Evening
January 1

Daniel 9:24-26 24"Seventy 'sevens' are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy. 25"Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven 'sevens,' and sixty-two 'sevens.' It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. 26After the sixty-two 'sevens,' the Anointed One will be cut off and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed.


Daniel was pleading in prayer for the repentance and restoration of the Jewish people. The angel Gabriel came to him to deliver a timetable in which this would all come about, seventy weeks, or 70 periods of seven years.

In verse 25, the angel tells of the beginning of the countdown and divides up those years into a group of 7 sevens and 62 sevens with one remaining. The countdown begins with a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. The end of this period is the coming of the Anointed One. The Persian Empire actually issued several return and rebuild edicts, but if we follow the approximate times given, the first set of 7 sevens does take us to the rebuilt streets and trench. The next period brings us to the birth of Jesus, the Anointed One.

Verse 26 then warns that after that time, the Messiah (Anointed One) will be cut off. The Roman ruler that came did destroy the restored city and the rebuilt sanctuary. There is still one more week to come, another period of seven years.

Jesus death on the cross put an end to sin for all that will receive Him. They have found everlasting righteousness in Christ. The Anointed One is glorified, but He is not yet anointed King over all the earth. We still await that last period of seven years and Jesus taking over the kingdoms of this world.

Consider: Are you ready?