The Bible Prophesied the Exact Year the Messiah Would Appear
An amazing prophecy in Daniel 9:25 gives the specific year the Messiah
would appear. The angel Gabriel revealed this information to Daniel
approximately 580 years before its fulfillment. Let's examine this remarkable
prophecy and how it was fulfilled.
"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 word translated "weeks" here literally means "sevens." While it
could mean seven-day weeks, that is evidently not the case here. Daniel
had been specifically praying earlier in the chapter about a prophetic
period of 70 years. In this answer to his prayer, he is told of a period
of 70 sevens-clearly meaning 70 sevens of years in this context,
i.e. 70 seven-year periods.
Adding 7 plus 62 (69) of these seven-year periods-that is, a
total of 483 years-from a decree to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem
gives the year the Messiah would appear on the scene.
After Jerusalem's destruction by the Babylonians in 586 B.C., the
Babylonian Empire was succeeded by the Medo-Persian Empire. This empire's
kings issued several such decrees that were recorded in the Bible (by
Cyrus in 538 B.C., found in Ezra 1:1-2, and by Darius in 520 B.C., described
in Ezra 6:8).
But the one that was issued by Artaxerxes Longimanus in 457 B.C. (Ezra 7:11-26) points us specifically to Christ's ministry. Counting 483 years
from the 457 B.C. date of this decree brings us to A.D. 27 (keep in
mind that because there is no year "0" we have to add one year to the
calculation).
