Bible Dictionaries
Seventy Weeks

Holman Bible Dictionary

The time spoken of in Daniel 9:24-27 , usually understood as seventy weeks of years or 490 years. The passage groups the weeks in three parts: seven weeks (49 years), sixty-two weeks (434 years), and one week (7 years). The 49 years are associated with rebuilding Jerusalem in “times of trouble” (Daniel 9:25 NIV). The 434 years relate to the intervening time before a cutting off of the Anointed One ( Daniel 9:26 ). The 7 years are connected with the period of a covenant between a ruler and Jerusalem, which is violated in the middle of the 7 years (Daniel 9:27 ).

The significance of the seventy weeks is variously understood. A historical approach relates these years to the period of history between the fall of Jerusalem and the restoration of the Temple in 164 B.C. following the atrocities of Antiochus Epiphanes. See Intertestamental History.

A prophetic approach sees the reference to reach to the birth of Christ, His subsequent crucifixion (the cutting off of the Anointed One), and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70. At that time, sacrifices under the Old Covenant ceased. The same dating without reference to Jesus has been the usual Jewish understanding since Josephus. They focus on the destruction of the Temple.

The dispensational approach makes the 70 weeks a prophetic framework for end time events, rather than a prophecy of what took place in the work of Christ at His first coming. The 69th week is seen as completed at Christ's death, while the 70th week is yet to be fulfilled at a future Great Tribulation period. The interval between the two is seen as a parenthesis in the prophetic pattern which contains the present church age, a period said not to be revealed in Old Testament prophecy. See Dispensation; Eschatology; Millennium, Tribulation.

Jerry W. Batson