The events of Daniel 9 take place in the first year of
Darius the Mede, most likely 539/8 BC. [16] The man Daniel is
reflecting on the prophet Jeremiah’s earlier prediction that 70
years would pass until there would be an end to the desolations
of Jerusalem (Jer. 25:11; Dan. 9:1–2). The 70 years of Jewish
captivity in Babylon were a divine punishment on the Jews for
having violated 70 sabbatical years during roughly 800 years of
occupation in the Promised Land (i.e., in violation of Lev.
25:2–6 and 26:34–35; see also Ex. 23:10–11; Jer. 25:11, 29:10; 2 Chron. 36:20–21; and Dan. 9:10–14). Whether the violations that
Daniel was acknowledging in Chapter 9 occurred sequentially over
a 490-year period, or whether they were separated by gaps within
the roughly 800-year period, is a subject of debate [12],
although it is not unreasonable to assume that some gaps did
occur.
While Daniel is praying that the desolations of Jerusalem would
end soon—counting from the first desolation (and Daniel’s own
exile) approximately 70 years earlier—the angel Gabriel appears
and further develops the 70-year theme, giving the prophetic
outline in Dan. 9:24–27. In Daniel 9, Gabriel implies that
"Jeremiah’s 70 years" may indeed be concluding, but that
"Daniel’s 70 sevens" are just beginning. The end point of
"Jeremiah’s 70" became the springboard for "Daniel’s 70," and
both are dealt with in Daniel 9 near the beginning of the reign
of Cyrus. Gabriel’s issuance of the 70-sevens prophecy to Daniel
and Cyrus’ issuance of his decree to the Jews may well have been
simultaneous events, occurring in the same year [17] or even on
the same day (Dan. 9:23).
HISTORICAL INTERPRETATIONS
OF THE TERMINUS A QUO
OF DANIEL’S 70 SEVENS
The first and most
conspicuous of the royal decrees allowing the exiled Jews to
return westward to Jerusalem from Babylon was the one given by
Cyrus, the king of Persia, in 538/537 BC. [18] This decree was
acted upon by Sheshbazzar, and later, Zerubabbel, who began to
reconstruct the temple in Jerusalem (Ezra 1–6). A minority of
Christian scholars, including Young, Leupold, Keil, Klieforth,
Mauro, Calvin [19, 20], and, most importantly, West [15], have
backed the decree of Cyrus as the terminus a quo for
Daniel’s 70 sevens, as have many Jewish interpreters [2, 21] and
at least one Messianic Jewish interpreter. [17] Nonetheless,
with the exception of West [15], none of these scholars has
provided a satisfactorily detailed solution for the fulfillment
of the overall prophecy after starting with the decree of
Cyrus as the terminus a quo.
On the other hand, in the opinion of the most cited conservative
Christian scholars of the late 19th [3] and 20th [4] centuries,
the decree of King Cyrus cannot be the terminus a quo of
the 70 sevens because Cyrus’ decree ostensibly referred only to
the building of the temple, making no mention of the
building (or rebuilding) of the city of Jerusalem itself, which
is required by the prophecy (Dan. 9:25). Conservative Christian
scholars who are in favor of dismissing the edict of Cyrus as
the terminus a quo commonly cite 2 Chron. 36:22–23 and
Ezra 1:2–4 to support their viewpoint. However, as will be
discussed shortly, dismissal of the decree of Cyrus as the
terminus a quo is biblically insupportable.
Table
of Contents
Know
Therefore and Understand
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