Sermon Tone Analysis

If you have your Bible (and I hope you do), please turn with me to Daniel 9.

And if you’re able and willing, please stand with me for the reading of God’s Holy Word.

Daniel 9, beginning with verse 20 (page #1,393 in the red pew Bible):

May the Lord add His blessing to the reading of His Holy Word!

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This is, as we saw last week, incredibly confusing and difficult to understand.

Anyone who tells you this isn’t confusing or difficult either mistaken or they’re thinking a little too highly of themselves.

We spent weeks and weeks in college theology and Old Testament classes debating this interpretation and that interpretation, discussing every major view, and we all ended up reacting the same way: shrugging our shoulders and shaking our heads.

Even our professors—doctors, scholars; men who had spent decades teaching the Bible—even our professors shrugged their shoulders and shook their heads.

It’s really hard to say what all this means for sure.

My father-in-law suggested that I should just read-up a little, “There have to be some good works on the book of Daniel, Barrett...”

I replied, “Oh yeah, David, there are scores of excellent works on Daniel—books and commentaries and scholarly journals.

I own a dozen of them.

The problem is: every single one of them takes a different view; there’s no consensus whatsoever.”

You see, as I’m studying the text preparing for a sermon, I work through the passage myself and try to get a good understanding of the passage, what it’s saying, what it means for us.

And then I consult men and women much smarter than me to make sure my interpretation isn’t entirely off base.

This works fairly well from week to week, but Daniel 9 throws a bit of a wrench in the works.

In 400 A.D., one of the most brilliant scholars and linguists in the ancient church, the church father Jerome, wrote:

“Because it is unsafe to pass judgment on the opinions of the great teachers of the church and to set one above the other, I shall simply repeat the view of each and leave it to the reader’s judgment as to whose explanation ought to be followed.”

Jerome then listed nine conflicting opinions on the meaning of Daniel 9, declaring himself unable to decide which one (if any) was right.

Many men and women much smarter than me have come to this passage and, like me, they end up shrugging their shoulders and shaking their heads.

The only thing most people agree upon is that they don’t agree upon anything.

However, at the end of the day, our Heavenly Father saw fit to place this here for us, to preserve this for us; and He did so for a purpose.

We know that:

So, at the end of our time this morning, we might still come away shaking our heads and shrugging our shoulders, but, by the grace of God and the power of His Holy Spirit, we will have been taught, rebuked, corrected, trained in righteousness, and thoroughly equipped for every good work.

>Last week, we looked at verses 20-24—the beginning of this confusing section.

The Lord responds to Daniel’s prayer immediately, sending the angel Gabriel to let Daniel know his prayer had been heard and to give Daniel insight and understanding.

It’s Gabriel who introduces the phrase seventy sevens to Daniel and to us (Thanks a lot, Gabe).

Let the shoulder-shrugging and head-shaking commence.

As I mentioned last week, one thing I can be fairly certain of is this: for everything I don’t know about the seventy sevens, I am sure that seventy sevens is not to be taken literally.

Seventy sevens doesn’t equal 490 literal weeks or years.

Seventy sevens is meant to be taken figuratively/symbolically—as in, a long, long time; a complete/full/perfect period of time.

This is one of only a few things I’m quite certain of as I read Daniel 9.

There’s a great deal of mathematical finagling that takes place in commentaries and sermons trying to work out “the when” of the seventy sevens.

It’s almost comical, really, watching the attempts to fit a literal 490-week or 490-year time-frame into a period of history.

That’s not for us to do.

The specific “when” is not as important as the “what” behind the “when”.

Daniel 9:25 is clear about the starting-point of the seventy sevens:

The starting-point of the seventy sevens begins at the time the word goes out, but we aren’t clear about which word the text intends.

Word is usually associated with a royal decree.

But is it the decree that Cyrus made in 538 BC for the exiles to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple?

Or the decree of Artaxerxes I in 458 BC, making it possible for Ezra to refurbish temple worship and enforce the God’s law?

Or the decree granted in 445 BC on behalf of Nehemiah’s design to rebuild Jerusalem?

There’s another possibility: word might refer to a prophetic word rather than a royal decree.

Could this word refer to a word from a prophet like Jeremiah or Isaiah?

All good, and possible, possibilities.

What matters is not the specific “when”, but the “what” behind the “when”.

This might seem like a cheap way out of dealing with the time-frame, but for anyone who has ever transported children, you’ve done something similar, I’m sure of it.

Last year as I drove kids to church camp at Camp Cyokamo, the familiar questions came my way, “Are we there yet?

How much longer?

When will we get there?”

Each time they asked, I’d say, “Well, when we get there, you’ll probably get to go swimming or get to play gaga ball or basketball or run wild like little monsters.”

My tack was to take their attention off the “when” and help them focus on the “what.”

So it is here in Daniel 9. I believe we won’t figure out for sure the “when” but we know the “what.”

Better to focus on what we know than to drown in the sea of things we don’t know and won’t know this side of heaven.

>Bottom line: at some point in the future, at some point down the line for Daniel and his contemporaries, as verse 25 tells us:

Jerusalem will be restored and rebuilt

The Anointed One will come

But this will take seven sevens, and sixty-two sevens.

As I’ve put forth before, I think it’s best to take all of the sevens symbolically (not literally).

There are seventy sevens, and the text breaks the seventy sevens down into three different parts:

7 sevens = a relatively restricted period of time

62 sevens = a relatively extended time

1 seven = clearly climactic time

There’s no sense in trying to make the math work out exactly.

Many people will get out their calculators and their calendars of Biblical events and try to make the math work out perfectly.

Here’s something I read this week that illustrates the whacky lengths some people will go to in order to come up with even whackier interpretations.

I don’t believe what I’m about read and I pray you don’t either:

“The Bible uses 360-day years for prophecies and expects us to add the appropriate 'leap months' on schedule (Oh, really?).

So, the easiest way to unravel this prophecy is to first convert this prophecy into days:

- Add 7 + 62 weeks  =  69 weeks of years

- Multiply 69 (weeks) x 7 (years) = 483 years

- Multiply 483 years x 360 days = 173,880 days”

In a word: whackadoodle.

If our interpretation of an ancient text would make no sense to the original audience, it’s wrong.

Daniel wouldn’t have thought for a second to do that kind of math; he wouldn’t have done that kind of math.

Daniel didn’t need to do that kind of math; and neither do we.

All the math we need to know is that 7+62+1=70—that which the text clearly states.

There are seventy sevens, so says Gabriel.

And they are divided up into three different parts (7, then 62, then 1).

We don’t need to press the details or work to figure out the when.

We simply need to understand and trust the what; we need to trust the One who controls all these events, the One who has the schedule all figured out.

I’ve argued with myself for the last couple of weeks, like I have some sort of multiple personality disorder or something; I can’t even agree with myself.

I’ve gone back and forth, trying to figure out the most faithful way to present this text to you.

The pronouns are vague and it’s not a clear reading (it’s not a clear reading in English or in Hebrew).

But I think I’ve got an idea about how this all might fit together.

Though I hold this tenuously and reserve the right to change my mind (even later today if I feel like it).

>Let’s look again at verses 25-26:

From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven sevens, and sixty-two sevens.

Notice these two time periods are connected, yet they’re separated.

If Gabriel meant one period of time, I think he would have said sixty-nine sevens.

So then, there are 7 sevens and 62 sevens.

Seven sevens from the time the word goes out must lead up to some significant event: to the repatriation of the Jewish people, the return of the exiles; the rebuilding of the temple; some significant event.

I’ve started to think that the last part of verse 25—It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble, obviously referring to Jerusalem—this is connected with the 7 sevens.

Jerusalem will be rebuilt sometime after the exiles return.

Zerubbabel and Ezra and Nehemiah are the major players in the rebuilding process; the people return, the temple is rebuilt, followed by the wall and then the city itself.

Let’s just say for funsies that the seven sevens span the length of time from the word going out until Jerusalem is rebuilt.

That will take 7 sevens—a relatively short period of time.

This is part of what Daniel had been praying for, longing for, hoping for.

And it would come in short measure.

Though Jerusalem, we’re told, would continue to face its share of trouble.