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Tuesday, December 30, 2008

The Order of Daniel


Latest Prayer Alert: November 28, 2020


A couple of years ago I shared some thoughts with a proponent of the so-called "EU beast" revived Roman Empire one world order theories. This person has sold millions of books.

The EU beast king of the jungle confusion is one of several story lines that miss the geography embedded in the book of Daniel. One problem is that modern prophecy teachers have proposed their teachings based on a premise that the vortex of the Bible has shifted west, but it has not. 

God's eyes remain on Jerusalem.

Yours should too! There is no goal here to sell opinion, tradition a book or make money. There's no need to convince anyone of anything either, but I do know it's important to provide some basic information for those who like me, are seeking truth from the Bible with an eye on the Promised Land and history.

Following the restoration of Israel as a nation-state in 1948, and the revival of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount in 1967, many common sense Bible believers now realize that the geography of the Bible's prophecies were never forgotten by the Almighty God of Israel.

Like the Ten Commandments, God's promises are set in stone and like Jerusalem, prophecy has not moved an inch toward Rome.

After terror hit the land of the free on 9/11, I woke up. I'm not the only one. There has been a spiritual wake up call across the globe that has opened hearts to God's unchanging written word. Many people are now tossing aside book selling theories and are taking a look at the Bible with an eye on radical Islam and Ishmael's wild donkey declaration in Genesis 16:12:
"He shall be a wild donkey of a man,
his hand against everyone
and everyone's hand against him,
and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen.”  
Ishmael's beast of burden has its toes in the Middle East.  

Daniel's prophecies are a part of the Bible's promise. His story begins with Nebuchadnezzar's dream, the balance of the book unfolds its interpretation over thousands of years. Daniel is given visions as downloads from Heaven about the details of Nebuchadnezzar's dream. Along the way, Daniel is given interpretation too, remarkably with some critical timelines of when God will begin to restore His Kingdom and ultimately revive mankind back to His image. 

It's important to picture Nebuchadnezzar dream. It was about "Gentile" nations that stake claims and dominion through the long history of Jerusalem and the Jewish people. 

Over time each Kingdom degrades in stature and in the end interferes with God's glory plan to restore His Kingdom on earth as it was in Eden. 

A big key to understanding Daniel is to realize that we all need to study the Word of God just as Daniel did. Not in part and parcels, but the whole Bible. Daniel read the promises of "The Prophets" that declare the voice of God.

Do you know the job description of a prophet? 

They don't make predictions, they repeat what the sovereign Lord God tells them.

Daniel studied God's voice recorded by his peer, the prophet Jeremiah. We need to be like Daniel and study the prophets too because they offer gifts from God given to unlock the mysteries of Israel that are not usually found in a New York Times best seller.  

Daniel understood the words of Amos 3:7 that were written over 200 years before Daniel's deportation in exile to Babylon as a young man:
"Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secrets to his servants the prophets."
A big part in reading the scrolls of Daniel is an assignment to connect the jots and tittles of the Bible. So we must be a Berean too and study the Word of God. We need to look at history too if we are the understand the order of Daniel. 

Daniel was praying and studying Jeremiah's scroll when he read about the sevens, the Shemittah years and the light bulbs lit up. He saw a prophetic link to the seventy year exile from the young man that he had admired back in Judea. The exile was in real-time for Daniel, today it is a historic fact. Daniel lived it and connected God's word to Jeremiah with his own geo-political reality in Babylon. Jeremiah did not make the trip, the Babylonians let him stay at home, likely because they admired how he had warned everyone they were coming. 

God gave Daniel a revelation about Torah instruction and His appointment with some time lines because The LORD loves us and He wants those that seek truth to understand His latter day plan for the redemption of Israel and mankind. Daniel knew that. 

Daniel also knew the original message of the deceiver. Daniel understood we can't fall for the idea that God changes His mind. Everything is connected including the 70 weeks, 1290 days, 1260 and the 1,335 days.

Daniel knew tribulation too. He was there when it arrived in Jerusalem with a Babylonian sword that would last 70 years.

The western media seeks to sanitize truth, so much so, 
few realize we have just seen the greatest persecution in history.

The Holocaust was unimaginable and just 70 short years ago. It literally just happened and it's tribulation was much worse than Nebuchadnezzar's attack on Jerusalem and the Jewish people.

Six million Jewish people were marked and murdered, millions others brutalized in Hitler's "little horn" nightmare vision of absolute evil that he poured out across Europe. Not only that, some sixty million non-Jews among the nations died during World War II. Just 30 year earlier, fifty-nine million people died during World War I. 

That's 100,000,000 dead souls in two short wars with just a young life span of separation!!!

Today, persecution is ramping up again. It's a revival from the dark side of a radical Islamic Jihad that arose with the Ottoman Empire. Few people seem to know that the Ottoman's not only took controls of Israel for 400 years, they also tried to obliterate the Christians of Armenia. The Armenian preced Hitler's genocide. The Ottoman Turks undertook the systematic killing and deportation of Christian Armenians in 1915, during World War I as the leaders of the empire set in motion their plan to massacre over over one million Armenians. Why did they do that? To understand, you need to know the facts. Armenia was the first country on this planet to adopt Christianity as their official state way of life. They did that in 314AD.

Today, evil is emanating from the same place Daniel wrote his scrolls and there is a link to Jerusalem so for Heaven's sake --- wake up!! 

The seemingly random chaos of today's vicious terror is from extreme radicals blowing people up or beheading them in the name of Allah as they seek to restore their Caliphate to control the planet with fear. Their terror comes out of the words of the Koran, the Suras and the Hadiths as these demonic radicals are brainwashed by radical Sunni Imams and Shia Mullahs. 

They all use the Koran to cast a dark shadow on Mecca. The Jewish people on the other hand, shed light on Jerusalem with the Bible and the Bible shows us God's high beam focus is on the Temple Mount.

The reason is that it's the set apart place of the Almighty God of Israel chose to put His name and its the place that He will establish His ever lasting Kingdom. That isn't just a Jewish understanding. Gentile kings by the names of Cyrus, Darius and Artaxerxes around Daniel's time all understood this. We must too if we are to ever understand the sealed book Daniel gave to us that would be unsealed in the latter days.

You can read what leaders like Cyrus, Darius and Artaxerxes accomplished from the record of Ezra and Nehemiah. Both Ezra and Nehemiah served in Artaxerxes Persian court. Ezra was a Torah scroll scribe and teacher. Both he and Nehemiah who was a governor of Persian Judea were appointed by Artaxerxes and he sent them to Jerusalem to restore it. 

Daniel was given a countdown to Messiah the Prince. You can find that fact in Daniel 9 and the decress of Cyrus and Artaxerxes are tied to it. A copy of Artaxerxes decree is recorded for you to see in Ezra 7. Cyrus has a record outside the Bible. It's called the Cyrus cylinder and it in the British Museum. God preserved it for a reason.

Can we also connect the phrase "a time, times, and half a time" in Daniel 12:7 if we consider Nebuchadnezzar shattered Judah and took them into exile some 2,500 years before the modern nation state was formed? 

Yet it was Artaxerxes' decree that connects Ezra and Nehemiah's repairs in Jerusalem to Messiah's cross. Artaxerxes' decree was circa 444BC, seven (7) weeks and sixty-two (62) weeks of years in Hebrew counting brings us to the Passover week in Jerusalem when this was accomplished to seal up the interpretation of Daniel's vision stated in Daniel 9:24-26:
  • End of transgression and sin
  • Reconciliation for iniquity to bring in everlasting righteousness
  • Seal up vision and prophecy
  • Anoint the most holy
So, we must reconsider Daniel's words. Not only that, we have to know Matthew's grouping of generation timelines connects the beginning of the journey to establish the forever Kingdom of God in Israel.

To consider this bold statement, we have to know how Mattityahu ends his unfinished story. He concludes it with the "Great Commission." The physical sign of that commission is the Jewish people today. They officially returned to the place of Abraham's covenant blessing in 1948, and their mission there whether widely known or not, is to prepare the land for The Kingdom and the return of Messiah Yeshua.

Without question you should study all you can Cyrus and Artaxerxes. They are forever linked to Daniel 9 and the words that provide a countdown to the anointed Messiah to be cut off before the second Temple destruction by the dark Roman prince Titus in 70AD:
"Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed"
Daniel was told that the anointed one would: "to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place"

Both decrees of Cyrus and Artaxerxes give two witnesses of the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem before this could Messiah could artive. Daniel was told the anointed Messiah would be revealed at the end of the 69th 'week' of years. 

It came true. Cyrus and Artaxerxes decrees of kindness are tied to key points in Messiah's first trip. Both decrees have impacted the entire planet. 

King Artaxerxes sent Ezra and Nehemiah back as two witnesses with a mission and money to rebuild the destruction of Babylon's reign and to restore the decrees of the Almighty God of Heaven. Artaxerxes may not have realized his assignment was to prepare Jerusalem for Messiah's arrival, but God used this Gentile to set redemption in motion and set the stage for Kingdom restoration in the latter days.  

Artaxerxes was a Gentile believer and he honored both Ezra and Nehemiah and Almighty God when he returned the silver and gold Temple treasures that Nebuchadnezzar had stolen with his restoration, preparation assignment. 

Today, the Jewish people have the same restoration assignment. They are in Israel, arisen from the ashes and gas chambers of the Holocaust fully engaged with that preparation.

The Jewish people have returned again 
and few realize it but they are there to restore
the land again for the return of Messiah!!

Whether you think it will be Messiah's first or second trip, let that soak in because there remains a desolation of abomination in Jerusalem and we need to see it for what it is and it is tied to the timelines of Daniel as well. The reason, the seasons of prophecy cycle.

Jumping back to my brief exchange with the now famous, best-selling author, I expressed deep concern for a wild-eyed teaching to sell books with the idea that a Pope from the Vatican will become an EU anti-christ and take over the planet just before a great Christian escape and tribulation for the Jewish people. 

His NY Times best sellers may have made make him rich and famous, but unwittingly he has handed out a big dose of slavery by taking away from Torah that Ezra taught as his books are in conflict with Moses' dire warning in Deuteronomy 12:32: 
“Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it."
The reason for that timeless warning is that Moses knew the words he recorded were direct from the voice of Almighty God, every jot and tittle. Moses added nothing to them, and he never took anything from them, nether did Yeshua.

Many readers may be startled by the thought of it, but we must "re-consider" the words of Daniel have nothing to do with an end-time revived Roman Empire or an unscheduled rapture ride escaping a one world order headquartered in Rome. 

The words of Daniel can't be twisted to fit that view, they are just as they are written with a focus on Jerusalem. If we look at what we see today with every photo of the Temple Mount, there's something front and center in every photo and it's connected to 1948, 1967 and the latter days.

We must look to Jerusalem, the Temple Mount and the Jewish people if we want to understand the prophetic messages given to Daniel or the time stamps marked with this unchanging promise:
“Go your way, Daniel, for these words are concealed and sealed up until the end time." Daniel 12:9
I am certainly not saying I can unseal any of the words given to Daniel, after all, I'm just a student, not a prophet, but I do know we must consider how important they are and look for the seals that are breaking to unroll the scroll. 

To understand how important they are, we have to remember, Jesus (aka Yeshua) acknowledged Daniel's son of man vision when He called himself the son of man. Yeshua used Daniel's description of from the Aramaic portion of the scroll calling out the כְּבַ֥ר אֱנָ֖שׁ "bar enash" son of man because His preaching was always focused on the gospel of the Kingdom promise revealed in Daniel 7:
"His kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom,
and all dominions shall serve and obey him." 
Not only that, it's thought that Yeshua of Nazareth and the disciples spoke Aramaic and well as Hebrew. 

When the disciples asked Yeshua about the sign and timing of the end of the age as they stood at the Temple Mount (Matthew 24:15 and Mark 13:14), Jesus pointed them back to Daniel's Aramaic portion of the scroll. He gave them a marker in time linked to the fourth beast power described in Daniel 7 too. 

We have to consider that Yeshua was explaining the meaning of Daniel 12:11 that is connected to a 1290 and 1260 year time line before the King returns to defend His people and establish His Kingdom on Earth as it is in Heaven:
“Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place…”
Yeshua was telling His disciples and all of us that something we'll see is important. 

Daniel's visions and their interpretations are CRITICAL to the Kingdom of God and that the holy place we should all know as the Temple Mount. It is a visual time vortex that is critical to the Kingdom, so the abomination of desolation that's there right now needs to be understood. It's been there since the days of the Ottoman's absolute ban on non-Muslim access to the Temple Mount to pray too. That will soon change, and when it does, you better open your eyes and your heart and affix them on Jerusalem!

The most mis-understood prophecies are those about the “abomination of desolation” reference in Matthew 24 when Yeshua gives weight to the concluding words of Daniel 9:27 as well as Daniel 11:31 and Daniel 12:11. 

Without hesitation, Jesus reminds His Jewish disciples to remember these prophetic words because they are embedded in God's plan for His House of Prayer for all peoples, the reason: it will not remain a den for robbers.

When we realize that the Temple Solomon built was ransacked by Babykon's Nebuchadnezzar occurred in 586BC and the cycle of “desolation” he started returned in 167BC with the Greek tyrant Antiochus Epiphanes and again in 70AD with the Roman Titus, we must know we have to look to Jerusalem in these latter days with a focus on the Temple Mount to begin to unseal Daniel's and Yeshua's words.

Here are the facts: today, both Jewish and Christian prayer is desolate atop the location of God's House of Prayer. It's been that way for years, reserved for Muslim prayer to another god. It's a den of robbers, any call to prayer there today is a call to Islam.

No only that, every eye that looks at the Temple Mount today sees that gold dome. You can't miss it. That fact should point us al to a question. When was it put there by the Muslims? The answer points us back to the construction of the Dome of the Rock that started in 688AD and the fact that it was completed in 691AD.

There's a lot to learn. 

Long before that, a Greek madman named Antiochus IV Epiphanes arrived in Jerusalem in 167BC, he also brought desolation and abomination to prayer. His name at the time was not Antiochus, that name is adopted, it was Mithradates, meaning "gift of Mithra." That's a big clue because the mythic false-god Mithra was the Persian god of light. 

The old myth of Mithra from Iran says that the Persian god of light was born under a so-called sacred tree with a torch and sword in his hands. Think about that tree for a minute...

After Alexander the Great conquered Persia, the ancient religion of Mithraism was adopted and it spread from today's Iran and Syria as it morphed and eventually gained a firm foothold in the Roman Empire's idol system. The cult of Mithra was a viral religious disease spread by the foot soldiers of the Roman Empire everywhere they went. Mithra's legends mutated like a virus against the God of Israel as the Greek sun god, Helios, and the Roman sun god, Sol Invictus. Those false idols are the same, just different names in different times.

Back in 167BC, Antiochus (Mithradates) sent his armies to Jerusalem and ordered them to tear apart the city with 22,000 warriors. The Greeks attacked on a Sabbath, killing most of the faithful Jewish men in the old city as they enslaved thousands of Jewish women and children as their sex and labor slaves.  

Jerusalem’s walls that had been restored by Ezra and Nehemiah were damaged again and Antiochus set up his military garrison immediately south of the Temple Mount near the City of David.

The Torah of God was immediately outlawed by Antiochus. His was perhaps the world's first Bible ban, after all, not even king Nebuchadnezzer outlawed the Bible. As the Levites were murdered by Antiochus, the daily tamid sacrifices and prayers were extinguished with their lives.

Their offerings had continued for years even after Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon attacked in 586BC. Jeremiah is the witness to that. Back in the day, Jeremiah was given a choice, He did not go in chains with Daniel to Babylon. He remained in Judah and his account reveals that grain offerings and incense continued on (see Jeremiah 41:5), but Antiochus did not allow the offerings because he wiped out the priesthood.

Antiochus was ruthless. He ordered that a monument to the Greek god Zeus be erected over the Altar of burnt offerings, as the abominable worship of Zeus (the master of the earth) desolated the Temple Mount almost 200 years before Yeshua warned of another abomination of desolation to come. 

On December 25, 167BC a pig was sacrificed on the Zeus altar to the pagan god of Olympus under Antiochus' order.

Eventually, the Maccabees were able to rise up, revolt and fight back to defeat Antiochus and restore the Temple. Because of their amazing bravery, we can read that Yeshua was at the festival of lights dedication on Solomon's porch that was restored by Herod:
"And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch." John 10:22-23 
Prophecy cycles. Nebuchadnezzar, Antiochus and Titus all foreshadowed the Muslim invasion of Jerusalem led by Caliph Omar some 600 years after the Romans destroyed the Temple in 70AD. 

The Muslim Caliph entered Jerusalem in 661AD and Jerusalem remained under the rule of the Umayyad Dynasty until 750AD. In 688 AD, construction began on the Dome of the Rock. In 691AD, the Muslim shrine honoring Muhammad was completed on the Temple Mount site and it has remained there ever since

It will remain until the return of Israel's Messiah King.

Today, it is used as an abomination to Jewish and Christian prayer along with the Al Aqsa Mosque on the far southern side of the Mount, facing Mecca. The Dome of the Rock sits in the court of the Gentiles near the area where the Temple stood likely where Yeshua cleaned house of the den of robbers. 

Today, the Temple Mount remains in Islam's religious control under the rule of the Muslim Waqf of Amman Jordan.

Do you have the picture now? 

Prophecy cycles in time but its geography doesn't move an inch. Forget Rome!

The Temple Mount reveals the end time “abomination that causes desolation” that the son of man Yeshua warned us all about. His words must point us to the horn (power) of the fourth beast, which as Daniel said was different from all the rest, exceedingly terrifying, with its teeth of iron and claws of bronze, and which devoured and broke in pieces and stamped what was left with its feet. 

That's the vision of Muslim feet that tread the Temple Mount today and cause the desolation Jewish and Christian prayer to the God of Israel. 

Not only that, Daniel 7:21-22 reveals how long this desolation will last:
"As I looked, this horn made war with the saints and prevailed over them, until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given for the saints of the Most High, and the time came when the saints possessed the kingdom."
The thing to remember is that Jesus aka Yeshua described the “abomination that causes desolation” that we see today and Yeshua was at the very scene before the order of Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik to build the Muslim shrine. Think about that.

By these facts, we can see the statue of Zeus points us to a big end-time abomination of desolation problem and the Dome of the Rock is front and center in the picture. 

To gain a better understanding of the issues before us right now, its time to read the Bible. It declares the things that Almighty God calls an abomination. These include things that have happened from the beginning because the world spins on its axis. Days repeat, seasons repeat, what goes around comes around. The six abominations declared by Almighty God include:
  • Homosexuality (Leviticus 18:22)
  • Idol worship (Deuteronomy 7:25-26)
  • Serving false gods (Deuteronomy 13:12-14
  • Cross dressing (Deuteronomy 22:5)
  • Harlotry (Deuteronomy 23:16) 
  • Sinning against the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 23:4)
Each of these abominations point us back to Nebuchadnezzar, Antiochus, Titus, to the Caliphs and now the Muslim Waqf that honors another god at the House of Prayer. They all brought desolation to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. By just looking at Jerusalem, we can see heinous acts of spiritual homosexuality, idol worship and cross dressing harlotry sin against the Almighty God of Israel and the House of Prayer for all peoples.

They all have sinned at the very place God chose to put His name. A big part of God's reputation is the promise of a House of Prayer for all nations at the Temple Mount (see Deuteronomy 12:5; 1Kings 11:13, 1Kings 11:32-36; Psalms 132:13 and 2Chronicles 6:6). So, the thing we all need to know now is that the cycle of history and prophecy has a vortex on Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, not Rome. 

So do Daniel's timeline cycles.

That gives Daniel's prophetic message that Yeshua warned of - great weight today. The reason, the season of a desolation of prayer remains. So, it's time to study Daniel and let the order of the scrolls speak for themselves though history. 

As you read the scrolls, you MUST allow Scripture to define itself and history to validate it as the prophets of the Bible back up the words of Daniel like a second witness. Pray too, that the Spirit of God will teach and unseal the prophetic book as our knowledge increases just as it was promised in Daniel 12:4.

Like the mystery message Gabriel gave to Daniel, Yeshua-Jesus gives us the clues to be looking for before His return as High Priest King of the Planet in Jerusalem. They are listed in Matthew 24 because believe it or not, Yeshua's warnings are a commentary on the book of Daniel for the latter days. 

One of the big clues not yet seen is found in Matthew 24:30. 

It sounds a lot like the sign of the star of Bethlehem. That was an extraordinary celestial event that was seen at the first coming described in Matthew 2:1-12. 

Today, no one really knows what that star was. Some think it was a great comet, others a conjunction of the great planet Jupiter with Regulus. Johannes Kepler, circa 1614 without the aid of a computer, mathematically calculated the orbits of the planets. He believed that the alignment of Jupiter and Saturn might have been what was seen by the "wise men" as the Star of Bethlehem that signaled their journey described in Matthew 2 when the two massive planets aligned in 7 B.C. If you struggle with Kepler's timing, perhaps you shouldn't. The accout says: "For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him." It does not saw we see his star now and the fact that Herod had to ask when the Star appeared is important (see Matthew 2:7).

Still others believe it may have been a bright Supernova explosion, perhaps the reason is found in Matthew 24:29-30 "...the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man."

Perhaps the wise men saw a Jupiter conjunction with Saturn. If so, we should be like Kepler and take note, we will see that again. It may appear and another time of trouble (Matthew 2:13-18) that will arise again for the children of Jacob.

The Supernova theory is intriguing as well. The thing is, a Supernova is the result of star that explodes into a super-bright runaway flash that occurs only at the last stage of a star's existence and it can last for quite a while. Not only that, the Bible tells us that the heavens declare God's glory. King David wrote those words in Psalms 19:1.

NASA/JPL-Caltech: Cassiopeia A - Supernova Remnant

A star's final Supernova state is triggered by what is thought to be nuclear fusion as its power is compressed into the star's core. The result: Supernovas are cataclysmic explosions and they can be so bright that it can be difficult to see other nearby stars. The blast can be so large that they can shine brighter than an entire galaxy and if nearby in relative terms, a Supernova can be seen without a telescope and impossible to miss. 

Perhaps, a possible Supernova candidate is the super red giant pulsating star we know as Betelgeuse, or maybe not! I've often thought that this giant red pulsating star could provide a potential answer to the Isaiah 7:11 challenge and point to the second arrival of Messiah described in Matthew 24:30 and 1Corinthians 15:41.

When I read Matthew 24, the thing that is curious to me about Matthew's Greek manuscript verse in Matthew 24:30 is that the words καί αὐτῆς are translated as "and the stars." According to Strong's Greek lexicon the word "astēr" αὐτῆς is a singular star. That's how it is rendered in various translations including Matthew 2:2, Revelation 8:10, Revelation 2:28 and Revelation 22:16. 

Here's what Yeshua said will happen before His return: like the first visit, it includes another big-time celestial sign:
“Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." Matthew 24:29-30
This commentary does not offer a resolution to unsealing that future celestial sign, its timing before the return or fully revealing the mystery visions of Daniel. The reason, we must continue to study the Scriptures and we have to keep an eye on history, on Jerusalem and the Temple Mount as well as the heavens above because "the sign" of Messiah will appear again and I don't think I'll need my telescope.

All of this requires continuous prayer for discernment. 

By the way, regarding the potential of Betelgeuse, that word means “the coming of the branch” and the constellation that it resides in is Orion. That constellation is mentioned twice in the book of Job and once in the prophecy of Amos so its important. Orion means “coming forth as light.” I just thought you should know that.

Continuing on, let's turn back to Daniel's prayer. His prayer is focused on God's House of Prayer, so we must learn from Daniels words because that prayer remains for good reason today

That prayer in Babylon contains confession, humility, worship, a call for obedience and a plea for mercy, with powerful Biblical basis. If we too will pray Daniel's prayer (Daniel 9:4-19) we may just get to participate in its fulfillment, but only The Lord knows. 

Daniel's prayer declares this:
O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. 
We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. 
To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame, as at this day, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, in all the lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery that they have committed against you. To us, O LORD, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you
To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God by walking in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets. 
All Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside, refusing to obey your voice. 
And the curse and oath that are written in the Law of Moses the servant of God have been poured out upon us, because we have sinned against Him. He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us and against our rulers who ruled us, by bringing upon us a great calamity. For under the whole heaven there has not been done anything like what has been done against Jerusalem. 
As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us; yet we have not entreated the favor of the LORD our God, turning from our iniquities and gaining insight by your truth. Therefore the LORD has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us, for the LORD our God is righteous in all the works that he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice. And now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and have made a name for yourself, as at this day, we have sinned, we have done wickedly. 
O Lord, according to all your righteous acts, let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city Jerusalem, your holy hill, because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a byword among all who are around us. 
Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy, and for your own sake, O Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. 
For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.”
Amen and amen!

Now let's start to dig in and study the book of Daniel. One of the first things to notice is the diary-like information given by Daniel in the prologue of each "chapter" and just like the book of Jeremiah, it's not assembled today in chronologic event order. It's as if the scrolls were dropped, picked up and published out of order.

Not only that numbering verses and chapters is fairly new. The first person to assign chapters was Stephen Langton, an Archbishop of Canterbury and the Hebrew Bible was divided into verses by a Jewish rabbi in 1448. 

Bible publishers have used those chapters since the days of the Geneva Bible, but chapter and verse numbers are not always a good thing because the division can dull our understanding of the original manuscripts of the Bible whether studying Daniel or any other book, chapter or verse including Jeremiah. 

Numbered chapters and verses are not all bad. They can get everyone on the same page, but they can also can break the theme and flow of the messages of the scrolls and limit our understanding of the bigger message within them. Remember, the Word of God in Daniel's day was revealed by unrolling a scroll one portion at a time. You could never turn a page to jump around the text one verse or chapter at a time, you had to study the flow of each scroll and if you dropped them, they could get out of order. 

Perhaps that's what happened with the scribes that created the manuscripts of Daniel and Jeremiah, but if so there's likely a God reason for that. 

The point is, we need to seek the whole truth and not be too dogmatic concerning "hidden" or "mysterious" interpretations of Scripture that come from taking a snippet or two out of context. In regard to Daniel, chapters 8-12 should be read together as a unified message, not segregated.

Not only that, the Bible is a history book with eternal lessons, so we have to look at history to understand them. 

Speaking of history, the scrolls of Daniel were recorded circa 586 BC - 536 BC. Like Jeremiah's scrolls, the dates can be discovered if we look carefully at the chronology of the historic timelines recorded by each scribe. Danile and Jeremiah used timeline markers for a reason, because nothing is random in the Bible. 

There are many resources, to help us get a better picture on the timelines in Scripture. You might want to get a few of them, believe me they can help, a-lot. 

Thank The Lord, Daniel's visions have a series of embedded date stamps clues to help us along the way.

I've been thinking, if we re-read the chapters in the historic order recorded by Daniel, then our understanding of the cycle of their prophecies might be improved. More importantly, if we step back and study how the prophecies that are fully supported by latter historic events, the embedded timelines for the future may begin to crack open their end-time seals.

The messenger of God that spoke to Daniel promised to "open up" the words of Daniel in the latter days. He did this by declaring knowledge will increase. 

In other words, historic events (knowledge) and the Bible will unveil the seals of the prophecies. The book of Daniel is a history lesson in advance. It points to Jerusalem and the need to understand they are not just scrolls but history in advance tied to redemption and the restoration of God's Kingdom on earth. 

If we speculate with a near-sighted view of Jerusalem, history or God's unchanging Word, we try to pry prophetic words to fit our perception or expectation without a proper foundation and we could end up with our eyes on Rome instead of Jerusalem. 

Take note: I'm just learning too and this commentary does not purport to give all the answers, just uncover some cracks in the hints of history with an eye on Scripture study so that we can better share God's Kingdom plan. 

We have to remember, prophecy is like a season, it cycles like a chaism. Scripture passages that provide examples of chiastic structure include Ecclesiastes 11:3-12:2, Genesis 6-9, Amos 5:4-6, Isaiah 1:21-26. Joshua 1:5-9 and Revelation. Chiastic patterns in the Bible give us all examples of the 3-D dimensions of God's prophetic voice.

If we don't understand that, then we may miss the Messiah Prince in the Daniel 9 message and confuse Him with an anti-christ from Rome. 

Remember, a scroll is like a garment, it holds the body of the voice of God given to mankind as a eternal life instruction manual unrolling toward the Kingdom of God, so remember what Yeshua prayed and how it applies to how we read the Bible:
“Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” And they cast lots, dividing up His garments among themselves." Luke 23:34
If we divide the Bible, we won't get God's message, we have to look at the whole scroll, the big picture.

With that in mind, let's take another look at Daniel 9. Here, Daniel's prophecy deals with the timing of Jerusalem's restoration with Messiah's crucifixion and the subsequent destruction of Jerusalem that came about by Roman Legions, the foot soldiers and horsemen known as the Decuriones, Praefectus and the Centurions.

For critical insight on just "who" these "Legions" really were, we have to look at the truth embedded in Roman history because it will help define the people, the events to come and the geography of the cycle of the prophecies described by Daniel as "the latter days."

The truth is, if we do some basic research, we can find that the real people who were under the command Rome's "Legions" some 2,000 years ago were led by Roman officers all right, but the men under their command that attacked and destroyed Jerusalem some 40 years after Messiah's ministry began at the mikvah in the Jordan River were actually not who you might think of. They were not typical Roman foot soldiers seen in all the Bible movies from Hollywood. 

This is critical to know if we are to understand Gabriel's words: the latter end of the indignation, for it refers to the appointed time of the end!

The facts on the ground 2,000 years ago are that the "Legions" of Titus were a remnant of the ancient enemies of Israel. They were descendants of the same people groups that Joshua was told to drive out of the Promised Land. Joshua did not complete the task, so they remained. 

Documented Roman history reveals the Legions included recruits of local warrior tribesmen, descendants of Ishmael, Esau and the Philistines drafted by the Romans from the native peoples of the Middle East that surrounded Judea and Samaria in 70 AD. 

Many of their descendants are there today, still demanding destruction of the Jewish people, division of the land and a Palestinian State. The Persians with Haman's goal still remain demanding that Israel be pushed into the sea.

Like the days of antiquity, they all have something in common as they follow the false-god worship of a false prophet. Some of them even sling arrows by rocket fire from Gaza. Today, their false-god counterfeit is not called Mithras, Molech or Zeus, there is another name... it's Allah and they make the Temple Mount desolate of prayer to the God of Israel by the people called Israel.

Understanding this fact is critical if we are to understand the identity of the fourth "beast" Daniel writes about or comprehend the fanatical ideology and religious chaos of the last empire of divided toes described in Daniel 2:34. Those toes are now divided as Sunni and Shi'ite from the revived beast remnant of the Ottoman Empire and many of them trample the Temple Mount every day.

The Shi'ite toes of iron have emerged in plain sight. They stand against Israel like an ancient enemy before our post 9/11 eyes. The Persian Ayatollahs of Iran have a wild ram's nuclear goal, to rule the Middle East and wipe Israel and its people off the map. Yet in many ways, the Arab clay nations remain peaceful and two of them have standing peace treaties with Israel. Egypt and Jordan. 

Neither iron nor clay follows in the footsteps of the God of Israel or honors the right of the Jewish people to pray on a knee or read the Torah atop the Temple Mount. For that reason, there is an abomination of desolation today right before our eyes. 

That abomination is a desolation of prayer to the God of Israel at the very place He chose for His House of Prayer for all peoples. 

This Muslim beast and its horn cohorts do not recognize the Temple Mount as the House of Prayer for all nations that worship the God of Israel. It uses the media to deceive us, calling Judea and Samaria the West Bank. The beast rejects the land grant promised to Abraham as Hamas radicals fire their rockets at Israel to prove it. 

Botton-line, these divided toes of iron and clay are the people anyone can read about in Genesis 15:18-21.

They are from the tribes of Edom, the Ishmaelites, Moab, and the Hagarenes, Gebal, Ammon, Amalek and the the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre and Assur.

With their Roman anti-semite warrior draft service some 2,000 years ago as foot soldiers recruited into the Roman "Legions" and the recruits were given Roman citizenship for their service.  Today, they seek citizenship in a Palestinian State!

There are many historic sources of this truth about the Legions and their proxy kingdoms. You can find them on your own if you just look. The foot soldiers of the Legions weren't regular troops, they were proxy mercenaries just as Hamas is today for Iran. Back in the day, the realms of the so-called "client kings" were largely seen as an extended part of the Roman Empire. Their so-called royal houses owed their position to Rome. 

As part of the arrangement between Rome and the client kingdoms, the kings had to provide troops for Roman war campaigns. 

It was common for the legions of such kings to fight under Roman forces in battle against the declare enemy of the Roman Empire.

For example, in 70AD, Titus' army in Judaea was accompanied by the foot soldiers of Agrippa II (Palestine), Sohaemus (Emesa) and Antiochus IV (Commagene). The troops from these client kingdoms were trained like Romans in order to be more effective on the battlefield when working in union with the Roman military leaders.

The annexation of Galatia as a Roman province brought thirty cohorts of King Deiotarus under Roman command and they formed Roman the legion known as Legion XXI. Through annexation, the vast majority of troops from the client kingdoms became auxiliary forces used by the Romans to fight their battles.

So, with that jolt to your sense of reality about the Legions of Titus that destroyed Jerusalem and sent the Jewish people into exile until May 1948, take a another look at Daniel 9, because at the end of the chapter, you will find the words cited by many of today's "prophecy" teachers that are handing out mis-information related to an end-time global "peace treaty." As already noted, some say the global peace on earth will be led by a so-called EU one world order anti-christ beast from Rome, but the beast is not a Pope for crying out loud.

It's time to clean out our itchy ear opinions and study Roman "Legion" history and the Bible. Now, let's re-read Daniel and ask: what is that "covenant" noted in Daniel, is it a really a global one world order peace treaty?
“And he will confirm the covenant with many for one week:” Daniel 9:27
Since we must use Scripture to define Scripture, I’d like to ask you to consider something critically important about a covenant. In the Bible, “covenants” are always made by The God of Israel with His people. As you ponder that fact, keep in mind the great Jewish tradition of asking questions to seek truth: 

Is it possible for us to reconsider the "covenant" and the "week" of Daniel 9?

Daniel actually points to the very same covenant he prays about just a few verses earlier. 

For insight to that fact, let's go back and look at Daniel's prayer:
“And I prayed unto the LORD my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments” Daniel 9:4
Daniel is talking about the "covenant" of mercy and lovingkindness found in the Torah given to those that love Him and keep His commandments. Lovingkindness was declared to Israel and the sojourners with them in the wilderness from the fire and cloud at the Sinai mountaintop. You can read it in Numbers 34:6-7 and Numbers 14:18-19.

We can never forget Mount Sinai, it was there that God described His character to Moses after the Golden Calf sin. It's about the promise of forgiveness if we repent which is part of the covenant. Moses ties this together in Deuteronomy 7:9 and it's noted by Solomon in 1Kings 8:23 at the Temple's dedication.

Daniel's reference to this covenant connection is: "the covenant of the LORD God of their fathers, which God made with them when He brought them forth out of the land of Egypt."

So much for a future one world order EU peace treaty picked out from a single verse without context!

The covenant is not a manmade peace treaty, because Daniel is writing about the eternal covenant of God embedded in His lovingkindness, mercy and forgiveness given at Mount Sinai to the family of God and the sojourners with Israel after they broke the first covenant by impatiently worshipping that golden Egyptian calf idol.

Daniel gives us no reference to a misguided, Torah-less opinion of an end time peace treaty with an EU Papal anti-christ. That's only a theory that sells lots of books and makes for unscriptural sermons that lead to confusion and chaos about God's plan. 

Instead, Daniel writes about what he knew to be true.

Before we dig in further, it's time to go back to the beginning of Daniel and look at it with an outline on some more historic fact. 

Daniel chapters 1-4 align with the reign of the historic head of gold, Babylon's king Nebuchadnezzar.

These four chapters are in sequential order according to the Biblical and non-Biblical documented history of Nebuchadnezzar during Judah's exile following Jerusalem's destruction. This sequence is seen in Daniel's diary-like time-lines. 

Following the opening four chapters, Daniel notates other rulers and kings and their time lines can seem a bit confusing, so let's look at the chronology.

First, we have to reconsider what we should already know, Daniel did not write in a codex or book of contiguous "chapters" as we do. In fact, Daniel did not write a "book" at all, he wrote his accounts and visions on scrolls, some in Hebrew and some in Aramaic. His words were penned at different time periods too, they read like flashbacks in a movie, all highlighted and noted by the kingly reigns he introduces as historic time markers.

Keep in mind, if Daniel were with us today and he wanted to gather up all his writings to review them with us, Daniel would not have a chapter or verse numbered "book" to read. Instead, he would have a set of scrolls. So, the proper way to discern the historic order of each message in the scrolls, means we have to take note of the dating shown at the beginning of each chapter just as Daniel described.

Logically, one would think that Daniel put these time markers in for good reason, a God reason, otherwise, no one but Daniel would discern the order in which the prophetic visions would unfold.

So, as we look at the opening words of each chapter, keep in mind Daniel had no publisher or verse and chapter numbering. Daniel recorded his experiences and visions over many years and not only that he recorded his writings in two different languages. Some chapters are written in Aramaic and the others in Hebrew. Daniel 1 to Daniel 2:4 are inscribed in Hebrew. Chapter two beginning with Daniel 2:5 to Daniel 7:28 are recorded in Chaldee Aramaic, and that's just over half of the book.

Daniel chapters 2-7 are linked to the storyline of Daniel's life and times. After chapter 7, the scrolls shift from Aramaic back to Hebrew for the visions and prophecies linked in Daniel 8 to Daniel 12.

Why is two languages?

Aramaic was a bridge language, a dialect used by those in both the Gentile Babylonian and Persian Empires, Hebrew was and is the language of the Jewish people and its focus is on the God of Israel and Israel. I believe Daniel had two audiences in mind, both Jew and non-Jew.

Hebrew was once a lost language but with the revival of Israel in 1948 it lives again as the national language of Israel fulfilling the prophetic promise of Zephaniah 3:9 for the Jewish people.

Did you know Christian Bible scholars used to say that Daniel was a forgery written "after the fact" around 165BC. Fortunately, in historic Biblical validation, eight (8) sets of the scrolls of Daniel have been found along the Dead Sea within the caves of Qumran in Israel since 1947. 

The Dead Sea scrolls were discovered as if by accident by two Bedouin shepherds, but it was no accident. Their names are Jum'a and Muhammed ed-Dib. They found them just as the Hebrew language was coming back to life again as promised by Zephaniah at the same time the Jewish people were being restored to the Promised Land of Israel to prepare it for the return of Messiah. 

These eight Qumran scrolls destroyed the doubting words of earlier so-called scholars before the 1950's that said the prophetic timelines of Daniel regarding the Prince and the Messiah to come was too accurate to be true, too precise to be written some 500 years before Jesus the Jew walked and taught Torah every Sabbath in synagogues across the Promised Land. 

Before Qumran's discoveries directed by God's providence, the naysayer scholars based their assumptions on doubt, not faith, claiming that Daniel could not have possibly known such precisely dated facts. These scholars were people that claimed the words of Daniel "had to be" fakes written after the fact. 

Guess what... the so-called Bible scholars were are all proven dead wrong at the Dead Sea. 

They had claimed that the prophetic time lines of Daniel pointing to Yeshua could not have been written at the time Daniel lived in Babylon as an exile from Jerualem. Believe it or not, those scholars mistakenly gave weight to the mixture of Aramaic and Hebrew as their proof of forgery. They did not believe the timelines as prophecy and some still doubt them. They did not they understand the Gentile messages reserved for the latter days of Babylon and Persia. They do not believe that the Hebrew portions can teach us about the latter day message for the Jewish people of Israel.

Thanks to the rock throwing Beduin shepherd boy's discoveries at the caves of Qumran, these scholars have all been found to be false prophets. Not only that, there are other witnesses that prove Daniel's writings were well-known long before the first century. 

Both 1st Maccabees (2:59) and Baruch (1:15-3:3) point toward the scrolls of Daniel.

Believe it or not, Daniel's famous 62 and 7 week prophecies gives the exact timing of the first coming of Messiah Yeshua before the Legion destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple Sanctuary. The timeline prophecy was given to Daniel for a reason and it was fulfilled precisely in the Gabriel timeline given to Daniel:
"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." Daniel 9:25-26
As noted, the scrolls of Qumran show us Daniel's message was not written in a common language so we need to consider that further. 

Aramaic is a little-understood language today,  it is actually ancient Chaldean, yet it survives today hidden in plain sight, so do the Chaldean people. 

Believe it or not, the largest Gentile group of people that still use this ancient language are based in Sweden of all places. There are Aramaean Syriac churches all across Sweden as a witness to this fact. The Swedish Language Council says Sweden has one of the largest exile communities of Assyrian and Syriac Christians (also known as Chaldeans) with a population of around 100,000. Södertälje, which has the largest group of Assyrians, more than any other city in Europe, is home to 22,000 Assyrians.

Some 40,000 live in Stockholm County. This website link provides a global population breakdown: A total of 550,000 Assyrians live in Europe now with about the same count in the United States. The largest Assyrian-Chaldean diaspora communities today not only include Södertälje, Sweden but Chicago and our own American motor city Detroit.

Before the discoveries of the scrolls at Qumran, there were no known Hebrew or Aramaic manuscripts of Daniel that were dated earlier than the late tenth-century A.D. Yet, the eight (8) Dead Sea manuscripts, remnant copies of Daniel's original scrolls are very consistent with very few variations. That is very good news and it means that we have solid proof of a faithful record of the prophetic visons and timelines revealed to Daniel over 25 centuries ago. 

So, let's get moving and consider more about the order of Daniel and those timelines. For reference, look at the chapter and verse numbering of the scrolls from our modern publishers. Chapter 9 is the focus of many prophecy students, so let's look at the historic date stamp given in Daniel 9:1:
"In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans"
Chapter 7 is another chapter that has the focus of many serious prophecy students, so let's look at that Daniel 7:1 date stamp:
"In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed: then he wrote the dream, [and] told the sum of the matters."
Belshazzar was the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar and the last king of Babylon at the time of its fall to the Medes. Other sources for information on the reign of Belshazzar have been discovered in the Nabonidus Chronicle, the Cyrus Cylinder, and the Account of Nabonidus that was commissioned by the Persian king Cyrus the Great.

Daniel interpreted the writing on the wall for Belshazzar as the Medes crossed the river and killed king Belshazzar. This momentous event is recorded in Daniel 5 as Nebuchadnezzar's dream of of the statute with the head of gold shifted to the silver chest of the Medes of Persia as Darius the Mede took the kingdom's reign.

If you have read Daniel... did you pay attention to the order?

Belshazzar was killed in chapter 5, but here he is again in chapter 7. How did that happen?

The answer, chapters 5-7 are a Biblical chaism that works just like a flashback in movies. Let's look at this closer, besides his return in Daniel 7, Belshazzar is seen in: Daniel 5:1, Daniel 5:22 and Daniel 5:30 and finally in Daniel 8:1. Let's take a look:
Daniel 5:1 Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand.

Daniel 5:22 And thou his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this;

Daniel 5:30 In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain.

Daniel 8:1 In the third year of the reign of king Belshazzar a vision appeared unto me, [even unto] me Daniel, after that which appeared unto me at the first.
Now, if we unroll the scroll to Daniel chapter 9 check it out, there we find Darius the Mede, the same guy that put Daniel in the lion's den and the scroll gives us the date stamp. It's Darius the Mede in the first verse. Darius was also the king that took control of Babylon after Belshazzar was killed. 

Daniel put these names in his scrolls so that we could follow the story along a timeline tracking the sequence of future events. 

Prophecy is a flashback forward. This is important, history portrays the future of the Middle East where prophecy repeats and unfolds in its epicenter.

Daniel tells us that Darius the Mede ruled Babylon. Other verses about Darius the Mede include:
Daniel 6:1 It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom a hundred and twenty princes, which should be over the whole kingdom;

Daniel 6:28 So this Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius, and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian.

Daniel 11:1 Also I in the first year of Darius the Mede, [even] I, stood to confirm and to strengthen him.
By the way, history tells us Cyrus the Persian ruled Babylon after Darius the Mede. 

Let's re-consider the flashback in Daniel since Belshazzar was "killed" in chapter 5, why do we see him "alive" in later chapters of Daniel?

He's there in Daniel chapters 6, 7 and 8 as well as chapters 9 and 11. References to Belshazzar were found in Babylonian cuneiform inscriptions too. 

Each chapter speaks of Darius running the show in Babylon after Belshazzar's big party. The prophetic message of this flashback then is that events in Babylon are associated with Persia and important for Israel 2,500 years ago just as they will be important again in Israel's future when Persia will be in the picture. 

What we need is an "increase of knowledge" in the latter days to understand this and Daniel was given that very promise in Daniel 12:4.

The eyes of many Bible students turned back to Babylon after 9/11. 

It may have a slightly different label today (Iraq) but the ancient sovereign nations that were front and center in Daniel's day returned to center stage after May 14, 1948. Today, the U.S. has built its largest, most expensive and heavily fortified embassy on the planet in Iraq along the Tigris River after the demise of Saddam Hussein. He was captured hiding in a hole in the ground. A few years later, he was hung on the gallows just like the Persian known as Haman.

For knowledge to increase about the prophecies of Daniel with a focus on Daniel's prayer about returning to the Temple Mount (Mount Moriah) and Jerusalem, we have to understand history and re-consider the abomination of desolation that both Daniel and Yeshua referred to.

We also have to look at the last empire of iron and clay feet in Nebuchadnezzar's dream.

They both point toward the end-time-line of Judah's conflict with some of Ishmael's wild donkey descendants when the Messiah King returns to defeat the latter day enemies of Israel and establish God’s Kingdom in Jerusalem.

With its chaisms, the book of Daniel can seem confusing. For example, chapter 10 is a continuation of ram goat vision in chapter 8 separated by chapter 9. The ram goat conflict set Daniel trembling on his hands and knees when one who "resembled a human" dressed in linen with a golden belt arrived from Persia. That was the twenty-fourth day of the first month of Nisan, 14 days after Passover and the messenger said this:
"I have come to give you an understanding of what will happen to your people in the latter days, for the vision pertains to the days yet future.”
This Heavenly messenger sounds just like the messenger in John's revelation vision. In fact, the same thing happened to John at Patmos that happened to Daniel some 600 years earlier. When John saw him, like Daniel - he fell down at His feet like a dead man. Please read Daniel 10 and Revelation 1 side by side and compa re notes if you have not done that before.

Notice Daniel chapter 10 speaks of king Cyrus, and there's not a word about Darius. It seems as if chapter 10 is out of order as chapter 9 links to chapter 11 yet chapter 10 points to a latter-day conflict involving Persia and Greece that is described in great detail chapter 8. The details are there for a reason.

Chapter 12 points its chaism flashback to chapter 2 as well describing the the end time iron and clay feet. 

Daniel writes: "a time of distress such as never occurred since there was a nation until that time; and at that time your people, everyone who is found written in the book, will be rescued." Daniel 12:1

Paul alluded to this rescue when he wrote these words in Romans 11:26-27 "And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins."

Zechariah 14 provides specific details of the day of the return of the deliverer. Please read it.

In the 1980s, Islam and its Shi'ite and Sunni iron and clay religious fracture became visible to the West along a revolutionary line that had morphed into radical religious terrorism against Israel and the U.S. It came to focus in 1979 when the revolution in Iran galvanized radical Islamists across the Middle East not only against Israel, the little Satan, but the great Satan, America. 

'Throughout the 1980s and 1990's we all saw the headlines as Islamic radical militants with religious and political goals were revealed in terrorism. Before that time, jihad had largely been unnoticed in America since 1917 when the Ottoman Empire fell, but we all now know it has been revived.

When we look at Daniel chapter 10, we see "Cyrus the Great." He was the righteous Persian ruler that was ordained by God's decree that the Jewish people could end their exile, return to Jerusalem and restore the city. Cyrus is credited to have opened the door to Jerusalem that led to the rebuilding of the Temple and the walls of the city. Both had been ransacked by Nebuchadnezzar's warriors. Other details of the account of Cyrus the Great are given in 2 Chronicles 36, Ezra 1:1-4 and Ezra 6:3. 

Daniel tells us he knows the timeline of the exile in chapter 10 and the end of 70 years of Judgment declared in Jeremiah 25 for the first exile to Babylon that separated Judah from Jerusalem until the Cyrus of the nations stepped up.

Today, "The Quartet" and other U.N. mandates seek to divide Jerusalem as well as Judea and Samaria (aka God's land allotment). They have all forgotten that Jerusalem is a part of Judah's promised land and they have forgotten Cyrus.

The solution to this division is the portion shown in Daniel chapter 12 "and at that time... then you will enter into rest and rise again for your allotted portion at the end of the age." (Daniel 12:13).

This promise tells us that the nations that will participate in an ancient plan to divide the Promised Land have a big problem ahead according to the word of God given to another prophet by the name of Zechariah. 

Like Daniel, Zechariah was shown a glimpse of the end time battle over the Middle East problem with Jerusalem:
The burden of the word of the LORD concerning a battle for Jerusalem: 
Thus declares the LORD who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him, “Behold, I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that causes reeling to all the peoples around; and when the siege is against Jerusalem, it will also be against Judah. 
It will come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who lift it will be severely injured. And all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it.  Zechariah 12:1-3

And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.  Zechariah 12:9 
It's critical to know that Daniel shows us that Cyrus is important and so is the number 70. In a few short years, Israel will celebrate its 70th modern anniversary. After that, we need to watch for the nations who seek to divide Judah and take Jerusalem and we need to watch for Persia.



Today's incoming disaster includes a manmade measuring line in Jerusalem that does not align with the Torah or the historic boundary of the city that bears God's name.

Today, the U.N. has drawn in an imaginary Green Line.

It's the center of debate that divides the city between the Muslim Quarter of East Jerusalem and Jewish West Jerusalem.

You can read more about the decree and the measuring line in Zechariah. It ties to the promise of the decree given to Daniel that is also seen in Chronicles.
Then the angel of the LORD said, “O LORD of hosts, how long will You have no compassion for Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, with which You have been indignant these seventy years?” The LORD answered the angel who was speaking with me with gracious words, comforting words. So the angel who was speaking with me said to me, 
“Proclaim, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, “I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem and Zion. But I am very angry with the nations who are at ease; for while I was only a little angry, they furthered the disaster.” 
Therefore thus says the LORD, “I will return to Jerusalem with compassion; My house will be built in it,” declares the LORD of hosts, “and a measuring line will be stretched over Jerusalem.” Zechariah 1:12-16
Regarding the decree and timeline given to Daniel, it is forever tied to the word of Almighty God. His decree is noted by Zechariah and it contains a measuring line, this measuring line is also the time line that points to Messiah's coming:
Therefore thus says the LORD, “I will return to Jerusalem with compassion; My house will be built in it,” declares the LORD of hosts, “and a measuring line will be stretched over Jerusalem.” Zechariah 1:16
Daniel 9:26 links these words as the base line of the decree that counts, not that of Cyrus although he is a part of the big picture. Daniel writes:
"Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off..."
Cyrus' decree isn't the only one to focus on although everyone seems to think so. Cyrus is a big player and he is a big deal in the Bible, yet he only a base runner for THE ONE at bat ready to hit the grand slam.

It is God's decree that scores on Daniel's timeline on Messiah's Passover trial and it's Artaxerxes decree that marks the beginning of Yeshua's ministry.

Cyrus deserves much credit, he showered great favor on the Jewish people and he ended the Babylon exile from Jerusalem after 70 years. He's so important that believe it or not, Isaiah wrote of Cyrus by name at least 150 years before Cyrus the Great was born.

Earlier, we noted that Biblical prophecy is dimensional and it repeats in chaistic cycles much like as history repeats like a flashback. In keeping with the creation timeline, prophetic cycles often run in sevens, so Daniel was given the message about seventy sevens (70 Shemittah) that can be pretty hard to follow with Greek glasses on.

The order of Daniel can be confusing if we ignore God's commands. Not only that, the order of the Christian canon of the Bible we read today causes confusion because it does not align with the order of the Hebrew Scriptures Yeshua read and taught each Sabbath (see Luke 4:16).

Daniel's countdown to Messiah's first trip to the planet can be confusing because we tend to rely on the decrees of a men, not Almighty Elohim God. The Creator's decree was promised to Daniel, and it can be missed due to the order of canon adopted by the Catholic church. To understand, we have to rely on the Hebrew Bible Jesus read every Sabbath. The order of the Bible Jesus taught is the same order of the Bible the Jewish people have remained faithful to every Sabbath for thousands of years since the days of Ezra.

That should make sense, after all Jesus is a Jew.

The record of the book of Luke tells us it was Yeshua's "custom" to attend synagogue every Sabbath. 

In the order of the Bible Jesus read and taught each Sabbath, the scroll of Chronicles was located at the end of the Hebrew Scriptures, not Malachi. Not only that, the order of the last three scrolls of the Hebrew Bible includes the book of Daniel. The order of the Hebrew Bible, The Tanach wraps up like this:
  1. Daniel
  2. Ezra-Nehemiah
  3. Chronicles
There's a good reason for this, a God reason, so don't dismiss it. These books, when read in proper  order point toward the time line and the family line of Messiah - so let's take a look at that.

Chronicles is now divided into two books. It starts out by chronicling the Bible's storyline in the order of their occurrence with a long list of important Biblical genealogies. That same list is summarized in an outline of three sets of 14 notable generations listed in Matthew 1.

Like Matthew's list, the family line list in Chronicles gives us all hope in God’s eternal promise given to David by Nathan for a king, Jerusalem and a restored Israel.

Nathan gave his prophecies long "before" David had triumphed over the Philistines and that fact alone is prophetic of Messiah's second coming in defense of Israel from today's Philistines, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. We now call them Hamas.

Prophecy repeats so their descendants are still in the battle over the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their sojourner descendants in faith. Genesis 17:20 tells us that the descendants of Ishmael were named as twelve princes, a great nation. Genesis 25:16 repeats this. They are named according to the generations in Genesis 25:13-15:

Nebajoth, Kedar, Adbeel and Mibsam,
Mishma, Dumah, Massa, Hadar
Tema, Jetur, Naphish and Kedemah

Nebajoth was the firstborn. His name means "heights." His descendants were the Nabateans. Their capital was Petra. They carved out the famous sandstone rock cliffs along the valley of the mountain now called Jabal Al-Madbah in today's southern Jordan. Jabal Al-Madbah means mountain of the altar. Petra resides in the valley called Wadi Musa, meaning "valley of Moses."

The armies of Israel with Moses in the lead had four key battles during the Exodus journey. They fought and won each of them against the Amalekites, Canaanites, the Amorites and Bashan and finally the Midianites. Afterward, Joshua led the armies of Israel in battle in the land of promise for those that fought against them. 

Consider this fact about that: in the two generations following 1948, Israel was been attacked by an Arab League confederacy, most notably three times in 1948, 1967 and 1973. Many believe the fourth final battle described in prophecy is the last generation of the descendants of Ishmael that refuse to honor Jacob's family.

There's a last generation listed in Psalm 83. They are called the tabernacles of Edom, the Ishmaelites and Moab. They include the Hagarenes, Gebal, Ammon, Amalek and the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre and Assur.

In the end they will consult together with one consent, they will confederate against God's covenant land promise. Today, we can see this prophecy in the headlines as radical Ishmaelites of Islam surround tiny Israel. They are still confounded and troubled over the land grant. Take note too that Bashan is still a problem. 

Bashan is located in the land of king Og and he lost his first confederate battle with Moses there. Today, we call the land of king Og the Golan Heights. There's good reason for that name, Golan was the capital of Bashan.

Let's do our own flashback and return to Nathan's words given to David, they provide the Messianic promise about the end-time Kingdom prophecy:
"When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 
I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me..." 2 Samuel 7:12-14 
"Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever.” 
In accordance with all these words and all this vision, so Nathan spoke to David. 2 Samuel 7:17 
The end time battle of Messiah, will mirror the battle of Moses in the beginning of the Exodus, and the conflict will again be about the land and people that seek to follow the God of Israel and no other. You can read about some of those battles here:
  • 2 Kings 3 Israel and Judah vs Moab. Moab lost.
  • 2 Kings 14 Judah vs Edom. Edom lost.
  • 2 Kings 18 Judah vs Philistines, Philistines lost.
  • 2 Chronicles 20 Judah vs Moabites, Ammonites, and Meunites. Judah won.
  • 2 Chronicles 26 Judah vs Philistines, Meunites, Ammonites. Judah Won.
There's another battle raging today and it's reported in advance in the Bible.

Long before "the church" decided to reorder the canon of the Hebrew Bible (Tanach), many Christians unwittingly began to believe in a lie called Replacement Theology. That bad sermon says that the front of the book of life is old and done away with. For that reason and others, the heritage of the Messiah of Israel, Jesus the Jew has been hidden from Judah unwittingly by none other than the church. 

Not only that, pulpits can't connect Matthew to Chronicles. As we have seen, Chronicles is the last book of the Tanach, and it is the last book before the record of Matthew.

The conclusion of the book of Chronicles is laser focused on David's future successor and God’s covenant promise that Messiah King will come. That is why the book of Chronicles is the perfect fit flowing straight into Matthew's list because the lineage of the people named in Chronicles points us to the Messianic promise given to David that was delivered by Nathan for the everlasting King to come.

Nathan revealed the same promise of the one that is seen in Genesis 3:15 and Genesis 22:18 that would come through David's family line of Judah. When you read the last portion of the scroll in 2Chronicles 36 you’ll even see a connection to the timeline of the 70 year exile because the Shemittah (7th year) rest of the land was not honored:
Then they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, and burned all its fortified buildings with fire and destroyed all its valuable articles. Those who had escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon; and they were servants to him and to his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its sabbaths. All the days of its desolation it kept sabbath until seventy years were complete. 2 Chronicles 36:19-21
Chronicles points to Jeremiah 25:1-14 and those are these are words that Daniel believed:
The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah (that was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon), which Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem:   
“For twenty-three years, from the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, to this day, the word of the LORD has come to me, and I have spoken persistently to you, but you have not listened.  You have neither listened nor inclined your ears to hear, although the LORD persistently sent to you all his servants the prophets,  saying, ‘Turn now, every one of you, from his evil way and evil deeds, and dwell upon the land that the LORD has given to you and your fathers from of old and forever.   
Do not go after other gods to serve and worship them, or provoke me to anger with the work of your hands. Then I will do you no harm.’  Yet you have not listened to me, declares the LORD, that you might provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your own harm. 
“Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts: Because you have not obeyed my words,  behold, I will send for all the tribes of the north, declares the LORD, and for Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants, and against all these surrounding nations. 
I will devote them to destruction, and make them a horror, a hissing, and an everlasting desolation. Moreover, I will banish from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the grinding of the millstones and the light of the lamp.   
This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.   
Then after seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, declares the LORD, making the land an everlasting waste.   
I will bring upon that land all the words that I have uttered against it, everything written in this book, which Jeremiah prophesied against all the nations. For many nations and great kings shall make slaves even of them, and I will recompense them according to their deeds and the work of their hands.”
The 70 years of exile from the land were completed, and this is tied to the timing of Israel’s 490 year history from king David's reign up to their exile to Babylon. The Babylonian exile lasted 70 years, one year for each dishonored Shemittah year (70 x 7= 490). So, the God of the Universe made a decree for a restoration to occur in Jerusalem at the end of the 70 years. 

Not only that, Messiah's arrival would be marked by the announcement of a prophecy from Isaiah fulfilled by none other than Yeshua of Nazareth in a Capernaum synagogue on the Sabbath. If you have not read it, check out Luke 4 and you will see the Sabbath reading of Isaiah and the proclamation of the favorable year of The Lord.

OK, it's time to get back to the gentile king Cyrus because his famous proclamation was stirred by God's Spirit of love for the Jewish people and it is recorded in Chronicles too:
"Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing: 
“Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ‘The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may the LORD his God be with him. Let him go up.’” 2 Chronicles 36:22-23
As noted earlier, if we dig in and study we can see it's not only Cyrus that connects Daniel's timeline for the final arrival of Messiah. When we look closely, it is the voice of Almighty Elohim, the God of Israel that triggered the prophetic timeline given to Daniel and we will find that proclamation in Zechariah.

Here it is:
"Therefore thus says the LORD, 'I will return to Jerusalem with compassion; My house will be built in it,' declares the LORD of hosts, 'and a measuring line will be stretched over Jerusalem.'” Zechariah 1:16
Open Daniel 9 and as you read it, imagine that you see Daniel kneeling and praying in Babylon after reading the scroll of Jeremiah revealing the end of the 70-year exile. While praying, the messenger of God appears to Daniel and explains the Shemittah count of Jeremiah that is connected but not seen in Zechariah 1.

"I, Daniel, observed in the books the number of the years which was revealed as the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet for the completion of the desolations of Jerusalem..."
"Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing.
And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed." Daniel 9:25-26
Daniel was told there are a series of Shemittah weeks before the Messiah of the Kingdom of God was to come and be cut off at the cross. Daniel was also told that Jerusalem will see destruction once again and that Judah will go into dispersion once again, and that during that time more desolations are to be decreed.

That exile will last until the years just before Messiah's return and the redemption of all Israel when the Messiah of Israel returns as King to remove the abomination of desolation in Jerusalem and restore the House of Prayer for all nations.

Why two trips for Messiah?

Prophecy cycles and one answer to this great mystery can be seen in king David and Absalom's storyline described in the book of Samuel that many have missed.

It goes like this: King David fled Jerusalem when Absalom was chosen by others just as in another conspiracy when darkened hearts chose Barabbas instead of Yeshua as described in Matthew 27. 

OPEN your eyes, David CAME BACK. He returned and was restored as king and so will Yeshua. The King of the Jews is coming back just like David!

Another picture that point to the two trips is the fact that Moses ascended and descended from Mount Sinai with God's covenant twice with the covenant in stone by God's own handwriting. The fact is Yeshua ascended the Mount of Olives just as Moses and David, and like David, Yeshua faced his conspirator Judas there with the Roman soldiers just like David faced Shimei, the son of Gera:
And the men of Judah came, and there they anointed David king over the house of Judah. 2Samuel 2:4
And David knew that the LORD had established him king over Israel, and that he had exalted his kingdom for the sake of his people Israel. 2Samuel 5:12 
But Absalom sent secret messengers throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, “As soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet, then say, ‘Absalom is king at Hebron!’” 
With Absalom went two hundred men from Jerusalem who were invited guests, and they went in their innocence and knew nothing. And while Absalom was offering the sacrifices, he sent for Ahithophel the Gilonite, David’s counselor, from his city Giloh. 
And the conspiracy grew strong, and the people with Absalom kept increasing. And a messenger came to David, saying, “The hearts of the men of Israel have gone after Absalom.” 
Then David said to all his servants who were with him at Jerusalem, “Arise, and let us flee, or else there will be no escape for us from Absalom. Go quickly, lest he overtake us quickly and bring down ruin on us and strike the city with the edge of the sword. 2Samuel 15:10-14
When King David came to Bahurim, there came out a man of the family of the house of Saul, whose name was Shimei, the son of Gera, and as he came he cursed continually. And he threw stones at David and at all the servants of King David, and all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left. And Shimei said as he cursed, “Get out, get out, you man of blood, you worthless man! 2Samuel 16:5-7 
And behold, the Cushite came, and the Cushite said, “Good news for my lord the king! For the LORD has delivered you this day from the hand of all who rose up against you.” 
The king said to the Cushite, “Is it well with the young man Absalom?” And the Cushite answered, “May the enemies of my lord the king and all who rise up against you for evil be like that young man.” And the king was deeply moved and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept. And as he went, he said, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!” 2 Samuel 18:31-33

Now Israel had fled every man to his own home. 
And all the people were arguing throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, “The king delivered us from the hand of our enemies and saved us from the hand of the Philistines, and now he has fled out of the land from Absalom. But Absalom, whom we anointed over us, is dead in battle. Now therefore why do you say nothing about bringing the king back?” 
And King David sent this message to Zadok and Abiathar the priests: “Say to the elders of Judah, ‘Why should you be the last to bring the king back to his house, when the word of all Israel has come to the king? 
You are my brothers; you are my bone and my flesh. Why then should you be the last to bring back the king?’ And say to Amasa, ‘Are you not my bone and my flesh? God do so to me and more also, if you are not commander of my army from now on in place of Joab.’” 
And he swayed the heart of all the men of Judah as one man, so that they sent word to the king, “Return, both you and all your servants.” So the king came back to the Jordan, and Judah came to Gilgal to meet the king and to bring the king over the Jordan.

And Shimei the son of Gera, the Benjaminite, from Bahurim, hurried to come down with the men of Judah to meet King David. And with him were a thousand men from Benjamin. And Ziba the servant of the house of Saul, with his fifteen sons and his twenty servants, rushed down to the Jordan before the king, and they crossed the ford to bring over the king’s household and to do his pleasure. 
And Shimei the son of Gera fell down before the king, as he was about to cross the Jordan, and said to the king, “Let not my lord hold me guilty or remember how your servant did wrong on the day my lord the king left Jerusalem. Do not let the king take it to heart. 2Samuel 19:8-18
Not only did Yeshua come from the family line of David, Yeshua began to fulfill the fallen tabernacle prophecy of Amos with His resurrection that will be complete on His return:
"In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins..." Amos 9:11
If you don't think that God uses the word tabernacle to represent the body, think again back to what you may have already seen. Remember and read Psalm 83. It describes the tabernacle of Moab, that tabernacle of Moab is - its people.

When we make the connection with the trial led by Ponitus Pilate, when Barabbas was chosen to live in place of Jesus the Jew, we see a fallen tabernacle of people that will be restored just as Yeshua was resurrected. Today, Jewish people have returned to the Promised Land and many more are coming each day. There is a good reason, God chose them to prepare it, to make it ready for the Messiah, the lion of the tribe of Judah.

Daniel's prayer is unfolding before our eyes and it started with the restoration of the land of Israel in 1948 and it expanded with the restoration of Jerusalem in 1967. 

Yet, the Temple Mount remains desolate of prayer to the God of Israel because of the mosque of the modern Ismaelites there today, but their allotted time of Gentile possession ended in 1967 and the continued time of trampling is limited:
“O Lord, according to all Your righteousness, I pray, let Your anger and Your fury be turned away from Your city Jerusalem, Your holy mountain; because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Your people are a reproach to all those around us. 
Now therefore, our God, hear the prayer of Your servant, and his supplications, and for the Lord’s sake cause Your face to shine on Your sanctuary, which is desolate. O my God, incline Your ear and hear; open Your eyes and see our desolations, and the city which is called by Your name; for we do not present our supplications before You because of our righteous deeds, but because of Your great mercies. 
O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and act! 
Do not delay for Your own sake, my God, for Your city and Your people are called by Your name.” Daniel 9:16-19
The rejection of the Jewish Messiah King Yeshua will soon end too, it's almost time for Messiah to return, O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and act!

Daniel was honored with this great promise, but there's trouble to come before His return:
“At that time Michael shall stand up,
​​The great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people;
​​And there shall be a time of trouble,
​​Such as never was since there was a nation,
​​Even to that time. 
​​And at that time your people shall be delivered,
​​Every one who is found written in the book. 
And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake,
​​Some to everlasting life,
​​Some to shame and everlasting contempt.
Those who are wise shall shine
​​Like the brightness of the firmament,
​​And those who turn many to righteousness
​​Like the stars forever and ever.

“But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase. Daniel 12:1-4
In regard to Messiah's promised return, we have to know Israel was restored as a latter day nation in 1948 because God's word is powerful and unchanging as it reveals the cycle of prophecy in advance.

There's a lot more to the order of Daniel', so let's go back to Daniel's scroll and ask, why is Darius mentioned in chapter 11?

Shouldn't Cyrus the Great appear on the scene as leader after Darius the Mede? Perhaps there's something going on in the chronology of the chapters that might tie to future events.

Let's look at chapter 10:
In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia a thing was revealed unto Daniel, whose name was called Belteshazzar; and the thing [was] true, but the time appointed [was] long: and he understood the thing, and had understanding of the vision. Daniel 10:1
Due to what appears as a cycle of prophetic flashbacks, Daniel's chapters seem to be a bit out of order if we use the names of the kings and rulers of Babylon, (today's Iraq) as our time sequence markers... but we can learn if we realign history with the storyline and the names given by Daniel. Remember, the chapter and verse numbers don't really exist in the original scroll of Daniel. 

If we review what we see, this might help us "unseal" the end-time message in the scroll which is about the return of Messiah the Prince. Let's take a look to see where the scroll found at Qumran (Daniel chapter 12) might fit into Daniel's prophetic storyline of the end time days...

Daniel chapter 10 is synced with the Persian King Cyrus and the end of 10th chapter speaks of Michael "your prince." Michael, or Miyka'el means "who is like God." Here we see that the messenger "who is like God" gives Daniel the promise of a prophetic latter-day rescue for Israel as Persia (Iran and Syria) threaten their survival:
"Then said he, Knowest thou wherefore I come unto thee? and now will I return to fight with the prince of Persia: and when I am gone forth, lo, the prince of Grecia shall come. But I will shew thee that which is noted in the scripture of truth: and [there is] none that holdeth with me in these things, but Michael your prince." Daniel 10:20-21
Before we unroll the scroll to chapter 12, take a minute to think about what Daniel hears as Gabriel is speaking of the "one" that helps him, the "great prince" who is "like" God. Names are important in the Bible and since "Michael" literally means "who is like God". The great prince "who is like God" is THE FOCUS of Daniel's message.

If you someone asked you today… "who is like God", what would be the name you would give?

Think about that, what's your answer... could it be Yeshua the Messiah?

The name Michael is a big Biblical clue, a shadow picture of son of man Messiah "who is like God" because He walked 100% observant to God's Torah, that's why He was sinless. Now, if you look logically, you will notice chapter 11 and 12 continues in the theme regarding Michael ("who is like God") when it states:
And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation [even] to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.

And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame [and] everlasting contempt. Daniel 12:1-2
This is the same resurrection hope of being born again in resurrection that Yeshua explained to the Pharisee Nicodemus (John 3:1-21) and its the same promise that is found in the book of Revelation 20:6.

Daniel 11 and Daniel 12 tells us that the king of the north (Shia: Iran, Syria and Turkey) will clash with the king of the south (Sunni: Arabia) and make a move to desecrate Jerusalem and the Temple Mount for the last time in the last cycle of prophecy before Messiah returns to defend Israel.

This will be a virtual re-run of Antiochus' battle with the Maccabees and the desolation brought on Jerusalem during the 637 AD siege of Jerusalem that was part of the conflict between the Byzantine Empire and the Rashidun Caliphate that ended when Caliph Umar traveled to Jerusalem to take the city.

The kingdoms of the north are shown as a confrontation of religious ideals described in Daniel 11 as... "kings shall arise in Persia." This can be seen today as the Islamic Middle East is divided between a northern Shi’ite kingdom and a Sunni kingdom called Saudi Arabia in the south with tiny Israel wedged against the Mediterranean Sea.



Islam is divided and splinted today exactly as Daniel described it would be. 

These are toes of iron and clay that do not mix. This points at the Muslim mixture of Shi'ite and Sunni over their vastly different interpretations and aspirations for an Islamic world. At the epicenter of their conflict is an end-game objective for religious and government ideology to be revived as a Caliphate under the rule of Sharia law with a Shi'ite end goal to wipe the Jewish people off their map that does not seem to be held by the Sunni. 

Islam is divided by Sunni and Shi'ite and every kingdom that will be divided against itself shall not stand. That looks to be the end-time meaning of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream:
"And as you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter's clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom, but some of the firmness of iron shall be in it, just as you saw iron mixed with the soft clay. And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle. As you saw the iron mixed with soft clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage, but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay." Daniel 2:41-43
A divided kingdom destruction was verified by Yeshua:
"Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? " ‘Matthew 12:25-26
Today's north-south split among Ishmael's remnant is led by a Sunni Arab majority and a Shia Persian minority. Iran and its proxies aggressively declare Israel's destruction, the proxies include Hamas in Gaza as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon and other jihadist terror groups funded by Iran.

Of the total Muslim population in the Middle East today, about 15% are Persian Shiite and 85% Arab Sunni. So, let's look again at the vision of Daniel: "Then the king of the south, moved with rage, shall come out and fight against the king of the north." 

This looks to be a battle in Islam.

Now check this out from Daniel 11:30 because it includes a cruiser navy with the code name Kittim. This Kittim is first seen in Genesis 10:4 as the great grandson of Noah: "The sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim."

"Javan" means Greece, "Kittim" means bruisers. Kittim aka the "bruisers" will be brought front and center into Islam's empire conflict and it will involve the holy land covenant given to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob for land possession to prepare it for Messiah. 

Satan wants to prevent this:
"For ships of Kittim shall come against him, and he shall be afraid and withdraw, and shall turn back and be enraged and take action against the holy covenant. He shall turn back and pay attention to those who forsake the holy covenant."
Did you notice the holy covenant? Again, this was nothing new for Daniel. He knew the Torah and that means he also knew the prophecy about this end-time conflict first described by Moses in Numbers 24:24 revealed in Balaam's prophecy over Israel:
“Alas, who shall live when God does this?
But ships shall come from Kittim
and shall afflict Asshur and Eber;
and he too shall come to utter destruction.”
Asshur was the grandson of Noah's son Shem, the ancestor of the Assyrians. The divided kingdom of toes tie back to Eber's son Peleg:
"To Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided, and his brother’s name was Joktan." Genesis 10:25
Here's the thing: ships need a sea to go to battle and today, the most contentious sea on the planet is the Persian Gulf... and don't forget there's that prophecy Daniel was given: "knowledge shall increase."

That increase in knowledge is not just modern information or data, it's about understanding the Torah and the conflict that has been coming into focus as knowledge of the ancient conflict described by Daniel has hit the headlines since 1948 that was redirected north to Shi'ite Iran in 1979 when the Iranian Revolution put the radical Ayatollahs in charge and in opposition to Israel and America its biggest ally.

As noted many confuse the covenant Daniel wrote about, but we need to remember it is called the holy covenant for a reason. The covenant Daniel mentions started with Abraham that set apart the Holy Land for his descendants.

The book of Daniel quotes Balaam's ancient prophecy in reference to the ships of Kittim in the latter days. This is nothing new, it comes from the third prophetic oracle of Balaam in the book of Exodus. It was given when Balaam lifted up his eyes and saw Israel encamped in safety. The Spirit of Elohim came upon him, and he said this to Balak:
"Come, I will let you know what this people will do to your people in the latter days.”
Numbers 24:14
“Alas, who shall live when Elohim does this? 
But ships shall come from Kittim
and shall afflict Asshur and Eber;
and he too shall come to utter destruction.” Numbers 24:24
The name "Balak" translates as devastator, he was the king of Moab (a descendant of Lot's incest) he hired Balaam to curse Israel, but Balaam tells king Balak that he can only declare what Y-H-V-H has told him to say, nothing more and nothing less.

The ships from Kittim will afflict damage and today's Asshur and Eber are still known as the location of a settlement of Ishmael's descendants. The Muslim people across Iran and northern Iraq is the place where their leaders now live in aggression against the Sunni Arab people of Saudi Arabia and the camp of Israel.

We've noted the Hebrew word כִּתִּים Kittim translates as "bruisers." Is it a coincidence that during his deployment in Iraq (Babyon) in 2006, that the nickname of the famous US Navy SEAL Team 3 in the famous Battle of Ramadi (the center of the insurgency in Iraq) was known as "Task Unit Bruiser"?

You tell me. Most agree we are living in the latter days, so let's pay attention to details...

It was only a few years ago in 2003, when the Iraq war, also called the Second "Persian Gulf" War, broke out as an armed conflict with the invasion of Iraq by a United States led coalition that overthrew the government of Saddam Hussein and devastated the country, but the troops withdrew leaving Saddam Hussein's dictatorship bruised and beaten and many insurgents went into hiding, waiting to emerge when the dust cleared.

When the U.S. and British militaries brought their coalition across the sea they poured into to Iraq just two years after 9/11 when everyone was driven by the fear of weapons of mass destruction, yet oddly the coalition troops were just a fraction of the number deployed in 1991 to defend Kuwait, but why so few?

There is a big reason, this time Kittim if you will, relied on overwhelming military technology from the "realm of Greece."

Iraq fell fast. Saddam Hussein tried to restore Babylon but he died in a Haman-like hanging. 

It's as if the Daniel 2 prophecy of the dream of Nebuchadnezzar was coming back to our time. Now, the golden head has fallen again. Iraq, aka Babylon has been taken down in two Gulf Wars. According to one interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, the silver Persians aka Iran are next.

Today, the Shi’ite leaders of Iran are the craftsmen of chaos leading a powerful Islamic nation that boasts of nothing but terror and tribulation for Israel fulfilling the prophecy of a stubborn donkey-like aggression of the tribes of Ishmael's descendants (see Genesis 16:12). Jihadist aggression is led by Iran with its proxies in Syria and Lebanon. 

Lebanon, once a beautiful peaceful nation has been infiltrated and destroyed by Hezbollah as a militant proxy of Iran.

Since the Iranian revolution in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been led by two Supreme Leaders, two Grand Ayatollahs. They are both like Balak. Their names are Ali Khamenei and his predecessor was Ruhollah Khomeini.

Iran's supreme leader is the highest ranking political and religious authority of Iran and he leads the armed forces including Iran's elite military unit, the Revolutionary Guards and its clandestine operations Quds Force Division, both led since 1998 by one evil General who carries out the goals of Balak. His name is Qassem Soleimani. 

The Grand Ayatollah also runs Iran's navy in the Persian Gulf. Not only that, the Iranian judicial system, education and media are all under the Supreme Leader's control. In Iran, only the Supreme Leader, the Grand Ayatollah, like the Persian king Balak of the north can declare war or peace. The Grand Ayatollah's authority is the same as old king Balak's.

Daniel 11:2 states: "And now I will tell you the truth. Behold, three more kings are going to arise in Persia. Then a fourth will gain far more riches than all of them; as soon as he becomes strong through his riches, he will arouse the whole empire against the realm of Greece."

I do not know if that will be another Ayatollah, but I do think Daniel points to today's events. If this speaks of Iran's leaders or others like Syria's Bashar al-Assad or perhaps Turkey's own Tayyip Erdoğan, one of them, or one like them will fit the Balak bill in Daniel's prophecy as it points toward the final fourth fierce ruler that wants to curse Israel.

Ruhollah Khomeini and Saddam Hussein are no longer with us. Shi'ite Supreme aka Ali Khamenei has led Iran since 1989, and his tenure is naturally approaching its latter days. After all, he will turn 70 in 2008, in just six months. Here's my question: Is it possible there is just one more to Supreme Leader to take charge in Iran before the words of Daniel 11:3 ring true - - "he will rule with great authority and do as he pleases"?

Could "doing as he pleases" include the means of obtaining the globally feared weapons of mass destruction aka nuclear weapon capabilities in Iran?

Looking south, the Sunni Islamic coalition is led by the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its Sunni Arab allies include Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, Algeria, Kuwait, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman and Tunisia. 

Take note, these are the opposite of Iran, they are allies of the United States and they all oppose Shi'ite Iran. Two of them currently have peace treaties with Israel, Egypt and Jordan.

Will we see more Arab peace treaties with the most powerful military in the Mid East? 

I don't know, but the leader of Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations are kings just as Daniel declares. In Saudi Arabia the king's rule includes a number of Saudi princes that track much like the words we find in Daniel 11:5: “Then the king of the south shall be strong, but one of his princes shall be stronger than he and shall rule, and his authority shall be a great authority."

It seems that a new prince will soon arise in power in Iran and in Arabia.

Meanwhile, tiny little Israel, the glorious, beautiful land stands alone with the IDF and the powerful IAF combat air force are right in the middle of this ten-toe Shi'ite-Sunni chaos. Israel's military, supported by the U.S. is like a spear tip against Iran and the Arab's know it. 

Israel is the vortex separating those that follow the God of Israel wedged against the divided toes of the Sunni and Shia descendants of iron and clay:
“At the time of the end, the king of the South shall attack him, but the king of the north shall rush upon him like a whirlwind, with chariots and horsemen, and with many ships. And he shall come into countries and shall overflow and pass through. He shall come into the glorious land. And tens of thousands shall fall, but these shall be delivered out of his hand: Edom and Moab and the main part of the Ammonites." Daniel 11:40-41
An end-day battle looks to be is on the horizon if we believe Daniel and simply read the headlines, but don't lose heart, more importantly Michael will stand up and contend for Israel:
"Again one having the appearance of a man touched me and strengthened me. And he said, “O man greatly loved, fear not, peace be with you; be strong and of good courage.” And as he spoke to me, I was strengthened and said, “Let my lord speak, for you have strengthened me.” Then he said, “Do you know why I have come to you? But now I will return to fight against the prince of Persia; and when I go out, behold, the prince of Greece will come. But I will tell you what is inscribed in the book of truth: there is none who contends by my side against these except Michael, your prince. Daniel 10:18-21
There is a glorious end-time delivery, resurrection and restoration to righteousness promised to Daniel:
"And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame [and] everlasting contempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." Daniel 12:2-3
Many say the big Mid-East conflict today is all about a Palestinian State. It's bigger than that.

The book of Daniel points to another, a Persian leopard bear, leopard, lion beast (Iran, Syria, Iraq). To link the narrative of Daniel 12 to today's Mid-East Muslim conflict of Sunni vs Shi'ite with Israel in the middle. So, we must go back to Daniel 10 to order the gospel message of "the Prince" to come that is promised in the son of man vision and interpretation established Daniel 7 because this chapter provides the same Gospel that was preached 500 years later all across the Galilee by Yeshua.

Take notice too, Daniel is famous for being told that understanding the end times will come around, "knowledge shall increase." 

In today's North-South conflict of Persian Shiite and Arab Sunni, we can see that Daniel's end time message is built by purposefully comparing one king to another from chapter 10 and chapter 12. So, as noted, it's important to not just read Daniel, but we have to study it with history, because history reveals the timelines given to Daniel. 

Daniel did not come up with them, they were a gift from heaven. 

We must read Daniel as it was intended, as a whole scroll to follow the storyline of the people and latter day events that were revealed to Daniel and why he was told to seal up the vision of the evenings and the mornings and seal the scroll about the time of: "the great prince who has charge of your people: and the "time of trouble" until that time "when the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end all these things would be finished."

Because of his faithfulness and prayer, Daniel saw the time line to the end of the exile of Judah in Babylon, and he was given the countdown of week years to Messiah's first trip as an anointed life offering and resurrection in the Spring Feasts "before" the final destruction of the Temple sanctuary in Jerusalem. Look closely and you will also find the prophetic cycles given to Daniel include key clues to Messiah's return to defend Israel against the beast and establish the everlasting Kingdom while fulfilling Daniel's own name ("God is my judge"). 

Yet, as we see in Daniel 12, the exile named Daniel was not able to see when all things would be finished, that outcome was reserved for "the time of the end" but Daniel was promised his words would receive an allotted place to stand in the latter days.

These critical time lines may be called the days of Daniel, but we must know they are the days leading up to the Kingdom and Messiah in the end because prophecy and history are the same. What is promised by God will occur as certain as if it has already. The end is declared from the beginning.

The timelines include these: a season and a time (Daniel 7:12), 69 weeks (Daniel 9:24-26), the 70th week (Daniel 9:27), "the time, times, and half a time" (Daniel 12:7), the 1290 days (Daniel 12:11) and the 1335 days (Daniel 12:12). 

There's something to be seen in Jerusalem today that ties these all together. 

Daniel was given a glimpse of time markers leading up to the latter days fourth beast conflict we know as the great tribulation before Messiah's return in glory. They have a connection with Daniel 10 too and this message: "I will return to fight against the prince of Persia; and when I go out, behold, the prince of Greece will come."

When we read Daniel 12, we can see the Persia prophecy links future events to the latter day end-time trouble noted by none other than Balaam. You remember Baalam, the guy with the talking donkey.

Balaam's critical story appears in the beginning of the exodus journey to the Promised Land. It's in Numbers 22-24. Deuteronomy 23:4 examines Balaam's story and Moses reveals there that Balaam was from the city of Pethor of Mesopotamia aka Persia, modern day Iran!!  Baalam was hired to curse Israel by evil king Balak, but he couldn't do it, God would not allow it. That's the end day promise from the beginning.

Some scholars think that Pethor is the Asyrian city of Pitru, the home of Assyrian king Shalmaneser II. You remember him, he attacked and dispersed the ten lost tribes of the northern Kingdom of Israel.

Balaam gave oracles about Israel that God revealed to him. He was a pagan Gentile, yet God used Him to declare the end of the end days. Not the end of time, but the end of chaos, cursing and desolation.

Before his last oracle was pronounced, Baalam told king Balak: "Come, I will let you know what this people will do to your people in the latter days."

Balak's goal to curse Israel is tied to the end, so are his people. Balaam describes the same vision Daniel wrote about a thousand years later while in exile in Iraq.

That vision reveals that Israel will engage with Balak's nation in the end. Daniel reveals a gentile nation that would be a friend, an ally from the West aka "the ships of Kittim."

Today, there are a few nations that seek to protect Israel more than the United States. 

Others seek to divide Israel for peace while the nation from the East curses and still seeks to destroy it. That nation is Shi'ite Iran. The Ayatollah aka the Assyrian, is the principle terrorist on this planet. He seeks nuclear weapons to accomplish their dark agenda to destroy what they call the "little satan" and the "great satan" as well. 

Balaam told old king Balak about what would happen to his people. Daniel saw the great tribulation battle of the goat and the ram and Daniel 8 gives details on Balaam's oracle in Numbers 24 that just might just include a clue on the sign of Messiah noted in Matthew 24:20. Numbers sets out the time of tribulation and links it to Daniels ships of Kittim:
“Alas, who shall live when God does this?
But ships shall come from Kittim
and shall afflict Asshur and Eber;
and he too shall come to utter destruction.” 
At the end, in the time of the advent of the star, and scepter,
All of Israel’s enemies will be utterly destroyed
in a time of tribulation so terrible, Balaam cried out...
What's the end-game for Balak? Israel’s enemies will be utterly destroyed in a time of tribulation.

Did you notice Eber's name in Numbers 24:24? Eber first appears in the genealogy of Shem in Genesis 11:14-17. Some scholars have identified Eber with the inhabitants of Mesopotamia, in the neighborhood of Assyria, the country beyond the Euphrates. This prophetic oracle shows us how God declares things not yet done in advance. He used Balaam to declare the end from the beginning, just as Isaiah 46:10 promises.

Declaring the end from the beginning meets the very definition of a prophetic cycle. That's how prophecy works, just as the world turns so do its seasons.

Like Balaam, Daniel portrays the days that mark tribulation events at the time of the end of the final exile and dispersion of Israel around the globe. 

That Promised Land exile time marker is May 14, 1948. It marks the time line for the land to be prepared by the Jewish people for Messiah's return. That's what Daniel's timelines are all about.

Daniel's scroll tells us that Michael, in Hebrew "Who is like God" will return to Jerusalem to defend the Jewish people in the land of covenant promise given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. That defense will make the day Jesus whipped and tossed the money changers out of the Temple look like a handshake and hug.
And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. John 2:15
Don't make a mistake about that day, Yeshua was and is zealous for Zion!

Those men short selling at the Temple were a den of robbers defiling the court. That court was the court of the Gentiles. We can know because that's where the moneychangers were allowed. They could never go beyond the Gentile court because it would be a defilement, but according the Jesus, the Gentile court was holy too. Jesus knew Isaiah's promise, so He cleaned the house of prayer for all nations: "my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” Isaiah 56:7

We can also know Daniel's children of thy people prophecy speaks of the Jewish people because Daniel was a Jew and the family tribes taken to Babylon were Judah, Benjamin and Levi. Millions of Jewish families have now returned to Israel, yet Asshur (Assyria-Iran) still threatens to wipe them off the map and push them into the sea, but the men who promote this crime are the ones who will see their clocks cleaned. 

Balaam spoke the truth and as a followup with commentary on that prophecy, Daniel was told that the end would be just like it was declared in the beginning, but Israel would not stand alone, Kittim will be engaged too:
“Alas, who shall live when God does this?
But ships shall come from Kittim
and shall afflict Asshur and Eber;
and he too shall come to utter destruction.” Numbers 24:23-24
And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation [even] to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. Daniel 12:1
The latter days devastation aka tribulation will occur just as it is written in the Bible and that tribulation of the saints will engage the fulfillment of God's redemption plan involving friends of Israel and they will see the hand of King Messiah come in defense of His people.

When will this happen? 

After Daniel's the timelines tied to the abomination of desolation is seen. 

Not only that, God's latter day plan is outlined like a shadow picture in the appointed Fall Feasts starting with the first day of Tishrei aka the Day of Trumpets and great shouting... in joy for the King's return. It will be followed by ten days of awe and then judgment, the Day of Atonement. Following that day, Leviticus 23 reveals the victory celebration. It's the week of Shavuot, aka the Feast of Tabernacles and ingathering just as God declared in the beginning of the exodus from Egypt.

The latter days described in Scripture are recorded by a cycle of preview events marked in Jewish history and as we have seen they have a horrific preview in the tribulation preceding the day of Dedication known as Hanukkah after the Maccabees were emboldened by God to defeat the Syrian tyrant Antiochus IV.

Now, let's dig into some of the key time markers in Jewish history regarding Jerusalem and the Temple Mount to make some more sense out of Daniel's time lines.

They start with Daniel's exile. The Temple of Solomon was destroyed c. 586BC on the 9th of Av (Tisha B'Av) by Babylon's king Nebuchadnezzar and later the horror scene was repeated by Titus in 70AD and his Legions on Tisha B'Av. In the first exile, Daniel was taken captive and hauled off to Babylon. There he interpreted Nebuchadnezzar's dream. Later he was given visions and interpretations with timelines providing further explanation of the dream and the time of the end of the final exile from the Kingdom of God.

These dates of destruction make me wonder, could the Temple be restored by Messiah on Tisha B'Av to make it the promised day of joy?

This we know, the prophetic, appointed cycle that Daniel points us to should not be confusing as time goes by, that's a part of the increase in knowledge. If we will just look back to Jerusalem and pay attention to the desolation of prayer at its focal point, the Temple Mount the timelines will open up. After all, we don't need to be confused if we will just look to the place that Daniel prayed toward, because God keeps His eye on Jerusalem in when all prophetic cycles. 

So, what will happen to the people of faith living in God's covenant land in the latter days??
Now I am come to make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days: for yet the vision [is] for [many] days. Daniel 10:14
As we've seen, the answer goes back to the Exodus and Balaam's prophecy.

The point is, if we are to unseal Daniel's timeline messages, we have to know the Bible and history to understand the scrolls of Daniel and its counterpart, the book of Revelation.

By reading the opening lines of each chapter of Daniel, it is easy to see that chapters 10-12 tell us the focus is on the time of the end, the latter days of "restoration" by Messiah foretold in Daniel 7. Revelation gives more details, again in a vision with lots of Hebrew imagery.

There's an explanation provided to Daniel to help explain the ultimate promise of planet earth's redemption with Jerusalem front and center. If we look closely, we can see that Daniel 9 deals with the time of the humble Messiah's crucifixion before the last dispersion of Judah and the Temple's destruction by the armies of the Roman Legions in 70 AD. Daniel then fast forwards to the end time battles that will mark the time before His return. 

We need to understand that chapters 10 and 12 are a prophetic summary of two kingdoms, two people at odds in the beginning and the end represented by good and evil in stark contrast.

Today, Babylon is now labeled as Iraq on every map and it's in the headlines almost everyday, we all see Iran there too and worry. There's also Syria as well as Turkey, the home of the Ottomans and if we if we look South, we can see Saudi Arabia on the map and their Arab allies are standing in toe to toe opposition to the Shi'ite madmen.

What goes around will come around. 

The divided toes seen by Nebuchadnezzar are standing in the sand of time right now with Shi'ite and Sunni boots on the ground and the book of Daniel is unsealing further every day in the Middle East headlines. It began when Israel began to come into focus with the Balfour Declaration followed by General Allenby liberating Jerusalem at Hanukkah before the San Remo Conference and the U.N.'s resolution in 1947 that kicked off the latter days.

Yet, the abomination of desolation remains a mystery, but is it?

In the last 100 years, modern events set Biblical prophecy in motion as the League of Nations put the San Remo accord into international law years before the United Nations General Assembly's U.N. resolution came to print calling for the establishment of a Jewish State in November 1947. 

Six months later Israel became Isaiah's promised nation born in a day by the declaration of David Ben Gurion on May 14, 1948 three years after Hitler's Holocaust tribulation from 1933-1945

May 1948 is a hidden end time key in the Bible.

Since then, more of Daniel's scroll unrolled in 1967, when Jerusalem and the Temple Mount were reclaimed. June 1967 is another key but is the timeline of these two keyholes hidden in the book of Daniel?

To see that, it's time to look at Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, they are focus of Daniel's prayer and the place he looked to three times a day in prayer:
Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before. Daniel 6:10 NIV
Daniel wanted to see as far as possible toward Jerusalem, we must look there too and pray if we want to see knowledge increase. 

There are keyholes in history tied to the Temple Mount measurements given in Ezekiel 42:15-20 and Revelation 11:1-2 that separate holy and common. If we use the ancient Hebrew way of counting years with an eye both on Daniel and Revelation. Here are three of Daniel's timelines:
  • 586 BC Nebuchadnezzar destroys The Temple + 1290 day years = Dome of the Rock 691AD
  • 691 AD Dome of the Rock to 1948 equates to 1260 day years
  • 691 AD Dome of the Rock to 1967 equates to 1278 years (42 months)
Israel has been restored to a degree, yet the Dome of the Rock still causes the desolation of prayer and worship atop the Temple Mount. 

Desolation not only for the Jewish people but all nations that follow the God of Israel. The desolation is from Islam. The time of the Gentile control of the land ended in 1948 and Jerusalem's Gentile control ended in 1967 at the Western Wall of the Temple Mount with Rabbi Goren's shofar blast, but Moshe Dayan gave Islam a pass on the Temple Mount. 

The reason, it is the vortex of Balak's problem.

The forth beast has been largely unsealed in the headlines of a post 9/11 world as the planet awakened in fear of radical Islam's terror mission. Not only that, American troops, much like the ships of Kittim have been etched into the scrolls in defense of Israel.

Balaam was a prophet from Persia and Daniel was a Jew exiled to Babylon. Daniel came from the promised land allotted to Judah. Together, Balaam, Daniel and John the revelator describe the destructive chaos will break out when Messiah "Who is like God" will stand up in defense of His people from a Balak attack. 

If we believe what we see, we can see that ancient Persia (Iran) is now front and center with Saudi Arabia as divided toes in king Nebuchadnezzar dream. The prophecy of the iron and clay toe conflict between the Arab Sunni and non-Arab Shī'ah sects of Islam is unfolding before our eyes. Perhaps in a short time they will pull the ships of Kittim into the conflict. 

Today, the US Naval fleet consists of about 400 warship vessels from the nuclear powered Nimitz-class aircraft carriers to the Los Angeles-class nuclear submarines below the ocean, but they will not get the job done. Only Messiah will end the tribulation battle in the goat and the ram vision of Daniel 8.

The question is this, when will the horn of the Kittim goat strike the wild ram of Iran? 

I do not know, but I think we will see it in the headlines with the treat of a nuclear Iran on the horizon. 

This we do know, we have all seen the resurgence of the dark corners of the kingdoms of the Medes and Persians in a crude evil form whose threat against Israel is growing every day with the specter of nuclear extinction. 

Why does Iran seek nukes? I think Balak knew.

We have just touched the storyline of the timelines and the 8th chapter of Daniel, I may have missed it altogether, but we all need to dig in together to understand the order of Daniel and the radical latter day kingdom that divides itself like iron and clay. 

Rest assured, knowledge will increase, it's the promise made to Daniel so its up to us to pay attention, the Kingdom King is coming.

There are some keys to help us, they are found in Daniel 10 about the return of the King. Take a look at the sequence of the battles described there. A man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz tells Daniel that he is returning to fight the prince of Persia. That vision fits the description of Revelation 1:9-16.

And as we've seen, if we know who the Legions were, we might understand much more about the end of days for Balak's descendants that want to curse Israel. 

History reveals the Legions were local recruits, they weren't Italians, they were local Arabs, Syrians and even Egyptians that were promised the prize of Roman citizenship to fight for the Empire. The identity of the 'Legions' is REALLY important as it tells us more about the people that will come up against Jerusalem in the end of their days.

We MUST also know God tells us He declares the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10). Look at Daniel's words in chapter 9 with some [inserts] I think they clear the air on the first fulfillment of Daniel's prophecy timeline:
So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree [first given by King Artaxerxes to Ezra] to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince [Yeshua-Jesus] there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks [weeks of years aka Shemittah equals 49 years + 434 years = 483 years]; it will be built again [the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt by Nehemiah], with plaza and moat, even in times of distress [Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite oppressed Nehemiah as he tried to complete the repairs]. Daniel 9:25-29
A "Horonite" was from the area known as Bethoron. There, the Horonites worshiped the Canaanite false-god Horon. Did you know that the two Palestinian-Muslim villages of Beit Ur al-Foqa‎, "Upper house of straw" and Beit Ur al-Tahta‎, "Lower house of straw" preserve part of the original Canaanite names for the towns Upper and Lower Bethoron?

Let's look at the text and consider [a possible explanation]:
"Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off [crucifixion] and have nothing, and the people [Arabs, Syrians and Egyptians] of the prince who is to come [Titus] will destroy the city [Jerusalem] and the sanctuary [the Temple]. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined [desolations for Jerusalem and as history proves]. "And he [Yeshua-Jesus] will make a firm covenant [eternal life] with the many [believers] for one week [Unleavened Bread week], but in the middle of the week [First Fruits day] he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering [Yeshua-Jesus is the ultimate offering. Sacrifices and offering stopped 40 years later in 70 AD with the destruction of the Temple and it altar];

And...on the wing of abominations will come one [Titus, 40 years later in 70 AD with the destruction of the Temple] who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed [also prophesied by Messiah as recorded in Matthew 24] is poured out on the one who makes desolate." [Titus died at age 41, September 13, 81 AD]
God tells us that He placed His name in Jerusalem and chose The Temple Mount as His. For the sake of His name, He will not let those that offend Jerusalem or trample the holy place of the Temple Mount go without the judgment they bring on themselves. And remember, like the pattern of Feast Days of The Lord, God's prophecy plan is cyclical. That's what declaring the end from the beginning means. 

Gabriel appeared before Daniel at the time of the evening sacrifice in Persia. He tells Daniel the Prince Messiah will be cut off and he tells Daniel exactly when in Daniel 9:24-27.

Gabriel gave Daniel the Messiah's timeline that starts with decrees to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. 

Cyrus' decree was not the only decree as many think. Artaxerxes gave a decree too. It included rebuilding streets and walls declared in Daniel 9. You can see more about this in Ezra 7:11-21. King Artaxerxes decree to all the treasurers occurred circa 457BC. Add 483 years and you arrive around 27 AD at the beginning of Jesus' ministry in the Galilee.

Luke 3:1 gives the timeline connection as the 15th year of Tiberius Caesar's reign. Herod died in 4 BC but he ordered the death of the children so his death decree was likely somewhere around 6BC. That must be around the time when Yeshua was born in Bethlehem just like king David 1,000 years earlier. 

Tiberias Caesar was on the scene circa 26-27 AD.  At this timeline, if we look to Daniel's 483 years or 69 sevens of years, we can link it to Artexerxes amazing decree. 

We've already seen the abomination of desolation in Jerusalem.  Yeshua warned His disciples that we would see it, the reason, it's a part of the prophetic cycle and that abomination of desolation sits atop the Temple Mount today. 

It causes the desolation of prayer to The God of Israel. 

In The Lord's Feast Days instruction, Almighty God uses sevens and connects them to redemption. Many call one of the Spring Feasts by the Greek name "Pentecost" due to the 50th day. The Jewish people properly call it Shavuot because it concludes seven weeks of counting weekly Sabbaths after Passover.

The Biblical word Shavuot has the meaning "weeks." God tells us:
"And your shall observe the feast of weeks of the first fruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of in-gathering..." Exodus 34:22
We are to observe these appointed days for good reason, they are rehearsals for the end time wheat harvest in-gathering. If we realize that there is just one Feast "of weeks" a year, then we might see that seventy "weeks" is... 70 years of Shavuot feasts. With that observation, Daniel 9:24-25 can be considered as:
Seventy weeks [Shavuot feast days] 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.
When was the last modern decree among the nations? 

It has a tie to U.N. Resolution 181. After all, Resolution 181 is the United Nations' decree that went forth on none other than a Sabbath day: November 29, 1947. We must consider that day as a part of the latter day storyline of Daniel.

And if we can count, we might just add 69 years to watch for another key event to follow in Jerusalem.

If correct, the time to watch is coming like a freight train. Come to think of it, that timeline will be none other than the 70th year of the international gathering of the nations in New York at the UN.

Keep in mind, the tiny nation of Israel was declared by the UN on November 29, 1947. Although not weeks of years, if we simply add 69 calendar years (one Shavuot per year) to the 1947 date, we arrive at 2016 and it's potentially a Jubilee, a year marking the "beginning" of a time of restoration. 

Will Israel will see restoration in areas that have remained broken for so long... like Jerusalem?

If we add 70 years, we arrive at the end of 2017 and the focus may intensify on the Western Wall.

As we saw in Daniel 9:25, the prophet states: "the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times." The Hebrew word for "street" seen here in Daniel is "rĕchob" it actually means open place or plaza. 

Do you know the location of a key plaza with a "wall" in Jerusalem today?

Do you think that people call the Kotel, the "plaza" by the Western Wall these names by chance or coincidence at the base of the Temple Mount?

Let that question soak in, then...

Let's look back again at the Roman destroyer Titus. He was in fact "poured out" just like the prophetic description used by Daniel. To understand this, we must consider what happened to Titus after he destroyed Jerusalem, its 600,000 citizens and the Temple where Titus in an act of abomination and desecration to God's authority sacrificed to the Roman idol that he placed within the Temple court just as Antiochus had done some 200 years before him.

Much like Sodom and Gomorrah, destruction and desolation were "poured out" a few short years later on Titus. Here's what happened:

Legion leader Titus returned to Rome in June of 71AD after he burned Jerusalem to the ground and left no stone unturned. He became Emperor after the death of his father Vespasian in 79AD. Titus finally ruled the Roman Empire, but his reign ended abruptly in fire.

Many may know the history, but have not have put the story lines together. Here's the connection:

Everyone has heard of Mount Vesuvius, it is the site of perhaps the most famous explosive volcanic eruption on Earth, and certainly the most written about. It erupted in 79AD in Italy. Yes that's right, 79AD is the very year Titus became Emperor of the Roman Empire. 

The shaking and eruption of Mt. Vesuvius fire bombed and buried the city of Pompeii under tons of hot cinder and volcanic ash that has preserved the ruins of the city and its inhabitants in stone for everyone to see today.

Coincidence or not, the last major eruption there was in 1944, the same year that Adolf Hitler ordered the deportation of 600,000 Hungarian Jews to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, the site of horrific mass Jewish murder not unlike the deaths in Jerusalem some 2,000 years ago.

Want more about Emperor Titus? During his short two-year reign, the city of Rome was plagued by horrific disease and pestilence. Mark that, we'll see this again as threats increase against Jerusalem. 

Not only that, a three-day fire destroyed vast portions of the capital of the Roman Empire. Remember, in God's world, what goes around comes around, the reason: people continue to bring curses on themselves when in opposition to God's Promised Land.

Just two years after the fires burned Rome, Titus suddenly and mysteriously died at a young age in 81AD. Ironically, many historians believe Titus may have died of a grave disease he took on from his lover Berenice, the sister of Julius Agrippa II. She was married three times prior to living with Titus outside of wedlock in Rome. Others say it was a fever, still others... brain cancer that killed him.

As Paul Harvey used to say on the radio... "now you know the rest of the story" (at least about Titus).

It seems Daniel saw these things about Titus and Jerusalem, he was sick for days, so if we are to properly understand the "end times"... the misguided teachings of an EU anti-christ and a sso-called revived Roman Empire need to vanish from our prophetic view if we are to understand king Nebuchadnezzar's dream and the the fourth beast in Daniel's vision.

In the end, the Bible is focused on the Temple Mount, the Middle East and the people living there, not Rome.

The Bible describes the nations that continue to surround Israel in the end with a tie to Balak. The Bible is not focused on the good ol USA, our land of amber waves of grain and purple mountain majesties, although there's an important Kittim connection in the support of Israel and its people. 

The Bible is not focused on Rome, the Vatican or St. Paul's Cathedral either no matter what a New York Times best seller may write to sell a book. 

The Bible is not about a tribulation escape hatch to Heaven either.

The focus of the Bible is about our relationship with Almighty God and how He calls people out of the slavery of sin into His Kingdom.  

Daniel's prophetic timelines begin with Nebuchadnezzar's assault on Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar's dream reveals the answers to Balaam's prophecy. Daniel was given his visions as downloads from Heaven to share that dream with us. He saw "Gentile" nations that would stake a claim on Jerusalem to interfere with God's plan. He sees them trample Jerusalem.

Incredibly, in 1917 British General Edmund Allenby released Jerusalem. Believe it or not, his horse mounted cavalry included the "Egyptian" Expeditionary Forces under his command. They all fought against the Ottomans for Jerusalem during the heavy rainstorms that year. Allenby's forces were the last great mounted cavalry and they battled the toes of iron and clay as they fought against the 7th and 8th Armies of the Ottoman Empire.

Under General Allenby's command, they took back the Old City of Jerusalem and ended 400 years of Ottoman control the day before the start of the festival of lights (aka Hanukkah). That very day commemorates the release and re-dedication of the Temple by the Maccabee hammer against the Seleucid dynasty 2,000 years before. Back then, the Hasmonean's rule of Jerusalem continued until 37 BC when an Idumean, yes an Idumean known as 'Herod the Great' became ruler of Israel by the appointment of Rome.

Some even think Herod the Great was a Roman,  but he wasn't, he was from Idumaea, aka Edom, aka Saudi Arabia.

Herod was an Edomite for crying out loud!

That very fact gives us another big clue on God's unusual instruction to Moses and the army of Israelites after they left Egypt. After they arrived in the wilderness, The Lord God told Moses to pass by and leave Edom alone. Had they fought Edom against God's explicit instruction, they would have utterly destroyed them and Herod would not have appeared on the scene 1,500 years later to restore the Temple in preparation for Messiah's teaching and ministry there.

Herod played a critical role in the restoration of the second Temple before Yeshua's arrival. That would have not happened if Edom had been destroyed during the Exodus. God knows what He's doing!

Think about it, Edom's "foreign hand" by Herod in Jerusalem is not unlike the Gentiles that Solomon recruited to help build the first Temple. Herod's work cycled much like the role of Cyrus the Great, the leader of the Persian Empire that ordered Jews to return to Jerusalem some 500 years before Herod.

The Gentile Herod had a big part in restoring the city of Jerusalem and made the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem one of his primary goals. Little did Herod know his labor was orchestrated by God's providence in preparation for the Messiah.

Fast forward to 1917, and we see another Gentile with Allenby's arrival in Jerusalem. His journey is captured in the historical website called Colonial Film. It says: "The proceedings in Jerusalem were captured on film by Harold Jeapes, a cameraman working for the War Office Cinematograph Committee (WOCC) in Palestine and Egypt." You can view an amazing 14 minute silent screen reel of latter day history as General Allenby entered Jerusalem through the Jaffa Gate.

The prophetic and historic Jubilee year of 1917 was also marked by the Balfour Declaration that made public the critical role of the Gentile British Crown's support of the Jewish homeland. That declaration was followed up by the San Remo Declaration in 1920 and then the British Mandate in 1922 that expired on May 14, 1948 as the nation state of Israel was declared by David Ben Gurion.

Since 1917, and the end of World War I, the headlines have been SUPER CHARGED with "end-time" Biblical promises that bring the prophets of the the Bible and a growing understanding of the visions and words of promise given to Daniel to the headlines that race toward us like Jubilee birth pains.

We are living in Biblical times right now, they never ended

The so-called Old Testament is not old or done away with. Prophecy is in progress, and the Biblical calendar is embedded with the prophecies. They are all connected to Israel and the Temple Mount.

In 1917, when British General Allenby entered Jerusalem, that newsreel set the world stage in motion for the return of the Jewish people to prepare Israel for Messiah's return as King. To top it off, Allenby entered the gates of the city 69 Biblical Jubilee years after the Exodus from Egypt!

That points us to the 70th Jubilee after the Exodus. 

A Jubilee count is 49 years to the 50th and the 70th Jubilee year was 3,500 years after Moses led Israel and the sojourners arrived. It was 1967, and for six days the armies of Israel fought against against Syria, Jordan and Egypt. 

In defense, Israel gained control of Gaza, the Sinai, Judea and Samaria, aka the West Bank and the Golan Heights. To top it all off, at the conclusion of the Six Day War, the Temple Mount was reclaimed by the Jewish people for the first time since Titus and the Legions destroyed the Old City, exiled its people and burned the Temple.

Today, Jerusalem is divided by three "religions" if you will. You may not realize it, but the "three parts" seen there today was foretold long ago in Revelation 16:19. Today, the world seeks to geo-politically divide Jerusalem, severing it as the eternal Capitol of Israel with the establishment of a so-called Palestinian State.

If this happens in view of prophetic history about to unfold, you better be ready with plenty of oil in your proverbial lamp. It will be a time of grave darkness for the nations that divide the land, a time of trouble they will bring on themselves that is tied to the final cycle of events that link back to Babylon:
"And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath." Revelation 16:19
The three "parts" dividing Jerusalem today are 1) Muslim, 2) Jewish and 3) Christian.

General Allenby even acknowledged this in his proclamation (during Hanukkah) to Jerusalem on December 11, 1917:
"To the Inhabitants of Jerusalem the Blessed and the People Dwelling in Its Vicinity:

The defeat inflicted upon the Turks by the troops under my command has resulted in the occupation of your city by my forces. I, therefore, here now proclaim it to be under martial law, under which form of administration it will remain so long as military considerations make necessary.

However, lest any of you be alarmed by reason of your experience at the hands of the enemy who has retired, I hereby inform you that it is my desire that every person pursue his lawful business without fear of interruption.

Furthermore, since your city is regarded with affection by the adherents of three of the great religions of mankind and its soil has been consecrated by the prayers and pilgrimages of multitudes of devout people of these three religions for many centuries, therefore, do I make it known to you that every sacred building, monument, holy spot, shrine, traditional site, endowment, pious bequest, or customary place of prayer of whatsoever form of the three religions will be maintained and protected according to the existing customs and beliefs of those to whose faith they are sacred.

Guardians have been established at Bethlehem and on Rachel's Tomb. The tomb at Hebron has been placed under exclusive Moslem control.

The hereditary custodians at the gates of the Holy Sepulchre have been requested to take up their accustomed duties in remembrance of the magnanimous act of the Caliph Omar, who protected that church."
Just as Revelation foretold, three parts now divide Jerusalem. Yet, on any modern map of the city, we label see the City of God drawn with four quarters. That can be a bit confusing and it keeps us from understanding Yeshua's revelation given to John at Patmos.

On any modern map, we see: 1) the Muslim Quarter, 2) the Jewish Quarter, 3) the (Arab) Christian Quarter and 4) the Armenian Quarter.


There's someth=]ing we have to remember. The Armenians adopted "Christianity" as their official state religion back in 286AD. So in reality, there are three divisions in Jerusalem today, not four. Not only that, the Christian Armenians were nearly destroyed by radical Islam as millions were killed in the Armenian Genocide that began in 1914. That genocide was led by the Ottoman Turks, so keep a keen eye on Turkey.

Want more proof?

The Jewish Virtual Library states: "In fact, during the Camp David Summit, leaders of the Armenian church insisted the Christian and Armenian Quarters were inseparable and expressed their preference for international guarantees."

When we consider the end-time storyline in the visions of Daniel, we must remember the Redeemer Prince when we think of the role of Michael ("who is like God") in the ancient explanation of Daniel's vision.

Interestingly, among General Allenby's many medals of distinction he was awarded around the globe, he received the two that provide a subtle link to Daniel's vision: 'Grand Cross of the Order of the Redeemer' and the 'Order of Michael the Brave'!!

Without knowing it, Allenby medals play a part in prophecy. 

So, we must consider the reality of the Jubilee events that point to the cycle of prophecy and the order of Daniel. We have to remember 1917, 1948 and 1967 too.

Knowledge will unfold further about Jerusalem in 2017, after all it will be 100 years (two Jubilees) since Allenby's entrance through the Jaffa Gate.

After that knowledge unfolds, the "latter-day" ram and goat vision described in Daniel 8 will come into better focus because of the promise given to Daniel: "knowledge shall increase."

Joel Richardson, the author of an eye-opening book titled The Islamic Antichrist really got me to thinking about the possibility of a radical Jihad conflict that dramatically points to a western engagement in the battle scene. Daniel 8 prophetically refers to conflict between the east and west.

Am I saying that another battle like those seen in 1948, 1967 and 1973 in Israel is certain?

No, I am not... the location may change, because Daniel prophesies that the west will oppose the east in the ram vs. goat vision that points to a key military battle in the end. Many now say that the prophecy is over and out because it's all about Alexander the Great's conquests across the Middle East and the event that followed 320 BC, but there are a few basic problems with Alexander's four generals being the fulfillment of this prophecy. The Bible is clear about that.

Alexander only set the stage for a repeat:
1) Alexander's troops did not come from the west "without touching the ground" like today's troops that travel exclusively by sea and air (Daniel 8:5).

2) Also... any event around the year 320 BC can't really be considered an "end time" prophecy can it?
After all, history repeats, prophecy is a cycle.

Alexander's conquests and battles were a "shadow picture" of things to come - - in the end they will be just as they are declared. Let's look at Daniel 8:19 for the proof text:
"...Behold, I will make thee know what shall be in the last end of the indignation: for at the time appointed the end shall be."
That indignation is the hatred of Israel and the Jewish people that is front and center in Iran's dark Shi'ite leadership as well as Iran's proxies like Hamas. 

As for Alexander, when we consider the book of Daniel, it is important that we don't plug things in to try to get the visions in the scroll to force history into the headlines or accept a popular best selling book series as an escape to the grand finale.

We must let the Scriptures speak for themselves because the Bible repeatedly says are not to add to or take away from it (see Deuteronomy 4:2; Deuteronomy 12:32; Proverbs 30:5-6; Psalms 119:160).

In the end, we must be a watchman and pray for the peace of Jerusalem!

Daniel's goat and ram vision in chapter 8 is about the time appointed at the end because that's what it says

In the explanation of his vision, Daniel was told there will be three kings and the fourth shall be the richest (most powerful) and by his strength he will stir against the realm/dominion of Grecia.

Daniel tells us a fourth king will invade the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown before the time that Michael ("who is like God") stands up. Isaiah ties in some of the details of just who leads that final conflict:
Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD of hosts, O my people that dwellest in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrian:

He shall smite thee with a rod, and shall lift up his staff against thee, after the manner of Egypt. For yet a very little while, and the indignation shall cease, and mine anger in their destruction.

And the LORD of hosts shall stir up a scourge for him… Behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, shall lop the bough with terror: and the high ones of stature shall be hewn down, and the haughty shall be humbled. And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse… Isaiah 10:24-26; 33; Isaiah 11:1
The end time strike depicted by Daniel and Isaiah is imminent. The second vision in the third year of the last Babylonian king made Daniel sick for days for good reason, he saw glimpses of the future.

I'll try to keep you updated on why...

Israel is being cast down with disinformation in the mainstream media that is supported by advertising money, ratings and politics, yet God is looking for you to follow His heart for His land and its people. Now more than ever, Israel needs you to stand in prayer and action.

Stand - fight back as a warrior with your prayers!

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"Iran’s supreme leader on Saturday vowed to retaliate with “definitive punishment” after the slaying of the country's leading nuclear scientist, with some officials blaming Israel for the apparent assassination.  

The Israeli government, suspected of assassinating Iranian scientists a decade ago amid tensions over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, has yet to comment on the killing Friday of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. 

The roadside attack, which bore the hallmarks of a carefully planned, military-style ambush, threatens to further escalate tensions between the United States and Iran in the waning days of President Trump’s term and creates new complications for President-elect Joe Biden." 


"Israel put its embassies around the world on high alert on Saturday after Iranian threats of retaliation following the killing of a nuclear scientist near Tehran, N12 news reported on Saturday."


"Iran's most senior nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh has been assassinated near the capital Tehran, the country's defence ministry has confirmed.


Fakhrizadeh died in hospital after an attack in Absard, in Damavand county. Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, has condemned the killing "as an act of state terror".

Western intelligence agencies believe Fakhrizadeh was behind a covert Iranian nuclear weapons programme.

"If Iran ever chose to weaponise (enrichment), Fakhrizadeh would be known as the father of the Iranian bomb," one Western diplomat told Reuters news agency in 2014.

Iran insists its nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes.

But news of the killing comes amid fresh concern about the increased amount of enriched uranium that the country is producing. Enriched uranium is a vital component for both civil nuclear power generation and military nuclear weapons."


BEIRUT, LEBANON (3:40 P.M.) – The naval forces of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard conducted a massive maneuver, the first of its kind in the waters of the Arabian Gulf and the Sea of ​​Oman, with the participation of 1,000 boats of various kinds.

According to the Fars News Agency, more than 1,000 light, medium and semi- heavy boats took part in the maneuver organized by the naval mobilization of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

November 25, 2020: Here's an opinion from Barak Ravid writing for Axios...


What's happening: Israeli minister of defense Benny Gantz spoke twice in the last two weeks with Christopher Miller, Trump's acting defense secretary. They discussed Iran as well as Syria and defense cooperation.

Last Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in Saudi Arabia with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. One of the main issues discussed was Iran, Israeli officials say.

Pompeo visited Israel and several Gulf countries last week to discuss Iran. State Department officials traveling with Pompeo told reporters “all options are on the table."

While Pompeo was in the Gulf, U.S. Central Command announced that B-52 strategic bombers conducted a “short-notice, long-range mission into the Middle East to deter aggression and reassure U.S. partners and allies." That was seen as another signal to Iran.

Hossein Dehghan, an adviser to Iran’s leader and a possible candidate in Iran's upcoming presidential elections, told AP last week that a U.S. military strike against Iran could set off a “full-fledged war” in the Middle East.

Photo courtesy of U.S. Navy 6th Fleet
November 23, 2020: Another shadow picture from Daniel 8? 

Behold, a male goat came from the west across the face of the whole earth, without touching the ground: Destroyer USS Donald Cook enters Black Sea

(UPI) -- The destroyer USS Donald Cook became the seventh U.S. Navy ship this year to enter the Black Sea on Monday in support of NATO allies, the Navy reported.

The ship began its "straits transfer," moving through a narrow Turkish waterway between the Mediterranean and Black Seas, early Monday morning.


MINOT AIR FORCE BASE, N.D. (KMOT) - B-52 Stratofortress crews assigned to the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot Air Force Base conducted a “short-notice, long-range mission” in the Middle East Saturday, according to U.S. Central Command.

What's the Shi'te threat from a craftsman of chaos?


Tehran threatens harsh response to any who disrupt its ‘advisers’ in Syria, as war monitor claims 14 pro-Iran fighters killed in fresh strikes attributed to Israel

Now, the Sunni Saudi question: What's the Riyadh peace price tag?


"The Saudi foreign minister says his country supports “full normalization” of ties with the Israeli regime provided that its only precondition is met.

Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, the Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs, announced on Saturday that Riyadh supports full normalization with Israel, but first, a permanent and complete peace agreement should be approved that guarantees the Palestinians their state with dignity.

He made the remarks in a virtual interview on the sidelines of the G20 Leaders Summit hosted by the kingdom this year."


"Economic and Financial Committee vote - Permanent sovereignty of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and of the Arab population in the occupied Syrian Golan over their natural resources - Item 62 - A/C.2/75/L.35" 

France 24 Video - Al Qaeda deputy leader killed: Breaking down the mystery surrounding his reported death.



"Beasley recalled his warning to the U.N. Security Council in April that as the world was dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, it was also “on the brink of a hunger pandemic” that could lead to “multiple famines of biblical proportions” within a few months if immediate action wasn’t taken."

“We were able to avert it in 2020 ... because the world leaders responded with money, stimulus packages, deferral of debt,” he said.

Now, Beasley said, COVID-19 is surging again, economies are continuing to deteriorate particularly in low- and middle-income countries, and there is another wave of lockdowns and shutdowns.

But he said the money that was available in 2020 isn’t going to be available in 2021, so he has been using the Nobel to meet leaders virtually and in person, talk to parliaments, and give speeches to sensitize those with power to “this tragedy that we are facing -- crises that really are going to be extraordinary over the next, who knows, 12 to 18 months.”


September 24, 2020: As Israel moves back into total lockdown Friday with the exception of essential services until the end of the Fall Feasts, Fatah and Hamas agree to hold general elections, the first since 2006. Meanwhile...


Prayer Alert Update:
January 2, 2020 US kills Iran’s most powerful general in Baghdad airstrike

"BAGHDAD (AP) — The United States killed Iran’s top general and the architect of Tehran’s proxy wars in the Middle East in an airstrike at Baghdad’s international airport early on Friday, an attack that threatens to dramatically ratchet up tensions in the region.

The targeted killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, could draw forceful Iranian retaliation against American interests in the region and spiral into a far larger conflict between the U.S. and Iran, endangering U.S. troops in Iraq, Syria and beyond."

As noted below, the President warned of this potential on October 13, 2017, as he announced the reasons for a future withdrawal of the "Iran Nuclear Deal" from the Whitehouse.

Trump forewarned the two ram horns Iranian Major-General Qasem Soleimani, head of the Quds Force, and Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

Prayer Alert Update December 30, 2019: Press Briefing by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper | Palm Beach, FL

"SECRETARY POMPEO:  Good evening.  Myself, with Secretary Esper, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Milley, came here to Florida today to brief the President on the activities that have taken place in the Middle East over the course of the last 72 hours.

I will leave to Secretary Esper to talk about the military activity, but I want to put it in the context of our policy with respect to the Islamic Republic of Iran.  The attacks that took place against an Iraqi facility threatened American forces.  This has been going on now for weeks and weeks and weeks.  This wasn’t the first set of attacks against this particular Iraqi facility and others where there were American lives at risk.

And today, what we did was take a decisive response that makes clear what President Trump has said for months and months and months, which is that we will not stand for the Islamic Republic of Iran to take actions that put American men and women in jeopardy."

Prayer Alert Update December 29, 2019: US strikes Iranian-backed militia in Iraq; 19 reported killed

"BAGHDAD, Iraq — The US carried out air strikes against a pro-Iran militant group in Iraq Sunday, killing 19 fighters, two days after a rocket attack that killed an American civilian contractor.

A few hours after the strikes, four rockets exploded near a base housing US troops close to Iraq’s capital without wounding anyone, an Iraqi security official told AFP."

Prayer Alert Update December 29, 2019: An American killed, 4 injured in heavy Iraqi Shiite rocket strike on US K-1 base near Kirkuk 

"At least 30 rockets launched against the US K-1 base near the oil city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq on Friday, Dec. 27, killed an American civilian contractor and injured 4 US soldiers. Some 11 to 14 exploded inside the base; the rest outside. They were fired from rocket-launching trucks parked outside the facility. The crews then abandoned the launchpads and took off in waiting getaway vehicles."

Prayer Alert Update December 24, 2019: The cruise missiles that struck IRGC Air Force HQ in Syria – a telling blow for Iran’s Mid-East plans

"The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Air Force chief, Gen. Amir-Ali Hajizadeh, escaped the fate of the “three foreigners” killed when 3-4 cruise missiles flew from warships off the Syrian coast on Sunday night, Dec. 22, and crashed into his Syrian headquarters at Agraba, south of Damascus. But the three victims were almost certainly air force officers, which sparked reports that the general was among them.

The hit clearly came a lot too close for comfort. Indicating that something important had just happened, Tehran moved fast for damage control. Within hours, Iran’s state news agency IRNA informed reporters that Gen. Hajizadeh “is in perfect health,” while also claiming that the missile attack’s targets had ranged from the tomb of the Shiite Saint Seyyeda Zeinab south of Damascus up to the big T-4 air base near Homs.

Even if the IRGC Air Force general escaped unharmed, the missiles striking his Syrian headquarters carried this message: “We know exactly where you are and are tracking your movements. Be warned.”

Prayer Alert Update: June 21, 2019: Trump orders limited strike on Iran but then calls it off

"Washington -- President Trump on Thursday ordered the U.S. military to conduct a limited strike against Iran to retaliate for the downing of a Navy surveillance drone in the Persian Gulf region, but he then called off the operation just an hour before it was to begin. The president's change of course avoided, for now, what would have been the most significant escalation of hostilities between Washington and Tehran in decades.

There was every indication the U.S. was about to launch a limited strike against Iranian surface-to-air missile sites on Thursday evening, but the military stood down at the 11th hour. More than one source confirmed this to CBS News, including two sources within the Trump administration who were familiar with the president's decision. The sources said the plan was already underway when it was called off."

Scroll of Daniel c550BC - "Out of one of them came forth a rather small horn which grew exceedingly great toward the south, toward the east, and toward the Beautiful Land." Daniel 8:9

Are these related? Only God knows until He reveals the content of the sealed scroll. Even Daniel couldn't understand what he saw.

Jerusalem Post 6/19/19 - ""I hear our neighbors from the north, south and east threatening to destroy us," he said. "I say to our enemies: The IDF has a very large power of annihilation. Do not try us."

Netanyahu’s comments came amid an increase in regional tension between the US and Iran in the Persian Gulf."

USNews 6/19/2019 - BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - A rocket hit a site in southern Iraq used by foreign oil companies on Wednesday, including U.S. energy giant ExxonMobil, wounding three people and threatening to further escalate U.S. - Iran tensions in the region.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack near Iraq's southern city of Basra, the fourth time in a week that rockets have struck near U.S. installations. A second rocket that landed in another nearby area did not explode, one official said.

Times of Israel 6/18/19 - "The Israeli Air Force is holding a large-scale multi-day exercise simulating combat action on multiple fronts, the army said Tuesday, with the air force’s F-35s taking part for the first time.

The drill, which began Sunday and ends Wednesday, involves fighter jets, helicopters, cargo planes, drones, air defense units and ground support forces. It simulates simultaneous fighting in the Gaza Strip, Syria and Lebanon."

ABC News 6/17/19 - "The United States is sending 1,000 additional troops to the Middle East, amid rising tensions between the U.S. and Iran."

ABC News 5/4/19 - "An additional 1,500 U.S. troops and increased defensive capabilities capabilities are being sent to the Middle East to continue to help deter Iran, the Pentagon announced on Friday."

PRAYER ALERT December 28, 2017 Report: US, Israel sign secret pact to tackle Iran nuclear and missile threat

"Israel and the United States have secretly signed a far-reaching joint memorandum of understanding providing for full cooperation to deal with Iran’s nuclear drive, its missile programs and its other threatening activities, an Israeli TV report said.

The document was signed on December 12 at the White House, culminating intensive talks between representatives of the major Israeli and American intelligence and defense hierarchies, headed by the US and Israeli national security advisers, H. R. McMaster and Meir Ben-Shabbat, respectively, the Channel 10 report said Thursday."

PRAYER ALERT October 13, 2017 Transcript: Trump's Remarks On Iran Nuclear Deal

Note the KEY reference to US Embassy attacks and other Iranian proxy attacks.


In this speech, President Trump stated:

"Our policy is based on a clear-eyed assessment of the Iranian dictatorship, its sponsorship of terrorism, and its continuing aggression in the Middle East and all around the world.

Iran is under the control of a fanatical regime that seized power in 1979 and forced a proud people to submit to its extremist rule. This radical regime has raided the wealth of one of the world's oldest and most vibrant nations, and spread death, destruction, and chaos all around the globe.

Beginning in 1979, agents of the Iranian regime illegally seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held more than 60 Americans hostage during the 444 days of the crisis. The Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah twice bombed our embassy in Lebanon — once in 1983 and again in 1984. Another Iranian-supported bombing killed 241 Americans — service members they were, in their barracks in Beirut in 1983.

In 1996, the regime directed another bombing of American military housing in Saudi Arabia, murdering 19 Americans in cold blood.

Iranian proxies provided training to operatives who were later involved in al Qaeda's bombing of the American embassies in Kenya, Tanzania, and two years later, killing 224 people, and wounding more than 4,000 others.

The regime harbored high-level terrorists in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, including Osama bin Laden's son. In Iraq and Afghanistan, groups supported by Iran have killed hundreds of American military personnel.

The Iranian dictatorship's aggression continues to this day. The regime remains the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, and provides assistance to al Qaeda, the Taliban, Hezbollah, Hamas, and other terrorist networks. It develops, deploys, and proliferates missiles that threaten American troops and our allies. It harasses American ships and threatens freedom of navigation in the Arabian Gulf and in the Red Sea. It imprisons Americans on false charges. And it launches cyberattacks against our critical infrastructure, financial system, and military.

The United States is far from the only target of the Iranian dictatorship's long campaign of bloodshed. The regime violently suppresses its own citizens; it shot unarmed student protestors in the street during the Green Revolution.

This regime has fueled sectarian violence in Iraq, and vicious civil wars in Yemen and Syria. In Syria, the Iranian regime has supported the atrocities of Bashar al-Assad's regime and condoned Assad's use of chemical weapons against helpless civilians, including many, many children.

Given the regime's murderous past and present, we should not take lightly its sinister vision for the future. The regime's two favorite chants are "Death to America" and "Death to Israel.""

Update August 8, 2013: Here's a link to an insightful blog post by Billy Humphrey, the director of the International House of Prayer Atlanta entitled: Organizing The Book of Daniel Chronologically.

Mr. Humphrey outlines the book of Daniel in simple chronologic order and explains:

"In my owns studies I found that as I organized the book chronologically it became easier for me to understand the story line. Hopefully this will serve as a helpful tool for you as you study the Book of Daniel."

So what does the order of Daniel tell us?

Almighty God is sovereign and unchanging. He is the loving, kind, merciful, gracious forgiving Abba Father and He has provided the book of Daniel to tie future events to the Torah, the Prophets and Psalms as a road map to point the world toward the destination of life's journey which is Messiah Yeshua - Jesus.

His rule is the final order of Daniel. The King is coming!

If you have not understood this, then Almighty Elohim God is calling your name to repent and turn back to Him. He wants to offer you redemption, the purchase price of salvation from sin through forgiveness and Messiah.

You can accept His gospel promise of life in The Father's Kingdom. Consider carefully what your own life consists of, look at it and repent of any wrongdoing, immorality or transgression sin and turn back to the Bible as your guide for life.

Ask Elohim God for His grace in forgiveness and accept His gift of lovingkindness, grace and supplication through Messiah Yeshua. Then walk with Him the way He walked in God's instruction. It's not done away with, never has been never will be. The jots and tittles remain.

If you know you need to get your life right with God, don’t wait for tomorrow, start the walk on the seven-mile road with Him now and grab the robe of the resurrected Messiah.

God's Spirit will walk with you on your life's journey if you'll listen to Him, and you too can learn how the things which are written in the law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Writings are all concerning Him so that you can teach others:
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." John 3:16-17
Today is the time, there's little time.

Consider a prayer: Please, God, guide me as to what I should do.

It's time for you to repent and return to God's voice, return to hear and do His word and walk in the faith of His Kingdom path so that you can ready your lamp for your coming assignment. 

Open your eyes and recognize King Messiah.

Repent and walk with Messiah at the center of your life and study the Scriptures that He taught every Sabbath, they are filled with meaning because of Him.

His name is Yeshua. He is Jesus of Nazareth and His Hebrew name expresses both his identity and his mission to save us from sin's death grip and be blessed to walk in His way and in resurrection life.

Shalom ya'll.

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