Daniel Chapter 9 Predicts The Exact Day Jesus Arrived As Messiah

By Robert Clifton Robinson on August 27, 2020 • ( 1 )

The prophecies of Daniel chapter 9 are, in my opinion, the most extraordinary amongst all the prophecies of the Bible. In this text the angel Gabriel tells Daniel the exact day the Messiah, the Anointed One, would come to Jerusalem and announce that the promise of God to send the world a Savior, has been fulfilled.

“This is the Day,” The Arrival of the Messiah

The time of day when Daniel began to pray for his nation and people, was at the time of the evening sacrifice when the lamb was offered for sins. This was three in the afternoon, called “twilight,” the time of the evening offering. While Daniel is praying, Gabriel comes to him and begins to unfold the prophecy that holds Israel and the Jews at the center of the most important prophecy ever recorded. Gabriel tells Daniel that seventy sets of seven years, or four hundred and ninety years, are decreed for the Jews and the nation of Israel. During the first set of seven sets of seven years, or forty-nine years, the Temple will be built. During the next set of sixty-two seven year periods, or four-hundred and eighty three years, the Messiah would come and announce His arrival on earth. He will be “cut off,” or killed, and the kingdom promised to David’s Son, the Messiah, will be postponed for a time.

The Precision of God During Jesus’ Crucifixion

This prophecy specified that the arrival of the Messiah would take place during the time when the Roman Empire would exist and cover the world. The last seven year period of time, the seventieth week of Daniel 9, would not happen until the Roman Empire was once again united and the ruler or prince which would come at that time, was ready to make his appearance.

This man would later be known as the antichrist, the beast, the man of perdition. He cannot be introduced to the world, in the words of Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2, until He who is preventing him from being introduced, moves out of the way.

Jesus is seen in the Gospels as meticulously planning each of the events He orchestrated, according to the timeline of the Hebrew prophets. In order for Jesus to be the One True Messiah, He must fulfill all 400 of the prophecies written to prove the identity of the Messiah. In 2013, after nearly forty years of study, I published The Prophecies of the Messiah, where I detail how Jesus precisely fulfilled all 400 of these prophecies. If Jesus had missed or failed to fulfill any one of these 400 prophecies, He could not be the Messiah.

Chief amongst these 400 prophecies is the text of Daniel chapter 9, where the prophet is told the exact day the Messiah would ride into Jerusalem on the foal of a donkey and be proclaimed as the Messiah, with the words, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.

See Daniel’s prophecy and how Jesus arrived on the exact day the prophecy predicted

As I wrote earlier, the time of day when Daniel began to pray for his nation and people, was at the time of the evening sacrifice when the lamb was offered for sins. This was three in the afternoon, called “twilight,” the time of the evening offering. It is no coincidence that the time of day when Jesus died upon the cross as the Lamb of God was also at three in the afternoon.

Daniel had no way of knowing that nearly seven-hundred years before Jesus would arrive on earth, live a sinless life, and fulfill every one of the four-hundred Messianic prophecies, that He would also be killed at three in the afternoon. (Luke 23:44-46).

Daniel didn’t realize when he wrote this prophecy for the Messiah that the true intent of the lambs who were continually offered each day at three in the afternoon for the sins of the people, was an advanced look at what Jesus would do later when He died as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Daniel didn’t understand what the words he was writing really meant. He knew only that they were for a time in the future when his nation and people would help to fulfill all the prophecies of the Messiah that would bring the blessing of eternal life to the whole world.

Daniel’s prophecy of seventy-weeks, was written for the Jews, not for the church that Jesus would later establish. Gabriel specifically tells Daniel that this prophecy he is about to receive, is for “your people,” the Jews. We cannot appropriate any part of this prophecy to the church, nor should we seek to fit the church into this prophecy.

“Seventy weeks are determined For your people and for your holy city.” ~ Daniel 9:24

For this reason, and because the prophecy of the seventy-weeks includes the final week, the seventieth week, the time of Tribulation that Jesus specifically addressed to the Jews in Matthew chapter 24, it cannot be applied to the church. Daniel wrote this prophecy for the Jews and the nation of Israel who will be going through the Great Tribulation, not the church. Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians that this is a time of wrath by Jesus when twenty-one judgments will be poured out upon the world. Jesus’ church is not appointed to experience the wrath of Jesus’ judgment because our sins have already been judged at His cross. For this reason, Jesus will remove all who love Him from the earth before the final seven years of Daniel’s prophecy commences.

For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him. ~1 Thessalonians 5:9-10

For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. ~1 Thessalonians 4:16-17

This prophecy of Daniel 9 is written for the Jews, and the nation of Israel, not the church and all who love Jesus and have placed their trust in Him. Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10 that the Great Tribulation is the time of Jesus wrath upon a Christ rejecting world. Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, that before this time of wrath during the Great Tribulation begins, Jesus will depart from heaven and come to the outer atmosphere of earth (in the air) and remove those who love Him from the earth. Some will have already died trusting in Jesus, others will be alive. Paul wrote that whether we are dead or alive at that moment we will be taken from the earth before the Great Tribulation begins.