Discovering the Prophetic Timetable

Miller continued to examine the prophecies, devoting whole nights as well as days to studying what now seemed so greatly important. In the eighth chapter of Daniel he could find no clue to the starting point of the 2,300 days. The angel Gabriel, though commanded to make Daniel understand the vision, gave him only a partial explanation. As the terrible persecution to come on the church was revealed to the prophet, he could not bear it all. Daniel “fainted and was sick for days.” “I was astonished by the vision,” he says, “but no one understood it.” (Daniel 8:27.)LF 137.5

Yet God had told the angel, “Make this man understand the vision.” In obedience, the angel returned to Daniel, saying: “I have now come forth to give you skill to understand ... therefore consider the matter, and understand the vision.” He had left one important point in chapter 8 unexplained, specifically, the 2,300 days. So when the angel resumed his explanation, he dealt mainly with the time:LF 137.6

“Seventy weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city.... Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublesome times. And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself.... Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week; but in the middle of the week He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering.” (Daniel 8:16; 9:22, 23, 24-27.)LF 137.7

God had sent the angel to Daniel to explain the point he had failed to understand—“for two thousand three hundred days; then the sanctuary shall be cleansed.” The first words of the angel are, “Seventy weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city.” The word translated determined literally means “cut off.” Seventy weeks, 490 years, are to be cut off especially for the Jews.LF 138.1