APPENDIX U
Daniel’s Seventy Weeks and the Covenant with Many
Daniel 9 contains one of the most important prophetic timelines in Scripture. It is given in response to Daniel’s prayer of confession and intercession for Israel near the end of the seventy years of Babylonian exile. The angel Gabriel is sent to give Daniel “skill to understand” (Daniel 9:22), and he reveals a sequence of “seventy weeks” decreed for Daniel’s people and his holy city.
This appendix outlines the structure of the seventy weeks and shows how the final “week” relates to the covenant crisis in Israel at the end of the age.
The Setting: Daniel’s Prayer and Gabriel’s Message
Daniel perceives from Jeremiah that the seventy years of desolation for Jerusalem are nearly complete (Daniel 9:2; Jeremiah 25:11–12; 29:10). He turns to the Lord with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes, confessing Israel’s sin and pleading for mercy on the basis of God’s covenant and name. His concern is specifically for “Your city Jerusalem, Your holy mountain,” “Your sanctuary,” and “Your people” (Daniel 9:16–19).
In response, Gabriel declares: “Seventy weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy” (Daniel 9:24).
The “weeks” here are literally “sevens.” In context, and in harmony with other prophetic patterns, they are best understood as weeks of years. Seventy “sevens” thus equal 490 years. The purposes listed in verse 24—finishing transgression, making an end of sins, making atonement, bringing in everlasting righteousness—are ultimately fulfilled in the Messiah. They orient the seventy weeks around His person and work.
The Structure: 7 Weeks, 62 Weeks, and 1 Week
Gabriel then gives the structure: “Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublesome times” (Daniel 9:25).
From a decree to restore and build Jerusalem until “Messiah the Prince” will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks (69 weeks total, or 483 years). The initial seven weeks likely correspond to the period of rebuilding and consolidation after the decree; the sixty-two weeks extend from that rebuilt city down to the appearing of the Messiah.
After these sixty-two weeks (that is, after the full sixty-nine), two decisive events occur:
- “Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself” (Daniel 9:26).
The Messiah appears and then is “cut off”—language that evokes being killed or removed—yet not for His own sins. This is a clear prophecy of the atoning death of the Lord Jesus, who is cut off for others. - “The people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.”
After Messiah’s cutting off, the city and the temple are destroyed by “the people of the prince who is to come.” Historically, this occurred in AD 70, when Roman armies under Titus destroyed Jerusalem and the Second Temple. The “people” are the Romans; the “prince who is to come” is a future ruler who will emerge from this same Mediterranean power and play a central role in the final week.
Gabriel adds that “the end of it shall be with a flood, and till the end of the war desolations are determined” (Daniel 9:26). From the destruction of the Second Temple onward, Jerusalem’s history is marked by desolations, scattering, and conflict—a long parenthesis between the sixty-ninth and seventieth week. (The term “parenthesis” is used here structurally, to describe the gap in Daniel’s prophetic timeline for Israel during which the city lies under desolation and the covenant people are scattered. It does not imply adoption of a broader dispensational system; it simply recognizes that Gabriel’s seventy weeks concern “your people and your holy city,” and the clock of that particular prophecy pauses while both are in ruins.
The Final Week: Covenant with Many and the Abomination
The last verse describes the seventieth week: “Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week; but in the middle of the week he shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, even until the consummation, which is determined, is poured out on the desolate” (Daniel 9:27).
Several key observations: the subject “he” most naturally refers back to “the prince who is to come” in verse 26. This is the same final ruler portrayed elsewhere in Daniel as the “little horn” and later revealed in the New Testament as the man of sin. He “confirms a covenant with many for one week.” The “many” are best understood as the majority in Israel’s leadership, rather than the faithful remnant. This covenant may be political, religious, or both; in any case, it secures Israel’s ability to function in a restored sanctuary system. In the middle of the week (after three and a half years), he breaks the covenant: he brings an end to sacrifice and offering. This implies that sacrifices have been reinstated in a rebuilt temple or sanctuary prior to this point. “On the wing of abominations” he sets up something that makes desolate. This is the abomination of desolation that Daniel mentions again (11:31; 12:11), that the Lord Jesus explicitly cites as the sign for those in Judea to flee (Matthew 24:15–16), and that Paul describes as the man of sin seating himself in the temple of God, displaying himself as God (2 Thessalonians 2:4).
The middle of the seventieth week is thus the hinge of the final covenant crisis in Israel. The last three and a half years (a “time, times, and half a time”; 42 months; 1,260 days in prophetic language) form the period of unparalleled trouble for Daniel’s people—”a time of trouble, such as never was” (Daniel 12:1)—that the Lord calls “great tribulation” (Matthew 24:21).
Harmonizing Daniel, the Lord Jesus, and Paul
When the Lord warns about the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel, He locates it in “the holy place” and instructs those in Judea to flee to the mountains (Matthew 24:15–16). This firmly places the event in a literal sanctuary in the land of Israel. He then says that at that time there will be great tribulation unlike anything before or after—echoing Daniel 12:1. For Him, the setting up of the abomination and the ensuing tribulation are the defining features of the end of the age for Israel.
Paul, in turn, takes up Daniel’s language and applies it to the man of sin. This final ruler exalts himself above all that is called God, sits in the temple of God, and shows himself as God (2 Thessalonians 2:4). He is destroyed by the appearing of the Lord Jesus (2 Thessalonians 2:8). Paul’s “temple of God” in this context aligns with Daniel’s sanctuary and the Lord’s “holy place,” not with the Church. The seventieth week, therefore, ends at the epiphaneia of Christ.
In this way, Daniel’s seventy weeks provide the chronological skeleton for the final crisis:
- The first 69 weeks lead to the appearance and cutting off of Messiah.
- The city and sanctuary are destroyed by the people of the Roman prince.
- A long period of desolations follows for Jerusalem.
- At the end of the age, the sanctuary is restored; the final prince confirms a covenant with many in Israel for one week.
- In the middle of the week, he breaks the covenant, abolishes sacrifice, and sets up the abomination, inaugurating the Great Tribulation.
- At the consummation of this period, the determined judgment is poured out; the man of sin is destroyed by the appearing of Christ; the seventieth week closes with the end of this present evil age and the inauguration of the Day of the Lord.
This framework keeps the focus where Daniel places it: on “your people and your holy city.” The seventy weeks are not a schematic for Church history but a timeline of Israel’s covenant story under the Torah, from the restoration from exile to the final covenant crisis in Judea. The Church, though deeply affected by events in the nations and called to vigilance and holiness throughout, remains a distinct reality: a people drawn from Israel and the nations who are being prepared to share in the heavenly kingdom when the Son of Man appears.
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