Passage

Daniel 9.24-27

Book: Daniel · NASB95

Verse

"Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place. So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined. And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate." (Daniel 9:24-27, NASB95)

Immediate context (±2 verses)

NASB95 (NASB95)

"22. He gave me instruction and talked with me and said, 'O Daniel, I have now come forth to give you insight with understanding. 23. At the beginning of your supplications the command was issued, and I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed; so give heed to the message and gain understanding of the vision.'"

"24. Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place. 25. So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. 26. Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined. 27. And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate." (Daniel 9:22-27, NASB95)

Setting

Speaker: the angel Gabriel, sent in response to Daniel's penitential prayer (9:1-19) over the seventy-year exile prophesied by Jeremiah (Jer 25:11-12; 29:10).
Audience: Daniel; through him, the people of God across all subsequent ages.
Location: Babylon (or possibly Susa); during the first year of Darius the Mede (9:1), c. 539-538 BC, the year Babylon fell to the Medo-Persian alliance.
Time period: late Babylonian / early Persian period; the Jewish exile is approaching its end.

Theological reading

The passage is the most chronologically-detailed Messianic prophecy in the Old Testament, and one of the most apologetically-weighty, because it specifies a time-window in which the Messiah must come and be cut off. The basic structure: 70 "weeks" (almost universally read as sevens of years, i.e., 70 × 7 = 490 years) are decreed for six redemptive accomplishments; the period is divided into 7+62+1 weeks (49 + 434 + 7 = 490 years); within these weeks, specific events occur (Messiah's coming, His being "cut off," the destruction of city and sanctuary, and the "abomination of desolation").

1. The unit, "weeks" (Hebrew shavu'im). The Hebrew word means "sevens", the unit, not the calendar week. Context determines what is being seven-counted. Here the context (the 70-year exile of Jer 25/29 just mentioned, the events that must transpire) points to sevens of years. The 70-weeks reading as 70 × 7 = 490 years is the consensus across Christian, Jewish, and most scholarly traditions.

2. The six redemptive purposes (v. 24). The 70 weeks accomplish six things:

finish the transgression
make an end of sin
make atonement for iniquity
bring in everlasting righteousness
seal up vision and prophecy
anoint the most holy place / Holy of Holies / Holy One

Christian readings see these fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Christ. Jewish readings (and modern critical readings) typically read these eschatologically (still future) or as fulfilled in Maccabean events (Antiochus IV Epiphanes; the Hasmonean restoration).

3. The chronology. "From the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks", 49 + 434 = 483 years from a decree-to-rebuild-Jerusalem until Messiah-the-Prince.

Sir Robert Anderson's calculation (The Coming Prince, 1894), the most influential Christian-apologetic chronological reading. Anderson identifies the decree as Artaxerxes I's decree to Nehemiah in 445 BC (Neh 2:1-8). Using a 360-day "prophetic year" (rather than the solar 365.25-day year), he calculates 483 prophetic years = 173,880 days = exactly to AD 32, the day of the Triumphal Entry. The "Messiah the Prince" arrives precisely on schedule.

Harold Hoehner's refinement (Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ, 1977) recalculates with updated chronology and arrives at the Triumphal Entry of AD 33, a more accepted date for the crucifixion. Both Anderson and Hoehner are engaged seriously by apologetic-chronology defenders; both depend on specific decree-identification and calendar conventions that are debated.

4. Yikkareth Mashiach, "Messiah will be cut off." Karath (cut off) is the standard Hebrew term for being put to death, often by judicial execution (or by divine judgment). The text foretells a Messiah who is cut off, that is, a Messiah who dies. This is the clearest OT prediction of a suffering / dying Messiah alongside Isaiah 53. Christian readings: fulfilled in Christ's crucifixion. Jewish readings: typically refer to the high priest Onias III (assassinated 171 BC) or other historical figures from the Maccabean era.

5. V'ein lo, "and have nothing" (or "and not for himself"). The Hebrew is terse and ambiguous. Two main readings:

"have nothing", He is dispossessed, His mission appears to fail, He is left with nothing.
"not for himself", His being cut off is not for His own sin / on His own behalf, but for others. This reading aligns with Isaiah 53's substitutionary reading.

6. The destruction of city and sanctuary. "The people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary." Christian-apologetic readings see this fulfilled in AD 70, Titus's Roman legions destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple. The "prince who is to come" is variously identified as Titus, the Antichrist, or both (a near/far prophetic-perspective reading).

7. The 70th week, the major dispensational/non-dispensational divide. "He will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice…"

Dispensationalist reading (Darby, Scofield, Walvoord, Pentecost, LaHaye): the 70th week is separated from the prior 69 by a long "Church age" gap. The 70th week is future, identified with the seven-year tribulation period, in which the Antichrist makes a covenant with Israel and breaks it at the midpoint.
Non-dispensational reading (mainstream Reformed, Catholic, classical premillennial, amillennial, postmillennial): the 70 weeks run consecutively without a gap. The 70th week is fulfilled in Christ's ministry and the early apostolic period; "He" (the Messiah) makes the new covenant with the many; in the middle of the week (3.5 years into Christ's ministry, at the crucifixion) sacrifice is brought to an end.
Preterist reading (esp. partial-preterism): the entire prophecy is fulfilled by AD 70; the "abomination of desolation" is the Roman desecration / destruction of the Temple.

The dispensationalist gap-reading is challenged by the lack of any textual indication of a gap; the non-dispensational consecutive reading is challenged by the difficulty of mapping the events of v. 27 onto Christ's ministry without strain.

Patristic / scholarly note

Patristic. Eusebius (Demonstratio Evangelica 8) develops the messianic-chronology reading at length, calculating from the decree of Artaxerxes to the time of Christ. Jerome (Commentary on Daniel) treats the prophecy as messianic, fulfilled in Christ. Athanasius (De Incarnatione 39-40) cites Daniel 9 as decisive proof that Messiah has come, because the prophesied 70 weeks ran out at the time of Christ.

Reformation. Calvin (Commentary on Daniel, 1561) interprets the 70 weeks messianically; calculates the chronology in a way generally consistent with the consecutive non-dispensational reading.

Modern critical scholarship. The dominant critical position (since H. H. Rowley; John J. Collins, Daniel Hermeneia, 1993; Jürgen Goldingay, Daniel WBC, 1989) is that Daniel 9 was written during the Maccabean crisis (c. 165 BC) as vaticinium ex eventu (prophecy after the event) of events through Antiochus IV Epiphanes. The 70 weeks count from Jeremiah's prophecy (586 BC) through to the Maccabean restoration, fitting the Maccabean events with sufficient looseness in the calculation. This reading is rejected by conservative scholarship on multiple grounds (the supernatural-prophecy presupposition; Daniel's clear setting in the 6th c. BC; the manuscript and canonical evidence; Jesus's own attribution of the prophecy to "Daniel the prophet" in Matt 24:15).

Modern conservative scholarship. Stephen Miller (Daniel NAC, 1994); E. J. Young (The Prophecy of Daniel, 1949), strong defense of the messianic reading; Joyce Baldwin (Daniel TOTC, 1978); Tremper Longman III (Daniel NIVAC, 1999); Iain Duguid (Daniel REC, 2008). The chronological-apologetic reading (Anderson, Hoehner) is engaged seriously by these conservatives.

Apologetic deployment. Daniel 9:24-27 is one of the most-cited passages in apologetic-prophecy literature: Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict; Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ; Hugh Ross, The Fingerprint of God; numerous Calvary Chapel and Dallas Theological Seminary materials. It functions as the chief chronological-prophetic argument that the Messiah came on schedule.

Connection to other passages

Jeremiah 25:11-12; 29:10, the seventy-year exile prophecy that triggers Daniel's prayer
Daniel 8:13-14, the 2,300 evenings-and-mornings prophecy (Antiochus typology)
Daniel 12:1-13, the time, times, and half a time prophecies
Isaiah 53.4-7, Isaiah 53.5-6, the suffering-Messiah background
Matthew 24:15, Jesus cites "the abomination of desolation, spoken of through Daniel the prophet"
Mark 13:14; Luke 21:20, parallel Olivet Discourse references
2 Thessalonians 2:3-4, Pauline echoes of the abomination tradition
Revelation 11-13, apocalyptic developments of the Daniel 9 motifs

Key words

H7620 - shavu'im (pending), shavu'im (weeks / sevens)
H4899 - mashiach, mashiach (anointed, Messiah)
H3772 - karath (pending), karath (to cut off, kill)
H1285 - berith, berith (covenant)
H8074 - shamem (pending), shamem (to make desolate)
H8251 - shiquts (pending), shiquts (abomination)