This time prophecy found in Daniel 8:14 is considered by most bible scholars to be the longest time prophecy found in scripture. The specific statement is:
“Then I heard a holy one speaking; and another holy one said to that certain one who was speaking, ‘How long will the vision be, concerning the daily sacrifices and the transgression of desolation, the giving of both the sanctuary and the host to be trampled underfoot?’ And he said to me, ‘For two thousand three hundred days; then the sanctuary shall be cleansed.'” Daniel 8:14 (NKJV). The vision recorded in Daniel 8 came to the prophet in the third year of the reign of king Belshazzar of Babylon (553-554 B.C.) At that time The Solomonic Temple had already been destroyed by the Babylonians under king Nebuchadnezzar. This event occurred on the 25th, of August 587 BCE. At that time the Babylonians took Jerusalem, destroyed the first temple, and burned down the city. This very catastrophe had been foretold by Jehovah Himself to Solomon shortly after the temple was dedicated. “Now if you walk before Me as your father David walked, in the integrity of your heart and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and My judgments, then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying, ‘You shall not fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.’ But if you or your sons at all turn from following Me, and do not keep My commandments and My statutes which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land which I have given them; and this house which I have consecrated for My name I will cast out of My sight.” 1 Kings 9:4-7. (NKJV).
Many centuries after the death of king Solomon; the prophet Jeremiah (c. 650 B.C. — c. 570 B.C.) warned the people of Judea that divine retribution was imminent because of their conduct.
“Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot profit. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods whom you do not know, and then come and stand before Me in this house which is called by My name, and say, ‘We are delivered to do all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of thieves in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it,” says the Lord. But go now to My place which was in Shiloh, where I set My name at the first, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel. And now, because you have done all these works,” says the Lord, “and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you did not hear, and I called you, but you did not answer, therefore I will do to the house which is called by My name, in which you trust, and to this place which I gave to you and your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. And I will cast you out of My sight, as I have cast out all your brethren—the whole posterity of Ephraim. Jeremiah 7:8-15 (NKJV). It should be quite obvious then to the observant student that the ‘cleansing of the sanctuary could not possibly be referring to Solomon’s Temple. Because it had already been consigned to the fires of destruction several decades before the prophet Daniel was given this vision.
Could this cleansing then be referring to the new temple that was constructed in Jerusalem? The prophet Ezekiel made reference to this temple long before it was built and while the Jews were still exiled in Babylon. “Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them, and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; I will establish them and multiply them, and I will set My sanctuary in their midst forevermore. My tabernacle also shall be with them; indeed I will be their God, and they shall be My people. The nations also will know that I, the Lord, sanctify Israel when My sanctuary is in their midst forevermore.” Ezekiel 37:26-28 (NKJV).
The construction of the new temple, known as ‘the second house of the sanctum’, and also known in later years as Herod’s Temple. Did not commence until 516 BCE,
Construction on the Second Temple began some time after the conquest of Babylon by the Achaemenid Persian Empire, following a proclamation by the Persian king Cyrus the Great that enabled the Jewish return to Zion. The completion of the Second Temple in the new Achaemenid province of Yehud marked the beginning of the Second Temple period in Jewish history. According to the Bible, the Second Temple was originally a rather modest structure constructed by a number of Jewish returnees to the Levant from Babylon under the Achaemenid-appointed governor Zerubbabel.
“In the seventh month, on the twenty-first of the month, the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet, saying: “Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, saying: ‘Who is left among you who saw this temple in its former glory? And how do you see it now? In comparison with it, is this not in your eyes as nothing? “For thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘Once more (it is a little while) I will shake heaven and earth, the sea and dry land; and I will shake all nations, and they shall come to the Desire of All Nations, and I will fill this temple with glory,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former,’ says the Lord of hosts.” Haggai 2: 1-3, 6-9. (NKJV).
However, during the reign of Herod the Great over the Herodian Kingdom of Judea, it was completely refurbished and the original structure was totally overhauled into the large edifices and façades that are more recognized in modern recreated models. The Second Temple stood for approximately 585 years before its destruction in 70 CE by the Roman Empire as retaliation for an ongoing Jewish revolt. (WIKIPEDIA, Second Temple)
(TO BE CONTINUED)
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