DISCLAIMER: The Prophet Daniel referenced in the title of this post is the author of the Book of Daniel from the Holy Bible, not a reference to myself, also Daniel, who is the author of these posts. I do not proclaim myself to be a prophet.
The information found on this page is an interpretation of the 70 “sevens” from the Book of Daniel, Chapter 9, as was revealed to me back on April 8th, 2016. I believe this interpretation was divinely inspired and is extremely important for a reason that I don’t yet understand. Now this will be hard for a lot of people to hear, as the truth of it has been concealed for “a time of times and half a time” (times= 2000 years; half a time=500 years). Let those with ears hear and understand.
He said, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that, ‘though seeing, they may not see; though hearing, they may not understand.’” – Luke 8:10
Before I get started, I would like to first give all the Glory to our Father in Heaven and to thank Him for calling me his son in spite of all that I have done to separate myself from him in the past. Until I truly allowed His love into my heart, I never really understood what grace was. I now know and am eternally grateful for His love. Next I would like to give a little background on how this revelation came to me and to make it known that I could not have ever understood the meaning of Daniel’s 70 “sevens” with my mind (Lord knows I tried) and there is nothing about this interpretation that I can take credit for other than following to his instruction.
He replied, “Go your way, Daniel, because the words are rolled up and sealed until the time of the end. Many will be purified, made spotless and refined, but the wicked will continue to be wicked. None of the wicked will understand, but those who are wise will understand.” – Daniel 12:9-10
My Revelation
The book of Daniel is one of the more popular books in the bible when studying end times prophecy because of the specific timelines provided by the Prophet Daniel. In my opinion, it is also one of the most misunderstood and misinterpreted books as well. Soon after my “conception” I had begun poking around in end times prophecy. I don’t know why I developed a sudden interest in this subject, as I had never had the desire to study the eschatology of the bible any time in my past (though I have always believed that we were likely living in the end times). Luckily for me, the internet has no shortage of opinions and interpretations regarding this subject matter. Soon after watching the “Daniel Timeline” by Dewey Bruton, I decided to verify the legitimacy of his predictions by investigating his interpretations and understanding the referenced scriptures in the context of the Word of God. Soon after, I started to dig into Daniel… Everything started unraveling for me. What had made sense while I was watching the video, seemed to all blur into intelligible nonsense for me.
Now this is not to say what Mr. Bruton was saying is nonsense, I just could no longer make sense of it in my own head. So I kept digging. My appetite for the Word was voracious and I not only studied Daniel, but followed the threads of truth through out the entire bible. Through all this, I couldn’t reconcile the existing interpretations of Daniel 9 with the rest of the bible. So I kept digging. Finally in the late afternoon of April 8th of 2016, I began to feel like my understanding of the math and words of the latter part of this chapter was prevented by a veil of confusion- much like the confusion of the languages that God caused at the Tower of Babel. Throwing down my notebook full of chicken scratch, I said out loud, “That’s it Lord! I give up. There is no way I will be able to figure this out!” So having surrendered intellectually to this puzzle, I drove away from my favorite spot to think (a parking lot over looking the wet lands and the ocean beyond). About 20 minutes into my drive home, a revelation occurred as a thought in my mind, “Why don’t you try it… (like this)?” (The “like this” thought was a rather specific method of interpreting the “sevens” of Daniel which I will explain in detail below.) When I pulled over and wrote it down, I was astounded.
Daniel’s “Sevens”
When speaking of Daniel Chapter 9, I really am referring to the last part of the chapter where Gabriel has come to give him a vision of the end. The following is the NIV translation (emphasis mine):
22He instructed me and said to me, “Daniel, I have now come to give you insight and understanding. 23 As soon as you began to pray, a word went out, which I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed.Therefore, consider the word and understand the vision:
24 “Seventy ‘sevens’ are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy Place.
25 “Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. 26 After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. 27 He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.
The Problems with the Current Interpretations
As I researched the different interpretations of the meaning of these verses, I found that the overwhelming majority of biblical scholars and hobby theologians alike, had two beliefs in common:
- The interpretation of the “sevens” (as used in verses 24-25) is as a “week of years”, or as a period of 7 (years). Side note: In other translations, such as KJV, it is directly interpreted as 70 weeks, 7 weeks, 62 weeks, etc.
- The starting point, which is the “decree” (in most translations) to rebuild Jerusalem, is the “decree” of Artaxerxes in 457 BC (or there abouts).
The problem I have, and what has vexed my mind from the beginning, is with both of those translations, but especially of the Artaxerxes “decree”. The reason this one especially bothers me is because there wasn’t a “decree” from Artaxerxes to rebuild Jerusalem. They use an inferred decree of Artaxerxes, as opposed to an explicit one that I will touch on later. The inferred decree is as follows:
The letter you sent us has been read and translated in my presence. I issued an order and a search was made, and it was found that this city has a long history of revolt against kings and has been a place of rebellion and sedition. Jerusalem has had powerful kings ruling over the whole of Trans-Euphrates, and taxes, tribute and duty were paid to them. Now issue an order to these men to stop work, so that this city will not be rebuilt until I so order. Ezra 4:18-21
Now if this was the only “decree” we could find to rebuild Jerusalem after the destruction of the temple by King Nebuchadnezzar in roughly 586 BC, then I might be able to begrudgingly accept it. However, not only is there another decree, the other decree is explicit and prophesied by Isaiah. This decree is the decree of King Cyrus in roughly 536-539 BC. The decree is as follows:
In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it in writing: “This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: “‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Any of his people among you may go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem, and may their God be with them. And in any locality where survivors may now be living, the people are to provide them with silver and gold, with goods and livestock, and with freewill offerings for the temple of God in Jerusalem.’” Ezra 1:1-4
Those who believe in the inferred decree of Artaxerxes, maintain that while Cyrus did give an explicit decree, his decree was only for the temple. I maintain that his decree was indeed for all Jerusalem, but also specifically for the temple… Which was the heart of Jerusalem. This point is further confirmed by the prophet Isaiah:
“This is what the Lord says— your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb: I am the Lord, the Maker of all things, who stretches out the heavens, who spreads out the earth by myself, who foils the signs of false prophets and makes fools of diviners, who overthrows the learning of the wise and turns it into nonsense, who carries out the words of his servants and fulfills the predictions of his messengers, who says of Jerusalem, ‘It shall be inhabited,’ of the towns of Judah, ‘They shall be rebuilt,’ and of their ruins, ‘I will restore them,’ who says to the watery deep, ‘Be dry, and I will dry up your streams,’ who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd and will accomplish all that I please; he will say of Jerusalem, “Let it be rebuilt,” and of the temple, “Let its foundations be laid.”’ Isaiah 44:24-28
In my opinion this should be the end of the argument because if it wasn’t Cyrus who gave “the decree”, then Isaiah’s prophecy would not have been fulfilled and thereby making the entire bible fallible. However, the reason that they stick so hard to this decree is because at least it makes Daniel’s prophecy accurate. This leads us back to the problem of the “weeks of years” interpretation of Daniel’s “sevens”. Based on their interpretation, Daniel”s 70 “sevens” is equated as: 70 x 7 (which is one week of years)=490 years. This 70 is further broken up in Daniel 9:25 as “seven ‘sevens'” and “sixty-two ‘sevens'” which they equate as: (7×7)+(62×7)= (49)+(434)=483 years. So even if you take the latest years that Cyrus’ decree could have occurred, which is 536 BC, it would leave the end of the 62 (and seven) weeks of years in 53 BC. This obviously would not point to the death of our Annoited one.
The Real Meaning of Daniel’s “shavu’iym”(Sevens)
Are you confused yet? I know I was as I tried to make sense of all the different interpretations. Some used solar years, some lunar and others “prophetic years”. However, when I had the revelation of what I believe is the true interpretation of Daniel’s “sevens”, I remember that our Father is noth the author of confusion. His word was written for the people well before Daniel’s time, just as much as it was written for you and I. We do not need any kind of bible code to read it or decipher God’s Word. Rather we need the “decoder” – The Holy Spirit.
A week after I had this revelation, I was still trying to look for any facts that I could use to invalidate it. I looked up the original hebrew translation of Daniel, Chapter 9 to see if I was reading a faulty translation of the verse; being a literal seven instead of a literal week. I found that the word Daniel used for “seven” was “shavu’iym”. Not knowing hebrew, I did some digging and found it literally means “seven”, but is often used as a unit (period) of seven, much like the english “dozen”. However, the interesting thing is that this word, “shavu’iym”, is only used four times in the bible and all four times are in Daniel. I understood at that point that Daniel really was saying a period of time “with” seven. As a point of emphasis, this was an intellectual understanding and was after my initial revelation of the sevens, which I believe to be inspired by God through the Holy Spirit.
This brings us to the revelation and the divinely inspired interpretation of Daniel. Back in the beginning of this post, I told you that I had the revelation and I intentionally didn’t reveal it at that point in the post, as I wanted you to understand the full scope of the problem before you sought to “hear” the solution. That being said, the actual thought I had at the time was “Why don’t you try it by not interpreting Daniel’s sevens and accepting them for exactly that… literal sevens.” As soon as I had that thought, I pulled over and start writing out numbers as follows:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30….
After writing them out, I realized exactly what Daniel meant by the 70 “shavu’iym”, but still didn’t understand why he separated the 7 sevens from the 62 sevens. Why didn’t he just write 69 sevens? No sooner than I thought it, did I realize (through what I believe was divine inspiration) the reason for separation of these sevens. They were separated to indicate months (7 sevens) and years (62 sevens). Let me show you how I started writing the 62 sevens to figure out the years:
Then I figured out the 7 sevens to figure out the months:
So the total years calculated from counting 62 sevens was 567 years plus counting the 7 sevens as months which was 67 months or 5 years 7 months. It gives us a total of 572 years and 7 months from the decree to the crucifixion of our Savior. Take those years from the decree of Cyrus in 539 BC (at the earliest) or in 536 BC (at the latest) you get the time frame of 33 AD through 36 AD. With this interpretation you do not need to plead willful ignorance to the lack of evidence convincing us that there actually was a decree by Artaxerxes. Rather we can finally accept the only legitimate decree that actually began the construction of Jerusalem . This is obviously the decree of Cyrus, which was confirmed by Isaiah’s prophecy and King Darius as well. We can now stand in confidence that both the prophecies of Isaiah and Daniel were fulfilled. And best of yet, to the Glory of the Most High… We can stand unwavering on His perfect, infallible word!
I pray that you will receive this message with eyes that see and ears that hear and understand. I pray that we can unite in Christ and, with the Holy Spirit guiding us, we can melt the frozen hearts of those who are lost before it is too late.
In the Spirit of HIS Love,
Daniel
UPDATE: I was given a suggestion by Brad, a brother in Christ, to explain a bit more in detail exactly how I got the numbers I did. He was not understanding it totally, until I explained it to him and he suggested that I should share on here to avoid any confusion. So I let me expound a bit:
Basically when Daniel wrote this, he would not have been using a calendar (neither Hebrew or Gregorian). However he did understand days, weeks, months, years and most importantly numerical values. We don’t know if Daniel was ever able to interpret this prophecy, as it says that the prophecy would be sealed up until end times. However, I believe that the prophecy should have been able to be interpreted by him (meaning he had the knowledge needed to figure it out) if God had willed it to be so. Regardless of that perspective, this is how God wanted me to interpret it and the amazing thing is that it is the most simple and literal interpretation of this prophecy out there. I would argue that if you gave a 3 year old a chart of numbers one to 100 and told them to find you 7 sevens, the would count the sevens.
That having been said, let me explain how God showed me to interpret the “7 sevens” as months and the “sixty-two sevens” as years. Since Daniel described it as 7 and 62, but yet the 62 was referenced and not the 7, it shows that the 7 was part of the 62 and thus the 62 was the greater value (years) in this case. So we can first calculate the months by writing out the months numerical values and counting a “seven” whenever it appears (i.e., 7, 17, 27…etc). “Seven sevens” as you will see in the month table above equals 67 months. Then with years we can calculate the years by writing out years 1 through 600 and then counted the years with sevens in their digits. The only exception that applies to this rule that was not relevant in calculating months is that when we get to the years ending with 77 it would be double (counted as two sevens) as is alluded to in Matthew 18:22 (Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”) and Genesis 4:24 (“If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times.”).
Add these two together and you will get 572 years and 7 months. Using the start point of Cyrus’ decree as the the year Zero, you would move forward 572 years and 7 months (and 1 week which I will explain below) until the crucifixion. To convert that to our (Gregorian) calendar you would simply add 572 to -538 BC (there is a variety of opinions of dates of the decree between 536 to 539BC; negative because BC years are negative years.) and you get 34 AD.
The seven months are significant because while the 572 years lead us to 33AD – 36 AD, if you add 7 months from the start of the Hebrew new year you get to sometime in April. Using this calculation if you were to look at September 14th, 33AD (the start of Hebrew New Year and you add 7 months you come to April 14, 34AD (the day Jesus rose into Jerusalem. Add the last 7 as a literal week and you come to Wednesday April 21st, 34 AD which is the first day of Passover! Since we don’t know the precise month of Cyrus’ given decree, it makes logical sense to start at the Feast of Trumpets which signifies God’s new year. It is ASTOUNDING!
The last seven (shavua) would then complete the 70 sevens and midweek would have been when Jesus was preaching in the temple. Daniel 9:27 (KJV) says, ““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.”
So when he chastised the Pharisees and the merchants in the temple, over turning tables of even those selling pigeons for sacrifice… This would be a fulfillment of the entire prophecy… To the day. And for those of you that might be confused as to which calendar he would have intended to be used when interpreting this prophecy, just remember He is an Omnipotent God. He would have written it to be interpreted at the time He appointed, by the people He appointed, in the manner of that time… With the only stipulation being that we discern with His word and His principle and.
Habakkuk 2:3 “For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.”
Note: This last bit with the final week was just revealed this morning to me. I am still reeling over this. God is so amazing and His word is perfect! May He bless you all!