The interpretations of Daniel 9 are a bit like the horns of this book. You find that there are not only multiple horns, but that the horns have horns. There are not just a myriad of interpretive options, the options have options. When we look to the seventy sevens, that is where the interpretations seem to multiply seventy times seven.
As we look at these seventy sevens (and that is the better translation), we must note that we are looking at them. This is a “vision” (v. 23) and it is a vision of the seventy sevens. They are the focal point of this vision. Though this vision is less dreamy than the others, a vision it is. The key feature of apocalyptic literature is its rich imagery and pervasive symbolism. The previous visions have centered on beasts, beasts that are kingdoms with horns that are kings. This vision centers on seventy sevens. At the least then, one then should be cautious about insisting that we must read them literally. Because from a literary standpoint, this is not the genre you are meant to interpret literally.
When Peter spoke of forgiving his brother seven times, and Jesus rebuked him saying seventy times seven, to do any math would be to miss the meaning (Matthew 18:21–22). Yes, these seventy sevens do refer to time, but it is symbolic time. When you start to examine all the ways people have tried to crunch the numbers and all the ways the numbers may be crunched, it is dizzying. These seventy sevens do break down into seven sevens, sixty-two sevens, and one seven, but I find Dale Ralph Davis’ assessment thereof to be the most satisfying. The seven sevens are a “relatively restricted time.” The sixty-two sevens are a “relatively extended time.” And the final seven is a “clearly climactic time.”
To understand these seventy sevens, let’s try then to do some meaning rather than some math. First, lets ask why there was a seventy before the seventy sevens? In the covenant curses of Leviticus 26, after God speaks of scattering them, he says, “Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies’ land; then the land shall rest, and enjoy its Sabbaths. As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, the rest that it did not have on your Sabbaths when you were dwelling in it” (Leviticus 26:34–35). Every six years the law instructed the people that they were to celebrate a Sabbath Year in which the land was to lie fallow. Neither Israel nor Judah were faithful to obey this command. 2 Chronicles reflects on this telling us that Judah was taken captive by Babylon until the establishment of Persia “to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years” (2 Chronicles 36:21). The sabbath year which would occur every seven years is multiplied by ten. After ten sabbath years, then they would return.
Now, how would the Jew hear seventy sevens or 490 years? Listen to these instructions from Leviticus 25.
“You shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years. Then you shall sound the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan. That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; in it you shall neither sow nor reap what grows of itself nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines” (Leviticus 25:8–11).
Every seven sevens, that is every 49 years, commencing with the Day of Atonement, the Jews were to celebrate the Year of Jubilee. Not only was the land to have rest, property was to return to its rightful inheritors and slaves were to be set free. So we first have the Sabbath Year multiplied by ten and now we have the Jubilee Year multiple by ten.
Daniel has this longing, and it is to be found not simply in the Sabbath, but with the Jubilee, following not the seventy, but the seventy sevens. Then meaning, as one pastor puts it, is not calendrical, but theological. With the Year of Jubilee then in mind, listen to the sixfold purpose of the seventy sevens.
“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” (v. 24).
All these purposes are good, but three are negative and three are positive. Negatively, sin is dealt with. Positively, righteousness is established, prophecy is completed, done, fulfilled, sealed, and finally, a most holy place is anointed. Jesus does all this by His cross and resurrection, bringing the age to come breaking into the present. He became sin for us that in Him we might become the righteousness of God in Him. He fulfilled the Scriptures. And His temple, being destroyed, was raised again on the third day, and then, having ascended, He sends His Spirit to anoint the living temple of His mystical body, the church.
Daniel is looking to the end of the seventy, but it is not until the end of the seventy sevens, the ultimate Jubilee, that all that he longs for will come. Through Isaiah, Yahweh spoke of the hoped for Son of David who will bring this to fulfillment.
“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion—to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified. They shall build up the ancient ruins; they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations” (Isaiah 61:1–4)
When does this happen? Jesus read this very text in the Synagogue at Nazareth, ending with the words, “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,” and then He preached this short sermon, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21).
No Other Boast 