The Seventy Weeks of Daniel (Part 1, Background Information)

Daniel chapter 9 records Daniel's prayer of repentance on behalf of himself and his nation who have been in captivity in Babylon for almost seventy years. The Medo-Persian empire has recently defeated the Babylonian empire, and Daniel  observed  the prophecy previously given by Jeremiah, that the desolation of Jerusalem was to last seventy years.

This is what motivated Daniel to seek the Lord God with prayer and fasting. Daniel's prayer, recorded in Daniel 9:4-19 is well worth the study. It shows a truly humbled and contrite individual pleading with God on behalf of His chosen, yet rebellious people. Daniel understands that God alone is righteous and just with His judgement against the nation. All he can do is to plead for mercy, and deliverance from their captivity for the sake of God, as they, the Israelites, are called by His name.

In response to his prayer, Gabriel comes with a message for Daniel concerning his people, and what was to come in the future concerning them.

24. "Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to annoint the most holy place.

25. "So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress.

26. "Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined.

27. "And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed is poured out on the one who makes desolate."

                              Daniel 9:24-27 NASB

Daniel, as I stated above, had been observant that the time for Jeremiah's prophecy concerning the end of the Babylonian captivity was drawing near. Jeremiah's ministry began years before Daniel, but he still prophecied during the early days of Nebuchadnezzar's conquest of Jerusalem, and therefore much of what he spoke had been written down and was available to those who had been carried off to Babylon. Years had past by, and now Daniel was stirred by these prophetic words,

10. "For this says the LORD, 'When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill my good word to you, to bring you back to this place.

11. 'For I know the plans that I have for you, 'declares the LORD, 'Plans for welfare and not calamity to give you a future and a hope.

12. 'Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.

13. 'You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.

14. 'I will be found by you' declares the LORD, 'And I will restore your fortunes and will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, 'declares the LORD, 'And I will bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile.' 

                     Jeremiah 29:10-14 NASB

This is what Daniel does. He believes the words of God spoken by Jeremiah. He acts upon them by fervently seeking the Lord in prayer and fasting. He understands why the nation had gone into exile. The problem was sin, disobedience to God. All that had happened to them as a nation was the result of violating the covenant God had made with them at Sinai. Just a few chapters back in Jeremiah this is addressed,

3. "From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, even to this day, these twenty-three years the word of the LORD has come to me, and I have spoken to you again and again, but you have not listened.

4. " And the LORD has sent to you all His servants the prophets again and again, but you have not inclined your ear to hear,

5. saying, 'Turn now everyone from his evil way and from the evil of your deeds, and dwell on the land which the LORD has given to you and your forefathers forever and ever;

6. and do not go after other gods to serve them and to worship them, and do not provoke Me to anger with the work of your hands, and I will do you no harm.'

7. "Yet you have not listened to Me," declares the LORD, "In order that you might provoke Me to anger with the work of your hands to your own harm.

8. "Therefore this says the LORD of hosts, 'Because you have not obeyed My words,

9. 'Behold I will send and take all the families of the north, 'declares the LORD, 'and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, My servant, and will bring them against this land and against its inhabitants and against all these nations round about; and I will utterly destroy them and make them a horror and a hissing, and an everlasting desolation.

10. 'Moreover, I will take from them the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp.

11. 'This whole land will be a horror, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

12. 'Then it will be when seventy years are completed I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, ' declares the LORD, ' forv their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans; and I will make it a everlasting desolation.

                          Jeremiah 25:3-12 NASB

Over and over God reached out to His rebellious people, through the prophets, urging them to repent and obey. Now the covenant curses had come upon them and they were driven from the land into exile (see Leviticus 26:14-46 and Deuteronomy 4: 23-31, 28:15-68, 30:1-20 these passages describe the consequences for rebellion against the LORD, yet hold out the offer of mercy and restoration upon heartfelt repentance).

This was Israel's dilemma. They, as God's chosen people, had broken covenant with Him. The land they possessed belonged to them as an everlasting possession (see Genesis 13:14-17, 26:1-5, 28:3-4, 35:11-12 the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) however, they as a nation were required to live in faithful obedience to the LORD to remain in it.

Now, just as Jeremiah spoke, Babylon had been defeated by Cyrus, and Darius the Mede was now on the throne. Daniel understands why they are there, and what it will take to dwell in the land of promise once again.

This the point of Gabriel's message. It is a message that ultimately points to the restoration of Israel, not only to the land promised them, but to be the holy people that God requires, never again falling away into apostasy, a light to the nations as God has called them to be.