Does Daniel 9 point to the time of the Messiah?
Christians claim Daniel's 'seventy weeks' predict the exact date of Jesus. But the Hebrew text separates the 'seven weeks' from the 'sixty-two weeks', the 'anointed one' is not a title for the Messiah, and Jewish tradition reads the prophecy as covering the 490 years from the First Temple's destruction to the Second. Christian calculations require choosing convenient starting dates and calendars.
— Traditional Jewish interpretation following Seder Olam Rabbah and Rashi on Daniel 9
Interpreters honestly disagree about the details of Daniel 9: the starting point, the calendar, and how the weeks divide. But on almost any traditional reading the passage expects an 'anointed one' to be cut off before the city and sanctuary are destroyed, and it promises an end to sin and the bringing in of everlasting righteousness. Jesus was cut off a generation before the Temple fell in AD 70, and his death is explained as atonement for sin.
What Scripture says
24Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and your holy city to stop their transgression, to put an end to sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy Place. 25Know and understand this: From the issuance of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Messiah, the Prince, there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of distress. 26Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and will have nothing. Then the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood, and until the end there will be war; desolations have been decreed. 27And he will confirm a covenant with many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of the temple will come the abomination that causes desolation, until the decreed destruction is poured out upon him. ”
The seventy 'weeks': six goals, the anointed one, his cutting off, and the destruction of city and sanctuary.
2in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the sacred books, according to the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years.
Daniel's prayer is prompted by Jeremiah's seventy years of exile.
11And this whole land will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon for seventy years. 12But when seventy years are complete, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their guilt, declares the LORD, and I will make it an everlasting desolation.
Jeremiah's prophecy of seventy years of Babylonian rule.
1In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken through Jeremiah, the LORD stirred the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia to send a proclamation throughout his kingdom and to put it in writing as follows: 2“This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: ‘The LORD, the God of heaven, who has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, has appointed me to build a house for Him at Jerusalem in Judah. 3Whoever among you belongs to His people, may his God be with him, and may he go to Jerusalem in Judah and build the house of the LORD, the God of Israel; He is the God who is in Jerusalem. 4And let every survivor, wherever he lives, be assisted by the men of that region with silver, gold, goods, and livestock, along with a freewill offering for the house of God in Jerusalem.’”
Cyrus's decree to rebuild the Temple (538 BC), one proposed starting point.
11This is the text of the letter King Artaxerxes had given to Ezra the priest and scribe, an expert in the commandments and statutes of the LORD to Israel: 12Artaxerxes, king of kings. To Ezra the priest, the scribe of the Law of the God of heaven: Greetings. 13I hereby decree that any volunteers among the Israelites in my kingdom, including the priests and Levites, may go up with you to Jerusalem. 14You are sent by the king and his seven counselors to evaluate Judah and Jerusalem according to the Law of your God, which is in your hand. 15Moreover, you are to take with you the silver and gold that the king and his counselors have freely offered to the God of Israel, whose dwelling is in Jerusalem, 16together with all the silver and gold you may find in all the province of Babylon, as well as the freewill offerings of the people and priests to the house of their God in Jerusalem. 17With this money, therefore, you are to buy as many bulls, rams, and lambs as needed, together with their grain offerings and drink offerings, and offer them on the altar at the house of your God in Jerusalem. 18You and your brothers may do whatever seems best with the rest of the silver and gold, according to the will of your God. 19You must deliver to the God of Jerusalem all the articles given to you for the service of the house of your God. 20And if anything else is needed for the house of your God that you may have occasion to supply, you may pay for it from the royal treasury. 21I, King Artaxerxes, decree to all the treasurers west of the Euphrates: Whatever Ezra the priest, the scribe of the Law of the God of heaven, may require of you, it must be provided promptly, 22up to a hundred talents of silver, a hundred cors of wheat, a hundred baths of wine, a hundred baths of olive oil, and salt without limit. 23Whatever is commanded by the God of heaven must be done diligently for His house. For why should wrath fall on the realm of the king and his sons? 24And be advised that you have no authority to impose tribute, duty, or toll on any of the priests, Levites, singers, doorkeepers, temple servants, or other servants of this house of God. 25And you, Ezra, according to the wisdom of your God, which you possess, are to appoint magistrates and judges to judge all the people west of the Euphrates—all who know the laws of your God. And you are to teach these laws to anyone who does not know them. 26If anyone does not keep the law of your God and the law of the king, let a strict judgment be executed against him, whether death, banishment, confiscation of property, or imprisonment.
Artaxerxes' commission to Ezra (c. 458/457 BC), another proposed starting point.
1Now in the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was set before him, I took the wine and gave it to the king. I had never been sad in his presence, 2so the king said to me, “Why is your face sad, though you are not ill? This could only be sadness of the heart.” I was overwhelmed with fear 3and replied to the king, “May the king live forever! Why should I not be sad when the city where my fathers are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?” 4“What is your request?” replied the king. So I prayed to the God of heaven 5and answered the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, I ask that you send me to Judah, to the city where my fathers are buried, so that I may rebuild it.” 6Then the king, with the queen seated beside him, asked me, “How long will your journey take, and when will you return?” So it pleased the king to send me, and I set a time. 7I also said to him, “If it pleases the king, may letters be given to me for the governors west of the Euphrates, so that they will grant me safe passage until I reach Judah. 8And may I have a letter to Asaph, keeper of the king’s forest, so that he will give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel to the temple, for the city wall, and for the house I will occupy.” And because the gracious hand of my God was upon me, the king granted my requests.
Artaxerxes authorizes Nehemiah to rebuild Jerusalem's walls (c. 445/444 BC), a third proposed starting point.
15“The time is fulfilled,” He said, “and the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe in the gospel!”
Jesus begins his ministry announcing that 'the time is fulfilled'.
41As Jesus approached Jerusalem and saw the city, He wept over it 42and said, “If only you had known on this day what would bring you peace! But now it is hidden from your eyes. 43For the days will come upon you when your enemies will barricade you and surround you and hem you in on every side. 44They will level you to the ground—you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God. ”
Jesus weeps over Jerusalem because it did not know the time of its visitation, and foretells its destruction.
The case
A difficult prophecy, honestly read
Daniel 9 is one of the hardest passages in the Bible. In response to Daniel's prayer about Jeremiah's seventy years of exile, the angel Gabriel announces "seventy weeks," that is, seventy sevens of years. Within that period God will finish transgression, make atonement for iniquity, bring in everlasting righteousness, seal vision and prophet, and anoint a most holy place or person (9:24). An anointed one will be cut off, and the people of a coming prince will destroy the city and the sanctuary (9:26).
Christians sometimes present Daniel 9 as a mathematical proof. It is better presented honestly, with the main interpretive options on the table.
Three main readings
| Traditional Jewish | Critical scholarship | Traditional Christian | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Date of Daniel | Sixth century BC | c. 165 BC | Sixth century BC |
| Start of 490 years | Destruction of First Temple (586 BC) | Jeremiah's word or the exile | A decree to rebuild (538, 457 or 444 BC) |
| Anointed leader (9:25) | Cyrus | Joshua the high priest or Cyrus | Jesus the Messiah |
| One cut off (9:26) | Agrippa | Onias III (c. 171 BC) | Jesus, crucified |
| Destruction (9:26) | Rome, AD 70 | Antiochus IV, 167 BC | Rome, AD 70 |
The traditional Jewish reading
The second-century rabbinic chronology Seder Olam Rabbah reads the seventy weeks as the 490 years from the destruction of the First Temple to the destruction of the Second, counting 70 years of exile and 420 years of the Second Temple. That figure works within the rabbinic chronology, which gives the Persian period far fewer years than modern historians do. Rashi follows this framework.
The critical reading
Most critical scholars date Daniel to the Maccabean crisis and read the passage against the events of 171-164 BC: the murder of the high priest Onias III and the desecration of the Temple by Antiochus IV. On this view the 490 years are schematic, and the arithmetic does not fit precisely.
The traditional Christian reading
Christians read the first sixty-nine weeks (483 years) as running from a decree to rebuild Jerusalem to the Messiah. Two popular calculations:
- From Artaxerxes' decree to Ezra (c. 457 BC), 483 solar years reach about AD 27, close to the beginning of Jesus' ministry.
- From Artaxerxes' decree to Nehemiah (c. 444 BC), 483 years of 360 days each reach AD 33, the year Harold Hoehner argued for the crucifixion.
These calculations depend on debatable assumptions, and Christians disagree about which, if either, is correct.
What remains true on most readings
Even with the details disputed, several features of the text are striking:
- An anointed one dies before the Temple falls. Daniel 9:26 places the cutting off of an anointed one before the destruction of city and sanctuary. Jesus was crucified around AD 30-33; the Temple fell in AD 70.
- The goals concern sin and atonement. Verse 24 is not mainly about political liberation but about ending transgression and atoning for iniquity, exactly how the New Testament explains Jesus' death.
- First-century expectation. Many Jews of Jesus' day were expecting God to act. Josephus reports that the Jewish revolt was fueled in part by an ambiguous oracle in their scriptures that someone from Judea would rule the world (Jewish War 6.312-313). Whether or not this refers to Daniel, it shows the period was charged with messianic hope.
Jesus himself said "the time is fulfilled" (Mark 1:15) and wept that Jerusalem did not recognize the time of its visitation (Luke 19:44).
Why it matters
Daniel 9 reminds us that God works in history and keeps time. The ultimate purpose of the seventy weeks, to end sin and bring in everlasting righteousness, is what every human heart needs. Christians believe it was accomplished when the Anointed One was cut off and then rose again. We can explore this text with Jewish friends humbly, admitting what is uncertain and sharing why we find Jesus at its center.
Word study
hebrew · “a period of seven, a week” · Daniel 9:24
Šābûaʿ means a unit of seven (related to šebaʿ, 'seven'). In context these are 'sevens' of years: Daniel has been reflecting on Jeremiah's seventy years (9:2), and the Torah already counts sabbatical years in sevens (Leviticus 25:8). Seventy sevens is 490 years, with no disagreement among interpreters on that point.
hebrew · “an anointed one, a prince/leader” · Daniel 9:25
Māšîaḥ (H4899) with nāgîd (H5057, leader). Without the article, it means 'an anointed one', which could be a king or priest. It does not by itself prove the later technical title 'the Messiah'. Christians argue the context of atonement and everlasting righteousness (9:24) points to the ultimate Anointed One; Jewish interpreters identify earlier figures.
“But what about…?”
Doesn't the Masoretic punctuation separate the seven weeks from the sixty-two weeks?
Yes. The Masoretic accents, added to the text between roughly the 7th and 10th centuries, put a major break after 'seven weeks', so the anointed one comes after 49 years. Many Christian translations instead read 7 + 62 = 69 weeks to the anointed one, as some ancient Greek versions (such as Theodotion's) appear to do. The accents are early interpretation, not part of the consonantal text, but they are a serious reading.
Doesn't Rashi say the anointed one cut off is King Agrippa?
Yes. Rashi identifies the anointed one of 9:26 with Agrippa, the last Jewish king before AD 70, and the anointed leader of 9:25 with Cyrus. Christians respond that Agrippa II outlived the war by two decades or more and was not 'cut off' before the destruction in any obvious sense.
Isn't Daniel a second-century BC book about Antiochus IV?
Most critical scholars date Daniel's final form to around 165 BC and read the anointed one as the high priest Onias III, murdered around 171 BC, and the abomination as Antiochus's desecration of the Temple. Conservative scholars defend a sixth-century date. Even on the critical view, Jesus applied Daniel's language to the Temple's coming destruction (Mark 13:14), which happened in AD 70.
Didn't the rabbis forbid calculating the time of the Messiah?
The Talmud contains a strong warning against those who calculate the end (Sanhedrin 97b), likely because failed calculations had led to disappointment. Christians should be humble about precise arithmetic too, but the broad sequence of Daniel 9 remains significant.
Where Christians differ
Go deeper
- book · 1977Chronological Aspects of the Life of ChristHarold W. Hoehner
- book · 1978Daniel (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries)Joyce G. Baldwin
- book · 1989Daniel (Word Biblical Commentary)John E. Goldingay
- book · 2003Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, Vol. 3: Messianic Prophecy ObjectionsMichael L. Brown
Sources (6)
- Seder Olam Rabbah: the 490 years from the destruction of the First Temple to the destruction of the Second
- Rashi, commentary on Daniel 9:25-26: the anointed leader as Cyrus; the anointed one cut off as Agrippa
- Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 97b: warning against calculating the end
- Harold Hoehner, Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ (Zondervan, 1977): 444 BC to AD 33 using 360-day prophetic years
- Josephus, Jewish War 6: the destruction of the Temple in AD 70
- 2 Maccabees 4:33-38: the murder of the high priest Onias III
Related questions
Jesus didn't bring world peace—how can he be the Messiah?
The objection is right that Jesus has not yet finished the Messiah's work. But the Hebrew Bible itself describes the Messiah in two ways: humble and suffering, and glorious and reigning. Some rabbis also noticed this tension. Jesus fulfilled the first set of promises, opened the knowledge of Israel's God to the nations, and promised to return to complete the rest. A Messiah who comes twice is not a Christian evasion; it is how the scriptural portraits fit together.
Isn't Isaiah 53 about Israel, not Jesus?
Isaiah does call Israel God's servant, but he also describes a servant who is sent to restore Israel, who is innocent, who suffers silently and willingly for 'my people', dies, is buried and then lives again. Those details fit an individual who represents Israel better than the nation as a whole. Several ancient Jewish sources applied the passage to the Messiah, and Jesus fulfils it in remarkable detail.
Doesn't the Shema rule out Jesus being God?
Christians affirm the Shema completely. Jesus called it the first commandment, and the apostles never stopped confessing that there is one God. The question is what kind of oneness the Shema teaches. The Hebrew Scriptures themselves speak of the LORD appearing in human form, of a divine figure beside God, and of God's Word and Spirit acting as God. Early Jewish followers of Jesus did not abandon the Shema; they found Jesus within it.
Can a Jewish person believe in Jesus and remain Jewish?
Jesus, his apostles and the entire first generation of his followers were Jews who worshiped in the Temple and kept the customs of Israel. They saw faith in Jesus not as leaving Judaism but as trusting Israel's Messiah. The Church's later hostility to Jews was a betrayal of its own roots and must be confessed. In the New Testament, a Jewish person who follows Jesus remains a son or daughter of Abraham and part of Israel's story, not a deserter from it.
This entry is a draft and has not yet been theologically reviewed.