Readings:
Daniel 9
Judith 10-12
1 Thessalonians 4

Daniel 9

Daniel is meditating on the prophecy of Jeremiah that Jerusalem will lay desolate for 70 years. If you start counting at the first exile in 605 and reach the declaration of Cyrus the Great allowing the Jews to return it’s almost exactly 70 years. Daniel is reflecting on this during his prayer for forgiveness and restoration.

But Daniel has a bit of a curveball thrown at him here, because we find out there’s more to this than meets the eye. While praying, Gabriel appears to him again. And Daniel notes that it’s around 3pm because that’s the time of the evening sacrifice at the temple. Even though the temple is destroyed and a pile of rubble at this point, Daniel still prays at the set times in rhythm with the temple liturgy. We don’t know if he was alone in this, or perhaps many of the more devout exiles also practiced this sort of liturgical prayer life.

Gabriel tells him the 70 years is actually 490 years, because each year represents a “week” of years, or in other words a group of 7 years. These 70 weeks of years aren’t meant to be seen as exactly 490 years, and most interpretive schools of thought agree on this. The main view among early church fathers and scholars is called the messianic view, that it all leads up to Christ and the consequences of these 70 weeks is the destruction of the temple once again and the end for all time of the sacrifices of the old covenant.

None of the prophets speak as clearly about Christ as Daniel. Not only does he affirm his coming, a prediction common to other prophets, but he also indicates the time of his coming.

Saint Jerome

Judith 10-12

Judith sets out to put her plan in motion. She gets all dressed up and puts on her finest things, then intentionally allows herself to be captured by the Assyrian forces. She is taken to the general and spins quite the tale for him, and promises him not only her own city, but that she’ll escort him all the way to Jerusalem and hand him the throne. Of course this sounds great to him, and he gladly accepts, and even throws a banquet.

She must’ve had great acting skills to pull this off, but I can’t help but keep thinking that she shouldn’t have to do any of this at all. The elders of the city should done something, really anything at all, but instead they sat inside the gates and slowly starved to death and left this entire job up to the widow Judith. It’s not how things are meant to be, but like all great heroes, Judith rises to the occasion.

1 Thessalonians 4

Paul turns now in the final couple of chapters to exhort the Thessalonians to continue living and growing in Christ. To live moral and upright lives, and not behave in depraved ways like the pagan world that surrounds them. He makes a point that the pagans act as they do because they live in darkness, but those enlightened by Christ should be completely different because we have the light of Christ.

Paul sets out to comfort the Thessalonians who had taken the belief in the return of Christ to mean an immediate return. This is why he tells them to continue doing their daily work because apparently some had forsaken daily tasks because they believed the end to be imminent. They also worried that the believers among them that had died, wouldn’t get to go to heaven or possibly have a lesser place in heaven.

These words have been used by people (since John Nelson Darby in the 1800s) who hold to the pre tribulation rapture theory to imply that before the end times really kick off, all believers will be caught up into the air and disappear from the earth. This theory cuts against historic Christianity and the 1800 years of study and theology prior to Darby.

What Paul is actually saying to the Thessalonians is that the ones who’ve died prior to the end of the age will not be in a worsened position than those who live to see it. The dead will be raised to life first, and then those that are alive will go out to meet Jesus as the citizens of a city would go outside the gates to meet the visiting dignitaries on the road and escort them into town. That’s why he ends with “comfort each other with these words”.

Tomorrow’s Readings:
Daniel 10
Judith 13-16
1 Thessalonians 5