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Now we begin a very important piece of text that is used by Christians to prove that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. It achieves it's importance because the Christians say that these verses "specifically" mentions that "THE MESSIAH" is to come and die before the destruction of the Second Temple and for them they ask "Who else could that have been Jesus?". For Christianity as you can see this becomes a key text in their belief that Jesus is the Messiah. Of course Biblical Judaism has a completely different interpretation and understanding for these Hebrew Scriptures in Daniel chapter 9. As we study we will come to see clearly who has the right interpretation of these Hebrew Scriptures and who does not.
To understand this prophecy correctly we need to become familiar with some Hebrew words and concepts. Daniel chapter 9 deals with some very important language that most Christians are not familiar with. Daniel uses a language unfamiliar to most Christians as we need only look at the verse and the Hebrew words within it to see this clearly.
25 Know therefore and discern, that from the going forth of the word to restore and to build Jerusalem unto one anointed, a prince, shall be seven weeks; and for threescore and two weeks, it shall be built again, with broad place and moat, but in troublous times.
The Hebrew word for "weeks" according to the Strong's Concordance:
7620 shabuwa` (shaw-boo'-ah); or shabua` (shaw-boo'-ah); also (feminine) shebu` ah (sheb-oo-aw'); properly, passive participle of 7650 as a denominative of 7651; literal, sevened, i.e. a week (specifically, of years): KJV-- seven, week.
So we see that a "week" refers to "7" and as used by Daniel he is referring to 7 years to "one week." This terminology might be new to the reader but this is a literary technique used by Daniel to describe a "seven year" period of time. Thus we find Daniel using the terms "week" and "weeks." For us we think in 7 days periods but Daniel uses weeks of years (seven years/week) and not week of days.
So we now understand when Daniel mentions "one week" he is referring to 7 years and when Daniel mentions "7 weeks" he is referring to 49 years and when Daniel mention "sixty-two weeks" he is referring to 434 years and so forth.
Answer for yourself: Why would Daniel use such a bizarre language to describe 7 years, 49 years, 434 years, 483 years, and 490 years? Why not just say "seven" or "434" years?
Answer for yourself: Where does the Bible elsewhere describe concepts where the Bible describes years as weeks and not days? Where did Daniel get such a concept as he used in Daniel 9?
In Judaism we find a concept called the "Sabbatical Year" which is called in Hebrew "shemittah" which is the seventh year of rest for the land. The Bible proclaims every seventh year "a sabbath of the Lord" (Lev. 25:1-7, 18-22) during which the soil of the land of Israel must rest and lie fallow.
1 ¶ And the LORD spoke unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying: 2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them: When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the LORD. 3 Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the produce thereof. 4 But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath unto the LORD; thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard. 5 That which groweth of itself of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, and the grapes of thy undressed vine thou shalt not gather; it shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. 6 And the sabbath-produce of the land shall be for food for you: for thee, and for thy servant and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant and for the settler by thy side that sojourn with thee; 7 and for thy cattle, and for the beasts that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be for food. 8 ¶ And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and there shall be unto thee the days of seven sabbaths of years, even forty and nine years. 9 Then shalt thou make proclamation with the blast of the horn on the tenth day of the seventh month; in the day of atonement shall ye make proclamation with the horn throughout all your land. 10 And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof; it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. 11 A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be unto you; ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of the undressed vines. 12 For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy unto you; ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field. 13 In this year of jubilee ye shall return every man unto his possession. 14 And if thou sell aught unto thy neighbour, or buy of thy neighbour's hand, ye shall not wrong one another. 15 According to the number of years after the jubilee thou shalt buy of thy neighbour, and according unto the number of years of the crops he shall sell unto thee. 16 According to the multitude of the years thou shalt increase the price thereof, and according to the fewness of the years thou shalt diminish the price of it; for the number of crops doth he sell unto thee. 17 And ye shall not wrong one another; but thou shalt fear thy God; for I am the LORD your God. 18 Wherefore ye shall do My statutes, and keep Mine ordinances and do them; and ye shall dwell in the land in safety. 19 And the land shall yield her fruit, and ye shall eat until ye have enough, and dwell therein in safety. 20 And if ye shall say: 'What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we may not sow, nor gather in our increase'; 21 then I will command My blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth produce for the three years. 22 And ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat of the produce, the old store; until the ninth year, until her produce come in, ye shall eat the old store.
The farmer is forbidden to plant, sow or plow, but has to rely on the bounty of God to provide him with a threefold harvest in the sixth year to tide him over until the harvest of the eighth year becomes available (Lev. 25:22). The land was required of God to just lay there...you could not do anything to the land but let it rest and enjoy it's sabbath. The harvest of the seventh year is to be regarded as the common property of all -- rich and poor, stranger and slave. When all had had their fill, the remainder was to be left for the domestic and wild animals (Lev. 25:4). All debts were canceled in that year, the creditor being admonished not to dun the debtor or harbor the unworthy thought of refraining from lending him money because the sabbatical year was pending (Deut. 15: 1-11). As explained by Rabbi A.I. Kook, like the Sabbath itself, the Sabbatical year represents a respite from mundane toil, from getting and spending with everything tainted with business, when both land and people can spiritually recuperate -- "a foretaste of a utopian world where inequalities are erased" (Shabbat ha-Aretz, p. 8).
We learn from the Torah that if Israel fails to live up to its obligations before God, punishments will be forthcoming. Throughout Leviticus 26 there is the admonition that the people would be punished "seven ways" for their sins (vs. 18, 21, 24, 28). The Jewish commentators saw this as being applied to this 70-year punishment, not only for the transgression of the law of shemittah, the Sabbatical Year, but for other sins that Israel had committed during the time of the First Temple. Among the other sins cited in the Talmud (Yoma 96) are idolatry, licentiousness and bloodshed.
The primary reason the First Temple was destroyed was due to Israel's failure to observe this commandment
But for our purposes the law of shemittah states that once every seven years the land must lie fallow and not be cultivated.
The Sabbatical year was originally part of a 50-year cycle (Lev. 25:8-17). The climax of this sevenfold seven cycle was the 50th or Jubilee year when all land was returned to its ancestral owners and Hebrew slaves who had insisted on remaining in service after the biblical six-year maximum, were released (Ex. 21:1-6). The Bible ordained exile as the punishment for neglect of the Sabbatical year; indeed, the Babylonian Exile was described as extending the "threescore and ten years (70 years) until the land had paid back its Sabbaths" [one year of captivity for each cycle of 7 years that the land was not allowed to lie fallow in that 7th year] (II Chr. 36:21).
21 to fulfil the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had been paid her sabbaths; for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years [70 years in captivity to pay back one year for each 7 years the land was not allowed to rest and lay fallow...thus 70 years in captivity to pay back the 70 years the land did not rest during 490 years when Israel broke the commandment of shemittah]
The Jubilee years, however, lapsed with the return of the exiles from Babylonia and the rebuilding of the Temple, as it was regarded as binding only as long as the majority of the Jewish people were settled in Erets Israel and the tribal allocation of land was still in force. Nevertheless, the returning exiles solemnly undertook to "forgo the seventh year crop and the exaction of every debt" (Neh. 10:32). The Mishnah Shevitt reflects the attempts to institutionalize the observance of the Sabbatical year and apply it meticulously to the agriculture of the time. Alexander the Great and subsequent benevolent rulers are recorded as having waived the royal tax during that year. Hillel circumvented the problem of the reluctance to lend money as the Sabbatical year approached by instituting the prosbul. After the destruction of the Temple, rabbinic authorities waived the Sabbatical year observance when dire punishment awaited those who would refuse to pay the tax imposed by hostile rulers during these years. It was only with modern Zionist agricultural settlement beginning in the late 19th century that the practical observance of the Sabbatical year once again became relevant. The religious Zionist Mizrachi movement committed itself to the fictional hetter sale to a non-Jew during the Sabbatical year to allow cultivation to continue "so as not to endanger the whole Zionist enterprise." However, the heter was bitterly opposed by other rabbinical authorities, especially among the non-Zionists. In the State of Israel, the Ministry of Religious Affairs has been invested with the authority to execute the ritual sale of all state lands to non-Jews during these years. Modern agricultural techniques such as hydroponics, pre-sabbatical sowing, and multiple harvesting varieties of crops have been resorted to, in order to avoid violating the basic biblical prohibitions. Official planting ceremonies do not take place during the Sabbatical year (the last Sabbatical year was in 1986- 87). Harvesting and marketing operations of seventh-year produce is done in the name of the Israeli ecclesiastical court and the religious kibbutz movement allocates a percentage of its Sabbatical year produce to welfare causes in order to fulfill the spirit of the biblical ordinance.
So we find the Jewish people went into captivity and the Hebrew Bible tell us the reason why the Jewish people went into captivity and exile is that they have abandoned and violated the law of 7 of shemittah therefore the Jewish people went into Babylon for 70 years. So Daniel uses the language of shemittah to express the punishment given Israel for their transgression of Lev. 25:1-22. In using this unique language Daniels tell us as found in a typical Christian Bible that a special period of time consisting of 490 years has been decreed for Israel and her people and upon the holy city of Jerusalem to make reconciliation for the iniquity of breaking shemittah for 490 years and this punishment will be the exile of the Jewish people for 70 years where the land will be allowed to lie fallow one year for each 7 that Israel broke shemittah. Seventy years of captivity where the land lies fallow will be a pay-back to the land for the years she was not allowed to lie fallow during 490 years of Israel's history. Coupled with this is the prophecy that at the end of 483 years of another length of time consisting of 490 years that begins with the going forth of some sort of "word" will be a Messiah who will come and die for others!
"Who else" Christians ask "could this one who was to die for others be but Jesus"? On the surface it looks somewhat convincing until you begin to do some serious study.
Answer for yourself: Does this prophecy refer to Jesus and is Jesus the fulfillment of Daniel 9?
This is the most amazing thing if you stop and think about it but Daniels' prophecy states that within this time frame of 490 years several things are to be accomplished:
Since we now understand Israel's failure to observe and keep "shemittah" then the context of Daniel 9 becomes relatively easy to comprehend. The failure to observe "shemittah" would end upon Israel's captivity and exile and then the sin and transgression of failing to allow the land to lay fallow would cease upon Israel's captivity and removal from the land. Israel's captivity will bring to end this sin and the punishment for this sin along with Israel's repentance will bring forgiveness for this sin. Once Israel as God's Holy Nation and Royal Priesthood had atoned for her sins in this regard through the 70 years that she would spend in captivity then the Messianic Kingdom could begin and God could bring to mankind and the world everlasting righteousness and in so doing God would as well "fulfill" all the prophecies and visions given to Israel and God would once again return to the planet in form of the Shekinah as He had previously resided and in so doing He would anoint the Third Temple. Understand in closing that the Rabbi and the Jewish interpreters of the Hebrew Bible stress that "to seal the vision and the prophets" means that all the Biblical prophecies would be fulfilled. At least that was the plan but as you know it did not happen. We need to find out why and we have on other websites detailed the reasons behind the failure of the Messianic prophecies to be fulfilled. But that is another study and space does not allow for dealing with that in this article.
Well we now know "why" Israel went into captivity in Babylon and why it was seventy years. We also know now why Daniel chose such strange concepts to reveal his revelation as he was somewhat ironic in choosing the concept of shemittah which has been transgressed by Israel to express the punishment for such transgression (weeks of years and not weeks of days). As we move to the next article we will begin to examine the texts in various Christian Bibles as well as the Hebrew Masoretic text and look to see if our Christian Bibles are faithful to the Hebrew Scriptures in translating Daniel 9. Remember if our translations are incorrect or purposefully forged then our understanding is wrong as well as our religious belief systems. Such error leads us unknowingly into idolatry and blasphemy because of the replacement religious doctrines taught in place of the truth as found in the Hebrew Scriptures when rightly translated.
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