Daniel’s Seventy Weeks and the Glorious Work of Messiah Jesus

Daniel 9:20-27

Main Idea: God has a plan to bring about the salvation of his people and the judgment of his enemies, and it centers on the person and work of Jesus Christ.

1. God Hears the Passionate Prayers of His Beloved Children (9:20-23).
   1. Daniel prayed to God (9:20-21).
   2. God answered Daniel’s prayer (9:21-23).
2. God Has a Prophetic Plan to Bring about Our Salvation (9:24-27).
   1. In his time God deals with sin (9:24).
   2. In his time God sends Messiah Jesus (9:25-26).
   3. In his time God judges his people (9:26).
   4. In his time God destroys his enemies (9:27).

The great expositor Alistair Begg playfully but wisely says of Daniel 9:24-27,

In what follows, I reserve the right to change my mind later this evening, and as often as necessary for the rest of my life, until I finally settle the matter. What I’m about to now unfold for you will annoy some, disappoint others, confuse many, and perhaps encourage a few. (“Gabriel and the 70 Weeks”)

After spending dozens and dozens of hours studying this text, I fully understand his position. Joyce Baldwin says, “The last four verses [of Daniel 9] present the most difficult text in the book” (Daniel, 163). Stephen Miller says Daniel 9:24-27 “are four of the most controversial verses in the Bible” (Daniel, 252). J. A. Montgomery is perhaps the most colorful when he writes, “The history of the exegesis of the 70 weeks of Daniel is the Dismal Swamp of Old Testament criticism” (“Daniel,” 168).

There is, without question, difficulty in the details. However, we must not let that reality distract us from the big picture that is clear and plain for all to see. With his wonderful gift of words, Charles Spurgeon lays out God’s divine plan for us:

The Lord God appointed a set time for the coming of his Son into the world; nothing was left to chance. Infinite wisdom dictated the hour at which the Messiah should be born, and the moment at which he should be cut off. His advent and his work are the highest point of the purpose of God, the hinge of history, the centre of providence, the crowning of the edifice of grace, and therefore peculiar care watched over every detail. Once in the end of the world hath the Son of God appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, and this is the event before which all other events must bow. The studious mind will be delighted to search out the reasons why the Messiah came not before, and why he did not tarry till yet later ages. Prophecies declared the date; but long before infallible wisdom had settled it for profoundest reasons. It was well that the Redeemer came: it was well that he came in what Scripture calls the fullness of time, even in these last days.

Note again, that the Lord told his people somewhat darkly, but still with a fair measure of clearness, when the Christ would come. (Sermons on the Book of Daniel, 121)

So God has a specific plan in which Messiah will come and deal decisively with sin, though he will be executed in the process, and many troubles will precede and follow that coming. Israel, in particular, will suffer, but God has decreed how and when the end will come. Regardless of where we are or what we are experiencing, we can trust him. He is in control. His plan will come to pass just as he has planned.

Daniel is praying for his people Israel (9:4-19). His prayer is one of deep repentance and heartfelt confession. Deuteronomy 4 and 28 said that Israel would sin, be scattered from their land, seek God (which Daniel is doing on their behalf), and return to the Lord (see Deut 4:25-31). Jeremiah 25:1-14 and 29:10-14 tell us that this particular exile in Babylon would last seventy years. Daniel understood these verses literally and recognized the exile was coming to an end. Interestingly, when King Solomon voiced his prayer of dedication for the temple in 1 Kings 8:22-53, he said that if and when Israel was sent into exile for her sin, she should seek God in prayer and repentance and he would forgive and rescue her. Daniel is doing exactly what Solomon suggested in that prayer almost five hundred years earlier.

Our passage can be divided into two parts: (1) Daniel’s prayers (9:20-23), and (2) God’s prophecy (9:24-27). Prepare yourself for a hermeneutical roller coaster!

God Hears the Passionate Prayers of His Beloved Children

Daniel 9:20-23

James 4:3 has a stern warning when it comes to prayer. There the half brother of Jesus says, “You ask and don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures” (ESV, “passions”; KJV, “lusts”). Who we pray to, what we pray for, and how we pray are all important to God. The prophet Daniel provides a marvelous example of a man whose prayer life met all the criteria to receive an answer from God.

Daniel Prayed to God (9:20-21)

Daniel 9:20-27 follows the lengthy prayer of 9:1-19. I believe this passage describes that prayer and indicates that Daniel was still praying! He is still

speaking, praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my petition before the Lord my God concerning the holy mountain of my God. (v. 20)

He is praying to the right person with the right posture, something that always characterizes real and authentic praying.

While he is praying, the angel Gabriel suddenly appears in the form of a man. Daniel notes it is the same angel he had seen in his first vision (8:15-17). Gabriel means “Strong Man of God,” which is appropriate because he comes to lend support to Daniel in his state of “extreme weariness” (9:21). Gabriel is mentioned twice in Daniel in chapters 8–9. In the Gospel of Luke, he appears to Zechariah and Mary announcing the births of John the Baptist and Jesus (Luke 1:11-38). Some believe he is an archangel, though the Bible never calls him one.

Daniel says the angel came “about the time of the evening offering” (Dan 9:21). That’s interesting. There had been no evening sacrifices at the temple in Jerusalem since it was destroyed in 586 BC. Nevertheless, Daniel still tells time according to his religious calendar. “He still functions on ‘Jerusalem time,’” says Dale Davis (Message of Daniel, 124). Daniel at eighty-plus years of age has not lost his spiritual identity. Yahweh’s clock is his clock.

God Answered Daniel’s Prayer (9:21-23)

God sent his angel Gabriel while Daniel was praying (v. 21). He is there to help Daniel understand, “to give [him] understanding” (v. 22). While some make a connection here to the vision of chapter 8, I believe it is better to see Gabriel answering Daniel’s prayer in chapter 9 and providing an explanation of Israel’s exile and her future—things that were the concerns of Daniel’s prayer.

In verse 23 Gabriel tells Daniel that the moment he began praying “an answer went out, and I have come to give it.” Why? The text tells us clearly: “For you are treasured by God.” Those whom the Lord greatly loves, he hears. Those who are greatly loved, our God honors. Daniel is precious in the sight of God, and therefore so are his prayers. God values the prayers of his faithful and righteous saints. He treasures them. Gabriel has been sent directly by God with an answer to Daniel’s prayer. Therefore, Daniel should carefully “consider the message and understand the vision” through the appearance and words of Gabriel. Daniel is about to receive one of the greatest and most important visions and revelations in the whole Bible. His alertness and readiness is a must.

God Has a Prophetic Plan to Bring about Our Salvation

Daniel 9:24-27

Verses 24-27 address the “seventy weeks” (or better, the “seventy sevens”) prophecy of Daniel. Virtually all scholars agree that the “sevens” represent years rather than weeks. The word “seven” functions like our English word “dozen.” It can refer to seven days, weeks, months, or years. God is telling Daniel that Israel’s exile will not last seventy years. It will last seventy times seven years, or four hundred ninety years. The Hebrews would have readily understood this ambiguity between days and years. Not only did they celebrate the Sabbath every seven days, but they were also supposed to celebrate a “Sabbath year” every seven years according to Leviticus 25:1-7. Unfortunately, they had disobeyed the command, and that was one of the reasons they were exiled for seventy years (cf. Lev 26:33-35; 2 Chron 36:21).

Four major views are held by various scholars today on how to understand the seventy sevens. I will quickly note them and then move into our verses defending the view I think is the best understanding at the time I am writing this.^[5]

View 1. The seventy sevens are literal years that run from either 605 or 586 BC to the reign of Antiochus (Epiphanes) in 167–164 BC. The dates, however, simply do not work, and this view does not fit well with what Daniel 9:24-27 actually says. This is a view usually advocated by more liberal scholars.

View 2. The seventy sevens are symbolic periods of time culminating in the first century AD. This view also struggles with dates and the content of the prophecy.

View 3. The seventy sevens are symbolic periods of time ending with the second coming of Christ.

The seventy 7’s are a prophecy of church history (both the Old Testament and the New Testament church) from Cyrus’ decree in 538 BC until the return of Christ at the end of the age. (Miller, Daniel, 255)

I find this view unconvincing as well.

View 4. The seventy sevens are literal years that end with Christ’s second coming but also include his first coming. And there is an important prophetic gap between the sixty-ninth and seventieth week. The first sixty-nine weeks are now past. The climactic seventieth week is still future. Stephen Miller lays this scenario out, and his view is the one I find the most convincing overall.

The first seven sevens (forty-nine years) commence with a command to rebuild Jerusalem (either the decree to Ezra in 458 B.C. or the decree to Nehemiah in 445 B.C.) and terminate with the completion of the work of Ezra and Nehemiah about forty-nine years later (either ca. 409 B.C. or ca. 396 B.C.). The next sixty-two sevens (434 years) extend from the end of the first group of sevens to Christ’s first coming (either his baptism in ca. A.D. 26 or Christ’s presentation of himself to the people as Messiah on Palm Sunday in A.D. 32/33). (Daniel, 257)

The seventieth week is separated in time from the sixty-nine. Daniel 9:26b-27 looks both to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 and the coming of the antichrist at the end of the age. Titus, the Roman general, is a forerunner and type of the antichrist. The destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 foreshadows an end-time persecution that will exceed anything the world has ever known. I believe this is the understanding of Jesus according to his teaching in the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24 (note especially vv. 15-28).

Let’s walk through these four verses humbly and carefully. I will note what we can be more sure of. And I will again remind us that we should tread softly where angels fear to go.

In His Time God Deals with Sin (9:24)

Gabriel tells Daniel, “Seventy sevens” (the literal rendering) “are decreed about your people [Israel] and your holy city [Jerusalem].” Robert Fyall notes,

Behind all biblical uses of seven lie the seven days of creation. Thus the return from Exile is not simply a new Exodus, but a new creation and thus foreshadows the end time. (Daniel, 142)

During the seventy sevens, six things will occur:

• Rebellion will be finished.
• An end to sin is to be made.
• Atonement for iniquity will take place.
• Everlasting righteousness is to be brought in.
• Vision and prophecy will be sealed up.
• The most holy place or Holy One will be anointed.

Anyone with even limited knowledge and understanding of the Bible and the Christian faith could read this and immediately respond, “This is talking about Jesus and what he did for us.” During the seventy weeks, sin is dealt with once and for all by means of atonement when “an Anointed One, the ruler” is cut off, crucified after sixty-nine weeks (vv. 25-26). His atoning sacrifice is God’s final word and will usher in everlasting righteousness through the anointing of the most holy place—perhaps a future temple like that described in Ezekiel 40–48, or possibly the Holy One Jesus who constitutes a new temple himself and in his body, the church (John 2:18-21; 1 Cor 3:16; Eph 2:19-21). Regardless, sin is coming to an end! The anointed ruler and his work of atonement will see to it.

In His Time God Sends Messiah Jesus (9:25-26)

Daniel 9:25-27 focuses on three events that take place during the 490 years: The first is the rebuilding of Jerusalem (v. 25) during the first seven weeks, or forty-nine years. The second is the coming and death of Messiah (v. 26) during the seven plus sixty-two weeks, or 483 years. And the third is the persecution by the antichrist (the coming ruler of the people) and his defeat (v. 27) in the final or seventieth week.

In verse 25 Daniel is told to know 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” (ESV; i.e., forty-nine years).

This “going out of the word” or “issuing of the decree” is probably a reference to the decree of Artaxerxes I to Ezra in 458 BC or a second decree of Artaxerxes I to Nehemiah in 445/444 BC. Though dogmatism is unwarranted, I favor the 458 BC date as the correct beginning point for the seventy sevens. The temple, city, and walls would be rebuilt, but troubles would accompany the rebuilding every step of the way—especially during the first forty-nine years as the book of Nehemiah makes clear.

Verse 26 then informs us that after the sixty-two weeks (plus the prior seven, equaling sixty-nine weeks, or 483 years), the anointed ruler, the Messiah, “will be cut off and will have nothing.” If 458 BC is correct, 483 years brings us to ca. AD 26–27—the time of Christ and the beginning of his public ministry. This is a remarkable prediction and fulfillment. What amazing accuracy!

Then, sometime after the sixty-ninth week, probably a short time, Messiah is cut off and left with nothing (9:26a). He is put to death and appears to be “cut off from the land of the living” (Isa 53:8). James Boice summarizes well our text at this point:

By whatever set of calculations one makes, the point is that by the end of the sixty-nine weeks of years [or shortly after] the great work of the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ for sin should be completed. (Daniel, 101)

In His Time God Judges His People (9:26-27)

Messiah has been rejected. Judgment follows from what Gabriel calls “the people of the coming ruler.” I believe the Romans and General Titus were typical of this prophecy in the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in AD 70. The end of Israel indeed was like a flood, and it was a tragic and horrible war. Indeed, “desolations are decreed” (9:26b). But this is not the end. There is a common prophetic gap between the sixty-ninth and seventieth week. Robert Gundry says it well:

The possibility of gap between the sixty-ninth and the seventieth weeks is established by the well accepted Old Testament phenomenon of prophetic perspective, in which gaps such as that between the first and second advents were not perceived. (The Church and the Tribulation, 190)

This fits with the biblical narrative, in which Messiah is cut off at or shortly after the end of the sixty-ninth week, and Jerusalem and the temple are destroyed after the sixty-ninth week but before the seventieth week.

In His Time God Will Destroy His Enemies (9:27)

Verse 27 deals with the seventieth week, the last seven years of history prior to the coming of God’s kingdom in its full and glorious manifestation. It begins when he, the ruler of Verse 26, makes “a firm covenant with many for one week” (v. 27). Typified by Titus, this is the antichrist, the little horn of Daniel 7:8. He is a deceiver and persecutor of God’s people. The antichrist, or the coming ruler, makes this “firm covenant” with many. This is probably a reference to the Jewish people (though some identify this group more specifically as either unbelieving Jews or even true believers). At the midpoint of the time period (three and a half years), he apparently breaks the covenant and puts an end to sacrifice and offering. Worship of the true God, or anyone other than him, is outlawed and forbidden (see Rev 13). The phrase “And the abomination of desolation will be on a wing of the temple” most likely speaks of the spreading of abominations in the context of idolatry. This will continue but not forever. It will continue “until the decreed destruction is poured out on the desolator”—until God stops it and in the process pours out his judgment and wrath on the antichrist. Stephen Miller, quoting from the NIV, handles these difficult verses as well as anyone:

Antichrist’s incredible atrocities against his fellow human beings and his attacks upon God himself (cf. 7:21-25) will include even the idolatrous claim that he is deity with an attempt at forced worship of himself (cf. 2 Thess. 2:4; Rev. 13:8, 14-17).

“One who causes desolation” (similar to NASB) refers to Antichrist, who will forbid worship and thereby make the temple area desolate (empty). Rather than being an object that desolates in this context, it appears to be the Antichrist himself who desolates. This person’s terrible atrocities (“abominations”) and the fact he causes the temple to be desolate (because of religious persecution) results in the judgment announced in the latter part of the verse.

This will be a terrible period in the world’s history, but the Lord has “decreed” that these atrocities will not continue forever. Antichrist’s wickedness will last only “until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.” “Poured out” picturesquely describes the flood of judgment that will overtake the Antichrist (cf. 7:9-11, 26; 2 Thess. 2:8; Rev. 19:19-21). “On him” is literally “on the desolating one” (“desolator,” NRSV; Heb. šo¯me¯n), a reference to Antichrist, which will cause the temple to become desolate. (Daniel, 273)

Dale Davis succinctly adds,

A final ruler then exalts himself, imposes his authority, forbids true worship, instigates idolatrous worship and runs into the meat-grinder of God’s decree. Predetermined. On target. Certain. (The Message of Daniel, 137–38)

Conclusion: How Does This Text Point to Christ?

Daniel sees from Jeremiah that exile will last seventy years. Therefore, he prays a prayer of repentance and confession to ready the people for a return home, and he pleads with God to act mercifully for his glory in rescuing his people from their sin and exile (9:1-19). God answers Daniel by sending Gabriel to give a prophetic revelation. Gabriel tells Daniel that exile will actually last seventy times seven years, or four hundred ninety years, and exile will not end until the Messiah comes and is crucified—that is when sin will finally be dealt with and righteousness will be brought in. After that, in the final “week” of human history, the antichrist will come, bringing in the great tribulation and desecrating the holy city. But he will be defeated as Daniel 7 and 9 prophesy. There is an already/not-yet reality in this prophecy. There is significant mystery, but there are also divine certainties we can all agree on.

H. C. Leupold calls Daniel 9 “the divine program for the ages” (Exposition of Daniel, 406). On that he is correct because it points to and revolves all around the anointed ruler, Messiah Jesus. The text predicts the coming of the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, who will abolish sin and establish everlasting righteousness by being “cut off,” executed on a Roman cross. And he will come exactly when God promised he would in one of the most amazing prophecies in the whole Bible. Following his death, the city of Jerusalem and the temple will be destroyed, which it was in AD 70 under the Roman general Titus. As Jesus taught in the Olivet Discourse of Matthew 24, this tragic event anticipates and typifies the end of this present evil age and the arrival of a coming ruler, the antichrist. He will persecute God’s people and devastate God’s land, but his end will come like a flood when the anointed ruler returns and destroys him. All who long for and love the anointed ruler, King Jesus, will experience in all its fullness the salvation blessings of 9:24. Until then, we work and we wait. We serve and we hope. The plan is in place. The clock is ticking. The anointed ruler is on the way!

Reflect and Discuss

1. Daniel again shows himself to be a man of prayer. What kind of prayers does God hear? From whom does God delight to hear?
2. This is a notoriously difficult passage. How should we approach texts like this that can cause so much confusion?
3. Why does God give this prophecy to Daniel at this time?
4. Summarize each of the four major understandings of the seventy sevens. What are the strengths and weaknesses of each?
5. This passage has some things that are clearer and some that are less clear. What are some of the things we can clearly identify in this text?
6. What is it about the seventy sevens that seems to point to the work of the Messiah?
7. What does it mean for the Messiah to be “cut off” (9:26), and why is this detail important for understanding the New Testament?
8. How does this passage reveal both the mercy and the judgment of God?
9. This prophecy covers the vast scope of world history. What does that tell us about God and his power?
10. Knowing that history and the future are in God’s hands, and that his plan is sure, how should Christians live until his plan is brought to completion?