Daniel 4.2: Seventy Weeks of Years
 
 
There are end times bible teachers who will tell you that the 9th chapter of Daniel (and specifically verses 24 to 27) is the most important part of the whole bible. One such teacher is Chuck Missler. We will use the interpretation provided in his book “Cosmic Codes” (233-242) Missler (like those upon whose work he draws) performs some wonderful calculations with the numbers provided in those verses. All this number crunching probably started with the publication of a book called 'The Coming Prince', written by Robert Anderson in 1894. (cited Missler Cosmic Codes 236, 242 and also available from a lot of sites on the internet) To make the calculations work, you must be prepared to work with two concepts.. first concept: weeks of years. - a week of years is 7 * 7 years = 49 years second concept: a 'gap' of indeterminate length between the 69th week of years and 70th week of years. (Keep in mind that a week of years is 7 * 7 years = 49 years) So when you get to the 69th week of years, you put everything on hold for an indeterminate length between the 69th week of years and 70th week of years. Daniel chapter 9:2 tells how, in the first year of Darius, son of Xerxes, Daniel is reading Jeremiah 25:11-12 This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. Then after seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, says the LORD, making the land an everlasting waste. To work with Daniel’s seventy years, it is necessary to get some bearings. When does the seventy years start from? There were actually three Babylonian invasions of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, but the first of these was in 608-9 BCE. 608 - 609 BCE: This whole land of Israel shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. Jeremiah prophesied that the exile would last 70 years, and in 538 BCE (70 years later) Cyrus the Persian Emperor conquered Babylon and allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem (if they wanted to). 538 BCE: Then after seventy years are completed, Cyrus the Persian (my servant) will punish the king of Babylon and allow the Jews to return to Jerusalem So Daniel assumed that the 70 years of atonement had passed. But then he had a vision in which an angel told him it was a bit more complicated that that. The atonement of Israel would last 70 weeks of years (7 multiplied by 70), not just the 70 years of enforced exile in Babylon You get the background to it in the book of Nehemiah. Earlier expeditions had been granted leave by the Persians to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, but their efforts had been hindered by the antagonistic locals. Jerusalem needed some city walls to repel their attacks, and Nehemiah was granted permission to rebuild these walls. 445 BCE: Artaxerxes Longimanis makes Nehemiah Governor of Jerusalem. This years marks the start of the 70 weeks of 7 years that would... Take away transgression tears Your deeds atone and right enthrone And seal up all the visions to the prophets have been shown Nehemiah was appointed the Persian Governor of Jerusalem in 445 BCE and introduced some much needed order. The 70 weeks of years of Daniel will start from the date that Nehemiah appeared in Jerusalem in 445 BCE to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Remember that date –it is important. Let’s recapitulate all that by going back to Daniel and his vision. Daniel sees that the 70 years of atonement decreed by God in Jeremiah should just about be up so he prays to God about it and Gabriel, the angel visits him Daniel 9:24 "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. Seventy weeks of seven years To wipe away transgression’s tears Your deeds atone and right enthrone And seal all the visions to the prophets have been shown So the 70 years of the Jews spent exiled in Babylon, mentioned in Jeremiah 25:11-12, is not the full extent of the penance, atonement and rehabilitation. It will actually take 70 weeks of years. Daniel 9:25 "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. There was a decree by Cyrus to rebuild the temple. The first few chapters of Zechariah tell what happened as a result of that. However the decree to rebuild Jerusalem was given by Artaxerxes I Longimnanus (465-424 BC). Nehemiah chapter 2 tells how this happened in the 20th year of the reign of Artaxerxes. That would make it 445 B.C.E. Notice that there are 2 periods mentioned. 7 sevens or weeks of years 62 sevens or weeks of years  So to do the number crunching you must Add 62 and 7 and get 69. These are weeks of years so you need to multiply the 69 by 7 to get 483 years Now deduct the 483 from the starting date - the going forth of the decree to rebuild Jerusalem in 445 BC You should have -38. We can change the sign since we stop counting backwards when go from B.C.E. to the Common Era (C.E.) or AD if you are more comfortable with that phrase. Remember there is no year 0 AD so deduct 1 from 38. That gives you 37 Remember that they discovered that the birth date of Jesus was 4 years out, so instead of changing the calendars, they just treated Jesus as being born in 4 B.C.E. - so deduct another 4 from 37 and you get 33 Still with us? Jesus is said to have been 30 years old when he started his ministry (Luke 3:23) and it seems that his ministry lasted 3 years.  So he was killed in 33 AD - the year, according to our calculations that the Anointed One will be cut off and will have nothing Daniel 9:26... After the sixty-two `sevens,' the Anointed One will be cut off and will have nothing. So the world should have ended just 49 years after 33 C E – that’s 82? Obviously it did not. So bible scholars tried to explain it with the GAP that comes after the 69th year of seventy years of Daniel, but before the 70th year of seventy years of Daniel. We will return to this gap later on, but if you are curious, you can get a handle on it by reading Romans chapter 11 and particularly verse 25 ... It lasts until until the full number of the Gentiles has come in... Daniel__please_explain.html
Seventy weeks of seven years Take away transgression tears Your deeds atone and right enthrone And seal up all the visions to the prophets have been shown Seven weeks of seven til the temple rises on the hill that Zion climbs And walls and streets and trenches will be built in troubled times Then sixty-two weeks til the chosen one will be cut off in his prime And the iron beast will destroy my cityh Without reason and without rhyme And my chosen ones will be forced to flee to what refuge they can find To famine, war and pestilence til they return in my own time 

Daniel’s 70 weeks and the History of the World