The decree of 70 weeks (Daniel 9:24) | Adult Sunday School

Good morning, do we have contact, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Kootenai Community Church Adult Sunday School. Turn to page 1154 in your Bibles. Yeah, we're in Genesis. This is a study Bible.

Daniel chapter 9 and the Setting for the Seventy Weeks

Daniel chapter 9.

Before we do that, we'll open in prayer.

I'm going to work with, and Josh doesn't know this yet, but I'm going to try and figure out a way to get the PowerPoint embedded online. I have a lot of questions about the different aspects of this, and the notes are hundreds of pages, the book I'm writing, I guess.

But the PowerPoint would have the salient points, and if we had that online, people could at least follow through and check things, check back and look at things that I've said. And the historical support, the biblical support, I put most, if not all, of it in the PowerPoint.

Okay, let's open in prayer. Father, we come before your Word this morning with reverence and with awe, understanding that you have chosen to speak to us in this way, through your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, through your Word.

And so as we hear from your Word this morning, we pray that you would smite our hearts, that you would turn our lives over even more so that they would be devoted totally to you. We ask for wisdom, we ask for insight, we ask for illumination as we look at these words that Gabriel spoke to Daniel so many millennia ago that have import for his day and all the way until the end of time.

We are grateful that the fact that time is in your hand and that nothing that is happening today is a surprise to you at all. We trust you, we love you, we ask you for your wisdom this morning. In Jesus' name, amen.

So we've been working our way slowly but surely through the book of Daniel and we're getting to some of the more prophetic sections. We're actually going to start into verse 24 today, believe it or not.

Finally going to make it there. Last week we talked, we made it all the way to 23. And so what I'd like to do this morning to prepare us is to read Daniel chapter 9 from verse 20 through the end of the chapter.

So if you'll turn, that's actually on page 1155. I misspoke. Daniel chapter 9 verse 20. Now, while I was speaking and praying, remember, let me set the context for folks that haven't been here. Daniel just spent the last 15 verses praying for Jerusalem, praying for his people, confessing and asking God.

For 13 verses he does nothing but comment on God's character, comment on the sin of his people, comment on his own sin. And then for two verses he actually asks God for something. And it's for, if you look at verse 18 and 19.

Incline your ear and hear, O my God. Open your eyes and see the desolations of the city, which is called by your name. For we are not presenting our supplications before you on account of any merits of our own, but on account of your great compassion.

Daniel calls upon God's character, not his people's character. And then finally in verse 19, O Lord, hear.

O Lord, forgive.

O Lord, listen and take action for your own sake. O my God, do not delay because your city and your people are called by your name. He's concerned about the people and about the city. He's concerned about his people.

And so Gabriel, as we will see, was sent at the beginning of the prayer. And Gabriel brings him illumination, if you will. So verse 20. Now while I was speaking and praying and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God in behalf of the holy mountain of my God, while I was still speaking in prayer, then the man Gabriel whom I had seen in the vision previously came to me in my extreme weariness about the time of the evening offering.

And he gave me instruction and talked with me and said, O Daniel, I have now come forth to give you insight with understanding. At the beginning of your supplications, the command was issued. And I have come to tell you for you are highly esteemed.

So give heed to the message and gain understanding of the vision. Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place.

So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks, and it will be built again with plaza and moat even in times of distress.

Then after the sixty-two weeks, the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the Prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary, and its end will come with a flood. Even to the end there will be war.

Desolations are determined. And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering. And on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction.

One that is decreed is poured out on the one who makes desolate. So this is actually an introduction and a fleshing out to some degree of the rest of time from Daniel's day until the return of the Lord Jesus, the second coming of Christ.

And in studying this section, I have been, I don't know, it takes about 15 hours to come up with 45 minutes of Sunday school, which is good for me because I have not spent the time I should have in my previous 40 plus years of Christianity looking at this text like I should have.

It's been an eye opener. It's been at once wonderful and terrifying. In verse 23, Gabriel reminds Daniel that at the beginning of his supplication, he was dispatched. And we looked at the beginning of the supplication, which was probably in the early part of the day.

Daniel prayed probably most of the day until the evening sacrifice when Gabriel actually comes into the room with him. And I talked about the fact that it's my opinion, this is my opinion, that this was not a visit, this was not a vision.

This was an actual visitation, a physical visitation by the angel Gabriel. The language seems to indicate that. It's not the language of a vision. It's the language of talking with someone. Gabriel came in the room and put his hand on his shoulder so that he wouldn't startle him because he was probably praying with his eyes closed.

Those kinds of things. So then we looked back at Ezra about the decrees and chapter 1 through 6, excuse me, verses 1 through 6. So the decree of Cyrus, I have come to tell you for you are highly esteemed, so give heed to the message.

And so the message that's going to come is going to be one of the opening of Daniel's eyes as much as is possible for a man of his day to the sweep of time over the next who knows how many years. We don't know when the Lord's coming back.

I think it's going to be soon. But what is soon in my eyes and soon in God's eyes are probably very distinct things. So remember we talked about the fact that not all the Jews returned to Jerusalem. Some of them had grown comfortable and loved the place that they were living.

It was 13 years after, so not all the Jews returned. Some did not want to return to a devastated country and rebuild cities and homes. The truly faithful however made the journey back in Ezra and Ezra chronicles much of that.

13 years later Nehemiah returns to supervise the building of the walls of Jerusalem which was part of the vision that we'll talk about here. Ezra was a priest, scribe, but Nehemiah was a civil officer.

Haggai talks about the second year of Darius. Malachi in a different kind of way was given a vision and understanding of some of the later times of the temple in the pre-New Testament period. So the fact is the Israelites did begin their return from exile as was predicted.

70 years after being taken captive and after the rebuilding of the temple which was started not long after they returned to Israel. 70 years had passed, the exiles were going to begin their return. So now we have Daniel who has prepared himself through prayer, fasting and supplication ready to receive one of the most important prophecies if not the most important prophecy in the Old Testament.

And that's where we pick up in chapter 9 verse 24. So remember Daniel has been probably studying Jeremiah 25 and 29 that talked about Israel's sin, its departure from God's ways. And most of that sin was refusing to allow, some of that sin I should say, refusing to allow the Sabbath rest of the land.

For in the 800 year period that they lived in that area, 490 years were spent not allowing the Sabbath rest of the land that God had decreed in Leviticus chapter 26. So these things are on his mind, periods of years are on his mind.

So it's very likely that he had studied and was in the beginning, in his prayer he might have even been reciting some of those things from those books of the Bible. One of the purposes that Gabriel had in instruction was to make clear God's plan for Israel in the coming years and centuries.

So Daniel was either being corrected or simply further instructed. In either event, one commentator came up with a decent, now this is a paraphrase, this is not scripture, but he came up with a decent paraphrase that captures the basic absence of this entire passage 24 through 27.

And here's the paraphrase, I'm making sure I state that a number of times. This is a paraphrase, which is not a translation. Daniel, you have been thinking that the final restoration will be accomplished and the full covenant blessings will be realized at the close of these 70 years of exile.

You have been thinking that the final restoration will be accomplished and the full covenant blessings will be realized at the close of these 70 years of exile. I said that twice. So when I copied and pasted that, you know what happened.

On this point, you are mistaken. You are not now on the eve of the fulfillment of this wonderful prediction. Instead of its being brought to pass at this time, I am sent to inform you that there is decreed upon your people in the Holy City a period of 77's of years before they can be realized.

At the conclusion of this period of 490 years, the nation of Israel will be reconciled and will be reinstated into the divine favor and will enter into the enjoyment of all the covenant blessings, one of which was a return to the land.

The land blessing. A very real, real estate blessing. All you realtors perk up here. This land is going to be worth a lot of money. Anyway, so let's jump ahead here. I'm going to find my place.

Here we go.

The Meaning of the Seventy Sevens and the Prophetic Timeline

There are six purposes. Some of this came from Alvin McLean's 70 Weeks of Daniel. Six purposes of the 70 weeks.

Jerusalem.

Two princes.

Messiah the prince, verse 25. And the prince that shall come. His explanation up into three packages, if you will. This period begins, open quote, from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem.

That's in verse 25. Number five. The end of the seven weeks and 62 weeks are marked by the appearance of Messiah the prince. Verse 25. At a later time, after 69 weeks, but not in the 70th week, the Messiah the prince will be cut off and Jerusalem will again be destroyed by the people of another prince who is yet to come.

Verse 26. Following this 70th week, there will be marked by the establishment of a firm covenant. It will be marked by an establishment of a firm covenant or treaty between the coming prince and the Jewish nation and others for one week.

Verse 27. In the middle of this 70th week, the coming prince will force the Jewish sacrifice to cease and will cause a time of wrath and desolation leading to the end of the week. Verse 27. And once the 70 weeks are completed, there will be a time of great blessing for the nation of Israel.

Verse 24. So, and I'll probably repeat a number of these things as we go through because they bear remembering, but verse 24 is what I would call a synopsis of the view that's about to come and then 25, 26, and 27 flesh it out, if you will.

Most scholars and especially nearly all conservative scholars of the scriptures consider the 70 weeks of Daniel as 490 years ascribing seven years to each week. This is based, some of it, sometimes it's based on what is called the year-day theory.

Should that method of interpreting this, the prophecy, the time periods in question be adopted, then we must wrestle with the fact that in correlating this prophecy with the ongoing prophecies in Revelation which are based on Daniel's prophecy, we run into a pretty good problem.

The 70 weeks seems to be 490 years. However, in Revelation chapter 12, verse 6, there is a reference to 1260 days which corresponds to a like time period in the book of Daniel later on. That would mean that the first 69 1⁄2 weeks correspond to 486 1⁄2 years, but the 1260 days would be nearly three times that many years and pushes the time period well out into the distant future.

This would ascribe approximately another 2 ,500 years remaining until Christ's second advent. Now, that could be. I'm not here to give you a date. We are counseled, not counseled, we're commanded not to do that.

But it's not found in the text. Consider this. So I want you to consider this as we literally interpret this section of scripture and look at what Daniel was thinking at the time, the context, the history, and all of those things that went into this particular prophecy.

The Hebrew word translated as weeks is a word that simply means sevens. It's not the word for week. We have a word for seven and we have a word for week. This word is sevens. So verse 24 would more properly read this way.

Seventy-sevens have been decreed for your people and your holy city. These sevens have to be determined to context, from context. The Jews had what was known as a seven of years as well as a seven of days.

So this would have been familiar, both of these would have been familiar to Daniel and to his Jewish readers. The Jews were to till their land for six years and leave the land fallow during the seventh year for it to rest.

There was a multiple of this called the Sabbath of years, a seven Sabbaths of years. And this was the jubilee that occurred after this occurred, the jubilee, one year after the seven Sabbaths in which the depths were wiped out, estates were returned to original holders, and slaves were set free.

That sounds like a good idea. I need to be set free as a slave. Leviticus 25, 8 through 10. You are also to count off seven Sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years, so that you have the time of the seven Sabbaths of years, namely 49 years.

You shall then sound a ram's horn abroad on the 10th day of the seventh month. On the day of atonement, you shall sound a horn all throughout your land. You shall thus consecrate the 50th year and proclaim a release to the land, to all its inhabitants.

It shall be a jubilee for you, and each of you shall return to his own property, and each of you shall return to his family. Let's just think about that for a minute. You've got a slave, and you haven't quite used him as much as you wanted to yet, but it's the jubilee year.

You tilled some land, and you didn't get enough last year, so you really can't obey that Sabbath of fallow land, the land Sabbath. You're going to have to till the land again this year, because you didn't put enough up last year.

Very real people things go on in these things, and what happened was those who didn't plan well would have violated the Sabbath, and some who just didn't care would have violated these dictums. Then on the 50th year, you're going to turn loose the people that are making you money.

So all of these things are playing through the people's mind over these 800 years, and many of them violated again and again the commands that God gave. They knew about this. It was given to them in Leviticus.

They knew it was to be done. They knew to plan ahead. They wouldn't, or they did, or they didn't. It doesn't matter. If they violated it, these are the sins, the transgression that went into God imposing some of these punishments on Israel at the time of Daniel that we'll see.

But Leviticus 25 is very clear. As Daniel prayed, many things would have been likely in his mind. Foremost would have been the fact that the captivity in Babylon was based on the violation of the Sabbath year, and God had decreed that He, God, would force the issue for the rest of Israel if they didn't obey it.

The Jews had violated this decree for 490 years, which was 70 sevens of years. Further, the length of the captivity was also 10 sevens, or 70 years. With this in mind, it would have been appropriate for God's subsequent judgment to equal the same number of years as the violation, namely 490 years.

2 Chronicles 36 21, Add to this the simple logic of considering that in this space of time, the destroyed city and the temple will be rebuilt. The first week is going to be the rebuilding of the temple, 49 years.

We'll see that.

You can see that this is impossible. If you call it a week, seven days. If you call it one week, it's in seven days. In that first week, the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple is going to happen. History shows us that that's not possible.

There is even one more argument that the fact that this passage refers to years. In Daniel chapters 10 verses 2 and 3, Daniel writes that he mourned and fasted three entire weeks. This is a translation that renders the passage literally three sevens of days.

Daniel knew what a week was. He knew that they would call it seven days. A fasting of three sevens of days, 21 days. Twice, once in verse 2 and again in verse 3 of that chapter, had Daniel wished to convey the concept of actual days here in Daniel chapter 9, he would have certainly used the same word construction he used in Daniel chapter 10.

So one commentator stated it this way. Since Daniel was here thinking in terms of the 70 year captivity, he as a Hebrew could have easily moved from the idea of one week of years to 70 weeks of years.

This follows because according to 2 Chronicles 36 21, the people have been punished by this exile so that their land might enjoy the Sabbath rest, which had not been observed in their prior history. Knowing this, Daniel would have recognized that the 70 years of the exile represented 77s in which these violations had transpired.

The violations occurred in 77s. The exile was 70 years. And he would have understood Gabriel to be saying simply that another period similar in length to that which had made the exile necessary was coming in the experience of the people.

Another consideration is the length of the year considered. Israel used a 360 day year with an extra month added at various times to keep the calendar on track with the planting year. This is quite an interesting study of the problems of agrarian societies in ancient history in dealing with the fact that the earth does not exactly take 12 months to go around the sun, nor does the moon take exactly 30 days to go around the earth.

It would be a happy coincidence if it did. It would be wonderful. It would make the calendars a lot easier. We wouldn't have leap years and leap this and leap that, and there wouldn't be all these weird things that we have to do to keep everything in line for the planting.

For them, it was important. It had to do with planting crops. It had to do with harvesting crops, and it had to do with their festivals, their feasts and their festivals. Should a society not correct its calendar, feast days and hard and fast planting days, start and stop days, would move around willy-nilly.

The first day of harvest would change. Within a few short years, within 11 years, it would be in a different month, way in a different month, and it would be gradually moving all the time. So these folks had discovered that through their study of the stars, their study of rotation of the earth, the revolution around the sun, and had instituted what they called intercalary months.

They would add a whole month here and there, and those months had names. It's an interesting study if you want to do it, and with the internet, it's actually to find that information is relatively easy.

Just if you know how to spell intercalary, you got it made. Historically, the Jews were known to have rendered the months as 30 days, because when Moses recorded the flood in Genesis, he specified that the flood began on the 17th day of the second month and came to an end on the 17th day of the seventh month, which in the Jewish reckoning is five months, Genesis 7 -11.

In the 600th year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the 17th day of the month, on the same day, all the fountains of the great deep burst open and the floodgates of the sky were opened. And then in Genesis 8 -4, in the seventh month, on the 17th day of the month, the ark rested upon the mountains of Arahat.

He also gives the length of time as 150 days. During the math, we see that the Hebrews calculated 30 days to a month, Genesis 7 -24. The water prevailed upon the earth 150 days. Further, in the book of Revelation, in chapter 13, which refers basically to the same persecution by the Antichrist that Daniel is referring to, John speaks of the time period lasting 42 months.

This period is further defined in Revelation 12 -6 as 1 ,260 days. So this same time period is stated in three different ways in these two books. Three and a half years, 42 months, or 1 ,260 days. So we can be certain that the length of the year in the 70 weeks prophecy is 360 days.

So for us, for our purposes of calculating dates, we have to correct all that. And the corrections are astounding to read about. I had to read through them several times, 173 ,880 days, and doing the division, doing the math, man, if you had common core, this prophecy wouldn't work at all.

We will return to the purposes and points I raised earlier as we work our way through these four verses. We will see that verse 24, as I mentioned earlier, is Gabriel's general statement, and the final three verses, 25 -27, explain Gabriel's general statement.

Or Gabriel explains his general statement. You will note that the first three purposes relate to the removal of sin. Finish the transgression, make an end of sin, make atonement for iniquity. The second three purposes refer to the ushering in of righteousness.

Bring in everlasting righteousness, seal up vision and prophecy, anoint the most holy place. It has been noted by linguists that separating these purposes into two subsets is actually supported in the original language.

Dr. Thomas Ice notes in his study of the 70 weeks that the first three goals are made up of two word units in the Hebrew language, and the second group use three word phrases, so they are actually naturally separated.

So now let's look at each of those. Let's look at each of those, finish the transgression, make an end of sin. But we're going to start out with what Gabriel says to Daniel about the facts here. He says, this is decreed for your people and your holy city.

This specifies that this prophecy answers part of Daniel's prayer for your people, for his people, and your holy city, for his holy city, for God's holy city, which is verses 15 and 16, and indicates that this is for Israel.

It would be improper to shoehorn the church into this, and we'll look at someone who does, a well-known scholar who did this. These 490 years will be imposed on the Jewish people and the Jewish capital.

It has no impact at this point directly on Gentiles. This also, since it references the city as well as the people, gives support to the idea that this references both the first and the second coming of Christ.

It has been noted by one commentator that it is difficult to see how the physical city of Jerusalem was involved in the deliverance from sin which Christ then effected, but it will be in the deliverance from the destructive oppression which the Antichrist will bring prior to Christ's second coming.

In other words, the Jews in Jerusalem are involved during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, and they alone in the city of Jerusalem are all involved in this specific instance during the end times. Another commentator explains it this way, for whom did God reveal this period of prophetic destiny?

The text says that they have been decreed for your people and your holy city. This is such an obvious statement, yet so many interpreters attempt to shoehorn, that's where I got my statement here, in a people not mentioned in the passage in the 6th century B .C. when Daniel wrote, who were Daniel's people and holy city?

Clearly it can only refer to Israel as Daniel's people and Jerusalem as Daniel's holy city. Yet many interpreters insist that it means something more, something different than what the text actually says.

For instance, H .C. Leupold says, here as so often in prophecy seems like God's people and God's holy city broaden out to the point where they assume a breadth of meaning like that found in the New Testament, such as Galatians 6 .16.

Another non-literalist E .J. Young says, it is true that the primary reference is to Israel after the flesh and the historical Jerusalem, but since this very verse describes the messianic work, it also refers to the true people of God, those who will benefit because of the things herein described.

This is an example of bringing into the text information that is not in the text. There is absolutely nothing in the text to include a people or a place other than the Jews and the city of Jerusalem. This can only be theorized if one introduces information from outside the text.

This is the very definition of eisegesis. There is a general warning included in the book of 1 Corinthians not to go beyond what is written. This applies specifically to Paul's writings, but also to all of scripture as Paul notes that he applies it to himself.

1 Corinthians 4 .6,. Now these things, brethren, I have figuratively applied to myself and Apollos for your sakes, so that in us you may learn not to exceed what is written, so that not one of you, so that no one of you, will become arrogant in behalf of one against the other.

The word for decreed has the meaning of to cut or to cut off and had come to mean divide or determine, to determine something, therefore to decree it. God was carefully choosing the length of Israel's history.

In fact, he had done so from time immemorial, but here we have in scripture a description of just how he chose to do that. This idea is, as one commentator said, he said, the thought is that God had cut off these 490 years from the rest of history through which to accomplish the deliverance that is needed for Israel.

Israel needs deliverance. They keep going through the revolving door of repentance and return to sin. Of course, none of us do that. Only Israel does that. But it's recorded in history. What happens when Israel returns to God?

He brings them back. He never divorces them. He always shows mercy. But there's going to come a time when God has decreed and will bring to pass when Israel will be saved, national Israel will be saved.

That's not to say every Jew will be saved, but there will be a national turning to God. And from that turning, they will not turn away ever again. So the first statement is the decree. And we see that the decree is about Daniel's people and about Jerusalem.

The next statement that Gabriel makes is to finish the transgression. This again refers to the Jews' sin of rebellion, we talked earlier about this in other sections of Daniel, against God's rule in Israel and concurrently rejection of their Messiah.

It was a national shortcoming. They just couldn't stay true to God. They wouldn't stay true to God. This was the root that fueled all of the other transgressions against God that Israel carried out. This corresponds to other scriptures that indicate that Israel would not repent and turn to God until the second coming at which time the final end to the transgression would, in quotes, would be accomplished by God himself when he will cause Israel to no longer rebel and to turn to their Messiah.

So I'm not going to read all of these. I'm going to pinpoint a couple of them. There's quite a bit of information about this, about the transgression, but let's just look at a couple. Jeremiah 3, 11 through 18.

And the Lord said to me, Faithless Israel has proved herself more righteous than treacherous Judah. Go and proclaim these words to the north and say, Return, faithless Israel, declares the Lord. I will not look upon you in anger, for I am gracious, declares the Lord.

I will not be angry forever. Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against the Lord, your God, and have scattered your favors to strangers under every green tree. And you have not obeyed my voice, declares the Lord.

Return, O faithless sons, declares the Lord, for I am a master to you, and I will take you from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion. Then I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you on knowledge and understanding.

It shall be in those days when you are multiplied and increased in the land, declares the Lord. They will no longer say the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and it will not come to mind, nor they will remember it, nor will they miss it, nor will it be made again.

At that time they will call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord, and all the nations will be gathered to it. Jerusalem, gathered to it, to Jerusalem for the name of the Lord, nor will they walk anymore after the stubbornness of their evil heart.

In those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and they will come together from the land of the north to the land that I give your fathers as an inheritance. And then Zechariah, we'll look at verse 13, verse 1.

In that day a fountain will be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for impurity. God is going to turn Israel's heart. It's a day that's coming. It doesn't happen here.

Although some of them go home to Jerusalem, rebuild the city, rebuild the temple, but the national turn does not come in 583, 444 B .C. or any of the other dates. If you look this up, you will find them all listed in the three decrees we're going to talk about where we date some of these things from.

So God wants to finish the transgression. That day is coming. That day is coming. The second point is to make an end of sin. In concert with the national tendency to transgress and rebel that seems to permeate at this time the Jewish nation, this particular verse or section, this phrase, refers to individual sins.

These are the actual sins of everyday life, and they will also end when the root is destroyed at Christ's second coming. Here the word end comes from a Hebrew word which means to shut, to close, to seal, to hide.

The idea is that it brings a matter to a conclusion. It is the same idea as described by David Cooper in his commentary of the activities of a scribe taking down a royal letter. When scribes would take down royal letters, they would write the information that the king gave to them and then they would seal it.

He said the word was regularly used, this word was regularly used to indicate the closing of a letter or an official document. When the scribe had finished his work, the king placed his royal seal upon it, thus showing that the communication was brought to a close and at the same time giving to it an official imprimatur.

Same thing happened when Christ was sealed in the tomb. The ruler there imprinted the wax on the seal of the door, and if that seal was broken, Roman soldiers would die. That seal was the official mark of the conclusion of something or of the decreeing of something.

That's the second one. The third, to make atonement for iniquity. So this phrase derives its translation from the Hebrew word for atonement which means to cover or to cleanse. When Israel finally sees Christ as their Messiah and repents and trusts him for their salvation, the atonement for iniquity will be final in the life of the Jewish nation.

Now of course, not every Jew will be saved. This is a general term regarding the nation of Israel. This will be a national turning to Christ and it is still in the future. Therefore, this particular phrase looks forward to the time when the people of Israel will genuinely repent and acknowledge their departure from God and from his provision of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.

They will be brought back into fellowship with Yahweh and thus become a blessing to the earth. As mentioned before, the word for atonement means to cover. It actually has reference in the book of Genesis of covering the wood of Noah's ark with pitch.

This is what kept the ark from sinking. Now I don't want to get too metaphorical here, but the fact is Christ's atonement covers our sin and presents us to God as whole and holy. It is his covering, his sacrifice on Calvary that allows God to even look at us and then make us one of his elect, make us one of his children.

That covering covers our sin and we are given the righteousness of Christ. We give him all of our sin and he gives us all of his righteousness. It's an unfair trade, but that's how it is and it's a remarkable and a wonderful one.

It will do this for the Israelites as well when they finally repent as a nation. These first three purposes didn't deal with the sin of Daniel's people, Israel, and the idea is to get rid of sin, get rid of it, get rid of it, get rid of it.

That day is coming. I'm looking forward to that when there'll be no more sin in my life. I use 1 John 1, 9 so much that if I actually did a yellow highlighter over it every time I did it, I think the page would be 33 feet thick, but I'm glad it doesn't add up fast.

The first three steps, purposes deal with the sin of Daniel's people, Israel, and the idea is to get rid of sin. At the end of the 70 weeks, the second coming of the Messiah, this will be fulfilled in total.

Leon Wood comments on this very well. He says the first introduces the idea of riddance, saying that the coming 490 year period would see its firm restraint, the firm restraint of sin. In other words, God was about to do something to alleviate this basic serious problem.

The second, make an end, speaks of the degree of this restraint. Sin would be put to an end. The third, make an atonement for iniquity, indicates how this would be done, by atonement, and we know that was the atonement of Christ.