Daniel 9:24-27
"Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy."
Context
The 'seventy weeks' prophecy has generated more competing interpretive schemes than perhaps any other passage, with calculations ranging from Antiochus Epiphanes to Christ to a future Antichrist.
Understanding Through Time
Early Jewish readers understood the seventy weeks (490 years) as culminating in the desecration of the temple by Antiochus IV Epiphanes in 167 BC. The 'abomination of desolation' was his erection of a pagan altar in the Jerusalem temple. The 'anointed one cut off' (9:26) was identified with the murder of the high priest Onias III. This reading saw Daniel's prophecy as addressing the immediate crisis of Hellenistic persecution and the Maccabean revolt.
Early church fathers calculated the seventy weeks as pointing to Christ's first advent. Clement and later Julius Africanus attempted precise chronological calculations from the decree to rebuild Jerusalem (either Cyrus in 538 BC or Artaxerxes in 445 BC) to Christ's baptism or crucifixion. The 'anointed one cut off' was Jesus' crucifixion, and the destruction of 'the city and the sanctuary' (9:26) was the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. This became the standard patristic reading.
Medieval interpreters generally followed the patristic christological reading but with less interest in precise chronological calculation. The seventy weeks were understood as pointing to Christ's atoning work: 'to finish the transgression, make an end of sins, make reconciliation for iniquity, and bring in everlasting righteousness.' The passage was read liturgically as a prophecy of redemption. Some interpreters connected the final 'week' to the period between Christ's crucifixion and the destruction of the temple in 70 AD.
Reformation commentators largely continued the christological reading. Calvin identified the 'anointed one' as Christ and the seventy weeks as pointing to His ministry. He rejected attempts at precise year-counting as speculative and emphasized the theological content: God set a definite time for the Messiah's appearance and redemptive work. The destruction of Jerusalem (70 AD) was God's judgment on Israel for rejecting the Messiah. Calvin warned against using Daniel for speculative end-times calculation.
Modern interpretation divides sharply. Dispensationalists (following John Nelson Darby and the Scofield Reference Bible) insert a 'gap' between the 69th and 70th week, placing the final week in the future tribulation period with a future Antichrist. This is the basis for much popular prophecy teaching. Historical-critical scholars see the passage as vaticinium ex eventu (prophecy after the fact) referring to the Maccabean crisis. Amillennialists and many Reformed scholars see continuous fulfillment culminating in Christ's first advent with no parenthetical gap.