Four verses, seventy sevens, and one of the most argued over timelines in the Bible. Read in order, the count runs straight to Jesus and closes where Jesus said it would.
The 70 weeks of Daniel are seventy sevens of years, 490 in all, that Gabriel gives Daniel as the measured time for his people and his city. We read them as one continuous count that runs from a Persian decree to rebuild Jerusalem, through the ministry and death of Jesus, and seals the fate of the city that fell in AD 70.
The six goals of Daniel 9:24 are the work of the cross. There is no pause in the clock, no future seven years waiting to be played out, and no antichrist hiding in verse 27.
That is our position at Sound of Heaven. Below is the text, the math with its honest margins, and the two main readings that disagree with us, stated fairly.
Daniel 9 opens with Daniel reading Jeremiah, realizing the seventy years of exile are nearly over (Daniel 9:2), and pleading for the city. Gabriel answers with a larger number, seventy times seven, and before giving a single date he says what the whole period is for.
“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 · KJVIsrael's long story of covenant breaking reaches its end point. Jesus told His generation to fill up the measure of their fathers (Matthew 23:32).
Hebrews 9:26 says Christ appeared once at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. Once, and finished.
This is the language of atonement. Paul says God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself (2 Corinthians 5:19).
A righteousness from God through faith in Jesus, now made known (Romans 3:21 to 22). A gift already given.
Jesus came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 5:17), and He tied the fall of Jerusalem to all that is written being fulfilled (Luke 21:22).
The phrase usually describes the sanctuary. The Spirit rested on Jesus, the true temple, and He read Isaiah 61 over Himself (Luke 4:18).
The New Testament describes all six as accomplished in Jesus. None of them are on hold.
A period of seven. It can be seven days or seven years. The word counts sevens, not days in particular.
Shavuim shivim, seventy sevens. Daniel has just been reading about seventy years, so the unit in view is years.
Leviticus 25 already counted time in sevens of years, with a Jubilee after seven sevens.
Seven sevens (49 years), sixty-two sevens (434 years), and one seven (7 years). 490 years in all.
You will often hear this explained with a day for a year principle. It is not needed here. The word is already a unit of seven, and the context already says years.
Seven sevens cover the rebuilding “in troublous times” (Daniel 9:25). Sixty-two more reach “Messiah the Prince.” The final seven holds the decisive events. The count is built to point at a person.
Verse 25 says the count begins “from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem” and runs 483 years to the anointed one. Persia issued more than one word about Jerusalem, so the start is debated.
Ezra 1:1 to 4, and Isaiah 44:28. Counted literally, 483 years from here land decades before Jesus was born, so readers who start here treat the numbers as symbolic.
Ezra 7, the seventh year of Artaxerxes, with authority to appoint judges and teach the law. 483 years later is around AD 26 or 27, within the range given for the baptism of Jesus (Luke 3:1).
Nehemiah 2, the twentieth year, explicitly about the walls. In ordinary years it lands too late, so this option uses a 360 day year, popularized by Sir Robert Anderson and refined by Harold Hoehner, arriving at AD 32 or 33.
Rome destroys Jerusalem and burns the temple, as verse 26 said.
Here is what I will claim and what I will not. The decree to Ezra fits without adjustment, and it is the start we prefer. But ancient regnal years and the year of the baptism of Jesus each carry a margin of a year or two. Anyone who says it lands on a single day is claiming more than the evidence gives. And the 360 day year is a modern tool, since Israel added a month when needed to keep its lunar calendar in step.
Even readers who treat 490 as symbolic get the same order: Jesus first, then Jerusalem.
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Manage My Giving"Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."2 Corinthians 9:7
“And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.”
Daniel 9:26 · KJVThe Hebrew verb, karath, is used for someone being killed and also for making a covenant, literally cutting one. A covenant follows in the next verse.
Gabar, to be strong, to prevail.
Causative: to make strong, to make firm. The KJV says confirm the covenant. The NASB says make a firm covenant.
The covenant is made strong for the many. Compare the Last Supper: “this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Matthew 26:28).
Then, “in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease.” The cross ended the meaning of the sacrifices, and the veil tore (Matthew 27:51). The priests kept offering for another generation, and Hebrews, written while the temple stood, called the old covenant “ready to vanish away” (Hebrews 8:13). On that dating, see who wrote Hebrews.
One piece of folklore on our own side needs correcting. You will hear that Jesus ministered exactly three and a half years. The Gospels never give that number. John mentions three Passovers (John 2:13, 6:4, 11:55), which suggests something between two and three and a half years. The fit is close. It is not a stopwatch.
The 70 weeks are one continuous count. The anointed one cut off is Jesus. The one who makes the covenant strong for many is Jesus, with the new covenant in His blood. The ending of sacrifice is the cross, and the desolation is the Roman war that ended in AD 70.
Why does AD 70 come some forty years after the seventieth seven? Because verse 26 does not place the destruction inside the count. It announces what follows from the cutting off, and Jesus set the timing: this generation (Matthew 23:36, 24:34). Decreed inside the seventy sevens, carried out within the generation He named. This is covenant transition, and it means the promises of verse 24 are not on hold for anybody.
In Daniel 9:27, what does the Hebrew verb behind “confirm a covenant” mean at its root?
The root is gabar, to be strong. Here it means to make firm. Nothing in the verb requires a treaty with a future ruler.
Many sincere Christians, especially those shaped by dispensational teaching and the Scofield Reference Bible, read these verses another way. Here is their case at its strongest.
Sixty-nine sevens ended at the cross, then the clock stopped for the church age. The seventieth seven is future: the prince of verse 26 rises as a world ruler, makes a seven year treaty with Israel, breaks it halfway and stops sacrifices in a rebuilt temple. That is the tribulation.
Seventy sevens are determined. One number, counted in order. Verse 27 never mentions a treaty, a rebuilt temple, a pause or a tribulation. Each has to be carried in from elsewhere.
In fairness, the gap reading rests on two real observations. Verse 26 never says in so many words that the cutting off happens during the seventieth seven. And the nearest person before the “he” of verse 27 is “the prince that shall come.” Good scholars read that “he” differently.
Jeremiah's seventy years, the prophecy Daniel was praying over, ran straight through. Putting two thousand years between the sixty-ninth and seventieth seven turns a number into something else.
In verse 26 the subject who destroys is “the people,” not the prince. The passage is about the anointed one, and reading the “he” of verse 27 as the Messiah keeps the focus where verse 24 put it.
He quoted Daniel in Matthew 24:15 and said this generation would not pass until all these things happened. Luke 21:20 says it plainly: Jerusalem surrounded by armies. We walk through that chapter in the Olivet Discourse and the phrase itself in the abomination of desolation.
The paused seventieth week drives decades of anxious prophecy charts, keeping ordinary believers watching the news for a coming dictator and bracing for a great tribulation that Jesus placed in the first century. Daniel was pointing at a Messiah, not a villain.
Most critical scholars date Daniel to the crisis under Antiochus IV Epiphanes in the 160s BC. Here the anointed one cut off is the high priest Onias III, murdered around 171 BC (2 Maccabees 4), and sacrifice stops midway through the final seven when Antiochus defiled the temple in 167 BC.
This reading sees something real. Daniel 8 and 11 plainly describe Antiochus, and pretending otherwise is not careful reading. Our Book of Daniel summary treats that history openly.
Where it strains is the numbers. From any sixth century start to 171 BC is far short of 434 years, so its defenders treat the figures as schematic. And Josephus, writing after AD 70, saw more in Daniel than Antiochus. Having described that persecution, he adds that “Daniel also wrote concerning the Roman government, and that our country should be made desolate by them.” Josephus was no Christian and had no stake in our reading.
Anointed one: Jesus. Final seven: still future, split off by a gap. The “he” of verse 27: a coming antichrist.
Anointed one: Onias III. Final seven: 171 to 164 BC. The “he” of verse 27: Antiochus IV.
Anointed one: Jesus. Final seven: His ministry and the cross. The city's fall: AD 70, within His generation.
A real city, a real temple and a real people, and the end of an age of sacrifice.
Daniel prayed for a city. Gabriel answered with a person.
Daniel wanted Jerusalem rebuilt and the sacrifices restored. God gave him more than he asked: an anointed one who would end sin, make atonement, bring in lasting righteousness and make a covenant strong for many. The city and its temple mattered, and they were always pointing past themselves.
So this is not a puzzle to keep you nervous. The six goals are done. You are not waiting for everlasting righteousness. You stand in it, in a kingdom that is here now.
One caution. Fulfilled eschatology held with contempt for believers who read it differently has missed the point of the covenant it celebrates.
For related reading, see what Messiah means, the new covenant, how many covenants are in the Bible and whether we are in the end times. If you are in Suffolk County, come study Scripture with us in Deer Park.
Seventy sevens, counted without a pause from a Persian decree, reach the Messiah who was cut off, made the new covenant strong for many and ended sacrifice, with the city falling in AD 70 within the generation He named.
If the charts have left you confused or anxious, send us your question. Someone at Sound of Heaven will read it and walk through the text with you.
The 70 weeks of Daniel are seventy sevens of years, 490 years in total, announced by the angel Gabriel in Daniel 9:24 to 27. The count begins with a decree to restore and build Jerusalem and reaches the Messiah, who is cut off and makes a covenant strong for many. At Sound of Heaven we read it as one continuous count fulfilled in the ministry and death of Jesus, with the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 following within that generation.
The text does not describe one. Dispensational teaching places a pause of two thousand years or more between the sixty-ninth and seventieth sevens, and puts the final seven years in the future under an antichrist. Daniel 9 mentions no pause, no rebuilt temple and no seven year treaty. Jeremiah's seventy years ran without interruption, and Jesus placed the desolation Daniel spoke of within His own generation. We believe the count ran straight through.
Grammatically the nearest figure is the prince that shall come in verse 26, which is why some read it as a future antichrist. But the subject of the whole passage is the anointed one, and the verb means to make a covenant strong or firm. We read it as the Messiah making the new covenant firm for many, which Jesus described at the Last Supper as His blood shed for many for the remission of sins. Faithful scholars disagree on this point.
Verse 25 starts the count at a command to restore and build Jerusalem. The main candidates are Cyrus in 538 BC, Ezra under Artaxerxes in 458 or 457 BC, and Nehemiah in 445 or 444 BC. The Ezra date reaches the baptism of Jesus around AD 26 or 27 without adjustment, and it is the one we prefer. Because ancient dates carry a margin of a year or two, we do not claim the prophecy lands on a single day.
Daniel 9:26 says the people of the prince to come would destroy the city and the sanctuary, and verse 27 speaks of desolation. Roman armies did exactly that in AD 70, when Jerusalem fell and the temple burned. Jesus quoted Daniel and said it would happen to His own generation, and the Jewish historian Josephus also read Daniel as foretelling a desolation by Rome.