Daniel 9:24, commentary and pictures

Seventy weeks are set apart upon the Jews and Jerusalem as 490 years cut off from the 2300 days, beginning with the decree to restore Jerusalem in autumn 457 B.C. Sixty-nine weeks or 483 years reach to autumn A.D. 27, when Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit at baptism as the Messiah. The last week from A.D. 27 to 34 was given especially to the Jews, with Christ dying as the true sacrifice in the midst of the week in spring A.D. 31 to end the ceremonial offerings, and with the stoning of Stephen in A.D. 34 marking rejection of the gospel and the turn to the Gentiles. The seventy weeks are the first part of the 2300 years from the same starting point, leaving 1810 years from A.D. 34 to 1844 for the cleansing of the sanctuary. The work foretold is Christ's work to finish transgression, make an end of sins, make reconciliation for iniquity, and bring in everlasting righteousness by His obedient death, which righteousness clothes by faith all who accept Him and cease from sin.

Prayer and Revelation Setting

The seventy weeks were made known through Gabriel while Daniel was still praying, in answer to fervent intercession for skill and understanding. Daniel had fasted and afflicted his soul, and prayed most earnestly in tears with confession and humiliation, and his prayer was heard. The communication came by ministering angels as God's answer to his plea for the restoration of Jerusalem and the captive exiles at the end of the seventy years of desolation. It set apart the period upon his people and upon the holy city to finish transgression and complete the work named in it. This showed God heard his plea for His own honor, had mercy again upon His rebellious people, took them back into favor, built a second temple, and gave Jerusalem another probation.

It was given while Israel was in Babylonian captivity with the Temple destroyed and its service suspended. Religion had centered in the ceremonies of the sacrificial system, outward forms had been made all-important while the spirit of true worship was lost, the services had been corrupted with heathen traditions, and in the sacrificial rites the people did not look beyond the shadow to the substance nor discern Christ the true offering for the sins of men. God brought the captivity and suspension of the ritual service to keep outward ceremonies from becoming the sum-total of religion, to purge principles and practice from heathenism, to revive heart service, and to reveal the spiritual when the outward glory was removed. In captivity, as the people turned to the Lord with repentance, He manifested Himself to them and gave visions to His prophets unfolding the overthrow of the oppressors of God's people, the coming of the Redeemer, and the establishment of the everlasting kingdom.

Daniel himself was accepted as a consecrated agent, filled with the Holy Spirit and grace. Through Daniel and his companions God was represented in Babylon and made His majesty known to heathen kingdoms. The chapter belongs to Daniel seeking God with humility, prayer, fasting, confession, and earnest supplication. It is offered as a pattern for seeking God and praying for oneself and others, asking for forgiveness and help. Like the rest of Daniel's prophecies about future events, it was not fully understood even by Daniel and was to remain sealed until the time of the end.

Words and Time Meaning

Seventy weeks are set apart upon Daniel's people, the Jews, and upon the holy city, Jerusalem. They are 490 years assigned specifically to them and their city as a special period of probation.

Determined literally means cut off or divided. The seventy weeks are cut off from the 2300 days or years in Daniel 8, the only other time period mentioned in that vision. They are specially pertaining to the Jews as part of that larger period, and the two periods begin together. The passage begins Gabriel's further explanation of the vision in Daniel 8 by supplying the time period left unexplained there. The angel's explanation focuses on time and connects the seventy weeks with the 2300 days.

Seventy prophetic weeks are 490 prophetic days representing 490 years, on the principle that a day in the period stands for a year. The seventy-week prophetic period is made up of seven weeks, sixty-two weeks, and one week.

The period dates from the going forth of the commandment to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. That commandment was fulfilled by Artaxerxes' decree taking effect in autumn 457 B.C. The decree completed the work begun by Cyrus and continued by Darius so the three kings' actions count as one decree. Historical and chronological facts point unmistakably to 457 B.C. as the proper starting point.

Timeline and Fulfillment Dates

The first sixty-nine weeks, or 483 years, reach to autumn A.D. 27, when Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit at His baptism and began His ministry, identifying Him as the Messiah, since Messiah means the Anointed One, and thus fulfilling the promise of anointing the Most Holy. The final seven years, the final week running from A.D. 27 to 34, were especially allotted to preaching the gospel to the Jews, with Christ preaching for three and a half years and the apostles continuing afterward. In the midst of the final week, in spring A.D. 31, Christ's death as the true sacrifice brought the ceremonial sacrifices and offerings to an end and marked the end of the earthly sacrificial service. The full span ends in A.D. 34, when Stephen's stoning confirmed the Jews' rejection of the gospel, the apostles turned to the Gentiles and the scattered disciples carried the message outward, the Jews lost their status as God's chosen people, and the complete confirmation of the covenant with Daniel's people was marked.

The seventy weeks extending to A.D. 34 are the first portion cut off from the 2300 years dating from the same B.C. 457 starting point and extending to A.D. 1844, with the remaining 1810 years running from A.D. 34 to 1844 when the sanctuary was to be cleansed. Using 457 B.C. as that starting year, subtracting 457 from 2300 gives A.D. 1843. The events assigned to this period were once predictions and were fulfilled in accordance with the prophecy, fulfilling its specifications. The prophecy makes known the exact time of Christ's first coming, the definite hour determined in heaven's council for Christ to come to redeem those under the law. It was given to keep alive hope in His appearing and to hold the Hebrews in constant expectancy, yet even after the time was made known not all rightly interpreted the message, and as centuries passed faith grew dim and the word was left uncomprehended by many.

The prophecy definitely marks the time of Christ's coming, His anointing, His death, and the gospel's extension to the Gentiles, revealing the time appointed for His coming so that His birth in Bethlehem came at the determined hour and the events Jesus explained occurred when the appointed time had arrived. As its end drew near, Zacharias prayed for the Messiah's advent and Gabriel, the messenger who had given the prophecy to Daniel, came to announce its fulfillment. The pious Jews looked to the prophets' predictions and believed the time had arrived, and by the time John began preaching the seventy weeks were nearly ended with people expecting the Messiah's era to bring national glory. The seventy-week prophecy provided the disciples' basis for proclaiming at Christ's first advent that the appointed time was fulfilled and God's kingdom was at hand concerning the fulfillment of a portion of the same great period that included the 2300 days. In announcing the time they gave the right message at the right time and fulfilled God's will, but adherence to popular errors blinded them to the same prophecy's foretelling of the Messiah's death so they expected an earthly kingdom to be set up at the end of the seventy weeks, and through misapprehension they suffered disappointment paralleling the later disappointment over the expiration of the 2300 days. The prophecy pointed unmistakably to the time of Messiah's coming and directly foretold His death, yet the Jewish leaders discouraged study of it and the rabbis pronounced a curse on attempts to calculate its time, so Israel's rejection of this light left the people ignorant of Messiah's advent.

Messiah's Redemptive Work

The verse describes the work of Christ, who came not to preserve sin but to finish transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to fulfill or seal up the vision and prophecy. His work answers whether people can be saved while continuing to transgress God's law, showing that it does not perpetuate continual transgression.

Reconciliation for iniquity and everlasting righteousness are brought in by the Messiah through His sacrifice, with the cross of Calvary as the great center. Everlasting righteousness was brought in when Christ by His obedience unto death poured out His blood as an atonement for sin. In doing so He satisfied the claims of the law, bore its curse for humanity, offered His life, saved people from perdition, and brought them pardon and peace.

Christ came to bear the penalty for human transgression, to uphold the unchanging law of God and vindicate the justice of His government, and to make an end of sin. By lifting sinners from their low estate He magnifies God's law. The verse identifies Him as the Anointed One and Holy One of God who makes reconciliation and brings righteousness. He is the Anointed Priest who lives to intercede for every person and is the only hope and source of help.

This redemption was what Christ talked of with Moses and Elijah at His transfiguration.

Righteousness Received by Faith

Everlasting righteousness is Christ's own righteousness, received by faith rather than achieved through one's own works. He is the light of the world so that those who follow Him do not walk in darkness, and trusting in Him and holding fast to Him by faith leads to growth in grace and obedience. By His perfect obedience Christ satisfies the claims of the law, and as substitute and surety He obeys the law for the believer. Faith in His merits frees the believer from condemnation, and Christ clothes those who accept pardon with His righteousness, which meets every demand of the law.

In Christ the believer is complete and is presented to God in a spotless garment made entirely by Christ, to whom all glory belongs. He bears the sinner's guilt, and through Him access to God is secured and pardon takes away sin. His atonement is complete and His sacrifice offers the gift of salvation, assuring that those who give themselves to God are accepted in Him. That sacrifice makes it possible to cease from sin and accept His righteousness.

His sufferings make an end of sin so believers need not continue in it. They are called to obey the law and form a character like His rather than continue in sin, and this gift does not cancel the law's call to obedience or perpetuate continual transgression. This gives reason for joy and means full reliance on Christ alone for eternal interests, since He does not save because a person is perfect but because a needy, imperfect person has trusted in Him. He lives now at the Father's right hand as Prince of life and Saviour.

By the humiliation of the cross He brings everlasting deliverance to all who walk after Him with positive evidence of separation from the world. All who endure to the end will be saved, and all who hold the beginning of their confidence firm unto the end will have eternal righteousness. Those who depart from its principles need converting as verily as the hardened sinner. These truths awaken conviction of sin and a hunger for righteousness, lead people to share the liberty of God's children, and prepare them to stand with God's people to welcome Christ's soon return in power and glory.

Study and Gospel Witness

Daniel 9:24 belongs among the great prophetic time periods that were given to be studied so that their beginning and ending dates could be determined. In that period a day stands for a year, and the period reaches its expiration about the middle of the eighteen-hundreds, in this age of the world. Giving time to its chronology is reverent obedience rather than presumptuous folly. The mistake connected with it lay not in the dates but in misunderstanding the nature of the events to occur at its expiration.

Studied with earnestness, humility, and humble hearts, the prophecy gave the time of Christ's first appearing. That same humble study would also have helped people recognize the manner of His appearing and would have shown that Christ answered every specification of the Messiah. The Jews misread the Scriptures by assigning to His first advent the glories belonging to His second appearing. They therefore failed to recognize the time of their visitation.

Its first beams of light are given to the pure and simple who are willing to receive light and are waiting to catch the first gleams of knowledge about the Messiah's coming. It is searched earnestly by high-minded, spiritually minded souls. Priests and rulers who are lofty in their own estimation and occupied and hurried with their own interests are not prepared to recognize God in it or to understand it.

Christ's work set forth here is to make an end of sins and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and those who believe in Jesus join that work by yoking up with Christ in reform and putting an end to sin. No human science or philosophy can establish a people in the way of virtue. Finishing sin and bringing in righteousness demands divine agency and the wisdom that is from above.

Christ the Anointed One is the one who makes reconciliation for sin and brings in everlasting righteousness, the Anointed Priest who lives to intercede for every person and who is the only hope and source of help. Those who accept Him are to show by their words and lives that He has reconciled them to God. They are to share His love and goodness with the world.

The reconciliation for iniquity and the everlasting righteousness are brought in by the Messiah through His sacrifice, with the cross of Calvary as the great center. This truth, acted upon, makes His sacrifice effectual.