 okay so we read the passage from Daniel 9 we'll just continue to look at what is it talking about okay Daniel 9 24 to 27 so here we see a period of 70 sets of 7 or 77s right that is used here and that can mean either 70 weeks right that's how we would normally understand it 77s 70 weeks but because this is prophetic language we will look at what does that 77s mean because if we're looking at it is 70 weeks that means it's just over a year 52 weeks in a year plus another 18 weeks or so for Daniel's prophecy to be fulfilled which is about the city of Jerusalem being rebellious about people sinning and then about the coming of the anointed one right so verse 25 it says the from time the command is given to rebuild Jerusalem until a ruler the anointed one comes and here we see that there is 77s 77s plus 62 7s in verse 25 will pass from the time the command is given to rebuild Jerusalem until a ruler the anointed one comes so in in scripture this period of one week is sometimes understood as a year then there are different ways in which this is understood one way is based on Ezekiel 4 4 to 6 so if we look at Ezekiel 4 4 to 6 I'll just read that for us so it says now lie on your left side and place the sins of Israel on yourself you are to bear their sins for the number of days you lie there on your side I'm requiring you to bear Israel sins for 390 days one day for each year of their sin after that turn over and lie on your right side for 40 days one day for each year of Judah's sin so here is where we see one day used to refer to one year so when we see 77s the 7s or 7 weeks we understand as 7 years this is one way that it's interpreted as 7 years but another way is just based on the Hebrew word so the Hebrew word is Shabua and that can be either translated as 7 days or 7 years or it can be translated as a week okay so because 7 days would be a week or it can be translated as 7 years so why do we take this 77s why do we take that 7s as 7 years rather than days or other than a week is because if we look at the fulfillment of that prophecy as well and we calculate what he was referring to what Daniel was referring to we can see that that prophecy was actually fulfilled in the coming of Jesus so we base that calculation on the approximate dates that are given for the different events that happened that are mentioned in Daniel chapter 9 so we'll just go back to Daniel 9 okay so it talks about it starts with the period of 77s for this rebellion to be put to end till the most holy place is anointed verse 25 it says 7 sets of 7 plus 62 sets of 7 so that is 69 right 69 weeks and 69 weeks if we took that if we calculated it the way we talked about where one week equals a year it would be 483 years now if we look at what all is talked about in this verse 25 it says these 483 years or these 69 weeks will pass from the time the command is given to rebuild Jerusalem so the command that was given to rebuild Jerusalem was given by King Artaxus in Ezra 7 he gives Ezra permission to go back and rebuild the city now those dates these are all approximate dates but the date that is usually looked at is about 457 bc when King Artaxus gives that command to rebuild the city and then there were 49 years when the city was actually rebuilt so 457 to 408 bc is when the city was rebuilt and then 434 years later was when Jesus was baptized and he started his ministry that's AD 27 and it says here until a ruler the anointed one comes okay so that is the prediction that from the time of the giving of the command for Jerusalem to be rebuilt till the time the anointed one comes there will be these 69 weeks or 483 years and if we look at that 457 bc from when King Artaxus gave that command or gave Ezra permission to Jesus's baptism and the coming is starting of his ministry which is AD 27 that is a period of 483 years now this calculation is based on historians approximate dating of all these events but it's very very close to what Daniel has said here right so it's actually the exact same 483 years so based on this we know that our interpretation of one week being equal to seven years is correct okay so here we have the privilege of having the fulfillment already and we can look back and see whereas in with some prophecies we still are waiting for their fulfillment but this is how we look at interpretation so uh we looked at how do we understand this seven uh seven seventy sevens right how do we understand that we can understand it based on how uh as you kill four four to six years is it one day equals one year or we can understand based on just that Hebrew word that's used which can be translated either as a week or a year and if we take it as a year we see that actually this prophecy has already I mean if we calculated back we can see that what Daniel prophesied exactly took place with Jesus's coming okay so with time this is something that we need to recognize that sometimes there is this figurative language sometimes there's literal language and when we have figurative language we need to look at how does the rest of scripture has is there any examples in the rest of scripture that we can use to help us understand what that figurative language is talking about um is that does that make sense the uh interpretation of timing and this use of figurative versus literal it's a little confusing uh prophecy already fulfilled right yes the the prophecy don't have to learn about this prophecy now so uh do we have to learn about it is that your question sorry yeah yes it's that so we're just using this as an example of how uh time can be used figuratively so it's saying here 77 so 70 weeks but uh or 77 weeks but what it's actually meaning is 70 into 7 so that's 490 years so if we're taking it literally then we're only looking at 70 weeks but if we take it as uh how Daniel was talking about it then we understand that it's 490 years and we know that Jesus came after the 483 years now the remaining seven years are yet to be fulfilled and that is something that will come uh at a later period of time so if we read the we continue to read in this uh chapter and annual nine there is a break after the coming of the anointed one there are certain things that will happen and then these last seven years will be fulfilled uh so that is yet to happen okay sister thank you it was a little confusing for me yes so uh anything you want me to go over again specifically in that okay uh what i'll do is i'll just post those references on the chat um and that will hopefully help you um help you kind of have a better idea of uh what i explained yeah you can yes thank you sister yes you can go through the video uh i'll also just post on chat what i uh had shared uh the different references so you also have that with you okay okay sister thank you no problem okay so this is just uh rough notes if y'all have any questions uh post reading it after class or anything you can uh you can let me know okay so uh with that we actually um come to just some final um thoughts on how do we interpret uh prophecy so these were three main things that we looked at was the timeline uh the second was uh the use of figurative language or imagery and the third was time itself being talked about figuratively um so some principles that we can follow uh one is um to still take into consideration as we do with all interpretation of scripture to take the historical context the grammatical meaning of the words uh and to also first look at literally interpreting the passage we will only consider it as figurative language if the literal meaning seems to be something that doesn't make any sense or something that is impossible uh if it's something like that like the language of the beast uh dragon all of those things where we know that this is not um not meant to be taken literally then we start to do this process of interpreting what does it mean what do these pictures mean um otherwise we will always try and take it literally we'll try and take it to mean what it says right we'll just try to take the meaning of the words and we'll try to take the historical context into consideration as well um so uh we also need to remember that a lot of the revelation is talking about future events and it's usually pointing to Jesus's reign that is coming on earth so when we understand that we uh can look at the prophecy and see okay how how is this pointing to Jesus is coming what is it saying about Jesus is coming so we have uh that as a guideline for when we're interpreting that it's not something that is completely new that we don't know anything about uh we already know a lot about what is prophesied or what scripture says about Jesus's return and so the interpretation should be in line with that um we also uh recognize that uh this example is given 1 Peter 1 10 3 11 um this principle of foreshortening so what that means is that when prophets uh wrote in scripture they didn't always know exactly the timeline of what they themselves were talking about right so that this is why we see those that mixture in timelines something coming before something else or a huge gap between something that is mentioned in uh a single a single verse right so they have a revelation they have uh they are inspired by the Holy Spirit and they write down what they're inspired to write but at the same time they didn't have the full picture they have a part of the picture and that's what they've written about so uh this is why it becomes important to uh look at other parts of scripture as well and take all of that into consideration as we are interpreting prophetic uh passages uh so that we don't expect things to happen exactly as one passage has talked about but we are able to look at everything and we look at a few examples here also uh and then understand what is the bigger picture uh of this prophecy um we also will look for built-in interpretations so uh in uh Daniel too is an example of where Daniel himself interprets uh uh interprets a dream right so we have the dream we have uh and we have the interpretation as well so uh in some passages we'll have that uh provided for us already the interpretation provided already and so that will help us know okay this is the meaning of what we're reading um and then the next point is what I was just mentioning to us so we look at parallel passages in scripture so if we're looking at revelation 13 we'll also look at Daniel 9 what we were just reading about okay so if we're looking at Joel 2 18 to 32 so Joel 2 um talks about the pouring out of the Holy Spirit uh we also look at that in relation to revelation 19 okay so revelation 19 is talking about the millennial reign of Christ so Joel 2 talks about the pouring out of the Holy Spirit and then goes into the millennial reign uh so this is another example of a wide timeline right uh so talking about the pouring out of the Holy Spirit to the millennial reign uh there's a long period of time before that happens but it's all in that one passage in that one chapter uh and then the third one Isaiah 9 24 Joel 2 Zechariah 14 I think all of these are given in your notes uh and revelation 20 all of these talk about the same uh a set of events about the millennial reign of Christ and so and we read this as well we read all of these passages together to get a better understanding of what that millennial reign will look like um another principle is that a lot of the prophecies have been spiritually fulfilled in the church today so like if we look at the example from Joel 2 uh the pouring out of the Holy Spirit uh Peter talks about this in Acts 2 and he says this has been fulfilled right um so we see that spiritual fulfillment of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit but we also expect that there will be a literal fulfillment of those passages uh for the nation of Israel as well so these passages were written as prophecies to the Israelites right and the church is the spiritual sees the spiritual fulfillment of these passages but we also believe that there will be a literal fulfillment of this these exact prophecies for the nation of Israel uh so we'll just look at uh Amos 9 11 to 13 somebody can read that for us please can i read sister yes please go ahead uh Amos 9 11 11 to 13 on that day i will uh raise up the tabernacle of David which has fallen down and repair his damages i will raise up its runes and rebuild it as in the days of old that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the Gentiles who are called by my name says the Lord who does this thing behold the days are coming says the Lord when the plowman shall overtake the reaper and the shredder of grapes him who so see the mountain shall rip with sweet wine and all the hills shall flow with it thank you so uh here we see this prophecy about David's tabernacle being restored about the Gentiles coming to the Lord and about there being a great harvest uh was 13 is talking about a great harvest uh so if we look at acts 15 15 uh we see here that the church is uh seeing the fulfillment of this passage right the Gentiles are coming to the Lord and this passage acts 15 15 points back to the same verse in Amos 9 and it says uh is this is exactly what the prophets had predicted the conversion of the Gentiles right so that is the spiritual fulfillment but uh we also believe that there will be a little fulfillment where uh there will be restoration of uh the worship of temple worship that uh people will flock to Jerusalem uh and that there will be a great harvest of souls in that return uh to worshiping the true God uh so we look at prophecy from both these perspectives both the spiritual fulfillment in the church and the literal fulfillment for the nation of Israel um we also see uh dual fulfillment as another aspect of biblical prophecy so Genesis 3 15 uh where it talks about uh the uh snake and the man always being enemies right so there will be a seed uh from the woman who will crush the head of the serpent uh so there's an immediate um immediate aspect of fulfillment in that literally um the way to kill a snake is to crush its head and that's how snakes are killed uh by by us right when you're trying to attack a snake that is the place we attack is the head uh to destroy it but we also know that there was a future implication of Jesus coming as the seed of woman and crushing the head of Satan so uh sometimes there will be prophecies that will have both that immediate literal fulfillment but also a future uh perspective that it's pointing to a future event that it's pointing to um yeah and the last part is the same thing we talked about that uh there are parts of the prophecy that are fulfilled and parts of the prophecies that are still to be fulfilled so when we're looking at a prophetic passage um if if we feel if we're reading it and we're confused about um oh this is talking about something that has not yet happened but like the example of Joel too it's talking about uh the spirit being poured out but then it's also talking about the millennium of Christ that has not yet happened uh so to recognize that that is very possible in passages uh a prophetic passages uh because they cover huge timelines because they were written by the prophets um who just wrote down what they uh were led to write down without understanding exactly how all of those things would fall into place and at what time uh so this is um this is pretty much the end of interpreting biblical prophecy uh the intent of this is not to help us go into all of the prophetic passages and now be able to explain everything that we read it's just to give us some handle on uh to give us a basic introduction or give us a handle on how we look at prophetic passages to not feel a sense of fear when we're reading passages to know that there are answers available in scripture if we refer to other passages other prophetic passages if we read um the rest of scripture um and to give us some guidelines to help keep us uh or to guard us as we are interpreting so that we don't go too far away from what the scriptures actually talking about um so any anything that y'all would like to say or ask uh with regard to what we covered sister is there any website where we can look up for the answers we need like if we have any problem and interpretation um i i i i don't know of any specific websites uh there is a lot of content outside but i'm not sure of any specific ones but uh we do have the second year and third year classes uh that will cover a lot of this so if you're planning to stay to your second year and third year you will look more into biblical prophecy and the end times Daniel and revelation um but the other thing is all of our classes are also on youtube so even if you don't end up staying of to do your second year third year for whatever reason those are good resources that you can also reference okay sister thank you no problem okay uh any other questions or um should we close and come back for the third hour anyone else have anything you want to share i've i've just posted on the chat what we what i had talked about from daniel nine so you can look at that okay so um um if there are no more questions then we'll take a break okay so we'll come back for our third hour um in about half an hour and um yep we'll go into new testament survey thank you all