Daniel 9:20-27, The Seventy Weeks

Daniel has been confessing Israel’s sin and asking Yahweh for mercy and the return of his people to their land according to the prophecies of Jeremiah (25:11-13; 29:11). Yahweh sends an angel, Gabriel, with an answer before Daniel even finishes praying.

²⁰ While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my plea before Yahweh my God for the holy hill of my God, ²¹ while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the first, came to me in swift flight at the time of the evening sacrifice. ²² He made me understand, speaking with me and saying, “O Daniel, I have now come out to give you insight and understanding. ²³ At the beginning of your pleas for mercy a word went out, and I have come to tell it to you, for you are greatly loved. Therefore consider the word and understand the vision.

²⁴ “Seventy sevens are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy place. ²⁵ Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven sevens and sixty-two sevens. It will be rebuilt with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. ²⁶ And after the sixty-two sevens, the anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed. ²⁷ And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one seven, and in the middle of the seven he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.”

Daniel is praying for the “holy hill” of his God, that is, Jerusalem and, presumably, the temple. Gabriel, who had appeared to him previously in a form that overwhelmed Daniel’s senses, now appears to him in a much more human form (“the man Gabriel”). He comes to give Daniel an assurance of how much Yahweh loves him and to give him a vision of the future restoration of his people. What follows is an astonishing prediction.

Seventy units of seven, which could only be years, thus equaling 490 years, have been determined for Israel and Jerusalem, in which will be accomplished six things: to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy place. This is the final coming of the kingdom of God, which Daniel saw in his previous vision, as a mountain/kingdom led by the Son of Man (Daniel 7). A final atonement for sin, a complete turning of all believers to righteousness, a completion of all the prophecies of the end time, and anointing of the millennial temple (see Ezekiel 40-48) will be accomplished in 490 years, but they will not be consecutive years.

From the going out of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem by Artaxerxes Longimanus (444 BC) there will be 483 years: seven sevens, i.e., 49 years, during which the wall were rebuilt, and 62 sevens, i.e. 434 more years, at the end of which the Messiah (“anointed one”) will be killed (“cut off”). Daniel does not say it, but we know that this cutting off of Messiah was what accomplished atonement for iniquity. Then the people of the “prince” who is to come (not the prince himself), about whom Daniel spoke in chapter 7, the leader of the revived Roman empire, these people will destroy the temple, which happened in 70 C.E. under the Roman leader Titus.

Then there is a gap until the last seven years is accomplished, because everlasting righteousness has not been brought in yet. The last seven is marked by the covenant this prince makes with the many. What is this covenant? It must be a covenant of peace between the “prince” and Israel. The assumes there is a nation of Israel, which there has not been until 1948 C.E., and there must be a Temple, which currently there is not, because when the prince breaks this covenant three and a half years into the seven year covenant, he puts an end to sacrifice and desolates the sanctuary. Jesus speaks of this in his discourse to the disciples about the end times (Matthew 24), and Paul speaks about this desecration by the man of sin (the antichrist) in 2 Thessalonians 2. This is what marks the beginning of the great tribulation, as Jesus calls it, and what Daniel describes in chapter 7:21,25.

What God shows Daniel is so precise the first 483 years takes us exactly to the crucifixion of Christ. For more detail on this, see Chapter 4, Daniel’s Timetable of Events in my book Apocalypse Then. Here is proof of the infallibility of biblical prophecy.