Daniel Prophesies When Messiah Will Come
Daniel’s Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks
I’ve earlier offered a very detailed argument concerning Daniel’s prophecy of the seventy weeks (in Daniel 9) entitled The Time of Messiah. I argued this prophecy predicted the coming of the Messiah and that it was fulfilled to the day when Jesus entered Jerusalem in what is called the Triumphal Entry (Lk 19.28–40). The crowd acclaimed him their savior, fulfilling another prophecy, Zechariah 9.9: “Rejoice oh daughter of Zion. . . . Look, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation . . . humble and mounted on a donkey” (paraphrased). This argument requires no unreasonable assumptions, though some assumptions are certainly debatable.
Here I offer a second simpler and shorter argument that Jesus fulfilled the prophecy of Daniel 9 within a period of seven years, Daniel’s “weeks” of years. This argument has far fewer assumptions (however reasonable) and probably should be evaluated before considering my previous more complicated argument. 
The following is the basic argument that Daniel’s prophecy indicates that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah assuming a calculation by normal solar years. My previous argument requires a calculation using 360 day years, a common calendar system of antiquity. I will here summarize some arguments which were more fully developed in the previous article, The Time of Messiah.
1) The weeks of years of Daniel 9 correspond to the same seven year cycles the Israelites used when they were commanded to give a year of rest to the land each cycle.
The Mosaic law commanded the people not to work the land each seventh years (Lev 25.1–7; Ex 21.2; Dt 15.1). One of the lesser reasons the destruction of Jerusalem and seventy year Babylonian exile occurred was because the people did not keep this law (Lev 26.33-35; Jer 25.11–12). The exile gave rest to the land for each Sabbath year missed. Daniel understood that with the end of the seventy years, the end of the exile was near (Dan 9.2). In chapter 9, Daniel was given this prophecy after praying for the exile to end. So the prophecy of the seventy weeks was given within the context of the Sabbath year cycles and thus would likely follow these same cycles.
2) With the prophecy involving seven year cycles, its fulfillment need be located no more precisely than within a seven year period.
3) The decree or “order” to rebuild the city provides the beginning point of the prophecy (v25a) and was given by Artaxerxes I to Nehemiah.
(Neh 2.4,8b.) Of all of the possible dates that have been claimed for the origin point of this prophecy, all others only apply to a command to rebuild the temple or the return of the exiles, or they cannot be dated. See the detailed argument for this claim within the previous article, The Time of Messiah.
4) This order or word was given in Nisan 444 BCE. Some argue it was 445; either date may also be accepted for the sake of the argument.
This was Artaxerxes’ 20th year (Neh 2.1).
5) The first week of years of Sabbath year cycles in which the year of this commissioning occurred was from 449–442 BCE.1
6) Verse 25 says that from the decree until the anointed prince will be 7 sevens (weeks) and 62 sevens.
This was the more common reading until the first centuries CE and even before the Masoretic text (MT, 9th and 10th century CE) added punctuation producing a sharp division between the two sets of weeks. In the Masoretic view, one anointed one will appear after the first 7 sevens and another after another 62 sevens. But this reading indicates the rebuilding would not be complete until the 69th week, early in the first century CE, which is simply false. Even if the Masoretic reading could be accepted, we would still have no reason to think that the second anointed one (26a) could not be the Messiah; the first “anointed prince” of v25 would be just some other ruler.
7) The anointed prince of v25 and the anointed one of v26a are the same person, the Messiah.
Kings, priests, prophets, and even patriarchs were also said to be anointed for their given tasks so the term, "anointed one," does not necessarily indicate the anticipated Jewish Messiah. Yet of the Jewish interpretations of this prophecy before the time of Jesus, we know of only one which does not claim the anointed prince of v25 is the Messiah.2 Also, because this is the only Hebrew scripture which speaks of an anointed one with this specific term, Maschiach, we might think the more likely meaning of the term is Messiah. There is no article before the term Maschiach in both verses but Hebrew does not require a definite article to specify a particular person or event.3 So there is no difficulty in understanding this term as speaking of the Messiah. If this prophecy speaks of two anointed ones (one or both being non-messianic) and we accept 445/444 as the origin point of the prophecy, the first individual appearing near or after the first 7 sevens would be very difficult to even identify. The usual view in traditional Judaism is that the second individual, the anointed one who is cut off, is Herod Agrippa I who died in 44 CE. The most important reason we should reject this view and see that this prophecy should be accepted as messianic is that it is so extremely difficult to imagine why this prophecy, or any recorded biblical prophecy for that matter, would predict the time of one or two such historically and biblically insignificant individuals. This Herod did nothing and fulfilled no special function to distinguish him from any other Herod or any other political leader for that matter.
8) Messiah will appear and be killed on or after the 69th week of years. The 69th week would be between 29 and 36 CE. Jesus died in 33 CE. Therefore Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. No other messianic candidate or anointed one (ruler, priest, or prophet) of any significance fits this prophecy.
Some date his death in 30 (which would also fit this argument) though in my longer article I have argued that a 33 date is more likely. Daniel 9.26a says Messiah will be cut off, killed, after the final 62 weeks, which of course we could also speak of as being after the 69th week. However, by Jewish idiom this could also mean on the 69th week. For example, it was sometimes stated in the Gospels that Jesus was resurrected on the third day of his death as well as after three days (e.g., Matt 16.21; 27.63). Both expressions fit Jesus’ death on Friday afternoon and resurrection Sunday morning.
9) In the 70th week of years Messiah made a covenant with many, obtaining their commitment to trust in him and his death for atonement and reconciliation with God. He also caused animal sacrifice and offerings to cease in the sense that by his death they are no longer effective to bring atonement for sin.
10) The destruction of Jerusalem is also prophesied (v26b, 27a) though it is not mentioned as being in the 70 week period. It is only stated that this will occur. It occurs a little less than 30 years after the 70 weeks are ended and slightly less than 40 years after Messiah is cut off.
References: This argument was offered by Robert Newman in “The Testimony of Messianic Prophecy,” in John W. Montgomery (ed.), Evidence for Faith (Dallas: Probe Books, 1991), 210-12. More detailed arguments for 3), 4), 6), 7), and 8) are in the article The Time of Messiah.
1. Ben Zion Wacholder, “The Calendar of Sabbatical Cycles During the Second Temple and the Early Rabbinic Period,” Hebrew Union College Annual, 44 (1973): 153–96.
2. R. T. Beckwith, “Daniel 9 and the Date of Messiah’s Coming in Essene, Hellenistic, Pharisaic, Zealot and Early Christian Computation,” Revue de Qumran 10 (1979–81), 522.
3. Michael L. Brown, Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, (Baker, 2003), 3:91.
Dennis Jensen, January 2024
