Daniel was one of many Hebrews taken into captivity when Babylon’s king Nebuchadnezzar invaded Israel in 605 BC. Daniel was a young man at the time, but so impressed the Babylonian king that he, along with a few others specially gifted, were given concentrated training in the ways of that Gentile empire. Daniel’s truly remarkable attributes become evident as his life is traced. His superior intellect enabled him to quickly assimilate the details of this foreign culture, but he never turned away from the God of Israel. Daniel could well serve as a model for those who aspire to high positions in government or industry today. He rose to a position equivalent to "prime minister" of the Babylonian empire, but never once wavered from his faith and commitment to God. What a superlative but exceptional testimony!

The book of Daniel is a prophetic book but also describes historical events at various points throughout Daniel’s life. He was no more than a teenager at the outset but must have been in his eighties by its conclusion, and it was in those closing years of his life when the prophecy of the "70 Weeks" was revealed to him.

(Daniel 9.1) sets the stage for the prophecy to follow by stating that it occurred in the first year of Darius, the Mede. There is much controversy concerning the identity of this individual, but some scholars believe he was also referred to as "Gubaru". If so, the Babylonian "Nabonidus Chronicle" records that he was made governor of Babylon by Cyrus the Mede following its capture in 539 BC. In that case, the prophecy would have been given to Daniel near the end of the "70 years" of captivity decreed earlier in (Jeremiah 25.11, 29.10).

Daniel believed that he understood the meaning of Jeremiah’s 70 year prophecy, and was praying earnestly that the Lord would fulfill it for His people Israel (Daniel 9.2-19). Even while he was presenting his passionate supplications, an angel by the name of "Gabriel" appeared in the form of a man with the pronouncement,

With this introduction, "Gabriel" proceeded to give Daniel an astounding forecast of Israel’s long-term future.

The prophecy makes it abundantly clear that God’s prophetic Plan for Daniel’s people will be completed in a period of "70 Weeks", but it also raises a lot of questions that need to be investigated. Generally, it would appear that the "70 Weeks" in (Daniel 9.24) defines an overall time period that is then broken down into three subordinate time periods each defined by (Daniel 9.25), (Daniel 9.26), and (Daniel 9.27) respectively. Therefore, each of these statements will now be examined.

We would be without a clue concerning the answer to this question had we not already expended considerable effort looking at the period of the "70 year" Babylonian Exile. The whole subject of Daniel’s original prayerful query concerned that Exile, so it is expected that the angel’s answer would be an amplification of it. We don’t know exactly what Daniel had figured out, but do know that the Exile actually lasted "70" 360 Day years, amounting to a total of 25,200 days. Daniel prayed for understanding about the end of that Exile, but instead was given information about a completely new time period to follow it. He certainly understood that the Exile had been predicated on the basis of Sabbath years because (II Chronicles 36.21) says that, so it seems reasonable to believe that the Lord would have given Daniel this new information in a form compatible with what he already understood. By this token, the Exile was about to be concluded in a period of 70 "Sabbaths", i.e. 70 "Sevens", of years. Therefore, to avoid any misunderstanding on Daniel’s part, we should expect the Lord would reveal these future "70 Sevens" according to the same 360 Day calendar measure used for the Exile.

Accordingly, a "490 year" span in a 360 Day calendar would become shortened to about,

490[ 1-(365¼ -360)/365¼] = 483 years

in our 365¼ day Gregorian calendar.

This text should have been regarded by those ancient Hebrews as one of the most important in the entire Old Testament, because it predicted an exact time when their Messiah would present Himself. They could have been given no more important information than this, for the Bible already contained dozens of qualitative prophecies down through the centuries concerning the Messiah, but never before had a prophet been given an actual date for Messiah’s arrival.

If the calendar metric for His coming were correctly assumed to be measured in the same way as the Exile, then only a starting date would have been required to begin a count ending in the year of His coming. Messiah was to come after the first "69 Weeks" or 483 years as measured on the basis of 360 day/year calendar, so this would have converted to about 476 years in our 365¼ day/year Gregorian calendar.

The years of Israel’s restoration back in the Land following the Babylonian Exile are carefully documented in the Bible, so it should not be all that difficult to determine when the command went forth to restore and build Jerusalem, a time when the defensive bulwarks around the city were rebuilt. Let’s briefly review the restorative years following this 538 BC revelation to Daniel.

In 536 BC, Zerubbabel led the first contingent of Jews back to the Land. The edict pertinent to this first "Alijah" was put in writing:

It is seen that this edict referred only to rebuilding the Temple and not the rebuilding of Jerusalem. Moreover the remainder of the account given in Ezra makes it clear that nothing was accomplished beyond that regard. Therefore, it must be concluded that this first Alijah cannot be the beginning of the "69 Weeks".

The full decree pertinent to this second return was also put in writing by the then king Artaxerxes, but because of its length, only an excerpt representative of its content is given below.

Once again, it is clear from this edict that Ezra’s mission had nothing to do with the physical rebuilding the city of Jerusalem. In fact Ezra himself summarized the intent of the king’s edict with the statement.

Therefore Ezra the priest was sent to Jerusalem to beautify the Temple already built and to restore the worship of God in that place according to the Mosaic Covenant. Consequently, this second Alijah likewise cannot be the beginning of the "69 Weeks" to the coming of Messiah.

It is observed at once that the first two returns described above were initiated by the two Persian kings, but this third return was prompted by Godly Nehemiah. As a result of a prior conversation he had with some of his Jewish brethren, they had told Nehemiah of the appalling conditions at Jerusalem (Nehemiah 1.1-3). When he heard of the sad plight of those survivors of the Exile who had returned, he was consumed with grief and began to pray to God in a manner quite similar to Daniel’s prayer years before. Shortly after that, Nehemiah was found in the service of King Artaxerxes, still sorrowful concerning the conditions at Jerusalem. When the king asked why he was sad, Nehemiah told him of the problems and requested that he be allowed to return to restore the city. Artaxerxes agreed with the request and gave him letters authorizing the rebuilding that Nehemiah requested.

The detailed account of his return to Jerusalem and the rebuilding projects are given in the remainder of the book of Nehemiah.

Since this is the only recorded instance of the physical restoration of Jerusalem following the Babylonian Exile, it must be the event to which the angel Gabriel had referred in his earlier disclosure of the "70 Weeks" to Daniel. The angel had specifically mentioned the rebuilding of Jerusalem including the wall in (Daniel 9.25), and (Nehemiah 2.8) identifies the need for certain materials to be acquired for those very same projects.

With such harmony of texts, the following calculation can be made using the Nehemiah 445 BC starting date known from secular history.

445 BC + 476 years (69 Weeks) = AD 32 *
*Note that in going from a BC to an AD date, the elapsed time from 1 BC to AD 1 is only one year.

Remember from the study of New Testament chronology in the REDEMPTIVE PLAN portion of OLIVE TREE STUDIES that the best estimate for the secular date of Messiah's crucifixion was AD 32. Therefore, this prophecy quantitatively linking the New Testament with the Old, now confirms that AD 32 must have been the crucifixion year, and that the One crucified was certainly the Messiah!

Actually, it may well be possible to be even more precise, because the time when Artaxerxes approved Nehemiah’s request was the Levitical month of Nisan (Nehemiah 2.1). From this, it is possible to determine that a precise (476 year x 360 day/year) count beginning in that month would have ended in the spring of AD 32, around the time of Passover. Moreover, if the date given in Nehemiah was intended to denote Nisan 1, as was customary in Jewish writings, the final date would have been April 6, AD 32. In that year, April 6 happened to fall on the Sunday just before the Passover, the very day when Jesus made His Palm Sunday entrance into Jerusalem presenting Himself as the King! As He came in peace, making a traditional entrance on a donkey in fulfillment of (Zechariah 9.9), He wept over the city and made the following enigmatic utterance.

Based on this newfound knowledge concerning the span of the "69 Weeks" of years, was Jesus here alluding to that Palm Sunday as the specific day when He would fulfill prophecy by presenting Himself as the King, then be rejected and crucified a few days later? We now know for sure that those events set in concrete a pattern of rejection by ancient Israel, leading to their total annihilation in AD 70.

The text indicates that "the people of the prince" were to come following Messiah, to destroy the city (Jerusalem) and the sanctuary (Temple).

This portion of the prophecy should be easy to follow because secular history provides a detailed account of what happened in the years following Messiah’s AD 32 crucifixion. It cannot be dogmatically asserted whether the "prince" was Vespasian or his son Titus, but the "people" had to be the Romans who destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in AD 70. That time of destruction surely ended with a "flood" and interminable "desolations" followed it, for the Jewish historian Josephus records that over one million Jews died in the fall of Jerusalem, and that the nation never recovered from that disaster.

This prophecy shows that Israel’s expulsion from the Land was no mere happenstance. It was a definitive fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy and resulted from Israel’s rejection of their "time of visitation" in the person and ministry of Jesus Christ, the Messiah. It certainly does not absolve the Romans from their cruel involvement in the affair, but it does speak volumes in explaining the unmitigated sorrow of the Jews through almost 2000 years of subsequent history in their relentless search for peace and fulfillment in a Gentile jungle. Few races have suffered so much at the hands of so many, yet persevered for so long, anxiously groping for security in a hostile world.

Daniel’s prophecy of the "70 Weeks" seems to move through time in a very orderly manner. The text begins with Messiah’s crucifixion, then discloses subsequent events. However, it is noticed that another time period of "62 Weeks" is introduced in the above text prior to Messiah being cut off. What is the reason for two time periods, i.e. "69 Weeks" and "62 Weeks" prior to His crucifixion? In order for both to end in AD 32 as they must, the "62 Weeks" must begin 49 years later than the "69 Weeks". This suggests that something important happened around 397/96 BC, 49 years after Nehemiah’s rebuilding program in 445 BC.

Now by a process of elimination, we already know from the study of Old Testament history in REDEMPTIVE PLAN that the events concerning Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther all had to occur before 397/96 BC. Furthermore, it was possible to set dates for Haggai and Zechariah in the discussion of the 360 Day calendar, because they both prophesied during the rebuilding of the Second Temple which was started in 520 BC and finished in 517 BC. Therefore, the only time left hanging is a date for Malachi, the last of the Old Testament prophets.

Unfortunately, secular history cannot provide this date because that book does not mention any specific events or dates that can be tied to secular history. Nevertheless, we can assert that Malachi did write after the time of Nehemiah, and apparently long enough after, that Nehemiah was no longer on the scene, for nowhere is he mentioned in the book. The last glimpse of Nehemiah in Jerusalem was about 430 BC, but he may have continued there for some years after that. Therefore, Malachi’s ministry must guardedly be put sometime after the Nehemiah period.

A date for Malachi would be significant, not only because it would complete the chronology for the Old Testament but also because it would mark the completion of all prophetic communication from God until the coming of Messiah. In other words, it would define the beginning of a long Intertestament period constituting the "silent years" between the Old and New Testaments. In this regard it would correspond with a similar silent period in the Old Testament, while the Hebrews were in Egypt, before Moses was appointed to deliver them from Egyptian bondage.

If the "62 Weeks" were intended to define a period of "silent years" between the Old and New Testaments, it should be possible to calculate their duration in the following way.

On the basis of a 360 Day year, the starting date for the "62 Weeks" had to be,

445 BC - 49[ 1-(365¼ -360)/365¼] = 397 BC

Now we know that the "silent years" of the Intertestament ended with the coming of the prophet John the Baptist, and that should have occurred in AD 28 according to the New Testament chronological portion of the REDEMPTIVE PLAN. The total time span in Gregorian years between these two dates then becomes,

397 BC + AD 28 = 424 years*
*Remember that the elapsed time in going from 1 BC to AD 1 is only one year

Since these are 424 Gregorian years, they must be converted to the 360 Day calendar as follows.

[ 1+(365¼ -360)/365¼] 424 Gregorian years = "430 years"

This result appears to have hit pay-dirt, because the resulting time period is exactly the same as the "430 years" the Hebrews spent in Egypt (Exodus 12.40-41)! It appears that two "silent periods" of 430 years occurred in the history of Israel, one before Moses and the Covenant of Law, and a second one before Jesus and the Covenant of Grace. By this reasoning, a tentative conclusion is reached: The start of the "62 Weeks" appears intended to date the time of Malachi's final prophetic word to ancient Israel, marking the advent of a long Intertestament "silent period" leading up to the New Testament.

Messiah was crucified on the Friday Passover following Palm Sunday, and we know that first Century Israel never did accept Him before the nation was destroyed in AD 70. Consequently, there was still a final "70^th Week" left dangling. Nor could that "70^th Week" have occurred from AD 70 until AD 1948, for Israel did not even exist as a nation during that long time span. However, it is evident that the Lord intended to finish the transgression by the end of the "70 Weeks", make an end of sins, make reconciliation for iniquity, and bring in everlasting righteousness for Daniel’s people. Therefore, a "70^th Week" must still have existed after the descendants of Daniel's people returned to their Land in AD 1948, to allow these remaining things to be fulfilled.

This present section concerning Daniel's "70 Weeks" prophecy shall not further ruminate over the possibilities implied by this final statement of Daniel except to say that the "70^th Week" must be measured according to a 360 Day calendar, just like the first "69 Weeks". This requires that there be an interval of 7 x 360 = 2520 days sometime after AD 1948 to complete the "70 Weeks" prophecy concerning Daniel's people. We will return to this issue later in the treatment of Israel's Redemptive Timeline and the 20th century Timeline.

A study of the "70 Weeks" of Daniel understandably arouses intense emotions among some who read it, particularly those who have beliefs that differ from its thrust. Some who are skeptical of the Bible itself have mounted concerted efforts to discredit the entire book. Some assert that it was actually written at a date much later than the text indicates. Of course if such a theory could be proved, the significance of the prophecy might be invalidated on the grounds that the author of the book actually wrote the prophecy after the events occurred.

It will not be possible to thoroughly treat all such criticism here, but the following brief testimony of hard evidence should cause the objective reader to seriously question those who try to discount the authenticity of the book of Daniel.

• The prophet Ezekiel specifically mentions Daniel three times in (Ezekiel 14.14, 20, and 28.3), yet the genuineness and generally accepted Old Testament date for the book of Ezekiel has never been seriously questioned. In fact, scholars have widely endorsed the view that Ezekiel wrote everything with his own hand while in Babylon during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar.

• It is a matter of general consent that the Apocryphal book of (I Maccabees) has an excellence, veracity, and value above the rest. It was written about 110 BC, yet it also bears clear witness to the book of Daniel in (I Maccabees 2.51-61) where it cites how Daniel was delivered from the mouth of lions.

• According to strong Jewish tradition, the canon of the Old Testament was largely settled by the men of the "Great Synagogue", called together in Nehemiah’s time. All of the evidence supports the view that the book of Daniel was included in that original canon. Moreover, the books in that original canon were incorporated therein only after they had been accepted as "divinely inspired". The process for inclusion was so strict that it even challenged books like Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, yet the right of the book of Daniel to canonicity was never called into question in the Ancient Synagogue.

Therefore, when various attacks are launched against the authenticity of the book of Daniel in general and this prophecy of the "70 Weeks" in particular, its critics face an arduous uphill struggle, trying to argue that God did not provide Israel and the world with undeniable proof that Messiah has come in the name of Jesus Christ.

COMING GLORY

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