Also known as seventy weeks, 70 weeks, the seventy sevens, Daniel 9:24-27
The prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27, in which seventy 'sevens' are decreed upon Daniel's people and city. Its starting point, scope and terminus are read differently by different interpretive traditions, which the Hub presents side by side.
What the text says: seventy weeks (Hebrew shavu'im, 'sevens'/heptads)
The readings below are interpretations offered by different traditions. None is presented as the meaning of the passage, and they are listed in no order of preference.
Interpretive approaches
Seventh-day Adventist (historicist)
Seventh-day Adventist interpretationconfidence: traditional
Reads the seventy sevens as 490 years running continuously from the decree of Artaxerxes in 457 BC: sixty-nine sevens (483 years) reach the anointing of Messiah at his baptism in AD 27, the Messiah is 'cut off' in the midst of the seventieth week at the crucifixion in AD 31, and the period closes in AD 34 as the gospel turns to the Gentiles. The seventy weeks are understood as 'cut off' from the longer 2300 evening-mornings of Daniel 8:14, which share the same starting point.
Interpretive calculation
490 years — derived, not stated by the passage.
Seventy sevens of days = 490 prophetic days; under the year-day principle (Numbers 14:34; Ezekiel 4:6) each prophetic day represents a literal year, giving 490 years. The year-day principle is an interpretive commitment, not a statement of the text.
Starting point
457 BCDecree of Artaxerxes to restore and build Jerusalem (Ezra 7)
Identifies the 'going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem' (Daniel 9:25) with the decree of Artaxerxes I in his seventh year, reckoned autumn-to-autumn as 457 BC. Which decree begins the period — and in which year — is disputed; this identification belongs to the historicist reading and is not a settled historical fact.
Autumn-to-autumn (Tishri) regnal reckoning yields 457 BC; spring-to-spring (Nisan) reckoning yields 458 BC. The choice of reckoning is itself interpretive.
Daniel 9:25 · Ezra 7:8-26
Chain
AD 27Baptism and anointing of Messiah+483 yrs from the anchor
Sixty-nine sevens (483 prophetic days, read as 483 years) from the 457 BC decree reach 'unto Messiah the Prince' (Daniel 9:25) — the anointing at the baptism.
Daniel 9:25 · Luke 3:1 · Luke 3:21-22 · Acts 10:37-38
AD 31Crucifixion — 'he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease'
The midst of the seventieth week (Daniel 9:27): three and a half years after the autumn AD 27 anointing, falling at the Passover of spring AD 31, the antitypical sacrifice ends the sacrificial system.
Autumn AD 27 plus three and a half years falls in the spring of AD 31; the half-year step is seasonal, not a whole-year count.
Daniel 9:27 · Matthew 27:50-51 · Hebrews 9:26
AD 34Close of the seventy weeks — the gospel goes to the Gentiles+490 yrs from the anchor
The final three and a half years complete the seventieth week, 490 years from the 457 BC decree, marked by the stoning of Stephen and the turning of the apostolic mission toward the Gentiles.
Daniel 9:24 · Acts 7:54-60 · Acts 8:1
Representative sources: Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 4; Frank B. Holbrook (ed.), The Seventy Weeks, Leviticus, and the Nature of Prophecy (Daniel & Revelation Committee Series, vol. 3)
Reads the seventy sevens as a schematic, largely symbolic scheme composed in the second century BC and terminating in the Antiochene crisis. The period is measured from Jeremiah's word about seventy years (Jeremiah 25:11-12; 29:10); the 'anointed one who is cut off' is commonly identified with the deposed high priest Onias III, murdered c. 171 BC; the one who 'causes sacrifice to cease' is Antiochus IV Epiphanes, whose desecration of the temple in 167 BC was reversed at its rededication in 164 BC. On this reading the numbers convey theological proportion rather than exact chronology, and the arithmetic is not expected to resolve precisely.
Starting point
605 BCThe word of Jeremiah concerning seventy years
Daniel 9:2 explicitly frames the vision as a meditation on Jeremiah's seventy years, so this reading takes the prophetic word itself — not a later Persian decree — as the period's point of departure.
Daniel 9:2 · Jeremiah 25:11-12 · Jeremiah 29:10
Chain
171 BCMurder of the high priest Onias III — 'an anointed one shall be cut off'
Identifies the anointed one cut off (Daniel 9:26) with Onias III, deposed and killed during the Hellenising crisis.
Daniel 9:26 · 2 Maccabees 4:33-34
167 BCAntiochus IV halts the sacrifice and sets up the desolating abomination
Identifies the cessation of sacrifice and the 'abomination that makes desolate' (Daniel 9:27) with the Seleucid desecration of the temple.
Daniel 9:27 · 1 Maccabees 1:54
164 BCRededication of the temple
The crisis is resolved within the final 'week' at the Maccabean rededication, which this reading takes as the horizon of the vision.
1 Maccabees 4:52-59
Representative sources: John J. Collins, Daniel (Hermeneia); Louis F. Hartman & Alexander A. Di Lella, The Book of Daniel (Anchor Bible)
Dispensational / futurist (gap)
Dispensational interpretationconfidence: possible
Measures the sevens from the decree of Artaxerxes to Nehemiah in 445/444 BC (Nehemiah 2:1-8), counting sixty-nine sevens of 360-day 'prophetic years' to the presentation of Christ at the triumphal entry. A parenthesis or gap — the present church age — then separates the sixty-ninth seven from the seventieth, which remains future: the 'he' who confirms a covenant for one seven and breaks it at its midpoint is read as a coming antichrist rather than as Christ, and the final seven is identified with a future tribulation.
Starting point
445 BCDecree of Artaxerxes to Nehemiah to rebuild the city
Takes the 'commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem' as the twentieth-year decree authorising the rebuilding of the CITY and its walls, rather than the seventh-year decree commissioning Ezra.
Daniel 9:25 · Nehemiah 2:1-8
Chain
AD 33Triumphal entry — the presentation of Messiah the Prince
483 prophetic years of 360 days each (173,880 days) from the 445 BC decree are calculated to terminate at the triumphal entry, after which Messiah is 'cut off'.
Uses a 360-day 'prophetic year' rather than a solar year; the conversion is part of the interpretation, not of the text.
Daniel 9:25-26 · Luke 19:28-44
Representative sources: Robert Anderson, The Coming Prince; Harold W. Hoehner, Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ
Traditional messianic (continuous, non-historicist)
Traditional interpretationconfidence: traditional
Reads the seventy sevens as running continuously to Christ with no intervening gap: the anointed one who is 'cut off' is Christ at his death, the covenant is confirmed by his ministry and passion, and the destruction of the city and sanctuary is fulfilled in the Roman devastation of Jerusalem in AD 70. Held in various forms since the patristic period, it identifies the opening decree variously (Cyrus, Darius, or either Artaxerxes decree) and does not extend the prophecy beyond the apostolic era.
Key points
AD 30Messiah 'cut off, but not for himself' — the crucifixion
Identifies the cutting off of the anointed one (Daniel 9:26) with the death of Christ, dated with the ordinary scholarly range for the crucifixion rather than by a prophetic calculation.
The date follows the general historical estimate (AD 30 or 33), not a derivation from the seventy weeks.
Daniel 9:26
AD 70Destruction of the city and the sanctuary
Reads 'the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary' (Daniel 9:26) as fulfilled in the Roman siege and burning of Jerusalem.
Daniel 9:26-27 · Matthew 24:1-2
Representative sources: Jerome, Commentary on Daniel; E. J. Young, The Prophecy of Daniel
About
The prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27, in which seventy 'sevens' are decreed upon Daniel's people and city. Its starting point, scope and terminus are read differently by different interpretive traditions, which the Hub presents side by side.
