“Seek Yahweh while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return to Yahweh, and He will have compassion on him. Turn to our Elohim, for He will abundantly pardon.”
Isaiah 55: 6-7
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The Book of Daniel and Jewish People
Many rabbis tell Jewish people not to read the Book of Daniel. It’s easy to understand why.
Jewish Tanach scholars in the 1st century BC knew the Book of Daniel well, and they used it to determine the time of the Messiah’s arrival. According to their calculations, the Messiah’s arrival was imminent at that time. They were looking for Him and expected Him to appear at any moment, but they had in mind a King Messiah who would conquer Israel’s enemies, Rome in particular.
The Messiah did come as they expected, but He didn’t come as a king. Instead, He came as a suffering servant to redeem and save Yahweh’s people. He told the Jewish religious leaders in Jerusalem who He is, but they rejected Him.
Isaiah 52 and 53 provide what I think is the best description in the Tanach of the Messiah coming as the suffering servant to redeem and save Yahweh’s people and His rejection by His people.
While He was with us in Person, the Messiah criticized Jewish religious leaders in Jerusalem more than any other group. They had hijacked the faith of Abraham that Yahweh endorsed and created a religion that they ran for prestige and profit. All 4 gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) record encounters that the Messiah had with Jewish religious leaders. There can be no doubt that He had in mind undoing the damage done by Jewish religious leaders. Nowhere in the New Testament is that clearer than it is in Matthew 23. Click on it and read it. You can’t miss the points the Messiah is making. It ends with what I think is the most heartrending statement He ever made:
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the Name of Yahweh!’” (Matthew 23: 37-39)
The consequence of the Messiah’s rejection by Jewish religious leaders in Jerusalem is addressed in Luke 19. Below is what I think is the second most heartrending statement the Messiah ever made:
When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will barricade you and surround you and hem you in on every side. They will level you to the ground — you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from Elohim.” (Luke 19: 41-44)
In Matthew 24 and 25, Mark 13, and Luke 21, the Messiah talks about His 2nd coming when He returns as King Messiah. Jewish religious leaders rejected Him when He came to redeem and save them, but when He returns as King Messiah, they will welcome Him and weep bitterly because of the things done to Him by their forefathers. Zechariah 12 describes that moment, and Zechariah 12: 10 gets to the heart of the matter:
“I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.” (Zechariah 12: 10)
The Book of Daniel addresses the Messiah’s 1st and 2nd coming. Daniel’s prophecy is so precise and detailed that 1st century BC rabbis understood that they could use it to determine the time of the Messiah’s arrival, and as I said, that’s what they did. You can read about the Messiah in Daniel 2, 7, 9, and 12, but pay particular attention to Daniel 9: 24-27. Those verses tell us that the Messiah will come, and then, He will be “cut off”. That means He will be killed. At this point, we know that He was crucified. That makes Zechariah’s prophecy about the Messiah all the more telling. He said, “They will look upon Me whom they have pierced”. (Zechariah 12: 10)
Below is Daniel 9: 24-27:
“Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place. So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined. And he [the prince who is to come, the anti-Messiah] will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate.” (Daniel 9: 24-27)
Daniel’s prophecy should be read and understood by every believer. We may not know the day and hour of His 2nd coming, but we can identify the conditions that will prevail at that time.
Below is a short video that summarizes the Book of Daniel. I hope you will take the time to watch it. Let me warn you, though. This video is not a good substitute for reading and understanding Daniel.
As I said, it’s easy to understand why many rabbis don’t want Jewish people to read or study the Book of Daniel. It reveals things about rabbis that they don’t want Jewish people to see. It is evidence that they rejected Yahweh when He came to them in Person, and their rejection of Him has resulted in great suffering for Jewish people for about 2,000 years and counting.
The time of the end talked about in Daniel and Zechariah 12 will be difficult days for Jewish people. You may be wondering, How difficult? This is how Michael the Archangel explained it to Daniel:
“And there will be a time of distress such as never occurred since there was a nation until that time.” (Daniel 12: 1)
Things will be so bad for Jewish people at the time of the end that they will call on Yahweh by Name and know who they are calling on. He is the Messiah, Yahweh. If you know anything about the animosity and hatred that Jewish rabbis have had for the Messiah for the past 2,000 years, you will understand how difficult those days will be. They will have to jettison their traditions, repent, and ask the Messiah/Yahweh to save them. When they ask, He will save them, but He won’t do it until they ask.
Those Jewish traditions are embedded in the Oral Law or Halacha. Most Jewish people believe the Oral Law is part of Yahweh’s Law, because that’s what they have been taught by rabbis. They are wrong. The Oral Law is man-made law and nothing more. Even so, it is cherished by most Jews. Sadly, today the Oral Law or Halacha is regarded by most Jewish people more highly than Yahweh’s Law.
If you have time to watch a movie about Daniel’s life, I think you will enjoy the one below. I just wish that people didn’t substitute “the LORD”, “the Lord GOD”, and “LORD of hosts” for the Name Yahweh. You must insert Yahweh’s Name where it belongs to understand the full meaning of the things He said. I also wish that people didn’t substitute “God” for Elohim. God is the name of a pagan deity. Using that term for Yahweh isn’t just wrong. It’s a sin.
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“I am the good shepherd. I know My sheep and My sheep know Me — just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father — and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also. They too will listen to My voice, and there shall be one flock and one Shepherd. The reason My Father loves Me is that I lay down My life — only to take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from My Father.”
John 10: 14-18
