Daniel and Times of the Nations
Prologue
The People of Israel and the Israel of God
1 Three years after the Persian king Cyrus conquered Babylon in the
twenty-fourth day of the first month of the year 536 BC, Daniel received a
prophetic vision of great significance for all those who have placed their hope
in the promises of God.
The messenger sent by Yahuh was Gabriel, who told him: “I have come to let you know what will happen to your people up to the end of days, because this is
a vision that covers a long period”. (Daniel 10:14) However, before examining
the revelations received by Daniel, it is important to understand that when the
angel says “your people”, he speaks of the people of the promise made to Abraham
and his offspring through his son Isaac and grandson Jacob; an offspring that
would make a covenant with God through Moses and at the appointed time, a new
spiritual covenant through his Messiah.
We read: “The angel of Yahúh called Abraham
from heaven and said: «Yahúh declares: “I swear by me, that since you have done
this and have not withheld from me your
son, your only, I will bless you greatly and greatly increase thy seed,
which will be as the stars of heaven and as the sand on the seashore... ...and
since you heard my voice, all the
nations on earth will be blessed through your offspring»”. (Genesis 22:17-18)
Some years later, God renewed his promise to Isaac and also to Jacob,
which at the age of almost 100 years received the name of Israel. Scripture
says: “God appeared again to Jacob, blessed him and
said: «Your name is Jacob but you will not be called Jacob anymore, because from
now on your name will be Israel». So he called him Israel”. (Genesis 35: 9-10)
2 The people known by his name, made through Moses a covenant with God
on Mount Sinai and since then, the nation of Israel received all his prophets,
revelations and promises until the effectiveness of a new covenant with God
through his Messiah; for this reason Paul could say that to his “relatives, the Israelites ... belongs the adoption, the
glory, the covenants and the enactment of the Law, the sacred service, the
promises, the ancestors from whose lineage Christ was born, and above all, the
God to whom praise belongs forever”. (Romans 9:3-5)
For this reason, when the angel tells Daniel: “I came to let you know what will happen to your people
until the end of days”, it could be understood that until the end of
time, the vision is about the nation of Israel who was under the Sinai covenant,
and yet the Scriptures show it is not so, because even if the events that
followed the arrival of the Messiah and his execution changed many things, the
promises of God were never altered. Israel as a people was left to its own fate
and was replaced before God by a people made of those bound to him by the new covenant predicted by the prophets,
mediated by Christ and “validated, not by a written
document, but by the Spirit”, (2
Corinthians 3:6)
3 The coming of the Messiah had been announced
by Moses when he told his people: “Your God Yahuh
shall raise from your brothers a prophet like me; you must listen him... Yahuh
said to me... «From among their brethren I will raise up a prophet like you, I
will put my words in his mouth and he will tell them everything I command. And I
shall blame my words on the man who does not listen to what he will speak in my
name”. (Deuteronomy
18:17...19)
Jesus warned the people about these things in parables and said: A man “planted a
vineyard, put a fence, dug a winepress in it and built a tower, then leased it
to vinedressers and went abroad. And when the season of the fruits drew near, he
sent some servants to the vinedressers to receive the fruits, but the
vinedressers seized the servants, beat one, killed other and stoned another.
Then sent other servants, more than
the first, but they were treated the same way, so he finally sent his son, telling
himself: «They will respect my son». But when they saw the son, the vinedressers
said to each another: «This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and take over his
legacy», and they sized him, dragged him
out of the vineyard and killed him”. At this point, Jesus asked them:
“«When the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he
do to the vinedressers?» They said: «He will give a wretched death to those
wretches and will lease the vineyard to
other vinedressers who at the proper
time will give him fruits»”. Then, speaking to the religious leaders
of Israel, he said: “Did you never read in Scripture:
«The very stone which the builders
rejected has been constituted main cornerstone? » The things coming from
Yahuh may be for us surprising? Now, this is what I tell you: the kingdom of God will be removed from you
and handed over to a nation producing its fruits”. (Matthew 21:33…41)
4 After the death and resurrection of Jesus, God carried on his purpose
through those who because of their faith in Christ, were justified before him.
On the day of Pentecost of the year
33, God produced a new creation
though his spirit: the new Israel
that Paul calls the “Israel of God” when he writes: “neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything, what
matters is the new creation. Let
there be peace and mercy upon the Israel
of God and upon all those who walk
according to these principles”. (Galatians 6:15-16)
From then on, the new Israel of God was constituted by those
considered by Him as descendants of Abraham, not through their genealogy but
through the strength of their faith, similar to his. Paul says about this: “the promise
received by Abraham and his descendants to be the heirs of the world was not
because of the Law, but because of the justification that comes from
faith. Verily, if the heirs were those who adhere to the Law, the faith would be useless and the promise
worthless”. (Romans
4:13-14) At the sight of God, a Jew was no more
“he who is it outwardly and the circumcision is not which may be seen in the
body; a Jew is he who is it inwardly and the circumcision is in his heart
through the spirit, and not because of a written code. This is the one approved,
not by men but by God”. (Romans
2:28-29)
5 Malachi foretells that God would raise a purified priestly people, a
body of priests foreshadowed in the Law by the Levites and appointed like them,
to make available the blessings of God to his people. He writes: “«Behold, here comes the messenger of the covenant that you
wish for», says Yahuh of hosts, «but who will receive the day of his arrival?
And who will stand up when he comes? For he is like a refiner's fire and as the
bleach for laundry; he shall be as a
refiner and purifier of silver and will purify the sons of Levi, purging
them like one does with gold and silver. And at the sight of Yahuh, they will
make available for men the gift of justification”. (Malachi 3:1…3) And Jeremiah declares: “«The days come», says Yahuh, «in which I shall make with the
house of Israel and the house of Judah a new covenant... in these days» Yahuh
declares, «I will put my law in their
minds and write it in their hearts, then I shall be their God and they will be
my people... because I will forgive their iniquity and no longer remember
their sins»”. (Jeremiah
31:31-34)
Recalling these words, Paul writes: “When God
reproaches the people, he says, «Behold, days come», says the Yahuh, «in which I
will make with the house of Israel and the house of Judah a new covenant, not
like the one I made with their fathers on the day I took them by hand to bring
them out of Egypt, because they did not keep my covenant faithfully, and also I
did stop keeping them», says the Yahuh. «But after these days I will make with
the house of Israel this covenant »,
says the Yahuh, «I will put my laws in
their minds and write them on their hearts. Then I will be their God and they
shall be my people. No longer must each one instruct his neighbor and his
brother saying “Get to know the Yahuh”, because all of them will know me, from
the smallest to highest. Then I will have mercy on their wickedness and I will
not remember their sins». So when he
speaks to them about a “new
covenant”, he declares obsolete the
former and what is obsolete, ages and is close to disappearing”. (Hebrews 8:8-13)
6 About the promises to the ancestors, Paul writes: “It is not that the word of God has come less, because not
all those who descend from Israel are really Israel, or by the fact of being
descendants of Abraham are all of them his offspring, because «what will be
called your offspring shall come from Isaac». Thus, the natural children are not
really God's offspring, while the
offspring of the promise is regarded as his seed”. (Romans 9:6-8) And about the offspring
of the promise, which through Christ partake in the new covenant with God, Peter
writes: “You are a chosen seed, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people God has purchased for himself,
to proclaim the praises of him who
called you out of the darkness into his marvelous light… before you were not a people, but now you are the people of God;
before you had not received mercy, but now you have received it” (1Peter
2:9...10)
This royal priesthood is constituted by those who Malachi calls “the sons of Levi
purified Yahúh” (Malachi
3:1-3), a people that discloses the gift of God-given justification, placing
within the reach of those who listen to them, a life without death, which is the
gift that Christ's redemption has made available to all
men.
7 In the book of Revelation, John speaks of this new people of Israel
and says that God divides it in twelve symbolic tribes, made of twelve thousand
persons, thus implying that the number of those he calls to partake in the
spiritual Israel of God, are by their faith, his real people and the real
offspring of Abraham. John writes:
“At that moment I heard the number of those marked with
the seal, one hundred forty-four thousand sealed of every tribe of the sons of
Israel... and I saw the people taken from all ethnic
groups, tribes, nations and languages, a great multitude that no man could
count, standing before the throne and the Lamb, wearing long white robes and
holding palm branches in their hands. They declared with a loud voice:
« We owe the salvation to our God who sits upon the throne and to the
Lamb»”. (Revelation 7:1…4 and 9…10) We must understand this and keep
all these things in mind, because as the angel said, the prophecy given to
Daniel is “a vision that covers a long
period”.
8 Mathew writes that in the year 33 AD, some
days before the Passover, “Jesus came out from the
Temple and was going away, and his disciples went towards him to show him the
buildings of the temple; then he told them, «Don't you see all these things?
Verily I tell you, there will not be left here one stone on another that will
not be thrown down». And as he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to
him privately and asked him: «Tell us when this will happen and what will be the
signs of your coming and of the end of time».” (Mathew 24:1…3)
Then
Jesus answered their first question by telling them the things that
were going to happen in Jerusalem and how to recognize the moment to flee from
the city, warning: “When you see the desolating profanation foretold by the
prophet Daniel, to be found in the holy place (whoever reads, reflect);
those who are then in Judea must flee to the mountains”. (Matthew 24:15…16 and Daniel 9:27)
And Luke writes thus his words: “When you see
Jerusalem surrounded by military camps, know that its desolation is
near. Then those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, those who are
within the city go out of it and those who are in the country do not enter it,
for these are the days to do justice and fulfill all what is written”; and after this “Jerusalem will be
trampled by the nations until the times of nations come to an end”. (Luke 21: 20…22 and 24) These words of Jesus about the destruction
of Jerusalem and its Temple concern the visions of
Daniel.
9 Daniel’s vision foretells the apostasy and the domain of nations upon
God's people for a long period; the times of the nations began with the apostasy of Israel, but when Jesus said
to his disciples that Jerusalem should be trampled by the nations until the set
times for the conclusion of the nations, he did not only speak about the
Jerusalem of the Sinai covenant, which after the execution of Jesus was
delivered to her own fate like all the nations in the world, he also spoke of
the “New
Jerusalem” (Revelation
21:2) built with “living stones... to form a
spiritual house, a holy priesthood to
offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ”.
(1Peter 2:5) These living stones are
“the one hundred and forty-four thousand sealed, from
every tribe of the sons of Israel”, (Revelation 7:4) “which He (God) has
previously acknowledged”, and “designated to be
modeled in the likeness of his son, so that he might be the firstborn of many
brothers”. (Romans 8:29) This
New Jerusalem was also trampled,
since after the death of the apostles, the apostasy took hold and ruled over Christianity, and the Holy
Congregation founded the day of Pentecost on Jesus, was crushed and disappeared.
(2Thessalonians 2:7... 8)
The Times
10 On
the eighth chapter of his book, Daniel describes a vision in which he sees some
symbolic beasts representing the different nations that from thereafter would
exert control on Israel. And what Daniel sees is somewhat essential to
understand the words of Jesus about the future of the Israel of God.
He says: 8
“The male
goat became very powerful but in its
great power, the big horn was broken and in its place raised up four (horns), toward the four
winds of heaven. 9 From one of
these came out a little
horn which
grew exceedingly toward the south and the east, and towards
the
beautiful country, 10
and rose
himself towards the multitude of the
heavens, pulled some of its
stars to the ground and trampled
them; 11
he rose to the Prince of the Multitude,
removed the daily sacrifice and overthrew the sanctuary from its
foundation. 12 Because of the
apostasy, a crowd was given up with the daily sacrifice, then the truth was
thrown to the ground, but he proceeded and
prospered. 13 I heard that another saint say to the one I heard speaking:
«How long will this vision go on: the daily
sacrifice, the apostasy that causes desolation, and the surrender of the sanctuary and of
those who serve in it to be trampled?» 14 And he told me:
«Two
thousand three hundred evenings and mornings. Then the sanctuary shall be purified»”. (Daniel
8:8-14)
11
Daniel tried to understand the meaning of what he had seen, and writes:
15
“When I, Daniel, saw the vision and was wondering
about its meaning. And behold! Standing before me was somebody human-like;
16 and I heard a
voice that cried out from the Ulay (the Heavens) saying, «Gabriel, explain him the vision». 17
So he came towards me, but I was scared and fell with
my face to the ground, then he said to me: «Son of man, understand that the vision is until the
time of the end». 18 While he spoke to
me I was stunned and fell with my face to the ground, but he got me up and set
me on foot, 19 the he said,
«Behold, I will tell you what will happen until the righteous anger is full at the time set
for the end. 20 The
ram which you saw, the lord of the two
horns, represents the kings of Media and
Persia, 21
the male
goat is the king of Greece and its first king is the great horn between his eyes, 22 that being
broken, gives rise to
four, because from the
nation will emerge four kingdoms,
but not with the same power. 23 At the end of
their kingdoms, at the time of
the consummation of the transgressing, there will be a
strong king expert in cunnings. 24 His power will be strengthened, but not
by his force, and will do amazing things, he will ensnare and invade, maneuver
and catch countless people, even the
people of the saints. 25 He will thrive by his cunning and
exalted in his heart, he shall destroy many who enjoyed peace. Then he will stand up against the Prince of
princes and will be
fragmented without human intervention.
26 The vision of the
evenings and mornings that has been declared is true, but you seal
it, because it is for a long time”. (Daniel 8:15…26)
12
In the ninth chapter Daniel predicts through the seventy weeks
of years, the time when the Messiah would appear in Israel, and the events to
happen after his execution. We read:
“Seventy weeks are decreed upon your people and your
holy city, to close the transgressions
and to seal sin, to forgive iniquity and bring everlasting justice, to
conclude prophecy and prophet, and to
anoint the saint of saints. So discern and understand: Since the out coming of the word to
restore and build Jerusalem until the anointed leader, there are
seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. The court and the walls shall be built again
but in difficult times. And after seventy two weeks the Messiah will be
cut off without cause. Then the city
and the sanctuary will be destroyed by the people
of a ruler who will come up and will finally invade it, and at the end of
the war, its desolation shall be
decreed, but in one week,
a covenant for many will be established” by the Messiah, and “In the middle of the week, he shall put an end
to sacrifice and offering”.
At the death of Jesus, all the sacrifices and offerings for sin
prescribed by the Law were before God useless, because the covenant of the Law
was substituted by the new covenant based on faith. So when Christ offered his
life to redeem all men from death, his sacrifice made all others senseless. “Then, when the desolating
profanation shall be on
the holy place, what is decreed shall be
poured until complete desolation”. (Daniel 9:24-27) This was the complete
desolation predicted by Jesus when he said: “there will not be
left here one stone on another which will not be thrown down”. (Mathew 24:2)
13
History testifies that the desolation of Jerusalem and the
subsequent profanation and destruction of her temple, took place in 70 AD. The
rebellion and apostasy of Israel reached the limit; they rebel against the Roman Empire, but
above all, they had rebelled against
God's purpose, by rejecting his
Messiah. They had corrupted the revelation of the spirit of God by accepting
Hellenistic notions and by trusting personal interpretations, as later happened
with Christianity. This drove them away from the spirit of the Law and the
warnings of the prophets, and distorted their perception of God’s messianic
kingdom.
When Jesus spoke of the times of the nations, he explicitly refers to the
words of Daniel recorded in the verses 13 and 14 of Chapter 8, so it is logical
to consider that the length of the times of the nations is related to the 2,300
evenings and mornings mentioned therein.
How should this time be computed? Several answers have been given to this
question, ranging from that of the 2.300 normal days of 24 hours, or that of the
1.150 days, because evening and morning make one only day, to the most popular,
which through complicated calculations without serious historical support, apply
the prophecy to the time of Antiochus IV, who profaned the Temple of
Jerusalem. However the biblical account shows us that it cannot be so. The
biblical times of the nations should be computed one year per day, just like the seventy
weeks mentioned in Chapter 9th of the book, which revealed to Israel the time of
the presence of the Messiah among his people. So the 2,300 evenings and mornings should
be 2,300 years.
14
In verses 22 and 23 of the 8th chapter we read: “from the nation (the empire of Alexander) will emerge four
kingdoms, but not with the same
power. At the end of their reign, in the time for the
apostasy to reach the limit,
there will be a strong
king”. (Daniel 8:22…23) This king starts as a “little horn
which grew exceedingly toward the south and the east, and towards the beautiful country, and
rose himself towards the multitude of
the heavens,
pulled some of its stars to the ground and trampled
them”. (Daniel 8:9…10)
Rome came
up when the four
kingdoms born from the Empire of Alexander reached their
end, then the Empire grew and became very powerful. This
strong
king, instigated by the Jews, rose towards the multitude of the
heavens putting Jesus, the “Prince of
princes” to death, and “pulled some of its
stars to the ground and trampled
them” when the disciples of Jesus were persecuted, imprisoned and
killed because of their faith. Later, “the armed
forces of the King of the North” came
up, and profaned the temple rock, and some time later caused the desolation of
Jerusalem. (Daniel 11:31) And with
the destruction of the Temple, the daily sacrifice offered in it was eliminated.
This daily sacrifice was different from the sacrifices and offerings for the
sins, which Christ had already made unnecessary.
The timing of the events that fulfill the prophecies shows that he who
carried out the final desolation of
Jerusalem and the trampling of the
sanctuary could be no other than the Cesar of
Rome.
15 To
set the beginning of the times of nations, Gabriel, the messenger of God, comes
to our aid with the detailed vision we find in chapters 10 and 11. The prophecy
of this vision is so accurate to the smallest detail, that for a long time its
authenticity was challenged, because some stated that it could only have been
written after the time of the events described in it. Porphyry, one of its most
prominent opponents, says in the 12th book of his work “Adversus Christianus” (Against
Christians), that the writer of the book of Daniel had to be necessarily a
forger that lived in the time of the Maccabaeus, that is, when Israel was under
the rule of the Seleucid kings, successors of Seleucus Nicator, one of the generals of Alexander
the Great; however, Jesus answers to his objection conferring the book of Daniel
veracity and authority by mentioning it to his disciples when he prophesied
about Jerusalem. (Matthew
24:15)
In the beginning of the 10th chapter we read: “In the third year
of Cyrus king of Persia, a message was revealed to Daniel who was called by the
name of Beltshatsar. The message was reliable and involved a great fight, and he
listened to it and understood the contents of the vision”. (Daniel 10:1) Gabriel said to him:
“I came to let you know what will happen to your
people until the end of days, because it is a vision that covers a long
period”. (Daniel
10:14)
16 Now
let us examine the 11th chapter step by step.
In verse 2 we read: “What I will reveal to you now is true:
Behold, in Persia will
stand up three kings, and the fourth will treasure great wealth, more than
others. Then, reinforced by his prosperity, he will raise against the kingdom
of Yavan (Greece) with all he
has”. (Daniel 11:2) Who
are those three kings? Daniel received this vision in third year of King Cyrus
II, and Gabriel tells him that will come up three kings, so the first
of them could not be Cyrus himself, but his son Cambyses
II, who at the death of his father became king in the year 529
BC.
In the year 522 BC, while Cambyses was in Egypt, a magician named Gaumata usurped his throne pretending
to be a brother of Cambyses called Bardiya, and achieved an official
recognition. In his way back from Egypt, Cambyses died leaving the throne to the
usurper, who only retained it for 7 months because Darius
I, son of Hystaspes, instigated his death and became king of
Persia.
Under the reign of Darius the empire went through a period of great
expansion, and when he died, Xerxes I, from whom the angel said “he will rise against the kingdom
of Yavan”, became the king of Persia and in 481
BC, marched against Greece with an enormous army, as the Greek
historian Herodotus (484-420 BC) confirms in his account of the battles between
Greeks and Persians. His army was so large that moved slowly,
and this gave the Greeks the opportunity to make agreements on defensive
alliances among the various Hellene states (The different states of the
Greek peninsula of Macedonia). Finally defeated in the battles of Salamis and
Plataea, Xerxes returned to Asia Minor, and from 475 BC
shared the throne with his son Artaxerxes.
The splendor period of the Achaemenid dynasty concluded with Xerxes, and even if from his death in 465 BC
until the conquest of Alexander the Great in 330 BC, there were other eight
Persian kings, the prophecy does not mention
them, and from the reign of Xerxes deals with the Hellenic growing
influence.
17 In verse
3 we read: “Then a mighty king will
arise, he shall rule with great authority and
shall do as he wills”. (Daniel 11:3)
In 334 BC, Alexander and his generals Antigonus Monoftalmo, Ptolemy (later Ptolemy
I) and Seleucus Nicator (later Seleucus I), defeated the Persians on the
river Granicus, with an army of 35,000 men. This battle awarded Alexander the supremacy in Asia. Then, in 333
BC he defeated Darius III at the Battle of
Issus; in 332 BC he destroyed the city of Tyre after a siege of seven months,
conquered Gaza and moved to Egypt, where he was welcomed as a liberator. This
ensured him the control of the whole eastern coast of the Mediterranean. After,
in 331 BC he submitted the capital of the Cyrenaica, extending the boundaries of
his kingdom to the empire of Carthage. That same year he defeated again the
Persians at the Battle of Gaugamela and shortly after, the city of Babylon surrendered.
Alexander conquered the city of Shushan, the royal residence of the Persian kings, taking possession of its enormous
treasure, and then Persepolis, the capital
of Persia, which was sacked and burned. With this, the Persian
Empire was thoroughly defeated. The territory of Alexander reached up to the southern shores of
the Caspian Sea, including modern Afghanistan, and stretched northward to
Turkestan in Central Asia. The conquest of this vast territory took him only three years, and
his desire of conquest did not stop. According to many historians, he wanted to
bring East and West in a world empire. In 326 BC he crossed the Indus River and
invaded the Punjab, defeating the Indian king Porus. Then Alexander made rig a fleet, reached the
Persian Gulf and in 324 BC, went through the desert to the city of Susa, where
he remained for a year preparing new conquests in the West. It may therefore be
said that Alexander the Great was indeed “a mighty
king”.
18 In verse
4 we read: “But after being established, his kingdom will
break and will be distributed to the four winds of heaven, and not by the
power of his government or for his posterity, because excluding her, his kingdom shall be divided and will be
for others”. (Daniel 11:
4) Alexander fell ill while he was in Babylon,
and he died before the summer of 323 BC, on the 28th of the Macedonian month of
Desio, usually identified with June 10th. His empire was not divided among his sons, that
were all killed, but among his generals, the “Diadochi” or
successors.
Antigonus, one of his generals called
Monoftalmo because he was blind of one eye, tried to gather under his control
the vast empire of Alexander, but failed and after twenty years of war, in
September of 301 BC Antigonus
and his son Demetrius
were defeated at the battle of Ipso on the Phrygian shore (the
Anatolian peninsula, to day in Turkey), where Antigonus died and Demetrius
fled. With their defeat, the empire of Alexander was divided into four monarchies,
four Hellenistic kingdoms: Thrace
went to Lysimachus; Macedonia was for Cassander; Syria and
Babylon went to Seleucus Nicator and Egypt along with the land of
the Coelesyria which then included the
Judea, went to Ptolemy. Alexander was the only to hold his extended
regions of Asia, Egypt and Europe together, but his empire gave birth to four
states that were independent but relatively similar in their political
system.
19 In verse
5 we read: “Then the King of the South will strengthen
himself, but one of his generals will become
stronger than him and his dominion shall be great”. (Daniel 11:5)
After the death of Antigonus in the Battle of Ipso, the power of
Ptolemy
I Soster was permanently
established in Egypt, and since his domain was located to the south of Israel,
prophecy identifies him as “the King of the South”. And in keeping with
this, after the victory of the Battle of Gaza in 312 BC, Seleucus I
Nicator went to Babylon and built there a vast empire. And since his
territory was located north of Israel, the prophecy identifies him as “the king of
the North” who would strengthen himself by extending his
domain.
History tells us that Cassander died in the year 297 BC, and that
his dynasty came to an end shortly after. Nine years later, in 288 BC, Lysimachus invaded Macedonia, but in 168 BC,
the Roman
consul Aemilius Paullus took the kingdom of Macedonia and made it a
Roman
province. The growth of the little horn
that became the powerful Roman Empire started then from one of the
four Hellenistic kingdoms, just as Daniel prophesies when he writes:
“From one of them
(of the four kingdoms) came a little horn which grew exceedingly toward
the south, the east and the beautiful
country (Israel)”. (Daniel
8:9)
20 Which
was the fate of the Hellenistic kingdom ruled by Lysimachus?
For a long time Seleucus had been jealous of the power
acquired by Lysimachus, which since 284 BC, had become the
ruler of a vast empire, which included Macedonia, the Thrace up to the margins
of the Danube River, and the Asia Minor up to the limits of Mount Taurus. His
great power provoked Seleucus hostility, who in the year 281 BC began with him a war in Asia
Minor, which lasted until the battle on the plain of Cyrus (Kurpedión), west of
Sardis. Lysimachus died there and the territory under
his rule was conquered by Seleucus, who first took possession of Asia
Minor, went then to Europe and joined the domains of Lysimachus to his possessions. This brought
under his power almost all the empire of Alexander, except Egypt and
Greece.
It may therefore be said that in the year 281 BC the King of the
North became stronger than him
(the king
of the South) because his domain was really
immense.
21 Now,
up to this point, the angel showed Daniel an outline of the main events
concerning his people, but since the year 281 BC the angel describes accurately
the events that would follow until the arrival of the Messiah. It can therefore
be said that 281 BC begins the prophetic times of King of the North and the King of the South. From this year the
Judea remained alternatively under the rule of these two kings and the times of the nations begins to
run.
Even if the people of Israel had since the beginning committed Idolatry
and sinned against Yahuh, God always had sent them leaders and prophets;
however, after the death of Zachariah who was the last prophet sent to the
people some 400 years before Christ’s day, Israel fell under the rule of the Hellenic
kingdoms, and the predominant influence of their powerful philosophy
led gradually the people towards the desertion of their original doctrine, an apostasy that at its highest point, led
the whole nation under the guidance of their religious leaders, not only to
refuse the undeniable fulfillment of the Scriptures in the person of Jesus, also
to request that he be executed for blasphemy and sedition to Rome.
22 In verse
6 we read: “Some years later, the
daughter of the King of the South
will go to the King of the North and
they will unite to settle an
alliance, but she shall not maintain her strength and her power. Then she, those who came with her, her
lineage and those who at that time will support her, shall be given up” (Daniel 11:6)
In the year 252 BC or 29 years later, the new King of the
North, Antiochus II
Theos (divine), concluded an
alliance with the new king of the South Ptolemy II
Philadelphus and took his daughter Berenice
in marriage, repudiating his first wife Laodicea. But when her father Ptolemy
II died, Berenice lost power and was repudiated by Antiochus, who remarried his first wife Laodicea, making her son his successor. But
sometime later Antiochus II was poisoned by his wife
Laodicea; then Berenice and the child she had given to Antiochus were killed with all the members of
her entourage. After this, Laodicea promoted the proclamation of her son Seleucus II
Callinicus as king.
23 In
verses 7 and 9 we read: “But in her place
(in Berenice’s place) will raise a
young branch from her roots and will go
forward with an army, come to the fortress of the King of the North, attack it and take
it. He will then carry to Egypt their gods, their molten images and the
valuables of silver and gold of its inhabitants. And for some years he will keep
away from the King of the North, which in turn, will break into the realm of
King of the South and go back to his land”. (Daniel 11:7…9)
To avenge the treason against his sister Berenice, Ptolemy III
Evergete declared war to Seleucus II
Callinicus and entered Syria up to the Euphrates River, capturing a
huge booty. He took with him as trophy the images of the deities of the
conquered people and the valuables used in their worship, and prevailed to the
point of conquering the realm of the Coelesyria and Seleucia, port of the city
of Antioch, the capital of the Syrian kingdom, and other strategic points in
Asia Minor and the Aegean Sea.
The sons of Seleucus II, the King of the
North, were Seleucus III Ceraunus and Antiochus
III. After a brief reign of the first one, his brother Antiochus
III called the Great, ascended to the throne and during
his long reign, he displayed energy and military skill. He took advantage of the
weakness of the new king of Egypt Ptolemy IV, and in the year 219 BC he recaptured the port of
Seleucia and declared him war. In the year 218 BC
he invaded the Samaria and then returned to Syria.
24 In
verses 10 and 12 we read: “But the sons
of him will be restless and will bring together a large army. And he will go
forward, invade, pass over and return, and will fight against the fortress. The
King of the South will be in fury, and will go forth and fight against the King
of the North, who will raise a large crowd but the crowd will be given into the
hands of him (the King of the South). And
taking the crowd he will swell up and deify his heart, and he will cast down ten
thousands (many) but he will not
prevail”. (Daniel 11:10…12)
After some months of interval, in 217 BC the war was resumed with force.
Ptolemy in person led his army, which near the
border of Egypt, inflicted in Raphia a severe defeat on Antiochus
III and recaptured the territory of the Coelesyria. Then Ptolemy
made peace with Antiochus and went back to
Egypt.
25 In
verses 13 and 14 we read: “Then the
King of the North will return and recruit a large army, even larger than before,
and after a few years he shall depart with a huge army and many weapons. At that
time many shall rise against the King of the South and some violent offspring from your people (Israel) will rise up in
order to fulfill the vision, but they will fail”. (Daniel 11:13…14)
At the time of the death of Ptolemy IV and of the accession to the throne
of the very young Ptolemy V Epiphane, Antiochus
III struck again with a great army and in the year 201 BC invaded the Coelesyria and
reached Gaza. In that time came out riots and seditious outbreaks in several
places of the Egyptian territory, and some Jews took position in favor of Antiochus
III, whom they saw as the deliverer of Israel, but it is more than
likely that their rebellion against Egypt was due to religious reasons and
connected with an attempt to build a temple in Egypt, with the purpose of fulfilling the vision recorded in the prophecy of
Isaiah 19:19, which says: “there will be an altar devoted to Yahuh amid the land of
Egypt, and a reminder of Yahuh next to its border”. But the attempt of
rebellion failed.
26 In
verses 15 and 16 we read: “And the King
of the North will proceed, will set up a
siege mound and will take a fortified city. The South forces will not be
able to resist him, even their elite troops will not have the power to stand
fast. Then the invader shall do as he wishes and no one will contest him; then
he shall halt in the beautiful
country, which will remain under his
power”. (Daniel 11:15…16)
These words refer to the long siege of the city of Gaza, which was
conquered by the King of the North in 201 BC. The Egyptian defense in Judea
only managed to delay the entry of Antiochus III in Jerusalem. The Egyptian
General Scopa with his mercenaries, the “Aetolian” elite troops, suffered a
serious defeat that definitely put an end to the domination of the King of the
South over the Coelesyria. Thus, the city of Jerusalem and all the Judea, “the beautiful country”, came under Seleucid
rule.
27 In
verse 17 we read: “The King of the North will be ready to attack with all the
power of his kingdom, but will make a covenant with him
(the King of the South), and will to his hurt, give him his daughter for wife, but she will not sustain nor serve
him”. (Daniel
11:17)
Antiochus III was prepared to attack Ptolemy
V, as confirmed by the Roman historian Titus Livius in his “Annals” when he writes that Antiochus
III “trusted in all the forces of his
kingdom, having recruited massive troops for land and for sea”. Still,
fearing the intervention of Rome, Antiochus
III decided to reach an agreement with Ptolemy and gave him in marriage his daughter
Cleopatra. The marriage took place at Raphia, in the year 194 BC, but did not meet the desired
goal and when war broke out between her father Antiochus
III and the Romans, she sided with Rome giving support to
her husband Ptolemy V.
28 In
verses 18 and 19 we read: “Then the King of the North will then head
towards the coastal areas, winning many, but a leader will end his insolence and
make him return humiliated. After this he will look towards the fortresses of
his land but he will stumble, fall and not be found”. (Daniel 11:18…19)
Antiochus III moved to Europe and took a part
of the Thrace and of the Macedonian possessions, but in the year 189 BC was defeated at Magnesia in
Lydia, by the Roman army under the command
of Cornelius Scipio. Then he secured his dominion
over all the Greek cities of Asia Minor, however in the year 187 BC, during an expedition to the
eastern provinces that had revolted, he was killed while trying to grab the
treasures stored in a temple of Bel at Elimade (Elam).
29 In
verse 20 we read: “In his place shall raise one that will send a fundraiser to the splendid kingdom (Israel), but he shall be
broken shortly afterwards, and not in anger or in battle”. (Daniel 11:20)
Seleucus IV Philopator, who reigned from 187 until 175 BC, sent his son Demetrius to Rome as hostage, and had to strive to gather the huge sum
required by Rome as the tribute of war. With this purpose, in the days of
the high priesthood of Oniah III, he sent Heliodorus, one of his principal officers, to Jerusalem for the requisition of the treasures in the
Temple, but Oniah went to Antioch, to the
king, in order to clarify his position. Heliodorus conspired against the king
and killed him, and then he
proclaimed king the firstborn son of Seleucus, assuming his tutorship. Seleucus
IV was thus killed shortly after the attempt of Heliodorus to plunder the
Temple.
30 In
verses 21 to 24 we read: “And in his
place shall arise one despicable, who had not been given the greatness of the
kingdom, but he will go in peace and will take the kingdom by intrigue. And the
invading forces will invade before him, and they (the Jews) shall be crushed and also the prince of the covenant
(the High Priest of the Sinai covenant). After
making an alliance with him, he will maneuver deceptively and will grow stronger
through a small nation; after the union with him and at peace with the potent of
the province, he will come and do what neither his parents nor the parents of
their parents ever did, for they will divide the prey, the booty and the wealth
and he shall plot future plans against
the fortified cities”. (Daniel 11:21…24)
Eumene, the king of Pergamum, alerted Antiochus, the younger brother of Seleucus IV, of the death of his brother. Antiochus was then in Athens and went to the
court of Pergamum. Meanwhile Eumene, the king of a small nation, prepared a
mighty army; many silver coins and a treaty of alliance in case Antiochus came to the throne of his brother.
The two sovereigns acted in accordance at all times, and Antiochus appeared before his people as the
avenger of the murder of his brother Seleucus and the legitimate depositary of
the royal authority.
Demetrius, son of Seleucus
IV and rightful heir to the throne, was held in Rome as a hostage.
Meanwhile, another of the minor
children of Seleucus, who was also called Antiochus, was formally made head of state for
some years, until his uncle Antiochus, who was the regent, had him killed and took over the
kingdom in 175 BC, with the name
of Antiochus IV Epiphanius.
In this same year took place a very serious event related to the Jewish people: the high priest Oniah III was deposed and murdered by the men of Antiochus IV
Epiphanius. The prophecy calls this high priest, “prince of the Covenant” or “conductor of the Covenant” because of the
responsibility accorded to his rank by the Law. This episode is also mentioned
in the 2nd Book of Maccabaeus, chapter 4:30…38.
31 In
verses 25 to 28 we read: “He (Antiochus IV
Epiphanius) will raise his strength and his heart against the King of
the South with a large army, and the King of the South will face him with a
large and very powerful army, but shall not prevail because he will be betrayed.
Those who shared his table will bring
his ruin; his army shall be completely defeated and many shall fall in
battle. As for the two kings, their hearts will be full of evil and sitting at
the same table they shall speak lies, but to no avail because the outcome is
still for the appointed time. Then the King of the North will return to his land
with many goods and with the intention to proceed against the holy
covenant”. ((Daniel 11:25…28)
In verse 17 we read that Ptolemy
V married Cleopatra I, who was then only 16 years old. Cleopatra bore
him two sons, Ptolemy VI and Ptolemy
VII. At the death of her husband her sons were still minor so she
assumed the regency of the kingdom. As she was the sister of Antiochus IV
Epiphanius, while she was alive the relations between the two
kingdoms were peaceful, but when after her death Ptolemy VI
Philometor ascended the throne and was counseled by his tutors,
things changed.
As it had been agreed between the two kings, the Coelesyria belonged
rightfully to Ptolemy VI, but the king's aristocracy in
Antioch held fast their rights over the territory and claimed that the treaty
that handed the Coelesyria to Egypt was false. The Romans were in that moment
seriously engaged in Macedonia and did not show any interested in the
Syrian-Egyptian conflict. This situation seemed to the government of Alexandria
(Egypt) an ideal opportunity to invade and recover the
Coelesyria.
Leneo and Euleo, tutors of Ptolemy
VI, were certain to conquer for him not only Coelesyria, but also the
entire Seleucid Empire, but as the prophecy said, “those who shared his table” brought him ruin, because
in the year 170 BC, Antiochus
IV, which according to prophecy would “plot future plans
against the fortified cities”, (verse
24) broke the peace agreement invading and deceitfully taking the fortified Egyptian city of Pelusium,
gateway of Egypt located at the east of the Nile River Delta. With this, Syria
opened the door of the land of Egypt and Antiochus IV
Epiphanius entered through it. Euleo knew that everything was lost
and convinced Ptolemy to flee towards Samothrace with all
his treasures. Then Euleo and Leneo, who had attempted the invasion of the Seleucid kingdom, were defeated and
executed.
The new ministers of King Ptolemy VI sought through an Achaean
delegation, to make peace with Antiochus, arguing that all was due to the
mistaken policy of Euleo and appealing to the relationship of uncle and nephew
that united the Kings. The embassy failed, but reached a peace agreement through
the yielding of the territory of Coelesyria, which Egypt gave to
Syria. The huge spoils of war that Antiochus had collected in Egypt, served to
increase his donations to the polis (city states) in Greece. These things led to
a revolt against Ptolemy VI, who was deposed in favor of his
brother Ptolemy VII, called Evergete.
32 In
verse 29 we read: “Eventually, he will
return back to the South, but this time will not be as the
first”.
Antiochus IV Epiphanius saw that Egypt was
near a civil war, so he occupied the entire country under the pretext of
supporting legitimacy, and put the country under the rule of Ptolemy
VI; only the city of Alexandria and the stronghold of Pelusium were
left under the rule Ptolemy VII Evergete. However, the
intervention of Antiochus in Egypt was such, that the two
brothers made peace to prevent any attempt to penetrate the country. Then Antiochus
met with the ambassadors of Egypt and in exchange for a peace
agreement he requested the island of Cyprus and the fortress of Pelusium, but
the Ptolemy brothers did not accept these conditions and Antiochus
invaded Egypt again.
33 In
the first part of verse 30 we read: “but will come against him the ships of Kittim and he shall turn back, disappointed”.
Which ships are those? Kittim was the son of Yavan and the grandson of Yapheth, the third son of Noah,
and the book of Genesis tells us that all the maritime peoples of the
Mediterranean Sea descend from the sons of Yavan: Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim and Dodanim (Genesis 10:4…5). Some identify Kittim with the
island of Cyprus, although other islands are also designated by this name, for
example, Ezekiel 27:6 mentions the
Kittim islands, when speaking of several Mediterranean
islands.
Epiphanius of Salamis, who
lived from the years 315 to 403 of our era, writes in the third part of his book
Panarion: “It is well known that the island of Cyprus is called
Kittim, but the Cypriots and those from the island of Rhodes are also called
Kittim. Besides, the racial group of the Cypriots and of the Rodiots lived also
in Macedonia, where as it is said, is the origin of Alexander the Macedonian,
for this reason we read in the Book of Maccabaeus that his family comes from the
land of Kittim, even if Alexander the Macedonian belongs to the Greek
race”.
Fact is that in general, all the regions of the Mediterranean Sea were
called Kittim. With this in mind, in his translation of the Scriptures known as
the Latin Vulgate, Jerome writes: “Et veniet super eum
Trieres, et Romani”, that is: “And will come
against him Roman trireme ships (boats with three oarsmen in each row)”
In fact, the Roman ambassador Gaius Pompilius Lenatus,
head of a
powerful fleet, went to
Antiochus IV with a decree of the Senate, ordering him to immediately withdraw his
troops from Egypt, and with this his
expansive projects were frustrated.
34 In
the second part of verse 30 we read: “In his retreat, he will download his anger. He will proceed
against the Holy Covenant (The Law) and renew
his agreement with defectors from the
Holy Covenant”. (Daniel
11:30)
Enraged, Antiochus IV returned to his land but during
the withdrawal, his troops plundered the Temple in Jerusalem. Flavius Josephus writes: “Withdrawing from Egypt for fear of the Romans, Antiochus
went towards Jerusalem, and at the beginning of year 142 of the reign of the
Seleucids (168 BC), he took the city without a fight
because the doors were opened to him by those who were of his party (the
Holy Covenant defectors). By this he mastered in Jerusalem and killed
many who were against him... and
returned to Antioch”. (Judaic
Antiquities, XII: 246-247)
The following year, still not satisfied, he organized in December of 167 BC, a march against Jerusalem and
captured the city on Sabbath day. His violence was unleashed against the most
sacred things. The sacred books were confiscated and destroyed, the circumcision
and the Sabbath were banned and the Temple was defiled and devoted to the Greek
god Zeus Olympian. But not only, for he also ordered to burn the doors of the
Temple and demolished the rooms of the priests, taking away the gold altar, the
table for the presentation of the bread and the gold candlestick. Jason, who
thanks to a huge sum of money given to Antiochus had been appointed high priest, fell
into disgrace for his ambiguous relations with Egypt, and was replaced by
Menelaus, who was entirely favorable to Antiochus
IV, and the Judea was
transformed into a Hellenized state. Then many priests gladly adopted the
new habits, attracted by the culture and lifestyle of the
Greeks.
35
In the days of the Maccabaeus, this situation provoked a
revolt that lasted until the setting up of the Hasmonean dynasty. Many of the
people had apostatized from the faith and the priest Mattathias instigated to
rebellion; then Jude, called the “Maccabaeus”, come out as the head of the
rebels, freed the city of Jerusalem and got in the year 160 BC, an edict of tolerance. Jude was
succeeded by his brother Jonathan, who was succeeded by Simon, the last of the
Maccabaeus brothers. Simon received the religious, civil and military power, and
died in 134 BC. After his death the
power went to the family of Mattathias, which was the Hasmonean family. Later,
Simon’s son, John Hyrcanus, gained the full independence of Jerusalem and his
son Aristobulus assumed the title of king, but at this point Rome
intervened. In 65 BC General
Pompey took Syria and in 63
BC came into Jerusalem invited by the Judaic party. Pompey confirmed the religious liberties and
the Hasmonean family as holders of the religious authority, but not of the political power. With
this, the Jew people became vassal of Rome, and in the year 39 BC, Herod the Edomite, Minister of the
Hasmonean family, obtained from Rome, the new King of the
North, his nomination as king of Judea, by decree of Anthony and Octavian.
Antiochus IV reigned from 175 to 163 BC and
after him the throne of the dynasty begun by Seleucus had other four kings, who ruled until
64 BC when the Roman general Pompey declared Syria, the last stronghold of the Seleucid
Empire, a Roman province. From then the King of the
North changed identity.
How is this confirmed? In the year 33 AD, Jesus quoted the prophecy in Daniel 9:27, which is parallel to Daniel 11:31 and he applied it to the
destruction of Jerusalem. So the
King of the North could no longer be identified with the Seleucid
kingdom that had been divided into Roman
provinces.
It is important to understand that these prophecies are not intended to record the history of
the various empires; they only speak
about the historical events connected with the kings of the North and the South
of the Palestine, and only if they
somehow affect Israel, the people of
Daniel, as Gabriel says when he tells him: “I
have come to make you understand what
will happen to your people in
the days to come”. (Daniel
10:14)
Rome, a powerful nation located north of
Jerusalem, conquered the land of Egypt in the south and the Seleucid
empire in the east, which included the beautiful
country, the Palestine, as Daniel foretold when he wrote
that from one of the four horns or
kings coming from the Greco-Macedonian Empire, “came out a little
horn which grew exceedingly toward the south and the east, and towards the beautiful
country”. (Daniel
8:9)
36 In
verse 31 we read: “Because of the
apostasy, the armed forces of the King of the North shall come and defile rock of the Temple,
eliminating the daily sacrifice and causing desolation”. (Daniel 11:31)
This verse goes back to the argument of the 9th chapter about the
profanation of the Temple: “There will be appalling
profanations because of the siege, and the decree will be poured until the
desolation”, (Daniel 9:27) an
argument mentioned by Jesus to his disciples as he tells them: “When you see the
profanation of the desolation foretold by the prophet Daniel, positioned in the Holy Place, he who reads reflect! Those
who are then in Judea flee to the mountains”. (Matthew 24:15)
But what does history say about the profanation of the Temple’s
rock?
When in the summer of 66
AD the Jews rebelled against Rome, the sect of the Zealots led by the fierce
Eleazar son of Ananias took the Temple. Then
Rome had to intervene to redress the situation
and restore order, as Flavius
Josephus writes: “On October 13th Cestius
Gallus formed army and marched against the city. As he advanced, Cestius burned
the neighborhood of Betsetha and camped outside the royal palace. If at that
very moment he had entered beyond the city wall by the weapons, he soon would
have taken over the city and the war would be over... For five days, the Romans
attempted to attack from anywhere, but without success. The next day, Cestius
Gallus took many selected soldiers and archers, and launched an attack on the
northern side of the temple... the soldiers could then undermine the wall and
quietly prepare to burn the gates of the Temple... Cestius... suddenly called
the soldiers and absurdly renouncing to his plans without having suffered a
defeat, dislodged the city. (The Judaic Wars, Book 2, Chapter 19,
4-6)
With his attack to the northern wing, Cestius Gallus started a
profanation of the Temple that 4 years later ended with its total destruction by
the legions under General Titus. Gallus did have the conquest of the city in his
hands, so it is difficult to understand what made him give the order of
withdrawal. However, we must remember that Jesus had predicted this event, when he
warned his disciples to take advantage of this moment and flee from Jerusalem,
because those would be the: “days to do justice and fulfill all that is
written”. (Luke
21:22)
37
Daniel had heard a voice ask the angel that spoke to him: “How long will this vision go on: the daily sacrifice, the
apostasy that causes desolation, and the surrender of the sanctuary and of those who serve in
it to be trampled?” And the angel answered:
“Two thousand three hundred evenings and
mornings. Then the sanctuary shall
be purified”. (Daniel
8:13…14) It is therefore clear
that when Jesus speaks of the times of the nations, he talks about the 2,300 prophetic years, and in harmony
with this, Gabriel tells Daniel: “The vision of the
evenings and mornings that has been declared is true, but you seal it, for it is for a long time”. (Daniel 8: 26)
This is really “a vision that covers a long period”, (Daniel 10:14) through the words of
Jesus and the revelation of the angel to Daniel, we understand that the 2,300
years, which are the times of the nations, extend long after the arrival of the
Messiah, and that if prophecy spoke of the Israel of Old Covenant, since then
speak about the spiritual Israel of the New Covenant, the New Jerusalem founded
by God’s spirit on the day of Pentecost. Unfortunately, in this world under the
power of the Evil One (1John 5:19)
history often repeats itself, and after the death of the apostles, many of those
who were considered wise men and shepherds of Christ's congregation, gradually
moved away from the original doctrine and lost perspective; then, by ignoring
the true purpose of God for humanity, they included in their teaching some of
the beliefs and hopes of the nations. And while the apostolic congregation was
forgotten in Hades, the apostasy grew and ruled over Christianity. (2Thessalonians 2:7... 8)
38 John
warned the apostolic congregation: “This is the last
hour little children! You have heard that Antichrist is to come, and already
many antichrists have appeared, so we know that this is the last hour”.
(1 John 2:18)
It really was the last hour of the true apostolic congregation. John
writes, “The antichrist is he who denies the Father
and the Son” (1John 2:22),
and in line with his words, the coming apostasy or antichrist rejected Yahuh as
the creator and father of his firstborn son and identified Jesus with the one
and only God, denying through an entelechy the true identity of the Father and
true identity of his Son. This apostasy gave start to a period of obscurantism
and ignorance of the true designs of God, however, the apostolic congregation
could not remain forever trampled and retained in the “Hades” or tomb; Jesus predicted that his
congregation, the one built on him, cornerstone of the spiritual God’s Temple
built by living stones, will come back to life because “the gates of Hades will not prevail over her”. (Matthew 16…18) For this reason Paul writes that
“Christ, having been offered once to abolish forever
the sins of many, will manifest himself again for a second time, but not in
connection with sin, but for those who
are eagerly waiting him for their salvation”.(Hebrews 9:28)
39 In
the last book of the Bible, the book of the Revelation, John speaks of the
things to happen before the coming of Jesus, but we must consider that the
vision which “Jesus Christ received from God”
to be transmitted through John to his people, is intended “to show his servants the things that will happen in quick
succession”, (Revelation
1:1) so the time measures in it cannot be calculated like the prophetic
times of the Hebrew Scriptures.
John writes: “I was given a measuring rod as a
land surveyor, and was told: «Get up and measure the sanctuary of the Temple of
God and the altar, and count those who provide sacred service, but do not
measure the Temple's outdoor enclosure, leave it, for it has been given to the nations that will trample the
Holy City for forty-two months”. (Revelation 11:1…2) Then, when the sanctuary has been
measured and that these literal forty-two months elapse, the prophecy announced
by the angel who said to Daniel: “Two thousand three
hundred evenings and mornings. Then the Sanctuary shall be purified”, (Daniel 8:14) will at last be
fulfilled.
40
But what the “purification of the Sanctuary”
means?
When in the letter of Hebrews Paul speaks of the Sanctuary or Tabernacle,
he shows us that he does not speak about the sanctuary destroyed by Rome, the
king of the North at that time, but of something very different that was
foreshadowed by the Tabernacle in the wilderness and Temple in Jerusalem. He
writes: “Then came Christ as the high priest of the
good things to come, and he entered once and for ever in the Holy of the greater
and more perfect tabernacle, one which was not built by human hands and does not
belong to this creation”. (Hebrews 9:11) So we may understand that
he speaks about the heavens of God, but if it is so, why should the heavens be
purified? John gives us the answer when he writes: “In heaven broke out a battle, Michael and his angels fought
against the Dragon and even if the Dragon and his angels fought, they did not prevail and lost their place
in the heavens. With this, the great dragon, the ancient serpent called
Devil and Satan that deceives the whole world, was thrown to the earth and his
angels were cast out with him. And I heard a
powerful voice that said: «Now has come
the time for salvation through the power of the kingdom of our God and the
authority of his Christ, for the accuser of our brothers, him who accused
them day and night before our God, has been thrown down»”. (Revelation
12:7…10)
41 After
the purification of heavenly sanctuary will start the first resurrection; Paul
wrote: “If death came through a man, resurrection
comes also through a man, so that in the same way that they all die because of
Adam’s blame, may all come to life because of Christ. Although each one
according to the established order: Christ as the first fruit, later, when he comes back, those belonging to the Christ and
after, all the others”. (1 Corinthians 15:21…23)
In keeping with the words of Paul, John wrote: “I saw sitting on their thrones those who had been asked to
judge; I saw those who were beheaded because of their testifying of Jesus and
because of the word of God, those who did not bow to the wild beast or to his representative and
did not consent to carry their password on the forehead or on the arm. They had returned to life, to reign
with Christ for a thousand years. This
is the first resurrection, because the rest of the dead will not come back to
life until the thousand years have elapsed. Blessed and holy are those who obtain the
first resurrection! The second death has no power over them; they shall be priests of God and reign the
one thousand years together with Christ”. (Revelation 20:4…6)
Conclusion
The purification of heaven and the first resurrection put an end to the
times of the nations and fulfill the 2,300-year prophecy. From then, the coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ may be expected, and if the analysis of the related historical
events and their relationship with
the visions of Daniel are
correct, we may say that from the year in which the prophecy of the King of
North and the King of the South begins, the 2,300 years should eventually end in
2020 AD, however, time will confirm or
correct these estimates.
It is important to understand that for the disciples of Jesus the main
concern is not to know exactly a day that only the Father knows, but the fact of
remaining faithful in all
circumstances, and as bearers of the
news about the future presence of the Lord, announce his proximity to those who trust
him.