What is Daniel’s seventy weeks (Dan. 9:24-27)?
The angel Gabriel revealed to Daniel that God’s purpose for Israel involved a prophetic period of seventy weeks. In the modern world a week speaks of a period of seven days. However, in the ancient world a week represented a period of seven years. Gabriel spoke to Daniel about a prophetic period in which God would deal with Israel’s salvation over seventy weeks or 490 years (70 x 7 years = 490 years). However, after the initial sixty-nine weeks (69 x 7 years = 483 years), a “pause” was put on the prophetic calendar when Jesus the Messiah was “cut off” or crucified. There is one week or seven years left in God’s prophetic calendar and plan in bringing Israel to salvation. The first sixty-nine weeks of the “seventy weeks” prophecy of Daniel 9:24-26 have been fulfilled beginning from Nehemiah’s command to rebuild the city of Jerusalem in 445 BC (Neh. 2:1) to the time of Jesus’ first triumphal entry into Jerusalem to be crucified (Dan. 9:25).
