Prophecy of Seventy Weeks

The angel Gabriel appears and tells Daniel that he has come to give wisdom and understanding, for at the beginning of Daniel's prayer a "word" went out and Gabriel has come to declare this revelation (verses 20–23): 24Seventy weeks are decreed for 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.

27He shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall make sacrifice and offering cease; and in their place shall be an abomination that desolates, until the decreed end is poured out upon the desolator.The consensus among scholars is that chapters 1–6 of the Book of Daniel originated as a collection of folktales among the Jewish diaspora in the Persian/Hellenistic periods, to which the visionary chapters 7–12 were added during the persecution of the Jews under Antiochus IV in 167–163 BCE.

[5][6] The point of departure is Jeremiah's seventy years prophecy as opposed to a visionary episode, but more than half the chapter is devoted to a rather lengthy prayer.

[12] In particular, the concluding passage in verses 20–27 contains several allusions to the language in the prayer, suggesting that it was included purposefully by the author(s) of the chapter, even if it was not originally composed by them.

[16] These ideas have been further developed to suggest that the different redactional layers represented in this text reflect different eschatological perspectives,[17] with the earliest one going back to a priest named Daniel who accompanied Ezra from Babylon to Jerusalem in the fifth century BCE and the latest one to an unnamed redactor who edited this prophecy in the second century BCE so that it would function (along with other parts of the Book of Daniel) as part of "a prophetic manifesto for world domination.

"[18] It is also argued that the prophecy exhibited a high degree of literary structure at an earlier stage of its development in such a way that the six infinitival clauses of verse 24 were chiastically linked to six divisions of verses 25–27 via an elaborate system of word counts, resulting in the following reconstruction of this earlier redactional stratum:[19] The seventy weeks prophecy is an ex eventu prophecy in periodized form whose Sitz im Leben is the Antiochene crisis in the second century BCE, with content analogous to the Enochic Apocalypse of Weeks as well as the Animal Apocalypse.

[20] However, such theological overtones conflict with other aspects of the Book of Daniel, in which the primary sin is that of a gentile king and the course of history is arranged in advance.

Four years later Necho returned and lost again at the Battle of Carchemish in 605 BCE and Nebuchadnezzar II finally established the Neo-Babylonian Empire as the dominant regional power, with significant consequences for the southern kingdom of Judah.

14 And he carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valour, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and smiths: none remained, save the poorest sort of the people of the land.

The Persian period, in turn, came to an end in the first half of the fourth century BCE following the arrival of Alexander the Great, whose vast kingdom was divided upon his death among the Diadochi.

The series of conflicts that ensued following Alexander's death in the wars that erupted among the Diadochi mark the beginning of the Hellenistic period in 323/2 BCE.

[29] At the start of the second century BCE, the Seleucids had the upper hand in their struggle with the Ptolemaic kingdom for regional dominance, but the earlier conflicts had left them nearly bankrupt.

Jeremiah 29:10–14) could not have been fulfilled by the disappointment that accompanied the return to the land in the Persian period, hence the necessity to extend the expiration date of the prophecy to the second century BCE.

[66][54] Most critical scholars see another reference to Onias III's murder in Daniel 11:22,[67][68] though Ptolemy VI and the infant son of Seleucus IV have also been suggested.

Hence, some critical scholars follow Montgomery in thinking that there has been "a chronological miscalculation on [the] part of the writer"[70] who has made "wrong-headed arithmetical calculations,"[71] although others follow Goldingay's explanation that the 70 weeks are not literal chronology but the more inexact science of "chronography";[72][73] Collins opts for a middle-ground position in saying that "the figure should be considered a round number rather than a miscalculation.

[76] Saadia goes on to explain such linguistic usage in the Hebrew language, where a word is written singularly, but is actually meant to be understood in the plural context.

[80] Saadia, who takes a different approach, explains the "prince (nagīd) who is to come" as being Titus, who came against the city at the conclusion of the 490 year period, when the Second Temple was destroyed by the Imperial Roman army.

During this time of growing animosity against Rome, the Roman army sought to appease the Jewish nation and not to suffer their Temple to be destroyed.

[47][92] Some of the early church fathers also saw another reference to Christ in the "prince who is to come" (verse 26b), but this figure is more often identified with either the Antichrist or one of the Roman officials that oversaw the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE (e.g. Titus or Vespasian).

The "abomination that desolates" is typically read in the context of the New Testament references made to this expression in the Olivet Discourse and understood as belonging to a complex eschatological tableaux described therein, which may or may not remain to be fulfilled.