Daniel’s Seventy Weeks
Daniel 9:24-27 is one of the main battleground texts in all of biblical eschatology. Dispensationalism ventures its whole system upon it. The passage opens with the words, “Seventy weeks are decreed …” and then follows a series of prophecies for an initial “seven weeks” (v. 25a), and then a larger frame of “sixty-two weeks” (v. 25b), and then, “after the sixty-two weeks” (v. 26), more prophecy of “one week” (v. 27a), and even “for half of the week” (v. 27b). What exactly is meant by seventy weeks as a whole? Since the Hebrew and Greek for this word is the more general numerical value, “seven,” context has to decide whether it means a literal week, year, month, etc. If one assumes that it means “sevens-of-years,” then it is rendered as 490 years. This is the standard interpretation for most parties.
So where does one start the clock and why? Starting with the premise that verse 25 speaks of a “word” or decree going out, Sam Storms explains, “Some point to the seventh year of Artaxerxes in 458-457 B.C. (Ezra 7:11-26), while others identify it with the twentieth year of Artaxerxes in 445-444 B.C. (Neh. 2:1-8).”1 What is the purpose of the seventy weeks? In the text itself, we find six clear ends, or goals, of the seventy weeks, specifically listed in verse 24: “to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place.”
Dispensationalist Interpretation of the Seventy Weeks
We should point out that dispensationalists do recognize the crucifixion and destruction of Jerusalem here. However, they also see a few things that were not part of traditional interpretations. Storms lists four dispensational derivatives from Daniel 9:24-27:
“1) separate divine programs for Israel and the Church based on the idea of a prophetic and historical gap, during which time God’s purpose for the former is suspended and his purpose for the latter engaged (that ‘gap,’ of course, being identified with this present ‘church’ age);
2) the reality of a future period of intense tribulation, precisely seven years in length, during which the divine program for Israel is resumed;
3) the rebuilding of a temple in Jerusalem at the inception of this seven-year period and its subsequent destruction; and,
4) the emergence of a personal Antichrist who will establish a seven-year covenant with Israel, reinstitute the Levitical sacrificial system, only to break the covenant after three and one half years.”2
What arguments do dispensationalists make to justify this gap? The four clearest dispensationalist arguments for the gap between the sixty-ninth and seventieth week are as follows: (1) Two events are prophesied that are (a) after Messiah comes, which itself terminates the sixty-ninth week, and (b) before the commencement of the seventieth week. So the text itself implies a gap. (2) The prophecies of verse 24 were fulfilled neither in Christ's first coming nor by anything since. (3) Gaps in Old Testament prophecies are normal, even in the model of “prophetic perspective,” so often set forth among the Reformed (e.g. Isa. 61:1-2, Lk. 4:16-21). (4) Jesus himself references this passage in Daniel, in Matthew 24:15, as if the abomination that makes desolate was still in the distant future.
Now as to what happens in that seventieth week, Storms gives this summary: “This ‘one week’ or seven-year covenant will entail the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem and the reinstitution and observance of sacrificial offerings. After [3.5] years, i.e., in the middle of the week, Antichrist will break the covenant, persecute the people of God (Israel), only to be destroyed by the return of Jesus Christ at the close of the seven-year tribulation period (i.e., at the close of the seventieth week, during the battle of Armageddon).”3
We can see how each of the more controversial details is made to fit the sequence of “time of the Gentiles” followed by the church being removed, and then the final salvation of the Jews as a nation.
Rightly Dividing the Seventy Weeks
A word about context. The immediate context of 9:24-27 is a prayer of Daniel (vv. 1-2), to which Gabriel was delivering a response (vv. 20-27). Note especially, “in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years” (v. 2).
The seventy “weeks” prophecy seems to immediately follow the previous seventy years. Storms adds, “If the beginning of the seventy years captivity is to be reckoned from 605 B.C. (Jer. 25:1, 9) when Daniel and his friends were deported to Babylon, it is obvious that the prophesied period was nearing completion. In fact, sixty-six of the seventy years had passed.” All of this would start the clock at around “538 B.C. or shortly thereafter.”4
What is meant by “put an end to sacrifice and offering” (v. 27)? There are two possibilities, but they ought not be conceived as utterly disconnected. The first is that it represents Jesus's sacrifice putting an end to the old covenant system. The second is that it represents the cessation of the sacrifices given the temple destruction in AD 70. Naturally the latter is a consequence of Israel rejecting her true sacrifice for sin.
If we assume sensationalism and total futurism up front, then we will never notice anything in the “anointed one” or “prince” other than the shadowy figure that we went looking for. Another look at verses 26 and 27 are appropriate. Storms argues that these “are structured in the poetic style of synonymous (or perhaps synthetic) parallelism in which verse 27 repeats and elaborates the content of verse 26. Thus, events that occur ‘after’ the sixty-ninth week (v. 26) occur ‘in’ the seventieth week (v. 27).”5
So, to put it in Storms’ terminology, there is an A-B, A-B relationship between the two figures talked about in verses 26 and 27, and not an A-B-C-D movement. As Storms puts it, “the Messiah or ‘anointed one’ of verse 26a is identical with the ‘he’ of verse 27a, and the ‘prince’ of verse 26b is identical with the ‘one who makes desolate’ of verse 27b, i.e., the Roman general Titus in A.D. 70.”6
Now about those numbers, Kim Riddlebarger explains that,
“Since the entire prophecy was couched in covenantal imagery and language, the key to the meaning of the ‘sevens’ is to be found in the sabbatical pattern established in Leviticus 25:1-4: ‘The LORD said to Moses on Mount Sinai, ‘Speak to the Israelites and say to them, ‘When you enter the land I am going to give you, the land itself must observe a sabbath to the LORD. For six years sow your fields ... But in the seventh year the land is to have a sabbath of rest.’” In Daniel's prophecy, the first of these sevens (v. 25) comprises seven sabbatical years (forty-nine years total) which constitutes the Jubilee (Lev. 24:8) in which the ‘seven sabbaths of years amount to a period of forty-nine years.’ This, in turn, preceded the fiftieth year in which liberty was to be proclaimed ‘throughout the land to all of its inhabitants’ (v. 10). The total period of seventy-sevens in Daniel 9:24-27, therefore, constitutes ten jubilee eras, with the emphasis falling on the ultimate jubilee yet to come after 490 years had passed. In other words, the messianic age.”7
As to “the most holy place” (v. 24), we should note that the Hebrew qodesh (קֹדֶשׁ) is the adjective that is treated in its substantival use. In other words, the translator must opt either for “most holy” as a noun (as in, “most holy one”) or else supply what they take to be the implied noun. No Hebrew word for place is present in this sentence. The traditional interpretation, following at least from the King James, which leaves the word “place” out, would be this: that Christ is the most holy One, who was anointed both in the earthly type at the baptism (Acts 10:38; Luke 4:34, 41); and then granted that power in heaven (Mat. 28:18; Acts 2:33), the first symbolized by the Spirit descending on Christ; the second symbolized by the Spirit pouring out that anointing, as if overflowing from its King in heaven, to his first subjects (the disciples) below at Pentecost.
Perhaps the two most egregious errors in the dispensationalist handling of this passage are captured by Riddlebarger:
“The insertion of a gap of at least two thousand years between the sixty-ninth and seventieth week is a self-contradictory violation of the dispensationalist's professed literal hermeneutic ... The failure to acknowledge the obvious covenantal context of the messianic covenant maker of verse 27, who confirms a covenant with many, leads dispensationalists to confuse Christ with antichrist. A more serious interpretive error is hard to imagine.”8
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1. Sam Storms, Kingdom Come: The Amillennial Alternative (Ross-shire, UK: Christian Focus Publications, 2013), 74.
2. Storms, Kingdom Come, 71-72.
3. Storms, Kingdom Come, 75.
4. Storms, Kingdom Come, 77.
5. Storms, Kingdom Come, 82-83.
6. Storms, Kingdom Come, 85.
7. Kim Riddlebarger, A Case for Amillennialism (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2003), 151.
8. Riddlebarger, A Case for Amillennialism, 153.
