“Know therefore and understand, That from the going forth of the command to restore
and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks;
the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublesome times.
And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself;
and the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.
The end of it shall be with a flood, And till the end of the war desolations are determined.”
Daniel 9:25-26
Wonderful, powerful, significant verses! …Yet they are unknown and unimportant to most Christians today; what a pity!
The translators of the King James and New King James Versions saw the importance and translated the Hebrew word “Meshiach” as Messiah. They wanted everyone to know that this prophesy was about the Jewish Messiah; that is Christ. The 38 other times it appears in the Old Testament, it was translated literally as “anointed.”
This prophecy is a time-line that begins with the “command to restore and build Jerusalem.” Jewish people in the first century knew the day, month, and year it took place. Even our history books tell us that King Artaxerxes of Persia made that decree in 444 B.C.
Then come two time periods: “seven weeks and sixty-two weeks.” The term “weeks” literally means “sevens” and is actually referring to weeks of years. So then “seven weeks” is actually 49 years and “sixty-two weeks” is actually 434 years. Forty-nine years after the decree to rebuild, Nehemiah actually finished building the streets. 49+434=483 years. Exactly four-hundred eighty-three years after Artaxerxes’ command, the Messiah was to be “cut off” (March 30thof 33 A.D). First-century preachers did the math and believed that date to be the day of Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The anointed of God went to His own and His own received Him not. Four days later (April 3rd) Christ was crucified – “cut off.” When early Jewish believers heard this, they also did the math and were convinced that Jesus was their Messiah.
January 20
