Daniel 9:24–27 contains one of the most remarkable chronological prophecies in the Bible. Gabriel reveals to Daniel that a period of seventy weeks has been set apart for his people and his holy city. These weeks lead up to “Messiah the Prince,” His cutting off, and the events that follow.
Different interpretations
There are widely varying interpretations regarding these seventy weeks. When do they begin? How long do they last? Why are seven weeks mentioned first, followed by sixty-two? When does the Messiah appear, and where does His cutting off fall within this period? And does the seventieth week immediately follow the preceding sixty-nine weeks, or does it lie in the future?
From Scripture
In this series, we aim to examine the prophecy step by step, based on Scripture itself. We will discuss not only Daniel 9:24–27 but also the chronological data needed to place this prophecy in context. These details prove crucial for determining how to calculate the seventy “weeks of years.”
chronology
We therefore do not begin immediately with Daniel 9. First, we look at a remarkable pattern in Biblical chronology. The period of the seventy weeks of years turns out not to stand in isolation; rather, it is part of a much larger framework of five-hundred-year periods.
We will begin with that in the next blog post. Where a Bible passage is marked “(based on ISA)”, it refers to a rendering of the original text that is as literal as possible, produced by me using the Interlinear Scripture Analyzer (ISA).