This article has been written as part of a series presenting varied interpretations of different aspects that relate to eschatology. You can find the others here. It is an area where there are many different viewpoints, and we encourage healthy and constructive discussion. We ask readers to reflect on the various studies put forward, and we welcome comments that are respectfully made. This is the second in a short series seeking to understand Daniel’s prophetic timelines. If you wish to contribute an article, you can find our guidelines here.

Daniel 9

While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and making my request to the Lord my God for his holy hill, while I was still in prayer, Gabriel, the man I had seen in the earlier vision, came to me in swift flight about the time of the evening sacrifice. He instructed me and said to me, “Daniel, I have now come to give you insight and understanding. As soon as you began to pray, a word went out, which I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed. Therefore, consider the word and understand the vision: “Seventy ‘sevens’ are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy Place] “Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him. Daniel 9:20ff

A long-misunderstood prophecy

Theologians and prophecy watchers have long tried to understand the various prophecies in the Bible, and those that relate to times and dates have exercised the minds of many. These are often related to end-of-the-age times, as well as looking to the past. The ‘weeks’ have often been seen to relate to seven-year (Sabbatical) cycles, and ‘days’ have been interpreted often as years.

Daniel’s vision of the 70 Weeks Nation has been consistently seen, by Christians, as relating to Christian history with the chronology calculated by counting back 69 ½ weeks from the crucifixion. Swathes of theology and thinking have been produced as a result of this approach.

Daniel and the vision are specifically related to the Jewish people.

I, however, find a problem with this approach, simply because Daniel and the vision are specifically related to the Jewish people. Therefore, my contention is that the 70 weeks have to be directly related to Jewish history.

Exile and return

What we know of the history of that period is that Daniel was exiled from Jerusalem and taken to Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon in either the first or second group of exiles, either 606 or 598BC. He was trained in the Babylonian court, becoming powerful through his revealing of dreams. He was offered the position of third ruler in the empire by Nebuchadnezzar’s son Belshazzar and was still working in the kingdom when the Babylonian empire fell to Cyrus in 551 BC.

Now modern history will tell us that Nebuchadnezzar did not have a son Belshazzar; however, this flies in the face of classic historians, and simply means that we have not yet found any evidence of Belshazzar. We are in the same position as when modern historians claimed that the Hittite empire was a biblical myth, until evidence was discovered, and again when the Assyrian empire was a biblical myth until evidence was discovered.

Accepting the classic historians at their word and learning, we have a scenario where Nebuchadnezzar is struck down by lycanthropy and his son Belshazzar becomes regent. He abuses the holy vessels of the temple and suffers the visitation of the hand, which Daniel interprets. For his blasphemy, Belshazzar is assassinated by courtiers loyal to Nebuchadnezzar and replaced as regent by Astyages, king of Media and the brother-in-law of Nebuchadnezzar. I would suggest that it is Astyages whose story is told in the Book of Esther, a series of events that indirectly led to the return of the Jewish people to Israel. Historians tell of Astyages having received a prophecy that he would be killed by his grandson. This led to Astyages going to extreme lengths to prevent a grandson coming of age, even ordering the killing of his daughter’s son. With a storyline that goes beyond the scope of this, the child is saved and grows to become Cyrus, who founded the Persian empire and who did indeed displace and kill his grandfather.

Cyrus issued the right of return in 551 BC, a move that many would see as influenced by Daniel. Thus, this moment would likely be the beginning of the 70 weeks nation, even though work on the temple does not begin immediately.

A key player in the rebuilding and restoration of Jerusalem was Nehemiah. In his role as cupbearer to the king, many believe he acted as the Persian empire’s head of intelligence. And 49 years (seven ‘sevens’) after the decree of return, Nehemiah is summoned back to the centre in 502 BC, arguably to garner intelligence around the Ionian revolt, which occurred at this stage.

Greek and Roman domination

The nation then continues through the 69 ‘weeks’, working through the Persian empire into Alexander’s Greek empire. Again, classic historians present a story where priests from the temple in Jerusalem met Alexander and showed him Daniel’s prophecy, which foretold the Greek’s conquest over the Persians (Dan 7:6; 8:3-8, 20-22; 11:3). Can we say that definitely happened? No. But what we can unequivocally say is that pretty much uniquely Israel was left without any Hellenisation at that time, unlike Alexander’s other conquests.

During the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, the Maccabean revolt had such an impact that Rome, also fighting Antiochus, accorded ‘Friend of Rome’ status upon Israel. This happy state continued until 68BC, when the king was Aristobulus and the priest John Hyrcanus. Both envied the other’s position, and both ended up offering Rome bribes to support their claims to the other’s role (in addition to their own). Eventually, John Hyrcanus became both king and priest, which led to the Roman general Pompey becoming involved. In the course of this, as described in Josephus, and most likely in 64 BC (although modern histories tend to go with 63 BC), Pompey slaughtered the priests in the middle of the afternoon temple sacrifices and entered the Holy of Holies, declaring that he found nothing. In 61 BC, Israel was taken into Roman jurisdiction and lost its place as a distinct nation.

Timeline of Israel’s 70 weeks

Therefore, if we take Daniel’s 70 weeks nation out of the Christian construct it has been forced into, what we see is a timeline for Israel that fits very well into both the 70 weeks nation as well as the time and the season.

The 1,290 days

In addition to the above timings, we also see additional insights from Daniel into the history of Israel.

“From the time the regular burnt offering is taken away and the abomination that causes desolation is set up, there will be 1,290 days. How blessed will be anyone who waits and arrives at the 1,335 days. But you, go your way until the end comes. Then you will rest and rise for your reward, at the end of days.” Daniel 12:11

The First Jewish Revolt started just before Succoth in 66 AD, and the siege was set at Passover 70 AD, which constitutes a period of 1,260 days. At the start of the siege, Titus, son of Vespasian, gave the Jews 30 days to surrender. At that point 1,290 days from the start of the revolt, Titus began building a siege wall around Jerusalem to cut it off. The wall took 45 days to build. At that point, 1335 days from the start of the revolt, Jerusalem was cut off from the world. Those who had listened, and escaped before that would be blessed.

2,300 years

 “The first said to me, ‘Two thousand three hundred evenings and mornings, after which the sanctuary will be restored to its rightful state’.” Daniel 8:14

In 334 BC, Alexander the Great defeated the Persian forces at the Battle of Issus. In doing so Judah and Jerusalem came under Greek rule, and the idea of a united Greek monarchy was birthed.

In 1967 AD, Jerusalem was liberated by Israeli forces and in the same month the Greek monarchy was overthrown in a military coup. These events were 2,300 years apart.

The Holocaust

There is also one further alignment with the 3½ year time scale (1,290 days, or a time, times, and half a time – Dan 12:7) and it is this.

The Nazi Holocaust began in late 1941 with the killing of 500,000 – 800,000 Russian Jews. It continued from there with the turning of the concentration camps into death camps for the Jews (and others). The concentration camps were liberated in Spring 1945, Bergen Belsen being the last in mid-April 1945. The Holocaust ran for 3 ½ years.

It may be that the Holocaust’s 3½ years were a foreshadowing of a later brutal tribulation, (in a similar manner to ISIS’s 3½ of authority over the ancient site of Babylon). But maybe, it was the great tribulation itself.

The threatened destruction of the Jews in the Book of Esther directly led to the Right of Return, and ... the Nazi Holocaust led directly to the rebirth of Israel as a nation.

Incidentally, I see curious parallels between how the threatened destruction of the Jews in the Book of Esther directly led to the Right of Return, and how the Nazi Holocaust led directly to the rebirth of Israel as a nation.

An interpretation from the perspective of the nation of Israel

It is important to reiterate that this reading of history is at odds with the majority of modern scholarship. However, it is in sympathy with classic history from the likes of Xenophon and Herodotus, men who were far closer to the events than the modern commentators.

Yet it makes sense to see these prophecies as related to Israel, as that was the context in which Daniel received them, rather than trying to shoehorn them into a Gentile, Christian, and futuristic model – these seemingly ‘end-time’ prophecies are already fulfilled.