Seventy weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy.
DANIEL 9:24
Daniel, in prayer, says, “Lord, we have transgressed—we have sinned and committed iniquity.” In response, the Lord says He will “make an end of sins…make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness.” In verses 25-27, God tells Daniel when and how He is going to do those things through the two advents of Jesus. There is much discussion among scholars about these verses—some seek to apply them to the church, others see them as allegorical, and still others see them as strictly historical.
Gabriel’s words in Daniel 9:24 settle all the debates when he says, “Seventy weeks are determined for your [Daniel’s] people and your holy city.” The Hebrew word translated “determined” is interesting—its primary meaning is “to cut off.” This means there is a cut-off point after the 70 weeks expire. It can also be translated as “to be settled” or “to mark out.”
Therefore, it cannot mean 69 weeks and then the church will replace Israel. Nor can it mean the first 69 weeks will be literal and the seventieth week allegorical. Gabriel was saying to Daniel, “In answer to your supplication regarding your people, there is marked out a period of seventy weeks for them.”
For us, the use of week leads us to think of seven days. To Daniel and his people the Jews, the word translated “week”—shabua— meant a period of sevens, which could be days or years.
So that we can better understand the significance of this 70 weeks’ prophecy, let’s go back to Leviticus:
The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a sabbath to the Lord. Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather its fruit; but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath to the Lord. You shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard. What grows of its own accord of your harvest you shall not reap, nor gather the grapes of your untended vine, for it is a year of rest for the land.’”
LEVITICUS 25:1-5
After six years of planting and harvesting, the people of Israel were to let the land rest for a year. But they didn’t. This helps us to understand the 70 years of captivity in Babylon, which resulted from the people’s disobedience and God’s subsequent judgment:
They burned the house of God, broke down the wall of Jerusalem, burned all its palaces with fire, and destroyed all its precious possessions. And those who escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon, where they became servants to him and his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths. As long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.
2 CHRONICLES 36:19-21
Israel had transgressed and ignored the sabbatical year for 490 years, or a total of 70 Sabbath years. That is what determined the duration of the Babylonian captivity as 70 years. Therefore, the weeks spoken of to Daniel refer to weeks of years, because it was weeks of years that determined the length of Israel’s captivity. Gabriel said 490 years were determined, then transgression would be finished. An end would be brought to sin, with reconciliation to righteousness. This speaks of the finished work of Christ on the cross at His first coming. Remember that Jesus came to the Jews first (Romans 1:16).
Excerpt from The Time of the Signs by Barry Stagner. Order Now.
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