Daniel’s Prayer for His People – The Seventy Weeks – Chapter 9

“Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.“

DANIEL’S PRAYER FOR HIS PEOPLE

¹ In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, by descent a Mede, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans— ² in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years.

Daniel is writing “in the first year of Darius”, ca. 539 BC. This would have been less than fifty years since the fall of Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar in 587 B.C., or the destruction of the temple in 586 BC. As Daniel studied the prophesies of Jeremiah, he “perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years.” In these verses in Chapter 9 what Daniel came to realize is why his people were exiled and when that exile would be over.

DANIEL 9:1-13

³ Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. ⁴ I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, ⁵ we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. ⁶ We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. ⁷ To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame, as at this day, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, in all the lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery that they have committed against you. ⁸ To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you.

Daniel’s prayer in chapter 9 is based on his realization that through Jeremiah’s prophecy, the 70‑year exile is ending, but Judah’s deeper problem, covenant unfaithfulness still remains. His prayer is a national confession, an appeal to God’s covenant mercy, and the doorway through which God reveals the far greater plan of the “Seventy Weeks.” He realizes that as a nation “We have sinned”, “We have acted wickedly”, and “We have not listened to the prophets” This leads Daniel to lift up his voice to God and appeal for deliverance of his people.

Daniel begins his prayer by fasting, wearing sackcloth, and sitting in ashes, the traditional signs of deep repentance and mourning. Daniel admits that God was right to bring the curses written in the Law of Moses “turning aside from your commandments and rules.” He admits “To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you.” He acknowledges that “All Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside, refusing to obey your voice.” These were undeniable facts since Daniel knew of the warnings that God had given through His prophets.

For the Jews to return from Babylon, God needed to forgive the very sins that sent them into exile in the first place, mainly covenant rebellion expressed through idolatry, injustice, and refusal to listen to His prophets. As Daniel prayed to God for deliverance, he acknowledged these sins explicitly and asks God to “turn away His anger,” “forgive iniquity,” and “pardon rebellion.” God consistently and patiently had reached out to the people of Judah.

God had continuously sent prophets to Judah and Jerusalem in the generations leading up to the Babylonian Captivity. He sent Isaiah who warned Judah during the reigns of Uzziah through Hezekiah. He sent Jeremiah who prophesied in Jerusalem until its fall in 586 BC. He sent Micah, a contemporary of Isaiah who warned Jerusalem would become “a heap of ruins.” Habakkuk was sent by God warning of Babylon’s rise and that Babylon would be the instrument of judgment for Judah. Ezekiel was among the Jewish exiles taken to Babylon during the second deportation in 597 BC, following the conquest of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. His prophecies often focused on God’s divine judgment against Israel for their idolatry and unfaithfulness. Daniel would have known of Ezekiel’s warnings. Micah warned both Samaria and Jerusalem of coming ruin. The destruction that was to come was foreordained by God if the people of Judah did not listen to Him through His prophets. As Daniel’s prayer proceeds Daniel acknowledges the sins of Judah and the prophets calls for them to repent and turn back to their God. Jeremiah, who Daniel acknowledges in Chapter 9:2, was a prophet of God to Judah for over 40 years until Jerusalem fell and he continuously warned them of God’s impending judgement.

Jeremiah 25:11-13

¹¹ This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. ¹² Then after seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, declares the Lord, making the land an everlasting waste. ¹³ I will bring upon that land all the words that I have uttered against it, everything written in this book, which Jeremiah prophesied against all the nations.

God was a very persistent and patient God toward Judah and Jerusalem. Along with the well-known prophets the books of Kings and Chronicles both mention unnamed prophets that God sent. 2 Chronicles 36:15 tells us ¹⁵ “The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them (Judah) by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place.” God did so desiring that they turn away from their sins and their disobedience and turn back to Him. He was patient; however, he was not ever-patient.

Judah eventually would be exiled because of they consistently broke their covenant with their God which included idolatry, injustice, violence, Sabbath-breaking, rejecting God’s prophets, and violating the Mosaic covenant. Their sinful rebellion is testified across Kings, Chronicles, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Minor Prophets. Their destruction would be inevitable if they did not repent and turn back to their God. They were forewarned. The people of Judah loved their sins more than they loved their God. They ignored their God and the consequences came down on them. Daniel in his prayer was asking a lot from God for these disobedient people.

¹⁶ “O Lord, according to all your righteous acts, let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city Jerusalem, your holy hill, because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people.”

Daniel is asking God to turn away His anger from Jerusalem because He is a righteous God. Daniel is grounding his request in God’s righteousness, not Israel’s performance. God is faithful to His covenant “he keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments.” God keeps His promises and God disciplines, but He also restores. Daniel pleads with God, yet he knows of Judah’s sins.

Daniel 9:8-19 – To us, O Lord, belongs open shame

⁸ To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you. ⁹ To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him ¹⁰ and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God by walking in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets. ¹¹ All Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside, refusing to obey your voice. And the curse and oath that are written in the Law of Moses the servant of God have been poured out upon us, because we have sinned against him. ¹² He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us and against our rulers who ruled us, by bringing upon us a great calamity. For under the whole heaven there has not been done anything like what has been done against Jerusalem. ¹³ As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us; yet we have not entreated the favor of the Lord our God, turning from our iniquities and gaining insight by your truth. ¹⁴ Therefore the Lord has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us, for the Lord our God is righteous in all the works that he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice. ¹⁵ And now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and have made a name for yourself, as at this day, we have sinned, we have done wickedly.

Daniel in verse 11 refers to the curse and oath that is written in the Law of Moses. This is referring specifically to the covenant curses in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28–29. These chapters contain both the curse and the oath that Moses placed upon Israel if they broke the covenant. Because Judah had broken covenant with God He poured out these curses and oaths “upon us, because we have sinned against him.” “Therefore the Lord has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us, for the Lord our God is righteous in all the works that he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice.”

So, what were the sins of Judah that Daniel was asking God to forgive so that His people might be restored? Read closely verses

THE SINS OF JUDAH THAT GOD HAD CALLED THEM ON

BREAKING THE FIRST COMMANDMENT

Judah fell because it abandoned their covenant with God. This covenant is foundational to understanding the relationship between God and the Jewish people, particularly through the Abrahamic covenant. They broke the first commandment “You shall have no other gods before me.” They repeatedly worshiped foreign gods such as Baal, Asherah, Molech, and the “host of heaven” including the sun, moon, and stars. Kings like Manasseh openly broke covenant with God for instance when “he erected altars for Baal and made an Asherah¹, as Ahab king of Israel had done, and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them. ⁴ And he built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, “In Jerusalem will I put my name.” ⁵ And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. ⁶ And he burned his son as an offering and used fortune-telling and omens and dealt with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger.” 2 Kings 21:2-6.

The prophet Jeremiah wrote: “And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I, God did not command, nor did it come into my mind.” Jeremiah 7:31.

SOCIAL INJUSTICE

Judah’s social injustices before the Babylonian exile centered on oppression of the poor, corrupt courts, bribery, exploitation by rulers, and failure to defend widows, orphans, and the vulnerable. These injustices are repeatedly condemned by prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, and others. These prophets condemned Judah’s elites for crushing the poor, seizing land, and enriching themselves at the expense of ordinary people. Justice was routinely bought, not upheld.

Micah 3:9-11

⁹ Hear this, you heads of the house of Jacob
    and rulers of the house of Israel,
who detest justice
    and make crooked all that is straight,
¹⁰ who build Zion with blood
    and Jerusalem with iniquity.
¹¹ Its heads give judgment for a bribe;
    its priests teach for a price;
    its prophets practice divination for money;
yet they lean on the Lord and say,
    “Is not the Lord in the midst of us?
    No disaster shall come upon us.”

The prophets describe a society obsessed with wealth, luxury, and self-indulgence while ignoring righteousness and justice. This greed fueled land-grabbing, debt slavery, and economic inequality as recorded by rebukes across Isaiah, Micah, and Jeremiah. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Micah all treat these injustices as evidence that Judah had abandoned God. Micah gives the sharpest social critique of any prophet to Judah.

Woe to the Oppressors – Micah 2:1-2

Woe to those who devise wickedness
    and work evil on their beds!
When the morning dawns, they perform it,
    because it is in the power of their hand.
² They covet fields and seize them,
    and houses, and take them away;
they oppress a man and his house,
    a man and his inheritance.

Micah declared what God demanded – Micah 6:8

⁸ He has told you, O man, what is good;
    and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
    and to walk humbly with your God?

RELIGIOUS HYPOCRISY — OUTWARD WORSHIP WITHOUT OBEDIENCE

Faithless Israel Called to Repentance – Jeremiah 3:6-10

⁶ The Lord said to me in the days of King Josiah: “Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the whore? ⁷ And I thought, ‘After she has done all this she will return to me,’ but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. ⁸ She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore. ⁹ Because she took her whoredom lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree. ¹⁰ Yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but in pretense, declares the Lord.”

2 Kings 17:19 confirmed this: “Judah also did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the customs that Israel had introduced.”

Even after they saw what the consequences that were brought down on Israel, the people of Judah, prior to Babylon, continued performing religious rituals, sacrifices, and temple worship, but their hearts and daily lives rejected God’s commands. This was clearly religion without righteousness, ceremony without covenant loyalty and God knew this. Temple worship continued, incense, offerings, feast days were kept, however the people’s lives contradicted God’s law. The prophets made it clear that God desired obedience over ritual. Outward worship without obedience did not please Him. God saw that outward worship without obedience meant Judah may have been performing religious rituals but they lived in rebellion. In 2 Kings 23:27 “The Lord said, “I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed Israel, and I will cast off this city that I have chosen, Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, My name shall be there.” And He did.

Daniel 9:16-19 – He pleads to God for mercy

¹⁶ “O Lord, according to all your righteous acts, let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city Jerusalem, your holy hill, because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a byword among all who are around us. ¹⁷ Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy, and for your own sake, O Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. ¹⁸ O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. ¹⁹ O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.”

Daniel pleads with God to open His eyes and “see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name.” The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, in Book 10, Chapter 8 of “The Antiquities of the Jews” writes of this desolation after the Babylonians had taken the city:

“And now it was that the king of Babylon sent Nebuzaradan, the general of his army, to Jerusalem, to pillage the temple, who had it also in command to burn it and the royal palace, and to lay the city even with the ground, and to transplant the people into Babylon. Accordingly, he came to Jerusalem in the eleventh year of king Zedekiah, and pillaged the temple, and carried out the vessels of God, both gold and silver, and particularly that large laver which Solomon dedicated, as also the pillars of brass, and their chapiters, with the golden tables and the candlesticks; and when he had carried these off, he set fire to the temple in the fifth month, the first day of the month, in the eleventh year of the reign of Zedekiah, and in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar: he also burnt the palace, and overthrew the city. The general of the Babylonian king now overthrew the city to the very foundations, and removed all the people, and took for prisoners the high priest Seraiah, and Zephaniah the priest that was next to him, and the rulers that guarded the temple, who were three in number, and the eunuch who was over the armed men, and seven friends of Zedekiah, and his scribe, and sixty other rulers; all which, together with the vessels which they had pillaged, he carried to the king of Babylon to Riblah, a city of Syria. So the king commanded the heads of the high priest and of the rulers to be cut off there; but he himself led all the captives and Zedekiah to Babylon. He also led Josedek the high priest away bound. He was the son of Seraiah the high priest, whom the king of Babylon had slain in Riblah, a city of Syria, as we just now related.”

Daniel in his prayer starts out in verse 4 “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments.” His pleading to God is based on God’s character. God is “great and awesome”, and he understands that God keeps his commandments. Daniel knows that God is perfectly faithful to everything He has promised which includes both His blessings and His warnings. He never breaks His word, never forgets His commitments, and never acts out of character. This continues in Chapter 9:16 ¹⁶ “O Lord, according to all your righteous acts.”

Gabriel Brings an Answer

²⁰ 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, ²¹ 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. ²² He made me understand, speaking with me and saying, “O Daniel, I have now come out to give you insight and understanding. ²³ 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.

The Seventy Weeks

²⁴ “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. ²⁵ Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. And for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. ²⁶ And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed. ²⁷ And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.”

Verse 24 – Daniel 9:24 declares that God has set aside 490 years for His plan to bring Israel’s sin to an end, provide atonement, establish everlasting righteousness, complete prophetic revelation, and consecrate the holy place. These goals point both to the Messiah’s first coming which will provide atonement for their sin and the final restoration at the end of the age.

To finish the transgression, to put an end to sin.

While this may refer in a general sense to all Israel’s sinful ways, it has special reference to the nation’s rejection of the Messiah. At the Second Advent of Christ, a remnant will turn to Him in faith and the nations transgressions and sins will be forgiven.

Isaiah 40:2

² Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
    and cry to her
that her warfare is ended,
    that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
    double for all her sins.

Isaiah 53:5–6

⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions;
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
    and with his wounds we are healed.
⁶ All we like sheep have gone astray;
    we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.

Jeremiah 31:31-34

The New Covenant

³¹ “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, ³² not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. ³³ For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. ³⁴ And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Ezekiel 36:25-27

²⁵ I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. ²⁶ And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷ And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

Romans 11:26-27

²⁶ And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written,

“The Deliverer will come from Zion,
    he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”;
²⁷ “and this will be my covenant with them
    when I take away their sins.”

John 1:29

²⁹ The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

Hebrews 9:26 – ²⁶ for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

To atone for iniquity

Daniel 9:24 predicts a future moment when atonement is decisively accomplished. The prophets describe this as the work of the coming Servant or Messiah. This reconciliation accomplished by Jesus the Messiah at Calvary, however this will be predicated in the future when the believing portion of the nation of Israel will come into the benefit and enjoyment of the finished work of Christ.

Isaiah 53:10-11

¹⁰ Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;
    he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
    he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
¹¹ Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;
by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
    make many to be accounted righteous,
    and he shall bear their iniquities.

Zechariah 3:8-9

⁸ Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, you and your friends who sit before you, for they are men who are a sign: behold, I will bring my servant the Branch. ⁹ For behold, on the stone that I have set before Joshua, on a single stone with seven eyes, I will engrave its inscription, declares the Lord of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day.

To bring in everlasting righteousness

Jeremiah 23:5-6

⁵ “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. ⁶ In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’

Jeremiah 33:15-16

¹⁵ In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. ¹⁶ In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell securely. And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’

The Righteous Branch Arrives

Romans 3:21-26 – The Righteousness of God Through Faith

²¹ But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— ²² the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: ²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, ²⁵ whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. ²⁶ It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Romans 5:17–19

¹⁷ For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.¹⁸ Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. ¹⁹ For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.

Everlasting Righteousness in the Messianic Kingdom

Isaiah 9:6-7

⁶ For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
    and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
⁷ Of the increase of his government and of peace
    there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
    to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
    from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

Isaiah 11:1-5

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
    and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
² And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
    the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
    the Spirit of counsel and might,
    the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
³ And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
    or decide disputes by what his ears hear,
⁴ but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
    and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
    and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
⁵ Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist,
    and faithfulness the belt of his loins.

Theories on the meaning of the seventy weeks

The first 69 weeks of Daniel’s 70‑week prophecy point directly to the arrival of the Messiah, and many scholars conclude that this includes Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem shortly before His crucifixion. The prophecy explicitly predicts the coming of an Anointed One and His being cut off afterward.

Sir Robert Anderson – “The Coming Prince” 1894

Sir Robert Anderson, in 1894 wrote “The Coming Prince” in which he calculated the timeline from the decree to rebuild Jerusalem to the coming of Jesus Christ the Promised Messiah. He concluded that this period would last 483 years. Anderson argued that Daniel’s “weeks” are weeks of years (7-year units). Therefore, 69 weeks × 7 years equaled 483 prophetic years, a prophetic year according to his theory was 360 days. This would add up to a total of 173,880 days.

Using the decree to rebuild Jerusalem by Artaxerxes in 445 BC as the starting point, he counted forward 173,880 days and arrived at the exact date of Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, which he identified as the fulfillment of “Messiah the Prince.”

His calculations included a prophetic gap between week 69 and week 70. The final week (7 years) is therefore futuristic and still unfulfilled. Anderson connected Daniel 9 with Revelation, arguing that the 70th week corresponds to Revelation’s end‑time judgments.

Anderson argued that Daniel’s prophecy of the “69 weeks” (Daniel 9:25–26) leads exactly to the date of Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, Palm Sunday, by using a 360‑day “prophetic year” and counting forward from Artaxerxes’ decree to rebuild Jerusalem.

His conclusions were based on using the decree to rebuild Jerusalem by Artaxerxes in 445 BC as the starting point, he then counted forward 173,880 days and arrived at the exact date of Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, which he identified as the fulfillment of “Messiah the Prince.”

Scholarly Conclusions that differ from Sir Robert Anderson

Anderson’s precise chronological calculation is rejected by nearly all modern scholars. The rejection is because his math, calendars, and starting point are incorrect. Modern analysts show that there are 173,883 days, not 173,880, between Anderson’s chosen dates (March 14, 445 BC → April 6, AD 32). Anderson they contend removed 3 days to “correct” Julian leap years, but this correction is invalid. Modern scholarship, using astronomy, the Jewish calendar reconstruction, and Roman historical data, places Jesus at the end of the 69 weeks not on Palm Sunday, but at His crucifixion. Any way you look at it Daniel 9 points to the Messiah.

1. A goddess worshiped across the ancient Near East, especially in Canaan, Ugarit, and Syria. Asherah poles were used in the worship of the goddess Asherah and appear throughout the Hebrew Bible as symbols of Canaanite fertility religion and as objects Israel was repeatedly commanded to destroy but often failed to do so. ↩︎

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