p. 12 | Aids for Bible Readers

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 2, 1908

Aids for Bible Readers

Historical quotations and extracts from various writers which may assist the thoughtful student of the Scriptures.

The Division and Fulfilment of the Seventy Weeks

THE whole period of seventy weeks is divided into three successive periods, seven, sixty-two, one, and the last week is subdivided into two halves. It is self-evident that, since these parts—seven, sixty-two, one—are equal to the whole, viz., seventy, it was intended that they should be. Every writer wishes to be understood; the vision is announced at the beginning as one which is, on thought, to be understood. “I am come to give thee skill and understanding; . . . therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision.” Yet, on this self-evident fact that the sum of the parts is intended to be the same as the whole, every attempt to explain the prophecy so that it should end in Antiochus Epiphanes, or in any other than our Lord (as we shall see), shivers. On the other hand, the subordinate periods, as well as the whole, fit in with the Christian interpretation. It were not of any account if we could not interpret these minor details. “De minimis non curat lex.” When the whole distance is spanned over, it matters not whether we can make out some lesser details. Men believe that Mount Athos was severed, because they can trace here and there a portion of the canal. Science assumes, as certain, whatever is presupposed by what it knows already. But in the prophecy of the seventy weeks, the portions also can be traced. The words are, “From the going forth of a commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks; street and wall shall be restored and builded; and in strait of times. And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off.”

Obviously, unless there had been a meaning in this division, it would have stood, “shall be threescore and nine weeks,” not, “shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks.” For every word in this condensed prophecy has its place and meaning, and the division would be unmeaning unless something were assigned to this first portion. The text does assign it. It says, the street shall be restored and be builded; and that, in troublous times.

The books of Ezra and Nehemiah give the explanation. Ezra came to Jerusalem, B. C. 457; he labored in restoring the Jewish polity, within and without, for thirteen years before Nehemiah was sent by Artaxerxes, B. C. 444. Nehemiah, as governor, labored together with Ezra for twelve years, from the twentieth year even unto the two and thirtieth year of Artaxerxes the king, twelve years. Then he returned to the king, and after an undefined time, “at the end of days,” he says, “obtained I leave of the king, and came to Jerusalem.”

The interval probably was not short; for there had been time for corruptions to creep in, nor is the king likely to have sent him back soon; else why should he have returned at all? The mention of Eliashib’s son, Joiada, being high priest then, in place of his deceased father, fixes this second visit probably in the reign of Darius Nothus, in whose eleventh year Eliashib is said to have died. The expulsion of one of his sons who had become son-in-law to Sanballat, and regulation of the wards of the priests and Levites, are among the last acts of reform which Nehemiah mentions in his second visit; with them he closes his book. Now from the seventh year of Artaxerxes to the eleventh of Darius Nothus are forty-five years. But it was in the period of the high priesthood of Joiada, not precisely in the very first year, that this reform took place. We have, anyhow, for the period of the two great restorers of the Jewish polity, Ezra and Nehemiah conjointly, a time somewhat exceeding forty-five years; so that we know that the restoration was completed in the latter part of the seventh week of years, and it is probable that it was not closed until the end of it. In regard to “the strait of times,” amid which this restoration was to take place, the books of Ezra and Nehemiah are the commentary. Up to the completion of the walls, there was one succession of vexations on the part of the enemies of the Jews. Their abiding condition they confess in both periods to God: “For our iniquities we have been delivered into the hands of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, to a spoil, and to confusion of face, as at this day. And now for a little space grace hath been showed from the Lord, to leave us a remnant to escape, . . . to give us a little reviving in our bondage. For bondsmen are we, and in our bondage our God hath not forsaken us.” In Nehemiah’s time, the great public confession of sin closes with the same statement: “Behold we are bondsmen this day, and the land which thou gavest to our fathers, to eat the fruit thereof and the good thereof, behold we are bondsmen in it; and it yieldeth much increase unto the kings which thou hast set over us, because of our sins; and over our bodies they have dominion, and over our cattle at their pleasure, and in great distress are we.”

The next division, sixty-two weeks, completes the period up to the time of the Messiah. Its two extreme points were marked, its beginning by the close of the seven weeks or forty-nine years, its end by the coming of the long-looked-for, the Christ. It is in harmony with the other prophecies of Daniel, that what is filled up in one place, is bridged over in another. In the vision of the four empires, the second and third are but slightly touched on; the brief notice is expanded in the seventh and eleventh chapters. Other prophecies had, as their foreground, the events of world empires. The subject of this was the people of God and the Messiah.

The ever-recurring character of prophecy is thus apparent here also, that those two points, which concerned them most, are the most prominent;—the restoration of the polity in the nearer future, and, in the distant future, the crowning acts of God’s mercy and judgment, the blessings in Christ and the close of the temporal relation of God to his people.

Not in, but after those threescore and two weeks, it is said, Messiah shall be cut off; and there shall not be to him, i. e., as the context implies, the city and the sanctuary shall be his no more. Then follows the subdivision of the last week, or seven years, wherein he was to be cut off, since he was to be cut off, and yet not in the sixty-nine weeks. “He shall make firm a covenant with many during one week; and in the midst of the week he shall make sacrifice and oblation to cease.” He speaks not of a temporary suspension of sacrifices, but of the entire abolition of all which had been offered hitherto, the sacrifice, with the shedding of blood, and the oblation, the unbloody sacrifice which was its complement. These the Messiah was to make to cease three years and a half after that new covenant began, whether this was at first through the ministry of the Baptist or his own. It seems to me absolutely certain that our Lord’s ministry lasted for some period above three years. For S. John mentions by name three Passovers; and S. Matthew’s mention of the disciples rubbing the ears of corn relates to a time near upon a Passover, later than the first (for John had been cast into prison), yet earlier than the last but one, for it preceded the feeding of the five thousand, which itself preceded that Passover. This bears out the opinion, which is in itself nearly certain, that the intermediate feast, mentioned by S. John, is the Passover. Our Lord’s parable of the fig-tree virtually asserts that a period of some three years of special culture of God’s people had preceded: “Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig-tree and find none;” and that one year remained: “Let it alone this year also.” The cursing of the barren fig-tree and its instant withering, just before his passion and the final pronunciation of its sentence, seems to be the symbolical declaration that that year of respite was over, and its doom was fixed.

The city was devoted, the punishment irreversible; the Messiah’s office would be, not with the people as a whole, but with the many who would be saved out of it, with whom the new covenant would be confirmed. The remaining three and one-half years probably mark the time during which the gospel was preached to the Jews, before the preaching to the Samaritans showed that the special privileges of the Jews were at an end, and that the gospel embraced the world.—“Lectures on Daniel the Prophet,” by E. B. Pusey, D. D., London, 1869, pages 172-178.