Next Event after the Coming of Christ


The first validation of our date for the Transfiguration follows from discovery that the oracle of Daniel 9:25–26 looks beyond the Transfiguration to yet another event.

25 . . . The street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.

26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: . . . .

Daniel 9:25-26

After sixty-two weeks following the coming of the Messiah, He would "be cut off, but not for himself" (v. 26). In its many occurrences in the law of Moses, the term "cut off" signifies the passing or execution of a death sentence (Exod. 12:15; Lev. 7:20-21; Num. 15:30).1

The Hebrew expression translated "but not for himself" does not actually carry the idea of suffering for others. The closest English approximation of the meaning is, "and is not to him."2 Commentators have exercised themselves at great length to elucidate this obscure expression,3 but Jesus Himself supplied the correct interpretation as He was coming down from the Mount of Transfiguration.

And he answered and told them, Elias verily cometh first, and restoreth all things; and how it is written of the Son of man, that he must suffer many things, and be set at nought.

Mark 9:12

To prepare the three disciples for the next events on the prophetic timetable, Jesus drew their attention to the Book of Daniel, where He is called the Son of man (Dan. 7:13), and supplied a free translation of the words in Daniel 9:26 concerning His own coming ordeal. In place of "be cut off," He gave "suffer many things," and to explain the enigmatic words that appear as "but not for himself" in our version, He rendered them "be set at nought." He was warning His followers that He would be treated as nothing. Although He was the princely Messiah announced in verse 25, His rightful claim to authority over all men would be scorned and rejected.

Together, the phrases "cut off" and "be set at nought" describe Jesus' entire ordeal of humiliation at the hands of Jewish authorities. The opening event would be His official indictment and the climactic event would be His execution.


Span of Sixty-Two Weeks


Two arguments prove that the sixty-two weeks foreseen in verse 26 are ordinary weeks of days.

  1. The preceding verse, verse 25, states that the Messiah would come, and verse 26 states that after another sixty-two weeks, the Messiah would be cut off. The sixty-two weeks evidently fall within the lifetime of one man. Therefore, they cannot be weeks of years, as they are in verse 25. Rather, they must be ordinary weeks. A term of sixty-two ordinary weeks is a year and seventy-one days.
  2. In verse 25, the sixty-nine weeks until the Messiah's coming are represented as the sum of seven and sixty-two. Why? Many commentators agree that the first component represents how long it would take for the city to be rebuilt "even in troublous times" (v. 25); that is, in the times of Nehemiah.4 Yet the Book of Nehemiah never states or suggests that work on the wall and the city continued for seven weeks of years, or forty-nine years. Rather, the book says that Nehemiah finished his reconstruction in fifty-two days (Neh. 6:15). This measurement rounded off to the nearest whole week equals seven ordinary weeks. If the tally of fifty-two reckons time since Nehemiah’s arrival in the city, and if work on the wall began immediately after his three days of prayer and planning (Neh. 2:11), then the work itself required only forty-nine days, exactly seven weeks.5
         To view the time frame reported in Nehemiah 6:15 as a fulfillment of the seven weeks prophesied in Daniel 9:25 resolves a conundrum that has long baffled commentators. It shows why, when listing the portions of the city that would be rebuilt, prophecy mentions only the two structures we have identified as the court of the Water Gate and Hezekiah’s tunnel. The reason is that both were in fact restored within seven weeks of days, whereas full repair of the wall was necessarily a longer project. Work may have been done on it before Nehemiah came to Jerusalem (Ezra 4:12), and work doubtless continued in the years afterward.
         A deeper look at the evidence therefore teaches us that "seven weeks" in verse 25 has double meaning. It refers to weeks of years when these seven serve as a component of the sixty-nine. But it refers to ordinary weeks when these seven measure either the approximate or the exact time required to rebuild the city’s defenses. How Scripture uses the seven weeks suggests that the other component of the sixty-nine weeks also has double meaning. The sixty-two weeks are weeks of years when they are added to the seven weeks, but they are ordinary weeks when they reveal the time span between the Transfiguration and the Messiah being cut off.
         Although double meaning is disallowed by fashionable hermeneutical rules, we need not shrink from it. The prophecy of the sixty-nine weeks is a sophisticated riddle embedded in poetic abstractions, and in a literary creation of this kind, layers of meaning are entirely possible. The riddle comes from the same divine author who inscribed a cryptic message of doom on the wall at Belshazzar's feast. When summoned to decipher it, Daniel succeeded only because he saw that each word bore double meaning.

Many who have attempted to show how the prophecy of the sixty-nine weeks was fulfilled have omitted any explanation for the division of the sixty-nine into seven and sixty-two. But we have now demonstrated that this division accomplishes at least two purposes.

  1. The correspondence between the seven weeks of prophecy and the actual seven weeks of work on Jerusalem clearly connects the beginning of the sixty-nine weeks with events in the Book of Nehemiah.
  2. Given the double meaning in seven weeks, we draw from the sixty-two weeks in verse 25 a strong presumption that since these must be weeks of years, the sixty-two weeks in the next verse must be ordinary weeks.

There is likely a third purpose as well. This division makes the riddle much harder to penetrate, for a typical reader is prone to make the hasty but wrong assumption that the second sixty-two weeks refer to the sixty-two weeks already mentioned rather than to a subsequent interval. He therefore misses the exact date of Jesus’ condemnation. Solving the riddle was not meant to be easy.

It was shown earlier that the Transfiguration fell on the night of December 14/15, AD 31. The date exactly sixty-two weeks later was February 20/21, AD 33.


Official Indictment


The prophecy that the Messiah would be cut off evidently refers to the action taken by the Jewish ruling council, the Sanhedrin, when they met soon after Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead.

47 Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we: for this man doeth many miracles.

48 If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.

49 And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all,

50 Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.

51 And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation;

52 And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.

53 Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death.

54 Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews; but went thence unto a country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim, and there continued with his disciples.

55 And the Jews' passover was nigh at hand: and many went out of the country up to Jerusalem before the passover, to purify themselves.

John 11:47-55

The Jewish masses saw the raising of Lazarus as a sensational miracle. A swell of acclaim lifted Jesus to new heights of popularity. In consequence, the rulers of the Jews felt threatened. They were afraid that He would lead a general revolt which would provoke a bloody clampdown by the Roman authorities. To crush any lingering hope for national freedom, the Romans might take away the limited self-rule presently exercised by the Sanhedrin. In other words, the rulers of the Jews might lose their power. Therefore, shortly after the miracle was performed, the rulers gathered to confer about what was, in their eyes, the political crisis. Some of the more radical Pharisees had already discussed how to kill Jesus (Matt. 12:14), but now, at the urging of Caiaphas, the eradication of Jesus and His religious movement became a chief aim of government policy. The decision reached at this meeting of the Sanhedrin may be regarded as Jesus' official indictment.

If our last main hypotheses have been correct—that prophecy required the Messiah to be cut off after the sixty-two weeks ended on February 20/21, 33, and that He was cut off by the Jewish rulers at the meeting recorded in John 11—we may fix the date of this meeting as sometime after February 20/21, 33.

Prophecy specifies "after" sixty-two weeks to lead us away from placing the meeting on the exact date derived from computation. February 20/21, 33, was a Sabbath, and according to the Tosefta, a compilation from before AD 200 of Jewish legal traditions, the Sanhedrin never convened on Sabbaths and holy days. Instead, the members devoted themselves to study of the law.6 But if we assume that prophecy is pointing us to a definite time, the only way we can reasonably construe the word "after" is to assign it the sense "immediately after." We conclude that the meeting was held on the next day after February 20/21, on February 21/22, which was the first day of the week. Assuming the Sanhedrin gathered on Sunday during daylight hours rather than on Saturday night, we can pinpoint the date as February 22, exactly forty days before the Crucifixion on April 3.


Witness of the Talmud


To establish that the date we have assigned to Jesus' indictment is correct, we need to ask two questions. First, does this date place His indictment at a time consistent with the whole Gospel narrative? Second, is there any extrabiblical evidence supporting this date? The answer to both questions is, yes.

1. It is clear from John's Gospel that the meeting recorded in John 11 was in fact held shortly before Jesus' death. After giving his report of the council’s decision, the Gospel writer states that "passover was nigh at hand" (John 11:55). Later, he informs us that during this same Passover season, Jesus entered triumphantly into Jerusalem, only to be arrested and killed by the Jewish leaders (John 12:1, 12-13; 13:1-2; 18:1-14).

2. A source outside the Bible indeed verifies that the indictment and death of Christ were separated by forty days. The Babylonian Talmud, produced in Babylon before AD 600, is a vast collection of rabbinical teachings and traditions that had been circulating orally for many centuries.7 Several traditions concern Jesus. One of the oldest of these, originating between AD 70 and 200,8 declares,

On the eve of Passover, Yeshu was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald went forth and cried, "He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy. Any one who can say anything in his favour, let him come forward and plead on his behalf." But since nothing was brought forward in his favour he was hanged on the eve of Passover.9

This account of Jesus' death agrees with Scripture on several points.

Now both the chief priests and the Pharisees had given a commandment, that, if any man knew where he were, he should shew it, that they might take him.

John 11:57

According to John's account, the proclamation was essentially an arrest warrant. The Talmud hides the true nature of the proclamation by pretending, most implausibly, that it was an extraordinary measure to secure a good case in Jesus' defense. This distortion is an obvious attempt to protect the Sanhedrin from any suspicion that they treated Jesus unjustly. Yet, the proclamation that it puts in the mouth of the herald is not pure invention. The Mishnah, another compilation from before AD 200 of Jewish legal traditions, reveals that a herald always preceded a condemned man to his place of execution and cried out words to the same effect, giving the man a last chance to be saved if he was innocent.10 A Talmudic commentator on this portion of the Mishnah adds, however, that "it means only when he is already sentenced, but not before."11

Since the foregoing three assertions of the Talmud have a factual basis, its placement of forty days between Jesus' indictment and death probably has a factual basis as well. This evidence is crucial for validating our date for the Transfiguration and our treatment of the sixty-nine weeks.

Yet this passage of the Talmud does contain false testimony. The ordinary method of execution among the Jews was to stone the criminal and then hang his dead body in public view (Lev. 20:2, 27; Deut. 21:21-23). So, any reader familiar with Jewish law would surmise from the Talmud's account of Jesus' death that He was stoned, then hanged. But the Talmud is being sly. It is misleading the reader while avoiding any outright prevarication that might be easily exposed. It does not say that Jesus was stoned. Rather, it says only that He was hanged, a reference to the actual mode of execution. Even in the New Testament, crucifixion is called hanging (Acts 5:30; Gal. 3:13).

The Biblical writers who speak of Jesus hanging on a tree want to make vivid the shame He endured. But the Talmud's purpose in saying that He was hanged is to conceal that He died by crucifixion, a mode of execution which the Jews under Roman rule never used, but which their overlords used routinely.12 When the Talmud was written, the Jews looked upon their ancestors who had resisted Roman rule as heroes and upon those who had collaborated with the Romans as traitors. Therefore, for two reasons, the Talmud sidesteps any mention of crucifixion. It does not wish to portray Jesus as a victim of the Romans, lest anyone view Him with sympathy and admiration. And it does not wish to suggest that the Jewish leaders resorted to collusion with the Romans in order to get rid of Him.


First Validation of the Solution


We have discovered that the Talmud places forty days between the indictment and crucifixion of Jesus. Forty days before April 3, 33, the established date of His crucifixion, was February 22, 33, the date of His indictment that we earlier derived from the prophecy of Daniel 9:25-26.

By inclusive reckoning the same interval is forty-one days, but this sum does not pose any difficulty for reconciling prophecy and history. The herald seeking information that might lead to Jesus' arrest went out forty days if the first day was when Jesus was indicted (a Sunday) and the last day was before Jesus was arrested (a Thursday).

So we may cite the Talmud as a reliable witness that Daniel's prophecy was exactly fulfilled. God arranged that the party of Jesus’ enemies, who vehemently denied that He was the Messiah, would leave us critical evidence serving to validate His Messiahship. The colossal irony in their witness fulfills the psalmist’s prophecy of how God would treat those who reject the kingship of His Son.

He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.

Psalm 2:4

If our date for Jesus' indictment is correct, our date for the Transfiguration must be correct as well, for the first is derived from the second. That is, when computing the date of His indictment, we started with the date of the Transfiguration and, according to the prediction in Daniel 9:26, moved forward sixty-two weeks. The two dates stand or fall together.

Footnotes

  1. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, The New Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon with an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic (n.p., 1906; repr., Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 1979), 504.
  2. Jay P. Green, Sr., The Interlinear Bible: Hebrew/English, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1983), 3:2066.
  3. Green translates the phrase, "but nothing is his;" ibid. The RSV and NIV propose, "and shall have nothing." The NASB (note) offers, "and have no one." Thomson's suggestion is similar—"And there was no (helper) to him"; J. E. H. Thomson, "The Book of Daniel," in vol. 13 of The Pulpit Commentary, ed. H. D. M. Spence and Joseph S. Excell (repr., Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1950), 272. Montgomery's is more adventurous—"and shall have nothing against him"; James A. Montgomery, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Daniel, vol. 16 of The International Critical Commentary, ed. S. R. Driver, A. Plummer, and C. A. Briggs (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1927), 381. Still more adventurous is Hartman and DiLella's rendering, "when the city is no longer his"; Louis F. Hartman and Alexander A. DiLella, The Book of Daniel, vol. 23 of The Anchor Bible (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1978), 252.
  4. For a sampling of commentators who have taken this position, see John Calvin, Commentaries on the Book of the Prophet Daniel, trans. and ed. Thomas Myers (n.p.: Calvin Translation Society, 1852-1853; repr., Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1948), 219; E. W. Hengstenberg, Christology of the Old Testament and a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, trans. Theod. Meyer and James Martin, 4 vols. (n.p., 1872-1878; repr., Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel Publications, 1956), 3:122, 191-192; E. B. Pusey, Daniel the Prophet (n.p.: Funk & Wagnalls, Publishers, 1885; repr., Minneapolis: Klock & Klock Christian Publishers, 1978), 191; S. P. Tregelles, Remarks on the Prophetic Visions in the Book of Daniel, with Notes on Prophetic Interpretation in Connection with Popery, and a Defence of the Authenticity of the Book of Daniel, 6th ed. (London: Samuel Bagster and Sons, 1883), 103; Albert Barnes, Daniel, in Notes on the Old Testament: Explanatory and Practical, ed. Robert Frew (repr., Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1950), 2:174-175; William Kelly, Lectures on the Book of Daniel, 3d ed. (New York: Loizeaux, n.d.), 181; Edward Dennett, Daniel the Prophet and The Times of the Gentiles (London: G. Morrish, [ca. 1893]), 148; Arno C. Gaebelein, Daniel: A Key to the Visions and Prophecies of the Book of Daniel (repr., Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel Publications, 1955), 136; H. A. Ironside, Lectures on Daniel the Prophet, 2d ed. (New Jersey: Loizeaux Bros., 1920), 165; Alfred H. Burton, Hints on the Book of Daniel: The Prophet of the Times of the Gentiles (Glasgow: Pickering & Inglis, Printers and Publishers, 1917), 143; C. Ernest Tatham, Daniel Speaks To-Day (London: Pickering & Inglis, 1948), 75; Edward J. Young, The Messianic Prophecies of Daniel (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1954), 68; John F. Walvoord, Daniel: the Key to Prophetic Revelation (Chicago: Moody Press, 1971), 227; Leon Wood, A Commentary on Daniel (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Publishing House, 1973), 254.
  5. Earl King, personal communication, December 24, 2011.
  6. Tosefta Sanhedrin 7.1.
  7. F. F. Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1974; repr., Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1974), 55.
  8. Ibid.
  9. Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 43a.
  10. Mishnah Sanhedrin 6.1.
  11. Babylonian Talmud, comment on Mishnah Sanhedrin 6.1.
  12. Erich H. Kiehl, The Passion of Our Lord (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1990), 124-125; A. N. Sherwin-White, Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963; repr., Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1978), 35-43.