our great events, therefore, are located by this great prophetic
period,--the first advent, the crucifixion, the rejection of the Jewish
people as a nation, and the beginning of the work of final judgment.]

But the angel had been commanded, "Make this man to understand the
vision;" and soon after, as recorded in the next chapter,--possibly
within a year,[G]--Gabriel appeared to the prophet with the words:

"O Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee skill and understanding....
Therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision." Dan. 9:22,
23.

Thereupon the angel began to deal with the matter of time in the
prophecy, the very feature of the vision of the eighth chapter that he
had not yet made Daniel understand. Therefore the vision of the 2300
years must be the topic.

The Starting-Point

First of all, the angel said that a short period was to be cut off from
the long period, and allotted to the Jewish people; this short period
was to reach to the coming of the promised Messiah and the filling up of
the measure of Jerusalem's transgressions. The angel's own words are:

"Seventy weeks [490 days, prophetic time, or 490 literal years] are
determined [cut off, as the word means] upon thy people and upon thy
holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and
to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting
righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint
the Most Holy." Verse 24.

This 490-year period "cut off" was to cover the history of the people of
Jerusalem until that city had filled out the measure of its
transgression. The only prophetic period from which this 490 years can
properly be said to be "cut off" is, assuredly, the longer period of
2300 years, which stretches far onward to "the time of the end." The 490
years and the 2300 years, then, must begin at the same time.

It was the time period that the angel Gabriel was yet to explain; and he
begins the explanation by showing that the first 490 years of it would
reach to the days of the Messiah. Then he gives the event that marks the
beginning of the 490 years, which event must necessarily mark the
beginning of the 2300 years as well.

This is what he was commissioned to make Daniel "understand" when first
the vision of the 2300 years was given. Now he tells him to "understand"
it:

"Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the
commandment to restore and to build Jeru