“While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my plea before the Lord my God for the holy hill of my God, while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the first, came to me in swift flight at the time of the evening sacrifice. He made me understand, speaking with me and saying, ‘O Daniel, I have now come out to give you insight and understanding. At the beginning of your pleas for mercy a word went out, and I have come to tell it to you, for you are greatly loved. Therefore consider the word and understand the vision. Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place'” (Daniel 9, 20-24, ESV).
In the first year of the rule of Darius the Mede Daniel was reading the book of Jeremiah the prophet and realized that the time of Babylonian exile was almost completed (see Jeremiah 25:11-14; 29:10-14). Within the traditional chronology that places Darius the Mede immediately after Babylon was conquered by Persia, Daniel’s reference to his first year likely points to approximately 538 BC. Since the first captives had been taken from Jerusalem around 605 BC, Daniel recognized that Jeremiah’s 70-year period was nearing completion.
So Daniel began to pray to God pleading for the return of the Jews to the promised land in vs. 3-19. Daniel’s impassioned prayer contained expressions of humility worship, confession, and petition. In the prayer Daniel acknowledged that the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of Judah were not acts of an arbitrary God, but the consequences of the sinful actions of God’s people, about which they were repeatedly warned.
Daniel concluded that if there was any hope for them, it would be because of God’s mercy and in His righteousness, not their own.
Then, the angel Gabriel appeared to Daniel and communicated the heavenly answer to Daniel’s prayer by reinterpreting the seventy years as seventy weeks (seventy sevens) that are at hand for God’s people (vs. 24). These seventy weeks are understood to refer to seventy seven-year periods of time or 490 years (70 x 7 years).
So, Gabriel informed Daniel that the period of time Daniel was concerned with, the Babylonian exile, was only one part of a more extensive plan of God that would “bring in everlasting righteousness” (vs. 24, cf. Ephesians 1:7-10).
There are several interpretations of the 490-year era that Gabriel revealed. Some view the 490 years figuratively or as approximate and some views interpret the time period literally. Because Gabriel breaks the seventy sevens into three parts, 7 + 62 + 1 (see vs. 25-27), some views even place a gap or period of time between the 69th and 70th weeks so that the last seven-year period of time is at the time leading up to the second coming of Christ.
While there has been much speculation by biblical scholars stipulating when the 70 weeks begins and/or ends, what’s significant to me is that God through the angel Gabriel notified Daniel that the 70 years Daniel is concerned about is but one week of a 70-week comprehensive plan.
God has a grand plan. It’s a plan for our redemption. But, the scope of God’s plan is always immensely greater that what we can know or even understand.
And, you have a role to play in God’s grand plan of redemption. Your job is to hope and trust in Him and make His Will your own will so that you become both a participant and a facilitator of the cosmic plan of God!
In him we have redemption through his blood…. making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth in him. (Ephesians 1:7-10 , ESV)
