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The second passage is Daniel 9[:24-27], where the angel Gabriel speaks to Daniel in the plainest terms about Christ, saying, "Seventy weeks are determined concerning your people and your holy city, that transgression may be finished, forgiveness sealed, iniquity atoned for, and everlasting righteousness brought in, and vision and prophecy fulfilled, and the most holy anointed. Take notice therefore and know: from the going forth of the word to rebuild Jerusalem are seven weeks and sixty-two weeks until Messiah the prince; the streets and the wall shall be built again in a troubled time. And after sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, and they [who cut him off] shall not be his. But the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with violence. And after the end of the war there shall remain the appointed desolation. And he shall confirm the covenant with many in one week; and in the middle of the week sacrifice and offering shall cease," etc.
In the second place, Gabriel can surely be referring only to that destruction of Jerusalem which subsequently took place under the Roman emperor Titus about the thirtieth year after the ascension of our Lord. For after Jerusalem was rebuilt [by Nehemiah] there was no other destruction of the city, although it had been captured at the time of the Maccabees. From this we draw the assured and incontrovertible conclusion that the Messiah of whom Gabriel here speaks must have come before the destruction [by Titus]. That, I think, is quite certain and sufficiently clear. It is true that the Jews long ago began to feel the pressure of this mighty flood of evidence, and have anxiously defended their position with all manner of preposterous glosses. They make of this Messiah something other than the true Messiah, as for example King Cyrus of Persia, whom Isaiah in chapter 45 calls a Messiah, and who was slain by Tomyris, the Scythian queen. This and similar efforts are worthless excuses, capricious and unwarranted evasions, and therefore quickly disposed of as follows:
The copyright of the article That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew: Part 15: Daniel's Prophecy 1 in Lutheranism is owned by John L. Hoh, Jr.. Permission to republish That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew: Part 15: Daniel's Prophecy 1 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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