Prophecy of the 70 weeks explained (Daniel 9)

Matthew seems to see the captivity as sort of the hinge point for this genealogy that people were either before so many generations before or after look at verse 11

Josiah begot Jeconiah and his brothers about the time they were carried away to where Babylon and after they were brought to Babylon Jeconiah begot

Shittael and Shittael begot Zerubbabel and of course

Zerubbabel is one of the main figures of the return from Babylon where they rebuild the city the wall and the second temple look at verse 17 so all the generations from Abraham to David are how many 14 from David until the captivity in Babylon are 14 and from the captivity in Babylon until the

Christ are 14 generations so the Babylonian captivity

Matthew seems to think that this is a kind of a big deal right and it was it was a big deal so this is how he lays it out

David was the great king so 14 generations from Abraham to David David was kind of the original

God's anointed he's that picture of Christ and he was literally anointed with oil by Samuel if you remember so 14 generations from Abraham to David then from David to the captivity was 14 generations and all that time one of David's descendants was on the throne right but when

Babylon came in and destroyed Jerusalem in the temple then what did did

David have a king on the throne there really wasn't a nation they were in exile so that kind of messes messes things up a little bit for a lack of a better term let's turn to Daniel chapter 9 this is going a little longer than I thought but hey we're already committed so so from the captivity to Christ is 14 generations so while they were in captivity things if I can put it this way things were kind of put on hold and speaking of being put on hold

Daniel 9 this is the prophecy of 70 weeks Daniel is writing from where yeah because Daniel is one of those two prophets that wrote while in Babylon and what

Daniel does he actually gives a prophecy he's given a prophecy that gives you a timeline of exactly when the

Messiah would come so the Jews in Jesus day theoretically they could have known exactly when

Jesus would show up and present himself now did they know no most of them were totally blind to it and just like today there's plenty of things the scripture tells us that most people are oblivious to but if you study the scripture there's more answers in here than most people think right yeah well all the answers

God has given are in there yes so Matthew is recording the genealogy and then the birth of Jesus they could have known they could have known when alright so if you thought the thing with Luke 3 was confusing this might be even more confusing so hopefully you won't go home with a headache but if you've heard this before if you hear it several times you kind of get it after a while so if you've heard this before you should be okay

Daniel 9 verse 24 70 weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city to finish the transgression to make an end of sins because Judah the children of Israel I mean they have gotten into massive amounts of wickedness and God judged them for it to make a reconciliation for iniquity to bring in everlasting righteousness and to seal up vision and prophecy into anoint who the most holy okay so this is this is a reference to Christ nearly every commentator that I know agrees that these 70 weeks are what there are 70 weeks of years so 70 times 7 if these are years it's 490 years until everlasting righteousness is brought in well wasn't this longer than 490 years and everlasting righteousness has not been brought in so what gives okay following me so far okay look at verse 25 no therefore and understand that from the going forth of the command to restore and rebuild

Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there shall be seven weeks and 62 weeks and the street shall be built again and the wall even in troublesome time so what's the book of the

Bible that talks about the rebuilding of the wall this is Nehemiah right okay so Daniel is in Babylon given this prophecy 490 years from the time the decree goes out to rebuild everlasting righteousness will be ushered in okay so this is where we have to put our thinking cap on in order to figure this out you have to figure out the date the decree went out there's this is a bigger issue we don't have time to get into it there's a few different dates people propose but if you get the right date and it's 7 plus 62 so that's not 490 it falls short by 7 years this is 69 62 plus 7 is 69 not 70 so 490 minus 7 is what 483 years right okay so from the time the decree went out fast forward 483 years if you do the math which we did in Sunday school one time years ago some of you remember it it brings you to the very day

Palm Sunday when Jesus rode in to Jerusalem on a donkey so the

Jews could have known the exact time when the Messiah would present himself you just got to do the math 483 years but wait a minute what about this last seven what about the everlasting righteousness well

I remember it said a pause button was pressed right look at verse 26 and after the 62 weeks that's the 7 plus 62 after the 483 years

Messiah shall be what cut off so he wrote into Jerusalem Palm Sunday he was dead by the end of the week

Messiah shall be cut off and then it goes on to talk about what we believe talks about the

Antichrist in the tribulation which that's the explanation for the last seven years so if you ever wondered where does the idea of a seven -year tribulation come from well there's still seven years and God's prophetic timeline but it was all stopped short when they crucified their

King remember when Jesus and John go back to Matthew 1 if you're not there but you remember when

Jesus began his ministry what did he start what did he start with what was he preaching repent for the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God is at hand that's what

John the Baptist was preaching repent for the kingdom of God is at hand the kingdom was at hand because the king was present so Jesus what he did he was born as the king