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. Then 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 [‘but not for himself’, or ‘but not for his own crimes’]. 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.”
The seventy ‘weeks’ of years (Hebrew שָׁבוּעַ shabu’im), 490 years, are divided into three periods: (a) 7 weeks (49 years); immediately followed by (b) 62 weeks (434 years); followed some time later by (c) the final 70th week. Verse 25 refers to the decree of Artaxerxes to rebuild Jerusalem (Nehemiah 2), and to the coming of the ‘anointed one’ (Hebrew: נָגִיד i מָשִׁיח Meshiach negid), Jesus Christ. Verse 26 predicts that the Christ will be ‘cut off’ (Hebrew: יִכָּרֵת karat) or executed, but ‘not for his own crimes’. The “prince who is to come” (verse 26) refers to the Antichrist, and the “people of the prince who is to come” probably refers to the Romans who under Titus Vespasian destroyed both the city and the temple of Jerusalem in 70 AD. “The decreed end” refers to future events, and the “abominations” is a term used by Jesus to describe the end times in Matthew 24 v 15 to 27. The “one week” (verse 27) refers to the seventieth ‘week’ of Daniel, and the last half of that week (3½ years) is the Great Tribulation…
Mathematical Miracle –
Sir Robert Anderson in his book The Coming Prince (published in 1894) showed that the two historical events described in verses 25 and 26 took place on the following dates: Event A (the decree of Artaxerxes to rebuild Jerusalem): 14 March 445 BC; Event B (Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem): 6 April 32 AD.
The intervening period was 476 years and 24 days; i.e. 476 x 365 = 173,740 + 24 + 116 days for leap years = 173,880 days.
Given that the Jewish Prophetic year was 360 days, we have the prophesied time interval between Events A and B as 69 weeks of years = 69 x 7 x 360 = 173,880 days!
So what was Gabriel’s margin of error?
Zero…