The Bible's many amazing, specific and FULFILLED prophecies about Jesus , CENTURIES before His birth and taking on human form as a baby, reveal that God can predict and perfectly knows the future AND that He is in control of all human history!
Prophetically, Jesus was predicted to come at a VERY specific time, between two historic and PREDICTED events. So, A) there can be NO other or future Messiah AND, B) ONLY Jesus fulfilled historic events surrounding the Messiah long-prophesied by Israel’s prophets! Even the fact that Jesus fulfilled an impossible number of highly specific prophecies made about Him, LONG before, and just by being born in a specific time, place, and of a specific lineage. (Watch more about this, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TnrFsj84PY and here: https://www.azbible.com/prophecies-fulf ... jesus.html)
Leading up to the amazing prophecies revealed to the Old Testament Prophet Daniel, were the prophecies uttered by a previous prophet – Jeremiah. About 605 B.C., Jeremiah warns (Jeremiah 25) that God has commanded Judah to turn from their evils deeds, idol worship, following after other gods, and revealed that God had said, “because you have not obeyed my words, 9 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.” Further, Jeremiah relates that the Lord has said because they would not listen and obey, that the “whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. Remarkably, the God’s prophecy continues with an exact timeline of punishment: “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. 13 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.”
The Old Testament Prophet Daniel lived approximately 2,600 years ago, during a horrific and sad time for the Jews of Israel’s Southern Kingdom of Judah and Jerusalem. At the time of Daniel’s remarkable prophesies, both Israel’s first temple, built by King Solomon – and the Jerusalem itself had been totally destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C., about 19 years after Jeremiah had prophetically revealed it would, and 47 years before Daniel’s incredible prophecies about the Messiah / Jesus. The Babylonian conquest had seen many of Judah’s nobles and best and brightest minds taken exile into Babylon. And so Israel was, at that time of Daniel’s prophesies, a broken and dispersed people. It’s Holy City of Jerusalem and Israel’s temple lay in ruins, as everything that had once involved their sacrificial system and central place of worshiping God was gone. And so, the Jews of Daniel’s day mourned the loss of their land, loss of their freedom, and Solomon’s once-magnificent temple, built exactly as God had so instructed, the most beautiful place of worship ever constructed, before or since!
And so, sometime in 539 B.C., in Daniel 9, the prophet reveals an unthinkable prophecy and details a seemingly impossible sequence of events God would do for His people Israel. First, Daniel prophesied that the Jews in Babylonian captivity would be released and that they would be allowed to return to Israel to rebuild their first Temple, thus to create their SECOND Temple – the Temple of Jesus’ time. This would seem highly unlikely – as many were then laboring and suffering in exile. But remarkably, as God, through his prophet Jeremiah, in 605 BC, had already prophesied that Judah and Jerusalem would be destroyed – well before Nebuchadnezzar had become an irresistible force capable of creating an empire. Jeremiah also prophesied that the surrounding nations, likewise, would serve Babylon for a specified period of 70 years. And as Daniel was studying this Jeremiah’s prophecy, he believed and realized that the Babylonian captivity and exile would end in another 23 years (Jeremiah 25:9-13).
One must first realize the IMMENSE unlikelihood that the prophecies of Babylon being conquered would ever take place – much less at a specifically predicted time, as her empire, the greatest, most powerful and widespread, to that stage in world history, had total control over its territories. The wealth, prestige and influence of Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon were beyond anything the ancient world had ever seen. It’s capital, at that time, was the largest city in the world. Her fortress city lay along the Euphrates river (about 55 miles south of modern-day Iraq), occupying about four square miles. With her massive high and thick walls, a moat system, impressive fortifications, and a huge army, all would have seemingly have made her appear unconquerable. And yet, God’s prophet Jeremiah had not revealed God’s specific timing for the Babylonian empire’s coming destruction, but in Jeremiah 50 and 51, he makes certain the unimaginable scale and desolation that would befall her.
So, through Jeremiah, Daniel knew and anticipated that Babylon’s time was soon over, and that the exile would soon end. Note that, in Daniel 9:3-19, the prophecy revealed to him also refers to the 70 years Judah would remain captive. In Daniel 7 and 8, Daniel had already received two stunning visions of future (and Endtime) events that had left him disturbed and confused. And it was against this backdrop of visions of which Daniel was praying to and seeking the Lord, and so he beseeches God regarding Judah’s exile and appealed to His great mercy. And God’s response brings forth Daniel’s revealing of God’s remarkable prophesies about the specific timing of the restoration of Jerusalem, the Temple, Jesus the Messiah’s arrival in history, His death, and the destruction of the rebuilt Temple (of Jesus’ day).
As Daniel believed God’s prophecies through Jeremiah, concerning an end to the Babylonian captivity, he had also referenced in his prayers to God what Jeremiah had long before prophesied, about the exile specifically ending after 70 years – of which history records it did. Perhaps, most astonishingly, God’s prophet, Isaiah, around 705 B.C. also prophesied about the ending of the Babylonian exile and amazingly even provided the actual name of the leader whose forces would bring about Judah’s return to Jerusalem and its rebuilding of their destroyed (Solomon’s) Temple. In Isaiah 44, 150 years before he even came to power – and nearly 120 years before the Babylonian conquest of Judah and Jerusalem’s destruction - Isaiah prophesied that it would be “Cyrus” (the Great) who would facilitate the restoration of the Jews to their homeland and the rebuilding of their destroyed first (Solomon’s) Temple.
In Isaiah 44, God says, through Isaiah, the Lord 26 “says of Jerusalem, ‘She shall be inhabited,’
and of the cities of Judah, ‘They shall be built, and I will raise up their ruins.’” And also says concerning the ruins of Jerusalem and the Temple, “28 of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd, and he shall fulfill all my purpose’; saying of Jerusalem, ‘She shall be built,’ and of the temple, ‘Your foundation shall be laid.’”
Strange, though it may seem, that a conquering power wouldn’t, as typical, be ruthless with those peoples and nations within its new territories, modern archaeology has confirmed Cyrus’s benevolent policies to conquered peoples in his empire. During 19th century excavations of Babylon (1879-82), archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam found a small (ten inches), clay, barrel-shaped cylinder container featuring an inscription from Cyrus. Now in the British Museum, the cylinder revealed the Cyrus’ policies regarding captive peoples: “I [Cyrus] gathered all their [former] inhabitants and returned [to them] their habitations.” And, interestingly, the ancient historian Josephus wrote that Cyrus had been informed about the Biblical prophecies written about him (Antiquities of the Jews, XI.1.2). Undoubtedly, the likely person with the opportunity and knowledge o have revealed to Cyrus these ancient prophecies was very likely the Prophet Daniel, a high-ranking official in Persia (Daniel 6:28), as he also served the Medo-Persian empire that conquered the previous Babylonian one.
But back to the Prophet Daniel visions, living in Babylonian exile, in response to his prayers and anticipation of the soon end up the captivity, God sent His angel Gabriel, whom appeared to him and explained further about future events concerning the Messiah to come. In Daniel 9, the prophecy explained by Gabriel foretells of the rebuilding of Jerusalem and that it would be rebuilt with “squares and moat.” And then Gabriel explains about the Messiah – as he speaks of Gods “anointed one” – which is the meaning of the word Messiah in Hebrew. (Note, also, that the word “Christ” comes from the Greek word χριστός (chrīstós), which also means "anointed one.") And so, history records that Jerusalem’s Temple was rebuilt. And, in 516 B.C., it was completed with a grand dedication amidst great joy (See Ezra 6).
Continuing the prophecy, Gabriel further tells Daniel of an “anointed one” who would be “cut off” (killed) after a certain period of time. And after this, “a prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. So, this was telling Daniel that the Temple (then lying in ruins) would be rebuilt, only the be destroyed once again (which occurred some 600 years after the prophecy was explained. Further, Gabriel prophesied that this next destroyer prince would also “put an end to sacrifice and offering.” And this very thing occurred in 70 A.D., as the Romans sacked Jerusalem and destroyed her second Temple (of Jesus’ time). And Jesus, likewise, prophesied the Second Temple’s destruction, in John chapter 2.
In April of 70 A.D., around Passover, Roman general Titus lay siege to Jerusalem. He cut off supplies into the city in an attempt to starve the Jews out. By August, the Roman army had breached the city’s last defenses and subsequently killed much of the remaining population. Today, only a small section of the Temple remains – which is called the famous “Wailing Wall.”
So, the prophecies recorded by Isaiah, Jeremiah, and finally, Daniel, revealed that the Messiah had to come between two horrific events in Jerusalem’s and Israel’s southern kingdom of Judah’s history. Israel’s Messiah HAD to come AFTER the Solomon’s temple had been rebuilt (516 B.C.) and before the rebuilt (Second) Temple and the city of Jerusalem was, once again, completely destroyed. And this prophetic window is precisely when Jesus enters human history, taking on the form of humanity, supernaturally born as human infant. This means, not only have God’s prophets and prophecies predicted world history with stunning specificity, but it also reveals He not only knows the future and all things, but that He is also completely in charge of world events. Only an all-knowing and all-powerful God could orchestrate and foreknow such amazing things!
And for Jews or others who might look to some future prophesied Messiah – well, that window of history, between the two Temples, has now closed. Prophetically, there can be NO Messiah except Jesus of Nazareth!
Of course, besides the amazing prophecies noted in this article, there are FAR more ancient and highly specific prophecies about Jesus the Messiah that long preceded His birth into the world – and a good listing of these can be found here: https://www.newtestamentchristians.com/ ... us-christ/