In Chapter 9, Gabriel returns to explain to Daniel Vision 2300, referenced in chapter 8. Chapter 9 has a beautiful prayer for Israel in which he addresses Israel’s failures. Daniel 9:1-2, “In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans, in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years whereof the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah the prophet, for the accomplishing of the desolations of Jerusalem, even seventy years.“

Chapter 9 opens by drawing attention to Israel’s return to Jerusalem. Notice that Persia-Media and King Darius have now conquered Babylon, and we are about nine years after chapter 8 and King Belshazzar of Babylon. Daniel is living the prophecy of the statue’s silver chest and the second beast. Daniel reads Jeremiah’s seventy-year prophecy, about two years left until people can return to Jerusalem. Chapter 9:3-19 is the prayer and not repeated here, but please spend some time in the prayer. It is beautiful.

Jeremiah 29:10, “For thus saith Yahweh, After seventy years are accomplished for Babylon, I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place.” A famous verse follows, v29:11, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith Yahweh, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you hope in your latter end.”

Jeremiah 29:11 comes after the punishment. We usually hear Jeremiah 29:11 as a standalone verse and think, “cool.” We rarely hear the whole context that says we need to obey our Abba Father as our role in the covenant. That is why I wish preaching the promises would always include the covenant they are part of because it is the covenants that guide our life and relationship, not the promises. My book is here so the believer can add the covenants on their own. Please pray on that.

We cannot have a relationship in a one-sided process. Our Abba Father gives to us, and we also give to him in our job with the Family, not just our tithe. That is the very heart of sanctified marriage. Daniel read Jeremiah’s words and went straight into a fantastic prayer for Jerusalem, full of confession and repentance.

Daniel 9:20, “And while I was speaking, and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before Yahweh my God for the holy mountain of my God; . . .” Chapter 2 presented the “mountain of God,” Mount Zion, for which, Daniel is praying. Also, remember that Jesus, the stone, “became as a vast mountain range and it filled the entire earth.” Think how small we are in that comparison. The point is the size comparison, not the mountain itself.

Daniel 9:21-22, “yea, while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision (Vision 2300) at the beginning (chapter 8), being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation. And he instructed me, and talked with me, and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee wisdom and understanding.“

Chapter 9 is both a prophecy and the answer to Daniel’s prayer. Did you see Gabriel coming as the answer to Daniel’s prayer? If not, please reread it; it will change your life.

Daniel 9:23-25, Gabriel is speaking, “At the beginning of thy supplications the commandment went forth, and I am come to tell thee; for thou art greatly beloved: therefore consider the matter (better translated “message,” the rebuilding of Jerusalem), and understand the vision (Vision 490). Seventy weeks are decreed (better translated “cut out”) upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up vision (Vision 2300) and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy. Know therefore and discern, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the anointed one, the prince, shall be seven weeks (49 days/years), and threescore and two weeks (62 weeks, 434 days/years): it shall be built again, with street and moat, even in troublous times.“

That is a lot to accomplish. The first seven weeks (49 days/years) is an homage to the 49-year Jubilee period; the entire vision is ten Jubilee periods (490 years). The sixty-two weeks is 434 years of history and the last week is seven years of history. The “Vision 490” prophecy is determined, decreed, or cut off from Vision 2300, meaning it is part of it, the first part.

After the order to rebuild Jerusalem is issued, Abba Father ordains 490 years to accomplish a season in his plan that he revealed to us. It is a profound revelation. The command to rebuild Jerusalem was issued by Artaxerxes 1 in the autumn of 457 BC. Ezra 7 also described it, so we have our starting date for both visions, the 490 and 2300. Vision 490 is cut out of Vision 2300, starting both visions in 457 BC.

We must understand the history for the proper interpretation. King Cyrus of Persia started rebuilding the temple in 536 BC, but Artaxerxes I decreed rebuilding the city of Jerusalem about 79 years later.

The correct date is 457 BC. Around 27 AD is when Jesus started his ministry. Add seven weeks to 62 weeks = 69 weeks = 483 years, add that to 457 BC and we get to 27 AD with another seven years left.

Let’s look at Luke 3:1, “Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee . . .” Luke 3:15, “And as the people were in expectation, and all men reasoned in their hearts concerning John (the Baptist), whether haply he were the Christ . . .”

The fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius is 27-28 AD, when Jesus started his ministry! Mark 1:14-15, “Now after John (the Baptist) was delivered up, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe in the gospel.” Jesus announced that he fulfilled the sixty-nine weeks (483 yrs.) of Daniel’s prophecy when Jesus started his ministry. That gives me goosebumps!

Were the people in expectation of the Messiah? Did they know Daniel’s Vision 490? To find him, one must be looking for him, as they were because they knew the Old Testament! John 1:45, “Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.“

And who cannot love John 1:46, “And Nathanael said unto him, Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” One of the missions of the Sanhedrin was to determine the real Messiah, as several men claimed at the time. We can now understand the depravity of the Sadducees and Pharisees. They protected their turf right under our Abba Father’s eyes with the Messiah.

Luke 3:21-22, “. . . Now it came to pass, when all the people were baptized, that, Jesus also having been baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form, as a dove, upon him, and a voice came out of heaven, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.”

The Messiah has come, as told by Daniel hundreds of years earlier! When was he to come? Exactly 483 years after the decree to rebuild Jerusalem! Only in the context of a spiritually dead priesthood can missing Jesus as the Messiah be understood. “A voice came out of heaven,” and the priests did not care. And Jesus forgave them on the cross. Make Jesus forgiving them your takeaway, not just the scene.

Let’s go back to Daniel 9:24, “. . . to finish transgression, and to make an end of sins . . .” ESV translates, “to atone for iniquity.” However translated, Daniel 9:24 is the only use of that Hebrew phase in the Scripture because Jesus on the cross is once and forever.

Hebrews 1:3, “when he had made purification of sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.” Jesus returning to heaven and sitting on his throne is step one. Vision 2300 needs to be sealed at the end of Vision 490 because Vision 490 is the first part of it, and Daniel can’t seal it until he finishes that reveal.

More 9:24, “And to anoint the Most Holy” is better translated “Most Holy Place” (NIV) or “Holy of Holies” (several). The temple is anointed, not Jesus, and the time gap between Jesus ascending and anointing the temple is essential to our faith. Remember, the temple was destroyed in 70 AD and never rebuilt. Daniel is talking about the heavenly temple. Please pray on that.

Let’s look at Hebrews 9:11-12, “But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.” That “Most Holy Place,” is in Heaven; Jesus now washes us clean with our confession and sanctification. Gabriel and Daniel bring this to life for us, another goosebump moment.

In ELB, we believe we have witnessed the last of Jesus when he ascends in Acts 1. ELB would prefer we not see the rest of Vision 2300. As with the Intertestamental Period, our Abba Father has Daniel tell us about Jesus’ work after he ascends. He just tells us before it happens.

Daniel 9:25, “Know therefore and discern, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the anointed one, the prince, shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: it (Jerusalem) shall be built again, with street and moat, even in troublous times.” Daniel is not talking about the temple. The difference is significant later.

Daniel 9:26, “And after the threescore and two weeks (3 1/2 years after) shall the anointed one be cut off, and shall have nothing: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and even unto the end shall be war; desolations are determined.“

Who are the people that destroyed Jerusalem and the temple? We know the Romans leveled Jerusalem and the temple in 70 AD. Do the Romans have a “prince to come?” The “little horn” is possible if it is not who ELB wants, Antiochus Epiphanes. I see the “little horn” as the church-state system in the Holy Roman Empire, not “the prince.” Daniel does not mention the 70 AD date, which makes it unimportant to our Abba Father, so I do not see him referring to the “little horn” here.

Few believers know that Israel rebelled against Nero in 66 AD and drove the Romans out of Jerusalem for a while. They fought a vicious, brutal war for three years. The Roman general Titus is said to have not wanted to destroy everything in 70 AD. Still, the atrocities done to the Roman soldiers were so grotesque that the soldiers “lost it” and flattened everything in extreme anger. The rebellion is the root cause of the destruction, and Israel is the “people of the prince to come.”

Daniel 9:27, “And he shall make a firm covenant with many for one week (seven years): and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease . . .” That paragraph is where I disagree the most with the scholars. The firm covenant of one week (7 years) is the last week of Vision 490, not the end time of the, Great Tribulation almost all scholars embrace. A 490-year prophecy lasts 490 years, not thousands. And a 2300-year prophecy lasts 2300 years.

Daniel reveals all of Vision 490 and then seals the Vision 2300 prophecy. Nothing in the Scripture, only ELB, supports pulling seven years out of the timelines to a date thousands of years later. The last seven years must be the final phase of Vision 490, the part Daniel showed us. Please pray on that.

Daniel 9:27, “and upon the wing of abominations (think “spread out”) shall come one that maketh desolate (the return of Jesus); and even unto the full end, and that determined (but not revealed), shall wrath be poured out upon the desolate” (the antichrist and his people).”

Desolation is persecution, grief, and ruin, which will last until the end time, the “end of the war.” Daniel 9:27 reveals that abominations continue past Vision 490, transitioning into the “other horn” and the Church-state system that lasts until the end of the Vision 1260 prophesy, beyond to the end.

We still have another 3½ years after the cross to understand the last seven years of Vision 490. Let’s go back to Daniel 9:24, “Seventy weeks are determined For your people and for your holy city . . .” The Jews are Daniel’s people, and Jerusalem is their holy city. The end time is about believers, not Jews and Jerusalem. That is more reason not to see the last seven years of v9:24 as the Great Tribulation in the end.

Let’s look at Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.” “The Jew first” is the key phrase.

Mathew 10:5-6, “These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.” Mathew 15:22-24, “And behold, a Canaanitish woman came out from those borders, and cried, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a demon. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I was not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

The beginning of Jesus’ work is all about Israel and the Jews. Jesus’ primary mission was to redeem the Jews, be crucified, and ascend to heaven. The Holy Spirit came to the Apostles in Acts 2, and a crowd of Jews celebrated the Jewish Pentecost Festival. Acts 6:7, “Then the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith.“

Did something happen that ended the “Jew first” Vison 490 about 3½ years after they crucified Jesus?” The answer is Stephen the Martyr in Acts 7:54, “When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth. But he (Stephen), being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and said, “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”

Acts 8:1-4, “Now Saul was consenting to his death (Stephen). At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Therefore those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word. Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them.“

The scattering after Stephen ended the Jewish state strategy at the end of Vision 490. And started the new plan for the gentiles worldwide. Another goosebump moment. The last seven years of Vision 490 are revealed in a continuous sequence, precisely what our Abba Father planned.