The End

Some of the confusion over the Messiah is caused by the

appearance that there were two of them. Jews began to desig-

nate them as “Messiah Ben David” and “Messiah Ben Joseph.”

Ben David became the conquering Messiah, and Ben Joseph

became the suffering Messiah. Most Jews have only desired the

Davidic Messiah, and have ignored the Josephic Messiah.

According to the prophecy of Daniel 9:25-26, the Messiah

was due to arrive 69 sevens (69 x 7, or 483) after the decree to

restore and rebuild Jerusalem. In order to interpret this unit of

time (the sevens), e.g. seven days or seven years, we need to

examine scripture.

•

“In the middle of the ‘seven’ he [a ruler] will put an end to

sacrifice and offering”

(Dan. 9:27).

•

This ruler who breaks his covenant in the middle of the

seven (Dan 9:27) persecutes the Jews for 1,260 days (Rev

12:6).

Since “half” of the seven is 1,260 days, it is clear that the

use of seven refers to a period of seven years (360 days in a

Jewish religious year), thus the 69 sevens referred to in the de-

cree of Daniel 9:25 is 483 years.

This decree was well known as the Edict of Artaxerxes and

was given in March, 445 B.C. (Nehemiah, chapter 2). The

great mistake of the Jews was that the Messiah they ignored,

Messiah Ben Joseph, came but was not recognized! At the same

time as Christ, about 70 others appeared, also making claim to

be the Messiah. It was abundantly clear that prophecies in the

Bible pointed to this time, which is the reason so many impos-

tors showed up for their “cattle call.”