Daniel's Prophecy is the centerpiece of the Biblical Chronology.  It begins "Seventy Sevens are cut out ..." (Dan. 9:24).  The first puzzle that faces us is the question of what is meant by a "seven";  To be sure there are seventy of them.  The first clue as to what a "seven" is, is given in the prophecy.  The Seventy Sevens are broken down into seven sevens, sixty two sevens, and one seven.  It is evident that these add up to seventy:

Furthermore, a "seven," is some kind of time unit, because there are certain numbers of them between the events in the prophecy.  If we go to Daniel 9:2, the Prophet tells us that he understood that the desolations of Jerusalem would be "Seventy years."   Daniel had been studying the prophecies of Jeremiah, and had noticed Jer. 29:10, "For thus says Yahweh:  when seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place."  Now Jer. 29:2-3 mentions that the prophecy was sent in a letter to the exiles -- namely King Jeconiah (the same as Jehoiachin), who was taken into exile in the spring of 597 b.c.e.  Ezekiel also dates the exile by the years of this king in Babylon.  So the 70 years would be 597-528 b.c.e.

Now this raises some questions.  According to history, the Babylonians took Jerusalem in the fall of 605 b.c.e., and in turn were evicted by the Persians in the fall of 539 b.c.e., which is a space of 66½ years.  So where are the seventy years?  We seem to be lacking 3½ years.  The answer is that few have bothered to read Jeremiah 25:11-12 very carefully.  That seventy years applies to the land of the Chaldeans (modern Iraq).  The prophecy in 25:12 only says that after seventy years the Babylonians  will be punished;  it does not say that the exiles will return!  Furthermore, Babylon was to be made "an everlasting waste" (vs. 12).  When Cyrus Darius the Mede took Babylon in 539 b.c.e., not a brick of the city was overturned.  Not only that, but the religious ceremony of Babylon continued as before in the Temples.  Darius was careful to respect as many religions as he could.  So what then of the prophecy?  You can read it two ways (1) the 70 years ran out in 535 b.c.e. and "after" means in the distant future -- way after the end of 70 years, or (2)  Yahweh stopped the clock on Babylon and has reserved 3½ years for the end of the age.  I opt for choice number 2.²  It sufficies to say that Jer. 25:11 has nothing to do with the length of the exile for the Jewish people in Babylon.  For that we must look to Jer. 29:10 and the letter to Jehoiachin, who was exiled in 597 b.c.e., and by whose years the prophet Ezekiel dates the exile.

Now the seventy years of exile came to an end in the first year of Cyrus Cambyses (529-521) which was spring 529 to spring 528 b.c.e.  Daniel, of course, figured this out.  He also figured out that Cyrus Darius the Mede (539-530) had conquered Babylon 3½ years too early (Dan. 9:1).  He  wondered where the final 3½ years had gone.  The answer is Dan. 9:27b.

For our purposes, here, it is sufficient to note that the prophecy was fullfilled to exact specifications.  We simply need to realize that the Creator reserves to right to literaly fulfill his own prophecies in ways that may not at first be plain to the creaturely mind.  This serves the partial purpose of keeping his agenda secret from the forces of darkness, while providing the demonstration that He is indeed the Creator who determines what will happen in the future and what will not happen.

Now, not only do we have to explain Daniel's Prophecy here, but we also have to disprove the misguided attempts to explain it, and also the malicious attempts to corrupt it, so that it may be of no use.  That the Almighty intended it to be used is evident.  He would not have put it in the Prophets if He had not meant it to demonstrate something.  So we will return to our question of what a "seven" is.

The text does not say "Seventy times seven," (which would be 490); it says "Sevens Seventy" (in that order).  The word "seven" may mean either seven of something (like weeks, seven days, or seven years), or it may mean a seventh part of something in an oridinal sense: "= ordinal, Dt. 15:9 [year of the seven]; 2 K 12:2-3 [in year seven to Yayhu]; Ezek. 30:20 [on seven [day] to the month]; Ezek. 45:20 [on seven in the month]; Gen. 7:10; I Chron. 9:25." (BAG, pg. 988). What appears to be bad grammar in English, is in fact, acceptable in Biblical Hebrew of Daniel's time, so that the number seven is like the number one.  Both can be used in an ordinal sense, i.e. "seventh," "first."¹

Thus we may understand the text as "Sevenths Seventy," i.e. as seventy seventh parts of something.  In this case, and by precedent of Deut. 15:9, it would have to be the sabbatical year, which is the seventh part of a period of seven years.

There are several other clues that these 'sevens' are sabbatical years.  First, the exile (Jer. 29:10: 597-528) was based on seventy broken sabbatical years (II Chron. 36:21) which Yahweh said he would punish Israel for (Lev. 26:34).  Also, if you search the periods of oppressions during the judges and the rebellion of the house of Israel after 982 b.c.e. you will find 70 broken sabbatical years from the Exodus to the Exile (597).

To summarize, then, Daniel understands that the exile will last 70 years based on Jer. 29:10 (597-528 b.c.e.).  The exile, in turn, is based on broken land sabbaths (II Chron. 36:21; Lev. 26:34), of which examination will show there are 70.

So then the "sevens" are sabbatical years.

        To be continued ...

1. The MT points the first word of Daniel 9:24 as "Shavoo'iym" which is the plural of Strongs #7620, meaning "period of seven," "heptad", or "week," but if we follow the rules for forming the plurals of numbers it is not quite clear how the plural of seven would be formed so that it would not be confused with "seventy,"(shiv'im) unless it was "sheva'im" (cf. Gesenius §97f, note 2).  Since, it is unlikely that Daniel himself pointed vowels into the text, we have to allow for both the meaning "period of seven," and "sevens" (as plural of seven meaning "sevenths").  The former meaning ought not to give us too much trouble, except to result in greater imprecision in calculation of the prophecy.  For if it be 69 sabbatical years, then we fit 69 between 445 b.c.e. and 34 c.e., but if 69 sabbatic periods, then we count the sabbatic period of 452-445 inclusively.  That is, part of a sabbatic period is counted as a whole period, even though only part of it falls after the word to rebuild the city.

2. Jer. 25:12 might be translated "When the 70 years are about complete ..." so that they do not have to terminate before the punishement of Babylon begins.  We should also keep in mind that clock starting and stopping seems to be a divine habit, e.g. Ezekiel's 390 years, and his 40 years, and 1 Kings 6:1 480 years -- Not to mention the seventy broken sabbaticals, and the gap between the 62 and 1 seven in Dan. 9:26.  Most readers of the bible are under the impression that the Babylonians would rule for 70 years.  This mistaken impression derives from a misreading (or rather mistranslation) of Jeremiah 25:12, as "after seventy years are completed I will punish the king of Babylon," which in Hebrew reads, "And it shall be as are completed seventy years, I will visit the king of Babylon and upon that nation says Yahweh, their iniquity, even upon the land of the Chaldeans, making them age-abiding desolation."   The text can be taken in the sense of "when are about completed the seventy years."  We must also note that the actual age-abiding desolation of the land of Chaldea did not take place when the Medes and Persians overthrew Babylon either.  In fact, Babylon gets her due in the last sabbatical of the 70 sevens, which is not after, but in the 70th seven.