The Seventy Weeks of Daniel Chapter 9
24 “Seventy weeks 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 prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. 25 Know therefore and understand that
from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one,
a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with
squares and moat, but in a troubled time. 26 And after the sixty-two weeks, an 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 week, and
for half of the week 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.”
Most scholars agree that the “seventy weeks” are 70 times 7 years – and therefore about 490
years – but disagree on the timeline of how those years are applied, and what events they
incorporate.
There are 3 major Christian interpretations of this passage:
1) The passage refers to actions of and events around the rule of one of the regional
successors of Alexander the Great, Antiochus Epiphanes (whom we talked about
regarding the vision of the little horn in Daniel 8), around 175 – 164 BC.
In this view, “the word to restore and build Jerusalem” (vs. 25) is Jeremiah’s prophecy of
70 years of exile found in Jeremiah 25. This interpretation counts down from the exile in
605BC to the cleansing of the temple by Jewish insurgent Judas Maccabeus or the death
of Antiochus, which both happened in 164BC.
2) This passage refers to symbolic time periods ending in the first century AD. The
number seven is often used symbolically in the Scriptures to imply God’s perfect timing
of events (as in creation, the Sabbath, the Feast of Weeks, the Sabbath year, the Jubilee
year, etc.). 70x7 = perfect completeness, and no further specificity on the timeline is
intended in this passage. Or, alternatively, it refers to three periods of time that begin
with Cyrus releasing the Jews to rebuild the temple in 538BC through the time of
Nehemiah (433BC); the next period is between 400 BC and the birth of Christ; the final
period goes from Christ’s advent until after his death, but before the destruction of
Jerusalem in 70AD.
3) This passage refers to an actual period of 490 years, reaching its end with at some point
during Christ’s incarnation (with disagreement among interpreters concerning when the
period began and in what part of Jesus’ life the seventy weeks ends). Dispensational
believers see a gap between the 69th and 70th week in which they place the entire
church age, and see the 70th week as the events surrounding the apocalypse.
The text prophesies that by the end of the seventy weeks (or, literally, “seventy sevens”) these
things will happen:
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Transgression will be finished (24)
And end will be put to sin (24)
Iniquity will be atoned for (24)
Everlasting righteousness will be brought in (24)
Vision and prophecy will be sealed (24)
A most holy place will be anointed (24)
An anointed one (literally, “Messiah”) will be cut off (26)
A future prince will destroy Jerusalem and the temple (26)
Jerusalem/temple will be desolate until the decreed end and judgment (27)
Based on these statements, I believe the second interpretation is the most accurate. This
prophecy refers to the lead up from the Babylonian Exile to the coming of Christ, to Christ’s
redeeming work (he is the anointed one who was cut off to make atonement for iniquity, an
end to sin and transgression, to enter the heavenly most holy place to anoint it with his own
blood, to establish a righteousness for God’s people, and be the last Word from God which
vision and prophecy point toward), and to the destruction of Jerusalem as judgment for the
rejection of the true Messiah.
This prophecy has been fulfilled in the person and work of Christ, and in the 70AD destruction
of the temple.
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Pastor Matt Carr