SEVENTY WEEKS - Chapter Eight

“Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. (Daniel 9:25 kjv)


It should be clear that, in verse 25, the number of weeks called out as seven weeks and sixty-two weeks (total of 69), and the two historic events that bracket those shabuwa are linked, and because of the local context, we are able to determine that the first sixty-nine shabuwa are periods of seven years each. Now we move on to the final shabuwa.

In verse 27 we encounter week/shabuwa number 70, and we come to one of the most hotly debated eschatological verses in all of the Old Testament. Everyone knows enough about such debates that we need not go into any of that here. Instead, I will introduce a new possibility as to the meaning of this verse. Everyone should appreciate that. Right?

To make the introduction, I want to talk about playing cards. I don’t play poker. I don’t really know how, and I really don’t care to learn, but over the years, I have learned something about the possible hands, as well as something about the ranking of possible hands. I know for example that a full-house is two of one kind and three of another kind, and I know that a full-house beats two-pair. Is this correct? Well, not always.

You see, a full-house would normally beat two-pair because it is more likely for a player to get two-pair than for a player to get two of one kind and three of another kind…unless, I tell you that both of my pairs are the same card. If I have two-pair and both pairs are queens, then that beats a full-house. Of course, you will quickly say that it’s not two-pair, but rather four-of-a-kind. Okay, but we’ve all seen this scene in some movie or other.

Just the same, my point is made. If I say that I have two pair, you don’t know what my cards are until I say something like; aces and eights, dead-man’s hand. The word ‘pair’ is like the word ‘shabuwa. It has only QUANTITATIVE meaning, not QUALITATIVE meaning; we know how many, but we don’t know of what. The same thing goes for pairs.

We might say the same thing of dozens. I could tell you that I have to stop on the way home to get a couple of dozen. You don’t know what I’m getting. You only know how many. It could be eggs or it could be roses. In fact, my two dozens could be a dozen eggs for breakfast and a dozen roses for my lady. They don’t have to be two dozen of the same thing. To my knowledge, this principle has never been applied to Daniel’s seventy weeks, but it can be. All seventy weeks do not have to be periods of seven years.

Now for those who want to justify a 2,000 year gap between the 69^th and the 70^th week, the fact that Daniel 9:24-27 separates the 70 weeks into the first 69 and the final week becomes a justification of their theory, but maybe we should look at that differently. What if the break between the 69^th and 70^th weeks is to help us see that the 70^th week is somehow different that the preceding 69 weeks? What if God made that separation because He wanted to help us notice that different events in the two blocks of time give a different context to verse 27 than He had written into verse 25? Is that possible?

Well, before we go too far here, we better make a point that the divisions of verses were not part of what Gabriel spoke to Daniel. Everything that Gabriel said was all part of one big explanation; no verse divisions. But, there is a distinction between the context of the 69 weeks and the context of the 70^th week.

And, while we are looking at how Gabriel’s words were divided into verses, notice that there could easily be a further division within verse 27. From my perspective, I would divide that one verse into two parts with the division right after the word ‘cease’. There is a comma there now, and a conjunction (and), and the subject, though related, changes right there. After that, desolation and abomination become the new subjects, and a protracted period of time seems to be in view. [Consummation: completion, termination, full end]

Look at the events of the 70th week. In one, final week there is a covenant confirmed, and in the mid point of that final week an end is made to sacrifices and oblations. This, then, is the context of week number seventy. Nothing here indicates that that this final shabuwa has to be a seven-year long shabuwa.

“And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease”.

Quite the contrary is true. How long would it take you to confirm a covenant? How long would it take you to command an end to sacrifices and offerings? If we say that this is a seven-year shabuwa, we must certainly use context to substantiate our claim. What we have instead in an interpretation that has been passed down from one generation of preachers to the next for a long time, without regard to context.

Summary: The final shabuwa of Daniel’s seventy shabuwa could be a shabuwa of days rather than a shabuwa of years. Nothing in the context needs seven years for accomplishment.