Is it significant the 7 weeks and 62 weeks are separated in Daniel 9:25?

Bible Question:

What do you think is the significance of the separate seven weeks in Daniel 9:25? Together it makes up the 69 weeks that you explain so clearly. But why is it mentioned separately? Do you have any ideas about it?

Bible Answer:

The prophecy of Daniel’s Seventy Weeks starts with Daniel 9:24 where we are told that there are a total of seventy prophetic weeks . . .

. . . to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place. Daniel 9:24 (NASB)

Then Daniel 9:25 follows,

So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. Daniel 9:25 (NASB)

This passage breaks up those seventy weeks into seven weeks and then sixty-two weeks for a total of sixty-nine weeks. Then verse 27 discusses the last week, the seventh week. Each week is prophetic, and each one equals seven years. This means that the seventy weeks of Daniel 9:24 equal 490 prophetic years. Before proceeding further, we would encourage the reader to study “Prophecy of Daniels’ 70 Weeks.” It will explain some important details that will be assumed in the following comments.

Since verse 25 calls out two groups of time as “seven weeks,” and then “sixty-two weeks” we understand them to cover a period of 49 years and 434 years. Since the command to build and restore Jerusalem came in 444 B.C., the 49 years end in 395 B.C. This date corresponds to the time that the last book of the Old Testament was written, which is Nehemiah (424-400 B.C.). Also the ministries of Ezra and Nehemiah end about this date. The date of 400 B.C. is commonly referred to as the beginning of the intertestemental period (400 B.C. to A.D. 1). The intertestemental period is called the silent period, when God did not speak and no books of the Bible were written. Is there some other significant event to which this date corresponds? We do not know.

The remaining 434 years when added to the 49 years equals 483 years, which take us to the last week in which Jesus died. This prophecy is primarily about the death of the Messiah and the future seven years of tribulation.

Conclusion:

This prophecy ends with the seventhieth week. This is great tribulation that Jesus described in Matthew 24:15-21. For more information, read “Prophecy of The Future.”

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