Palm Sunday was predicted during the time of Daniel, hundreds of years before Jesus came. In Daniel chapter nine, we have this very interesting prophecy that we call the prophecy of Daniel’s seventy weeks. The Babylonians had come in and destroyed Jerusalem during the time of Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel was taken as a captive. At that time, he was a young man. Now in chapter nine, he is an older man, receiving a vision of prophecy.

The starting point of this prophecy is the command to go and restore and rebuild the city of Jerusalem. We know that command was given by the Persian ruler, Artaxerxes Longimanus. Because we know the date of that proclamation, we know the starting point of this prophecy of Daniel’s seventy weeks. “...To restore and rebuild Jerusalem unto Messiah the prince…” is the end point of this first section. We also have the date of Palm Sunday when Jesus revealed Himself as Messiah the Prince.

The prophecy is seventy weeks, which is four hundred ninety years, but there is a subdivision in this. It says between those two points shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks. A score is twenty, threescore is sixty for a total of sixty-two, add the seven and you have sixty-nine. So that is the time frame we are talking about - sixty-nine weeks.

Now all the math is more complicated than we have space to go into, but it comes down to this. We are talking about from the decree to rebuild Jerusalem to the coming of the messiah is 482 years. The Jews used a lunar calendar with 360-day years. When you take a 360-day year, and you have those two dates and you look at how many days are in those 69 weeks of Daniel, exactly to the day is Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. It is astounding and incredible that Jesus is coming into Jerusalem on that very day, 483 prophetic years from the decree to rebuild Jerusalem. This is on reason why I am never hesitant to stand on the Word of God.