Daniel 9:25

25. The commandment Literally, the word. When was this command, to restore (or, “re-people”) and to rebuild Jerusalem, given? That cannot be settled positively. (See remarks on “The Seventy Weeks” in our Introduction, II, 10.) Probably most modern scholars believe that this is the “word of the Lord” recorded by the prophet Jeremiah of which Daniel was thinking at this very time (Daniel 9:2) which “word” came to him in the first year of Nebuchadnezzar (606 B.C.) and later (593 B.C.; 586 B.C.), and included inferentially at first, and afterward by explicit statement, the promise of restoration at the end of the seventieth year, the punishment of enemies, and the repopulation and rebuilding of the capital city (Jeremiah 25:1-2; Jeremiah 25:12; Jeremiah 29:1; Jeremiah 29:14; Jeremiah 30:3; Jeremiah 30:9; Jeremiah 30:18; Jeremiah 31:38, etc.). This is the most natural reference since it was concerning this “word” that Daniel had just been praying unless we refer it to the edict of Cyrus which gave historical expression to the divine edict which Daniel had been so earnestly considering. This would be equally “natural,” hut does not furnish as satisfactory a terminus at the end of the first seven weeks, when according to the prophecy “an anointed one, a prince” should appear. The older interpretation generally dates it from the twentieth year of Artaxerxes (but see next verse).

Unto the Messiah the Prince Later scholars usually read, with the R.V., “Unto the anointed one, the prince, shall be seven weeks.” According to this version the passage cannot refer primarily to Christ, for the “anointed one” is to come after seven weeks. Who is this anointed one? The reference attaches itself naturally to Cyrus, who had recently been called by this very title by Isaiah (Isaiah 44:28; Isaiah 45:1) and who historically did appear as king of Anzan, 544 B.C., and as conqueror of Babylon, 537 B.C., just about seven weeks (forty-nine years) after these later and more explicit prophecies of the rebuilding of the city had been given (593 B.C.; 586 B.C.); although it may possibly refer to Jeshua, son of Jozadak (Ezra 3:2), who was the Jewish high priest at the time of the Return, (compare Haggai 1:1; Zechariah 3:1), the high priest being sometimes called in Scripture the “anointed” (Leviticus 4:3; Leviticus 4:5; Leviticus 4:16; Leviticus 6:20). Most of the older expositors prefer the hypothesis that the command of Daniel 9:23 is the decree of Artaxerxes given either to Ezra (about 458 B.C.) or to Nehemiah (about 445 B.C.), in which case the “anointed one” must be considered as the Lord Christ (compare Isaiah 61:1), and the punctuation of the verse retained as in the A.V. and margin of the R.V., where the seven weeks are united with the sixty-two. It seems more natural, however, to identify this mysterious “word” with the divine word of which the prophet was then thinking, as all acknowledge (see Daniel 9:2), rather than with a later decree made long after the exilic Daniel must have gone to his grave.

Threescore and two weeks The R.V. reads, “unto the anointed one, the prince, shall be seven weeks: and threescore and two weeks, it shall be built again, with street and moat, even in troublous times.” This period of sixty-two weeks is passed by almost without remark, because the chief interest centers in the last week. Since the common symbolism of number required that the full period of sevenfold (or perfected) affliction should be seventy (7 x 10) weeks, and since seven weeks had been taken from the whole number at the beginning of the calculation and another week at the end, that necessarily left sixty-two weeks in the middle. According to the newer interpretation it is not probable that in the mind of the writer this represented any exact number of years, but in a general way was meant to cover the long period lying between the return of the Jews after the longed-for decree had been proclaimed by Cyrus, the “anointed prince” (537 B.C.) and the assassination of Onias III, the high priest, 171 B.C. (See next verse.) It was not, perhaps, intended to be chronologically exact, but was an indeterminate quantity connecting the two definite and well-known periods covered by the first seven and the final week of years. Certainly this final week, as is acknowledged by all, was the period upon which the emphasis was chiefly placed. During these sixty-two weeks Jerusalem should suffer trouble, but should at last be built up again “with street and moat” (R.V.), or perhaps rather, “with court and street.” The troubles experienced by the Jews in rebuilding may be seen from the fact that some ninety years after the Return, Nehemiah could speak of the vast open spaces in the city where no one yet lived and in which dwellings “are not builded” (Nehemiah 7:4; compare Nehemiah 1:3; Nehemiah 2:3; Nehemiah 6:1; Nehemiah 9:37). Perhaps, however, the phrase and in troublous times should be connected with the statement following.