Daniel 9 Footnotes

9:2 Jeremiah first prophesied Judah’s seventy-year captivity period in 605 BC (Jr 25:11-12; 29:10), and Cyrus issued the decree releasing the captives around 538 BC. Considering that seventy years is a round number, Jeremiah’s prediction is an astounding testimony to God’s omniscience (see note on Jr 29:10 for discussion of the seventy-year number).

9:24-27 Some commentators interpret the “seventy weeks” as weeks of years (a total of 490 years) beginning in 586 BC with the fall of Jerusalem and terminating with the cessation of Antiochus’s persecution in 164–3 BC. At that time the kingdom of God would arrive. Thus, these critics argue, the author was mistaken about the arrival of the kingdom of God and miscalculated the time span represented by the weeks by approximately sixty-seven years. Traditionally, Christians have held that the prophecy predicts Christ’s coming, although there is disagreement as to whether the seventy weeks culminate with his first or second advent. There is also uncertainty about when to begin the count. John Chrysostom (AD 345–407), for example, did not take Jeremiah’s prophecy of 29:10 (see note on Dn 9:2) as the reference point, but the “issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem” by Cyrus at the end of the Babylonian exile (Discourse 5.10.3). He therefore understood the rebuilding of Jerusalem to be that under Nehemiah a half century later, and the destruction of the sanctuary (Dn 9:26) to be that under the Romans—Pompey (63 BC) and Vespasian and Titus (AD 70). However Daniel’s scheme is calculated, it seems clear that only the Messiah is able to bring about the cessation of sin, the establishment of righteousness, and the consecration of the sanctuary associated with the end of the seventy weeks (v. 24).