AKA: Daniel 9
Christians claim that Jesus has to be the messiah because the messiah has to come back before the second temple was destroyed.
In order to understand this passage, we begin with Daniel 9:1:
1 In the first year of Darius son of Ahasuerus, of Median descent, who was made king over the kingdom of the Chaldeans—
2 in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, consulted the books concerning the number of years that, according to the word of the LORD that had come to Jeremiah the prophet, were to be the term of Jerusalem’s desolation—seventy years. Daniel 9:1-2 (SCE)
This “the word of the LORD that had come to Jeremiah the prophet,” refers to “the term of Jerusalem's desolation—seventy years.” This indicates that Jeremiah is considering the prophecies in Jeremiah 25 and 29 that mention seventy weeks. There are two specific prophecies here, which I will refer to as Prophecy A and Prophecy B.
The first prophecy, A, is that the Babylonian empire would collapse:
12 When the seventy years are over, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation and the land of the Chaldeans for their sins—declares GOD—and I will make it a desolation for all time. Jeremiah 25:12 (SCE)
Daniel was clearly referring to this prophecy, as it is the prophecy of seventy years found in Jeremiah.
However, there is another part to this prophecy:
Prophecy B is that God would return the exiled Jews back to Jerusalem:
10 “For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.Jeremiah 29:10 (ESV)
Daniel's mistake was that he calculated the prophecy from the rise of the Babylonian Empire, which rose up 19 years before the destruction of the first temple. This will be explained in a different way in Gabriel's response, where we note that it was fifty years (seven weeks) from the destruction of the first temple to the building of the second.
Daniel's connundrum appears in his prayer, from Daniel 9:3-19. Specifically, he references the Law of Moses, and likely quotes Ezekiel who was a contemporary prophet:
11 All Israel has violated the law, disobeying You. Therefore the curse is upon us – the oath that is written in the law of Moses the servant of God – because we have sinned against Him.
12 He has confirmed the threat which He made against us, and against our rulers who judged us, to bring upon us great misfortune: for never under all heaven has been done like what was done to Jerusalem.
13 As it is written in the law of Moses, this curse has come upon us: yet we did not supplicate the Lord our God, did not turn from our iniquities or become wise through Your truth. Daniel 9:11-13 (NSV)
Daniel's connundrum is precisely that Prophecy A has occurred, but Prophecy B has not occurred, and that it has not occurred because of what was written in the law of Moses regarding curses that could be placed on Israel during exile:
17 I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you.
18 “‘If after all this you will not listen to me, I will punish you for your sins seven times over. Leviticus 26:17-18 (ESV)
Remember! Prophecy A was going to happen, but Prophecy B came with a caveat!
12 When you call Me, and come and pray to Me, I will give heed to you.
13 You will search for Me and find Me, if only you seek Me wholeheartedly.
14 I will be at hand for you—declares GOD—and I will restore your fortunes. And I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places to which I have banished you—declares GOD—and I will bring you back to the place from which I have exiled you.Jeremiah 29:12-14
Given Daniel's prayer, it seems as if Daniel was concerned that Israel did not 'seek Him wholeheartedly', and thus, was liable for the punishment in Leviticus 26:17-18.
In response to Daniel's prayer, God sends the angel Gabriel to educate Daniel on his question.
21 while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the first, came to me in swift flight at the time of the evening sacrifice.
22 He made me understand, speaking with me and saying, “O Daniel, I have now come out to give you insight and understanding.
23 At the beginning of your pleas for mercy a word went out, and I have come to tell it to you, for you are greatly loved. Therefore consider the word and understand the vision.Daniel 9-21-23 (ESV)
Gabriel thus issues his response to Daniel. The response can be broken up into five parts:
Daniel 9:24.
Gabriel explains the setting of the prophecy, Jeremiah's prophecy of 70 weeks. In the below, I will add in square brackets the years associated with weeks (one day is one year):
This is the part Christians mistake; it cannot be about the future because they are not in the holy city yet. The entire point of Daniel's plea is that they have not yet returned to the holy city. Therefore this is about the past. Daniel's entire plea was thus: even though they did not yet atone for their iniquity, that God should forgive them.
As Gabriel explains, during this time six things must happen:
Daniel 9:25.
This refers to Cyrus; Rashi quotes Isaiah 45: “until the anointed king Time will be given from the day of the destruction until the coming of Cyrus, king of Persia, about whom the Holy One, blessed be He, said that he would return and build His city, and He called him His anointed and His king, as it says (Isa. 45:1): “So said the Lord to His anointed one, to Cyrus etc.” (verse 13): “He shall build My city and free My exiles, etc.””
The first temple was destroyed fifty years before Cyrus. This is seven weeks, and in the first year of Darius the meade it becomes 50 years, thus Daniel's concern. After this time, Rome invades Jerusalem. Thus when you understand the history and the explanation, Daniel 9:25 suddenly makes sense:
Rashi confirms this understanding as p'shat: “Seventy weeks [of years] have been decreed on Jerusalem from the day of the first destruction in the days of Zedekiah until it will be [destroyed] the second time.”
A question that may arise is, why was it 50 years and not 49 years? Rashi writes, “seven weeks – Seven complete shemittah cycles they will be in exile before Cyrus comes, and there were yet three more years, but since they did not constitute a complete shemittah cycle, they were not counted. In the one year of Darius, in which Daniel was standing when this vision was said to him, seventy years from the conquest of Jehoiakim terminated. Deduct eighteen years from them, in which the conquest of Jehoiakim preceded the destruction of Jerusalem, leaving fifty-two years. This is what our Rabbis learned (Yoma 54a): “For fifty-two years no one passed through Judea.” They are the fifty-two years from the day of the destruction until they returned in the days of Cyrus. Hence, we have seven shemittah cycles and three years.” This shows that the times may be off by 1 to 6 years, because each week is a shemittah cycle (which requires a 'sabbath year', I suppose, to be considered as 'good' or counted).
So, after the first temple was destroyed, there were seven weeks (from the destruction of the first temple to Cyrus). Then it was rebuilt, but in troubled times. For example,
According to Rashi, the seventy weeks were given “to terminate the transgression and to end sin so that Israel should receive their complete retribution in the exile of Titus and his subjugation, in order that their transgressions should terminate, their sins should end, and their iniquities should be expiated, in order to bring upon them eternal righteousness and to anoint upon them (sic) the Holy of Holies: the Ark, the altars, and the holy vessels, which they will bring to them through the king Messiah. The number of seven weeks is four hundred and ninety years. The Babylonian exile was seventy [years] and the Second Temple stood four hundred and twenty [years].
This totals 490 years, or, 70 weeks.
Daniel 9:26
What is the meaning of this? Rashi points out that “Agrippa, the king of Judea, who was ruling at the time of the destruction, was slain.” Herod Agrippa was killed in 44CE. Then in 66CE (three weeks later) there was the war, and three and a half years (half a week) later (70 CE) Titus came to destroy Jerusalem and the Temple.
Now that the temple has been destroyed, the messiah can come. What is the meaning of this odd statement? Read the above in careful detail; Recall that the temple must be destroyed before the Messiah can come because one of the roles of the Messiah is that he must rebuild the temple; this was revealed by Ezekiel, a contemporaneous prophet with Daniel:
24 “My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes.
25 They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children's children shall dwell there forever, and David my servant shall be their prince forever.
26 I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore.
27 My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
28 Then the nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel, when my sanctuary is in their midst forevermore.”Ezekiel 34:24-28 (ESV)
Therefore the messiah can't come while the temple is still standing. The last nine chapters of Ezekiel – Ezekiel 40 to 48, are a blueprint a liturgical guide to the Third (Messianic) temple.