Your people
and Your town
It is
likely that the captivity on Babilon that Daniel had known to have recited in
Jeremiah, was already near the 70 years, when he does his prayer ask for help
to obtain the knowlagde of that prophecy. Adding to his anguish for the
suffering of his people too, certainly. If the counting of these 70 years we cn
start at 586 B.C. then the moment was arounf 540 B.C when Cyrus was about to
take the city as we discovered on the historical records.
The
previous vision made reference to Jerusalem and the temple, 2300 afternoons and
mornings, they were revalations that he could not understand even though it was
related to his people and now he is about to have the most enigmatic of them
all as answer to what was happening.
See how the
relationship between Daniel and God is very straightfoward. As if everything
were apparently so simple, someone asks you something and you answer. And we
wonder, why it hasn't been always like that... because, after all, it wasn't
always like that. Why so many people want many answers and don't get them, not
even one. We want to hear only one single word, but in the end not even a
single will we hear. On the contrary, many that admit to be the spokesperson of
heaven bring so many little tales with no heads or tails for our ears to always
confuse us more and more.
Gabriel
brings the answer that was requested attending to Daniel's wish but with the
catch that in that moment he wouldn't be able understand it. We can see that at
the end of the book when he asks to be sealed, locked and hidden unto his last
days, aswell at the beginning of the answer when he says, knows and
understands, as if he'd said, heed! Here goes a riddle, an enigma... This way
we see a meaning that the perfect understanding wasn't yet for that time. Well
that is perfectly logical and understandable considering the facts, characters
and everything envolved. The eternal edification of Jerusalem and the renewal
of it's sacred people, was still in a distant future. It would take a long time,
but he had made clear that in a certain future everything would be understood.
Let us look
at the most probable contexts for the fulfilment of the prophecy. We can place
ourselves at the time of Nehemiah and Esra with the rebuilding of the second
temple on 455 B.C. or at the time of the rebuild executed by Herod in the times
of Jesus, 20 B.C., just the temple, or further on finaly on days even more
distant, as today for instance.
The two
first hypothesis seem easier to be
disposed seeing that today we very well know that none of that which
happened would fit. But if we were in those times we still wouldn't have enough
elements to believe, so much so that the only person to refer about them was
Jesus when he seems to relate it for a moment with the destruction of Jerusalem
in 70 A.D. for Titus of Rome, but without getting into any details. Hippolytus
of Rome, the rightfully anointed, priest leader of the prophecy, who was
martyred and hacked on 235 A.D., also wrote about it. Look that this way it is
more simple to understand the absurd of so many interpretations that try to
carry on the fulfillment of those times. Afterwards we can still quote the work
of the great Sir Isaac Newton, considering one of the greatest genius of
science of all times, where he tries to fit an army instead of a nation, in
this case the romans, the army of Rome that invaded and destroyed the sacred
city for the then emperor Titus. Well, we all know it wasn't about no
abominador or an army that never will be a nation, but that these people will
inicially become the biggest representative of christianity. Now that this
christianity will become the biggest mess and the greatest punishment for
mankind we can consider that.
Talk about
an agreement between the Jewish and Titus of that time for a week, or seven
years as they wanted, that would eventually be broken by the middle of the
week, historically we don't know. Some want to believe the war in fact really
existed, but that an agreement was never broken. Anyway, at that time there wasn't
an agreement, or abominador and much less a roman nation invading Jerusalem, or
wars and desolations until the end as it is written on the versicle. To admit
to many events crucial to the Jews foreseen on a prophecy considered to be
messianic, but that no one warned, or talked about, or called to the attention
for such fulfillments in any near moment would be like admitting a perfect
hypocrisy. So we can inicially see how many gaps are there on the defense of
these arguments.
We could
also comment a little more about the vision that some Jews have brought
relating the words of Jeremiah with the first rebuilding made by Nehemiah until
the events of the first century, but that would also be accepting one more
parcial fulfillment, for we have to consider all the items that were related,
unto the full eternal santification of
the temple and the city. So, it implies that it would not longer be destroyed,
as we know it was. And the output of the words of Daniel was to restore his
people, the spiritual restauration. Isaiah, Moses, Jesus, the Messiah among
others. "To build and reconstruct your city". After that moment
that, to this day, hasn't happened. The
third temple is just on the blueprint on the plans of Israel, for example.
But even
so, the words of Jeremiah are taken to 455 B.C. the time of Ezra, Nehemiah and
Zerubbabel and Joshua his apostle, and by the majority of Jewish scholars.
Let's
see:
