Daniel 9:25 Commentary and Bible Study

Here is a complex statement. ‘Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be’, and then there are two periods of time. What is referred to first? ‘Understand this, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem.’ The rebuilding hadn't happened yet, at the time Daniel receives this vision, but it would happen soon. In about the year 536 BC would be the edict of Cyrus; it is undoubtedly referring to that. The edict of Cyrus is so prominent in Scripture. Isaiah prophesies that Cyrus would come – even his name is provided – and that he would give the command for the city, for Jerusalem to be rebuilt, and for the people to be returned to their homeland. This is clearly a reference to the same event, to Cyrus the Persian conqueror of Babylon. So ‘Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment’, the edict of Cyrus, ‘to restore and to build Jerusalem’ – Cyrus doesn't actually speak of the building of Jerusalem; he speaks of the building rather of the temple, but if you rebuild the temple, you obviously rebuild the city as well – ‘unto the Messiah the Prince [Christ] shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks.’ So this period of seventy sevens is divided into three. We find that seven of the sevens and sixty-two of the sevens – threescore and two – are separately mentioned. What a curious thing! That brings us to sixty-nine. From Cyrus to the Messiah will be seven sevens and sixty-two sevens, a total of sixty-nine. Why not tell us sixty-nine? Why break it into two? Because the passage goes on to say: ‘the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off.’ Now that we can understand it. So its sixty-nine weeks between Cyrus and Messiah – sixty-nine sevens, a symbolic number – broken into two parts. Seven sevens until the wall is rebuilt, and sixty-two sevens from the building of the temple and the wall until Messiah comes. Now it's really not possible to couple those times with actual dates, therefore many run to the refuge – you may say cowardly – of treating these periods as symbolic. Maybe we have not worked it out correctly, but it seems probable that it is intended to be symbolic. All efforts to treat the numbers as literal miss in some respect or other, but they do give you pretty well the proportions. Because it's remarkable that the seven sevens come so close, proportionally. It has been computed that if you were to call the seven an eight, then proportionately it fits pretty well perfectly. You have got the correct proportions of time between Cyrus and the successful rebuilding of the wall and the temple under Ezra and Nehemiah, and from the time of Ezra and Nehemiah to Christ. The proportions are exactly that: seven and sixty-two periods of time. But it doesn't give any clue as to what those periods of time would be. We can see it now, with hindsight. We can see the proportions are right, but you can't fit up the symbolic number to literal years; it doesn't work. That is why there is all the debate and confusion among those that try to do it. Anyway, the essence of it is: this is seventy weeks: sixty-nine weeks between Cyrus and Messiah. The first seven weeks – we are calling them weeks, but they are sevens – until the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the wall, and the next sixty-two to the coming of the Messiah. The final week equals the time of Christ, his life and ministry and work on earth; the seventieth seven, possibly ends in A.D. 70 when Jerusalem was sacked by the Romans. Messiah will do all these things in the last seven, the last week, and the vision has already told Daniel what those things are.