Daniel 9:1-20  Daniel's prayer to God to remember the Israelites as the prophesied time to end the diaspora is coming to an end.

        

           21 Yea, whiles I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen

           in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the

           time of the evening oblation.

           22 And he informed me, and talked with me, and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth

           to give thee skill and understanding.

           23 At the beginning of thy supplications the commandment came forth, and I am come

           to shew thee; for thou art greatly beloved: therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision.

Daniel, and you and I through him, are instructed four times in the book of Daniel to consider and understand the visions he is given. In fact, this instruction is so important that Gabriel is sent to Daniel with the instruction to give him, and us, ‘skill and understanding’.

           24 Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city,

           to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity,

           and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy,

           and to anoint the Most Holy.

From some point in time, the Jews will have ‘seventy weeks’ to make themselves right with God. This warning has the implication of the temple service will be affected, and at the end of the verse actually says that ‘the Most Holy’(Place)  is to be set aside for atonement services.

           25 Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to

           restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks,

           and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.

Here we learn that the ‘going forth of the commandment to restore’ Jerusalem is the starting point of the ‘seventy weeks’. At some point in the ‘last days’ Jerusalem will be in disrepair and need to be ‘built again’. ‘Messiah the Prince’ is a mistranslation in this verse, and actually should read ‘an anointed prince’. This person, I believe, is the little horn of Daniel 8. The UN, which takes over the government of the US, because of a near impossible job of keeping peace in Jerusalem, and at the same time rebuilding Jerusalem, decide to allow the Vatican to volunteer for the duty. Since 1948, the Vatican has petitioned the UN to internationalize Jerusalem and let her govern the city for the religions of the world. So, seven weeks after the resolution to rebuild Jerusalem, the pope arrives to take the reigns of the government of Jerusalem.

           26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself:

           and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary;

           and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.

Sixty-two weeks after the anointed prince shows up to take over Jerusalem, his job is completed and/or it is time to turn over the keys to the city to ‘the prince that shall come’. This person is ‘the prince of the host’ of Daniel 8 and the ‘vile person’ of Daniel 11, the man of sin, the antichrist. His ‘people’ will at some point take over Jerusalem and make the city and the new temple unusable for anyone but themselves. Verse 26c looks ahead to the end of reign of the ‘prince that shall come’ with the promise that it will end, but until then, it will not be pretty.

           27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst

           of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading

           of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined

           shall be poured upon the desolate.

Here we see a prophecy of Jesus coming true:

Joh 5:43 I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not:

if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.

Last year the Jewish sanhedrin was formed just for the purpose of recognizing the Messiah when He comes. And here in verse 27 a the ‘prince that shall come’, who probably appeared as an angel of light, is being accepted as the messiah and ‘in the ‘midst of the week’ becoming the ‘abomination that makes desolate’ the new temple.

Matt 24:15 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation,

spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)

Matt 24:16 Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:

Satan has finally managed to usurp God’s ‘claim stake’, Mt. Moriah, and he sits on the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant making himself to be God. This is surely the beginning of the time of ‘Jacob’s trouble’.

Dan 12:1 And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth

for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was

since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered,

every one that shall be found written in the book.

The promise is that it will last a limited time.

Dan 8:14 And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days;

then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.

Dan 12:7 And I heard the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river,

when he held up his right hand and his left hand unto heaven, and sware by him

that liveth for ever that it shall be for a time, times, and an half; and when he shall have

accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished.

Dan 12:8 And I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things?

Dan 12:9 And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.

Dan 12:10 Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly:

and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.

Dan 12:11 And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that

maketh desolate set up, [there shall be] a thousand two hundred and ninety days.

Dan 12:12 Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.

Through the generations the saints have been warned off trying to set a time for Messiah’s return:

Matt 24:36 But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.

But, for the final generation, the curtain of time is drawn back and through Daniel, God tells us the number of days ‘til the coming of the Son of Man.