Daniel and the Birth of Christ

koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Visiting Professor

Department of Liberal Education

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

22 December 2012

“Seventy sevens are decreed for you 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” (Daniel 9:24).

The book of Daniel is a book of history and a book of prophecies. Prophecies are also historical but they are to happen in future at the time of their revelation. We are living after that history of some of their events depicted and can look back to what was revealed to Daniel by comparing it with later history.

Have you ever wondered how the three Wise Men from the East knew that a Savior and King was to be born in Israel? I am about to show you. It is a mathematical day for us. We are going to calculate.

Daniel was in Babylon when he wrote this chapter. It was in 539 BCE, which was the first year of the reign Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, the Mede by descent, who was made ruler over the Babylonian kingdom (Daniel 9:1). It was at the end of 70 years that Daniel understood Jeremiah’s prophecy that the exile would last 70 years. If you take 605 BCE as the first time Nebuchadnezzar took a batch of Jews to Babylon as a starting point, the end of the 70 years would be ca. 535/536 inclusively. Suddenly Daniel understood in year 67 of this 70 year period Jeremiah the prophet better. A prophet studying a prophet. Before that, he could not understood Jeremiah.

Darius the Mede is actually Gobryas the Mede who was a general together with Cyrus attacking Babylon. The cuneiform text the Nabonidus Chronicle or BM 36304 does not call Gobryas the Mede the king and ruler of Babylon, although it admit that Gobryas and his troops hastened to Babylon and entered the town without a battle, as we can see in the Nabonidus Chronicle III, lines 15-16. It was in 539 in the Month of Tasritu, which is September, Gobryas entered Babylon, but the same time Cyrus entered another northern city, Sippar. Cyrus was a Persian, Gobryas a Mede. The Nabonidus Chronicle was composed in the time of Artaxerxes I/II in (404/3 BCE). It was composed with Persian hands and they wanted to elevate the Persian achievements and thus hopped over the Median achievements of Gobryas as the first King of Babylon, a fact that Daniel did not overlooked in Daniel 9:1.

We are talking about Jesus’ birth and how the Wise Men from the East was able to see in scriptures that a King was to be born in 4 BCE in Israel, the year Jesus Christ was born. Where did they get their prophetic calculation from?

Daniel 9 offers the key. Another key is to understand what Daniel meant by seventy sevens. It is mathematically 70 x 7. What is the answer? 490. It is time that Daniel has in mind here. How long something is going to happen. So it is in fact 70 weeks. Seventy weeks are how many days? 490 days. Something is going to happen after 490 days.

There is another key that one has to understand here. The ancient Assyrians and Babylonians differentiated between a terrestrial day and a celestial day. An earthly day and a heavenly day.

1 terrestrial UŠ = 1800 celestial bêru. 6 terrestrial UŠ = 1 mana (a certain weight of water that was used that equaled 2 hours exactly). It was a Babylonian water clock that they were using. There are articles by scholars like Neugebauer on the water clock in Babylon. The clock was familiar to Daniel.

Let us do some mathematics here. If 1 mana = 2 hours, how long was 1 terrestrial UŠ? (6 terrestrial UŠ = 1 mana). Answer: Divide 2 hours by 6. 2 hours is how many minutes? 120. Divide by 6 means that 1 terrestrial UŠ = 20 minutes. 20 minutes = 1800 celestial bêru. How many celestial bêru is one day?

20 x 3 (in one hour) x 24 (total hours in one day) = 1800 x 3 x 24 which is a total of 129600 celestial bêru. If you divide 129600 celestial bêru by 360 terrestrial days you get 360 terrestial days in the celestial zone that would match the one day in the terrestrial zone.  One celestial year of 360 terrestial days = one terrestrial day. So when the Assyrian god will speak about one day from heaven it will mean one year on earth.

The Babylonians were using sometimes a calendar in which they gave 30 days to each month and ended with 360 days in one year.

The religious principle was this: for every earthly day there is a divine or celestial year. So if God then thinks of 490 terrestial years, he will say 490 days.

When Daniel 9 says 70 weeks is 490 days, he meant celestial years measured in earthly years. Thus, 490 years will stretch when transgression will be finished, there will be an end to sin, there will be atonement for wickedness and everlasting righteousness would come.

The question was the starting point.

“Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the rule, comes, there will be seven “sevens” and sixty-two sevens”. It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble”. Daniel 9:25

In Ezra 7:7-9 it reads

“went up to Jerusalem in the seventh year of King Artaxerxes”.

It was the 27^th of March 457 that they went to Jerusalem. “For on the first of the first month, he began to go up from Babylon” Ezra 7:9. “And he came to Jerusalem in the fifth month, which was in the seventh year of the king” (Ezra 7:8).

If 457 BCE is the starting-point for the 490 years, where will it lead us? 33. The transition between BC and AD is without two years. There is no 1 BC then 0 then 1 AD. There is not a 0 year. From 1 BCE the next will be 1 AD. The year is thus 34. That was the year in which Christ died on the cross. He was the One to make an end to sin and atone and He was the everlasting Righteousness thought of by Daniel.

“After the sixty two weeks [at the end of the 490 year period] the Anointed One will be cut off and will have nothing.” (Daniel 9:26). The Wise Men of the East was very intrigued and so we should be.

If this ruler was to come and die in 31 CE at the end of 490 years, how did they know He was to be born in 4 BCE?

“And He shall confirm a covenant with many one week. And in the middle of the week He shall make to stop sacrifice and offering” (Daniel 9:27).

For Him to make covenants at that time will mean that He started to work at the last week before 34 and that would mean 34 – 7 = 27. It is the year Christ was baptized by John the Baptist and when He started His work.

In Jewish custom, a man entered His public life at the age of 30. Thus, the Wise Men could find out His birth. 30 minus 27 AD = 4 BCE, the year Jesus was born.

The Wise Men knew the prophets since they cited to Herod from Micah 5:2 in Matthew 2:5.