The Destruction of the Second Temple: Prophecy and Fulfillment (Daniel 9:26 and Luke 21:5-6)

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Daniel’s Seventy Weeks prophesied the destruction of the second temple: “The people (Romans) of the prince (antichrist) who is to come shall destroy the city (Jerusalem) and the sanctuary (temple)” (Daniel 9:26). At the Triumphal Entry Jesus prophesied through tears that Jerusalem would be destroyed, but the disciples thought the temple would never be destroyed (again). Then, Jesus began the Olivet Discourse with this astounding statement: “As for these things that you see, the days will come when there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down” (Luke 21:6).

I read an article from Popular Mechanics titled, The World’s 10 Toughest Buildings. I’ll share the top three with you.

Number three is One World Trade Center in New York, the main building of the rebuilt World Trade Center complex. At 1,776 feet, it is the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere and can withstand powerful winds.

Number two is Torre Mayor in Mexico City, a 738-foot-tall office tower that can withstand an earthquake of 8.5 on the Richter Scale. In 2003, when a 7.6 earthquake hit, the workers inside didn’t feel the tremors.

Number one is Taipei 101 in Taipei, Taiwan, a 1,667-foot tower 660 feet from a major fault line. The design incorporates many features that enable the structure to withstand the Pacific Ring of Fire’s earthquakes and tropical storms.

If the Jews in the Old Testament wrote this Popular Mechanics article, Solomon’s Temple might have topped the list of the world’s toughest buildings. If the Jews in the New Testament wrote this Popular Mechanics article, Herod’s Temple might have topped the list. But both of these temples were destroyed. The destruction of the second temple was prophesied in Daniel 9:26 and Luke 21:6.

Daniel Prophesied the Messiah Would Die as a Criminal

Daniel 9:26a And after the sixty-two weeks, an Anointed One shall be cut off

After 62 weeks, Jesus made His Triumphal Entry, and five days later, He was crucified (“cut off”). It unfolded precisely as Daniel prophesied. The words “cut off” mean more than just that Jesus would die. The Hebrew word for killed or died, mûṯ, occurs 835 times in the Old Testament. But the Hebrew word for “cut off” is kāraṯ, and it refers to a guilty person being cut off or killed because of his sin:

• Genesis 9:11 [God said], “I establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off (kāraṯ) by the waters of the flood.”
• Proverbs 2:22 the wicked will be cut off (kāraṯ) from the earth.
• Psalm 37:9 evildoers shall be cut off (kāraṯ).

The word for “cut off” is used 20 times in Leviticus to describe people who have to be executed or cut off because of their sin. Daniel didn’t prophesy that Jesus would die a natural death. Instead, he prophesied that He would die as a guilty criminal. And this wasn’t the only Old Testament verse making this prophecy. Isaiah 53:12 says, “He was numbered with the transgressors.”

Daniel prophesied that Jesus would die for His sin. You might cringe when I say that because we know Jesus was sinless, but when our sins were imputed to Christ, they became His sins: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). When our sins were put to Jesus’ account, He became the guiltiest Person in history. And Daniel prophesied He would die a guilty criminal’s death.

Daniel Prophesied the Messiah Would Lose Everything

Daniel 9:26c and shall have nothing.

We know Jesus had little during His earthly life. He said, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Luke 9:58). Daniel looked beyond this to all Jesus would lose at His death. He lost all His friends, followers, and disciples (except John). Even His clothes were gambled away. Crucifixion was the most shameful, humiliating death imaginable, so He also lost all human dignity and honor. He cried, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” showing He even briefly lost His relationship with the Father. Finally, He lost His life.

Think about the reciprocation. Jesus came to this world and gave the world everything He could give, including His own life. He gave until He had nothing left. In return, He received nothing: “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him” (John 1:10-11). He gave love to the world He created but received hatred in return.

The People of the Prince Who Is to Come

Daniel 9:25 Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an Anointed One, a prince, there shall be seven weeks…26d And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.

Daniel 9:25 prophesies Christ’s triumphal entry, and He’s called “a prince.” Daniel 9:26 introduces another prince. In most Bibles, such as the New King James, NASB, and Amplified, the prince in verse 25 is capitalized because it refers to Jesus. The prince in verse 26 is not capitalized because it refers to the antichrist. We have moved from the uppercase Prince to the lowercase prince.

The verse prophesies the destruction of the second temple by the prince’s people. This prince is often discussed in Daniel. In chapter 11, he’s called the willful king or vile person. In chapters 7-8, he’s called the little horn. Daniel 7 contains Daniel’s dream of the four beasts. Each beast represents a different kingdom:

• Verse 4 says the first beast was like a lion, and it pictures Babylon.
• Verse 5 says the second beast was like a bear, and it pictures Medo-Persia.
• Verse 6 says the third beast was like a leopard, and it pictures Greece.

The fourth beast is in Daniel 7:7, and it represents Rome:

Daniel 7:7 After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong. It had great iron teeth; it devoured and broke in pieces and stamped what was left with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. 8 I considered the horns, and behold, there came up among them another horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots. And behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things.

The beast, or Rome, has ten horns, and one of the horns, the little horn, comes up from among all the others. Even though the beasts represent kingdoms, the little horn is identified with a man because he’s the antichrist. He emerges from the fourth beast, Rome, because that’s the prince’s people.

Daniel Prophesied the Destruction of the Second Temple

Daniel 9:26e Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed.

Using Daniel 9:25-26 the timeline looks like this: From the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem in Nehemiah 2 in 445 BC, there will be seven weeks, or 49 years, until 396 BC, when Jerusalem and the temple were rebuilt, and it says in a troubled time, which is precisely what Nehemiah describes. Sixty-two weeks, or 434 years later, or sixty-nine weeks, or 483 years after 445 BC, is 38 A.D., when the Anointed One, Jesus, makes His triumphal entry. Then, He is cut off or crucified. Finally, the people of the prince who is to come, the Romans, and the destruction of the second temple.

Daniel 9:26 does not describe a flood of water. It is a flood of soldiers, so it mentions war and desolations. The Romans made war with the Jews and desolated Jerusalem and the temple.

The Two Decrees

Daniel 9:25 contains the decree to restore and build Jerusalem. Daniel 9:26 contains the decree to destroy and desolate Jerusalem…after it was rebuilt…after being destroyed the first time. Isn’t that incredibly sad? Daniel 9:26 is simply an undoing of Daniel 9:25.

And isn’t this a microcosm of the Jews’ entire history: defeat, then restoration, then defeat, then restoration? To the Jews, destruction of the second temple seemed unimaginable, but it was precisely what God decreed would happen way back here in Daniel. And why did God decree it? The answer is in the same verse: the Jews cut off the Anointed One. They treated Him like a criminal and left Him with nothing. Ironically, if you talk to Orthodox Jews today, they will say Jesus can’t be their Messiah because He was rejected and crucified, but that’s what their Scriptures prophesied would happen!

Jeremiah’s Weeping for the Jews Prefigured Jesus’s Weeping for the Jews

Matthew 16:13 Jesus…asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 

We are going to focus on why people would say Jesus is Jeremiah. We know Jeremiah is a picture or type of Jesus because of the rejection, betrayal, and suffering he experienced. But the problem is that when Jesus asked the disciples this question, Jesus had not experienced much rejection, betrayal, and suffering. All of that is still in the future.

So why did some people think Jesus was Jeremiah? I think it was because of their sorrow. Jeremiah is the author of Lamentations, and Jesus is “[The] man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). Like Jeremiah, Jesus was also known for his sensitivity and tenderheartedness. Nine times in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we read about Jesus’s compassion. Just using Matthew’s gospel:

• Matthew 9:36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
• Matthew 14:14 When he…saw a great crowd…he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
• Matthew 15:32 Jesus…said, “I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat.”

Jesus and Jeremiah were both very compassionate. Jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet! Let me share some verses Jeremiah wrote about himself, and there are even more I could give you. Listen for why he’s weeping:

• Jeremiah 9:1 Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!
• Jeremiah 13:17 My soul will weep in secret for your pride; my eyes will weep bitterly and run down with tears, because the Lord’s flock has been taken captive.
• Lamentations 2:11 My eyes are spent with weeping…because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because infants and babies faint in the streets of the city.
• Lamentations 3:49 My eyes will flow without ceasing, without respite.

He’s weeping because of the number of Jews taken captive and slain when Babylon sieged Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and took many Jews captive. This prefigured the second temple’s destruction.

Jesus’s Response After the Triumphal Entry

Luke 19:37 As he was drawing near, already on the way down the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, 38 saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” 39 And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” 40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

There were probably thousands of people, and the Gospels say they were rejoicing and praising God with loud voices. There is no other celebration like this in the Gospels. The response was so staggering that the religious leaders couldn’t handle it. This was Jesus’ coronation, so the creation would respond if the people were silent.

All the Gospels record Jesus’ Triumphal Entry, but only Luke records the next shocking moment:

Luke 19:41 And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it,

We saw Jeremiah, the Weeping Prophet, weeping over Jerusalem’s coming judgment, and now we see Jesus, the Weeping Savior, weeping over Jerusalem’s coming judgment. This would have been an incredibly dramatic scene: amidst the shouting, worshiping multitude was a weeping King. Why is that? Jesus knew that within five days, the Jews would reject Him, and severe judgment would follow:

Luke 19:42 saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.

Notice Jesus singled out “this day,” or some Bibles say, “your day,” because it belonged to the Jews. The angel Gabriel told Daniel: “Seventy weeks are decreed [for] YOUR people (the Jews) and your holy city (Jerusalem)” (Daniel 9:24). The Triumphal Entry is the day prophesied by Daniel’s Seventy Weeks. The angel Gabriel told Daniel the Messiah would enter Jerusalem 69 weeks of years, or 483 years, after the decree to rebuild Jerusalem in Nehemiah 2 on March 14, 445 BC. This brings us to April 6, 32 AD, when the triumphal entry occurred.

But it looks like they recognize Jesus as the Messiah, right? So, what’s the problem? They didn’t recognize Jesus for who He was; they thought He was going to save them from Rome, but He came to save them from sin. It looks like they were accepting Jesus, but they were rejecting Him.

Jesus Prophesied that the Romans Would Destroy Jerusalem

Notice Jesus said, “If you would have known the things that make for peace.” The word “Salem” in Jerusalem’s name is shalom, which means peace. So, there is a play on words. Jerusalem would have experienced peace if they had received their Messiah, but because they rejected Him, the last thing they will experience is peace. Jesus begins describing the lack of peace in the following verse:

Luke 19:43 For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side 44 and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

This is a prophecy of Rome’s successful siege of Jerusalem under Titus in 70 AD. Sieges were horrible experiences. All the supplies were cut off, which led to starvation and death. Bodies would pile up, which led to disease and more death. The conditions would become so bad that the people in the city would finally surrender.

Many events in the Old Testament prefigure or foreshadow New Testament events, and the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 600 BC prefigured the Roman destruction of the second temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD. Think of it like this: If I asked, “When was Jerusalem sieged, the city conquered, and thousands of Jews slaughtered and taken captive?” What would you say? You could say, “In 600 BC by the Babylonians,” or “In 70 A.D. by the Romans.”

The Context for the Olivet Discourse

The Triumphal Entry was on Sunday, Palm Sunday, and this is Tuesday. Jesus will be crucified in a few days. He entered the temple and, in Luke 21:1-4 commented on the poor widow’s giving and contrasted it with the rich’s giving.

Jesus left the temple, crossed the Mount of Olives, and stopped for a brief rest. Luke doesn’t tell us they were on the Mount of Olives, but Matthew 24:3 and Mark 13:3 do. The Mount of Olives is the hill directly opposite the temple, across the Kidron Valley to the east, and it afforded the best view of the temple. While sitting on the Mount of Olives, some disciples called attention to the temple’s extravagance:

Luke 21:5 and while some were speaking of the temple, how it was adorned with noble stones and offerings, he said,

Solomon built the temple that stood in Jeremiah’s day, which was one of the marvels of the ancient world. The Jews thought of the destruction of the second temple because, first, it was God’s house, and God would never let His house be destroyed. Second, it just looked like the temple couldn’t be destroyed. But the Babylonians destroyed it. When the Jews returned from exile in Babylon, they rebuilt the temple.

Then, Herod the Great began improving the temple in 20 BC. I say “began” because he never stopped improving it. Why would an ungodly man like Herod do this? He was driven by political and religious motivations to leave a lasting legacy and win favor with the Jewish people. For all of Herod’s faults, he was a master builder, and the results were spectacular. He transformed the temple into a marvel of ancient engineering and architecture. Here are some of the key features:

The Temple Mount was greatly enlarged by constructing vast retaining walls and vaulted chambers, doubling the courtyard. This massive platform remains a significant architectural feat and is part of the site today.

The Temple itself was constructed using enormous stones, some as large as 40 feet long, 12 feet high, and 12 feet wide. The stones were expertly cut and fitted precisely so that no mortar was needed between them. The temple’s grandeur was recognized even by those outside the Jewish faith, solidifying its reputation as one of the most impressive structures of the ancient world.

The temple wasn’t just big; it was also beautiful. Notice the phrase “noble stones and offerings.” The noble stones refer to the gold plates on the outside that were so brilliant that when the sun shone on them, they were blinding to look at, making the temple visible from great distances and creating a breathtaking sight. Where there was no gold, there were blocks of marble of such pure white that from a distance, travelers thought there was snow on the temple mount. The “offerings” refer to all the gifts given to the temple’s construction.

In Jesus’s day, the temple was two things. Most obviously, it was a religious center. Second, it was a symbol of Jewish pride. And for many Jews, they cared more about it physically than spiritually. We can tell the Jews were proud of it physically just by their words in Luke 21:5.

Jesus Prophesied the Destruction of the Second Temple

At the triumphal entry, Jesus prophesied through tears that the Romans would destroy Jerusalem. But the disciples, and probably every other Jew, thought the second temple would never be destroyed. But look how Jesus responds to their observations about the temple:

Luke 21:6 “As for these things that you see, the days will come when there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”

Jesus also prophesied the destruction of the Second Temple. In 70 AD, the Roman general Titus built large wooden scaffolds around the temple walls, piled them high with wood and other flammable items, and set them ablaze. The heat from the fires was so intense that the stones crumbled to dust. The only stones undisturbed were huge foundation stones that were not part of the temple but formed footings for the retaining wall under the Temple Mount. This retaining wall on the western side is known as the Wailing Wall. It is all that’s left.

Jesus’s words were fulfilled in two ways. First, the Romans overturned each stone to retrieve the gold between them. Second, the rocks were “thrown down” into the Kidron Valley.