Notes on our continuing study in Daniel are now available for the seventy week prophecy found in chapter nine.
Daniel’s prophecy of seventy weeks contains the key to understanding all end times prophecy. While much misunderstanding exists, allowing the Bible to explain itself makes the 70 week prophecy clear and easily understood.
View the complete Daniel commentary.
Daniel 9:24 - Seventy WEEKS
All end time Biblical prophetic time frames are in actual (literal) time, in other words, a day is a day, a year is a year, an hour is an hour, as it is “written”
Daniel 9:24’s Seventy WEEKS are just that – 70 weeks x 7 days per week = 490 DAYS.
The 490 (literal) DAYS will be fulfilled/completed at the Seventh TRUMPET (1 Thess.4:16-17).
Seventy WEEKS (Dan.9:24) are determined upon thy people (within thy holy city, Jerusalem - Zech.14:2) AND upon thy holy city (Jerusalem), to FINISH the transgression (against the saints of the most High – Matt.24:9, Dan.7:21, Dan.7:25, Dan.8:24, Re.12:17, Re.13:7, Re.13:15, Re.16:6, Re.17:6, Dan.12:6-7), 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 (Dan.8:17, Dan.8:26, Dan.10:14, Dan.11:35, Dan.12:4, Hab.2:3), and to anoint the most Holy.
The most Holy (Dan.9:24) are the remnant (144,000) seen in the city at Revelation 11:13 giving glory to God just prior to the ascension.
Patricia (©) Bible Prophecy on the Web Author of the self-study aid, The Book of Revelation Explained © 1982
They’re literal for sure, but a week isn’t necessarily what you think of as a week. It’s a translational and cultural issue which causes the confusion.
What’s translated Seventy weeks is really seventy sevens. Much like we use the term decade to mean 10 years, seventy sevens means seventy weeks of years. This becomes clear when considering how the Bible describes the period of time of the tribulation — the period of the great tribulation is referred to as:
Obviously, all those periods must be the same length of time, so a few things become obvious:
The seventy weeks of Daniel is actually 70 seven year periods (490) of 360 day years.
No, the seventy weeks of Daniel represent weeks of years. If you’re going to try and make them 490 days, you’ve got big problems trying to reconcile the (what would be) contradictory mentions of the length of time of the tribulation we noted above.
Hopefully that clears it up; you can read the entire commentary on Daniel’s seventy weeks for greater detail if you’re interested.