Kingdom Come

[They] searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. Therefore many of them believed;) Acts 10:11-12)

“In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus…which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans / Babylonians; I Dani-el / God Is My Judge understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy YEARS in the desolations of Jerusalem. And I set my face unto the LORD God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes…

whiles I was speaking in prayer, even the [hu]man Gabri-el / Man of God, (Daniel 9:21)

whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, [obviously flying is not an innate characteristic of this individual]

• • “Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint which spake, How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot? 
  • And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed. 
  • And…when I…sought for the meaning…there stood before me as the appearance of a man. 
  • And I heard a man’s voice between the banks of Ulai, which called, and said, Gabriel, make this [one of a group of like ones] to understand the vision.

The two saints include Daniel as one of them – a saint, an holy one, which indeed he was deemed by God, so the account sounds to me like two “older kids” fondly teasing their “younger brother” who’s desperate to be included in their secret.

So he came near where I stood: and when he came, I was afraid, and fell upon my face: but he said unto me, Understand, O son of man: for at the time of the end shall be the vision.

This is a bit of a tangent here, but with so many sticky note flags in the text directing our attention to the plain statements, we should pick up on the fact that Gabriel is not the personal name of an archangel as commonly inferred, but instead the classification of a type of human being who has already been translated into immortality. I suspect these two are Enoch and Elijah. Both were prophets who spent their lives preaching and teaching.

[Gabriel] informed / instructed me, and talked with me, and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee skill and understanding. / dialogued, answered questions

Seventy WEEKS are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the MOST Holy.”

Understand

for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate,” (Daniel 9)

“When ye thereore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let HIM – not just Daniel – understand:)” (Matthew 24:15)

The problem with religious denominations is the mindlessness of adherents willing to accept, without question, that their denomination’s leadership has done all the hard work of determining truth, and the membership is “saved” simply by “believing” what they are told.

In fact, anybody whose expectation of salvation ultimately derives from some knowledge of the written word, is expected, by the biblical authors, to study for themselves.

“Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.” (John 5:39)

Searching the scriptures is a fundamental process in establishing any truth. In the sciences it is called re-search because any new search of knowledge must start with a literature re-view of existing publications on that issue.

But we don’t need to If we analyze the biblical narrative, even as simply as a book report like we learned in elementary school,

• The setting: the heavens and earth.
• The characters: all the hosts / various classifications of inhabitants of the heavens and the earth – immortal hyperdimensional beings and mortal humans and animals.
• The problem or plot: corruption.
• The climax or resolution to the problem: destruction of the corrupt and a fresh start.

Any literary medium relates a sequence of events linked together by the theme. Each wave of events climaxes higher and higher, culminating in the ultimate event – The End.

Better Call Saul [a prequel to Breaking Bad] has consistently been, and still is, one of the best dramas on television…a character study focused on the increasingly unscrupulous lawyer Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk)…now that we’re closer to the end…there’s an even stronger sense of foreboding hanging over the show. That’s apparent in the circumstances Jimmy creates and/or unwittingly finds himself in…that convey there’s something rotten taking over this fictional version of Albuquerque.

I am well aware of what a fantastic, thoughtfully crafted piece of television Better Call Saul is. Still, whenever I come back to it after a between-season hiatus, I’m astonished all over again by how well it’s crafted on every single level. Every aspect — the writing, directing, acting, production and costume design — has been rendered with tremendous precision, but the series still feels like an independent organism going in surprising directions all on its own.

The same is true of the Bible.

One of the pleasures of Better Call Saul is the extent to which watching it is like looking backward with 20/20 hindsight…

The same applies the entire story in the Bible. Instead of separating the “Old” from the “New” Testament, we should also view the previous books of the Bible as a prequel to the rest of the Bible, but to the rest of human history. “One of the pleasures” – or, more appropriately, given the Bible is not entertainment but a heads-up on the real doomsday scenario – one of the advantages of understanding how it unfolds at the end is “looking backward with 20/20 hindsight.”

This particularly applies to prophecies which, by themselves are obtuse and easily warped by ignorant or deceptive religious leaders.

“And it came to pass in the seventh year, in the fifth month, the tenth day of the month, that certain of the elders of Israel came to enquire of the LORD, and sat before me.” (Ezekiel 20)

The exact date is given for a reason so let’s pull it into context. Years cycle around so let’s check out the month and day, like December 25th, or February 14th.

“in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, which is the nineteenth year of king Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, came Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, unto Jerusalem: And he burnt the house of the LORD, and the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, and every great man’s house burnt he with fire. And brake down the walls of Jerusalem round about. Now the rest of the people that were left in the city, and the fugitives that fell away to the king of Babylon, with the remnant of the multitude, did Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carry away. But…left of the poor of the land to be vinedressers and husbandmen.” (II Kings 25:8-12)

Aha! Naturally the Jews memorialized the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem.

By referencing the “seventh year” rather than the “26th year of King Nebuchadnezzar”, the Jews are obviously maintaining Jewish time-keeping. This would be the seventh year from the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC. Why is this significant?

People who don’t read all of Holy Scripture don’t realize that not only did sabbaths / sevenths occur every seventh day,

• but also every seventh year
• and every 7 x 7 years.

“And the LORD spake unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the LORD. Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof; But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the Lord: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard. That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land.” (Leviticus 25)

The sabbath year is far more significant than the sabbath day used for worship services – Friday for Moslems, Saturday for Jews, and Sunday for Christians. By ceasing all work to focus on the LORD God, this is an act of faith in God’s promise to provide for all our needs, a public show of the value of relying on one’s relationship with the LORD God rather than one’s own works, and, like a family night, constant strengthening of one’s relationship not only with him but with his people.

Oh wow. Talk about environmentalism. This is about as leftist as they come. Had it happened? Maybe among some weird hippy types living out in some desolate rural area. Like the poor of the land left to bring back a desolate wilderness laid barren by years of war and poor farming practices before that.

But not the materialistic urban folk who only pay lip service to God’s word while milking all resources to the limit for their personal power and wealth.

We can calculate 70 x 7 years = 490 years during which the sabbath years were not observed. Add to  586 BC (or close enough to 590 BC to make the math easier), we find the last Sabbath year that was observed was ~1080 BC. Apparently this is before the reign of King David, which frankly, is upsetting to those of us who hold King David in high esteem. Perhaps the constant warfare requiring conscription of able-bodied men during his reign caused the land, like the building of the temple, to be neglected enough to forego scheduling fallow periods.

If we keep in mind the ecological value of periodically leaving agriculture land fallow, and the responsibility of the sons of God to care for the earth, this practice appears to be as much a restoration of the land to entropy as any restoration of the people’s relationship with their God.

But there was more than ecology at stake. Talk about leftist politics for redistribution of wealth!

And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every [indentured servant] man unto his family. A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed. For it is the jubilee; it shall be holy unto you:” (Leviticus 25)

“all the chief of the priests, and the people, transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen; and polluted the house of the LORD which he had hallowed in Jerusalem. And the LORD God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling place: But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD  arose against his people, till there was no remedy. Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees…To fulfil the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths [of 7 years]: for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfill 70 years [of missed Sabbath years every 7 years]” (II Chronicles 36)

So we can deduce that in this 1st 7-year sabbath the elders were asking for a 7×7 years sabbath jubilee with its forgiveness of debt and return of possessions to every man back in Jerusalem.

Now that we have the prequel to this piece of the overall story in which certain of the elders of Israel came to enquire of the LORD, and sat before me”, we can fully understand God’s reaction. 

Are. You. KIDDING. Me!!!

“Then came the word of the LORD unto me, saying, Son of man, speak unto the elders of Israel, and say unto them, Thus saith the LORD God;

Are ye come to enquire of me? As I live…I will not be enquired of by you!

Wilt thou judge them, son of man, wilt thou judge them? cause them to know the abominations of their fathers…

I gave them my statutes, and shewed them my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them.

Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD that sanctify them. 

1. But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness…I lifted up my hand unto them in the wilderness, that I would not bring them into the land which I had given them…
2. But I said unto their children in the wilderness, Walk ye not in the statutes of your fathers, neither observe their judgments, nor defile yourselves with their idols: I am the LORD your God; walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; And hallow my sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that / be united with “I am” / the LORD your God.  Notwithstanding the children rebelled against me:
3. Wherefore say unto the house of Israel…Like as I pleaded / dealt with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead / deal with you, saith the LORD God.
   1. And I will cause you to pass under the rod…
   2. And I will purge out from among you the rebels, and them that transgress against me…
   3. and they shall not enter into the land of Israel:
   4. and ye shall know that I am the LORD…
   5. and ye shall lothe yourselves in your own sight for all your evils that ye have committed [repent]…

Then said I, Ah Lord God! they say of me, [What are you talking about?] Doth he not speak parables?” (Ezekiel 20)

They still don’t get it.

Because they’re not reading the book.

But Daniel read the book, and not just someone’s CliffsNotes version.

“As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us…for the LORD our God is righteous in all his works which he doeth: for we obeyed not his voice.”

So he was given to

Understand

that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem

• unto the Messiah / God’s Anointed the Prince / Zerubbabel governor of Judah shall be seven WEEKS  the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. (Daniel 9:25).

Daniel could understand this because this is patently aligned with the Law of Melchizedek Moses in Leviticus 25. The Jews failure to keep the sabbath years is what caused the 70 years Captivity.

But once again, Israel did not keep to the covenant, but again oppressed the poor of the land, which explains the second extension of time.

• and threescore and two weeks: [434 years]. This follows the pattern of allowing the rulers of Israel the opportunity to come to their senses, repent, and restore the covenant.
• And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah
  • be cut off, but not for himself…
  • And confirm the covenant with many for one week
  • and in the midst of the week [3 1/2 years] he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease
  • and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate,” (Daniel 9)

“When Y therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth THE WHOLE BOOK, let him understand:)” (Matthew 24:15

There are various interpretations on how the 70 x 7 / 490 years plays out, especially the 70th week. I like the following chart because it shows the entirety of Daniel’s 70th week fulfilled in ~30-37 AD when Messiah confirms the new covenant with many. Jesus’ additional prophetic utterance on that generation is also shown in this chart, with the destruction of the temple 40 years after the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.

Daniel’s four predictions are unquestionably fulfilled by Israel’s Messiah.

• • He was cut off / severed from relationship with the nation of, ergo the God of, Israel, but not for his sins – for the sins of others.
  • He confirmed THE existing covenant of promised redemption with many in the 3 1/2 years of his earthly ministry until
  • He ended THE sacrifice for sin, with 3 /12 years left in the 70th week.
  • By the words of his mouth, by simply stating it would be so, he caused the desolation of the temple due to “the abominations” committed.The second half of the 70th week immediately follows the first half of the 7-year period when even more Jews than previously accepted Yeshua / YHVH’s Savior as the promised savior from sin and death, fulfilling the prophecy that Messiah will confirm the covenant with many “for one week”.

“And the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly; and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith.

This was in response to compelling testimony by YHVH’s followers.

And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people…And they caught him, and brought him to the council, And set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place, and the law: For we have heard him say, that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us. And all that sat in the council, looking stedfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel. Then said the high priest, Are these things so?

Don’t miss how Stephen follows his Savior in word and deed, confronting the rulers of the Jews with the same message knowing the consequences of inflaming their wrath would be his death.

Jesus speaking: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites…ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers…upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.” (Matthew 23:29-3)

Stephen speaking: “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers: Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it…he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.”

Stephen’s vision of Yeshua standing, poised for lift-off, signifies that YHVH’s Savior was prepared to return to earth at this time.

This completely wraps up the timeline of Daniel’s prophecy as the 490 years is completed. The rulers could have also completed – fulfilled – the prophecy by calling out “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD / YHVH!”. The Roman overlords would have certainly immediately swept in and crushed this rebellion against their authority, bringing about the final element of Daniel’s and Jesus’ predictions of this happening to that generation.