The Third Fulfillment of Daniel 9

Nugget 1

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This is my first “Nugget” post. Accordingly, I’d like to take a minute to explain how I am laying out and ordering information within this Substack publication.

I’ve posted the full content of both my books here (God’s Final Week and God’s Final Battle), with each chapter being broken out into its own post. These two books represent the core of my body of work. They should be read first.

I’m also working through the “Checkmate 2028” video series, which essentially takes the information from the books and makes it even more accessible by presenting it in video format. Being able to display timelines and other visual elements is a big advantage of the video series.

Occasionally, there are topics which I did not cover in my books (for various reasons), but which are still critical to the big end times picture. I will place all of these important topics into the “Nuggets” category and tag them accordingly. Once you’ve read the books, the Nuggets are a good place to find a handful of other valuable puzzle pieces.

Anything outside of these primary tags, whether it’s a short video or another type of post, is a miscellaneous topic. Generally, these miscellaneous items are things I’ve covered already in the books but which I want to crystallize in a pithy form for folks with limited time to invest.

I hope this helps to direct your focus as you peruse my content.

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The prophecy contained in Daniel 9:24-27 is probably the single most consequential end times prophecy in the Holy Scriptures.

In the seventh chapter of my book God’s Final Week, I unpacked the first two fulfillments of this 2,500-year-old prophecy. At the time, I did not allow for a third fulfillment in modern times. In fact, I criticized the idea of verse 27 possibly applying to an Antichrist figure.

I can now admit that I was wrong.

That said, the two fulfillments which I did reveal I do still believe to be quite correct and accurate. However, there is more to the story.

Ancient Jews anticipated three fulfillments for key prophecies. And Daniel 9 is the granddaddy of all end times prophecies. So, I probably should have expected to find three fulfillments.

In June of 2024, around seven months after I had published my first book, I was in the Denver airport at 5 am, getting ready for an early flight back to South Carolina. I was on my phone when I came across Dr. Christian Widener’s website, endtimesberean.com

Specifically, what had caught my interest was his discovery of a second decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem which was apparently issued in the 1500’s. I knew I had stumbled across something incredibly important, and so before my flight had even taken off I had purchased Dr. Widener’s latest book, Witnessing the End.

The information I found in this book on the second decree to rebuild Jerusalem was so compelling, and fit so perfectly with the overall timeline I had already triangulated and pieced together from multiple other prophecies, that I quickly revised my perspective on Daniel 9 to account for this new data.

Before we continue, here are the key verses from Daniel chapter 9.

Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

— Daniel 9:24-27 (KJV)

The first fulfillment, flows from Artaxerxes’ first decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, which was issued in 457 BC. As you can see below, the 69 weeks lead us directly to AD 27 and the beginning of Christ’s ministry. Two years later, in AD 29, he was on the cross, though this was not the exact midpoint of the final week. (Ezekiel 4 and the siege of Jerusalem 3 days before Passover in AD 70 allow us to triangulate the year of the cross with a high degree of certainty. See Checkmate 2028 - Episode 3 for the details.) And another five years after that, in AD 34, the 70th week came to a close with the stoning of Stephen.

It is worth noting here that the Messiah being cut off and the Antichrist confirming his covenant must both happen within the two distinct 70th weeks. However, the idea of these events needing to fall at the exact mid point, 3.5 years in, I don’t believe to be supported by the text. The cross did not occur at the exact midpoint for the first fulfillment, as we’ve seen. In the Hebrew it says “in the half week”. The Greek (Septuagint) says the same. This doesn’t translate into English very well. But ancient Hebrew and Koine Greek were languages with lots of nuance. I believe this is why early English translators of Daniel 9:27 translated it “in the midst of the week.” (See the KJV and Brenton’s Septuagint for this reading.) So the Antichrist’s covenant - also known as the abomination which causes desolation - need only begin after the start of the week but before the end. Anytime during the week. However, if the seven years of burning weapons is to be fulfilled by this same event (and I believe it is), then it must occur during the first 365 days so that both the 7 and the 490 can be fulfilled during the same year. Do you see?

What I find interesting about this historical first fulfillment, is that it should provide us with a high degree of confidence in the additional second and third fulfillments. In other words, if God kept his Word regarding the first coming of his Son, shouldn’t we trust what he has declared regarding his Second Coming? Obviously, we must interpret Scripture correctly and we must use multiple prophecies to provide confirmation. But when we have done that, and when we have glimpsed the symmetry and beauty of God’s master timeline, we can be confident in the insights he has allowed us to glean from his Word. All that is required of us is simple faith in the promises of God.

The second fulfillment, flows from this same first decree of Artaxerxes in 457 BC, but it relies on the seven weeks distinguished from the other 62 and specifically linked to “Messiah the Prince,” which point from the decree all the way to Christ’s Second Coming. This means the decree must have occurred between the 70th and the 71st Jubilees from the creation. And what it creates, then, is a beautiful magnification of the Jubilee cycle. A magnification in which there are 49 regular Jubilee years, followed by a super 50th Jubilee which is also the 120th Jubilee and the ultimate entry into the eternal promised land.

I unpack both of these fulfillments in much more detail in Chapter 7 of God’s Final Week, available here.

So far so good. But what of this new third fulfillment?

We will get into all the details undergirding the view below, but I want to show you the timeline up front. What this third fulfillment entails is a second decree followed by a second 490 years. And those 490 years just so happen to perfectly lead up to the year 2028.

Now, from the outset, I want to be clear. All credit for discovering this critical second decree goes to Dr. Christian Widener. I did not discover the decree. I only discovered Widener.

This was truly a monumental discovery, and one which rightfully belongs to Dr. Widener’s name.

Now, when I discovered Widener’s work, you must remember that I had already written and published my first book about seven months beforehand. Which means that I had already found multiple other key pieces of evidence pointing to 2028 before I stumbled across this second decree. I had also directly named the date of December 14, 2020 in my book as being highly significant to the end times. What this means is that I was able to take this final data point and integrate it into an already robust and fleshed-out paradigm. I was not starting from scratch. I saw how the final 490 years must fit within the bigger picture.

However, Dr. Widener does not appear to have yet discovered some of the other data points confirming 2028. Therefore, he takes the Islamic year conversion to Gregorian at face value and finds that 2027 must be the ending point. He could be right. In fact, in my book written back in 2023 I wrote that 2027 was by far my second favorite year, after 2028. It must be one of these two year. However, on the probabilities, I don’t like 2027 nearly as much, given the other markers we have which seem to invalidate it. Now, this is a minor difference between Widener and myself and certainly I am not interested in quibbling over it. He is a humble and kind man who is laboring diligently for Christ’s kingdom in these last days, and I respect his opinion. At the same time, I am an ardent lover and seeker of the truth. Which means that even minor errors, in my view, must be graciously identified and their shortcomings must be explained. I will seek to do this.

This second decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem was issued by Sultan Suleiman I of the Ottoman Empire. You will find no reference to this decree in our history books (by design, no doubt), though Suleiman himself is well documented. However, God saw fit to preserve the record of this crucial decree literally in stone for us in Jerusalem. And it was Dr. Widener who in these last days discovered the stones which bear witness to this old decree.

In his book, Widener explains that plaza and moat look like the best words to translate rechob and charuwts in Daniel 9:25. He then provides the evidence for Suleiman’s decree, linking it firmly both to a moat and to the Temple Plaza.

There is an actual moat within the Old City of Jerusalem, and it has a plaque proclaiming its restoration by Suleiman; however, there is no date on this specific plaque. Perhaps it was left off, or as the “ … ” suggests at the end of the inscription, the final portion was damaged and became illegible. Fortunately, that is not the only plaque I want to show you. Suleiman also extensively repaired the plaza of the temple, and he placed a fountain (sabil) and another plaque with an inscription to document its restoration. It not only confirms that the Temple Mount was an area restored by Suleiman, but it also gives us a date for his decree. It is called Sabil Bab el Atm, meaning fountain at the Gate of Darkness (see photo, top of next page[174]).

The translation of the plaque (photo above)[175] is: “He has ordered the construction of this blessed Sabil, our Master, the Sultan, the greatest Sultan and the honourable Hakan, who rules the necks of the nations, the Sultan of the lands of Rum, the Arabs and Persians (ajams), the Sultan Suleyman, son of Sultan Selim Khan, may Allah perpetuate his reign and sultanate, On the date of Hijra of the Prophet at the beginning of Shaban the blessed in the year 943. And blessings be upon Muhammad and upon his followers.”[176]

— Dr. Christian Widener (Witnessing the End: Daniel’s Seventy Sevens and the Final Decree Everyone Missed)

In footnote 176, Widener states the source of the plaque translation and then continues.

Tutuncu. Turkish Jerusalem, 74; In total, Suleiman had nearly three dozen inscriptions documenting his work in Jerusalem between 1536-1541. Within the walls of the city, the oldest is at the Sabil el Wad, which is near the Bab el Kattanin (Cotton Merchants Gate) of the Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount). It is dated December 14th, 1536. The next oldest one is at another fountain (sabil) in the city called, Sabil Bab el Silsile, dated January 4, 1537. These dates are all very close.

It is worth noting here that Widener discards the older date from December 1536, which logically should have been the date the decree was first issued (or at least within a few weeks of it), and instead accepts the second date which occurred over a month later, precisely because it allows him to link that second date with the year 2020. He realizes the important of 2020. He just thinks it’s the COVID narrative from early 2020 which is at play. He doesn’t grasp what actually occurred in December 2020. This illogical choice of the second date is a weakness in Widener’s view. We must find a way to make the oldest inscription fit within our paradigm.

Now, before I had even gotten the book in hand and read through all the details, I had seen the year of the decree from Widener’s website. And on my plane flight that morning, I was furiously writing down dates on an index card, trying to see how this might fit with everything else. I saw at once that it was almost perfect. The problem was, this decree was off by one year.

Once I got the book and found the December 14, 1536 date, I realized that it was off by exactly one year. To the very day. What are the odds? There was no way this could be a coincidence.

I did more research.

Sabil el Wad in Jerusalem. Photo by Juandev. (Creative Commons License)

The inscriptions, as you may have noticed above do not reference Gregorian years. Instead, they refer to Islamic years, or Hijri years, which are based on the Islamic lunar calendar. The counting for this system began in AD 622 when Muhammad migrated from Mecca to Medina. Because the system is lunar based, the starting time of the year is not tethered to the seasons, as our Gregorian calendar is. In other words, it rotates over time, since the year is only 354 days in length. In Hijri year 943, for example, the year would have begun in July.

Now, there are few possible sources of error when our mainstream history went about correlating Hijri years to Gregorian years. But I think the one most likely to have been responsible for this one-year delta is the starting year. They may have gotten the starting year wrong. What if in all actuality it was AD 623? Then everything would be off by one year.

This is what I believe most likely happened. After all, AD 623 was over 1,400 years ago. We do not necessarily have 100% precision on dates that old. Frankly, being one year off is well within reasonable expectations for the starting point of the Islamic calendar.

However, it is also possible that AD 622 was indeed the correct starting year, but that the number and frequency of leap years practiced during the first 943 years of the calendar’s usage (in which there would have been 355 days instead of 354) were significantly miscalculated by modern historians. This could also result in being roughly one full year off.

Now, the reason I know it cannot be December 14, 1536 is that I know something else of historical importance which just so happens to have occurred on December 14, 2020. The return of the days of Noah. And that event cannot feasibly be 484 years and 1 day from the decree. It must necessarily be 483 years and 1 day away in order for the other prophecies to fit. In other words, it must be 1 day into the seventieth week.

In short, I believe the correct starting point for the decree, based on the evidence we have, is December 14, 1537. Now, could the decree actually have been given two or three weeks before that day, and the oldest inscription was simply crafted a bit later, after the workers had had enough time to construct the fountain? That is entirely plausible and I would say even likely. But it doesn’t really change anything. If the decree was given November 26th (a random date), everything else would still fit perfectly. Either way, the abomination takes place early in the seventieth week, leaving seven full years for burning weapons (Ezekiel 39:8-9).

One of the things I love about Widener is that he recognizes the central importance of the abomination of desolation. This is the well-known Old Testament prophecy of Daniel (Daniel 9:27) which Christ repeats and reframes in his Olivet discourse. Today, most people interested in the end times take a dispensational view of things. And, almost invariably, these people - like obedient children - focus only on what they are told by their paradigm to focus on. And that is decidedly the mark of the beast. But Widener knows this is all just a ruse. A ploy by the Devil to distract believers from the real deep truths by proffering a counterfeit which claims to be from the Word itself. And yet what most think of as the physical mark of the beast is nothing like the spiritual and symbolic reality described in the book of Revelation.

This is an end times litmus test, if ever I have found one. It is invaluable to ascertain whether the person you are learning from is focused on the mark or on the abomination. If it’s the mark, they may have some valuable truths still to share, but they are not a deep thinker. If it’s the abomination, then they are at least thinking clearly and are familiar with the Word. They may not have everything sorted yet, but they are at least on the right track.

The mark of the beast is a psyop. You should be focusing on the final fulfillment of Matthew 24:15 (the abomination).

Now, because the abomination took place almost immediately at the start of the seventieth week, there are seven years between the abomination and the start of the 490th year. The 490th year must begin in order for the prophecy to be fulfilled. But it also must not end prior to the return of Christ. Do you see? The 490th year must begin. But the 491st must not.

This simple logic, then, gives us a one-year time window for the return of Christ. He must return after 12/14/2027, yet before 12/14/2028.

If, however, I am wrong about moving year 943 to December of 1537, then the 490th year could begin in December of 2026 and run through December 2027. This would fit with Widener’s view. However, I don’t think that this structure fits as well with the year of the cross and the other data points we have, but I must acknowledge that it is a possibility.

Either way, we are looking at 2027 or 2028 for the return of Christ based on this second decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem.

Incidentally, I believe this third fulfillment from 1537 to 2028 (or possibly 1536 to 2027) is why verse 27 of Daniel 9 was written purposely vague. It was written in such a way as to allow for multiple fulfillments. In other word, the pronoun “he” is purposely not applied to a specific character from verse 26. It can therefore apply to both Messiah (in the first 490-year fulfillment) and to the Prince that is to come/Antichrist (in the final 490-year fulfillment). When looked at in this light, has our God not beautifully crafted this complex prophecy?

Will we trust him and believe what he has revealed regarding the soon return of his Son? Will we trust him to perfectly complete this third and final fulfillment of Daniel 9 by sending Christ back to earth at the appointed time? Whether we choose to believe or not, the King is coming.

Maranatha.