From our Sunday service on July 6, 2025, Daniel 9. This is part 9 of our Daniel series. Watch the full message: The Seventy Weeks – Daniel Series #9 on YouTube.
This is part 9 of our Daniel series, and we are in the prophecy section of the book. Daniel has already received the vision of the ram and the goat. Now, eleven years forward from that, he receives his next word from the Lord. The lesson is very clear: God wants you to know that He does not delay on His promises.
Daniel Understands the Books
In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem. Daniel is reading Scripture, and he realizes the seventy years are coming due. He does not treat that as a reason to sit back. He turns it into prayer. This is a very passionate prayer. Daniel’s heart aches for his people. Remember, he was just a teenage boy when he was hauled off from Jerusalem to Babylon. He knew seventy years awaited him and that he would be very old before he saw his people return. If they are going home, he reasons, their hearts need to be right. He does not want another generation to face the same difficulty his generation faced. So Daniel takes the role of an intercessor and repents on behalf of his people. We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled. He confesses the sins of his people, and he appeals to God’s mercy. Let God be true, but every man a liar. God is in the right, and Israel is not.
To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against Him. This is an odd thing to say after being judged. The natural human instinct is to say, God, You took from me. You are not merciful. But the Bible says whom the Lord loves, He corrects, and that is mercy. Rather than letting you continue in sin and self-destruction for your whole life, God says He is going to wake you up and bring you back. Even in judgment, Daniel asks for mercy for the holy mountain and the desolate sanctuary, not because Israel deserves it, but because God’s name is on that city.
While he is still praying, Gabriel is caused to fly swiftly and touches him. As I understand it, that Hebrew phrase is vague and can be taken two ways, and one carries the idea of exhaustion. The picture is that he came quickly because Daniel was worn out spiritually, his heart weak from prayer, and Gabriel was sent to encourage him and answer his prayer. God heard him at the beginning of his supplications.
The Seventy Weeks
Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
Daniel 9:24–27
Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city. As I understand it, the Hebrew word means literally to engrave, to mark out. God is saying, I have a plan for your people, and I have already marked out the timeline for how your prayers will be answered. And it is about Jesus Christ. These are prophetic weeks, seventy sets of seven years, which makes 490 years. The prophecy splits into two sets: seven weeks, which is 49 years, and sixty-two weeks, and then one week more. From the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks. The street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. After threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for Himself. The people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.
Two Ways of Reading the Seventieth Week
The more common reading is the futurist interpretation. Futurists believe the last week represents the tribulation period, and they put a gap between the sixty-ninth and seventieth weeks. That is not what I hold, because the text does not tell us about a gap. In fact the text splits the timeline in two, at seven and sixty-two, and if it had meant another gap, why does it not split off one more week after it? When I read the Bible, I want to read what is there, not what is missing. The first person in history I could find who held the gap belief was Hippolytus, a pastor of the Roman church, who said the final week was still to come during the tribulation of the antichrist.
My view is the preterist view: all seventy weeks have been completed, and they are not attached to the prophecy in Revelation. Revelation is to be understood as separate from Daniel 9. Around 200 AD, Clement, the pastor of the church of Alexandria, stated that the seventy weeks were completed historically when Titus, son of Vespasian, came and destroyed the temple. The time of Cyrus, king of Persia, starts the clock, and when the war with Titus ends, the clock ends. Why read a gap when the Bible tells us there is none? It is seven and sixty-two, not sixty-nine and one. Jesus Himself points us there. He speaks of the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, in connection with the destruction of the temple, when not one stone would be left on another. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all make that connection. Other early church leaders back this understanding: Clement, Augustine in 430, and Cyril in 444.
The timeline would be seventy years of captivity, then seven weeks of rebuilding, which is 49 literal years, then sixty-two weeks, and the last week begins with the baptism of Jesus and ends with the end of the Israel-Rome war. I held the futurist view until I went to Bible college and started studying it for myself. When a teacher told me about it, I thought, Wait, why do we read a gap?
The Prophetic Checklist
Daniel 9:24 tells us what has to happen, so let us look at each thing and see from Scripture that it has been fulfilled. First, to finish the transgression. Israel’s rebellion would culminate in the rejection of Christ. Paul says the Jews filled up their sins, and the wrath has come upon them to the uttermost. Second, to make an end of sins. This is Jesus’s death on the cross. Once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. Third, to make reconciliation for iniquity. That is what was done on the cross. God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. Fourth, to bring in everlasting righteousness. This was completed when Christ brought righteousness to those who believe, the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ. Fifth, to seal up the vision and prophecy. Christ fulfilled the law and the prophets. I also take it that the prophecy was sealed in the sense that no more Scripture is to be given. By the end of the Israel-Rome war the last book of our Scriptures, Revelation, had been written. Sixth, to anoint the most Holy. That is the holy of holies, the place in the temple where the Spirit of God was to dwell. From the Old Testament standpoint, this was completed when Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, anointed believers as the new temple we call the church. Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house. On the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit was given, and the new most holy place was anointed by the Spirit of Christ. Everything on the prophetic checklist came to pass.
Why was this so important to be done in seventy weeks? Because Daniel wanted to know when God would solve the problem of Israel. God answered: 490 years. But the answer was not what Daniel expected. The people were not going to make themselves righteous. God Himself would come and make His people righteous. It was completed, sealed, and done in the first century. God does not delay His promises. He fulfills them exactly as He says He will. From the decree to rebuild Jerusalem to the coming and cutting off of the Messiah, every moment unfolded according to His perfect timing. God wants you to know that He does not delay His promises. Will you wait patiently for them to arrive?
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