Daniel 9:20 - Hawker's Poor Man's Commentary

Who this Gabriel was, is not so very plain, as for us positively to decide. Daniel calls him the man. Hence some have thought it was Christ. It should seem to be the same as appeared in after ages to Zacharias. Luke 1:19. But whether Christ, or not, remains to be determined. One thing we certainly know, that our adorable Redeemer made frequent secret manifestations of himself, before his open display in substance of our flesh; as if to tell the Church, how much he longed for the time appointed, when he should come to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. I beg the Reader to make one observation more, upon what is said in those verses. It was about the time of the evening oblation, that is, three o'clock in the afternoon: the memorable hour in which Christ gave up the ghost. And it is well worthy the Reader's as well as the Writer's most diligent observation, that with an eye to this one great event, to which every type, and every sacrifice under the law had reference, and in which the whole had their fulfillment: all the evening sacrifices were at that very hour. Hence we read, that Peter and John went up to the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour, that is, three o'clock in the afternoon, Acts 3:1. Pause, Reader! and consider how important must this one glorious offering of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all, have been in the eye of God the Father; when in his appointments of the Jewish sacrifices, the evening oblation, from the beginning, had the very hour of Christ's death, as well as Christ's sacrifice, set forth. Reader! shall not this hour, henceforth be peculiarly sacred to our meditations? Methinks, I would, if possible, never let it pass without arresting its fleeting moments to thoughts of Jesus! This I would say, as the clock strikes three, this was the solemn hour, in which, after darkness had covered the face of the earth, from the sixth to the ninth hour, Jesus, my adorable Lord, cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost. Luke 23:44-46. See Exodus 29:41; 1 Kings 18:36.