Chapter 133

¹ Observe how the prophet likened the swiftness of the angels to a winged bird, on account of the lightness and nimbleness of the angels, who are spirits flying swiftly, obedient to what is commanded, as Solomon says: “Do not curse the king even in your bedchamber, lest a winged bird carry your words to him.”

² Gabriel the angel, then, speaks to him thus: “From the day you set your face to humble yourself before the face of the Lord your God, your supplication was heard, and I was sent to give you understanding, so that you might not seek the appointed time before its season; for you are a man of desires. For these things you desire to see, which you are about to have ministered to you through me; and in its own time these things shall be fulfilled.”

³ And he went on, saying: “Seventy weeks have been cut short upon your people and upon the holy city, to bring sins to their full end, and to seal up sins, and to wipe away iniquities, and to make atonement for transgressions, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up vision and prophet, and to anoint the Holy of Holies. And you shall know and understand: from the going forth of the words for the answering and the building of Jerusalem until Christ the ruler, seven weeks and sixty-two weeks.”

⁴ Having named seventy weeks, then, he divided them into two, so that what was spoken by him to the prophet might be the better understood.

⁵ For he speaks thus: “Until Christ the ruler, seven weeks,” which are forty-nine years; for it is in the twenty-first year that Daniel beholds these things in Babylon.

⁶ When, then, the forty-nine years are reckoned together with the twenty-first year, the seventy years are fulfilled which the blessed prophet Jeremiah spoke of, namely that for seventy years the sanctuary would be desolate, from the captivity that befell them under Nebuchadnezzar; and after these things the people would return, and sacrifice and offering would be presented, their ruler being Christ.

⁷ And of what Christ does he speak, but of Jesus the son of Josedek, who returned together with the people at that time, and in the seventieth year, when the sanctuary had been built, offered sacrifice according to the law?

⁸ For all the kings and the priests were called “christs” (anointed) because they were anointed with the holy oil which Moses prepared of old.

⁹ These, then, bore the Lord’s name with them, foreshowing the type and prefiguring the image, until the perfect King and Priest from heaven, Christ, came, who alone did the will of the Father, as is written in the books of Kingdoms: “And I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who shall do all things according to my heart.”