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.

Daniel 9:24 — King James Version

‘Seventy weeks are determined for thy people, and for thy holy city, to shut up the transgression, and to seal up sins, and to cover iniquity, and to bring in righteousness age-during, and to seal up vision and prophet, and to anoint the holy of holies.

Daniel 9:24 — Young’s Literal Translation

“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 Place.

Daniel 9:24 — New International Version

“Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and for your holy city for putting an end to the transgression, for making an end of sin, for forgiving iniquity, for bringing in everlasting justice, for setting the seal on vision and prophet, and for anointing the Especially Holy Place.”

Daniel 9:24 — Complete Jewish Bible

Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary

Daniel 9:20-27 An answer was immediately sent to Daniel’s prayer, and it is a very memorable one. We cannot now expect that God should send answers to our prayers by angels, but if we pray with fervency for that which God has promised, we may by faith take the promise as an immediate answer to the prayer; for He is faithful that has promised. Daniel had a far greater and more glorious redemption discovered to him, which God would work out for his church in the latter days. Those who would be acquainted with Christ and his grace, must be much in prayer. The evening offering was a type of the great sacrifice Christ was to offer in the evening of the world: in virtue of that sacrifice Daniel’s prayer was accepted; and for the sake of that, this glorious discovery of redeeming love was made to him. We have, in verses 24-27, one of the most remarkable prophecies of Christ, of his coming and his salvation. It shows that the Jews are guilty of most obstinate unbelief, in expecting another Messiah, so long after the time expressly fixed for his coming. The seventy weeks mean a day for a year, or 490 years. About the end of this period a sacrifice would be offered, making full atonement for sin, and bringing in everlasting righteousness for the complete justification of every believer. Then the Jews, in the crucifixion of Jesus, would commit that crime by which the measure of their guilt would be filled up, and troubles would come upon their nation. All blessings bestowed on sinful man come through Christ’s atoning sacrifice, who suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God. Here is our way of access to the throne of grace, and of our entrance to heaven. This seals the sum of prophecy, and confirms the covenant with many; and while we rejoice in the blessings of salvation, we should remember what they cost the Redeemer. How can those escape who neglect so great salvation!


 

Thoughts on Today’s Verse

By Elizabeth Haworth

Daniel’s “seventy weeks” is considered to be the backbone of Bible prophecy, and was given to this greatly beloved man of prayer following 21 days of godly intercession and deep repentance on behalf of His people Israel, and their holy city, Jerusalem. And God in His grace laid out a 490-year historical road-map, tracing the future destiny of His chosen, people – Israel, and their final restoration as ‘My people – My inheritance’.

The Law is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ and Bible prophecy is a signpost that points us to Jesus – and Daniel’s vision has its fulfillment in Christ and Him alone.

The prophetic Scriptures tell us of His first coming and His future return – for Christ is the living Word made flesh and Christ is the more sure Word of prophecy.. and through Him God promised: to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place.

It was through the cross that Christ finished the transgression of His people Israel and made an end to sin… not only for the remnant of His people.. who will one day look upon Him Whom they pierced but for all who receive the Lord Jesus Christ as they sin-substitute and trust in Him as their resurrected Saviour.

It is through His Second Advent, millennial rule and eternal kingdom that Christ will bring in everlasting righteousness and will one day finally deliver up the kingdom to God the Father, after having destroyed every rule; authority; principality and power.

It is a result of His glorious return to earth when He sets up His kingdom-rule upon God’s holy Hill of Zion, that the majority of the prophetic visions and the inspired prophecies of Scripture will have been fulfilled – until they are fully and finally sealed up forever.. at the great white throne judgement seat of Christ.

It is the at the start of His 1000 year reign on earth that the Lord will rule with a rod of iron. It is when the kingdom of this world becomes the kingdom of our God and of His Christ that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD.. as the waters cover the sea – and the glory of the Lord will fill His Millennial Temple – so beautifully described by Ezekiel.

Daniel’s “seventy weeks” may be considered to be the backbone of prophecy, by students of Biblical prophecy – but Jesus is at its center and its circumference- for He the Alpha and Omega of prophecy, the beginning and the end – the first and the last for ever and ever amen.

My Prayer

Heavenly Father, thank You for revealing to us Your plans and purposes for both the Church, which is You Body and also for Your chosen people, Israel. Help us not to become so consumed with the letter of the prophetic Scriptures that we fail to recognize that One about Whom all Scripture speak and through Whom all prophecy will finally be fulfilled. Thank You Father for all that Jesus achieved through His death and resurrection. Thank You that He is interceeding for each of us in heavenly places and thank You for the many promises that are ours by grace through faith in HIM – to Whom be all praise and glory, for ever and ever, AMEN

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

Daniel 9:24 —  Seventy weeks—namely, of years; literally, “Seventy sevens”; seventy heptads or hebdomads; four hundred ninety years; expressed in a form of “concealed definiteness” [Hengstenberg], a usual way with the prophets. The Babylonian captivity is a turning point in the history of the kingdom of God. It terminated the free Old Testament theocracy. Up to that time Israel, though oppressed at times, was; as a rule, free. From the Babylonian captivity the theocracy never recovered its full freedom down to its entire suspension by Rome; and this period of Israel’s subjection to the Gentiles is to continue till the millennium (Revelation 20:1-15), when Israel shall be restored as head of the New Testament theocracy, which will embrace the whole earth. The free theocracy ceased in the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, and the fourth of Jehoiakim; the year of the world 3338, the point at which the seventy years of the captivity begin. Heretofore Israel had a right, if subjugated by a foreign king, to shake off the yoke (Judges 4:1-5:31; 2Kings 18:7) as an unlawful one, at the first opportunity. But the prophets (Jeremiah 27:9-11) declared it to be God’s will that they should submit to Babylon. Hence every effort of Jehoiakim, Jeconiah, and Zedekiah to rebel was vain. The period of the world times, and of Israel’s depression, from the Babylonian captivity to the millennium, though abounding more in afflictions (for example, the two destructions of Jerusalem, Antiochus’ persecution, and those which Christians suffered), contains all that was good in the preceding ones, summed up in Christ, but in a way visible only to the eye of faith. Since He came as a servant, He chose for His appearing the period darkest of all as to His people’s temporal state. Always fresh persecutors have been rising, whose end is destruction, and so it shall be with the last enemy, Antichrist. As the Davidic epoch is the point of the covenant-people’s highest glory, so the captivity is that of their lowest humiliation. Accordingly, the people’s sufferings are reflected in the picture of the suffering Messiah. He is no longer represented as the theocratic King, the Antitype of David, but as the Servant of God and Son of man; at the same time the cross being the way to glory (compare Daniel 9:1-27 with Daniel 2:34, 35, 44; 12:7). In the second and seventh chapters, Christ’s first coming is not noticed, for Daniel’s object was to prophesy to his nation as to the whole period from the destruction to the re-establishment of Israel; but this ninth chapter minutely predicts Christ’s first coming, and its effects on the covenant people. The seventy weeks date thirteen years before the rebuilding of Jerusalem; for then the re-establishment of the theocracy began, namely, at the return of Ezra to Jerusalem, 457 B.C. So Jeremiah’s seventy years of the captivity begin 606 B.C., eighteen years before the destruction of Jerusalem, for then Judah ceased to exist as an independent theocracy, having fallen under the sway of Babylon. Two periods are marked in Ezra: (1) The return from the captivity under Jeshua and Zerubbabel, and rebuilding of the temple, which was the first anxiety of the theocratic nation. (2) The return of Ezra (regarded by the Jews as a second Moses) from Persia to Jerusalem, the restoration of the city, the nationality, and the law. Artaxerxes, in the seventh year of his reign, gave him the commission which virtually includes permission to rebuild the city, afterwards confirmed to, and carried out by, Nehemiah in the twentieth year (Ezra 9:9; 7:11, &c.). Daniel 9:25, “from the going forth of the commandment to build Jerusalem,” proves that the second of the two periods is referred to. The words in Daniel 9:24 are not, “are determined upon the holy city,” but “upon thy people and thy holy city”; thus the restoration of the religious national polity and the law (the inner work fulfilled by Ezra the priest), and the rebuilding of the houses and walls (the outer work of Nehemiah, the governor), are both included in Daniel 9:25, “restore and build Jerusalem.” “Jerusalem” represents both the city, the body, and the congregation, the soul of the state. Compare Psalm 46:1-11; 48:1-14; 87:1-7. The starting-point of the seventy weeks dated from eighty-one years after Daniel received the prophecy: the object being not to fix for him definitely the time, but for the Church: the prophecy taught him that the Messianic redemption, which he thought near, was separated from him by at least a half millennium. Expectation was sufficiently kept alive by the general conception of the time; not only the Jews, but many Gentiles looked for some great Lord of the earth to spring from Judea at that very time [Tacitus, Histories, 5.13; Suetonius, Vespasian, 4]. Ezra’s placing of Daniel in the canon immediately before his own book and Nehemiah’s was perhaps owing to his feeling that he himself brought about the beginning of the fulfilment of the prophecy (Daniel 9:20-27) [Auberlen].

determined—literally, “cut out,” namely, from the whole course of time, for God to deal in a particular manner with Jerusalem.

thy … thy—Daniel had in his prayer often spoken of Israel as “Thy people, Thy holy city”; but Gabriel, in reply, speaks of them as Daniel’s (“thy … thy”) people and city, God thus intimating that until the “everlasting righteousness” should be brought in by Messiah, He could not fully own them as His [Tregelles] (compare Exodus 32:7). Rather, as God is wishing to console Daniel and the godly Jews, “the people whom thou art so anxiously praying for”; such weight does God give to the intercessions of the righteous (James 5:16-18).

finish—literally, “shut up”; remove from God’s sight, that is, abolish (Psalm 51:9) [Lengkerke]. The seventy years’ exile was a punishment, but not a full atonement, for the sin of the people; this would come only after seventy prophetic weeks, through Messiah.

make an end of—The Hebrew reading, “to steal,” that is, to hide out of sight (from the custom of sealing up things to be concealed, compare Job 9:7), is better supported.

make reconciliation for—literally, “to cover,” to overlay (as with pitch, Genesis 6:14). Compare Psalm 32:1.

bring in everlasting righteousness—namely, the restoration of the normal state between God and man (Jeremiah 23:5, 6); to continue eternally (Hebrews 9:12; Revelation 14:6).

seal up … vision … prophecy—literally, “prophet.” To give the seal of confirmation to the prophet and his vision by the fulfilment.

anoint the Most Holy—primarily, to “anoint,” or to consecrate after its pollution “the Most Holy” place but mainly Messiah, the antitype to the Most Holy place (John 2:19-22). The propitiatory in the temple (the same Greek word expresses the mercy seat and propitiation, Romans 3:25), which the Jews looked for at the restoration from Babylon, shall have its true realization only in Messiah. For it is only when sin is “made an end of” that God’s presence can be perfectly manifested. As to “anoint,” compare Exodus 40:9, 34. Messiah was anointed with the Holy Ghost (Acts 4:27; 10:38). So hereafter, God-Messiah will “anoint” or consecrate with His presence the holy place at Jerusalem (Jeremiah 3:16, 17; Ezekiel 37:27, 28), after its pollution by Antichrist, of which the feast of dedication after the pollution by Antiochus was a type.
 

Daniel 9:24 Additional Commentaries

Cross References