Daniel 9:24–27

Context

In Daniel 9, after reading the writings of Jeremiah and understanding that the desolation of Jerusalem would end after seventy years (9:2; Jeremiah 25:11–12; 29:10), Daniel fasts and offers a long prayer confessing the sins of his people (vv. 4–19). During this prayer Gabriel comes and announces the "seventy weeks." Verse 24 names six things to be accomplished within that period: "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." Verses 25–27 state that from the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; that afterward the anointed one shall be cut off and the city and the sanctuary destroyed; and that the final week will bring a covenant, the cessation of sacrifice, and the "abomination." The word translated "week" means a unit of seven; it is commonly taken as a period of seven years, yielding a total of 490 years.

Interpretations

• Messianic interpretation (traditional Christian): This view holds that sixty-nine weeks after the commandment to rebuild Jerusalem (a decree of a Persian king), Jesus the Messiah comes and is "cut off" (His death on the cross), after which the temple is destroyed by Rome. Calculations differ depending on which decree is taken as the starting point. Many who hold this view regard the seventieth week as already fulfilled within the period of Christ's ministry.
• Dispensationalist interpretation: This view holds that there is a "gap," the church age, between the sixty-ninth week and the final, seventieth week. The seventieth week is the future seven-year Great Tribulation, and the "he" of verse 27 is interpreted as the Antichrist, who makes a covenant with Israel and then breaks it midway through. This reading is a principal basis for the doctrines of the rapture and the Great Tribulation.
• Historical-critical interpretation: This view holds that this portion of the book of Daniel is set against the background of the desecration of the Jerusalem temple by the Seleucid king Antiochus IV in the second century BC. It reads the "anointed one" who is cut off as the high priest of that time, and the "abomination" as the pagan altar erected in the temple.
• Symbolic interpretation: This view regards the numbers not as a precise chronological calculation but as a symbol of a complete period (7 × 10 × 7), signifying that salvation will be brought to completion at the time God has appointed.

Debates and Issues

Interpreters are divided over Matthew 24:15, where Jesus refers to "the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet": some see it as the destruction of the temple in AD 70, while others see it as a future event. The numerical calculations of this prophecy have frequently been used throughout history in attempts to predict the date of the end, and the major denominations have consistently criticized such date-setting on the basis of Matthew 24:36 ("But of that day and hour knoweth no man").

Related Passages

• Daniel 9:1–3
• Jeremiah 29:10
• Matthew 24:15
• 2 Thessalonians 2:3–4