In the first year of the reign of Darius the Mede over the Chaldean realm (538 B.C.), the prophet Daniel understood that the time for the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy of a restoration of Israel after a seventy year captivity (Jeremiah 29:10) had come. So Daniel was earnestly confessing Israel’s sins to the Lord, acknowledging the Lord’s justice, and praying for the Lord to fulfill His promise to restore His people Israel (Daniel 9:1-19). While he was still praying the angel Gabriel appeared to him to grant him wisdom to know what would come in the future (Daniel 9:20-23). There follows Gabriel’s revelation to Daniel of the Seventy Weeks.

₂₄Seventy weeks are determined For your people and for your holy city, To finish the transgression, To make an end of sins, To make reconciliation for iniquity, To bring in everlasting righteousness, To seal up vision and prophecy, And to anoint the Most Holy.
₂₅Know therefore and understand, That from the going forth of the command To restore and build Jerusalem Until Messiah the Prince, There shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; The street shall be built again, and the wall, Even in troublesome times.
₂₆And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself; And the people of the prince who is to come Shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood, And till the end of the war desolations are determined.
₂₇Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week; But in the middle of the week He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, Even until the consummation, which is determined, Is poured out on the desolate (Daniel 9:24-27).

Perhaps no Old Testament prophecy has been subjected to more varied interpretations and speculations. Yet for much of it there is a clear New Testament passage to guide our understanding. In offering an explanation of the passage, I shall seek to avoid speculation and to be guided by the explanation of Scripture itself.

The seventy weeks began with “the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem” (verse 25). Although Scripture only records that King Cyrus issued the decree for the people to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the house of God (2 Chronicles 36:22-23; Ezra 1:1-4), Isaiah prophesied Cyrus would also cause Jerusalem to be rebuilt (Isaiah 44:28). This would place the beginning of the 70 weeks at 536 B.C. King Artaxerxes certainly gave the command to rebuild the city to Nehemiah in 445/4 B.C. (Nehemiah 2:1-7). If this is used as the beginning point, the date would be 445/4 B.C.

Many commentators insist the weeks are weeks of years, making 490 years. Most who take this position advocate a future, material one thousand year kingdom of Christ on earth, insist on the future restoration of Old Testament national Israel, and contend that all Scripture must be taken literally. But at this point they are insisting the weeks are figurative, representing weeks of years. False teachers expose their own error by their inconsistency.

Let’s go along with the weeks of years theory to see if it works. After a period of seven weeks and another of sixty-two weeks “Messiah shall be cut off” (verses 25-26). This is an obvious reference to the death of Christ. So, following the “weeks of years” theory, from the decree to build the city to the death of Christ is 483 years. Figured from 536 B.C., that brings us to 53 B.C. Won’t work. Starting with 444/445 B.C. we come closer, 39/38 A.D. Closer, but it’s still off. Using Jewish 360 (lunar based) years won’t work either. Besides, the Jews threw in an extra month when necessary to harmonize their lunar calendar with the solar year. The “weeks of years” formula just doesn’t work.

Biblically, an apocalypse is a book that uses visions and dramatic word pictures to convey information about God’s activity, particularly regarding the oppression of God’s people by their enemies (Roberts. 16-17).

Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah, and Revelation are biblical examples of apocalyptic literature. If you disagree, compare Roberts’ definition of an apocalypse with Ezekiel chapter one, Daniel chapter seven, Zechariah chapter five, and Revelation chapter twelve.

Daniel, as John in Revelation, uses numbers symbolically. In King Nebuchadnezzar’s fury at Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, he had the furnace heated seven times hotter than usual (Daniel 3:19). That’s as hot as that furnace could be heated!

Seventy years of captivity fulfilled the divine wrath on Israel (2 Chronicles 36:20-21; cf. Jeremiah 25:11-12; 29:10). The Jews weren’t literally in captivity precisely 70 years. The first deportation took place in 605 B.C., and Babylon fell in 539. That’s just 66 years. But the captivity was punishment for violating the covenant, particularly the failure to keep the Sabbath, including, not only the Sabbath day (Exodus 20:8-11), but the Sabbath year (Leviticus 25:1-4), and the Jubilee, a Sabbath of Sabbaths (after the 49th year; Leviticus 25:8-13). This Jubilee, this Sabbath of Sabbaths, when the land was fallow for two years, was a time of rest and liberty, when Israelite servants went free, and debtors received back their land, their inheritance.

The seventy (not literal but symbolic) years of Babylonian captivity allowed the land to enjoy the Sabbath years it had been worked by faithless Israel in their disregard for the covenant and its Sabbaths (2 Chronicles 36:20-21). This implies 490 (not literal but symbolic) years of unfaithfulness. And when the seventy years were about complete, and Daniel prayed for Israel’s restoration, Gabriel revealed the whole story, the complete picture, seventy times seven (490, not literal, but symbolic).

It’s interesting that the Master teaches us to forgive those who sin against us “seventy times seven” (Matthew 18:21-22). Seventy times seven is a totally complete number. In forgiveness, it’s forgiving as often as asked to be forgiven. In the history of Israel, it completes the Lord’s plan for national Israel as a part of His great plan to save sinful man.

The end point of the vision is “And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, Even until the consummation, which is determined, Is poured out on the desolate” (verse 27). All that Gabriel revealed to Daniel took place between the command “to restore and build Jerusalem” and “the consummation.” Nothing in Daniel’s vision of seventy weeks stretches beyond that “consummation.”

We need not wonder what this means, for the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, warns, “‘Therefore when you see the 'Abomination of Desolation,' spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place’ (whoever reads, let him understand), ‘then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains’” (Matthew 24:15-16; cf. Mark 13:14). The Master emphatically declared that this would be fulfilled before the generation to whom He spoke had passed (Matthew 24:34; Mark 13:30).

Six things were accomplished in this framework. “Seventy weeks are determined For your people and for your holy city”:

1. “To finish the transgression” - The law brought transgression (Romans 4:14-15), but the law would be brought to an end (Colossians 2:13-14).
2. “To make an end of sins” - Those who receive the benefits of the sacrifice of Christ are “perfected forever” (Hebrews 10:11-14).
3. “To make reconciliation for iniquity ” - Our iniquities separated us from God and made us His enemies (Isaiah 59:1-2), but in Christ we are reconciled to Him (Colossians1:19-22), made His friends again.
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4. “To bring in everlasting righteousness” - By the sacrifice of Christ we are made everlastingly right before God from our past sins (Romans 3:21-26).
5. “To seal up vision and prophecy” - The testimony of Christ “is the spirit of prophecy” (Revelation 19:10), and all the Old Testament prophecies concerning Christ are fulfilled in the present age (Acts 3:24).
6. “And to anoint the Most Holy.” - The Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One, the Holy One of Israel was anointed into His office with the Holy Spirit (Luke 4:18; Acts10:38; John 1:32-34; Hebrews 1:8-9).

By the end of seven Sabbaths of years (symbolic), Old Testament Israel was restored, “Even in troublesome times” (verse 25). Of course this fits the historical record of Ezra and Nehemiah. In fulfillment of the prophecies (e.g., Jeremiah 27:22) Israel as a nation was restored. Not only did Israelites from throughout the various tribes return to the land (Ezra 2:70), the Law of Moses was restored (cf. Deuteronomy 30:1-3,10; Nehemiah 8:10-9; 10:28-31), the priesthood of the tribe of Levi was restored (Exodus 28:1; Ezra 6:18), the inheritance of the land according to genealogy was restored (Numbers 26:52-55; Nehemiah 7:4-6,73), and temple worship was restored, including animal sacrifices (Exodus 20:24-25; Ezra 6:15-20). None of these things can be restored in the future. Even if they could, believing Jews who accepted them would fall away from Christ and be lost (Galatians 5:1-4; Hebrews 7:11-17; 8:4; 1 Timothy 1:4; Titus 3:9; Hebrews 10:1-14). The Restoration promises to Israel were fulfilled during the period recorded by Ezra and Nehemiah, and there can be no future restoration of Old Testament, national Israel.

There followed the sixty-two weeks (symbolic) at the end of which Messiah was cut off.

Finally, the symbolic seventy weeks was brought to a close when the Lord confirmed His covenant, His New Covenant, with many (Hebrews 9:15-17; Mark 16:19-20), “sacrifice and offering” were brought to an end when the Romans under Titus destroyed the Temple in A.D. 70 (Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, Book 5), and “the abomination of desolation” came.

When the Jewish nation rejected the Son of God and caused Him to be killed by the Romans, the Lord God rejected them as a nation (Matthew 21:33-46), and their Temple where God dwelt was left desolate - empty, forsaken (1 Kings 16:11-14; Matthew 23:37-38). The abomination of a Gentile army, the legions of Titus, standing where they ought not, in the Temple of God, as they systematically dismantled it stone by stone (Matthew24:1-2) in A.D. 70 was the abomination that brought the vision of Seventy Weeks to an end, completely destroyed Old Testament, national Israel, and made its future restoration an impossibility.

Now all, both Jew and Gentile, who come to God through Christ by obedient faith are the Israel of God, His chosen people, His royal priesthood, His holy nation (Galatians 5:6; 6:15-16; 1 Peter 2:4-5,9-10).

Works Cited

Josephus, The Wars of the Jews
Roberts, Mark, Understanding Apocalyptic Literature

Other Works Consulted

Asher, Jeff, "Visions of Daniel"
Hailey, Homer, A Commentary on Daniel
Harkrider, Robert, Daniel
.............................Truth Commentaries: Revelation
.............................(Appendix IV: The Book of Daniel and Revelation)
Roberts, Phil, "The Numerical Symbolism of the Seventy Weeks"
........................(Appendix A, in Hailey, Daniel)