles Astyages in battle and made himself master of the entire Medo-Persian domain. Cyrus the Persian. And he was coming in waves of conquering power. When Cyrus finally launched his invasion of Mesopotamia and laid siege to Babylon itself, Daniel s heart must have leaped at seeing prophecy being fulfilled. Cyrus would very soon attained the success that the Lord had promised him years before:
You can imagine Daniel's excitement. And Cyrus already had a reputation of being very liberal. He allowed for freedom of religion had a policy of allowing captured foreigners to return to their homes and lands. In fact in archeology there is a rather well-known discovery called the Cyrus Cylinder that talks about Cyrus' policies in this regard. Cyrus Cylinder written in ancient Akkadian cuneiform that talks about Cyrus' policy to allow foreigners to return to their lands. But of course this is what God had predicted would happen.
Josephus, a first century Jewish historian has this really interesting letter written from Cyrus himself to some of his governors. Cyrus was made aware of this prophesy concerning him and it kind of stroked his pride and so he became very generous toward Israel. King Cyrus to Sisinnes, and Sathrabuzanes, sendeth Greeting. I have given leave to as many of the Jews that dwell in my country as please, to return to their own country, and to rebuild their city, and to build the temple of God at Jerusalem, on the same place where it was before... I require also that the expenses for these things be given out of my revenues. Moreover I have also sent the vessels which King Nebuchadnezzar pillaged out of the temple, and have given them to Mithridates the treasurer; and to Zorobabel the governor of the Jews; that they may have them carried to Jerusalem, and may restore them to the temple of God. 50 chargers of gold; 500 of silver: 40 Thericlean cups of gold; 500 of silver: 50 basons of gold; 500 of silver: 30 vessels for pouring [the drink offerings,] 300 hundred of silver: 30 vials of gold, 2400 hundred of silver: with a thousand other large vessels. cattle, wheat, flour.
Finally he adds But my will is, that those who disobey these injunctions, and make them void, shall be hung upon a cross and their substance brought into the King s treasury. This is exactly what God said that Cyrus would do. All of this was just about to happen. It was just a matter of months away. Daniel can sense it. This is the context for his prayer that he prays out to the Lord. Lord, would you forgive our people and our iniquity and may you fulfill the words of prophesy given to Isaiah and Jeremiah. Lord, it must be close. Things must be near! And so he prays the prayer that Nate looked at last week.
So he flies in in swift flight and says, not only are your right about your interpretation of the times. Not only are you right that the seventy years prophesied by Jeremiah is coming to an end. But I am going to give you further insight. I'm going to give you additional prophetic light about what is to come. I'm going to give you a prophesy about a star arising out of Jacob, a bright and morning star. Not only is Israel going to be restored to her land. There is a Messiah coming! So let's check out this amazing prophesy. Now let's break this down verse by verse into digestable chunks. The first thing to say is that this is one of the most important prophetic texts in all the Bible but that doesn't mean it's easy. It is a confusing text. There are about 4 major interpretations of this text and a lot of minor ones. I spent a lot of time this week trying to understand them all and I'd actually love to talk about the pros and cons of each view. But we won't have time today to do that. What I will do is give you a view that I think is a good one and just walk you through that one view so you can hear it explained all the way out. It
would literally take several hours to walk you through the various views here. Why is this so confusing? The source of the confusion comes in two places. First it's hard to identify the people and events referenced in the text. What are the weeks? Who is the prince? Who is the anointed one? Who is the one who commits abomination? Who is the one who makes desolate? But another reason you get lots of different views, is because it's hard to know where to start and stop the dates. If I were to give you a prophesy that said, "From the rebelling of America against Britain to the coming of Messiah there would be 534 years, when would you start?" What actual date is that? Do you start with the Boston Tea Party? Do you start with the Revolutionary War? And if so, what part? The Beginning, the Decisive battle, the end? What marked the end? The last gunshot, the signed treaty? And when who signed it? America or Britain? Do you see the problem? So you can calculate it various ways, but no matter what way you decide to calculate it, you end up with the same basic idea. The prophesy is either fulfilled at the beginning of his ministry, the triumphal entry, etc. So let's take a look a the weeks of prophesy mentioned here. The Achievements Now in this seventy weeks 6 things are supposed to happen. These seventy weeks won't be complete until you see these six things are achieved:
The reason for clearly identifying these six achievements is because everyone who reads this prophesy has to wrestle with the question, "Is it fulfilled yet?" If all six goals were in fact attained by the crucifixion of Christ and the establishment of the early church seven years after his death, then it might be fair to assume that the entire 490 years of the seventy weeks were to be understood as running consecutively and coming to a close in A.D. 37. But if not, perhaps there is more of the prophesy yet to be fulfilled in the second coming. The Weeks The prophesy begins, "Seventy weeks are declared about your people and your holy city."
Now right away you have something interesting. In Hebrew the word for weeks is the number 7. I can count to seven. Ahat, Shtime, Shalosh, Arbah, Hamash, Shesh, Sheva. And the word for weeks is taking that Hebrew word sheva and making it plural. In the Bible you have the feast of weeks or Pentacost which is shavuot. You can hear the word sheva in shavout. It's just making the number seven a feminine plural. So if I said, see you in a week in Hebrew, you could translate it literally,"see you in 7" Meaning see you in seven days. See you in a week. It's kind of like in baseball you say, he ran to third. Third what? Third base. The noun base is implied. Same idea. So here you have a prophesy that starts out. Seventy "weeks" are declared. But all it's really saying is 70 units of 7 are declared. 70 x 7 units declared. It could be 70 periods of 7 weeks are declared. It could be 70 periods of 7 days are declared.
It could be 70 periods of 7 years are declared. So the question is what time unit is Daniel thinking in terms of? The default unit of time would be weeks because that is most common. But there are three major reasons why we know these aren't normal weeks. 1. First of all, Daniel is just coming off Jeremiah's prophesy which has us thinking in terms of years. You will be in captivty for 70 years. 2. Secondly, try to make this prophesy make sense if you put days or weeks in there. As we continue to read here we are going to see that the temple is going to have to be rebuilt, the Messiah is going to come, be killed and then the temple destroyed. If you use days as your unit of time, then this whole prophesy would conclude in less than a year and a half, which is simply not enough time for all the achievements of vv. 24 27 to take place. Inserting weeks as the time unit creates the same difficulty. The span of time is not long enough, adding up to only nine and a half years. 1 Kings 9:10 says that it took 7 years to build the temple and if you include the courts and palace that took 20 years. It's simply too quick given that the Jews weren't even living in their land. 3. There is a little hint in the Hebrew itself.
Remember we said that the way to say weeks in Hebrew is to simply take the word seven and make it plural? Well, here they make the word seven plural but instead of it being feminine like it normally is, it's masculine. So instead of Shavuot it Shavooim. That's very unusal. So it's a marker, a sort of tip-off that the writer is doing something special or interesting. You'd never do that unless you wanted to make some sort of point. If I was to say how old are you and I said, "Well, I'm thirty and nine." You understand what I'm saying but that's certainly not the normal way you answer a question like that. And Daniel does have a special reason for his little grammatical aberration. The most natural understanding of his reason for departing from the norm is that wants to let his readers know that he's talking about 70 units of 7 years. Now what he's going to do is split those 70 units into 3 distinct portions. Let's look at how this works:
So you have a period of seven sevens (seventy units of seven years), you have a period of 62 sevens and then in verse 27 you have one seven. So 7 + 62 + 1 = 70 Now how does this work. We need to start by looking for a landmark. "Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the anointed... (Dan 9:25 ESV)" So the first date we need to establish is when this decree happened in history to "restore and build Jerusalem". This isn't as easy and straightforward as you'd like. There are many events you could point to that all sound pretty good here.
Cyrus has a decree in 538 and we looked at that one, But Artexerxes allows Ezra to return in 457 and rebuild the temple and presumably the city as well. You have Nehemiah's return to focus on the walls in 446. All of these are pretty good options. And we don't have time to talk through the merits and problems of these various options. Again, I'm showing you just one good view here. I think that the one that makes the most sense in my thinking takes it from Artexerxis decree to Ezra.
So this is going to be our anchor point in history. Now we start counting. From the going forth of the decree to build the temple there will be seven weeks and 62 weeks before the coming of an anointed one.
So those are taken together. In those first 49 years the temple is rebuilt. It says it's going to be rebuilt with squares and moat. Jerusalem never had a moat and it couldn't. The geography would never allow for that, but that's just language for completeness. That might be like us saying a car has all the bells and whistles. It doesn't mean that it literally has bells and whistles. It's just got the complete feature package. So in that first 49 years Jerusalem, her walls and the temple are rebuilt and then we wait another 62 units of seven or 434 years for a total of 483 years. And sure enough. That gets us to AD 27 right about the beginning of Jesus' public ministry. So from the going forth of the decree to rebuild Jerusalem to the coming of the anointed one will be 483 years. Then we have some interesting additional prophesy. After that, the anointed one will be cut off and have nothing.
So of course this references and predicts the death of Jesus. This would be shocking. The anointed one will be cut off and have nothing. The fact that the Messiah would suffer is not an obscure theme in the Bible. You have Zechariah 12 that he will be pierced for their iniquity.the disciples missed it entirely, but you have four sections of Isaiah that are called the servant songs that all speak of this and of course this one as well. It is more likely that the disciples didn't want to believe that their Messiah would suffer. So we are told that this anointed one would be cut off and have nothing. And then we get one more final piece of the puzzle. This references the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. And if you read Jewish history about this destruction it is exactly as is described here. Josephus describes this long multi-year siege of
Jerusalem where the people literally turn mad and the city is sacked and the temple burned to the ground and horrible suffering and destruction take place. So that is the bulk of the historical aspect of this prophesy. Now just stand back and think about this: I think this is pretty remarkable. We are still 500 years out. A prophesy that looks 500 years ahead. This would be like Martin Luther predicting the destruction of the world trade center and the assassination of JFK. Think about the number of things predicted and fulfilled here: 1. The return of Israel to their land after being violently rejected. 2. The rebuilding of the city and temple 3. The amount of time before an anointed one would come. 4. What would happen to him when he would come, the fact he would be cut off and have nothing. 5. That the rebuilt temple would again be destroyed in a violent war. That's some pretty remarkable prediction. This kind of specific prophesy ought to really humble you. No matter how powerful you are, no matter how large you are, no matter how great of a name you've established, you are still under one crushing liability. Your life is capped at something like 70,80,90 years. And then you are done. And you can control or at least have the illusion of control of things in that little window of time. But you know what prophesy is? It's God's trump card. What can you control 500 years from now? God's answer is EVERYTHING. I control it all. What I said would happen 500 years ago is happening now and what I say will happen in 500 years future will happen just as it's happening today. Now for today's purposes we are going to leave verse 27 alone.
We've addressed 69 of the 70 weeks. Verse 27 deals with this last week. This is the hardest part to interpret. Some see this as being fulfilled in history in the first few years of the church. Other dispensational views see this as yet future. But for the sake of our series we are talking about the prophetic light leading up to Jesus and his first coming. In fact, I want to end with one of the most remarkable aspects about this prophesy. It's a single word that is introduced here that just rolls off our tongue so easily. The word Messiah. What is that word speaking of? If you go to a Messianic congregation and listen to how they close their prayer they will say, "in the name of Jesus Christ". Yeshua ha Machiach. What does that word mean. It means the anointed one. In the OT the kings would be anointed. You remember when Samuel anointed Saul and then later anointed David. What was he doing? He was "Messiahing" them. He was anointed them. Well, this prophesy is the only place in the OT where this seed of Abraham promised to Moses, this root of Jesse, this righteous servant of Isaiah is called a Messiah. The anointed one. And when we get to the NT what is everyone asking? Are you the Messiah. Are you the Christ? What is that word Christ? That's the Greek word for Messiah. When Jesus asks Peter, "Who do you say that I am?" What does he answer? You are the Christ. You are Messiah. You are the anointed one. He has to be thinking in terms of this verse. It's the main place where this coming deliverer is called out as the Messiah. This actually brings a little interesting insight into Peter's response doesn't it. Jesus says to Peter, you got it right,
I'm the anointed one of Daniel 9. I am the Messiah. And because I'm that guy, now it's time for me to go up to Jerusalem and be cut off just as the prophesy predicted. Peter didn't like that did he. This wasn't new information that Jesus was adding. This was Jesus exegeting the OT text. I am the anointed one. Now I'm going to set Nate up for next week. Answer me this: who do you anoint? You anoint kings. Israel in captivity couldn't help hear Messiah as anything other than political redemption. This prophesy is couched in the language of politics. "Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build The Twin Towers to the coming of the new President, the commander and chief, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with elevators and helicopter pads, but in an economic recession. And after the sixtytwo weeks, the president shall be assassinated. And the people of the elected official who is to come shall destroy the city and the newly rebuild trade center. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed" (Daniel 9:25-26). When we hear president and elected we don't hear spiritual ideas. We hear political ones. This sets us up for next week!