Understanding Daniel 8 Pt.2

        This article continues from the previous one, Understanding Daniel. In that article we saw that there were three empires mentioned, the Ram, representing Medo-Persians; the Grecian empire depicted as a goat; and the Roman empire merging into ‘the Little Horn’ empire. Daniel 8:4, 20; Daniel 8:5-8, 21; Daniel 8: 9, 23.

        While Daniel was beholding this amazing vision of a ram, a goat, and a little horn that became a great empire, In Daniel 8:13-14 he also heard the conversation of two heavenly beings (also translated as saints); one saint asked the other, “How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot?” The answer given was, “Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” Although Daniel understood the explanations of what the animals and the little horn depicted, he became disturbed and sick. He even fainted (Daniel 8:27).

        Daniel became sick and disturbed because as a student of the Hebrew scriptures and the history of the Jews, he was aware that the Prophet Jeremiah along with other prophets had predicted that God would send the Jews into Babylonian captivity for seventy years because of their rebellion and wickedness. Daniel may well have pondered the words of Jeremiah where he wrote, “For thus saith the LORD, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon, I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place. 11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. 12 Then shall you call upon me, and you shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. 13 And you shall seek me, and find me, when you shall search for me with all your heart. 14 And I will be found of you, says the LORD: and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you, says the LORD; and I will bring you again into the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive.” Jeremiah 29:10-14

        Daniel was aware that the seventy years of captivity were almost up yet he hears an angel saying to another, “Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed” Daniel 8:14. This made Daniel become extremely sick on hearing of this addition of “two thousand and three hundred days” before the cleansing of the sanctuary which he knew was to be rebuilt.  Also, please bear in mind that if Daniel understood the 2, 300 days to be literal days and not prophetic days, then that would have amounted to about 6 years which would have soon been fulfilled in Daniel’s time, bringing the captivity to an end, and therefore there would have been no reason for Daniel to have become so terribly sick. His sickness therefore must have occurred because he understood this 2, 300-day prophecy to be 2, 300 years.

        Let us now look at the details surrounding this new addition of 2, 300 years to the vision of Daniel of the ram and of the goat. When would this 2, 300 years begin and when it would end? To Daniel this was an insurmountable obstacle to Jeremiah’s prophecy that the people of Israel would return to their homeland after 70 years of captivity. We pick up the story in verse one of Chapter nine. We read there that Daniel is now under a new administration, a Persian one. Belshazzar of Babylon was killed by Cyrus’s invasion and the Medes and the Persians took over rulership of all Babylon. We are now in the first year of Darius the Mede, who was given the Chaldean kingdom by Cyrus the Great. At this time Daniel set himself to understand the prediction of Jeremiah’s seventy-year captivity and the desolation of Jerusalem. As Daniel studied this and took into consideration the new element of added time it was too much for him and he set himself to fast and pray and to confess of his sins and the sins of his people. Instead of taking matters into his own hands and becoming angry with God or blaming himself or his people who were already in punishment, Daniel earnestly seeks His God.

        This is a lesson we should all learn; we must not give in to obstacles with depression and sadness and leave God out of the picture. Instead, we should humbly turn to God in confession, prayer, repentance and fasting for God always has our good in mind as we read in Jeremiah 29:11. We can read of Daniel’s experience and prayer in Daniel 9:1-20. Here Daniel pours out his heart in deep contrition hoping that everything will work out as Jeremiah said.  During his prayer and the confession of his and his people’s sins God sent the angel Gabriel to inform him of what he had seen that disturbed him, Daniel 9:20-23. The angel Gabriel now goes on to explain the part of the vision that dealt with time, and time allocations. We find this in verse 24 and onwards we note that it is dealing with the 2, 300 days (years). Notice what Gabriel said in Daniel 9:24: Seventy weeks are determined upon your people and upon your holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.

        This passage sounds like an ultimatum. “The Jews (your people) have seventy weeks or four hundred and ninety years cut off, determined, for themselves and their city.” These four hundred and ninety years must belong to the longer number of 2, 300 years in Daniel 8:14 the only numerical prophecy given. During this four hundred and ninety years the Jews are to come to grips with their sinfulness and rebellion; they must repent and allow God to clothe them in His righteousness, and then they are to anoint the most Holy.  When these stipulations are done then will they fulfil that portion of the 2, 300 years; but there will still be the rest of the numerical prophecy to be fulfilled. The final task to be accomplished at the end of the 2, 300 years is the cleansing of the Sanctuary, and we will talk to that later.

        For over a thousand years the Lord had been pleading with Israel to be a holy nation, that is why he made them into nation. Here are the aspirations that God had for these people found in Exodus 19:3-6: “And Moses went up unto God, and the LORD called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel; 4 You have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself. 5 Now therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: 6 And you shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.”  What a sacred and holy calling God had for His people! Who could want more than that when the Ruler of the Universe pledges to be their Caretaker and their God as well?

        Sadly, the history of God’s chosen people, the Jews, has not been a rosy one. There were bouts of grandeur intermingled with heart-wrenching periods of lows, too low to dwell upon. And while God had to eventually repeat the memorable words, “behold your house is left unto you desolate” God’s unimaginable love for his chosen people held them fast and refused to let them go! Eventually, however, as the chosen nation to take the gospel to the world He did remove the diadem from them (Eze. 21:26); but due to the covenantal promises made to Abraham, David, and the fathers He will always keep his promises to give them the land of Israel until He returns to re-possess that land and the earth for the saved, both Jews and gentiles, spiritual Jews and spiritual gentiles. Romans 11 sums this up very nicely.

        Let us get back to the four hundred and ninety years cut off from the 2, 300 years to see when they begin, for the beginning of the four hundred and ninety years, will be the beginning of this entire numerical or time prophecy of 2, 300 years. Notice that Daniel 9:25 says: “Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks.” Sixty-nine weeks. Here we have it. The date for the beginning of the 2, 300-day prophecy is “from the going forth of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem” which is also when the four hundred and ninety years will begin. However, Daniel 9:25 does not speak of four hundred ninety years, (seventy weeks), but of sixty-nine weeks, meaning four hundred and eighty-three years. This tells us that the four hundred and ninety year-prophecy is divided into two parts. The first division is four hundred and eighty-three years (sixty-nine weeks), while the second division is one week or seven years. Adding both sixty-nine weeks to one week equals seventy weeks or four hundred and ninety years.

        So, what we have here is that the 2, 300 years began with the commandment to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, Daniel 9:25. But also that the 2, 300 was divided into three parts: (1) The first part was for the establishment of the Messiah, the prince, the first sixty-nine weeks or four hundred and eighty-three years. (2) The second part was only one week or seven years for the establishment of righteousness and eventually for the settlement of evil and wickedness among the Jewish nation. The next question that will arise is which sanctuary is to be cleansed? Is it the one that Nebuchadnezzar broke down and pilfered and burnt? The answer is simple. The sanctuary to be cleansed must come at the close of the 2, 300 days’ (2, 300 years) prophecy because that is what Daniel 8:14 says, “And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.”  As Uriah Smith puts it, the sanctuary to be cleansed must apply to the sanctuary existing in and around the end of the 2, 300 days/years[i]  In a next article we will look at that sanctuary to locate it. 

        Looking at the first two decrees in 536 and 519 B. C. we see that they did not fully meet the biblical mandate to “restore and build Jerusalem.” They were given to rebuild the house of God, but nothing was said of restoring the Jewish state with all the civic duties of the nation. The third decree, 457 B. C. the emperor Artaxerxes Longimanus gave the returning Jews full civil autonomy over their own nation. Finally, the fourth commission given in BC 444 was merely a permission given to the king’s cupbearer, Nehemiah, to go up to Jerusalem and help with the work there;[iii] an official decree had already been given in 457 B.C. for the Jews to take full charge of restoration of the Jewish kingdom. Additionally, in Ezra 6:14 we read that… the elders of the Jews builded, and they prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo. And they builded, and finished it, according to the commandment of the God of Israel, and according to the commandment of Cyrus, and Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia.

        Now when does the prophecy begin?  Does the Bible give us a starting date for this 2, 300 days/years prophecy? Is there any historical data to show this? Yes, the Bible does give us a starting date for this prophecy and there is historical data for this. One would logically conclude that the starting date should be the day of liberation, that is, the end of the seventy-year captivity that Jeremiah and the prophets talked about (Jeremiah 25:11; 2 Chron. 36:21; Zech. 7:5-14), and which took place in 605 B.C. by the invasion by Nebuchadnezzar. Well, let us have a look. In the Bible book of Ezra, we find there three decrees given for the Jews to return to their homeland. The first decree was issued by Cyrus for the rebuilding of the house of the God, 536 B. C., Ezra 1:1-4. The second decree was given by Darius for the work to continue because it had been stopped. This was in 519 B. C., Ezra 6:1-12. Then thirdly, there was a third decree given by Artaxerxes to Ezra in 457 B. C. This is in Ezra 7. Finally, we have the fourth commission in B.C. 444.[ii]   Which is the correct one to use?

        We find then, there were three commandments given for the restoration of Jerusalem and the establishment of the kingdom of Israel, and that the third one, 457 B.C., under king Artaxerxes was the most complete; and as Smith points in a sub note on page 208[iv] this date is now beyond controversy. Lawrence M. Nelson gives a running sketch or commentary of this in his book, The Sanctuary Made Simple.[v]  We can also find a very expanded explanation of this event the return of the Jews from Babylon to Jerusalem both biblically and historically in Edwin de Kock’s excellent works Christ and Antichrist in Prophecy and History. De Kock also points out that according to scholarship, the significant dates in this prophecy beginning from 457 B.C., A. D. 27 and A. D. 34 could well be Sabbatical years that the Jews refused to give due diligence to as God had instructed them through Moses (Leviticus 26:40-45).[vi]  Finally, in 1852 J. N. Andrews quoting from a Sunday-observing Adventist journal said that “it by the Canon of Ptolemy that the great prophetical period of Seventy weeks is fixed. This Canon places the seventh year of Artaxerxes in the year B. C. 457; and the accuracy of the Canon is demonstrated by the concurrent agreement of more than twenty eclipses… RH, Dec. 23, 1852, quoted from the Advent Herald, March 2, 1850.[vii]  And finally, according to Henry Feyerabend, ‘the date of 457 B.C., as the seventh year of Artaxerxes, is one of the best-established dates in ancient history. It is found in the margin of most Oxford Bibles, opposite this decree of the seventh chapter of Ezra, being the date assigned for this event by Ussher’s chronology.’[viii]

        We can now safely and historically lay claim to the date 457 B. C. as the starting point of the 2, 300 days (years) prophecy of Daniel 8:14. And having found the starting point of this, the longest biblical prophecy in the book of Daniel, we can calculate the end date which turns out to be the Fall of 1844. 

        Notice that Daniel 9:25 says, “from the going forth of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks…” the sum of seven weeks, threescore and two weeks is: sixty-nine weeks, that is, seven weeks + sixty weeks + nine weeks. So, we have the temple to be rebuilt, followed by the appearing of the Messiah.  When we subtract 457 from 483, we end up with AD 26. To AD 26 we must add in the ‘0’ year in the transition from BC to AD as 1, bringing the total to AD 27.  And in AD 27 the Messiah, the Prince, was confirmed.  And as de Kock clarifies, it was not until the Fall of 457 BC that the Jews left Babylon, therefor the sixty-nine weeks or 483 years to the Messiah must be in the Fall bringing the actual year to the Fall of AD 27.[ix]   We know that in AD 27 John baptized Jesus in the Jordan.  Notice this in John 1:29-34; Mat. 3:15-17; Mark 1:9; Luke 3:21. Smith makes it clear that there is abundance of evidence for A. D. 27 as the date John baptized Jesus.[x]  It is very interesting to note that after Jesus’ baptism he later went on to proclaim: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent and believe the gospel.” Mark 1:15. Jesus was most probably giving notice of the fulfilment of Daniel’s prophecy of his baptism and of the soon to fulfil time for the Jews to commit completely to God or stand the loss of the special status as God’s representatives to the world. There were only about seven more years before this took place in A. D. 34, the end of the 490 years allocated to the Jews.  

        In Daniel 9:24 we read that the Jews have 70 weeks (490 years) allocated to them from the 2, 300 days or years in prophetic reckoning. The 490 years we saw began in 457 B.C. Jesus was baptized in Jordan by John in A. D. 27. From 457 B. C. to A. D. 27 is 483 years. Now Daniel 9:26 says that the Messiah shall be cut off, not for himself, and Daniel 9:27 explains that the Messiah will confirm or ratify the covenant for one week and during this week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease.  John 3:16 tells us that Jesus gave His life for humanity; in John 10:15-18 Jesus says that He lays down His life for His people and that He does so voluntarily. This is what the Father told Him to do for the sake of humanity, verse 18; and Phil. 2:5-11 confirms that this was His Choice to the Glory of the Father. Of course, all this was done for the sake of sinful, fallen humanity. What a God who loves His creation to such an extent that He will not let them go before offering to them the word of reconciliation! 2Cor. 5:18; and verse 19 puts it ever so beautifully when it says: “to know that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and has committed unto us the word of reconciliation.” So, my friends there is no excuse to be lost. It is only at the cross (signifying the death of the Messiah) that the Messiah could cause “sacrifice and oblation” to cease.  If Jesus were indeed the Messiah, “the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world” John 1:29, then His crucifixion would be the date when all sacrifices and offerings would cease, for these would have found their fulfilment in Him and would have to come to an end.[xi]

        The next major episode that takes place after the Messiah was cut off, but not for himself, in Daniel 9:26, is that both the Sanctuary and the city of Jerusalem are destroyed by the Romans. Both verses 26 and 27 make this clear. This was in AD 70 when the Romans destroyed the city and burned down the temple, just 39 years after the crucifixion. An important fact to know is that the Israelites were only to offer sacrifices at the tabernacle or sanctuary as God had enjoined.[xii]  Therefore, with the destruction of the temple there was no legitimate sacrifice anymore. Jesus is the only answer to conundrum of their long-awaited Messiah. He has already come!

        The questions we now ask are, what date was the crucifixion of Jesus? Did his death fulfil the stipulation of the prophecy? It is well established that Jesus was crucified by the Jews; in John 13 we read of the last Passover that Jesus attended, it was that Passover that ratified his decision to die for the world, a decision made from time immemorial, 1 Peter 1:18-21. Jesus Himself, speaking to the Father said in John 17:1, “Father, the hour is come, glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee. When was it? We have already established that the Messiah, Jesus, was inaugurated in the Autumn of A. D. 27 when he was baptized by John the Baptist. His first Passover would occur the following spring, A. D. 28, and we know according to the Bible that Jesus attended every Passover up to his death (John 2:13; 5:1; 6:4 and 13:1). It is simple mathematics that will show us that if Jesus first Passover was in the spring of A. D. 28, then His last would be A. D. 31. Accordingly, Smith points out that this gives us three and half years of public ministry. And amazingly, this time was during the last week of the 70th week of Daniel’s prophecy found in Daniel 9:24-27. Smith quotes Dr. Hales who in turn quotes Eusebius (A. D. 300) in saying: “It is recorded in history that the whole time of our Saviour’s teaching and working miracles was three years and a half, which is the half of a week [of years]. This, John the evangelist will represent to those who critically attend to his gospel.”[xiii]

        De Kock also points out concerning the crucifixion that it was “in the midst of the end of the 70th week. The standard Historicist interpretation since the Reformation has been that the 70th week follows immediately the 69th week, with no time gap, and that the events prophesised to take place in the 70th week find their fulfilment in the connection with the life of Jesus.”[xiv]  Josephus also mentions the crucifixion of Jesus, a good man, ‘if he could be called a man’ that it took place around the date A. D. 31 as you read the details of his account. Josephus, though, does not give an exact date. The date given in the notes of his passage is A. D. 33.[xv]    We find then that Jesus was crucified under the Romans by the instigation of the Jewish leaders. As we consider the date of Jesus inauguration as God’s anointed, the Messiah to humanity, on A. D. 27 up to the crucifixion on A. D. 31 we note that it is three and half years; finally, prophecy had been fulfilled, the death of the Messiah which was typified for thousands of years by the sacrificial system in Jewry and all over the ancient world had ended abruptly!

        It would take another three and a half years from A. D. 31 to close the week and bring it to an end in A. D. 34. Let us view the chart below to help visualize what we have.

        This chart gives us a clear picture of the events coming out of the prophecy Daniel 8:14 and spreading over into Daniel chapter 9. Notice that the 490 years cut-off from the prophecy given in Daniel 8:14 speaks specifically about the Jews. Here the Jews were given their final opportunity to accept the Messiah, confess their rebellion against him and God, and bring in righteousness in their lives.  But like her sister nation, the kingdom of Israel, Judah spurned the Messiah and had Him killed by the Romans. Caiaphas, the high priest at the time of Jesus’ death, ruthlessly put it this way: … “Ye know nothing at all, Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not John 11:49-50.” The leaders also affirmed that they had no King but Caesar, John 19:15, thus forever removing the diadem given them by their Messiah and their God, Isa. 21:26. Three and a half years after Jesus’ death, a young Pharisee named Saul of Tarsus worked mightily with the Sanhedrin to persecute the Christian sect; in A. D. 34 a disciple named Stephen, a deacon of the nascent church, was arrested and stoned outside the city.

        God had given His chosen people ample time to recognize that Jesus was the Messiah after the crucifixion, but the Jews hardened their necks and refused the persuasions of the Jewish Christians to the point where they persecuted the Christians to the death, even to the stoning of Stephen as we have noted. Yet God was still merciful to them after he had rejected them as his chosen people in 490 A. D.  But the Jewish leaders persisted in rejecting the Christians. However, one of their chief persecutors had himself become a Christian and was sent by God to take the message to the gentiles. This man was renamed Paul instead of Saul the persecutor, Acts 7-9. Finally, God had to destroy their temple and sacrifices never to be built again,[xvi] bringing an end to the Jewish testimony to Jesus the Messiah in A. D. 70 when over a million Jews were slaughtered by Titus’ soldiers.

        This brings us right back to the prophecy of Daniel 8:14, “unto two thousand three hundred day/years then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” What does this mean? Will the sanctuary that was destroyed be rebuilt at the end of the 2, 300 years?  This will be the subject of the next part of our prophetic review of Daniel 8-9. May God grant you the peace and quietness that we lack in our world today.

[i] Uriah Smith, Daniel and the Revelation, (Washington DC: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1944), pp. 173-179. Here Smith gives a very lengthy description of the Sanctuaries mentioned in the Bible and which logically should be the one to be cleansed according to Daniel 8:14.

[ii]Smith, 208-210

[iii] Nehemiah 2:7-11

[iv] Smith, 208 sub notes

[v] Lawrence M. Nelson, The Sanctuary Made Simple, (Middleton, Idaho: CHJ Publishing, 1996), chap.4

[vi] Edwin de Kock, Christ and Antichrist in Prophecy and History, (Edinburg, Texas: USA, 2013), Chap. 11

[vii] Paul A. Gordon, The Sanctuary, 1844, and the Pioneers, (Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing ASS., 1983), p. 63

[viii] Henry Feyerabend, Daniel Verse By Verse, 5^th Edition, (Ontario, Canada: Maracle press, Ltd., 2004), p. 140

[ix] De Kock, p. 125

[x] Smith, p. 213. We are directed to the following sources: S. Bliss, Sacred Chronology, p. 180; New International Encylopedia, art. “Jesus Christ;” Karl Wieseler, Chronological synopsis of the Four Gospels,” pp. 164-247

[xi] Sara Peck, The Path To The Throne of God, (New York: Teach Services, Inc.), pp. 3-4, 7

[xii] Leviticus 3:1, 2; 17:1-17; Joshua 22:19; Ps. 27:6 These texts tell us that God had required all sacrifices to be brought to the tabernacle or later the sanctuary to be offered before God, unless God himself or His angel had required a sacrifice elsewhere for a specific purpose.

[xiii] Smith, 215

[xiv] De Kock, 131

[xv] Flavius Josephus, the Life and Works of Flavius Josephus, tr. buy William Whiston, (Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Company, 1957 Edition), Chap. III, p. 535

[xvi] De Kock, 131

 Pastor Ron Henderson is a Seventh-day Adventist Pastor.  You may reach him at ron.hende@gmail.com if you have any comments or questions.