Seventy weeks of years consist of seventy periods of seven years. A simple multiplication gives us 490 years. Yet we saw earlier that, within biblical chronology, the seventy weeks of years form a period of five hundred years. The difference lies in how the Jubilee year is counted.
In the previous blog, we therefore ended with the question of how the fiftieth year should be reckoned. Is it at the same time the first year of the next cycle, or is it actually counted as a separate year?
set apart
Scripture explicitly calls the following year the fiftieth year.
Leviticus 25 (based on ISA)
¹⁰ And you shall hallow the year, the fiftieth year…
That year was to be hallowed. The word hallow means to set apart, separate, or designate for a special purpose. The fiftieth year was therefore set apart from the preceding 49 years. It was the Jubilee year, with its own distinct place within Israel’s reckoning of time.
The fiftieth year therefore cannot at the same time be the first year of the next cycle. It is hallowed, that is, set apart. If it were also the first year of the next sequence of seven years, it would no longer stand apart.
The most natural reading is therefore simply what the text says:
49 years + the fiftieth year = 50 years
A complete Jubilee cycle therefore spans fifty years.
six years of sowing
A few verses earlier in Leviticus 25, this reckoning is already prepared. Concerning every Sabbath year, YAHWEH had said:
Leviticus 25 (based on ISA)
³ Six years you shall sow your land, and six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its produce.
⁴ But in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of rest for the land…
The pattern, then, is always six years of sowing followed by a seventh year in which the land rests. But sowing was also forbidden in the Jubilee year:
Leviticus 25 (based on ISA)
¹¹ A Jubilee shall this, the fiftieth year, be for you. You shall not sow, and you shall not reap what grows of itself, and you shall not cut the grapes from your unpruned vines.
If the fiftieth year were at the same time the first year of the next cycle, that new cycle would therefore begin with a year in which no sowing was permitted. After that, only five years of sowing would remain before the seventh year arrived again as a Sabbath year.
That does not fit the rule given earlier: six years of sowing and the seventh year of rest.
This too shows that the Jubilee year cannot at the same time be year one of the next sequence. As the fiftieth year, it stands apart between two sequences of seven times seven years.
ten Jubilee cycles
This has consequences for the way we reckon the seventy weeks of years. Seventy weeks of years can be divided into ten groups of seven weeks of years:
70 weeks of years = 10 × 7 weeks of years
According to Leviticus 25, each group of seven weeks of years brings us, after 49 years, to the fiftieth year. A complete cycle therefore spans fifty years:
7 weeks of years + Jubilee year = 50 years
Ten such cycles span:
10 × 50 = 500 years
The seventy weeks of years themselves contain 490 years. But after every seven weeks of years comes the fiftieth year, so that the complete period contains ten Jubilee years. Chronologically, the seventy weeks of years therefore span five hundred years.
four times five hundred
This also makes clear why we began this series with the larger chronological pattern. From Abraham onward, we saw four consecutive periods of five hundred years:
from Abraham to the exodus: 500 years
from the exodus to Solomon: 500 years
from Solomon to Cyrus: 500 years
from Cyrus to Christ: 500 years
The final period consists of ten Jubilee cycles, that is, Daniel’s seventy weeks of years.
From Abraham to Christ, this therefore amounts to:
4 × 500 = 2,000 years
40 × 50 = 40 Jubilee cycles
The seventy weeks of years therefore do not stand on their own within biblical chronology. They form the final block of ten Jubilees within a larger period of forty Jubilees.
We now know how long the period is. But in order to reckon with a period of five hundred years, we also need to know where it begins. In Daniel 9:25, Gabriel gives a concrete point of reference: “from the going forth of the word to cause Jerusalem to return and to build.”
Which word is meant, and when did it go forth? That is the next question we need to answer.