Skill And Understanding

What is meant by Gabriel's initial greeting to Daniel, (in these words)?

Dan 9:22 And he informed me, and talked with me, and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee skill and understanding. (KJV)

Is Gabriel's gift for Daniel twofold? Does it include information to help Daniel understand the figure of 2300 days? We could examine the separation of the time periods of 7 "seven-cycles", 62 seven cycles and one last seven cycle.

Returning to the figure of 70 "weeks" we notice we can factor 70 to 7 * 5 * 2. We could immediately guess the factor of 7 comes from the seven groups in rows generated from the "mystery of the seven candlesticks" in revelation. That would give us one separate "week" as the seven cycle walked by Christ, as it were the original "angel of the church".

That leaves some 62 weeks to find!

The factor of five we may place in common with the five refining churches or the five previous empires which had their effect on the doctrine of Israel in the OT (Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece). The factor of two may come from the different octals.

From the prior content of the book, it is clear that some if not all of the structure of the octal was familiar to him - He had interpreted the king's dreams and recorded the operation of the wise men and astrologers as in patterns concerning the octal group - That Daniel had "sealed the vision" in his own words according to his account should not surprise.

Making ourselves our familiar table, we see that with Christ's walk in rows, the table becomes representative of seven columns from different groups (weeks)

A C D B G F E
B G F E A C D
D B G F E A C
C D B G F E A
F E A C D B G
G F E A C D B
E A C D B G F

Each column represents a permutation in a group isomorphic to C7. We may equate them to "days" by generalising each element of the cycles as a floating identity element. Each in the field GF(8) has an underlying octal group, common to every row and column, and a separate octal each, so that no two columns share the same octal (Although Jesus' likening to a row applied seven times would have a common pair of octals, being in the same group.)

Essentially, there are six "powers" of each seven cycle element, the seventh a 1-cycle or identity element for "sabbath rest" that we will exclude as to be "heavenly" - it is not a seven cycle under consideration. Leaving one element for Christ to walk in the Spirit of God as if He were a man, there are five remaining elements, giving us every ingredient needed for Gabriel to encode a mathematical primer for Daniel, to help him calculate the 2300 days.

Perhaps what stumped Daniel was the dimension of the table written out to generate the groups over a single octal. We can't know for sure, but Gabriel encode Daniel's answer for him - now he has a primer. (C.f. Johns "reed like to a measuring rod" in Revelation)

The table itself: (seven weeks)
The two underlying octals, or the dimension of the table, (a product of sorts of both rows and columns)
The factor of five also - the size of "the city" (Jerusalem where Christ was crucified - see the account of the two witnesses for a parallel)
One separate seven cycle as the ministry of Christ; (A circuit in the Spirit of God, through the seven "churches" )

What is missing from the temple but the identity element common to every cycle? By Christ's walk on earth, (as without sin), the sanctuary not of rest, but of the elements of the octal are filled in obediently, (I hazard to say generated) The placement of the octal under these eight C7 groups common to GF(8), is a cleansing of the octal as much as the sanctuary itself; Christ's sacrifice on the cross is continually before God, granting us continuous access to God's grace.

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