Setting the Stage: Daniel’s Prayer

Today marks the beginning of a new blog series entitled Daniel’s Seventy Weeks. It is a careful examination of one of the most important prophecies given in the Old Testament found in the book of Daniel, 9:24-27. It is commonly known as the ‘Seventy Weeks of Daniel’ and its importance cannot be underestimated. It is the connecting link between the Old Testament to the New. Most likely, Jesus the Messiah was referring to it when He came into Galilee to start his campaign and spoke these words:“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15).

We believe the reference to the time being fulfilled relates specifically to Daniel’s Seventy Weeks prophecy. As we will see, Daniel was given the exact count of years beginning from a certain point to the appearance of the Messiah and his subsequent death. In this way, this prophecy is the connecting link between the Old and New Testaments.

Many years ago, my brother and I, along with another Jewish believer had an opportunity to share the gospel with some Orthodox rabbis who wintered across the street from us in Miami Beach. One of those rabbis was world-renowned and considered by many in his branch of Judaism to be the Messiah Himself. We watched their meeting through a window in the house where they were gathered and when the service ended, they began leaving the house. As they did, we began sharing the good news that Jesus of Nazareth was the Jewish Messiah.

As my brother conversed with one of the rabbis, he said to him, “God is showing me, Rabbi, that you have been reading the ninth chapter of Daniel and you know that Messiah had to come before the temple was destroyed in 70 AD.” When the rabbi heard these words, his face turned pale. He acknowledged that he had, but denied our interpretation of the passage. I don’t know if that rabbi ever came to faith in Jesus as the Messiah. But there was no doubt that the Spirit got his attention that day through the prophecy of Daniel’s Seventy Weeks.

If we want to interpret the prophecy properly, we need to understand the context in which it was given. Daniel had lived through several kings of Babylon and was now living in the first year of the reign of Darius, by descent a Mede. At that time, Daniel was reading the book of the prophet Jeremiah who had prophesied that Judah’s captivity to Babylon would last for seventy years (Jeremiah 25:11-12). Ascertaining this, Daniel turned his face to the Lord his God to seek him with prayer and fasting and sackcloth and ashes (Daniel 9:2). We should notice that Daniel’s understanding of the prophecy of Jeremiah did not lead to passivity. He could have determined that since God had promised to restore Judah to the land again after seventy years, there was nothing for him to do but wait for God to do it. But this is not the case. Far from God’s sovereignty leading him to lay back and do nothing, it activated him to seek the Lord fervently. This is always the proper relationship between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility.

Daniel’s prayer recorded in Daniel 9:4-19 is a masterpiece of what lies at the heart of prayerful repentance and intercession. Daniel fully identified with his people’s sins as well as his own, which lies at the heart of true intercession. The angel Gabriel appeared and began speaking to Daniel while he prayed and confessed his sin and the sins of his people. He acknowledged that he had heard Daniel’s prayer and confession and told him he was sent to give him “insight and understanding” (9:22). What was he given insight and understanding about? It was regarding the future of his people, Israel. This is found in Daniel 9:24-27 and the prophecy of Daniel’s Seventy Weeks. Through this prophecy, God gave Daniel an exact count of the years until God would fulfill his plan and purposes for Israel.

In the following blog we will look closely at six things that God promised would be accomplished during this period of seventy weeks. But first, we must understand the meaning by the term weeks in the prophecy. The English word weeks can be quite misleading in that it gives the impression that the angel was speaking of a normal period of seven days. It is not as we shall see in the next blog.