The Seventy Weeks of Daniel is an intriguing prophecy that proves to be a challenging but fun study. As you probably know, this prophecy is pointing toward Jesus Christ I through a precise timeline. Today I’ll cover the details and mathematics of the prophecy.
• How did we arrive at Daniel’s seventy weeks in the first place?
• The Israelites were given the command to keep a Sabbath Year every seventh year.
Leviticus 25:1-7, “1 The LORD said to Moses on Mount Sinai, 2 "Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'When you enter the land I am going to give you, the land itself must observe a sabbath to the LORD. 3 For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops. 4 But in the seventh year the land is to have a sabbath of rest, a sabbath to the LORD. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. 5 Do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land is to have a year of rest. 6 Whatever the land yields during the sabbath year will be food for you—for yourself, your manservant and maidservant, and the hired worker and temporary resident who live among you, 7 as well as for your livestock and the wild animals in your land. Whatever the land produces may be eaten.”
Leviticus 26:14-20 14 " 'But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, 15 and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, 16 then I will do this to you: I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and drain away your life. You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it. 17 I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you. 18 " 'If after all this you will not listen to me, I will punish you for your sins seven times over. 19 I will break down your stubborn pride and make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like bronze. 20 Your strength will be spent in vain, because your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees of the land yield their fruit.
• In Jeremiah, God finally punishes Israel for its negligence. In the same way, we must pay close attention to our own negligence. Though we are under grace, God will still allow hardship into our lives as punishment. (Hebrews 12:4-13)
• Here God issues a seventy year sentence against them.
Jeremiah 25:8-11 “8 Therefore the LORD Almighty says this: "Because you have not listened to my words, 9 I will summon all the peoples of the north and my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon," declares the LORD, "and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all the surrounding nations. I will completely destroy them and make them an object of horror and scorn, and an everlasting ruin. 10 I will banish from them the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom, the sound of millstones and the light of the lamp. 11 This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.”
• The land itself was due a certain amount of lost rest.
2 Chronicles 36:21, “21 The land enjoyed its sabbath rests; all the time of its desolation it rested, until the seventy years were completed in fulfillment of the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah.”
• If we assume that each year of captivity was a year of rest that was missed then the seventy years could be making up for a lost rest for 490 years.
• Daniel’s prophecy marks out a 490 year period yet to come, thus placing Daniel in a sort of mid point in God’s plan.
• Daniel knew, by Jeremiah’s prophecy, that the issued amount of time for Israel’s punishment was nearing an end, so he offered up a prayer in Daniel 9:4-19. He confessed his sin and the sin of his people and requested that God lift his wrath and permit the temple to be rebuilt.
• Daniel received his answer from Gabriel. Gabriel came to him in the form of a man and told him not just of the rebuilding of the temple, but of the coming of the Anointed One.
• He got more than he bargained for.
• We pick up at this point. Now, let’s read one of the most radical prophecies of the Old Testament.
Daniel 9:20-27, 20 While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and making my request to the LORD my God for his holy hill- 21 while I was still in prayer, Gabriel, the man I had seen in the earlier vision, came to me in swift flight about the time of the evening sacrifice. 22 He instructed me and said to me, "Daniel, I have now come to give you insight and understanding. 23 As soon as you began to pray, an answer was given, which I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed. Therefore, consider the message and understand the vision:
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, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy.
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. 26 After the sixty-two 'sevens,' the Anointed One will be cut off and will have nothing. 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. 27 He will confirm a covenant with many for one 'seven.' In the middle of the 'seven' he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. 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. "
• This is the prophecy pinpointing the crucifixion of the Messiah. It's a little difficult to understand at first, but I'll guide you through the math. This excerpt extends, many believe, into the very end of time, but I won't approach that at this time.
• First, we are given this strange reference to sevens. These are known as heptads, or units of seven, and can mean days, weeks, or years. In this instance, it means years.
• When multiplied out, it gives us a measure of time equaling 490 years.
• The terminus a quo or starting point of the 490 years is "From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem..." The decree is as follows:
“1 In the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was brought for him, I took the wine and gave it to the king. I had not been sad in his presence before; 2 so the king asked me, "Why does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of heart." I was very much afraid, 3 but I said to the king, "May the king live forever! Why should my face not look sad when the city where my fathers are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?" 4 The king said to me, "What is it you want?" Then I prayed to the God of heaven, 5 and I answered the king, "If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my fathers are buried so that I can rebuild it. 6 Then the king, with the queen sitting beside him, asked me, "How long will your journey take, and when will you get back?" It pleased the king to send me; so I set a time.
7 I also said to him, "If it pleases the king, may I have letters to the governors of Trans-Euphrates, so that they will provide me safe-conduct until I arrive in Judah? 8 And may I have a letter to Asaph, keeper of the king's forest, so he will give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel by the temple and for the city wall and for the residence I will occupy?" And because the gracious hand of my God was upon me, the king granted my requests. 9 So I went to the governors of Trans-Euphrates and gave them the king's letters. The king had also sent army officers and cavalry with me."—Nehemiah 2:1-9
• Artaxerxes began his reign in the year 464 B.C., so 444 B.C. would be the year in which Nehemiah’s story begins.
• This is the decree spoken of by Daniel.
• It is believed that the city was rebuilt with walls, streets and moats during a 49 year span, the completion of the: “seven 'sevens”
• Knowing that the Jewish year consisted of 360 days, not 365 days we can do the math accordingly from 444 B.C.
1. The total number of years except for the final seven is 483 years from the issuance of the decree to the coming of the Anointed one.
2. We must multiply 483 years by 360 days to find out how many days that was by Jewish time standards. This comes out to 173,880 days.
3. If we take into account the number of leap years, which is 116 extra days that we factor into our years, we arrive at a figure of 173,764 days.
4. Now, using our time standard of 365 days, if we divide 173,764 by 365 we arrive at 476.07 years.
5. If we move from the month of Nisan, or around March or April, 444 B.C., by 476.07 years into the future, we arrive in the beginning of a few days into Nisan, 33 A.D. This is about the beginning of April.
• April of 33 A.D. is the proposed area of time that Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem occurred.
“while I was still in prayer, Gabriel, the man I had seen in the earlier vision, came to me” –Daniel 9:21a
“26 In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, ‘Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.’ 29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. 31 You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.’” –Luke 1:26-33
• It is also notable that Gabriel brought both the prophecy to Daniel and the news to Mary about her pregnancy. His second appearance is possibly an unspoken clue as to the fulfillment of this particular part of the Daniel 9 prophecy.
• This all means that the precise time of Jesus' ministry was predicted by Daniel, who finished his writings in 532 B.C., more than five hundred years before the birth of Jesus.
• The precise mathematic calculation boggles the minds of skeptics.
Conclusion
In the end, there is no argument that stands up to scrutiny. Daniel clearly and beautifully points toward Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.
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