This article is contributed by Ray Konig, the author of Jesus the Messiah, Jesus the Prophet, Jesus the Miracle Worker, and 100 Fulfilled Bible Prophecies.
By Ray Konig
Published: August 10, 2015
Revised: January 5, 2025
This article is largely based on portions of the book, Jesus the Messiah, by Ray Konig.
The most widely known religious figure in the history of the world was a peasant with no army, no social standing, and no political power.
He fought no battles, waged no war, and never ruled an empire.
He did not live the kind of life that the historians, poets, or songwriters of ancient times would typically choose to write about, or seek to immortalize.
He died young. His public ministry lasted no more than three-and-a-half years, during which time he never left his homeland on the eastern fringe of the Mediterranean Sea.
And yet his message was the first to reach people throughout the world. His religion of Christianity became the first to spread to people on every continent, many centuries before the rise of mass communications.
His name is Jesus, which in the original Hebrew is Yeshua, meaning salvation, God saves, or God is salvation.
He is often called Jesus of Nazareth, which is the name of the Galilean town in northern Israel where he grew up.
Scholars generally estimate that he was born between 6 BC and 4 BC. When he was about 30 years old, he was baptized by John the Baptist, in the Jordan River. It was then that John announced that Jesus is the Messiah, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, in John 1:29-34. John also testified that he saw the Holy Spirit of God anointing Jesus.
It was at that time, when he was announced as the Messiah, and anointed as the Messiah, that he began his public ministry as the Messiah, about 2,000 years ago. Some scholars estimate that his public ministry lasted three-and-a-half years, from late AD 26 to early AD 30.
His life, death, resurrection and ministry resulted in the single largest spiritual impact that the world has ever witnessed.
Today, Christianity is the world’s largest religion, with an estimated 2.3 billion followers. It is also the most widespread religion, with a presence in nearly every country in the world.
Aside from having a unique impact on the world, Jesus also is unique in that his followers can point to hundreds of prophecies, all of which were written at least 400 years before he was born, that show that he is the savior that God had promised to bring into the world.
The Old Testament of the Bible contains many prophecies about a savior, who would resolve the problem of sin and reconcile a sinful people with the perfect God.
This savior is often called the Messiah, or Christ, and these prophecies are often called Messianic prophecies.
Messiah is based on the Hebrew word for anointed, and Christ is based on the Greek word for anointed, as in anointed by God to be the savior of the world.
Scholars have different ways of defining and counting the Messianic prophecies. A commonly given answer is that there are more than 300 Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament.
These prophecies predicted many details about the Messiah, including:
These and other Messianic prophecies are all part of the Old Testament, which was completed about 400 years before Jesus was born.
The writing of the Old Testament, and its prophecies, began with Moses, about 3,400 years ago, and ended with Malachi, about 2,400 years ago.
Of the tens of billions of people who have ever lived, only Jesus has ever achieved or sustained a widespread following as being the Messiah who was promised and predicted by the Old Testament prophets.
Of the thousands of religious figures who have ever lived, Jesus remains unique in that he was predicted by hundreds of prophecies that were written centuries before he was born.
Among the many predicted details of the promised Messiah, the prophets foretold when and where he would be born.
In Psalm 118, for example, there is a predictive prophecy that the Messiah would arrive during a time when there was a Temple in Jerusalem:
Blessed is he who comes in Yahweh’s name! We have blessed you out of Yahweh’s house. (Psalm 118:26, WEB)
For many commentators, the phrase, Yahweh’s house, points to the Temple in Jerusalem, where Yahweh (God) was worshipped.
This is a broad window of time as there was a Temple in Jerusalem for nearly 1,000 years, from the time of King Solomon, who built the first Temple about 2,900 years ago, until the Romans destroyed the Second Temple about 1,900 years ago.
For background, the first Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians and replaced with the Second Temple. There has not been a Temple in Jerusalem since the time of the Roman destruction.
And so, in accordance to Psalm 118:26, the Messiah had a 1,000-year window to appear.
But, other prophecies narrow that window of time. The prophet Malachi, who lived during the time of the Second Temple, foretold that the Messiah would appear while there was still a Temple in Jerusalem:
"Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me; and the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, behold, he comes!" says Yahweh of Armies. (Malachi 3:1, WEB)
In Malachi’s prophecy, the Lord, whom you seek points to the promised Messiah.
Malachi lived about 2,400 years ago. And the Temple was destroyed about 500 years later. So, with his prophecy, the window of time in which the Messiah could appear was narrowed to about 500 years.
That’s still a broad window of time, but the prophet Daniel offers a prophecy, in Daniel 9:24-27, which pinpoints the year in which the Messiah would arrive as being about AD 26. We’ll talk more about that soon. For now, we can see that Malachi 3:1 indicated that the Messiah would appear during the time of the Second Temple.
But, it was the prophet Micah who prophetically revealed where the Messiah would be born:
1 Now you shall gather yourself in troops, daughter of troops. He has laid siege against us. They will strike the judge of Israel with a rod on the cheek. 2 But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, being small among the clans of Judah, out of you one will come out to me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings out are from of old, from ancient times. (Micah 5:1-2, WEB)
This prophecy was written about 2,700 years ago, which is about 700 years before the time of Jesus. It speaks of Jerusalem with its references to daughter of troops and as the site where a siege would soon take place. Jerusalem was the seat of power for the Kingdom of Judah, which covered much of southern Israel.
After speaking about Jerusalem in the first verse of his prophecy, Micah uses that powerful city as a contrast to Bethlehem, which was a small, humble village near Jerusalem. This kind of contrast, between humble and powerful, is a common feature in Messianic prophecy.
Bethlehem is significant because it was the birthplace of King David, who lived and reigned about 3,000 years ago, as ancient Israel’s greatest king.
Many prophecies, before the time of Micah, had already announced and reaffirmed that the Messiah would be a descendant of David, as in a son born to the House of David. Micah is building upon that key detail and is adding the detail that the promised son -- the Messiah, who would be greatest of all kings -- also would be born in Bethlehem.
The word Ephrathah refers either to an ancient name for Bethlehem or to the broader area that includes Bethlehem. This word makes it doubly clear that Micah is talking about the Bethlehem near Jerusalem, rather than another Bethlehem, which was in northern Israel.
Micah’s prophecy is very effective in a very simple way: It eliminates all other places in the world in which the Messiah would be born. It helps us to identify the true Messiah. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and he remains the only person to have ever been widely viewed as being the promised Messiah.
As mentioned earlier, Psalm 118:26 indicated that the Messiah would appear during a time when there was a Temple in Jerusalem. And Malachi 3:1 more specifically indicated that he would appear during the time of the Second Temple. But, the prophet Daniel was much more specific.
A plain, literal, and defendable reading of Daniel’s prophecy, in Daniel 9:24-27, shows that it foretold that the Messiah would appear 483 years after a command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem.
Daniel received this prophecy about 2,500 years ago, during a time when Jerusalem was still in ruins, having been destroyed earlier by the Babylonians:
24 “Seventy weeks are decreed on your people and on your holy city, to finish disobedience, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy.
25 “Know therefore and discern that from the going out of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem to the Anointed One, the prince, will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. It will be built again, with street and moat, even in troubled times.
26 After the sixty-two weeks the Anointed One will be cut off, and will have nothing. The people of the prince who come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end will be with a flood, and war will be even to the end. Desolations are determined.
27 He will make a firm covenant with many for one week. In the middle of the week he will cause the sacrifice and the offering to cease. On the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate; and even to the full end, and that determined, wrath will be poured out on the desolate.” (Daniel 9:24-27, WEB)
This prophecy speaks of weeks, which scholars within Christianity and Judaism generally view as being weeks of years, as in seven-year periods of time. In other words, they see this prophecy as speaking about years, rather than days, in part because Daniel 9:1-23, which sets the context for this prophecy, is also talking about years, rather than days.
With this in mind, the first two time periods, which are seven weeks and sixty-two weeks, would add up to 483 years. And that 483-year period would begin with the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem. And it would end with the arrival of the Messiah.
The commandment to restore and rebuild Jerusalem was given by Artaxerxes I (Longimanus), who ruled the Persian Empire, which included the land of Israel.
In about 457 BC, Artaxerxes gave his first decree, as recorded in the Old Testament book of Ezra, which called for the restoration of Jerusalem. This decree granted the Jews full religious autonomy, which meant that Judaism again could be practiced freely, without restriction. And that represents a restoration for the fallen city of Jerusalem, which served as the administrative center for Judaism.
Years later, Artaxerxes gives a second decree, as described in the Old Testament book of Nehemiah, which called for rebuilding Jerusalem. This decree permitted the rebuilding of the fallen security walls of Jerusalem, which meant that the city again could become defendable, allowing it to be repopulated.
These two decrees called for and resulted in the work to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, as described in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. This work falls within the first time period that Daniel speaks of -- the seven weeks of years, as in 49 years.
This work laid the foundation that allowed Jerusalem to become fully reconstructed and repopulated during the second time period, which is the sixty-two weeks of years, as in 434 years.
So, to recap, Daniel predicted that the Messiah would arrive 483 years after the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem. And, Artaxerxes gave the first of two decrees to restore and rebuild Jerusalem in about 457 BC. And, that would bring us to about AD 26, which is when Jesus began his public ministry, as the Messiah.
We have to use the word “about” with these dates because historians and other scholars have yet to reach a consensus on the exact years.
A plain, literal, and defendable reading of Daniel’s prophecy, in Daniel 9:24-27, shows that Daniel accurately predicted that the Messiah would appear 483 years after a command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem.
And that is what happened.
Jesus began his public ministry as the Messiah, shortly after John the Baptist announced that Jesus is the Messiah and testified that he witnessed Jesus being anointed by God as the Messiah, as explained in John 1:29-34.
Daniel’s Seventy Weeks prophecy is explained in more detail in the book, Jesus the Messiah, by Ray Konig.
It is also explained in the following articles:
The Messiah would appear 483 years after a call to restore and rebuild Jerusalem (Daniel 9:24-27)
Does the Seventy Weeks prophecy (Daniel 9:24-27) refer to days or years?
Is Daniel 9:24-27 a prophecy about the Messiah or about two lesser messiahs?
How do we know that Daniel 9:24-27 is a prophecy about the Messiah?
There are many books and online articles that discuss the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah, about his birth, life, ministry, death and resurrection.
There is, however, one key prediction that has been widely overlooked by many scholars and commentators, throughout the whole of the past 2,000 years: The Old Testament prophets predicted that the Messiah would have a worldwide spiritual impact.
In fact, there are at least a dozen prophecies in the Old Testament that speak to this, that the Messiah would have a spiritual impact on people all over the world, as explained in detail in my book, Jesus the Messiah.
This is a bold prediction. It is incredibly difficult to have a worldwide spiritual impact, even today with the advantages of mass communications tools, like automated publication, radio, television, and the internet.
In fact it is so difficult that only one religion today has a majority presence in at least one country in every inhabitable continent of the world -- and that is Christianity.
Difficult or not, the prophets predicted that it would happen, and they predicted it many centuries before Jesus was even born.
The prophet Zechariah, for example, made his prediction about 2,500 years ago:
9 Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion! Shout, daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King comes to you! He is righteous, and having salvation; lowly, and riding on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey. 10 I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow will be cut off; and he will speak peace to the nations: and his dominion will be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth. 11 As for you also, because of the blood of your covenant, I have set free your prisoners from the pit in which is no water. (Zechariah 9:9-11, WEB)
This prophecy speaks of a worldwide spiritual impact in verse 10, with its references that the Messiah would speak peace to the nations: and his dominion will be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.
Other examples include Genesis 22:18, Psalm 72:17, and Micah 5:1-4.
Jesus, who is the fulfillment of these prophecies, is the first person to have ever achieved a worldwide spiritual impact.
And, by some metrics, he remains the only person to have ever done so.
Jesus is unique as a religious figure in that his followers can point to hundreds of Old Testament prophecies, all of which were written centuries before the time of Jesus, as being fulfilled by Jesus.
These prophecies accurately predicted details about the lineage, birth, life, ministry, death, resurrection and impact of Jesus, showing us that he truly is the savior that God had promised to bring into the world.
No other religious figure, real or imagined, can compare in this regard. There is no second place in this comparison.
© 2015, 2025 Ray Konig.
Ray Konig is the author of Jesus the Messiah, Jesus the Prophet, Jesus the Miracle Worker, and 100 Fulfilled Bible Prophecies.
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