Daniel 9:20-27

[Josh]

Please post your comments/ questions on Daniel 9:20-27 as replies here.

[Josh]

Originally posted 1/4/07:

Daniel’s “Seventy Sevens” by Joshua Coles, MS

What follows is a verse-by-verse investigation of one of the most fascinating and accurate prophecies contained in the entire Bible, as well as a comparison of the way in which Futurist and Preterist scholars interpret it. It’s my contention that the Preterist perspective makes thorough sense of this passage, while the Futurist stance strains credulity.

Daniel 9:24-27 (New International Version)

24 "Seventy 'sevens' are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness,

These 70 7’s are 70 ‘weeks’ of years, or 70 times 7 years. Just like we might count a large passage of time by decades, the Jewish calendar revolves around Sabbaths of Year, as laid out in Old Testament books like Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. So, we’re talking about a period of 490 years, at the end of which transgression, or sin, would be decisively dealt with (in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross).

to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy.

Christ brought in everlasting righteousness at his first coming by becoming our righteousness, a righteousness established forever.

Christ’s first coming and the events shortly after his death are the subject of the bulk of prophecies of the Bible, fulfilled conclusively at that time. This doesn’t preclude any prophecy beyond this point, it just stresses that the main point of the bulk of Old Testament prophecy anticipated the time surrounding Christ’s first advent.

The “most holy” to be anointed can be interpreted as Most Holy One or Most Holy Place. The first, Most Holy One, is preferable, referring to Jesus’ own anointing either in baptism, transfiguration, death, or resurrection. If taken as Most Holy Place, then I would say it refers to the anointing of the Church, which in the New Testament is seen as the New Jerusalem/ Mt. Zion/ Temple.

25 "Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven 'sevens,' and sixty-two 'sevens.' It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble.

This decree of the Persians to rebuild Jerusalem is dated to 458 BC. Add 483 years to that and you arrive at 25-26 AD, the exact timing of Christ’s baptism and the beginning of his ministry- e.g., the “coming of the Anointed One, the ruler”. Needless to say, this verse is one of the most extraordinary passages in the Old Testament*.

The first “seven sevens” (or 49 years) refers to the time it took to rebuild Jerusalem after the decree. It was indeed rebuilt in times of trouble, as you can see by reading the book of Nehemiah.

The last sixty-two sevens (434 years) was the time between the restoration of Jerusalem and the coming of Jesus, the Messiah.

26 After the sixty-two 'sevens,' the Anointed One will be cut off and will have nothing.

Indeed, after 26 AD, Messiah was “cut off”- which means rejected and killed- in 30 AD.

In regard to “will have nothing”, the phrase fits Jesus’ experience well, though there are alternate readings you will find in your footnotes that translate “will have nothing” as: “cut off and will have no one”, which could speak of Isaiah’s prediction that the Messiah would have no physical descendants, or Zechariah’s statement that his flock would be scattered, or “cut off, but not for himself”, which could refer to the sacrificial nature of His death.

The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed.

Though not identifying exactly how many years after the Messiah is cut off, this prediction anticipates a future ruler who will destroy Jerusalem closely after Jesus’ death. We know this to be the case: the Roman general Titus, under the command of the Emperor Vespasian, besieged and destroyed Jersualem in 70 AD, bringing “the end” of the Jewish sacrificial system and their entire world as they knew it (which then had to be re-invented). The Jews suffered many desolations in this time period, the worst of which was the desecration of the Temple first by murderous and profane Jewish rebels, and then by the Roman occupiers.

The end here should not be seen as the “end of the world” (as it could not have been, following so closely after Jesus’ first coming) but the end of the Jewish sacrificial system.

27 He will confirm a covenant with many for one 'seven.' [d] In the middle of the 'seven' [e] he will put an end to sacrifice and offering.

'He' who? Futurists (like Tim Lahaye, of Left Behind fame) say the ‘he’ here is a future antichrist, who rules during a future 7 year tribulation.

Remember that there is still a final week (7 years) that Daniel has not addressed (the 70th 7)? Futurists say, with scant justification, that there was somehow a 2000+ year gap between the 69th 7 and the 70th 7. This they see as a future 7 year Tribulation in which the Antichrist makes some kind of treaty or agreement with [usually] the Jews.

Because they think this verse refers to a future Antichrist ending sacrifice, they posit that a Temple must be rebuilt at some time in the future, and that Temple sacrifices must be re-instituted in order for the Antichrist, as they see in this verse, to “put an end” to that sacrifice.

But a more natural reading, in my opinion, is that the ‘he’ in this verse is Jesus Himself. He is the real ‘finisher of sacrifice’. And he accomplished his once and for all sacrifice, which ended the need for future sacrifice forever exactly 3 ½ years after He began His ministry! That brings us half-way into the 70th 7, following directly on the heels of the 69th.

The covenant Jesus made in AD 26, at his baptism, was to minister to the Jewish people, and to them almost exclusively (“I was sent to the lost sheep of Israel”, etc.. reference coming) This focus on bringing the good news to the Jews first continued after his death for the first 3 ½ years of the Church as well, until the scattering of the Church from Jerusalem, Peter’s vision about taking the gospel to the Gentiles and Paul’s conversion. That was the 70th 7; beginning with Christ’s baptism, climaxing in his death and the end of sacrifice that brough, and ending with the extending of the Gospel message to the Gentile world which brought to a completion God’s designs among the Jewish people specifically.

And on a wing of the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.

But surely the ‘he’ must not be referring to Jesus, because of this verse! Ah, it’s a travesty of bias. Look at the footnote for this verse and you’ll see another alternate, equally viable translation, which reads:

And one who causes desolation will come upon the pinnacle of the abominable temple , until the end that is decreed is poured out on the desolated city.

Here it stands out much clearly that the subject is now someone else- someone who will desolate the temple, and bring about it’s destruction. This could easily be either the leader of the Jewish rebellion who performed many profane acts in Jersulame prior to its destruction (read Josephus and you’ll see what I mean vividly) or Titus, the Roman general who set up the Roman eagle standards in the Temple before utterly destroying it.

And also, in this verse, the “end that is poured out” is more focused on the city, not the person doing the destruction, as fits Jesus’ focus not on an Antichrist in the coming conflict over Jerusalem, but on the final fact that “not one stone would be left upon another” in that great city.

Conclusion:

Daniel 9: 24-27 is one of the most powerfully predictive passages in the entire Bible. However, I think the Futurist stance, which sees the first part of it (vv. 24-26) as referring to the past, and the second part (vv. 26-27) as suddenly and without transition, referring to the future, as diminishing the thrust and simple power of this amazing passage, which came true to a T in the years between 458 BD and 70 AD.

What do you think?

Footnote:

*Because of this verse, Jews in Jesus day were especially anxious for the Messiah to appear. Within a couple hundred years after Jesus’ death, many Jewish rabbinical authorities actually forbade Jews from making this calculation lest they should despair that the Messiah had not come (see Search for the Messiah, where this is quoted and footnoted). Also, this is probably the verse, written in Persia, which inspired the Magi of that country to look for a sign of the Messiah’s birth.