Gabriel first appeared to Daniel in Chapter 9 to share a Glorious messsage with Daniel and the entire world that the Messiah was coming and He would Appear on an exact date not too far in the future (Dan. 9:24-27). His ministry and mission would end the need forTemple offerings and sacrifices and would usher in a New Covenant of Grace:
The book focuses on 3 epic moments in history: 1) The Prophet Daniel on his knees in sackcloth being visited by Archangel Gabriel—“you are greatly beloved, Daniel.”2) The Appearance of the Messiah 483 years later at his Baptism: 3.5 years earlier than what has become accepted dogma in most seminaries – due to tainted calculations done by an obscure man named Harold Darby in mid-19th century and probably by many other scholars at his time. God, however, declared that a 360-day year count must be used to define only His 3.5 “Wrath.”
Could this be the Proverbial Apple from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? Have we consumed a lie and ignored God’s method to define time in exchange for man’s desire to impose his own erroneous timeline? God instituted the 365-Day year for a reason; and it might be because it goes with His natural order for Signs and Seasons. God never said to start with 360-day prophetic years, then convert to 365. He just told us see His Wrath as lasting 1260-days. Knowing this requires seeing God’s prophetic purpose in announcing the Coming of the Messiah. The timeline that follows this understanding emphasizes Ezra’s decree, the Baptism of Jesus Christ, and in Daniel 9:27 Christ making the New Covenant and ending sacrifices and offerings—and He was the one made desolate on the wing of Abomination.
When Darby forced the conversion of four hundred and ninety 360-day years to 365-day years, he changed both the starting point and the end point of Daniel’s 70-weeks Prophecy. The conversion was not necessary since all 490 years were already in solar years. But the scholars in his day determined that God ordained 360-day prophetic years for the entire 490 years. “The world through its wisdom did not know God,” Cor. 1:21. On one hand they honored the ideal of “holy” 360-day years but on the other hand they would dishonor God by failing to see with eyes that see.
In making this conversion Darby and others shortened the 483-year span to 476 years and thus had to demote Ezra’s decree and replace it with Nehemiah’s which would occur 13 years later. He also eliminated Jesus’ ministry from the timeline and added those 3.5 years to the Wrath of God. God’s 483-year span had fit perfectly with 457 B.C. and 27 A.D. (plus 1 year for the 0 year) to equal the time of Jesus’ Baptism. The wrong thinking reigned over God’s directive to only count the last 3.5 years in 360-day years.
Ezra’s decree and noble mission to rebuild the spiritual nature and buildings in Jerusalem was replaced by Nehemiah who journeyed 13 years later and who rebuilt the walls around the city. Ezra acted as a scribe, priest, and leader of the Torah reading during the dedication ceremony. Nehemiah on the other hand was an enforcer who commanded the armed men and builders of the wall and who beat up those who did not obey the commands of the Law. Darby flipped the significance of these two men and their missions and declared that the prophetic 388 years began with Nehemiah and not Ezra. He also switched the end date from the Baptism of Jesus Christ to the Triumphal entrance. This allowed him to separate a 7 year period which he called the Wrath of God that would bring an end to his Church Age dispensation. The truth is Jesus Christ fulfilled the first 3.5 years and according to the Word of God the Wrath of God is only 3.5 years measured in 360-Day years and therefore separate from the first 3.5 years that are measured in solar years and occur at the beginning of the Church Age. God told us in the books of Revelation and Daniel 7 different times that time measured in the Wrath only is to be counted as 1250 days, 42 months, and Time-Times-Half-a-time or as half a week separated by Christ’s supernatural ending of sacrifices and offerings.
All this “discovery” by Darby happened during an enlightenment period in his area of Europe that also saw the rise of Marxism, Materialism and Evolution. After those first 3.5 years of ministry, the Messiah fulfills the Message given to Daniel by Gabriel as recorded in Daniel 9:27. Darby retranslated 9:27 to mean a time when the Anti-christ deceives Israel and places an Abomination of Desolation in a Temple that is not mentioned even once in Revelation. Original Hebrew shows that “He” from verse 26 is the “Anointed One” and not the plural “people of the commander” which Darby insists is a future Anti-Christ who makes a covenant with Israel.




