Page 292 - Daniel

Those who seek to interpret prophecy in its normal sense find in
Daniel 9 a solid chronological bridge connecting God’s past covenant
promises to Israel with His future fulfillment of those promises. They see
a consistency between the timing of the events provided by Daniel and
the first coming of the Messiah. And they see a clear link between the

last half of the final week of years predicted by Daniel 9:27 and the 42
months and 1,260 days prophesied in the book of Revelation.

While some disparage “literalistic interpreters” who “purport to be
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able to draw charts of the entire sweep of human history,” such gross
mischaracterizations miss the point. Those who take a normal approach
to interpreting Daniel 9 simply assume the chapter is doing what it is
claiming to do—announcing God’s 490-year future plan for the Jewish
people and Jerusalem. And by taking the text at face value they arrive at
an interpretation that harmonizes with both the timing of Christ’s first

advent and the additional revelation given by the apostle John regarding
His second advent. Those who choose not to accept this interpretation
offer a variety of reasons for doing so. But in the end Towner seems to
share the real reason behind their rejection, when he writes, “Many,
however, have rejected the notion that human history can disclose a
meaningful divine plan. Human history belongs to humans, and it

resonates with the clash of the human will for the preservation and
enhancement of the species with the human will for self-destruction.” 84
Ultimately, the crux of the struggle over interpreting prophetic

passages like Daniel 9 begins with our presupposition about who is in
control of human destiny—man or God.

NOTES

1 Leon Wood, A Commentary on Daniel (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1973), 232.

2 Robert Anderson, The Coming Prince, 14th ed. (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1954), iii.

3 Cited by Wilbur M. Smith, “Jerusalem,” in The Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary, Merrill C.
Tenney, ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1963), 421.

4 Cf. D. F. Payne, “Jerusalem,” The New Bible Dictionary, J. D. Douglas, ed. (Grand Rapids:

Eerdmans, 1965), 616.
5 Harold W. Hoehner, “Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ, Part 6: Daniel’s Seventy