Part 12: The Seventy Weeks Prophecy.

Continued from previous post...

Once God removed his protection from the Jews, they were in big trouble.  In 70 CE the Roman general Titus and his army destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple.  Jesus had told his disciples that the temple would be destroyed to such an extant that “…not one stone here would be left upon another…” (Matt. 24:2) and that is exactly what happened.  When Titus’ army set fire to the city, the gold in the temple melted along the walls and the soldiers tore the building apart stone by stone in order to scrape up the gold.  Thus Titus “destroy(ed) the city and the sanctuary.”

We have just looked at an extremely important timeline, and we have proven that our interpretation of timelines is accurate from the start, to the end, and all points in between. 

The 70 Weeks Prophecy

Artaxerxes'		Jerusalem				Jesus	Jesus		Stephan
Decree		Rebuilt				Baptized	Crucified		Stoned
457	BCE   408					CE   27	30	34
	7 wks			62 wks			1	wk
	49 yrs			434 yrs			7	yrs

Now we are going to look at the longest timeline in Bible prophecy; the timeline that all other timelines fall into.  Do you remember the ram and the goat, Medo-Persia and Greece, from Daniel Chapter 8? 

The goat’s horn was broken and was followed by four other horns, representing Alexander’s death and the division of his kingdom among his generals.  In the strife and confusion after Alexander’s death, the generals split the kingdom “…toward the four winds of heaven.” (Daniel 8: 8) North, East, South and West.  Daniel 8: 9-12 and 23-25 says that out of one of them, in the latter period of their rule, came a small horn that became mighty and powerful, destroying holy people, opposing God, and calling himself equal to God.  

After our study in the last chapter we know without a doubt that the Roman Empire followed the Greek Empire, both in prophecy and in fact, and we know that a horn stands for a person.  So what are these verses in Daniel Chapter 8 talking about?

 Rome came from the West and first conquered Macedonia, the Western portion of Alexander’s divided empire in the mid second century BCE.  But Daniel 8: 23 says the horn would arise “In the latter period of their rule…” so when did the fourth and final division of the Greek Empire fall to Rome?  In 30 BCE when Cleopatra, Pharaoh of Egypt and descendant of the Greek general Ptolemy, killed herself and Octavian (later the Roman Emperor Augustus) claimed Egypt as a province of Rome.