Daniel Chapter 9 Last Four Verses: 70 Weeks

Daniel Chapter 9 Last Four Verses: 70 Weeks

The need for the chart on the three days and three nights comes from the last verse in Daniel 9.27:

And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in
the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to
cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it
desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be
poured upon the desolate.

The “he” is the Antichrist who conferred with those who had forsaken the “holy covenant” (Daniel 11:30) and covenanted with them for evil one week. We understand these to be literal weeks in absence of anything that tells us otherwise. We don’t know when the seventy weeks begin.

The Antichrist sets up the abomination that causes desolation which replaces normal animal sacrifice in the temple of Jerusalem. From Revelation 13:15-18 we understand the abomination that causes desolation to be the “image of the beast.” The image will compel all to worship him. One must take the mark, name or number of the beast in order to buy or sell. The altar shall be desolate until temple site is cleansed and the temple as described by Ezekiel is rebuilt and sanctified.

The abomination is set up in the middle of the week on Wednesday. Why? Jesus died on Wednesday. The Antichrist replaces the blood covenant established with Jesus’ death with image of the beast for the Antichrist believes himself to be the resurrected one.

But was not Jesus crucified on Friday? We have to weigh the words of Jesus in Matthew 12:40 on this matter:

For as Jonas (Jonah) was three days and three nights in the whale’s
belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the
heart of the earth.

If Jesus died Friday afternoon and was buried Friday night after sundown (which was Saturday by Jewish reckoning), he would have been in the ground a night and a day.

The confusion concerning the day of the week when Jesus died and was buried lies in the verses of the gospel that emphasize that they tried to get him buried before the Sabbath, normally Saturday.

However, at this time Jesus celebrated the Passover feast with his disciples and instituted the Lord’s Supper. It was also the day of preparation when they took all the leaven out of their houses by the next night which began the Sabbath of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The various feasts of the Jews had Sabbaths that began feasts and ended feasts.

The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies
should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath
day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken,
and that they might be taken away. [high day = feast day sabbath]
John 19:31

It was not the seventh-day sabbath but the sabbath of the Feast of Unleavened Bread about which every Jew was concerned. We will learn that the high day fell on Thursday, our Wednesday night, and that they did not finish with Him in the tomb until after dark, since Herod released His body late that Wednesday afternoon.

Jesus arose just after sundown on our Saturday night which was the beginning of Sunday for the Jews.

In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day
of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the
sepulchre. And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel
of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the
stone from the door, and sat upon it. Matthew 28:1-2

The two Mary’s apparently waited until the end of seventh day sabbath to set out to see the tomb. The word “dawn” usually refers to light. In this verse, however, it is used to mean the beginning of a new day which on the Jewish calender then always started after sundown.

Armed with the knowledge we have now, let us count backward from Sunday – as the days fell by the Jewish week – three days and three nights to learn when Jesus was buried and when he died.

Just after dark on Sunday [our Saturday night] to just after dark on Saturday [our Friday night] (1 day and night) to just after dark Friday [our Thursday night] (2 days and nights), to just after dark Thursday [our Wednesday night] (3 days and nights).

That means that Jesus was buried just after it got dark on our Wednesday night but the Jewish Thursday. Pilate did not release Jesus’ dead body until late in the day. He died the afternoon of Wednesday. He partook of the Passover Supper the night before.