Unravelling Daniel’s prophecy of the weeks is like executing a “paint-by-numbers”. When you first get a paint by numbers the canvas is a confused jumble of numbers…
First though some background information: the book of Daniel, found in the old Testament, was written in Babylon during the time of the Babylonian Captivity by Daniel who was a prophet. In this book he is given visions of future events which he writes down. Like many of his fellow Jews Daniel was carried off from the kingdom of Judah to Babylon and remained there until the 70 years of exile were over. However, in the modern age questions have arisen about this book: Was it actually written by a prophet named Daniel, or was it written at a much later date by someone else after the events described actually took place? Was it perhaps a collection of Aramaic court stories expanded upon? Is it part fiction? The Babylonian Captivity took place during the 6th century BC. There are at least two positions on this.
One view is that this book was written after the fulfillment of these "prophecies", around 162 B.C. Here is a quote from the Navarre Bible1 taking up this position. (Note that I will discuss some verses from chapter 9 further on in this post):
The visions in chapters 7-12 come to an end with the persecution of Anthiochus IV Epiphanes who profaned the temple of Jerusalem, set up a statue of Zeus Olympus there and proscribed Jewish religious rites. This indicates that the visions were written down sometime prior to the year 164 [B.C.] (the year when Judas Maccabeus recovered the temple and purified it, and the year, too, when Antiochus IV died) ...events which the book of Daniel does not mention.
Which in my opinion is an odd thing to have in a Catholic bible - it's like a salesman telling a prospective buyer to buy a product that he himself does not really believe works! After all, at the time they are written, prophecies, of which belief in their reality is an intrinsic part of Judaism and Christianity, are supposed to be predictions of future events, not a historical account of them.
The second, and the more longstanding view, which was the accepted one, until around the 17th century, is that the book of Daniel dates from the 5th or 6th centuries B.C. Mark Haughwout2 has a very thorough and well written defense of the idea that the writer actually lived during the time of the Babylonian Captivity and that was when the book was written. I will very briefly summarize some of his arguments but cannot do them full justice. See the link above.
There are some strong arguments for this. First, the Hebrew of Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles and Esther is similar to that found in Daniel. Second, the Apocryphal books of the Hellenistic period came to us in Greek, but as mentioned above, Daniel was written in Hebrew, with an Aramaic section between 2:4b and 7:28. Third, the occurrence of Old Persian words in the text, that were unknown in the Hellenistic period, requires a date much earlier than 165 B.C. Fourth, there is strong evidence from a number of sources that the Aramaic is from the 5th to 7th centuries.
Regarding the Aramaic in Daniel, Haughwout quotes Wilson:
This Aramaic is almost exactly the same as that which is found in portions of Ezra. On account of the large number of Babylonian and Persian words characteristic of this Aramaic and of that of the papyri recently found in Egypt, as well as on account of the general similarity of the nominal, verbal and other forms, and of the syntactical construction, the Aramaic of this period might properly be called the Babylonian-Persian Aramaic.3
Haughwout also offers a theory as to why the book was written partly in Hebrew and partly in Aramaic:
Perhaps the Aramaic section of the book was intended for publication on a large scale and was also therefore written in the language of the Empire. If the writer was recording Nebuchadnezzar’s words in the lingua franca of the day in order to declare the sovereignty of the God of Israel to the surrounding nations, then the use of Old Aramaic makes sense. But why use Old Aramaic if the book was written c. 165 [B.C.] in the Hellenistic period.
So what about the prophecies in this book? I would like to focus on one in particular. In chapter 9 of the book of Daniel, Daniel writes down a prophecy that the Archangel Gabriel gives him (emphasis mine):
24 Seventy weeks of years are decreed concerning your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place.
25 Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time.
26 And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off, and shall have nothing; and the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war; desolations are decreed.
27 And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week; and for half of the week he shall cause sacrifice and offering to cease; and upon the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.
I am going to rely on a very good book about a different topic - the Rapture - a belief held among some Protestants, but the book in question deals with the above prophecy in detail. It is "Rapture - The End-Times Error That Leaves the Bible Behind" by David B. Currie. The Rapture is not the topic of this blog post so I will not dwell on discussing this, rather I want to talk about his explanation of the passages above.
If you have ever worked on a "paint-by-numbers" kit, at first the scene looks flat and confusing. But once you start filling in the numbered colours the texture and pattern starts to be revealed. The numerology in Daniel's prophesies breathe a life into the flat canvas of ancient history and reveal the details of the greatest story ever told. To understand this numerology, first one must have a knowledge of the history of the Israelites after the captivity…the timelines of important events. Second, one must understand the meaning of numbers in scripture which are used to describe this timeline. Currie points out that numbers are symbols, not to be taken precisely:
...in Old Testament times, numbers had a symbolic meaning. Often, this symbolic meaning bears more importance than the literal numerical value. The number three was the number of God. The number four was the number symbolizing earth. Seven (three plus four) and twelve (three times four) signified God working in the world. Ten was the number of completion. Even multiples of these numbers were important to ancient Jews4.
So what is the meaning of the weeks in this prophecy? For that Currie combines the above two ingredients - biblical numerical symbols and history to paint the picture. In verse 24 above, the first mention of the seventy weeks of years is not a specific span of time but rather the number of seasons that must pass before the fulfillment of the six blessings in this verse. Recall 7 symbolizes God working in the world and 10 symbolizes completion. So 7 x 10 = 70 is symbolic of the completion of God’s work. Currie also points out there are six blessings in this verse: 1. To finish the transgression, 2. to put an end to sin, 3. and to atone for iniquity, 4. to bring in everlasting righteousness, 5. to seal both vision and prophet, 6. and to anoint a most holy place.5
Verse 25 does give a specific time period up "to the coming of an anointed one, a prince": Seven weeks. The simplest interpretation for the span of time a week would entail here would be the same as that by which the “one week” in verse 27 is clearly understood by the Church - one week is comprised of seven seasons and each season is a decade. (In this context to say a week comprises 7 "days" does not make sense! So "seasons" are used instead.) So that adds up to 70 years for each week. Thus 7 weeks of 70 years each gives 7 x 70 years or 490 years.
From this vision the start time is the decree "to restore and build Jerusalem". When did that happen? That was issued around 457 BC by the Persian King Artexerxes. Our prophetic number of 490 years added onto 457 BC makes perfect sense taking us to 32 AD - roughly the time of the beginning of the public ministry of Christ - the "anointed one" or "prince" described in verse 25.
What about the rebuilding of the temple which must happen before the coming of the anointed one? Near the end of verse 25 there is mention of sixty-two weeks. Before I go on, two points here: 1. There is no need for these sixty-two weeks to follow after the seven weeks or 490 years! They can in fact overlap. 2. Currie does not interpret a week in this case as 70 years but rather as seven years. (Each of the seven seasons in the week are therefore a year, NOT a decade. More on this below.)
So the 62 weeks or 62 x 7 years per week amounts to 434 years. Now the "going forth of the word to restore and build Jerusalem" in 457 B.C. and the actual start of the building did not coincide. According to Currie: "Nehemiah asked Artexerxes to write another decree between 446 and 444 B.C. (Neh. 2:3-13). The actual building of Jerusalem began around 444 B.C."6 So that is when the 62 week or 434 year span starts. This will take us from 444 B.C. until 10 B.C. The latter date marked the end of the last construction project on the temple before Christ's advent. And these 434 years were indeed troubled times for Israel. So using 7 years per week rather than 70 fits very well with history.
After the rebuilding of the temple in 10 B.C. and the coming of the anointed one, verse 26 tells the reader that the "anointed one shall be cut off, and shall have nothing" and the city and temple will be destroyed with war and "desolations". This is exactly what happened: The Messiah, Jesus Christ, was the Prince and it was his people who destroyed the city through their warring, divided factions which were led by ambitious and evil criminals. ("Flavius Josephus Eyewitness to Rome's First-Century Conquest of Judea" by Mireilee Hadas-Lebel, gives an excellent account of the Judean war from 66 to 70 A.D. and the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.)
In verse 27 the week is interpreted as beginning with the Incarnation, around 4 B.C. and running seven decades up until the period from 67 to 70 A.D. Currie writes: "The 'strong covenant' of Daniel is that New Covenant which Christ made with is own Precious Blood. Isaiah called this covenant everlasting: 'I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast sure love for David' (55:3)."7 Halfway through this week of seven decades Jesus' crucifixion, death and resurrection (c. 30 A.D.) ushers in the new strong covenant and puts an end to the animal sacrifices of the Old Covenant for the prophesied "half week". Regarding the "wing of abominations", the standard of the Roman army was an Eagle, considered unclean to the Jews, and the desolator, Nero, who sent the army in 67 A.D., met his decreed end, committing suicide.8
So this prophecy is a prediction of of Christ's advent, appearing to the world at the end of seventy weeks from Daniel's vision. All of the six blessings in verse 24 above were fulfilled at the end of these seventy weeks too: "after Him the crimes were consummated, and sin reached its end and iniquity was destroyed. An eternal righteousness also was proclaimed which overcame the mere righteousness of the law; and the vision and the prophecy were fulfilled inasmuch as the Law and the Prophets endured until the time of John the Baptist, and then the Saint of saints was anointed".9
A skeptic might object to assigning 7 years to the 62 weeks of verse 25, while giving the week of verse 27 and the 7 weeks of verse 25 seventy years. Here are my thoughts: First, by doing this the prophecies all make sense, nicely fitting what are now, in hindsight, historical events. Second, given the symbolic importance of a limited set of numbers and assuming that the correct interpretation of 62 weeks is 434 years, which seems reasonable, there are constraints on how to express this time period in a "symbolic" way like the other time periods in the vision. For example using 6.2 weeks, with a week being 70 years would have made the weeks in this verse consistent with the other two, but would have taken away from the elegance of the prophecy and probably would not have made sense to the reader back then. Who at that time understood the concept of decimal numbers or how to express them? Finally, 62 x 70 = 4340, is a meaningless number in light of how the Church understands this prophecy.
Back to our point about the dodgy sales person above. Mark Haughwout had a good point about the reasoning used in the arguments like the one used in the Navarre Bible commentary:
Those who suggest a late dating for the book in order to evade the concept of predictive prophecy are forced to change the usual interpretation of the prophesies of the fourth kingdom in 2:40 and 7:7 to refer to Greece instead of Rome, for even a 165 BC date is too early to account for the authors knowledge of the Roman empire. This leaves a [sic] empty spot in the place of the third kingdom, so they then divide the Medo-Persian kingdom into two different successive kingdoms. Making Media the second and Persia the third. This however is not accurate to history and is not consistent in any way with a plain reading of the text.10
Although this post does not discuss the visions in Daniel 2:40 and 7:7, a similar problem arises for at least some of the reasoning behind the dating of the book of Daniel c. 165 B.C. if you accept Currie's interpretation, as the visions were not completely fulfilled until well after that time. And this interpretation is held in the early Church: "Almost all of the early fathers believed that the last week of Daniel ended no later than 70 AD".11
Just as in a “Paint-by-Numbers” kit where each colour is assigned a specific number and must be followed, or the picture makes no sense, so it is with Daniel: The main constraint on the weeks outlined in his prophecy are, for us, the canvas of historical events that unfolded afterward to which the prophecies referred. However, to uncover exactly which of these Daniel is predicting, one must use and respect the biblical numerology and apply these to his weeks to colour in that canvas. Given the limited number of options to apply to the weeks and seasons Daniel uses - 7, 10 and 1 - we have seen that the numbers match up remarkably well with history.
Acknowledgements to John Rae for his wisdom and guidance in helping me come up with the much improved final version of this post, which you see above.
Sources:
1. Navarre Bible, Major Prophets, p. 795
2. http://markhaughwout.com/Bible/Dating_Daniel.html
3. Wilson, R. Dick, INTERNATIONAL STANDARD BIBLE ENCYCLOPEDIA VOL. 3 , reproduced in Books For The Ages, AGES Software, Albany, OR USA Version 1.0 © 1997
4. "Rapture - The End-Times Error That Leaves the Bible Behind" by David B. Currie. pp. 58-59
5. Ibid. pp. 112-113
6. Ibid. p. 121
7. Ibid. p. 126
8. Ibid. pp. 127-128
9. Ibid. p. 113
10. http://markhaughwout.com/Bible/Dating_Daniel.html
11. "Rapture - The End-Times Error That Leaves the Bible Behind" by David B. Currie. p. 115
