• How History Was Written Centuries in Advance
    The Watchtower—1977 | July 1

    • HISTORY SIX CENTURIES IN ADVANCE

      A unique prophecy found in Daniel, chapter 9, gives details of history more than six hundred years in advance. This prediction specifies that “Messiah the Leader” would appear sixty-nine “weeks of years . . . from the going forth of the word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem,” and that, shortly thereafter, Jerusalem and its temple would be destroyed. (Dan. 9:24-27; An American Translation) How was this fulfilled?

      A decree for the restoration and the rebuilding at Jerusalem was given by Persian King Artaxerxes Longimanus during the twentieth year of his reign. The decree went into effect in the fall of that year, which was 455 B.C.E. Counting forward sixty-nine weeks of years (each “week” being seven years long), or 483 years, from 455 B.C.E., brings us to the year 29 C.E. According to the Scriptural record, that was precisely the year in which Jesus of Nazareth presented himself as Messiah, at his baptism in the Jordan River.​—Luke 3:21-23; 4:16-21.

      This same prediction states that Messiah would be “cut off . . . at the half of the [seventieth] week.” (Dan. 9:26, 27) In precise conformity Jesus died on Passover Day in the spring of 33 C.E., exactly half a ‘week of years,’ or three and a half years, after his Messianic career began at baptism.​—Matt. 26:2; John 13:1, 2.

      As for Jerusalem’s destruction, this prophecy states concerning the generation in which the Messiah would appear and be cut off in death: “And the city and the holy place the people of a leader that is coming will bring to their ruin. And the end of it will be by the flood. And until the end there will be war; what is decided upon is desolations.” (Dan. 9:26)