Gabriel told Daniel, and it is recorded for our consideration in Daniel 9:24, that seventy weeks have been determined (H2852) or to enwrap that is “to wrap around” your people, “to envelop” them. The sense seems to be, since the visions of Daniel are for the time of the end (Daniel 8:17; 11:35, 40; 12:4, 9), these Seventy Weeks or 490 years wrap up all that needs to be said about the Lord’s covenant people. It concerns the latter days that Moses mentioned, when the Jews would be in rebellion against God (Deuteronomy 31:29; 32:28-29, 36-37), and the Lord would bring his covenant with them to an end and establish a new covenant, as proclaimed by Jeremiah the prophet (Jeremiah 31:31; cp. Hebrews 8:10-13).
During these years, which would be fulfilled at the time of the end or in the latter days, when the Jews’ rebellion would come to its climax, Gabriel revealed to Daniel that six things would be accomplished or fulfilled by God (Daniel 9:24). The 490 years that envelop his people were needed in order to:
- finish the transgression
- make and end of sins
- make reconciliation for iniquity
- bring in everlasting righteousness
- seal up the vision and prophecy
- anoint the Most Holy
Gabriel went on to divide the prophecy, itself, into three parts (Daniel 9:25):
- seven weeks
- sixty-two weeks
- one week
He revealed to Daniel that seventy weeks were determined upon his people. That is, while 70 years were determined upon them to punish them for breaking their covenant with God, seventy times seven years were determined upon them to bring the whole matter to its ultimate conclusion. In other words, they were in the state of rebellion, so the Lord punished them, but the matter isn’t settled, because all the promises that were made to the fathers and to David had not yet been fulfilled. Therefore, having corrected their path for a season, the rebellion would continue and mushroom, until its conclusion and final judgment was administered.
Gabriel told Daniel that from the time of the decree to restore and build Jerusalem and the coming of the Messiah there would be seven weeks, and after those, there would be another sixty-two weeks, for a total of ‘sixty-nine weeks of years (i.e. 483 years; Daniel 9:24-25), and then the Messiah would arrive and fulfill the final or seventieth week (or seven years for a total of 490 years; cp. Daniel 9:26-27). Concerning the first division of the prophecy, it would take seven weeks or 49 years to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple, but it would be rebuilt during very distressful times (Daniel 9:25).
The second division, or the sixty-two weeks, pertains to the times after the Temple and Jerusalem were rebuilt and continue up to the coming of the Messiah, for a total of 483 years. These years concern the final vision that Daniel recorded in the Book of Daniel, and it is what’s written down in chapters 10 and 11. Although the prophecy, itself continues into chapter 12, and chapter 12 concerns the final or seventieth week of the prophecy.
Smoodock's Blog 