THE FIRST 69 WEEKS OF THE SEVENTY WEEKS OF DANIEL

The prophecy of Daniel’s Seventy Weeks – Daniel 9:24-27 refers to 70 weeks. After the 69th week the prince or Messiah would die. The prophecy of Daniel is like a pointer that specifies a date after which the Messiah would die. The prophecy was not a general one; it applied to only one person – a Jew who would die before the date of April 1, A.D. 33.

Understanding Biblical Time and "Weeks"

To define the units used, the Hebrew word for “weeks” is sabua and it means a “period of seven” and can refer to seven days, weeks or years. In this passage sabua refers to “seven years” or a heptad. Genesis 29:20-30 makes it clear that it was customary among the ancient Jewish people to refer to a “week” as another way to refer to seven years. Consequently, Daniel would have understood the reference to “seventy weeks” in the prophecy to be 490 years.

Furthermore, Scotland Yard Inspector Sir Robert Anderson discovered that the Biblical or Prophetic Year as dispensed to us from the throne of God and into prophetic scripture is a divine unit of 360 Days. It is not the 365.2422 day solar year we now see in this present fallen cosmos.

Calculating the Time Period of the First 69 Weeks

We can now readily and easily calculate the number of days for the time-span of the former 69 weeks (or sevens) of years. Here are our calculations:

  • 7 weeks + 62 weeks = 69 weeks or 69 'sevens' of years.
  • 69 x 7 = 483 biblical/holy years.
  • As we have established, each year is 360 days.
  • This ends up being 483 x 360 = 173,880 days (inclusive).

This is a time interval of 173,879 days between the beginning day #1 and the final day #173,880. This, then, is the famous number which Sir Robert Anderson arrived at for the 69 weeks as set forth in his celebrated book, 'The Coming Prince'.

Historical and Astronomical Alignment

The time-line of the 69 weeks of Biblical 360 day years, 173,880 days, fits perfectly between the Edict of Nehemiah and Palm Sunday at the beginning of Passion Week. The 173,880 days are laid out across the solar and lunar cycles between the Nisan moon of Nehemiah in 445 B.C. and the Nisan moon of Palm Sunday, Passion Week, in 32 A.D.

Regarding the verification of these dates, Sir Robert Anderson used our present Gregorian calendar and its treatment of leap years to make his calculations. He wrote to the Astronomer Royal at Greenwich to determine when the new moons came through for the Passover month of Nisan for 445 B.C. and for 32 A.D. The following table summarizes the mathematical and astronomical data:

  • Prophetic Calculation: 483 Years × 360 Days = 173,880 Days
  • Solar Measurement: 173,880 / 365.2422 = 476 years plus 24.7 days
  • Lunar Measurement: 5,888 moons plus 8 days
  • Chronological Span: 445 B.C. to 32 A.D.

As we shall outline, an additional approach is to use the astronomical data for the monthly lunar cycles as a cross-check. The 173,880 days laid out across the lunar cycles of those days 2,200 years ago brings us to a lunar measurement of the time period which comes out as 5,888 moons plus 8 days. The true solar year astronomically is 365.242199 or 365.2422 days.