The Prophecy - Daniel 9:24-27 - Daniel's 70 Weeks |
Old Testament Prophecy |
24) Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place. 25) So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. 26) Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined. 27) And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate. |
Some Commentators argue that God's goals in 9:24 were all fulfilled in the First Advent of Messiah. They view the entire seventy weeks as having been fulfilled consecutively, without interruption, within the first century. However, if all seventy weeks have elapsed, then where was the end to Israel's captivity? This view must find an end to the exile in temporary Jewish revolts, all of which were unsuccessful and ultimately led to the destruction of the city, the Temple, and further exile. This, of course, offers no solution to Daniel's specific petition for his people's restoration.
Furthermore, the climax of Gabriel's promise to Daniel was that the one who will one day desolate the Temple will himself be desolated completely. This did not occur historically with the Roman general Titus, who destroyed the Second Temple. Rather, he and his emperor father, Vespasian, enjoyed the triumph of parading the Temple vessels through the streets of Rome.
On the other hand, a number of factors support the argument that it will require both advents of Messiah to accomplish God's goals. First, the seventy weeks prophecy must be fulfilled exclusively with Daniel's people and city-national Israel and the city of Jerusalem (9:24). No universal "salvation history" is being addressed here, but the future history of the Jewish people in their historic land. Because a Jewish remnant did, in fact, return to Judah as a nation and resettled the land and rebuilt Jerusalem, in direct answer to Daniel's prayer, and because a Jewish Messiah did come to the land of Israel to "make reconciliation for iniquity" (Dan. 9:24), these future goals must also be interpreted literally. They cannot be fulfilled with any people other than the Jewish people. The church does not fulfill them.
Although Cyrus released the Jews from captivity in the year that the seventy weeks prophecy was given, the remnant that returned to Judah found that idolatry and transgression continued (cf. Ezra 9:1-2; Neh. 9:2). Therefore, the prophetic plan was unfulfilled by Israel's return at the end of the seventy years and required the coming of Israel's Messiah to fulfill it in the future. Interestingly, Jewish commentators also held that these goals were not accomplished with the return and restoration under Zerubbabel in 538.B.C. According to the Jewish commentator Abarbanel, the nature of Israel's sin required not seventy years, but 490. Abarbanel noted that the return to Jerusalem and even the rebuilding of the second Temple did not bring the expected redemption nor atone for past sins, since they were themselves a part of the exile and atonement. He held that the real and complete redemption was still far off in history, and thus not yet fulfilled according to Daniel's prophecy.
1). Randall Price (Israel My Glory Feb/March 2000).
Randall Price is President of World of the Bible Ministries, Inc., an organization involved in research and publication of information related to ancient and modern Israel and the Middle East.
