Does God Call “Time Out”?

 

            Many interpreters of Biblical prophecy follow the tradition that the “seventy weeks of years” of Daniel 9:24-27 have never yet been fulfilled.  The term “week” in Biblical Hebrew refers to a “seven”.  “Seventy times seven” was sometimes used as an ultimate number, as in Matthew 18:22.  However, in simple straightforward terms, these “seventy weeks of years” refers to a period of time which we would call 490 years.  This “seventy weeks of years” had a specified, definite and determinable beginning time.  It had a specified, definite and determinable duration.  It had a specified, definite and determinable end time.  The seventy years of Babylonian captivity were assessed because they had failed to observe their “Sabbaths” of the seventh and fiftieth years, (2 Chronicles 36:20-21).  According to the traditions of the Jews, the city was destroyed “in the seventh year,” the sabbatic year in which slaves were released and the land was not to be sown.[1]

            Work with historical documents and texts have determined that the time designated for the coming of the Messiah was definitely fulfilled in the coming of Christ.  Yet, few follow the historical record to show that the rest of the prophecy was also definitely and completely fulfilled in the destruction of the fleshly nation of Israel and the ancient natural city of Jerusalem in AD 70.  My treatise will therefore deal with the completed fulfillment of Daniel‘s prophecy within the designated time limits.

            The things that were determined, or decreed, were specifically concerning “thy people“, Israel, and “thy holy city“, Jerusalem.  Therefore the prophecy was concerning the fleshly lineage of Abraham who constituted the nation of Israel and the literal city, Jerusalem.  According to this prophecy, that nation and city were to be destroyed and come to an end. This event was to happen at a definite appointed time: 490 years after the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, plus a “time, times and dividing of times”.

            We have historical records as well as Biblical records to show that the decree went forth and that the city and temple were indeed rebuilt following the Babylonian captivity.  Are we to suppose, then, that God “called time out” as so many interpreters claim?  If so, how can we trust a God that appoints a time but before that time He calls “time out”?  If so, how can we be confident that Biblical prophecy is true and is fulfilled according to that which is written?

            I declare that if the literal city of Jerusalem and the fleshly nation were not destroyed at the appointed time, then Daniel was a false prophet and should not have been included in the infallible Scriptures.  Based on the infallibility of the Scriptures, I declare that Daniel’s prophecies were fulfilled accurately and completely and their truth was confirmed by the fulfillment.  The problem most interpreters have with this is that there seems to be a fleshly nation of Israel that still exists and there seems to be a literal city of Jerusalem.  So, they reason, they did not come to an end as Daniel prophesied.  This interpretation denies the infallibility of Scripture. 

            Two schemes are used to try to justify this false interpretation.  One is that God “called time out” after the sixty-nine week period and that “time out” is still running.  I have already dealt with the fallacy of this scheme.  (See above article “Calculating the Seventy Weeks”)  The other scheme is that “with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day.“  This is at least a Biblical statement.  However, this method of reckoning is not valid.  When God gave men a specific number of years, it is years determined by the cycles of the heavens, for the times and seasons are reckoned by the sun, moon and stars as decreed in Genesis 1:14.

            For example, Abraham was told that his descendants would be slaves in Egypt and be oppressed for 400 years, Genesis 15:13.  In Exodus 12:40-41 we find that the people of Israel were in Egypt four hundred and thirty years and on that self-same day all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.  What happened then to the extra thirty years?  We find that their first years in Egypt were not spent as slaves, for Joseph was ruler in the land, and gave them the best of the land, (Gen. 47:11-12).  Then in Exodus 1:8-11 we see that their oppression began.  We know therefore that the period of time before the oppression was thirty years and the period of time after their slavery began was 400 years exactly as God had told Abraham.  We need not use a forced scheme of “time outs” or “thousand-year days.”

            Another example of an appointed time is given in Jeremiah 29:10 when God specified that the captivity of Israel in Babylon would be for a seventy-year period.  Daniel, who had been carried to Babylon in this captivity, read this prophecy from the book of Jeremiah and knew that the time was near for their deliverance.  He therefore began to pray and to repent for the nation and to ask the Lord to fulfill His promise: Daniel 9:15-19.  Daniel had Biblical grounds for his prayer, namely Jeremiah 29:10-14. 

            It was in answer to this prayer that the Lord gave Daniel the prophecy concerning the “seventy weeks of years” which would accomplish the following things:

            1. Finish the transgression

            2. Make an end of sins

            3. Make reconciliation for iniquity

            4. Bring in everlasting righteousness

            5. Seal up the vision and prophecy

            6. Anoint the Most Holy (One or place).

All of the above six things were fully accomplished in the birth, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus and the subsequent destruction of the nation of Israel and the city of Jerusalem in AD 70.

            The beginning of Jesus ministry marked the year of jubilee.  There remained yet another 40 years to the foretold destruction and end.  It occurred precisely as foretold.  If 175 B.C.(M) marked the end of the sixty-ninth “Week”, then the final “Week” or “Seven” was divided into 3½ “Week” periods, or “Time, Times and Dividing of Times”.  On the larger scale that a “Time” was seventy years, then “the end” came in AD 70 (S) as predicted.  If 175 B.C. marked the end of the seventieth “Week”, which was indeed “the end” of the nation and people as a theocracy, under God, then the 245 years from there to the final destruction of the material city and temple was a period of grace, probably called “the time of the end.”

            On the interpretation that Onias III was the anointed one, a prince, who was “cut off”, then Antiochus IV was the one who set up the “abomination of desolation” after making a strong covenant with many for one week, then causing the sacrifice and offering to cease.  This is indeed confirmed by the historical records.  However, on the interpretation that Jesus “made a strong covenant with many for one week”, then caused sacrifice and offering to cease for half the week, this too is confirmed by historical record, for His sacrifice ended all sacrifice.  Since the Temple only lasted “half a week”, (about 35-40 years after Jesus’ sacrifice), then, it might be said that He caused sacrifice and offering to cease for half a week.  In this case, “the people of the prince who is to come”, Jesus is “the Prince Who is to Come” and His “people” are His genetic kin, the Jews, who indeed destroyed the city and temple.  The “decreed end” is that which is recorded by Daniel, and it was poured out on the “desolator”, the Jews.

            Although Titus the Roman, was “a prince” and did come and set up his abominable insignias, he did not actually destroy the city or temple, but only laid siege while the wicked Jewish priests and their armies destroyed them from within.  When Titus entered the city, it was already a devastated wasteland.  It was the wicked Jewish high priests, appointed by the Romans, who created an even more abominable abomination of desolation, the slaughter of his own countrymen on the holy altar.  One need not be forced to choose between the two interpretations just discussed, however, for it is sound interpretive method to take the first occurrence as a foreshadowing or example of the second.

            In the spiritual sense, satan, the prince of the power of the air, was the destroyer.  Satan worked in and among the rulers of the Jews and incited great civil war and destruction.  In the end, they had three armies of men who were fighting for the office of high priest and they carried their warfare into the Holy of Holies in the temple and slaughtered one another upon the most holy altar.  This was unmistakably the abomination of desolation, for it made the nation desolate by causing the permanent departure of the glory of God from the earthly temple.  Christ’s Body, the Church, is now the sacred Temple of God’s abiding presence.  There was no “time out”.