Category Archives: Daniel’s Seventy Weeks

Nelson Walters: A Guest Post on 2nd Temple Chronology

* A note from William Struse:
This week I’m sharing with you a guest post written by Nelson Walters. As many of you probably know Nelson is a popular and respected prophecy teacher at The Gospel in the End Times. Over the past couple of months Nelson and I have been having a spirited discussion on the 2nd temple era chronology as it relates to Daniel 9 and the prophecy of 70 Weeks. We have different perspectives on the chronological basis for this wonderful prophecy, so we decided in the interest of bring clarity to this important subject that we would have a public discussion. This week Nelson offers you his perspective. In a couple of weeks after you’ve had a chance to digest Nelson thoughts on the subject I will reply to Nelson’s article.

Updated: My response to Nelson’s Article: Context, Chronology, & Daniel 9

Accelerated Ezra Chronology – An Examination
By Nelson Walters – 06/2018

Introduction
This article is really the story of two books about Daniel’s 70 Weeks Prophecy: Daniel’s 70 Weeks (2015), by William Struse, and my latest book, 70 Times 7(2018). This article is being posted both on my website, at www.thegospelintheendtimes.com, and on Struse’s website, at www.the13thenumeration.com.

When Struse’s book was first published, I believed several of his insights were quite profound — specifically, that the “decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem” in Dan. 9:25 was a command of the Lord (a dabar of the Lord) and that the “Prince who is to come” in Dan. 9:26 was the Lord himself. I incorporated both insights into a rough draft of my own book and sent it to Struse for review. I sent it to eight other teacher/authors who represented the full spectrum of eschatological thought as well. The insights of these teachers — some of whom agreed with me and some of whom did not — led me to revise my draft in very significant ways.

When Struse read what I had written in my book, we began a rather earnest email dialog, because it was clear that I no longer supported his position and had, in fact, come to believe in my own very different principles for the Daniel prophecy. Still, we found that as brothers in the Lord, we were able to share our differences and advance our common understanding of this important prophecy. It’s that discussion that led to this article and to the posting of the article on both websites.

With that background, I’d now like to “pull back the curtain” Continue reading →

Seven, 70, & Sevens: Daniel 9 & the Bible’s Messianic Symbolism

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Did you know that the Bible tells us that someday all mankind will offer an oath of seven to YHWH, the living God of the Bible? This week we’ll learn about this oath, a covenant made with Abraham, the prophecy of 70 “Weeks”, and how all share a common thread in the Bible’s messianic symbolism.

In the past several articles we’ve explored the amazing influence the law of Moses has had on Bible prophecy in general and the Bible’s messianic symbolism in particular. We can say with the Apostle Paul that indeed the “law” is a shadow of good things to come.

If you haven’t read the other articles in this series I’d encourage you to do so. They provide important context for the thrilling information I’m going to share in today’s blog post.

Bible Prophecy and the Law of Moses
Part I – The Bible’s Holy Days: Pictures of the Messiah
Part II (a) – The Messiah Factors: Numerical Evidence of Yahweh’s Redemptive Plan
Part II (b) – The Messiah Factors: Numerical Evidence of Yahweh’s Redemptive Plan
Part III – Seven, 70, & Sevens: Daniel 9 & the Bible’s Messianic Symbolism

At the heart of the Bible’s messianic symbolism, that is entwined into the law of Moses, are what I’ve termed in these articles, the Messiah Factors. The Messiah Factors are the numbers 7, 13 & 14, and they are part of the Bible’s messianic symbolism that points us to Yahweh’s redemptive plan for mankind through Yeshua (Yahweh’s Salvation). These numerical symbols exemplify divine perfection, the messiah, atonement, and redemption.

As amazing as this exploration has been so far, I now want to show you another reason these numbers were chosen by Yahweh to represent His Yeshua (salvation) to mankind and why Continue reading →

$500 Reward to Help Solve the Artaxerxes Assumption

7 Weeks until the Messiah

The Flood, the Exodus of Israel, and the Coming Messiah

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Noah Offering Sacrifices

In my last blog post, The Story of Halloween, we looked at the fascinating history of Halloween and the flood of Noah. Today I want to share with you how those events are related to Israel’s exodus from Egypt, the Biblical calendar, and the promise of the coming Messiah.

The Descendants of Seth
First let’s travel back to the time of Christ and a Jewish historian named Josephus. Nearly two thousand years ago Josephus had this to say about the flood: Continue reading →

Behold the Lamb of God!

“Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”

What powerful compelling words, which now nearly 2000 years later still reach across the ages, providing us with a vivid redemptive picture of the Son of God. Did you know these words were not spoken by a polished religious leader of Yeshua’s day, but rather a simple man who wore camel’s hair and ate locusts?

What’s even more fascinating about the these famous words Continue reading →

The Flood, the Exodus, and the Coming Messiah

Noah Offering Sacrifices

In my last blog post, Finding Halloween in the Graveyard of Biblial Hisotry, we looked at the fascinating history of Halloween and the flood of Noah. Today I want to share with you how those events are related to Israel’s exodus from Egypt, the Biblical calendar, and the promise of the coming Messiah. Continue reading →

Sovereign For a Day

If you were the sovereign of this world for a day and you had a message for a generation 2500 years in the future, a message so important that their very lives depended upon it, how would you go about ensuring that they got the message?

Would you give this message yourself?
would the message have credible witnesses to support its authenticity?
Would the message have a clear date time stamp which could be historically verified?

I think most of us would agree, that at a minimum, the answers would be yes to the above three questions.

Now let’s take these questions one step further. If YHWH, the sovereign of this world, wanted to ensure that a future generation would know and understand, 2500 years in the future, the date He would send His son to redeem mankind, would He Continue reading →

Cyrus the “Messiah”

So who gave the commandment which began the countdown to the Messiah mentioned in Daniel 9:25? In last weeks post A Divine “Command” to Return and Build Jerusalem we asked whether this commandment was of men or God. Scholars have long held that there were four Persian decrees or commandment which might qualify. In this weeks post we will look at the first of four Persian rulers who have been deemed the person who gave the “commandment” of Daniel 9:25.

“That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid.”
Isaiah 44:28

We begin our search for the “commandment” of Daniel 9:25 with Cyrus the Great of Persia, founder of the Achaemenid Empire. It is believed by some scholars that it was Cyrus’s viceroy or general, Darius the Median, who is mentioned in Daniel 5:31. If you recall, this Darius conquered Babylon on that infamous night when Belshazzar, king of Babylon, asked Daniel to Continue reading →

A Divine “Command” to Return and Build Jerusalem

The Word to Restore and Build
I don’t know about you, but if I’ve read Daniel 9:25 once, I’ve read it a hundred times. Then one day I realized that I’d never given much thought to the word “commandment” found in the text. Here take a look for yourself:

“Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks.” Daniel 9:25

The English word “commandment,” as it comes to us in Daniel 9:25, is a translation of the Hebrew word dabar. It means speech, word, speaking, utterance, etc. Of the 1439 times the word dabar is used in the KJV of the Bible, it is only translated as “commandment” twenty times. A bit curious don’t you think?

Today most scholars Continue reading →

Douglas Woodward Tackles Daniel’s 70 Weeks

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Douglas Woodward Pic To say my book Daniel’s 70 Weeks: The Keystone of Bible Prophecy challenges conventional thinking is probably an understatement. For those of you who have read the book, you know I challenge both Historicists and Futurists to take another look at this vital Bible prophecy in light of its 2^nd temple Biblical context and a Biblical reckoning of time.

Recently, Douglas Woodward, the popular Christian speaker and author, jumped into this discussion with both feet. If you have watched or read Mr. Woodward’s work, you know his unique style is sure to liven any discussion. In the case of Daniel’s 70 Weeks: The Keystone of Bible Prophecy, Mr. Woodward brought a decent amount of both praise and criticism. Mr. Woodward’s review of my book can be found at his blog here: Douglas Woodward I’d encourage you to read the article. It raises a lot of good questions and really challenges you to think about the subject. Few of today’s Christian prophecy teachers have been willing to talk about the issues raised in my book and it was a real privilege to get Mr. Woodward’s thoughts and criticisms.

As I said Mr. Woodward’s review had a decent amount of praise and criticism. In today’s blog post I would like to look at some of Mr. Woodward’s criticisms and do my best to provide a reasonable Biblical rebuttal. Mr. Woodward’s main disagreements focus on the final 7 shabuwa (weeks) of the 70 Weeks prophecy. More specifically he disagrees with my understanding of Daniel 9:27 and the identity of the “he” mentioned in this verse as well as the type of Biblical time used to calculate this final shabuwa. This timing discussion also spilled into a discussion of whether a “prophetic year” of 360 days is the intended timing mechanism to synchronize the various prophecies of Revelation and Daniel. Continue reading →