Daniel 9:25, commentary and pictures

From the order to restore and rebuild Jerusalem to the Anointed Prince are sixty-nine prophetic weeks, divided into seven weeks or forty-nine years for rebuilding the street and wall in troublous times, followed by sixty-two weeks or four hundred thirty-four years, making four hundred eighty-three years in all. In this reckoning each prophetic day stands for a year. The order is the decree completed by Artaxerxes in his seventh year and recorded in Ezra 7, the third and final decree in which Cyrus began the work, Darius continued it, and Artaxerxes finished it, taking effect in the autumn of 457 B.C. Messiah the Prince is Jesus Christ, the Anointed One, and the four hundred eighty-three years reach to the autumn of A.D. 27, when He was baptized in the Jordan, anointed with the Holy Spirit, and proclaimed that the time was fulfilled. The seventy weeks are four hundred ninety years specially allotted to the Jews and Jerusalem, cut off from the 2300 years and beginning together with them, running through Christ's ministry to A.D. 34 when the gospel went to the Gentiles, leaving the remainder of the 2300 years to reach to the autumn of 1844.

Prayer Setting and Occasion

The command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem that begins the seventy-week period was made known by Gabriel in direct answer to Daniel's earnest prayer with fasting, sackcloth and ashes, tears, affliction of soul, confession of Israel's sin, and pleading for pardon, restoration, and Jerusalem after the seventy years of desolation. His plea was heard for God's own name and mercy's sake, showing that rebellious Israel was taken back into favor, Jerusalem was given another probation, and the way was opened for the building of a second temple. The communication came to Daniel in vision through ministering angels sent with the message from God. It forms part of the angel's explanation of the time left unexplained in Daniel's earlier vision, connecting the seventy-week period with what Daniel had previously seen and with the 2300 days.

It was given while Israel was in captivity with the temple destroyed and the temple service suspended. Religion had centered in the ceremonies of the sacrificial system, with outward forms made all-important while the spirit of true worship was lost, the services corrupted with heathen traditions, and the sacrificial rites performed without looking beyond the shadow to the substance or discerning Christ as the true offering for the sins of men. The Lord brought captivity and suspended the temple ritual to purge principles and practice from heathenism, to revive heart service, and to reveal the spiritual when the outward glory was removed. In the land of captivity, as the people turned to the Lord with repentance in humiliation and distress with no outward representation of His presence, the bright beams of the Sun of Righteousness shone into minds and hearts, and visions were given unfolding the overthrow of the oppressors of God's people, the coming of the Redeemer, and the establishment of the everlasting kingdom. Like the rest of Daniel's prophecies, it was not fully understood even by Daniel and was to remain sealed until the time of the end.

Wording and Time Divisions

The period to Messiah the Prince is divided into seven weeks and threescore and two weeks, together sixty-nine weeks or 483 years. The seven weeks are 49 years allotted for completing the rebuilding of the street and wall of Jerusalem, and the following threescore and two weeks are 434 years. The city with its street and wall was to be built again even in troublous times.

In this reckoning a prophetic day represents a year, so the weeks are counted as years. The sixty-nine prophetic weeks are thus 483 years, the seven weeks 49 years, and the sixty-two weeks 434 years. This year-day measure is one of the great periods given with the design that it should be studied and in the end fully understood.

Messiah means Anointed One. Messiah the Prince is Jesus Christ, the promised Prince who faced temptation in the wilderness as evidence that He truly came. His anointing by the Holy Spirit at His baptism by John is the endpoint of the sixty-nine weeks.

The seventy weeks are 490 years specially allotted to the Jewish people and Jerusalem. They are cut off from the 2300-year period of Daniel 8:14, being its first 490 years. Both periods therefore commence together with the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, so that locating that commandment gives the beginning of the great 2300-year period.

Decree Date and Reckoning

The going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem is the decree recorded in Ezra 7, completed by Artaxerxes Longimanus in his seventh year in 457 B.C. as the third and final decree. The acts of Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes count as one decree, in which Cyrus began the work, Darius continued it, and Artaxerxes completed it. That completion is linked with Ezra's return to Jerusalem and with Nehemiah's later completion of the city walls.

The decree took effect in the autumn of 457 B.C., not at the beginning of the year. Historical and chronological facts point unmistakably to 457 B.C. as the proper time to begin reckoning the prophetic periods of Daniel 8 and 9. Locating the date of that commandment gives the beginning of the great 2300-year period, since the seventy weeks are the first 490 years of the 2300 days and the two periods commence together. From that starting point the seven weeks are 49 years in which the street and wall of Jerusalem would be completed, and the seven weeks with the threescore and two weeks together are sixty-nine weeks or 483 prophetic years extending to Messiah the Prince.

Daniel 9 supplies the key for finding the commencement of the 2300-year period introduced in Daniel 8. The command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem is the starting point for the seventy weeks, or 490 years, which are cut off from the 2300-year period and specially assigned to the Jews. Finding the date of the command therefore establishes and anchors the reckoning of the longer prophetic period.

Fulfillment in Messiah's Coming

The sixty-nine weeks reach to Messiah the Prince, running from the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem through seven weeks and sixty-two weeks together, or 483 prophetic years in which a day stands for a year. That decree of Artaxerxes Longimanus took effect in the autumn of 457 B.C., and 483 years from that autumn reached to the autumn of A.D. 27. This was exactly fulfilled when Jesus, after His baptism by John in the Jordan, received the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Anointed at His baptism in that year, He soon began His ministry and proclaimed that the time was fulfilled.

The seventy weeks are 490 years specially allotted to the Jewish people and Jerusalem, cut off from the 2300-year period of Daniel 8:14 so that both periods begin together with the command to restore Jerusalem. With this reckoning from autumn 457 B.C. all the events foretold in the explanation of that period harmonize and were unquestionably fulfilled at the appointed time in accordance with the predictions. The specifications concerning the seventy weeks were thus fulfilled, with the time limits they set met by the appointed events.

The final week began in A.D. 27 when Jesus began His ministry, and its midpoint fell in A.D. 31 when He was crucified. The whole seventy weeks end in A.D. 34, when the apostles turned and the gospel went to the Gentiles. Because the seventy weeks are cut off from the 2300 days, 1810 years remain, extending from A.D. 34 to 1844 for the cleansing of the sanctuary. Counting the 2300 years from the autumn start in 457 B.C. places their end in the autumn of 1844 rather than 1843. This discovery in the summer of 1844, midway between the time when the 2300 days had first been thought to end and the autumn to which they were afterward found to extend, led to the proclamation of the message, Behold, the Bridegroom cometh.

The prophecy belongs to the period Gabriel revealed extending to the coming of Christ and the advent of the world's Redeemer. It marks the time of the Messiah's coming, fixing the time fulfilled for Messiah the Prince and the kingdom of God at hand, and it points out the time of Christ's anointing by the Holy Spirit, His death, and the giving of the gospel to the Gentiles. The same prophecy directly foretold the death of the Messiah. As the end of that period drew near, Zacharias was moved to pray for the Messiah's advent, and Gabriel then announced that the prophecy was being fulfilled.

Preaching Neglect and Expectation

The seventy-week prophecy fixed the time of Christ's first advent and grounded the preaching of that time, forming the basis of Christ's own message that the time was fulfilled and the kingdom of God was at hand. The disciples took up that proclamation on the foundation of the sixty-nine weeks reaching to Messiah the Prince. That same seventy-week period belongs to the 2300-day period, whose approaching end was later proclaimed as the time of judgment and the ushering in of the everlasting kingdom.

The disciples delivered the right time message at the right time in fulfillment of God's will to give it, for the end of the seventy weeks was the appointed time for the kingdom. Yet their hope for an earthly kingdom and empire centered at Jerusalem and ruling from Jerusalem over the earth blinded them to its meaning. They did not understand that the same scripture also foretold the Messiah's death, and adherence to popular error about an earthly kingdom kept them from seeing the foretold suffering and death, so even the true message brought disappointment.

The prophecy specified the time of the Messiah's advent so plainly and pointed so unmistakably to the time of His coming that Israel's leaders, who had been entrusted with the prophecies, had enough light to recognize that His coming was near and to announce it to the people. Their failure came not from lack of prophetic light but from sinful neglect. Devotion to worldly things and neglect of God's Word darkened understanding, while pride and unbelief led to rejecting Him, though the prophecy also directly foretold the Messiah's death. The Jewish people and their rabbis resisted studying it, and the rabbis even pronounced a curse on anyone who tried to calculate the time. Earnest and humble study of Daniel 9:24-27 would have enabled recognition of the time and manner of Christ's first appearing and the time of visitation.

The leaders misread the prophecies by applying to the first coming the promised glory and power belonging to the second coming. They expected a temporal prince and looked for the Messiah's arrival to usher in an era of national glory. Humble study would have shown that Christ met the prophetic specifications of what the Messiah would be. By the time John began preaching, that prophetic period was nearly ended, and expectation of national glory was widespread.

Not all were blind, for pious Jews believed the prophetic time had arrived and waited for the Messiah. The light telling when the Messiah should appear was given to the pure and simple in the nation who were willing to receive it, who waited to catch the first gleams of knowledge of His coming and searched the Scriptures earnestly to know the time. The wise men had studied prophecy and knew that the predicted time for Messiah to come was at hand. The priests and rulers, lofty in their own estimation, were unprepared to understand this teaching about Christ's coming. By the time Jesus spoke, the period of waiting for His advent had expired, and the scribes knew this from prophetic history and the prophets' declarations.

As part of Daniel 9:24-27, the verse makes known the exact time of the first advent of Christ as Messiah the Prince. It stands among the many prophecies of the Saviour's coming that kept alive hope from the days of Enoch and led the Hebrews to live in constant expectancy as strangers and pilgrims, with many dying in faith without receiving the promises. Even after the exact time was revealed, its message was not rightly interpreted by everyone, faith grew dim, and the words of the prophets were uncomprehended. The hour for Christ's coming had been determined in heaven's council, and when the fullness of the time came God sent forth His Son to redeem those under the law.

Study Duty and Redemption

Daniel 9:25 is one of the great prophetic periods actually given by the Holy Spirit with the design that it should be studied and in the end fully understood. In it a prophetic day stands for a year, and together with the other leading periods of Daniel and John it expires about the middle of the nineteenth century. To devote time and labor to determine its commencing and closing dates is reverent duty and not presumptuous folly or heresy. The error made over its expiration lay not in the chronology but in mistaking the nature of the events to occur when the period expired.

It is sure prophecy of the coming Messiah and evidence that Christ truly came. The coming One foretold is Christ, who faced the test of temptation in the wilderness.

It reveals God's purpose to carry forward the grand work of redemption through Messiah the Prince, made known by Gabriel to Daniel in answer to fervent prayer. God graciously makes it known through chosen agencies so that men may learn of the reconciliation for iniquity and the everlasting righteousness the Messiah brought in through His sacrifice. The cross of Calvary is the great center, and this truth acted upon makes Christ's sacrifice effectual. It is the same redemption of which Moses and Elijah and Christ spoke at His transfiguration. By the humiliation of the cross He brings everlasting deliverance to all who walk after Him and give positive evidence by separation from the world that they follow Him. All who endure to the end, holding the beginning of their confidence firm, will be saved with eternal righteousness, while those who depart from the principles that give character to the truth need converting as verily as the hardened sinner.