The Prophetic Calendar

There was a law that God established for the land that on the
seventh-year farmers were not to plant any crops and were to let the
ground rest and recover its nutrients. In my garden I have five 50
foot-long beds and each year I let one bed rest and recover from the
crops feeding off the soil. Since my farm is small, I put a couple of
inches of horse manure down, till the bed, and cover it with black
plastic. This prevents the growth of weeds, and on the coldest day of
winter I remove the plastic and till it again. In my part of the country
the ground doesn’t freeze. This kills any bugs or bug eggs in the
ground so the next spring the bed is ready to plant.

Among other failures, the Israelites did not let their farmland rest
and in time this will destroy the ground, leaving it desolate and void
of nutrients. For every year they did not let the ground rest they were
given a week in captivity. For 490 years they disobeyed the laws of
God, so the Babylonians conquered their country and destroyed the
first temple built by Solomon. Through the years of captivity,
the Persian king, Cyrus, took Babylon in October 539 BC and
inherited the Jewish slaves. In the zenith of his power, Cyrus gave the
Israelites permission to rebuild their temple. The foundation of the
temple was laid in the second year of Cyrus’s rule, but no progress
was made until the second year of Darius when he made a search of
the Babylonian archives, finding the decree of Cyrus to permit the
Israelites to rebuild their city.

We have a timeline. “Seventy weeks are determined for your
people and for your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an
end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting
righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most
Holy. Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the
command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince,
there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; the street shall be
built again, and the wall, even in troublesome times. And after the
sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself; and the
people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the
sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood, and till the end of the
war desolations are determined. Then he shall confirm a covenant
with many for one week; but in the middle of the week He shall bring
an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations
shall be one who makes desolate, even until the consummation, which
is determined, is poured out on the desolate.”1

The decree of the twentieth year of Artaxerxes is a magnification
of the first decree of Darius confirmed by Cyrus of the full restoration
of the autonomy of Judah. This not only allowed the rebuilding of the
temple, but the complete reconstruction of Judah, giving them the
right to worship according to the laws of their God. It allowed the
Jewish people to rebuild their fortifications and to reconstruct the
walls around Jerusalem. This date begins the seventy weeks of years.
The twentieth year of Artaxerxes began in July of 446 BC and the
commandment to rebuild Jerusalem was given in the following month
of Nisan, so the prophetic cycle begins in the Jewish month of Nisan
445 BC.

In chapter 9 Daniel’s prayer referred to the seventy years being
fulfilled, and the prophesy that answered this prayer foretold of a
period of seven times seventy years still to come. The year at the time
was 360 days because all nations before the exact length of the solar
year was known divided their twelve lunar months by 30 days each to
make a year. This is where we get our 360 degrees around a circle. I
believe that sometime in the not-too-distant future the Antichrist will
change the calendar back to 360 days a year. This may be required to
compensate for some change in the earth’s rotation or a change in the
orbit around the sun.
The prophetic era of seventy weeks is divided into seven weeks
plus sixty-two weeks, with one week remaining. Two princes are
mentioned during this time. One is the Messiah and the other is the
one who will destroy Jerusalem during the last week of years. The
first era closes with the cutting off of the Messiah because the Jewish
people rejected Him as their king, and the last week of years brings
forth a treaty from the second prince, which will begin a false peace
on earth only to be abandoned during the middle of the week. This
second prince, who at first takes sides with the Israelites, turns against
them by suppressing their religious beliefs through the cancelation of
the daily sacrifice and declares himself as God.

The last week of years will consist of seven years each with 360
days so the first half of the week will be 1,260 days whereas in our
calendar there would be 1,278 days. Somewhere before the beginning
of the rule of the Antichrist the calendar is changed. There are no
events in history that will satisfy the prediction of the seventieth
week. In fact, the book of Revelation hadn’t even been written by the
close of the sixty-ninth week when the Messiah is cut off. As we sit
here on this side of the tribulation imagine, if you will, the prophecy
of Isaiah 53 as you would see it prior to the crucifixion of Christ
would be difficult to comprehend, but as we sit this side of the
crucifixion its meaning is very clear.

Imagine now the difficulty of reading this passage in Daniel prior
to the life of Christ. They would stand looking over a mountaintop to
the next mountain, missing the valley below and the entire two
thousand-year church period. From the rise of the fourth beast in
Daniel 7 to the growth of the ten horns, there is a gap in the vision—a
parenthesis in time consisting of the entire period between the time of
Christ and the division of the ten kingdoms out of which the
Antichrist will rise. The sixty-ninth week ends with the crucifixion of
Christ and the end of the seventieth week is to bring to Jewish people
the enjoyment of the blessings resulting from His death. The
“anointing of the most holy” does not conclude with the death of our
Messiah but is of a future date to come.

The Babylonian captivity fits into our calendar from 445 BC to
397 BC. Then the second period consisted of 430 years, from 397 BC
until the birth of Christ. This date is best estimated by scholars as
being 4 BC and His crucifixion at 32 BC. After the 483 years there is
a time break where the Messiah is cut off and then Jerusalem is
destroyed in AD 70. So as of today, there is the last week of years
remaining. The next thing on God’s calendar is the removal of the
church.

1.) Daniel 9:24-27