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THE K I N G ' S B US I NE S S
destroy the city (Jerusalem) and the sanctuary (the temple, both accom plished A. D. 70), and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. And he (the Roman Prince to come) shall confirm the ( “ a” ) covenant with man (“ the man,” i. e., the mass of the people) for one week, (seven years); and in the midst of the week he (the Prince) shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the over spreading of abominations (idolatry) he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate” (i.e., the desolator). To Whom Does the Prophecy Refer? To Christians or Jews? To the lat ter undoubtedly. Daniel’s people are the Jews, and Daniel’s city is Jerusa lem. The Jews and Jerusalem are the subjects of the prophecy (v. 24). In a letter received a few years ago from one of the most distinguished students of the prophetic Word, he urged the writer to study carefully the celebrated prophecy of the seventy years, as he regarded them as “ the key to all proph ecy.” The futurity of the seventieth week, and the latter half of it variously spoken of as forty-two months; 1260 days, time, times, and half a time; that solemn period referred to in the central part of the Apocalypse, are pro foundly interesting, and absolutely needful to understand if the prophecies are to be Scripturally apprehended. Within these seventy weeks, or 490 years, the prophetic program is map ped out. Are the weeks periods of days or years? All competent Hebraists hold that the “ w e e k ” simply denotes “ seven,” whether of days or years or other denomination of time, must be learned from the context, the word it self does not determine. It is simply "seventy sevens.” Says the learned Tregelles: “ I retain the word ‘week’
for convenience’ sake, and not as im plying seven days to be the import of the Hebrew word.” That they are weeks of years is evident on the sur face of the prophecy. When Do They Begin? In chapter 10:2 we have weeks of days; in that before us weeks of years. But another important inquiry meets us. When did the seventy weeks or 490 years commence? We are inform ed that it was “ from the going forth of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem.” Now, in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah we meet with several decrees, but only one in ref erence to the building of Jerusalem; the others refer to the temple. This special commandment or decree is that to which the prophecy refers, and will be found fully recorded in the last his torical book of the Old Testament, Nehemiah, chapter 2. This decree was promulgated in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, the king. Thus, then, we have the exact commencement of the seventy weeks— 445 B. ,C. The seventy weeks are divided into four unequal parts: 1. Seven weeks or 49 years, during which Jerusalem is rebuilt. . 2. Sixty-two weeks or 434 years, dated from the restoration of the city till Messiah the Prince (compare Zech. 9:9 with Matt. 21:5). 3. One week or seven years (v. 27), in which the coming prince of the Ro man people will league himself with the apostate nation then returned to Pales tine in unbelief. 4. “Midst of the week,” or three years and a half, during which the god ly Jews or remnant are given over to awful tribulation because of their re fusal to worship the Beast. This per iod is curtailed by seventeen days and a half (in all, exactly 1260 days, Rev. 12:6). The remaining days, seven teen and a half, needed to complete the
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