Among the evidence that the Bible is infallible is the startling accuracy of the prophecy revealed to Daniel, which he records in Daniel 9:24–27. This prophecy, known as Daniel’s Seventy Weeks, was revealed during the Babylonian exile “in the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus” (Dan. 9:1). At the beginning of the chapter, “Daniel deals with multiple interwoven texts and how exactly they all fit together. He wonders how the seventy-year prophecy relates to God’s larger plan concerning the complete reinstatement of Israel.”1 Daniel knew that the exile would last 70 years (Dan. 9:2) as Jeremiah had written (Jer. 25:1–14).
Jeremiah repeats the language of Deuteronomy and Kings in discussing the need for repentance, seeking God with all one’s heart, in addition to describing the complete restoration from exile (Jer. 29:10, 13; cf. Deut. 30:1–4; 1 Kings 8:48–50)… The intertextuality of Jeremiah with Kings and Deuteronomy clarifies what Daniel is wondering in Daniel 9. First Kings 8:30 and Deuteronomy 30:1–6 focus upon the ultimate end of exile. By contrast Jeremiah 29 predicts a return from Babylon after seventy years but does not directly associate the seventy years (Jer. 29:10) and how it will ultimately be restored per Deuteronomy and Kings (Jer. 29:12). The Lord does not, however, guarantee in Jeremiah that they will be ultimately restored when they return to the land after seventy years.2
Daniel confessed that he and Israel had sinned (Dan. 9:3–19) and God responded by sending Gabriel to deliver a message that fills in some gaps of what will happen after the return from exile and when it will happen:
“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.“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.“And after the sixty-two weeks
Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself;
And the people of the prince who is to come
Shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.
The end of it shall be with a flood,
And till the end of the war desolations are determined.
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.” (Dan. 9:24–27)
It is interesting that Daniel’s 70 weeks are fulfilled after Jeremiah’s 70 years. The term, seventy weeks (שָׁבֻעִים שִׁבְעִים, šā·ḇu·‘îm šiḇ·‘îm), here is more literally seventy sevens, or seventy periods of seven, which does not necessarily mean seven days. Daniel had just been counting the years of the exile when an angel delivered another prophecy that measured time using a unit of seven periods of seven. It would make sense in the context for these periods to be periods of seven years. So, instead of dealing with a 70 seven-day-weeks, Daniel is receiving news about 70 seven-year-weeks. By the way, a year on the Jewish calendar is not 365 days like the calendar in current use. The Jewish calendar was a lunisolar calendar with its own system of leap years and sabbatic years.
These 70 weeks have been “determined for your people [Israel] and for your holy city [Jerusalem]” in anticipation of “everlasting righteousness” which has yet to be completed. Verse 25 is where we start to see history that has already been completed since Daniel’s prophecy:
“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. (Dan. 9:25)
This part of the prophecy predicts three events: the command to rebuild Jerusalem, the actual restoration of Jerusalem, and then “Messiah the Prince.” The time gaps are 7 weeks (49 lunar years) and 62 weeks (434 lunar years) between them. King Artaxerxes fulfilled this command to restore Jerusalem (Neh 2:1–8). Sir Robert Anderson calculated this to have occurred in the year 445 B.C.,3 but regardless of the precise timing of this event, it is “seven weeks,” or 49 years, later that the street and wall were restored (Dan. 9:25) and another “sixty-two weeks,” or 434 years, that Messiah is cut off (Dan. 9:26). This was fulfilled when Jesus Christ came to Jerusalem (Matt 21:1–11) in 32 A.D. by Anderson’s calculations.4 The word, Christ (Χριστός, Christos), is from a Greek word meaning Messiah (מָשִׁיחַ, mā·šî·aḥ, see John 1:41), which is Hebrew for anointed. Israel had been anticipating Jesus Christ’s entrance into Jerusalem for 483 years since Artaxerxes’ decree. Another prophet, Zechariah, gave some details about this day hundreds of years in advance:
“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your King is coming to you;
He is just and having salvation,
Lowly and riding on a donkey,
A colt, the foal of a donkey. (Zech. 9:9)
When Jesus came into Jerusalem on the day that Daniel predicted, he rode a donkey as Zechariah said He would. By doing this, He told everyone that He was the Messiah that they had been waiting for. His friends understood what this meant rejoiced; in fact, we call Jesus’ ride into Jerusalem on a donkey The Triumphal Entry because those who were in the cohort that entered Jerusalem with Him laid their coats and tree branches on the road for Him and shouting in excitement for He had finally come! Not everyone was happy about this, though. In fact, in a rather anti-climatic conclusion to this 483 years of anticipation, Jerusalem responds to the Triumphal Entry by saying, “Who is this?” (Matt. 21:10). They didn’t even recognize their Messiah when He came in the specific manner that Zechariah said He would.
The message that Jesus began preaching in Matthew 4 was “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand,” (Matt. 4:12–17), which was an offer to establish the Messianic Kingdom on earth if Israel would have repented, but they did not. At the Triumphal Entry, Jesus’ cohort shouted, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Matt 21:9), which is a quote from Psalm 118:26. This was only a minority, though, as the rest of Jerusalem did not recognize Him. Shortly thereafter, the last thing that He tells Israel publicly before withdrawing to the Mount of Olives to speak with His disciples was:
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate; for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ” (Matt. 23:37–39)
Apparently, 483 years of fulfilled prophecy did not provoke Israel to repent and say “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” Neither did John the Baptist’s ministry, nor the countless miracles that Jesus performed that confirmed His message that He was the Messiah. We know that Israel will see Jesus again, so she will make this proclamation, but if everything that Jesus did for three years did not provoke Israel to repent, then it must take something else to bring her to repentance.
Daniel continues the prophecy:
“And after the sixty-two weeks
Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself;
And the people of the prince who is to come
Shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.
The end of it shall be with a flood,
And till the end of the war desolations are determined. (Dan. 9:26)
Daniel’s prophecy is like a stopwatch. The stopwatch started in 444 B.C. and ran for 7 weeks, then for another 62 weeks, which totals 69 of the 70 weeks. After the 62 weeks, at the triumphal entry, the stopwatch stops. There are still another seven years on the timer, but first there are some other prophecies that must be fulfilled. We see the fulfillment of “Messiah shall be cut off” when Jesus is crucified a few days after his triumphal entry. And then, some people come to destroy the city and sanctuary. This took place in 70 A.D. when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman emperor, Titus. All of this has been fulfilled already and is recorded in the history books.
But there is still more in the prophecy that has yet to be fulfilled:
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.” (Dan. 9:27)
We see here that the future week will start with “a covenant with many” and is divided into two halves, the second half will be characterized by abominations “until the consummation.” Since Israel remained in a state of unbelief and nonrepentance, the purpose of this future tribulation period (Daniel’s 70th week) will be to bring Israel to repentance for the kingdom to come.
The Talmud (Sanhedrin, 97b–98a) records a dispute between Rabbi Eliezer (45-117 AD) and Rabbi Yehoshua (50-130 AD) on this topic. They agree that Israel must repent in order to be redeemed, i.e. for the Kingdom to come, and they both recognize that Israel is in a state of nonrepentance after the Temple is destroyed. Eliezer proposes that the if Israel does not repent, then she will not be redeemed, and he builds his argument from Jeremiah 3:22; Malachi 3:7; Isaiah 30:15; Jeremiah 4:1. Yehoshua responds to Eliezer that if Israel does not repent, then God will send a king who is as harsh as Haman and he responds to Eliezer’s Scripture with Isaiah 52:3; Jeremiah 3:14; Isaiah 49:7; Daniel 12:7. Rabbi Eliezer falls silent at the mention of Daniel’s prophecy and so Israel has spent nearly two millennia anticipating the one whom Christians often call the Antichrist who will force them into repentance worthy of the Messianic kingdom.
There are more details about this in Daniel and other Old Testament prophets as well as New Testament prophecies. For now it is sufficient to say that the prophets of the Bible have predicted literal events with extreme accuracy, which testifies to their reliability. This is only a consideration of a few verses, but the Bible is loaded with prophecies that have come to pass. This is one of several reasons that we can know that the Bible is God’s Word, and that we can trust it not only as a record of the past, but as a record of the future as well.