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Biblion Bible Commentary

Read the introduction to Daniel · About this commentary

To the Anointed One, the Prince

Daniel 9:25-27

25 “Know therefore and discern that from the going out of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem to the Anointed One, the prince, will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. It will be built again, with street and moat, even in troubled times. · WEB

The period is anchored to a datable decree and divided into three unequal parts — and its last week holds an anointing, a covenant, and a sacrifice caused to cease.

Know therefore and discern that from the going out of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem to the Anointed One, the prince, will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks Daniel 9:25.

A starting gun, and it is a document. The commandment to restore and build Jerusalem is not the decree to rebuild the temple — Cyrus's decree, which had just been issued, concerned the house of God Ezra 1:2–3. Three Persian decrees stand behind the restoration, and Scripture names all three together as one continuous authorization Ezra 6:14. The one that authorized the city itself, with civil administration, courts, and revenues, was carried by Ezra in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the king Ezra 7:7 Ezra 7:13 — a year fixed by Persian records at 457 before Christ, and the decree went into effect when Ezra reached Jerusalem in the fifth month of it Ezra 7:8.

From there, seven weeks and sixty-two weeks — sixty-nine sevens, 483 years — to the Anointed One, the prince. Counting 483 years from 457 BC arrives at AD 27, and the vision itself says what happens there: an anointing Daniel 9:24. The Anointed One was anointed at the Jordan, when the Spirit descended on him in bodily form Luke 3:21–22 Acts 10:38 — dated by the evangelist to the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar Luke 3:1 — and he began preaching a sentence that presumes a calendar: the time is fulfilled Mark 1:15.

The first seven weeks are given their own event: it will be built again, with street and moat, even in troubled times — forty-nine years of reconstruction against opposition, which is precisely the story Ezra and Nehemiah tell Nehemiah 4:1 Nehemiah 4:16–18.

After the sixty-two weeks the Anointed One will be cut off, and will have nothing Daniel 9:26.

The Messiah is not crowned; he is cut off — the word used for a life terminated, and used of the servant who was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of others Isaiah 53:8. And will have nothing: no kingdom taken, no vindication received, nothing to show. The most important sentence in the prophecy predicts a death that looks like a failure.

The people of the prince who come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end will be with a flood, and war will be even to the end. Desolations are determined.

Then the consequence, outside the seventy weeks and after them: the city and sanctuary Daniel had prayed for Daniel 9:17–19 would be rebuilt, and destroyed again. The Lord announced the same ruin and cited this book while doing it Matthew 24:15 Luke 19:43–44 Luke 21:20.

He will make a firm covenant with many for one week. In the middle of the week he will cause the sacrifice and the offering to cease Daniel 9:27.

The seventieth week, and the subject is still the Anointed One — he confirms a covenant with many, the language of the new covenant and of the many for whom the blood was poured out Jeremiah 31:31 Isaiah 53:11 Matthew 26:28 Romans 15:8. The week runs from AD 27; its midpoint is AD 31, three and a half years into a ministry that lasted exactly that; and there he will cause the sacrifice and the offering to cease. Not abolished by decree — made pointless by fulfillment. When the true Lamb was offered, the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom Matthew 27:51 Hebrews 10:11–14, and every animal on that altar afterward pointed at nothing. The half-week remaining ran to about AD 34, the gospel held to Israel until the stoning of Stephen scattered the church into wider fields Acts 8:1 Acts 8:4.

So the shorter line closes, and the longer one runs on. Seventy weeks — 490 years — cut off from 2,300 years Daniel 8:14 at the same 457 BC beginning; and 2,300 years from that point reach 1844. What the angel gave Daniel was not two prophecies but one measuring line with a mark on it: the near end verified by events the whole world can date, and the far end arriving at the sanctuary set right and the court that had already been seen in session Daniel 7:9–10 Daniel 7:22.

held with reason What this mark means