70 Weeks - Daniel 9:24-27

OK, so we had last week off, so let’s recap what has happened so far in Daniel.

In chapter 1, we learn about Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They are Jewish nobles who are taken captive to Babylon and employed in the service of King Nebuchadnezzar. They stick to their convictions about dietary restrictions and follow God’s commands, and they grow in favor of the king.

In chapter 2, we see that ol’ Nebby has a dream, it disturbs him, and he needs some answers, but he doesn’t trust the wisemen. Because they cannot tell him the dream (and therefore the interpretation of it), he sends his executioners to kill all of the wise men and advisors. Daniel steps in, explains to the executioners and the king that God will give the interpretation of the dream, and basically saves a whole bunch of lives in the process. He tells ol’ Nebby what the dream means.

In chapter 3 we follow the story of Rack, Shack, and Benny (VeggieTales FTW). Daniel is not in this chapter.

Chapter 4 is told from Nebuchadnezzar’s perspective. We see that God has warned him to not elevate himself to the status of God, which ol’ Nebby basically ignores. God basically gives him the mind like an animal for a period of time, and then he realizes that God is truly the one, true God.

Several years pass, and in chapter 5, we encounter a new king (Belshazzar, king-regent, son of Nabonidus, the actual king). Belshazzar has desecrated the vessels from the temple in Jerusalem, and God warns him (with the handwriting on the wall) that his kingdom is over, and that very night the Persians conquer Babylon.

In chapter 6, Darius the Mede (which is probably a throne name for Cyrus the Great) is now king, and the various advisors to the king decide to get rid of Daniel. They coerce the king into making it illegal to pray to anyone but the king, but Daniel worships God in spite of the danger. He’s thrown into the lion’s den, even though Darius doesn’t like it, and God miraculously saves him (but not the advisors, because they and their families are thrown into the lion’s den, and are killed).

That is the basic narrative timeline of Daniel. Then, in chapter 7, we go back in time because we start looking less at stories, and more at dreams.

Chapter 7 is basically the same vision God gave to Nebuchadnezzar, only in more detail for Daniel.

Chapter 8 is the vision of the Ram and Goat, and Gabriel gives the interpretation.

That brings us to chapter 9. In this chapter, Daniel is studying the writings of the prophet Jeremiah, and realizes that, according to his calculations, the exile may be coming to an end. In understanding that, he prays on behalf of Israel for repentance and forgiveness. He asks God to end His judgment on Israel and restore them.

While he is praying, God sends Gabriel again to him to explain some things. He tells Daniel that, because he is greatly loved by God, God wanted to give him some information to help him out.

So, let’s read our scripture for tonight, and dive in, because it is gonna get bumpy.

Daniel 9:24–27 ESV

“Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. Know therefore 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. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed. And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.”

Now, I gotta be honest with you guys. This passage is particularly difficult to understand, and many, many commentators argue over what it actually means.

We are going to talk about that some, but I think it may be more important to understand the whole of what God is saying here instead of trying to plan out on a calendar when this stuff is going to happen, and that is where a lot of the commentary on this passage gets lost in the woods (cue the Frozen 2 singalong!). The point isn’t how many days until Jesus comes back, but that He is coming back one day, and only God knows when!

Before we get to the seventy weeks, we need to understand some Jewish culture. Again, context matters, and Daniel is a Jew, and he observes Jewish customs and rituals. We are 2000+ years removed from those customs, but we need to have a grasp of them so that we can better interpret what Daniel is saying, what he is thinking, and how he intends for his audience to understand his words.

In this case, we need to understand the concept of the jubilee year, and how it relates to the sabbath. Who knows what the sabbath is?

The sabbath is the 7th day of the week, and what are you supposed to do on that day?

You are supposed to refrain from working, and you are to worship God. It is a day of rest and worship. Just as God rested after creation, we are supposed to rest or take a sabbath.

Now, let’s look to Leviticus 25:1-12

Leviticus 25:1–12 ESV

The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord. For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits, but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. The Sabbath of the land shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves and for your hired worker and the sojourner who lives with you, and for your cattle and for the wild animals that are in your land: all its yield shall be for food. “You shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years. Then you shall sound the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan. That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; in it you shall neither sow nor reap what grows of itself nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines. For it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you. You may eat the produce of the field.

OK, I’m going to boil this down so we can understand and move on. Leviticus 25 starts by dealing with the sabbath year. So, the Jews are supposed to have a sabbath every 7th day, and then, every 7th year they are supposed to let the land rest, or take a year long sabbath. That means no organized farming. They can eat what grows naturally, but they are not to reap (or store up), and they are not to plant. This is a picture of God’s providing for His people, because the land is His.

Similarly, in Leviticus 25:8, the people are to count seven weeks of years, or seven sevens. Every 49th year is a sabbath year, and it is followed by the jubilee year, which is a year of liberty. Because people were (sinfully or otherwise) enslaved or in indentured service to others, and because that is not God’s desire, but a result of sin, every 50th year was set aside as a way for people to be freed. It was a year of freedom. Incidentally, it is a second consecutive year of rest for the land, as well.

Now, notice the similarity in the language of Leviticus 25:8 and Daniel 9:24. Seven weeks of years, seventy weeks (or sevens). Many scholars think this passage in Daniel is sort of an ultimate jubilee passage, where, at the end of it all, at the end of this period of time encapsulated by the “Seventy sevens,” God will give ultimate liberty to the world.

So, understanding that this “seventy weeks” is not a literal 70 weeks, or even 70 “weeks of years,” (70 * 7 = 490 years), but rather a symbolic period of time that God has ordained to have a specific start and a specific end, we do need to look at some of the views on this.

Show chart. Explain some of the views.

OK. That was a ton of weird, not easy to understand information. But now we can start to grasp the rest of this passage.

See, once we understand that the 70 weeks is not about a date to be put on the calendar, we can start to understand the warnings that God is giving us through Daniel here. Gabriel is telling Daniel (and therefore, us) what is to come. And we don’t have to understand every detail. We have to grasp that God has set this aside for Israel’s judgment, and for the end of days. God has set this up, and God will bring it to be. We can’t go around acting like we know the time and place of the end, because Jesus told us “no one knows the hour, except the father.” (Matthew 24:36, 44, 25:13; Mark 13:32; Luke 12:40).

So, what’s going to happen in these 70 weeks? And what does this mean for Jerusalem and the exile? Because remember, Daniel was studying Jeremiah and realized that the prophesied 70 years of exile should be almost done. That is why he was praying. That is what he was praying about.

So Gabriel’s words here are to let Daniel know that the 70 years in Jeremiah are a little harder to calculate, because God isn’t done punishing Jerusalem just yet. Even when they get to go back to Jerusalem, that doesn’t end the punishment.

Verse 24 is a synopsis of what Gabriel is about to describe. He is basically giving you the abstract, the “TL;DR” version. There’s 70 time periods of sevens and then the end of all things, and the establishing of the new, perfect world (bring in everlasting righteousness…anoint a most holy place.)

Then, in verse 25, Gabriel breaks down what that will look like. And in this verse is, I would think, a bit of hope for Daniel. Because Gabriel says, “look, when the king sends you guys back to Jerusalem to rebuild it...” So Daniel hears the good news that God is going to end the exile. But there is more to the story than just that, and from what we know of Daniel’s character, we can reasonably assume that he is grieved by some of the things he hears next. Because in verse 25 Daniel learns that Jerusalem will be rebuilt over a long period of time (62 “weeks” or time periods). But then in verse 26, we see that it gets destroyed again.

Not only that, but the anointed one will be cut off. See, in verse 25 we see that an anointed one will come. The Hebrew word for anointed one is מָשִׁיחַ or “Messiah.” So the Messiah will come, and the temple will be rebuilt, but then the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the city and temple will be destroyed.

This is agony on agony for Daniel. He sees the joyous return of Israel to their home, and the fulfilment of scripture in the coming of Messiah, only to have the Messiah cut off and the city laid waste. Again. And there will be ruin. And war. And desolations.

Verse 27 tells us that this “prince to come” - or, if you like, an antichrist, will put an end to the sacrifice and offering.

I want to stop here and talk about a couple of things before we move on.

Who is Messiah? Jesus. Yes, we understand that. So we need to see that this prophecy here is looking ultimately toward Jesus. Jesus will come. Then He will be cut off (or killed).

A prince is mentioned a couple of times. This is where this gets a little tricky, because the prince is most probably referring to the little horn from Daniel 8, and historically this would have been seen as referring to Antiochus IV Epiphanes. He was a Seleucid king who hated the Jews, who installed his own “high priest,” which was a perversion of God’s design, and slaughtered pigs on the altar. He also stopped the Jews from worshiping and offering sacrifice in the temple for a period of time.

These events historically can be seen as the “abomination that causes desolation.” And from a strictly historical perspective, I do think that is an accurate reading of the text (and certainly a better reading of Daniel 8).

But there is a term I want you to hear and understand: Eschatological Dualism. So, do we understand what dualism means? Right, it has to do with the number two. Eschatology is the study of the end times, or “last things.” In many prophecies, there is an eschatological dualistic understanding of them. A “now/not yet” understanding. And this is important here, because what Gabriel is telling Daniel is first played out in small form in the 2nd Century BC with the rise of Antiochus and the Maccabean revolt, and the Jews being able to reestablish worship in the temple.

And in that sense, there is this understanding of Antiochus as a type of antichrist. Antichrist is not just the really bad guy in Revelation before the apocalypse. That is the Antichrist. But throughout history, there have been many “small-a” antichrists. Look at Karl Marx, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin. Those who would, with charisma and charm, lead others to follow them while simultaneously pulling people away from the teachings of Christ and biblical principles and understanding. All of these are types of antichrists.

But what Gabriel is telling Daniel here seems to supercede even Antiochus. This seems to be the Antichrist. And in that regard, we have to (historically) understand that the destruction of the temple in 70AD has to be taken into account regarding the destruction Gabriel mentions (under the Roman emperor Titus).

And then we have to understand that ultimately, there will be a final judgment in which Christ shall be victorious and all will be set right. He will pour out the decreed end on the final desolator.

So this prophecy looks to the future, both near and far, and ultimately to Christ’s final victory. We don’t need to know the date on the calendar to know that God has it taken care of.