But the seventy weeks are a part of the 2300 days; and as they (the seventy weeks) reach to 34 A.D., the remaining 1810 years of the 2300-day period must reach to 1844, when the work of judgment, or cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary, was to begin. Rev. 14:6, 7. Then special light began to shine upon the whole sanctuary subject, and Christ's mediatorial or priestly work in it. Four great events, therefore, are located by this great prophetic period,--the first advent, the crucifixion, the rejection of the Jewish people as a nation, and the beginning of the work of final judgment.] But the angel had been commanded, "Make this man to understand the vision;" and soon after, as recorded in the next chapter,--possibly within a year,[G]--Gabriel appeared to the prophet with the words: "O Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee skill and understanding.... Therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision." Dan. 9:22, 23. Thereupon the angel began to deal with the matter of time in the prophecy, the very feature of the vision of the eighth chapter that he had not yet made Daniel understand. Therefore the vision of the 2300 years must be the topic. The Starting-Point First of all, the angel said that a short period was to be cut off from the long period, and allotted to the Jewish people; this short period was to reach to the coming of the promised Messiah and the filling up of the measure of Jerusalem's transgressions. The angel's own words are: "Seventy weeks [490 days, prophetic time, or 490 literal years] are determined [cut off, as the word means] upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy." Verse 24. This 490-year period "cut off" was to cover the history of the people of Jerusalem until that city had filled out the measure of its transgression. The only prophetic period from which this 490 years can properly be said to be "cut off" is, assuredly, the longer period of 2300 years, which stretches far onward to "the time of the end." The 490 years and the 2300 years, then, must begin at the same time. It was the time period that the angel Gabriel was yet to explain; and he begins the explanation by showing that the first 490 years of it would reach to the days of the Messiah. Then he gives the event that marks the beginning of the 490 years, which event must necessarily mark the beginning of the 2300 years as well. This is what he was commissioned to make Daniel "understand" when first the vision of the 2300 years was given. Now he tells him to "understand" it: