Many Christians expect an end-time scenario that goes something like this: The Church will be ruptured to heaven before the start of the “great tribulation.” Then the Antichrist will arise and convince the Jews that he is actually the prophesied Messiah. The Antichrist will make a seven-year peace treaty with the Jews and will allow the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. But midway through that treaty, the Antichrist will break his covenant. He will enter the restored Temple and proclaim himself to be God. This event will start the 3½-year reign of terror known as the “great tribulation.” At the end of this time period, Christ will return from heaven with the Church and defeat the Antichrist in the Battle of Armageddon.
The scenario above is built around just a few prophetic Scriptures. The primary one is the “70 weeks” prophecy found in Daniel 9:24-27. This is one of the most misunderstood and misused prophecies in the Bible. This prophecy is the primary foundation used by most pre-tribulation rapturists to support that particular doctrine. But does this passage really support a pre-tribulation rapture? We’ll examine the 9th chapter of Daniel in detail to make that determination.
DANIEL 9:1 In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the lineage of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans – 2 in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the LORD through Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem. (NKJV)
There were several Medo-Persian kings named Darius. Various theories have been advanced by eminent scholars to identify the Darius mention in verse 1. Some believe he is Gubaru (Gobryas), the general who led the actual attack on Babylon. Others think that Darius was a title for Astyages, the last king of the Medes and the grandfather of Cyrus the Great. Per the records of Greek historian Xenophon and the Jewish historian Josephus, some have adopted the view that Darius was “the son of Astyages” – namely, Cyaxares II, the uncle of Cyrus the Great. Regardless of the actual identity of Darius, it is clear that he ruled by appointment (Dan. 5:31; 9:1); he was made king over Babylon by Cyrus the Great.
Here is the passage from Jeremiah’s prophecies that Daniel was reading:
JEREMIAH 29:10 For thus says the LORD: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place. 11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. (NKJV)
The 70 years spoken of by Jeremiah speaks of the return of the Jews from Babylonian captivity. God decreed that the land of Judah was to lie desolate for 70 years. The book of II Chronicles tells us why their punishment was to run for that particular amount of time:
II CHRONICLES 36:20 And those who escaped from the sword he [Nebuchadnezzar] carried away to Babylon, where they became servants to him and his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, 21 to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths. As long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years. (NKJV)
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