Daniel 9:24-27, Nehemiah 2:1-8, Luke 19:41-44
The Prophecy That Predicts a Date
Daniel 9:24-27 contains one of the most remarkable and most debated prophecies in all of Scripture — a prophecy that appears to set a specific chronological framework for the coming of the Messiah and the events surrounding Him.
The Text
Gabriel announces to Daniel:
"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.
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. And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing." (Daniel 9:24-26).
The Calculation
The "weeks" (shabua) are widely understood as weeks of years — each "week" being seven years. Seventy weeks = 490 years.
The starting point: "the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem." The decree of Artaxerxes in 444 BC (Nehemiah 2:1-8) is the most commonly cited starting point.
Seven weeks + sixty-two weeks = sixty-nine weeks = 483 years. From 444 BC, 483 years (adjusted for the 360-day prophetic calendar) brings the calculation remarkably close to the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, AD 33 — the moment He publicly presented Himself as the Messiah.
After the sixty-nine weeks: "an anointed one shall be cut off" — the crucifixion.
Why It Matters
Whatever the precise calculation, the prophecy establishes a framework in which the Messiah appears, is rejected, is "cut off," and the city and sanctuary are destroyed — all of which occurred within a generation of the crucifixion (Jerusalem fell in AD 70). The convergence of these details in the person and time of Jesus is extraordinary.