Advent Reading - Day 4

Daniel 9:24-27

"Seventy weeks have been
decreed for your people
and your holy city, to finish
the transgression, to make
an end of sin, to make
atonement for iniquity, to
bring in everlasting
rghteousness, to seal up
vision and prophecy and to
anoint the most holy place.

"So you are to know and
discern that from the
issuing of a decree to
restore and rebuild
Jerusalem until Messiah
the Prince there will be
seven weeks and sixty-two
weeks; it will be rebuilt
again, with plaza and moat,
even in times of distress.

"Then after the sixty-two
weeks the Messiah will be
cut off and have nothing,
and the people
of the prince who is to
come will destroy the city
and the sanctuary.  And it's
end will come with a flood;
even to the end there will
be war; desolations are
determined.

"And he will make a firm
covenant with many for
one week, but in the
middle of the week he will
put a stop to sacrifice and
grain offering; and on the
wing of abominations will
come one who makes
desolate, even until a
complete destruction, one
that is decreed, is poured
out on the one who makes
desolate."

*This passage is important to the Advent journey because it details an exact timeline of the events that prove Jesus is the Messiah.  Daniel 9:24-27 outlines what is known as the prophecy of the sixty-nine weeks.

"In short:  The decree of Daniel 9:25 took place on March 4 of 444 B.C. when Nehemiah was ordered to rebuild Jerusalem.  The 69 weeks of 7 years equals 483 years (173,880 days using the common prophetic calendar in which a month is always 30 days and a year equals 360 days).

"This leads to March 29, A.D. 33, the date of the Triumphal Entry when Jesus comes into Jerusalem and allows Himself to be crucified.  This is checked by noting that 444 B.C. to A.D. 33 is 476 years (Remember, there is no year "0").  476 x 365.24219 days per year = 173,855 days.  (Here we use our calendar to see if the dates in our time confirm the events as they happened on the Biblical prophetic calendar!)  Count in the extra 25 days between March 4 and March 29 of the two dates and it EQUALS 173,880 days!

"Even in the calculation of these unquestionable dates, I am humbled by the fact that our Lord's life is not confirmed by the date of his birth, but by the date of that for which he was born:  to die "but not for Himself".

- from TeachingMom.com