For all the obscurity in it, Daniel 9:24-27 gives one of the
clearest pictures of Christ in the whole Old Testament. But in order to
understand it correctly we have to examine it in its context, both historically
and scripturally. And, specifically, we have to ask why God structured this
revelation in a pattern of sevens.
The events recorded
in Daniel 9 took place at the end of the Babylonian captivity. From his study of
the prophet Jeremiah, Daniel knew that the exile had come to its completion:
“In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures,
according to the word of the LORD given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the
desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years.” (Daniel 9:2.) It had begun
back in 606/5 B.C. when a few members of the Jewish nobility, including Daniel,
had been taken to Babylon as surety that Judah would remain a vassal of King
Nebuchadnezzar. In the course of rebellions and further deportations, Jeremiah
the prophet wrote to the captives and told them to settle down in Babylon and be
prepared to live out their lives there: ‘This is what the LORD says: “When
seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my
gracious promise to bring you back to this place.”’ (Jeremiah 29:10.)
Why did the Lord tell
Jeremiah that the captivity would last seventy years? The answer to this is
recorded in 2 Chronicles 36. There we find that the reason was Judah’s failure
to keep God’s covenant, particularly the stipulations regarding the Sabbath
years: “The land enjoyed its sabbath rests; all the time of its desolation it
rested, until the seventy years were completed in fulfillment of the word of the
LORD spoken by Jeremiah.” (2 Chronicles 36:21.)
The sabbath system
was an integral part of the Old Covenant between God and Israel. Not only was
one day in seven a day of rest when people could worship God (Exodus 20:8-10;
Deuteronomy 5:12-15.), but one year in seven was to be a rest year when the land
was not to be cultivated. (Leviticus 25:4.) And after forty-nine (seven times
seven.) years, at the conclusion of the seventh rest year, came the Year of
Jubilee. During this year those who had been reduced to poverty were restored,
the property was returned to its hereditary owner and slaves were set free.
(Leviticus 25:13, 40, 41.)
Included in this
passage of Scripture describing the decreed system of rest years, were certain
blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. Specifically, God warned of
desolation and exile for failure to observe this system. (Leviticus 26:34.) Thus
the years of exile would correspond to the number of rest years that Israel
would fail to keep. For example, a year in exile would represent seven years of
rebellion. But God delights in mercy more than in judgment, and so he made
provisions for Israel to return to the promised land. Immediately following the
curse section of Leviticus, God promised Israel, “But if they will confess
their sins and the sins of their fathers . . . I will remember my covenant . . .
I will remember the land.” (Leviticus 26:40-42.)
Realizing that the
exile was nearly over, Daniel set about to meet the condition for return
prescribed in the covenant, confession by Israel: “So I turned to the Lord God
and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and
ashes.” (Daniel 9:3.). This prayer of confession is recorded in Daniel 9:4-19;
Daniel describes it as “speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of
my people Israel and making my request to the LORD my God for his holy hill.”
(Daniel 9:20.)
In response to
Daniel’s confession, God sent the angel Gabriel to reveal to Daniel that his
prayer had been heard. But the heart of Gabriel’s message has to do not so
much with the return from the exile as with the removal of the problem that led
to the exile, namely the guilt of the sins of God’s people, who had repeatedly
broken his covenant.
This fundamental
problem would not be settled at the end of the seventy years of Babylonian
captivity, but would involve seventy times seven times. It would take this
period of time for the Anointed One (the Messiah, the Christ.) to come, and in
the middle of the last seven he would be “cut off” in a cursed death, thus
removing the guilt of sin, and bringing in everlasting righteousness. (Daniel
9:24, 26.)
Gabriel did not
reveal to Daniel how long these sevens were, whether days, weeks, or years. That
was not the purpose of these sevens that seem so strange to us. This pattern
would not have been strange to one who realized that Israel needed to observe
the pattern of sevens revealed in Leviticus 25 and 26. Daniel knew that seven
times seven years led to the wonderful year of redemption, the Jubilee. And the
Jubilee had already been used by Isaiah the prophet to describe the days of the
Messiah. The Lord Jesus quoted these words from Isaiah 61 when he said, “Today
this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:21.) Thus Gabriel
revealed to Daniel that it would take the Messiah to bring in the true year of
the Lord’s favor, the inaugurated Jubilee: seven times seven for the Jubilee,
times ten, representing fulness.
Rebellion against
God’s covenant had lead to the Babylonian captivity, and unless this
transgression of God’s people was dealt with, what hope could the future hold
for them? Gabriel came to Daniel to assure him that the Lord would permanently
deal with the sin problem. This is the fundamental focus of the prophecy of the
seventy “weeks.” The heart of the prophecy is given in the very first verse:
“Seventy ‘sevens’ are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish
transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in
everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most
holy.” (Daniel 9:24.) Of the six things mentioned in Daniel 9:24, the first
three have to do with the problem of sin: “to finish transgression, to put an
end to sin, to atone for wickedness.” This problem was effectively dealt with,
once and for all, by our Lord when he died on the cross: “But now he has
appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the
sacrifice of himself.” (Hebrews 9:26.)
Jesus came into this
world to do more than remove the guilt of our sins: he perfectly obeyed the law
of God that his righteousness might be credited to our account; he came that
“God’s righteousness” might be given “to all who believe. “ (Romans
3:22; cf. 2 Corinthians 5:21.). This, too, had been revealed to Daniel: the
Messiah would come in the seventieth seven “to bring in everlasting
righteousness.” (Daniel 9:24.) Our Lord finished the work his Father gave him,
“having obtained eternal redemption.” (Hebrews 9:12.)
The Old Covenant was
never meant to be a complete covenant: it pointed to the need of a new and
everlasting covenant. Its types needed to be fulfilled; the visions of its
prophets had to be realized. The Lord Jesus did not come to destroy the Old
Testament, but to fulfill it. (Matthew 5:17.) God sent his Son “to seal up
vision and prophecy.” (Daniel 9:24.) “In the past God spoke to our
forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these
last days he has spoken to us by his Son.” (Hebrews 1:1, 2.)
The sixth thing the
Messiah would do would be “to anoint the most holy.” (Daniel 9:24.) This is
difficult, but surely it points to the work of Jesus who was anointed with the
Holy Spirit at his baptism (Matthew 3:16.), who died on the cross that the
Temple rituals might be complete (John 2:19-22; Hebrews 8:1-5; 9:1-10:22.), and
who anointed his people with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost that they
might become the living stones of the Temple of New Covenant. (1 Corinthians
3:9-17; Ephesians 2:19-22; 1 Peter 2-5.) These six things are the core of
Daniel’s prophecy; if we understand their fulfillment in Jesus Christ, we have
understood the heart of the prophecy.
The last three verses
expand on this theme. The next verse begins the division of the seventy sevens
into three segments: “Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree
to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there
will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ It will be rebuilt with
streets and a trench, but in times of trouble.” (Daniel 9:25.) The first
segment, or seven sevens, demonstrates how the system of sabbath years, seven of
which lead to the Jubilee, are the screen on which the prophecy is to be
presented. It is important to keep this in mind in order not to focus on a
chronological sequence of literal years, whether they are 365 or 360 days. This
prophecy is not about literal years but a sequence of events that typologically
reflect the sabbath and Jubilee pattern. Therefore it is not essential
dogmatically to determine the exact date of the many that have been put forth
for the beginning of this prophecy. (Cf., e.g., 605, 587, 539, 521, 458 or 445
B.C. in loc., John E. Goldingay, Word Biblical Commentary: Daniel,
Dallas: Word, Incorporated.) The first seven sevens could easily correspond to
the time between Cyrus’ decree in 539/8 B.C. and the completion of the
rebuilding of the walls of the city under Nehemiah in 444 B.C. This would be in
times of trouble. All one has to do is read Ezra and Nehemiah, or Haggai and
Zechariah to see how literally this was fulfilled.
The second segment,
or sixty-two sevens, takes us to the time of the Messiah. Thus the years between
444 B.C., when the walls were completed, and late 26 A. D., when Jesus was
baptized and anointed into his Messianic work, is the period of time in view.
The last segment of
one seven, the seventieth seven, is the focus of the prophecy, the time for
accomplishing the six Messianic works of 9:24. This segment is covered in the
last two verses, 9:26 and 27. These verses parallel each other and may be
divided into three sections.
The first part of
9:26 (“After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be cut off .
.”.) is parallel to the first part of 9:27. That is to say, during the
seventieth seven the Messiah would be cut off in death under the divine judgment
due for covenant breakers. This circumcision of Christ (cf. Colossians 2:11.)
had been beautifully and graphically foretold in Isaiah 52:13-53:12, especially
4-8.
This aspect of the
work of Christ is set forth in the parallel section of Daniel 9:27: “He will
confirm a covenant with many for (or “in” or “during;” the translators
have simply added the word “for” interpretatively.) one ‘seven.’”
There is only one covenant previously mentioned in Daniel, namely God’s
blessed covenant with his people: ‘I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed:
“O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with all
who love him and obey his commands . . . “’ (Daniel 9:4.) Our Lord died on
the cross that those blessed promises covenanted to the patriarchs might be made
sure to all their descendants (the many, the righteous remnant, or the true
Israel.): “For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews on
behalf of God’s truth, to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs.”
(Romans 15:8.)
The next section of
Daniel 9:26, while very obscure, “and will have nothing,” is associated with
the death of the Messiah. The parallel section of Daniel 9:27 is very clear:
“In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and
offering.” Our Savior did this when he caused the veil of the Temple to be
torn open by his crucifixion. (Cf. Matthew 27:50, 51; Hebrews 10:19-22.). Thus
he fulfilled the whole system of bloody sacrifice which characterized the earthy
Tabernacle and Temple.
The last section of
Daniel 9:26 foretells the terrible judgment that God would send on the
unbelieving portion of the Jewish people. It is described as a fiery baptism of
wrath in the form of a foreign army sent by God: “The people of the ruler who
will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a
flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed.”
(Daniel 9:26.) The same idea is mirrored in the concluding section of Daniel
9:27: “And on a wing of the temple he will set up an abomination that causes
desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.” The Lord
Jesus commented on these scriptures and said that they would be fulfilled after
his death in the destruction of Jerusalem. This occurred in 70 A. D. under the
Roman prince, Titus. (Matthew 24:15 ff; Luke 21:20-24.) Thus the last, or
seventieth seven of Daniel is divided into two sections: the earthly ministry of
Christ which was terminated by his being cut off on the cross, and the last half
of the week which would include the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.
Gabriel does not tell
Daniel when the last half of the week ends. But it is interesting to observe
that both Daniel and Revelation refer to a period of time that adds up to one
half of seven years. It is sometimes referred to as forty-two months (Revelation
11:2; 13:5.), or 1260 days (Revelation 11:3; 12:6.), and, rather cryptically, as
“a time, times and half a time.” (Daniel 7:25; Revelation 12:14.) This
period of time seems to stretch from Christ’s ascension to his second coming
(cf. Revelation 12:5; 14:14.), but has a particular focus on the time of the
manifestation of the Antichrist, the terrible time of persecution just before
the Second Coming of Christ.