What About Daniel 9 And The Seventy Weeks?

One of the areas of controversy when it comes to what the Bible teaches about the return of Jesus Christ revolves around Daniel 9:24-27. While Daniel had been reading Jeremiah, he realized the “seventy years” of captivity (v. 2) are almost up. As a result, the prophet turns to God in prayer, seeking mercy for Jerusalem. God sends his answer to Daniel through the angel Gabriel (v. 21), who appeared to him and explained that another period of 70 sevens or seventy weeks is at hand for God’s people to fulfill the punishment for the iniquity of Israel (24). Yet, how do we interpret this passage?

Over the past century a very popular way of understanding the seventy weeks of Daniel 9:24-27 is to calculate it from the end of the captivity of Judah, about the time Daniel prays here in Daniel 9. The thought is that 69 nine of the “weeks” (7 x 69 years or 483 years) would take us to about the time of Christ. Then, with the large scale rejection of Jesus Christ by Jews, history entered into a long parenthesis (the Church age, unforeseen by Old Testament saints). Once the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled (Luke 21:24), then Jewish history is resumed. The New Testament Church is secretly raptured and the 70^th week of Daniel commences (that is one week of seven years). This understanding, then, would need to devise a way for the Church to be removed from the earth prior to the Tribulation, a literal seven year period just after the rapture (the first stage of the coming of Jesus Christ) and just before the second stage of his coming. Such a scenario not only appears to run counter to the simple reading of Matthew 24 and Mark 13, it demands a two-stage coming of Jesus Christ that is stated nowhere in Scripture, it mistakenly makes the era of the New Covenant Church an unforeseen parenthesis (which contradicts the clear statements of Jeremiah 31:31-34; 1 Cor. 11:25; Heb. 8:1-13), and most importantly it dangerously holds to a two-program view of God’s saving history, which contradicts Scripture (cf. Mt. 2:13; 5:17-18; Luke 24:27; Acts 10:43; Rom. 9-11; Eph. 2:11-22; Col. 2:16-17).

How, then, should we understand Daniel 9:24-27?  I believe the simplest understanding is as follows. Daniel 9:24 reads, “Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city…to atone for sin.” Though the captivity was to last only 70 years (Jeremiah 25:12), the angel Gabriel is announcing that there will be a much longer time of hardship for Israel until they see “an everlasting righteousness” and are able “to anoint a most holy place” (Dan. 9:24). If we see the 69 weeks running from the beginning of the captivity (the beginning of the punishment of Israel), this would take Judah very close to the time that Antiochus Epiphanes, the persecuting Greek king, built a pagan altar in the temple and sacrificed pigs on it. Antiochus laid claim to the area around Judea in 173. He reigned until 164. Though longer than the seven years, it is a close enough time span to suggest that the seventieth week refers to this time, especially since during the last half of his reign Antiochus put an end to Jewish worship, persecuted and killed the Jews mercilessly, and sacrificed a pig on a pagan altar (168/67 BC). This time of horrible persecution was roughly 3.5 years. Such a time not only fits with Daniel 12:11-12, it also became synonymous with great tribulation in Israel.

Even though after their captivity Judah rebuilt Jerusalem, the temple, and the wall around Jerusalem in the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. (see Ezra and Nehemiah), they experienced great turmoil until after the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, that is, through the era of the Maccabean revolt against the Greeks (164-142 B.C.). “Everlasting righteousness” and a true “most holy place” (Dan. 9:24) would not come until Jesus Christ came a little over a century later. Yet, it appears that this Greek ruler marked the end of Israel’s time of finishing transgression and atoning for their iniquity and signaled the time moving toward the first coming of Jesus Christ.

This prophecy of Daniel is also significant because it foreshadowed the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 (see Matthew 24:15), which foreshadowed the escalation of persecution and the coming Anti-Christ at the end of this age and just before Jesus Christ returns (2 Thes. 2:3ff.; 1 John 2:18).

If I am correct that this is the best way to understand Daniel 9:24-27, it in no way contradicts Matthew 24 that seems to suggest Jesus Christ will return after the tribulation. It also supports my contention that we are not to understand New Testament references to 3.5 years of tribulation or two 3.5 year periods as being literal. Two 3.5 year periods of tribulation suggest a really long period of tribulation that spans the entire age of the New Testament Church (see Revelation 12).