[This is the text version of the video, “Daniel Chapter 9-a ‘The 69 Weeks’”.]

Hi again, I’m Mark. For years I’ve been looking forward to this moment when I can be doing what I’m doing right now, sharing Daniel chapter 9 with you.

Because it changed my life. As I’ve mentioned before, I was an unbeliever but then, through a series of experiences, I came to faith in God. Later, when someone shared Daniel chapter 9 with me, I’d never seen anything like that. There’s nothing in this world can tell you, in advance, specifically, “This is going to happen and this is going to happen” and then it happens. But we have a God like that, the God of Abraham.

The first part of Daniel chapter 9 can be called “the 69 weeks” or perhaps more accurately, “the 69 sevens”. This chapter is concentrated. There’s a tremendous amount of information conveyed in very few words. In fact, there are really only 4 prophetic verses in the chapter and we’re going to look at the first 3 of those in this class. To start with, we need to know where we are in Daniel’s life and in the history of the Jews.

Daniel, as a young teenager, had been led away with some of the first captives that had been taken to Babylon from Jerusalem around 604 BC. Then, though a miraculous series of events, Daniel ended up telling Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, his dream, when the king couldn’t remember it.

But Daniel chapter 9 is near the end of Daniel’s life. In his 80’s now and has been working as a government official throughout his life. By this time, it’s not Babylon anymore; it’s the Medes and the Persians. So we’re looking at around 539 BC; the Jews are still in captivity, now under the Persians. Daniel chapter 9 starts like this.

“In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the lineage of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans, in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years which came by the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.” (Daniel 9:1 & 2)

In our times, we look back to the prophecies of Daniel to see our future. But Daniel is looking back to a prophet before him.  We’re finding Daniel reading the prophecies of Jeremiah. Here are the verses Daniel was reading, Jeremiah 29:10 through 13.

“For thus says the LORD, after seventy years are completed at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place.” And then the next verse says, “For I know the thoughts that I think towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

That’s a beautiful, comforting verse. God has their best interests in mind. So He’s thinking thoughts of peace and not of evil. Then verse 13 says,“And you shall seek Me and find Me when you shall search for Me with all your heart.”

The prophet Jeremiah was perhaps around the age of Daniel’s parents. God had told Jeremiah many years before that Israel was going to be taken captive and carried away to Babylon. And they were going to be there for 70 years. That’s what it says in Jeremiah 29:10, the verse that Daniel was reading. Let’s look at that verse again.

“For thus says the LORD, after seventy years are completed at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place.“

So Daniel understood by reading Jeremiah, “Our captivity is going to be for 70 years.” And do you know how long it had been? It had been around 68 years. So the same way we read Daniel and we go, “Oh my gosh! We’re in the endtime!” Daniel read Jeremiah and he felt almost the same way. “Oh my gosh! Two more years and that 70 year period is up!” So Daniel starts praying. God had told them, “And you shall seek Me and find Me when you shall search for Me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13)

So Daniel begins to seek God with all his heart. And he’s going to pour out his heart to God, in sackcloth and ashes as a sign of repentance and desperation. He’s praying for his people, he’s praying for his country, prophecy is just about to be fulfilled. This prayer is actually 16 verses long so maybe we can read the first three and last three verses.

“Then I set my face toward the Lord God to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.  And I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession and said, ‘O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him and with those who keep His commandments, we have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your commandments and Your judgments.'”  (Daniel 9:3-5)

And the last 3 verses of the prayer were

“Now, O our God, hear the prayer of Your servant and his requests, and for the Lord’s sake, cause Your face to shine on Your sanctuary which is desolate. O my God, incline Your ear and hear; open Your eyes and see our ruins and the city which is called by Your name. For we do not present our prayers before You because of our righteousness but because of Your great mercies.O Lord, hear. O Lord, forgive. O Lord, hear and act. Do not delay for Your own sake, my God, for Your city and Your people are called by Your name.”   (Daniel 9:17-19)

Daniel was seeking God with all his heart. He was confessing his sins and the sins of his people. He was desperate for God to forgive, to heal, to answer the prayers of His people and to fulfill His prophetic Word. So we can go to verses 20 & 21.

“And while I was speaking and praying and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and presenting my cry before the Lord my God for the holy mountain of my God, yea, while I was speaking in prayer, 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 sacrifice. And he informed me and talked with me and said, ‘O Daniel, I have now come to give you skill and understanding. At the beginning of your prayers the commandment went forth and I have come to tell you, for you are greatly beloved.'”

There are not too many times in the Bible where an angel says that to someone, “You are greatly beloved”. In fact, this was said twice more to Daniel in Daniel chapter 10. Daniel must have been a really special person. He was greatly loved because he greatly loved the Lord.

“Therefore consider the matter and understand the vision:”

This has been our preparation for those 3 prophetic verses we’re going to be looking at in this class. There aren’t going to be any visions of beasts here, like in the earlier chapters. The angel Gabriel is going to give Daniel the straight Word of God. What if you tried to get the most important things in the history of the world for the next 2 or 3 thousand years into 3 or 4 verses? That’s what we’re going to have right here.

Sometimes when I teach this, I use the analogy of Algebra, where you have things like “X” plus “Y” equals 5. So “X” and “Y” are unknowns. At the beginning of this, there are going to be some “unknowns”. The challenge for you is going to be to try to not figure it out right away. Because we’re going to have to wait for it and we’re going to have to put it together. So if you don’t understand this right away, just wrap it up in a bundle of faith and put it on the shelf for the moment. Because we’re going to work on it and we’re going to find it out. So Gabriel was telling Daniel,

“…therefore consider the matter and understand the vision:”  Verse 24 “Seventy weeks are determined upon your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up the vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy.”

Now if you don’t watch out, you’re going to go, “Seventy weeks? Let’s see; 52 weeks in a year…” So you do your math and you get “a year and a half…that doesn’t make sense!”  And you’d be right. But here’s the first thing you need to know. The English word week in the Hebrew is “shabua”.

That’s the Hebrew word for week. And in Hebrew that didn’t always mean 7 days. We have the word in English “a dozen”. It could be a dozen eggs, a dozen houses; it means 12. I’ll give you another example of this word shabua in the Bible. The most important verse in this chapter for people in our times is Daniel 9:27.

Our next class is mainly based around that verse. But an interesting cross reference is Genesis 29:27. Daniel 9:27 connecting with Genesis 29:27, interesting coincidence. It’s talking about Jacob, nearly 1500 years before Daniel. Jacob had to work 7 years for one wife, then 7 for the other wife; then 7 more years for the other things. Genesis 29:27 says, “Fulfill her week, and we will give you this one also for the service which you shall serve with me still another seven years.”

That’s another place in the Bible where the Hebrew word “shabau”, “a week”, is used as 7 years. So when it says “70 weeks”, it’s not talking about a year and a half. It’s talking about 70 sevens of years. If you do your math, you go 70 times 7 equals 490. Gabriel is telling Daniel that “70 weeks”, 490 years, are determined  “To make an end of sins”, “to bring in everlasting righteousness”. (Daniel 9:24)

Do we have an end of sins right now in our world? No. Do we have everlasting righteousness right now in our world? No. Maybe in our hearts, we have the kingdom of God within us. But in this world we do not have an end of sins and we do not have everlasting righteousness. So already, from what we can tell so far, this 490 year period has not come to its conclusion, even up to our modern times.

But, we were reading about Daniel praying desperately because that 70 years prophecy of Jeremiah was just about due to be fulfilled. It was just about time for the Jews to be allowed to begin to return to the land they’d been driven from so many years before. But then, the angel Gabriel here seems to start talking about something different. Nothing about that prophecy but about a 490 year period  “to bring in everlasting righteousness.” (Daniel 9:24)

What about that 70 years prophecy of Jeremiah, did it get fulfilled? Yes it did. Two years after this prophecy of Daniel 9, King Cyrus of Persia signed a proclamation allowing the return of the Jews to Jerusalem. And they began to do that in fulfillment of the 70 years prophecy which had been given to Jeremiah.

But it seems God had something else on His mind. Gabriel’s message here to Daniel was about something far, far greater and more important. Gabriel’s message was at the heart of God’s overall plan for all nations, the salvation of all peoples and the bringing in of God’s rule and reign on our very earth.

One thing about these verses, they’re so packed with significance that it’s difficult to make this into a somewhat brief class, especially for those studying this for the first time. There’s much here that could be explored and looked into which I’ll need to pass over for now in order to focus on the most important elements of this message from Gabriel to Daniel.

So Gabriel first gave the big picture “Seventy weeks are determined… to make an end of sins to bring in everlasting righteousness”. (Daniel 9:24)  We’re told of “seventy weeks”, a period of 490 years. But then in the next verses, he begins to break those seventy 7’s of years into smaller periods. Verse 25 says

“Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; the street shall be built again and the wall, even in troublous times.”

The angel Gabriel is talking to Daniel somewhere in Persia, around 539 BC. At this time none of the Jews had even gone back to their homeland yet; they were all still captives. But as I was saying earlier, two years later, they were allowed to begin to return to Jerusalem. But that’s not what this “commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem”  (Daniel 9:25) is talking about.

The Jews who returned to Jerusalem back then went back to a city that was ruins. They were allowed to go back but they couldn’t really rebuild. Because in those days, to fortify a city, you had to get permission to do that. Because if you have built up a city, you can begin to defend yourself, you could be independent from the Persians.

So it was actually nearly 100 years after this time,  when Nehemiah poured out his heart to king Artaxerxes of Persia about the sad condition of the Jews who’d returned to Jerusalem, that this commandment to restore and build Jerusalem took place, around 444 BC. That’s what Nehemiah 2:5 records when Nehemiah said,

And I said to the king, “If it please the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, I pray that you would send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ tombs, so that I may build it.”

The next verses in Nehemiah are about where Artaxerxes gave a decree to Nehemiah to go back and build. And that’s when the commandment went forth to restore and to build Jerusalem.

So let’s look at verse 25 again in that light. “Know therefore and understand that, from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince,…”

I didn’t believe in God until I was nearly 21 years old. And the first time I read this and saw that it’s speaking specifically about “Messiah the Prince”  in the Old Testament, I’ll tell you, I was really stunned. And I found that there are so many places, in the Old Testament, that specifically foretell a Messiah who would come. This is one of the most amazing ones right here.

“From the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks…”  (a week is seven years) 7 times 7 is 49 so 49 years  “and 62 weeks”. Seven weeks plus 62 weeks equals 69 weeks which would amount to 483 years between “the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem” and “Messiah the Prince.”

It’s almost hard to believe that the angel Gabriel, over 500 years before the birth of Jesus, gave an exceedingly specific prophecy to the prophet Daniel about a 483 year length of time before the arrival of “Messiah, the Prince.” But, you probably wonder, “Was it really exactly that length of time, 483 years?”

Let’s look at that. First, it’s beyond the scope of this video to present to you the many historical details of all this. There have been some amazing studies to find the exact year of “the going forth of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem”.

A book that has helped me in the study of all this was published in 1894,  “The Coming Prince” by Sir Robert Anderson. Through much study, Robert Anderson found that the king that Nehemiah served, Artaxerxes, gave the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem in 444 BC.

And since Jesus’ years of ministry looks to be between 30 and 33 AD, this would at first glance not fit, since the amount of time from 444 BC to 33 AD equals 476 years, not 483.

But here’s a factor that changes that. Throughout the Bible and in ancient societies, a year was calculated as 360 days, not 365¼ as we know now. Here’s something Sir Isaac Newton, who was an ardent student of the prophecies of Daniel, wrote about this fact

“All nations, before the just length of the solar year was known, reckoned months by the course of the moon, and years by the return of winter and summer, spring and autumn. In making calendars for their festivals, they reckoned thirty days to a lunar month, and twelve lunar months to a year. From this comes the division of the path of the sun’s annual rotation into 360 degrees.”    

Here’s a chart to show this.

The angel Gabriel said there would be “7 weeks” and “62 weeks”, 69 weeks or 483 years between “the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem” and “Messiah the Prince”. Historically between 444 BC and 33 AD there are 476 years. (Just to note: we go from 1 BC to 1 AD since there’s no year “0”.)

So it seems to not quite fit. But let’s do the math. The 483 Jewish years of this prophecy, each having the 360 day year of ancient times, would amount to 173,880 days.

History says that 476 of our modern years past between these two periods. 476 years multiplied by 365¼ equals 173,859 days. So 483 years in the ancient world would equal the 476 years that modern history computes between these two key points in this prophecy.

This same thing can be seen in the book of Revelation. Talking about a future period in the endtime of 3½ years, the length of time is called “42 months” in chapters 11 and 13. But in several other places in Revelation, the same period is called “a thousand, two hundred and sixty days”.

A period of 42 months, mentioned twice between Revelation 11 and 13 and a similar period of 1260 days, also mentioned twice in those chapters. 42 months divided by 12 months equals 3½ years. And 1260 days, divided by a 360 day year equals 3½ years. These references in Revelation are talking about the same length of time reckoned with years being 360 days.

Let’s look at this all again from a larger view.First we are told of “70 weeks”, 490 years, “to bring in everlasting righteousness.” Then within the 70 weeks, a period of 69 weeks, 483 years, from the commandment to rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince. The 69 weeks are then broken down into periods of 49 years and 434 years. And it says, “the street shall be built again and the wall, even in troublous times.” And the beginning of verse 26 says, “And after sixty two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself…”

History shows that it took the Jews 49 years to complete the rebuilding of Jerusalem. In fact, around the time of that completion, about 400 BC, was when the last Jewish prophet, Malachi, received God’s Word for the people. After that, for the next 400 years, there were no more prophets.  For believers back then, this part of the prophecy may have been a real beacon and light to their future. It could almost have been like a road sign, during a long desert crossing, that from the completion of the building of Jerusalem, there would be “62 weeks”, 434 years before the Messiah.

You can read the historical and prophetic books in the Bible from the time after the Jews had come back to Jerusalem and you never hear them saying that they were expecting the Messiah at any moment. But then, in New Testament times, there are repeated references to people who were expecting to see the Messiah in their lifetimes. Perhaps these verses from Daniel chapter 9 were talked about during that time. The Living Bible, says this in Luke chapter 3 verse 15  “Everyone was expecting the Messiah to come soon, and eager to know whether or not John [the Baptist] was He. This was the question of the hour and was being discussed everywhere.”

Many of us have heard about “the 3 kings of the east”, also called “the 3 wise men” who saw His star in the east at the time of Jesus’ birth and came to worship Him. These wise men, “the magi” or magicians of the east may have known of this prophecy in Daniel 9. We read in Daniel 2 that after Daniel had told Nebuchadnezzar his dream, “Then the king promoted Daniel, and gave him many great gifts, and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon, and chief administrator over all the wise men [the magicians] of Babylon.” (Daniel 2:48) So it’s quite possible the 3 wise men from the east knew the time had come for the birth of the Messiah from this prophecy of the ancient chief of the wise men of Babylon, Daniel himself. They didn’t ask when the king of the Jews was to be born, just where.

But it even says, “And after sixty two weeks shall Messiah be cut off,  but not for himself…”  (Daniel 9:26)  We can look back at this and truly be at a loss for words. The prophecy says  “Messiah shall be cut off, but not for himself“. The Messiah would be killed, but not for Himself.  And for those of you who know the message of Christianity, you know that “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him, shall not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

Jesus of Nazareth willingly went to his crucifixion. He was cut off, not for Himself or his sins (He didn’t have any) but to give His life as an offering and a ransom for many. You may not believe that. Certainly I didn’t at all. But then, what can we do with this prophecy? We can doubt it, we can dismiss it, we can wish it wasn’t there. But it is. Not in the Christian writings of the New Testament but in the Hebrew writings of the Old Testament.

But there’s still another equally amazing part to verse 26. Let’s read the full verse and focus on the last part, “And after 62 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. The end of it shall be with a flood. And unto the end of the war desolations shall be determined.”

Most of you watching this are not Jewish and this may not stand out to you. But for a Jewish person, especially one from those times back then, this would shock them very much. What they would notice is that Gabriel says here, that, after the Messiah shall be cut off, “the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary…” (Daniel 9:26)

At the time Gabriel gave this message in, 539 BC, Daniel and his people were in prayer and expectation that they’d be allowed to return to Jerusalem and hopefully to rebuild the city and even the Temple. But Gabriel is telling them that, at a future date, Jerusalem would be destroyed again. And the future Temple.  “The people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary…”(Daniel 9:26)

Did this actually occur in history? Yes it did. Jesus of Nazareth was crucified in Jerusalem in 33 AD. In 70 AD, the Roman legions of Titus surrounded Jerusalem and destroyed the city and the sanctuary. Israel was effectively ended; over 1 million were killed and the Jews were scattered among all nations for nearly 1900 years. But when does the angel Gabriel say that this will happen? “After Messiah shall be cut off.“ (Daniel 9:26)

So, God has a foreknowledge of events in our world. God has a destiny foreordained for mankind and it’s going to be fulfilled. We individually have free choice and we’re responsible for our choices. But God has an overall design for mankind.

I’m going to go over this once more.

From 444 BC till 33 AD, from “the Commandment to build Jerusalem” until “Messiah shall be cut off” shall be “7 weeks” (49 prophetic years)  and “62 weeks” (434 prophetic years) which make a total of 483 prophetic years. And it says, after the Messiah is cut off “the people of the prince who shall come [the Romans] shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.“

We can look back and say, “Oh, yeah”. But who can do what we’ve just seen here? Nobody can do that, nobody. No religion, no philosopher, no scientist. Only the God of Abraham can so clearly and explicitly tell us the future. And He did it. It’s so powerful. It’s just unique. But you know what?

That’s only 69 weeks. The angel said, “70 Weeks”

“Seventy weeks are determined …to bring in everlasting righteousness.” 69 weeks were fulfilled at the crucifixion of Jesus. So, there’s one “week” left. One last 7 year period is yet to be fulfilled in this prophecy in order to bring in God’s Kingdom on earth.

That’s what’s called “the 70^th week” or “the Last 7 years” and that hasn’t happened yet. You could think, “Well, maybe 7 years after the death and resurrection of the Messiah, that would be the other 7 years and that would be the fulfillment, wouldn’t it?” But then, is that when there was  an end of sins? A bringing in of everlasting righteousness.

One of the most famous things Jesus of Nazareth ever taught was when His disciples asked Him how they should pray. His answer to His disciples has come to be called, “the Lord’s prayer”. One of the first things taught in that prayer is that we should pray to God, “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10)

We only have to look at history and our own times to know that isn’t how it has been or is now. We don’t have God’s Kingdom on earth right now. That last “week”, the last seven years of this prophecy is yet to come, yet to be fulfilled. That’s what the final verse in this chapter is about, verse 27

When He was asked by His disciples about His return to the earth, Jesus referred to things mentioned in Daniel 9:27 and other verses we’ve not yet read in Daniel. Our next class is going to be centered around Daniel 9:27 and those other verses. We’ll find that this verse is the crux, the keystone, fitting together so much of what we’ve read already in Daniel and what can be found in the book of Revelation. I’ve already started on the next video on this subject and I’m eagerly looking forward to sharing that with you soon, God bless you.

[This is the text version of my video, “An Introduction to Prophecy in History”.]

I’ve got something to tell you about that’s had a tremendously good effect on my life: prophecy. It’s a big subject. Just the word prophecy brings different thoughts to people. So I’ll narrow it down a bit. But first, I’ll tell you about myself so you’ll understand my interest in this subject.

I grew up in Texas and was in university before I had any knowledge of spiritual things. By then I was an atheist, active in turning anyone who had faith in God away from that faith. But through experiences, I just could no longer believe that there was not a spiritual world. I didn’t want to be “religious”. But I’d experienced a world of both good and evil spirits. And I wanted to be with the good ones.

My search took me to different groups and I eventually met some young people who were radical Christians, “Jesus freaks” they were called. They helped me understand the truths in the Bible. God gave me a new start in life and I eventually dedicated my life to Him. I’ve now lived over 36 years abroad and it’s been a wonderful life I’m very thankful for.

So when I say “prophecy”, I’m speaking of the prophecies in the Bible. And that is the subject of this series of classes. We are going to look at the prophet Daniel. In fact when Jesus was asked about the future, He mentioned specifically the prophet Daniel. He said, “When you shall see…  (the future events) …spoken of by Daniel the prophet (whoever reads, let him understand)…” (Matthew 24:15)

I imagine some of you know a lot about this and are itching to dive into the details. Others of you know basically nothing about this. And if I had to choose between those two groups, I’m going to aim this at those of you who are new to this subject. That’s how I was till I was almost grown. And that’s perhaps one of the reasons why I want you to know the thrills and joys of the truths within the book of God, the Bible, and the truth in that book.

Some of you may be wondering, “What in the world is prophecy?” And you think, “Oh yeah, sure sure; someday the world will end, blah, blah, blah.” That’s the way I used to think about this and it all sounded pretty stupid and bizarre to me.

Well, let’s see if there is something almost everyone already knows about which was clearly prophesied centuries before it happened. It’s safe to say that everyone reading this knows about Christmas. And you know at Christmas people often sing Christmas carols. It’s the celebration of the birth of Jesus and you’ve seen the pictures of Joseph and Mary and the baby Jesus with them.

And you’ve probably heard the old Christmas carol, I can’t really sing it but goes something like, “Oh little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie…”. This Christmas carol is about the town very near Jerusalem where Jesus was born. Maybe you already knew that He was born there or at least you remember you heard that somewhere before.

This is something you know at least a little about. So, let’s look at the Bible. Let’s look in the Old Testament in the book of the prophet Micah. This was from around 700 B.C. We’re going to look at chapter 5, verse 2. In it, it’s like the voice of God is speaking to the town or village of Bethlehem. It says, “But you, Bethlehem, though you be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth He which is to rule my people Israel, whose going forth is from old, from everlasting.”

Here God is speaking to Bethlehem and saying that, although Bethlehem is a small town among the many in the region of Judah (a province of Israel at that time), yet out of Bethlehem would come the One who would ultimately rule God’s people. And that this one was from old, from everlasting.

That’s a direct prophecy from the Old Testament, given hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus, declaring specifically where the Messiah, the King whom God would send, would be born. And actually there are a lot more prophecies like that.

When this was new to me, it took me a while to begin to realize that there was a power in heaven, the Power of the God of the Bible, that has been telling the future of the world for thousands of years. And that these foretellings, these prophecies have been coming to pass with absolute accuracy. This was astonishing to me. In some ways it still is. This is what we are going to study about: prophecy that has been fulfilled and also prophecy that is yet to be fulfilled.

But, when I mentioned about the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem, I wanted to find something almost everyone was familiar with. And then when we saw from the Bible that, 100’s of years before His birth, there had been given a prophecy about Jesus being born in Bethlehem, you could appreciate and understand the significance of it. So, next we are going to look briefly at the backdrop of human history and set the stage so to speak, in order to see the imprint of prophecy that’s foretold so much of what came to pass afterwards.

God chose a man around 4000 years ago (2000 BC). He came from the part of the world that we today call Iraq. His name was Abraham. From the descendents of Abraham come the people that we know of today as the Jews. For that matter, the Arab peoples and the Muslim faith also draw their roots back to Abraham.

But the Old Testament is the book of the Jews. So to understand prophecy, we’ll need to have a bird’s eye view of the history of the Jews. At the same, time we’ll need to see the rise and fall of the ancient empires up to the time of Jesus and the Roman Empire.

Here are some of the key characters of the Bible and their points in history. Abraham is placed at approximately 2000 BC and Jesus at 30 AD. Between these dates we have Moses around 1400 BC, King David around 980 BC and the prophet Daniel, whose writings we are preparing to study, around 600 BC

Someone put this together and I found it a very convenient way to remember and place the major phases of the history of Israel. It’s called “The Seven Periods of Israel’s History”. To start with you have “Abraham to Egypt”.

God spoke individually to the man Abraham and told him to leave his country and journey towards a new land that God said He would give him. Abraham traveled up the Euphrates River and then down into the land of Canaan, the area we today call Palestine or Israel.

All the while God was promising Abraham that He would eventually make of him a mighty nation. Perhaps Abraham’s greatest quality was his faith in God. For example, it was difficult for Abraham to believe God on this thing He was telling him because by this time both Abraham and his wife were up into their 70’s, 80’s and 90’s and they had no children. So how could Abraham be able to be the father of a mighty nation? But Abraham “kept on believing”, just as God knew he would. And eventually Abraham’s wife, Sara, did have a son, Isaac. And as time passed on, Isaac married and his wife, Rebecca, had twins: Esau and Jacob.

I’m just giving you the highlights here; there are oodles of interesting parts I’m leaving out. This is all in the first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis. And what we’re talking about now took place nearly four thousand years ago in Palestine or as it was called then, Canaan.

Jacob eventually married; actually he had two wives, 12 sons and one daughter. One of his sons was named Joseph. As it turned out, Joseph ended up being his dad’s favorite. Also God Himself seemed to be indicating that Joseph was going to be special among his brothers. Well, as so often happens, his brothers got mad and jealous of him and they ended up selling Joseph as a slave to some people who were traveling off to Egypt at the time.

But in the long run this was all the hand of God. Joseph ended up becoming “second in Egypt” the Bible says, next to the Pharaoh. Many years later, his brothers who had sold him came to Egypt to buy food because of a great famine. It’s an incredible story. But Joseph recognized his brothers and made it possible for them and their aging father Jacob and all their families to move from Canaan to Egypt where they could be under the protection of Joseph. And they stayed there and grew over the next 400 hundred years until they became…a mighty nation, just like God had told Abraham they would.

The next period of Israel’s history is maybe one you might be more familiar with. Have you ever heard of “The Ten commandments”? This period is called “The Exodus”. That’s also the name of the second book of the Bible. It takes place around 1400 BC and the main characters were Moses, Aaron who was Moses’ brother, and Joshua, who was the man God chose to lead the Jews after Moses passed on.

Moses himself was a little similar to Joseph in that he was Jewish but had ended up in a very high position in Egypt. However God spoke very directly to Moses that He wanted him to lead the Jews back out of Egypt. They were to return to the land of Canaan where their forefathers had been.

Led by Moses and the very presence of God, the Jews miraculously crossed the Red Sea, journeyed through the Sinai desert and eventually re-entered and conquered the land of Canaan. During this time, God gave the 10 Commandments to Moses and the laws that the nation of Israel was to be ruled by.

I could tell you about a prophecy all the way back, 100’s of years before this time, where God was already telling the ones then that this was going to happen. Four centuries before the Exodus, God spoke to Abraham in a dream. From Genesis chapter 15: 13 & 16, “Then He said to Abram: ‘Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs. [And that’s what happened to them in Egypt.] And will serve them. [They eventually became slaves in Egypt.]. And they will afflict them four hundred years. [That’s how long it turned out they were there.] But in the fourth generation they shall return here.”

And this is exactly what was happening with the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt and their return to Canaan. After their return and conquest of Canaan, the Jews lived with a form of government that can be called a theocracy for around the next 300 years. That is, they were to be ruled by God. They didn’t have a parliament or even a king. But they were ruled by the laws and commandments God had given Moses. And the tribe of priests called the Levites were entrusted to see to it that these things were carried out.

This time can be called “The Period of the Judges” because every so often God would raise up key people to lead Israel during times of crisis. Some of those listed here were Gideon, Samson and Deborah. The unity of the country was primarily a spiritual unity and the people lived in the various regions of Canaan or Israel, according to the tribe they were from.

Around 1050 BC some major things began to change in Israel. God had raised up a very wise and devout high priest, Samuel. But the people of Israel, wanting to be like other nations, called upon Samuel to choose for them a king, like other nations had. God had in the past cautioned against this but the people insisted that Samuel give them a king. The result was that God led Samuel to choose out a man named Saul to be their king.

At the first Saul was truly a man of God and was used to gather together and strengthen Israel against some of their enemies. All Israel united under this king Saul and for a while things went well. This period that we are talking about now can be called “the United Kingdom”. During this time Israel went from be a loose-knit confederation of tribes under the priestial tribe of Levi to being a genuine nation. Eventually they were even a major regional power in the Middle East.

But ultimately the life of Saul is one of the saddest stories in the Bible. As he became more successful and honored in Israel, he less and less followed the instructions he was given from God through the prophet Samuel. Because of this God told Samuel that he should anoint a new king. This turned out to be Israel’s best loved and most remembered monarch, King David.  Samuel was told that that “the Lord had found him a man after his own heart”. (I Sam. 13:14).

And this was certainly an appropriate description of King David. Under king David Israel reached its zenith as David fulfilled the role of king, prophet and in his prayers even somewhat a priest. At war or at prayer or in repentance for his sins, David led by example and was called by his people in his lifetime, “the light of Israel”.  Again here we can go back to ancient prophecy and see if fulfilled at this time. We can go back almost 1000 years before the time of David to Abraham again, when he was just an old man with an old wife and no children at all. From Genesis 15, verse 18,  “On the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates.’”

Under the rule and conquering kingdom of David and Solomon after him, the borders of Israel stretched from the border of Egypt all the way up to the Euphrates River, just as God had told Abraham it would happen nearly 1000 years before.

David’s son Solomon was the third and last king of this period of the United Kingdom. God had given him his request from the beginning of his reign. Solomon asked God for wisdom to rule God’s people. And that wisdom is still spoken of and studied in the book of Proverbs in the Bible to this day.

Unfortunately, the influence of one dynamic and Godly leader, like King David, seems seldom to reach beyond the second generation of his followers. This is what happened and it culminated in the division of the Jewish nation. Solomon’s son, whose name was Rehoboam, was supposed to rule after his father. But he didn’t have the heart of his grandfather David or the wisdom of his father Solomon. A rebellion sprung up among the formerly united tribes and the result was that the kingdom and nation of Israel divided.

This began the period of “The Divided Kingdom”. The 10 northern tribes were led initially by a rebel against the dynasty of David and they set up a capital in the north. These 10 northern tribes came to be called at that time “Israel”. Only the tribe that David’s family came from, Judah, along with Saul’s tribe, Benjamin, stayed together in the south of the country. These people came to be called simply “Judah”.

So around 920 BC., after over 100 years as a united nation, the Jewish people became two countries. In the next two hundred years, the northern part, “Israel”, generally went from bad to worse. Have you ever heard of “Jezebel”? Even today that is a term meaning a woman without shame. She was the foreign wife of one of the kings of Israel at that time. God sent prophets to warn the people of their apostasy and coming judgment if they didn’t come back to God, prophets like Elijah and Hosea. But they were largely ignored.

In 722 BC the unthinkable happened. God allowed the foreign power of the Assyrians to conquer northern Israel and carry away most of the people as slaves and captives far away to the east. The nation that God had brought into being and called His own was decimated and, as their prophet Hosea had told them would happen, they became “wanderers among the nations.” (Hosea 9.17)

But the southern two tribes, “Judah”, stood firm. The reason was simply that the people and their kings, more often than not, stayed closer to the Lord. They were less idolatrous and more humble and believing than northern Israel and therefore God could and did protect them and keep them longer. Both the north and the south had their better and worse of times and leaders. But Judah, in times of national crisis, took heed to the prophets God sent, such as Isaiah. Or at least they did sometimes. Eventually though, Judah also fell away from her faith in and love for God so that God finally told them that they’d become more evil and idolatrous than the pagan nations surrounding them.

We come now to the generation of Daniel, approximately 600 BC. Judah was in the last years before her fall and destruction. God had raised up the prophet Jeremiah, one of Israel’s greatest prophets, to have the thankless job of being His mouthpiece during the last years of the nation’s existence. Jeremiah told them that the new world power, Babylon, which had recently defeated the Assyrians, would come up against Jerusalem. God was going to allow Babylon to act as His judgment on His own people.

And this is what happened. Around the year 604 BC, the king of Babylon sent an expeditionary party against Judah and Jerusalem and brought them partly under his rule. By 586 BC, in response to their resistance, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had totally defeated and destroyed the kingdom of Judah as well as their capital, Jerusalem. Most of the survivors were carried away to be captives and slaves in Babylon. Only a very small remnant of the Jews was left in their homeland. This then began the next period of Israel’s history, “The Captivity”.

Had God abandoned His people? Far from it. During this most difficult of times, when the Jews were receiving the judgment they had been warned of for decades and centuries, a cluster of the mightiest prophets ever were used by God to speak his Word to the Jews at that time. Jeremiah, Daniel and Ezekiel, although a generation apart, lived during this time. They taught and spoke to Israel, and to surrounding nations as well, to explain what was happening and to exhibit God’s continuing presence.

And through this time of intense uncertainty, God continued to give clear prophecy for the hope and future of His people. One example of this is found in the writings of Jeremiah. Twice God spoke clearly to Jeremiah that there would be a specific, limited amount of time for this captivity of the Jews. From Jeremiah chapter 29, verse 10, we can read: “For thus says the LORD: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place.”

It was to be for 70 years. And did that happen? Was it a 70-year captivity? Yes, it was. According to the Bible and secular history, the beginning of the end of the captivity took place between 536 and 516 BC, marking 70 years from the beginning of Babylon’s occupation of Israel around 606 BC, as well as its final destruction in 586 BC.

We continue to see the eternal hand of prophecy, God keeping His Word to us down through the centuries. Are there more things like this in the Bible? Is there anything like that yet to be fulfilled in our day or in days to come in our times? This will be our focus more and more as these classes continue.

During the 70 year period of the Jews’ captivity, the empire of Babylon was defeated by a coalition of two nations, the Medes and the Persians. This dual kingdom became the predominant power in the ancient world for the next 200 years.

The final period of Israel’s history is called “The Return”. It was King Cyrus of Persia who first granted permission for the Jews to begin to return from exile in Persia to their former country and to inhabit Jerusalem.

Humbled and repentant, the Israelites who did decide to return to their land made a renewed effort to keep the laws and faith that had been entrusted to their forefathers so many centuries before. In time Jerusalem was rebuilt and a temple was erected, although it was nowhere near as glorious as the original one built by Solomon. God preserved the Jewish nation and they survived the coming of the Empire of Alexander the Great and the era of Grecian world rule in the centuries that followed, up to the time of Rome.

The society of Israel evolved and changed much through the influences that Greece brought during their realm. And yet there were those in Israel that led them back to the faith that they had originally been entrusted with, the calling to be separated from other nations and to worship only the Lord their God.

In time Rome replaced the Greeks as the dominant secular power in the world of that day. And it was in the first century of Roman rule in the Middle East that we come up to the time of the birth of Jesus in the city of Bethlehem.

In this first class we’ve learned at least a bit about what is prophecy. We’ve taken a bird’s eye view of the history of the people and nation of Israel. And we’ve looked a just a few of the many incredible prophecies that are throughout the Old Testament.

The future that those prophecies pointed to back then is now for us, for the most part at least, the past. But we may yet find things to be fulfilled. The certainty of prophecy may yet have words to speak for our times or those soon to come. In our next study we’re going to drop down into the period of time just as southern Israel, or Judah, is about to be overrun by Babylon. This is around 600 BC.

We’re going to study events in the life of Daniel who was a young Jewish exile in Babylon. At that time perhaps he was no more than 14 years old. The second chapter of Daniel will be our introduction and next step along the path of prophecy. We’ll learn how God will picture for us the ancient empires that would come to pass in the next centuries after Daniel’s time. And we’ll learn that God spoke clearly as well that eventually, in His time, He Himself would bring a government and rule of His own to our very earth. Some call it the Millennium. Hard to believe? I hope you’ll be back for the next class to see this all for yourself. God bless you!