Some time ago, I had an interesting conversation with a professor who teaches at a conservative Christian college. He wanted to “straighten me out” about the interpretation of Daniel 9:24–27—the portion of Scripture that contains the prophecy of the Seventy Weeks—which I expound in my books Daniel Unsealed, He Is The One, and The Messiah Prophecy. He assumed that I had not read and studied the literally hundreds of Daniel expositions available in the commentaries and study Bibles in print today, since he proceeded to recount the traditional interpretation of Daniel 9 to me as if I were a first-year seminary student.
The traditional exposition he presented uses a Persian decree and substitutes seven years for each “week” in the prophecy. Rather than point out that this approach contains numerous chronological details that do not align with either the biblical text or documented history (that’s the big “secret” about older Daniel interpretations no one seems to want to discuss—the chronology doesn’t add up), I decided to focus on a serious weak point in his exposition, hoping to encourage him to examine the traditional view more critically rather than simply repeating long-standing interpretive assumptions.
As is customary in virtually all traditional interpretations of Daniel 9:24–27—those commonly found in conservative Bible-believing circles today, including the works of Matthew Henry, Albert Barnes, John Nelson Darby, C. I. Scofield, Sir Robert Anderson, Arno C. Gaebelein, Clarence Larkin, H. A. Ironside, John F. Walvoord, Leon J. Wood, and Edward J. Young, to name a few—the professor had essentially ignored the seven-week division recorded in Daniel 9:25. Instead, he combined the seven weeks and the sixty-two weeks into a single 69-week unit, interpreting it as a time period of 483 years.
Setting aside other errors in his exposition, I zeroed in on the seven-week period and asked him to step back and explain its meaning:
- What year in history did the seven weeks begin?
- What year did they end?
- What specific events marked their beginning and end?
- Where are those events documented in the biblical or historical record?
It has been a dozen years since I posed those questions, and the professor has yet to respond. The reason is simple: he can’t. His traditional exposition, like so many others, offers no real explanation for the seven weeks. At best, it relies on speculation. Some commentators guess that the seven weeks end with the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s walls, often dated around 409 BCE, but they offer no solid documentation from Scripture or history to support that guess. As the late Dr. Leon Wood of Grand Rapids Bible Seminary admitted in his Daniel commentary, “Details are lacking for certainty.”
But that is not good enough. The Bible and its prophecies are based on certainty. Vague approximations and speculative interpretations do not do justice to the precise, time-bound predictions God has given in his Word. To interpret chrono-specific prophecy with guesswork is to say, in effect, “We really don’t know what it means.” But that cannot be the case if the prophecy is truly from God. I contend that the division into seven and sixty-two weeks in verse 25 was given deliberately, with purpose and meaning. And if God gave it for our understanding, then a faithful exposition must explain each division clearly and with reference to identifiable historical events.
It should be apparent to any Bible-believing reader: if an expositor cannot account for the seven weeks in Daniel 9:25 with clarity and documentation, then the reliability of the entire interpretation of Daniel 9:24–27 is brought into question. This is the case with virtually all modern expositions of Daniel 9. Check your study Bible. If it does not provide a detailed explanation of the seven-week period—with a clear starting point, ending point, and historical corroboration—then it is based on guesswork.
In contrast, I do offer a complete and specific explanation in my books. The seven weeks represent seven Pentecosts (the Hebrew word “weeks” for Feast of Weeks), one each year, aligned with the seven-year Sabbath cycle observed by ancient Jews from 42 BCE to 36 BCE. This interpretation anchors the prophecy in real history and helps locate the prediction about the Messiah with precision. (See the chart of The Seventy Weeks.)
In the Conclusion of Daniel Unsealed, I write:
“Of course, the interpretations set forth in this book, inasmuch as they fully explain the chrono-specific prophecies in Daniel by matching their biblical texts to events documented in history, constitute a challenge to the field of biblical eschatology. Bible-believing Bible scholars (and, fortunately, there are still a few of them around) will need to reexamine basic assumptions about their sequence of end-time events, and do so without using a framework of future events from the Danielic prophecies to build upon. That process will be troubling for the most conservative eschatologists among us, especially when they realize that some of their more cherished eschatological assumptions may have to be adjusted as a result.
For non-Bible-believing Bible scholars (and, unfortunately, there are all too many of them around), the actuality of revelatory predictive prophecy validated by later fulfillment in history—a sure sign of the reality of divine providence—will now have to be incorporated into their anti-theistic academic approaches to biblical exposition. Sadly, even with the overwhelming evidence provided by the Danielic prophecies and their fulfillments, admitting the concept of transcendence into the halls of academia may be considered too risky for those biblical scholars who choose to remain wise in the eyes of their peers.
As for Jewish scholars and religious professionals, the challenge offered by the new interpretations presented in this book will be even greater still. The chronological preciseness of the prophecy in Daniel, chapter 9, demands that serious consideration be given to the evidence that Jesus, in whose name Jews have been unjustly persecuted and killed for almost two-thousand years, was, is, and will again be the Anointed One foretold by Moses and the prophets in the Tanakh.
Indeed, it is quite possible—even probable, in your author’s opinion—that the chrono-specific predictive prophecies in Daniel have been unsealed by God, working his will through the recalled people of modern Israel at this point in history, especially for the edification of the Jewish people, to allow them to understand the Holy One of Israel in the manner the Scriptures ordain they will acknowledge and worship him at the time of the end.”
As long as incorrect interpretations of Daniel’s chrono-specific predictive prophecies continue to be taught in seminaries and preached from pulpits around the world, the power and precision of God’s Word will be diminished accordingly. So here and now, I am calling on all Bible scholars, professors, preachers, teachers, and anyone else who expounds Daniel to acknowledge that the traditional interpretations of Daniel’s prophecies do not align with both the biblical text and documented history, not borh at the same time. And I invite each of you—honestly and prayerfully—to examine the new and correct interpretations of Daniel’s prophecies as presented in my commentaries.
If you want to consider ten more examples of incorrect chronology arising out of 19th-century Christianity and now being taught in conservative seminaries and preached from Bible-believing pulpits, see my book Errors in Time.