DANIEL'S 70 WEEKS:
In ancient times, the word "sabbath" means "SEVEN". A week of seven is always a "shevuah" or a "Sabbath" that defined specific periods of time of import to God. This is most apparent in the designated Feast Days of Leviticus 23 and within the teaching of God's Sabbath days. The duration of specific Feast Days were designated mostly as periods of seven days. The Sabbath day, that God commanded His people to sanctify and to keep holy for Him, was the seventh day of a week of days. It was sanctified by God to be remembered as sacred because a "Sabbath" was always a shadow or type of the Millennium Kingdom Age to come or the final day of God's creation, the seventh day of 1,000 years. This Kingdom Age to come was also known as the Day of the Lord, when God's creative plan would be fulfilled.
However, a "shevuah" was not only seven days, but could be seven months or seven years. As an example, the seventh YEAR was also to be separated and kept holy for God where no planting or sowing was to be done. The lesson was that His people were to rest in Him in complete trust during the seventh year: that their provision did not come from the earth (earth worship was as prevalent in that day as it is today): that their provision did not come from their labours of planting and sowing: but that it came FROM GOD and His omnipotent will. That is part of the lesson of God's Sabbaths.
The year of Jubilee was a further extension of how God defined time on the earth. Jubilee was the completion of seven weeks of seven years: 49 years. And the Jubilee, the 50th year, was an essential part of God's calendar. God's people of the Old Testament or the "Torah", were faithful to use His method to mark their history. In ancient writings that were part of the Dead Sea Scrolls, it is recorded that Rebecca lived to be " three Jubilees and 1 week and 1 year" (158 years); and Isaac "completed 3 Jubilees and 6 weeks (192 years). Of Abraham it says that "he was two weeks old (14 years) when he separated himself from his father's worship of idols". (Jubilees 11:1) In the ancient times of the Old Testament writings, the concept of a week being a week of years was common understanding.
For us today, who live within a culture that only understands a week to be a period of seven DAYS, we lose the clarity and the revelation in God's Word that becomes the impenetrable steel of our spiritual armor. Without the knowledge that a biblical week COULD also be a week of years, the interpretation of Daniel's weeks becomes obscure and unclear to us.
There is great skepticism about Daniel"s timetable of 70 weeks amongst the "liberal" theologians today. If the 70 weeks are interpreted as weeks of YEARS, it is a truly remarkable prophecy of great relevance for us today! Is it really wishful thinking on our part to designate these crucial weeks as years: rather than weeks of days as some would today? This doubt about exactly what the biblical "week" really means has opened the door to an errant historical view of Daniel......the assumption that what is written in Daniel has long passed and is not relevant at all for us today.
However, Daniel was following the pattern of marking time that God had established and that was common to all Jews of his day. We see that crucial fact evidenced in the writings of the Dead Sea Scrolls mentioned previously. For marking mankind's history, God used the week of YEARS. Certainly the culmination of God's entire salvation plan as expressed in Dan 9:24 has NOT been completed yet:
"70 weeks have been decreed for your people and your Holy City (Jerusalem)
to FINISH the transgression
(end the rebellion of sinful man)
to bring an END of sin on the earth
(this cannot occur in total until the Second
Coming and final judgement)
to MAKE ATONEMENT for iniquity
Jesus did accomplish this on the cross
but it is a freewill choice to receive His
atonement, or to refuse it
therefore sin remains on the earth until His
return as King
to BRING IN everlasting righteousness
by bringing in the righteous Messianic
Kingdom Age
to SEAL UP vision and prophecy
(to complete and fulfill ALL the prophecy of
the Bible
-certainly not all fulfilled to date)
to ANOINT the most Holy One "
Jesus anointed "King" of the Messianic
Kingdom Age
If we understand the divine marking of mankind's history in the context of God's program.....that in prophecy, a "week" was more commonly a week of YEARS, we can add this understanding to "the things of our peace" that Jesus talked about. We can rejoice in that God's program of restoration is right on track; and that HE IS DRIVING ALL world events today.