The Twenty-three Hundred Days

Notes

1. The first definition of "determine" given by Webster is "to fix the boundaries of; to mark off or separate." Thus the 70 weeks fixed the boundaries of the special work for the Jewish people. It ended with that period. The 70 weeks were also marked off or separated from the 2,300 days, and they fixed the boundaries of that period by showing when it commenced, and by giving intermediate dates during the period which would test the accuracy of every exposition of it. Gesenius, in his Hebrew Lexicon, says that the word translated "determined" means "cut off." As no other period was mentioned in the vision except the 2,300 days, it must have been "cut off," or "marked off," from that period.

2. Artaxerxes began to reign B. C. 464. See Smith's "Comprehensive Dictionary," article "Artaxerxes." The seventh year of his reign would be 457 B. C. See "Christ Our Advocate," page 59.

3. The prophecy indicates that 7 weeks, or 49 years, would be allotted to the building of Jerusalem. Hence the commandment could scarcely be said to "go forth" until the building was actually commenced; therefore, as Ezra and the Jews with him did not arrive till the fifth month, half of the year 457 had elapsed before the decree "went forth." There would, therefore, be only 456½ years to A. D. 1. And as only about 6 months of the year 27 A. D. were passed when Christ was anointed, we can count only 26½ years to His baptism, when He was called the Messiah. Thus, adding the 456½ B. C. to 26½ A. D., we have just the 69 weeks, or 483 years, from the "going forth of the commandment" "to Messiah the Prince."

4. Christ attended four Passovers, as recorded. John 2:13; 5:1; 6:4; 13:1. As He began His public ministry in the autumn of A. D. 27, the first Passover would be six months later, that is, in the spring of A. D. 28. His second Passover would be in the spring of 29; the third, in the spring of 30. At His fourth Passover, in the spring of A. D. 31, He was crucified "in the midst of the week." After confirming the new covenant with the Jews for three years and a half, He, by virtue of His death, caused the sacrifices to cease. And during the remaining three and a half years of the seventieth week the covenant was confirmed with the Jews by the apostles. Heb. 2:3. The end of this time brings us to A. D. 34, when the gospel began to go to the Gentiles.

5. Soon after this, Paul, the great apostle to the Gentiles, was converted, and we hear him saying to the Jews, "It was necessary that the Word of God should first have been spoken to you; but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles." Acts 13:46.