So we have learned thus far that Matthew 24 and Daniel 8 have several things in common:

• There is coming to earth a horrible transgression and transgressor that will bring an unprecedented desolation.
• This thing will be accompanied by the surrounding of Jerusalem.
• It will happen at the “time of the end.”
• Following both prophecies were historical, actual, world events that seemed “close” to the fulfillment and were thus jumped on by students of the Word . Obviously both historical events must be canceled out since they are not in the end time, they did not lead to the return of Jesus, and they did not produce an evil man whose life is supernaturally powered.

Thus the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, and pointed to by Jesus in Matthew, is still in our future. Allow Daniel himself to speak of this event once more, in the famous “Seventy weeks” prophecy.

The message given in this ninth chapter was meant by the Spirit to shed light on the “when” of Messiah’s coming along with more details about the man of sin that precedes Him. It was given in response to Daniel’s discovery that the current time line on Jerusalem was about to be up. Daniel had discovered Jeremiah 25:11 which tells readers that God’s people were to be in bondage to Babylon for seventy years. But that time was nearly passed, and it was the beginning of the Medo-Persian time. It would soon be announced by Cyrus the Emperor that the Jews could go back to their land.

Caught up in the joyful news he had discovered, Daniel begins to pray a prayer of repentance covering himself and his people (verses 1-19) . While he is praying (verse 20) Gabriel re-appears to him, letting him know how pleased Heaven is with his prayers, and revealing further plans for Israel. These plans involve, not seventy years, but seven times seventy. During these 490 years, all of God’s dealings with Israel will be finished. And the looked-for announcement of Cyrus is to be the trigger that will start the clock. So the final years of Israel’s life will begin where Jeremiah leaves off and continue, with one major interruption, until the end of time.

Let us speak first of the concept of interruptions, or “gaps” in Scripture. Daniel actually uses this pattern unknowingly throughout the book. He is unaware of the great period of time that will exist, for example, in his ram-goat prophecy, between the horn of Alexander and the horn of the final conqueror. Reading Daniel casually you might think they are side by side. He does it again in chapter eleven. There, he speaks of one who can only be identified as Antiochus Epiphanes, for the Spirit directs us to that interpretation. Then there occurs the gap again, and suddenly we are in the end time speaking of antichrist. Daniel had no clue. In an even greater way the prophecy of Nebuchadnezzar’s statue and Daniel’s animals do the same thing. There seems to be a quick resolution of world history after Rome. Though this is true in actual years spent, we are still living in the “gap” between early Rome and its final form.

Thus when the Spirit in Daniel 9 speaks of 490 years to be lived out for the Jewish people, it must be borne in mind that these years are not consecutive. Even the text divides these years into three groupings. Again, every word, every detail, must be taken into account when a mystery is before us.

Daniel is not the only prophet who unwittingly demonstrates the gap phenomenon. Isaiah, chapter 9, predicts the birth of a Child Who will sit upon the throne of David. True enough, brother Isaiah, but the Child was born long ago and still we await the enthronement. Later, Isaiah laments the sorrowful plight of the sin-bearing Messiah in most of his chapter 53, but then rejoices that “(God) will divide Him a portion with the great…” a happening scheduled for the return of Christ to earth in our future. Zechariah touts the lowly Jesus “riding on a donkey…” then praises in the same breath the One Whose dominion shall be “from sea to sea.” First and second comings of Jesus, thousands of years apart, spoken of in two consecutive verses, with no hint of a history between.

Is it any wonder that Jesus’ disciples, schooled in the precise memorization and understanding of Scripture, would stumble a bit when they heard Him talking one moment of death and the next of victory? Is it any wonder that they expected the Kingdom to be set up immediately? It is this gap mechanism that is at the heart of the Judeo-Christian mystery. A Christ who was, and “is not” (on the earth) , but who will be. Antichrist, we now understand, will be able to use that same definition, by the secret workings of Satan who has been granted permission to bring it to pass and deceive the nations.

Armed with this principle we can approach the four verses (9:24-27) that spell out what is coming to Israel and when…

First we learn that a period of seventy “sevens”, divided into three separate time categories, will complete all Jewish history. The Hebrew word translated “weeks” simply means a period of seven units of time. The year is the only unit that makes sense of the prophecy. So seventy periods of seven years each, or 490 years, is the full amount of time with which we have to work.

Next we discover what exactly must happen during those 490 years.

• Sin will be dealt a death blow via Messiah’s death and His return to create a perfect Satan-bound world. Sin will be judged, then eradicated.
• Every prophecy related to Judaism, given by the prophets, will be fulfilled.
• The “Most Holy” will be anointed. Does this refer to the baptismal scene of Jesus, where the Spirit descended on Jesus? Or is this Psalm 45:7, where God anoints Jesus as ruler over all the earth? No matter. Both events occur in the 490 years.
• Everlasting righteousness will be brought in. That is, the Millennial-Eternal reign of Christ begins.

That’s a tall order for only 490 years. Some of it has already happened.

Next, having stated what will happen, he spells out when the time period will begin. The announcement that Jews are going back to Jerusalem to dwell in their own land is seen as the signal for Jewish history to continue and begin its final round. This announcement is given twice in Scripture: II Chronicles 36:22-23 and on the next page of your Bible, Ezra 1:1-4. We are told there was historically another announcement given and that there are different ways of counting, but the vast majority of those who have studied this prophecy agree that from this moment in time, whenever it precisely occurred, until the Messiah, was 483 years.

Why 483 and not 490? The prophecy states that there will be two divisions of time between the announcement and the Messiah’s death (Daniel uses the term “cut off”). First, a forty-nine year period of rebuilding, followed by a 434 year period leading up to the Christ’s work. 49 + 434 = 483.

In my thinking these first two verses, and these first two periods of time, are very straightforward and seem to be consecutive. Christians have rejoiced in this passage for centuries as it was so succinct and clear that the Holy Spirit was telling us exactly when Messiah would come the first time! Yet, one reflects, the world knew Him not, though this simple math, added to the prophecy about Bethlehem, and many more were there for the reading.