In Part I, we introduced the Seventy Weeks prophecy, discussing its historical setting, and briefly outlined the prophecy. In this part, we will delve into the prophecy in greater detail.
1. A prophecy Setting a Time Limit On the Jews as a Nation
A certain amount of probationary time, seventy prophetic “weeks,” or 490 literal years, has been set apart, marked off, and “determined” for the Jewish nation. I believe the 490 years was marked off, or cut off, from the longer 2,300 prophetic days/literal years prophecy mentioned in Daniel 8:14. Two different temples are referred to in Daniel. The 70 weeks or 490 literal years comprises the time allotted to the earthly temple and the caretakers of the earthly temple, the Jews.
The remainder of the 2,300 years (1,810) takes place during the Christian era, when Christ, our High Priest after the order of Melchizedek, ministers for us in the sanctuary in heaven. At the end of the 2,300 days, the heavenly sanctuary is cleansed, meaning that the anti-typical day of atonement is taking place. But this is a subject for another day; in this series we are studying the 70 weeks prophecy.
Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, (Dan. 9:24)
This period of time has been “determined.” Insofar as the time is concerned, this is not a conditional prophecy. Had the Jews repented and accepted Jesus as the Messiah, the way the prophecy was fulfilled would have been very different, but the time period was fixed and would not change.
The time period has been determined for “thy people,” meaning Daniel’s countrymen, the Jewish people. This is their final probation, as a people, a group, a nation.
Moreover, this prophetic time period concerns not only the the Jewish people but also “upon thy holy city,” meaning the city of Jerusalem. The time period was “determined” upon the Jews and upon the city of Jerusalem. Whatever was to happen at the end of this time would happen not only to the Jewish people but also to their city.
2. A Messianic Prophecy, meaning that it points to Jesus the Messiah
The Seventy Weeks Prohecy is a Messianic prophecy, a prophecy about Jesus the Christ (in Greek) or Jesus the Messiah (in Hebrew). The word “Messiah” appears twice:
from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince
A period of time, 69 prophetic weeks, runs from a royal command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem to the appearance of the Messiah. We are also told that after a time,
shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself
With two references to the Messiah, we know with certainty that this prophecy sets the time for the coming of Jesus Christ. No one could possibly doubt that this is a time prophecy that points to the First Advent of Jesus Christ unless he was unfamiliar with Christianity, or had consciously rejected it.
3. What needed to be done during the 490 years?
This brings us to one of the most interesting parts of the prophecy: The list, in Daniel 9:24, of what needed to be accomplished during the 490 years. This list includes items that could only be accomplished by the Messiah, which is yet another reason we know this is a Messianic prophecy:
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. (Dan. 9:24)
But not everything on this list is to be done by the Messiah. The first two items—to finish the transgression and make an end of sins—were to be accomplished by the Jews themselves.
a. To Finish the Transgression
Note that “to finish the transgression” has a definite article in it: “the transgression.” That means there is one transgression in view here. What is the transgression?
The Hebrew word translated as “transgression” is pesha, meaning revolt or rebellion, signifying or denoting a wilful and deliberate break with God’s revealed will. Unlike inadvertent sin, pesha is a conscious revolt that fractures a covenant relationship, producing guilt that only divine forgiveness can remove.
Pesha occurs 93 times in the Old Testament; its use is concentrated in the prophets—especially Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, and Amos. Clearly, the prophets were concerned about Israel’s rebellion, which resulted in a breach of their covenant relationship with God.
The Septuagint was the Bible of Jesus and the apostles. I like to look up the Septuagint translation of biblical Hebrew words, because the Greek Old Testament brings us closer to the Greek New Testament, and to the Western mindset of today. The Greek word used for pesha in the Septuagint of Daniel 9 is “παράπτωμα” (paraptōma). Paraptoma is stepping across a line, and just as with pesha, the term paraptoma is often used to mean the breach of a covenant.
By contrast, the Greek word translated into English as “sin” is hamartia, a term from archery meaning, “missing the mark.” When we miss the mark, we were aiming to do the right thing, but the weakness and frailty of our sinful humanity resulted in failure, in missing the mark. So “transgression” is not an ordinary sin, not the unintentional failure of “missing the mark” but, rather, intentional rebellion that breaches a covenant.
The covenant in view here is between God and Israel. God promised certain blessings to Israel and, in return, Israel promised obedience to God’s laws. Every time there was a discussion of the covenant between God and Israel, Israel swore they would do everything God wanted of them. For example:
Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people, who replied, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” Ex. 24:7
See, also, Ex. 24:3; Deut. 5:27; Joshua 24; Jer. 42:6; 2 Kings 23:3; 2 Chron. 34:31.
Although Israel promised over and over to keep the covenant, they seldom did. The sad history of Israel is that they continually broke the laws, they stoned the prophets sent to them, and they killed the landlord’s son when God finally sent His only begotten Son, Jesus, to this earth.
Daniel is being warned that the Jews have 490 years to stop breaching the covenant. The Jews could either “finish the transgression” by keeping the covenant, or they could “finish the transgression,” in the sense of putting the capstone of completion on their rebellion by killing the landlord’s Son. We know the choice they made.
Paul uses a cognate of paraptoma in Romans 11:11, when he is discussing the Jews’ rejection of Christ: “because of their transgression [paraptomati], salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make Israel envious.” Because the Jews transgressed, and would not keep their covenant, salvation has come to the gentiles—which ought to make the Jews envious, Paul reasoned, and lead them to salvation in Jesus Christ.
Paul continued in verse 12: “Now if the fall [paraptoma] of them be the riches of the world,” how much greater the blessings when they are converted and come into the church? Given Paul’s language in Romans 11, it is clear that “the transgression” was Israel’s breach of its covenant relationship with God, culminating in the rejection of Jesus Christ.
The pesha or paraptoma, the rebellion or transgression of the Jewish people, is what eventually brought on the “abomination of desolation,” the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, and the permanent cessation of the temple ritual. Because they did not repent of their corporate transgression during their 490 years of probation—to the contrary, their rebellion culminated in the murder of Jesus the Messiah (1 Thess. 2:14-15; Acts 2:23; 3:14-15; 7:52; 13:28) —the Jews brought national ruin upon themselves.
In 66 AD, they rebelled against the Roman Empire, which resulted, in 70 AD, in Titus destroying Jerusalem, including Herod’s magnificent temple. This rebellion is known as the “First Jewish War,” but is also called “the War of Destruction” and “the Great Jewish Revolt.”
The last act in this drama was Flavius Silva’s siege of Masada, which ended in 73 AD, when the leader of the Sicarii defending the fortress, Eleazar ben Yair, ordered a collective murder/suicide that took the lives of 960 of the 967 rebels. Only two women and five children survived by hiding in a cistern.
But there were to be two more rebellions against Rome within a seventy-year period: The Diaspora Revolt of 115 to 117 AD, and the Bar Kokhba Revolt of 132 to 136 AD. After the Bar Kokhba revolt, the Jews were without a homeland for over eighteen centuries.
That the transgression caused the desolation is implied in the seventy-weeks prophecy of Daniel 9, but is made more clear in Daniel 8 where the same incident is discussed: “Because of transgression [Heb. pesha; Sept. Gr. paraptoma] an army was given over [to Rome] to oppose the daily [sacrifices]”. (Dan. 8:12 NKJV) Note that it is because of the transgression that Jerusalem, the temple, and the Jews were handed over to destruction at the hands of a Roman army.
The NIV of Daniel 8:13 speaks of “the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, the rebellion that causes desolation, the surrender of the sanctuary . . .” Note that the translators of the NIV correctly translate pesha (found in both verses 12 and 13) as “rebellion.” Dan. 8:13 highlights the fact that the rebellion caused the desolation. The Jews’ intentional, rebellious, and continued breach of the covenant, culminating in their demand that God’s Son be crucified (Luke 23:22-24), led to their destruction in 70 AD.
Let us look again at Romans 11:12-13, which we discussed above. The paraptomati was the Jews “transgression” as translated in verse 12, and paraptoma was the “fall” of the Jews in verse 13. Not only did the “transgression” cause the “fall,” the transgression effectively was the fall; the same Greek word is translated into both “transgression” and “fall.” The Jews’ fall led to their fall. Their spiritual fall led to their physical fall. Their spiritual transgression/rebellion led to the physical destruction of Israel and the temple, the death of over a million Jews, and the enslavement of some 100,000, and finally, after the Bar Kokhba Revolt, the 18 centuries of Jewish statelessness.
b. To Make an End of Sins
Here we have in view ordinary sins, “חַטָּאת” (chatta’ah) in the Hebrew, “hammartias” in the Septugint Greek. “To make an end of sins” would follow the finishing of the transgression. If Israel had ceased its rebellion and kept the covenant, it would have forsaken its ordinary sins as well. Israel’s inability to let go of its common sins, like covetousness and greed, stemmed from the transgression, the rebellious breaching of Israel’s covenant with God.
Thus it is with our personal salvation. We can overcome our ordinary sins only by embracing the new covenant of salvation through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. (Mat. 26:28; Heb. 9:15; 1 Cor. 11:25). Only when we admit we have nothing worthy of salvation (Rom. 7:18), and accept the New Covenant, which is the gift of salvation by faith in Christ, does God impart to us power to overcome sin. (Philip. 1:6; 2:13; 2 Cor. 12:9)
c. To Make Reconciliation for iniquity
“To make reconciliation for iniquity” is something that Christ did on the cross (Rom. 5:10-11), and continues to do in the heavenly sanctuary (Heb. 9:12, 24), and that Christ alone could do (Eph. 2:14-17). When he died on the cross bearing the sins of mankind, he reconciled a world full of fallen sinners to God.
“For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” (Rom. 5:10-11).
“God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. (2 Cor. 5:18-19)
“Once you were alienated from God and were enemies . . . because of your evil behavior. But now [God] has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation. (Col. 1:19-22)
Christ was and is the One who reconciles humanity to God. Since the act of reconciliation did not take place until 31 AD, we know that the 70 weeks or 490 years does not end until after that date.
d. To Bring In Everlasting Righteousness
“To bring in everlasting righteousness” is, again, something only Christ could do. The cross is bringing in everlasting righteousness. The sacrifice of Christ allowed individual sinners to be saved eternally:
“He always lives to intercede for them.” (Heb. 7:25).
“For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” (Heb. 10:14).
But because Jesus lives forever, He has a permanent priesthood. (Heb. 7:24)
The LORD has sworn and will not change His mind: “You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.” (Psalm 110:4).
He did not enter by the blood of goats and calves, but He entered the Holy Place once for all by His own blood, thus securing eternal redemption. (Heb. 9:12)
. . . we have been sanctified through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (Heb. 10:10).
The cross also makes possible a new, re-created earth that will last forever:
“Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. . . . Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. . . . And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” Rev. 21:1-4
Clearly, only Jesus could “bring in everlasting righteousness.”
Stay tuned for Part III!
