Daniel 9:1-3; Season 11, Episode 4 (30min)

"A Prophet's Reading"

The Outline:

I. THE STORIES (1:1-6:28)

II. THE VISIONS (7:1-12:13)

The Four Beasts of Empires (7:1-28)
The Horns of a Ram and a Goat (8:1-27)
The Timetable of Seventy Weeks (9:1-27)
The Man of Glory 10:1-9)
The Battle of Angels (10:10-11:1)
The Wars and Intrigues of Kings (11:2-28)
The Abomination of Desolation (11:29-45)
The Time of Trouble (12:1-13)

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C. The Timetable of Seventy Weeks (9:1-27)

The Setting(9:1)
The Reading from Jeremiah(9:2)
The Reaction from Daniel(9:3)
The Prophet’s Prayer(9:4-19)
The Angel’s Arrival(9:20-23)
The Decree(9:24-27)

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Appendix: The Seventy Years of Discipline

National Discipline of Dispersion Predicted in the Law for Idolatry, Immorality and the Sabbath Years;
Exodus 23:10–11; “You shall sow your land for six years and gather in its yield, ¹¹ but on the seventh yearyou shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the needy of your people may eat; and whatever they leave the beast of the field may eat. You are to do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove.”;
Deuteronomy 28:63–64; “It shall come about that as the Lord delighted over you to prosper you, and multiply you, so the Lord will delight over you to make you perish and destroy you; and you will be torn from the land where you are entering to possess it. ⁶⁴ “Moreover, the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth; and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone, which you or your fathers have not known.”

If Unrepentant, Multiplied “7 times more”; Leviticus 26:14-35; (v18) “If also after these things you do not obey Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.”; (v21) “If then, you act with hostility against Me and are unwilling to obey Me, I will increase the plague on you seven times according to your sins.”; (vs27-28) “Yet if in spite of this you do not obey Me, but act with hostility against Me, then I will act with wrathful hostility against you, and I, even I, will punish you seven times for your sins.”

Leviticus 26:34-35; “Then the land will enjoy its sabbaths all the days of the desolation, while you are in your enemies’ land; then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. ³⁵ ‘All the days of its desolation it will observe the rest which it did not observe on your sabbaths, while you were living on it.”;

Note: So it was that for almost 500 years Israel had evidently failed to keep these Sabbath Years

2Chronicles 36:19–21; “Then they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, and burned all its fortified buildings with fire and destroyed all its valuable articles. ²⁰ Those who had escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon; and they were servants to him and to his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, ²¹ to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its sabbaths. All the days of its desolation it kept sabbath until seventy years were complete.”

Seventy-Year Span Foretold by Jeremiah:

Jeremiah 25:11–12; “This whole land will be a desolation and a horror, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years. ¹² ‘Then it will be when seventy years are completed I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation,’ declares the Lord, ‘for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans; and I will make it an everlasting desolation.”;
Jeremiah 29:10–11; “For thus says the Lord, ‘When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place. ¹¹ ‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.’”

– Daniel’s Observation in Jeremiah

This stirred him to his prayer; Daniel 9:2; “In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, observed in the books the number of the years which was revealed as the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet for the completion of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years.”

Notice: Daniel sees this "Seventy years" timeframe is about to be completed (Daniel 9:2). Now what?! If this is coming to an end, and there is no national repentance, there is the potential of another 70x7, or 490 years, yet to be played out for his people and his nation.

Consider: Jesus did not just pick a random number in His illustration about forgiveness; Matthew 18:21–22; “Then Peter came and said to Him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” ²²Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.”; This carried with it a certain Biblical and historical familiarity to the disciples of Jesus' earthly ministry.