Seventy Weeks
The Final Chapter

Before we rush into the seventieth week, we have one small item to complete. Jerusalem will be restored and built up, square and decision-making, in times of distress (9:25b). After Jerusalem was restored to the Jews, there were troubles. The book of Ezra details some of them, and Nehemiah went back to help out after the gates were burned (Neh 2:3). He had to post sentinels and have his workers wear their swords while they worked (Neh 4:15–23). That's a time of distress.

But what's this about square and decision-making? Translators have had a lot of trouble with this phrase. Their solutions range from “with plaza and moat” to “with street and wall.” The first one is silly, since Jerusalem never had a moat, at least not while the Jews controlled it.(1) The second reading seems to come from a “build” reading in the first part of the verse. But we don't need to settle for these solutions.

The first word, rehob, means a broad open area, such as a city square. That's where merchants bought and sold their goods. Legal questions were decided there, too (cf. Ruth 4:1–12). The second word, weharus, comes from the hrs root that means “to decide” or “decree.” It's used in verses 26 and 27 to mean “decreed.” So square and decision-making is the best way to translate it. It's an idiom to describe a city that has the physical place and legal authority to govern itself. And that's the result of God fulfilling His promise of a decree to restore and to build up Jerusalem.

God did fulfill His promise, and Jerusalem became a Jewish city with Jewish government under God's laws. Unfortunately, the Jews missed the boat. They realized that their sin had sent them into exile in Babylon. So they “built a fence around the Torah.”(2) They created a long list of rules on how to keep God's laws. If sin was breaking the Law, then these new rules would make it almost impossible to sin. Basically, you'd have to break two sets of laws to sin.

The Jews thought they'd figured out how to stay in God's favor. Unfortunately, they forgot that the basis of salvation was to “walk humbly with your God” (Mic 6:8). They looked to themselves instead of God. And when the Messiah came, they weren't ready for Him.

Jesus publicly arrived in AD27, exactly on schedule. Gabriel told Daniel that after the sixty-two weeks, the Messiah will be cut off (9:26). Cut off is the Hebrew technical term for God's death penalty against an evil-doer.(3) Daniel had to be stunned. How could Israel’s Deliverer suffer that penalty? It would happen sometime in the middle of the week (9:27), since the word after in Hebrew implies that a significant amount of time would pass after the end of the sixty-nine weeks.

The people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary (9:26).(4) Daniel knew exactly who was to blame. The Jews destroyed the city and the sanctuary in 586 BC by their disobedience (9:9–14) and they're going to do it again. He had to be sick. His prayer was for the restoration of God's holy city and people. In 9:25 Gabriel told him about a decree that would do exactly that. Then in the next breath, Gabriel said that they wouldn't learn. They wouldn't follow the one true God, and the final blow would fall.

For Daniel, the language was painfully clear. Gabriel just told him about Messiah the prince, who was to come in sixty-nine weeks. Messiah's people, the Jews, would destroy the city and the sanctuary again by their failure to keep the covenant, just the same way they did in 586 BC. It won't be by their hand, but it might as well be, since it will be a divine judgment against them. This time, however, it will be their last chance. They had received the birthright blessing as God's chosen people (cf. Exod 4:22, Deut 21:17). Because of their disobedience, God will take it away.

But God's not going to let the Jews just run away from His covenant. At Sinai, they were afraid of God and asked Moses to deal with Him (Exod 20:18–19). This wasn’t good enough, so He had them build a sanctuary for Him (Exod 25:8), and then stuck it right in the center of their camp (Num 2:1–2). His passionate pursuit of His people wasn't going to end just because they were being difficult.

The Messiah will strengthen the covenant with the many for a week (9:27, lit.).(5) The Old Covenant birthright blessing included direct teaching from God through His prophets and His blessing through miracles. But for four hundred years, there weren't any prophets, and the blessings were gone.

Jesus brought Kingdom blessings back to the Jews (cf. Matt 12:28). This strengthened the covenant with the many (cf. Matt 26:28). When He died after 3½ years, an angel tore the veil of the Temple from top to bottom (Matt. 27:51).(6) The “one sacrifice for all time” (Heb. 9:26) had been made. Now anyone could look into every part of the Temple and see that the glory of God was gone. He had put an end to sacrifice and grain offering (9:27).

The Jews continued their sacrifices until the Temple was destroyed in AD 70. But those sacrifices were no longer part of God's plan. The Jews missed the Messiah when He came, and they missed His importance for another forty years. But the prophetic blessing continued as the apostles preached the gospel in Judea for another 3½ years. This ended when Stephen was stoned in Acts 7.(7)

It's really important to follow the grammar I've listed in the table. Hebrew makes its pronouns look back to their antecedents just like English. So when verse 27 uses “he,” we have to look back to verse 26 to find out who “he” is, and “he” is “the Messiah.” Of course, the Messiah “is to come” in 69 weeks in verse 25, so when verse 26 says the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary, it's really saying, “the Messiah's people will destroy it.” Or, put more directly, “the Jews will destroy the sanctuary.”

Just to review, Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem in 586 BC. Daniel said it happened because the Jews broke the covenant (9:9–12), and Jeremiah called Nebuchadnezzar “God's servant” in doing it (Jer 25:9). In AD 70, Roman armies under Titus destroyed Jerusalem, just like Nebuchadnezzar did. They did it as God's instrument to punish Jewish disobedience. So in a very real way, the Jews destroyed Jerusalem. I know, this isn't the normal western way of thinking, but it's a biblical way of thinking.

I can hear mumbling. “He skipped a bunch of stuff in verses 26 and 27.” Yes, I did, and for a very good reason. That stuff isn't part of the seventy weeks. The mumbling just got louder. “Isn't this a prophecy about the seventy weeks?” Yes, it is. But part of it deals with things after the seventy weeks. Stick with me here.

The seventy weeks prophecy was about probation for the Jews. Verse 24 laid out the conditions. Verse 25 identified the starting point. The Jews are on probation for all of the seventy weeks. That means that at the end of the seventy weeks, God's going to check on them. If they haven't been keeping their side of the covenant,

He's going to punish them. And this brings us to Stephen in AD 34.
Stephen was one of the deacons appointed to help the apostles in the Jerusalem church. He “was full of grace and power (and) was performing great wonders and signs among the people” (Acts 6:8). Hellenistic Jews dragged him to the Sanhedrin and charged him with blasphemy (Acts 6:11–12). They had no idea Stephen was God's prosecuting attorney.

It was 490 years since the decree in Ezra 7 “went forth” to Judea. Probation was over. The only thing left was God's usual, orderly way of dealing with wrongdoers — the covenant lawsuit. We covered this process in detail at Belshazzar’s Feast.

Stephen's face was “like the face of an angel” (Preamble, Acts 6:15). The high priest asked if the accusers were telling the truth, but Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, ignored him. Instead, he told of all the things God had done to keep His side of the covenant with the Hebrews (Historical Prologue, Acts 7:2–50). Stephen then switched to accusation, pointing out how evil the Jews had been. They even murdered Jesus (Indictments, Acts 7:51–53).(8) The Council knew they were guilty. They were the ones who had sent Jesus to the Cross. They had violated many of their own legal rules to do it.(9) They couldn't allow witnesses to be called, but were in effect witnesses against themselves, “gnashing their teeth him” (Witnesses, Acts 7:54).     

Stephen “gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:55). The Sanhedrin knew what this was. The King stayed seated while His regent rose to pronounce the verdict of the court. There was nothing meaningful they could do. They’d been found guilty. They couldn't stop the trial, but they could kill the attorney (Acts 7:56–60). The Jews' doom was sealed. They failed their probation, and the court convicted them. Their birthright blessing was removed. The rest of the judgment was now ready for execution.

Because the seventy weeks was a defined period of probation, judgments against the Jews had to wait until after the probation was over. This is extremely important. The court could rule, and set the execution of judgment. But the trial and the penalty can't be inside the seventy weeks because that would violate the whole concept of probation.

Once the court has ruled, the penalty can come, but God isn't bound by our timetables. He can strike now, or forty years from now. And that's what happened. The people of the prince who came in 69 weeks destroyed the city and the sanctuary in AD 70 (9:26). Let's see how it happened.

On the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate (9:27). About AD 66, the Jews revolted against Roman domination. The Romans put down the revolt with their usual brutal efficiency, but it kept boiling up. The main rebel group was the Zealots, and its most influential leader was John, son of Levi, of Gischala in Galilee. Zealots murdered over 12,000 priests. Later, they murdered another 8,000 in the Temple courtyards and left them unburied, piling abomination on abomination.

With uncharacteristic restraint, Titus, the Roman general, besieged Jerusalem instead of attacking. But the Jews taunted the Romans, declaring that they could outlast them. Unfortunately, the city was packed with pilgrims for Passover, and the boast was nothing but hot air. They ran out of food and many of the curses for disobedience in Deuteronomy 28:15–68 fell on them.(10)

When they saw that the Romans were about to enter the city, the Zealots set fire to the inner apartment of the Temple “so that the enemies do not boast and say, ‘We have overthrown the wall of Zion and we have burnt down the place of the mighty God’” (2 Bar 6:3—7:1). “And when the leaders of the rebels saw that the Holy of Holies had been burned, they burned the rest of the Temple together with every mansion in Jerusalem, so that the Romans should not rule over them. They also burned down the rest of the Temple buildings, saying: ‘Now that the Holy of Holies has been burned, why go on living?’”(11) The fire melted the gold in the Temple and the rich homes into cracks between the stones. To get it out, Roman soldiers pushed over all the stones of the Temple foundation so “not one stone was left standing on another” (Matt 24:2). They used the few Jewish survivors as slave labor to dig up the entire city looking for melted and buried gold and silver. Complete destruction was poured out on the desolating Jews.

Every part of Daniel's prophecy has been fulfilled. The decree went forth in 457 BC. 483 years later, in AD 27, the Messiah was anointed with the Holy Spirit and began His ministry. After 3½ years of ministry, He was cut off on the Cross. But the covenant He strengthened with the Jews continued for another 3½ years while the apostles ministered in Judea.

When the 490 years of probation ended, God used Stephen to bring His covenant lawsuit against the Jews. They had failed to meet the conditions in 9:24, but they couldn't stand to hear the verdict and stoned him. But they couldn't stop God from carrying out the judgment. In AD 70, the Jewish revolt destroyed the city. The Jews' abominations forced the Roman hand.

God keeps His word. He didn't want to punish the Jews, but they refused to keep the covenant. He sent them into exile to teach them to obey. Finally He had to remove the birthright and give it to a “nation producing the fruit of the kingdom” (Matt 21:43) — the church (1 Pet 2:9).