Daniel’s great Holy Week prophecy
(This is part three of a three part series on Holy Week.)
Earlier this week we wrote about the discrepancies in the Holy Week timeline, and what the correct days and times should be. Now we will discuss how we can use Scripture and common historical facts to be certain of the date and year when Christ was crucified, thanks to one of the greatest, most amazing prophecies ever told. It comes from the Book of Daniel and involves a little bit of math (and counting days), but it is not complicated or tough to understand. Grab your Bible and an encyclopedia and go through these steps with me.
Let’s begin by looking at Daniel 9:25:
Know therefore and understand,
That from the going forth of the command
To restore and build Jerusalem
Until Messiah the Prince,
There shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks;
The street shall be built again, and the wall.
Even in troublesome times.
First, we notice that the word translated as ‘week’ in our English Bibles is the Hebrew term shabuwa`, which when made plural becomes the concept of heptad. or “series of seven.” Where as in present day America a week consists of 7 days, to Daniel a week contained 7 years. Therefore, where this verse says, “There shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks,” it literally means, “There shall be 49 years and 434 years,” for a total of 483 years.
The key to unlocking the dates lies in the 2nd and third lines of the above quoted verse, where Daniel writes about the command being given to restore Jerusalem. The fulfillment of this part of the prophecy occurred in Nehemiah 2:1-8:
And it came to pass in the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, that I took the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had never been sad in his presence before. Therefore the king said to me, “Why is your face sad, since you are not sick? This is nothing but sorrow of heart.” So I became dreadfully afraid, and said to the king, “May the king live forever! Why should my face not be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers’ tombs, lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire?” Then the king said to me, “What do you request?” So I prayed to the God of heaven. And I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, I ask that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ tombs, that I may rebuild it.” Then the king said to me (the queen also sitting beside him), “How long will your journey be? And when will you return?” So it pleased the king to send me; and I set him a time. Furthermore I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, let letters be given to me for the governors of the region beyond the River, that they must permit me to pass through till I come to Judah, and a letter to Asaph the keeper of the king’s forest, that he must give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel which pertains to the temple, for the city wall, and for the house that I will occupy.” And the king granted them to me according to the good hand of my God upon me.
According to encyclopedias, King Artaxeres began to rule over the Persian Empire in 465 B.C. This would make the twentieth year of his reign, referenced in Nehemiah 2:1, to have been in 445 B.C. We also notice from this verse that the events happened “in the moth of Nisan.” In Hebrew writing, if there is a month given without a corresponding date, it is rendered as the first day of the month. Therefore the command to rebuild the wall occurred on 1 Nisan, 445 B.C., or March 14th, 445 B.C. when translated into our calendar.
Now here comes the math!
- 7 weeks + 62 weeks = 69 weeks, or 483 years (Daniel 9:25), meaning the “Prince would come” 483 years after the command to rebuild Jerusalem (Nehemiah 2:1-8)
- The Jewish way of reckoning has 360 day years, unlike the 365.25 we have today. So 483 years X 360 days = 173,880 days
- March 14th, 445 B.C (the date of the command to rebuild Jerusalem in Nehemiah 2:1) + 173,880 days = April 6, 32 A.D.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Volume II, page 660, The Man called Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the back of a Donkey on April 6, 32 A.D,–EXACTLY the day Scripture foretold the Christ would arrive. Amazing! This is why Jesus said in Luke 19:42-44, “If you had known, especially in this your day. . . because you did not know the time of your visitation.” If the Jews of the time would have only counted the days, they would have known that Jesus was their Messiah.
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