(2207-1977 B.C.E.) and had a number of children, becoming father to Nahor at the age of 30.​—Ge 11:10, 20-23; 1Ch 1:24-27; Lu 3:35.

See COMPULSORY SERVICE; SACRED SERVICE.

[Appointed; Put; Set].

The son of Adam and Eve born when Adam was 130 years old. Eve named him Seth because, as she said, “God has appointed another seed in place of Abel, because Cain killed him.” Seth may not have been the third child of Adam and Eve. According to Genesis 5:4, Adam had “sons and daughters,” some of whom may have been born before Seth. Seth is worthy of note because Noah, and through him the present-day race of mankind, descended from him, not from the murderous Cain. At the age of 105 years Seth became father to Enosh. Seth died at the age of 912 years (3896-2984 B.C.E.).​—Ge 4:17, 25, 26; 5:3-8; 1Ch 1:1-4; Lu 3:38.

(Seʹthur) [from a root meaning “hide; conceal”].

The Asherite chieftain appointed with representatives of the other tribes to spy out Canaan; son of Michael.​—Nu 13:2, 3, 13.

See ALIEN RESIDENT.

See NUMBER, NUMERAL.

A prophetic time period referred to at Daniel 9:24-27 during which Jerusalem would be rebuilt and Messiah would appear and then be cut off; following that period the city as well as the holy place would be made desolate.

In the first year of Darius “the son of Ahasuerus of the seed of the Medes,” the prophet Daniel discerned from the prophecy of Jeremiah that the time for the release of the Jews from Babylon and their return to Jerusalem was near. Daniel then diligently sought Jehovah in prayer, in harmony with Jeremiah’s words: “‘And you will certainly call me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. And you will actually seek me and find me, for you will search for me with all your heart. And I will let myself be found by you,’ is the utterance of Jehovah. . . . ‘And I will bring you back to the place from which I caused you to go into exile.’”​—Jer 29:10-14; Da 9:1-4.

While Daniel was praying, Jehovah sent his angel Gabriel with a prophecy that nearly all Bible commentators accept as Messianic, though there are many variations in their understanding of it. Gabriel said:

“There are seventy weeks that have been determined upon your people and upon your holy city, in order to terminate the transgression, and to finish off sin, and to make atonement for error, and to bring in righteousness for times indefinite, and to imprint a seal upon vision and prophet, and to anoint the Holy of Holies. And you should know and have the insight that from the going forth of the word to restore and to rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Leader, there will be seven weeks, also sixty-two weeks. She will return and be actually rebuilt, with a public square and moat, but in the straits of the times. And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah will be cut off, with nothing for himself. And the city and the holy place the people of a leader that is coming will bring to their ruin. And the end of it will be by the flood. And until the end there will be war; what is decided upon is desolations. And he must keep the covenant in force for the many for one week; and at the half of the week he will cause sacrifice and gift offering to cease. And upon the wing of disgusting things there will be the one causing desolation; and until an extermination, the very thing decided upon will go pouring out also upon the one lying desolate.”​—Da 9:24-27.

A Messianic Prophecy. It is quite evident that this prophecy is a “jewel” in the matter of identifying the Messiah. It is of the utmost importance to determine the time of the beginning of the 70 weeks, as well as their length. If these were literal weeks of seven days each, either the prophecy failed to be fulfilled, which is an impossibility (Isa 55:10, 11; Heb 6:18), or else the Messiah came more than 24 centuries ago, in the days of the Persian Empire, and was not identified. In the latter case, the other scores of qualifications specified in the Bible for the Messiah were not met or fulfilled. So it is evident that the 70 weeks were symbolic of a much longer time. Certainly the events described in the prophecy were of such a nature that they could not have occurred in a literal 70 weeks, or a little more than a year and four months. The majority of Bible scholars agree that the “weeks” of the prophecy are weeks of years. Some translations read “seventy weeks of years” (AT, Mo, RS); the Tanakh, a new Bible translation published in 1985 by the Jewish Publication Society, also includes this rendering in a footnote.​—See Da 9:24, ftn.

When did the prophetic “seventy weeks” actually begin?

As to the beginning of the 70 weeks, Nehemiah was granted permission by King Artaxerxes of Persia, in the 20th year of his rule, in the month of Nisan, to rebuild the wall and the city of Jerusalem. (Ne 2:1, 5, 7, 8) In his calculations as to the reign of Artaxerxes, Nehemiah apparently used a calendar year that began with the month Tishri (September-October), as does the Jews’ present civil calendar, and ended with the month Elul (August-September) as the 12th month. Whether this was his own reckoning or the manner of reckoning employed for certain purposes in Persia is not known.

Some may object to the above statement and may point to Nehemiah 7:73, where Nehemiah speaks of Israel as being gathered in their cities in the seventh month​—the monthly order here being based on a Nisan-to-Nisan year. But Nehemiah was here copying from “the book of genealogical enrollment of those who came up at the first” with Zerubbabel, in 537 B.C.E. (Ne 7:5) Again, Nehemiah describes the celebration of the Festival of Booths in his time as taking place in the seventh month. (Ne 8:9, 13-18) This was only fitting because the account says that they found what Jehovah commanded “written in the law,” and in that law, at Leviticus 23:39-43, it says that the Festival of Booths was to be in “the seventh month” (that is, of the sacred calendar, running from Nisan to Nisan).

However, as evidence indicating that Nehemiah may have used a fall-to-fall year in referring to certain events, we can compare Nehemiah 1:1-3 with 2:1-8. In the first passage he tells of receiving the bad news about Jerusalem’s condition, in Chislev (third month in the civil calendar and ninth in the sacred calendar) in Artaxerxes’ 20th year. In the second, he presents his request to the king that he be permitted to go and rebuild Jerusalem, and he is granted permission in the month Nisan (seventh in the civil calendar and first in the sacred), but still in the 20th year of Artaxerxes. So Nehemiah was obviously not counting the years of Artaxerxes’ reign on a Nisan-to-Nisan basis.

To establish the time for the 20th year of Artaxerxes, we go back to the end of the reign of his father and predecessor Xerxes, who died in the latter part of 475 B.C.E. Artaxerxes’ accession year thus began in 475 B.C.E., and his first regnal year would be counted from 474 B.C.E., as other historical evidence indicates. The 20th year of Artaxerxes’ rule would accordingly be 455 B.C.E.​—See PERSIA, PERSIANS (The Reigns of Xerxes and of Artaxerxes).

“The Going Forth of the Word.” The prophecy says there would be 69 weeks of years “from the going forth of the word to restore and to rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Leader.” (Da 9:25) Secular history, along with the Bible, gives evidence that Jesus came to John and was baptized, thereby becoming the Anointed One, Messiah the Leader, in the early autumn of the year 29 C.E. (See JESUS CHRIST [Time of Birth, Length of Ministry].) Calculating back from this vantage point in history, we can determine that the 69 weeks of years began in 455 B.C.E. In that year the significant “going forth of the word to restore and to rebuild Jerusalem” took place.

In Nisan (March-April) of the 20th year of Artaxerxes’ rule (455 B.C.E.), Nehemiah petitioned the king: “If your servant seems good before you, . . . send me to Judah, to the city of the burial places of my forefathers, that I may rebuild it.” (Ne 2:1, 5) The king granted permission, and Nehemiah made the long journey from Shushan to Jerusalem. On about the fourth of Ab (July-August), after making a night inspection of the walls, Nehemiah gave the command to the Jews: “Come and let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer continue to be a reproach.” (Ne 2:11-18) Thus, “the going forth of the word” to rebuild Jerusalem, as authorized by Artaxerxes, was put into effect by Nehemiah in Jerusalem that same year. This clearly establishes 455 B.C.E. as the year from which the 70 weeks would begin to count.

The repair work on the walls was completed on the 25th day of Elul (August-September), in just 52 days. (Ne 6:15) After the rebuilding of the walls, the repairing of the rest of Jerusalem went forward. As to the first seven “weeks” (49 years), Nehemiah, with the help of Ezra and, afterward, others who may have succeeded them, worked, “in the straits of the times,” with difficulty from within, among the Jews themselves, and from without, on the part of the Samaritans and others. (Da 9:25) The book of Malachi, written after 443 B.C.E., decries the bad state into which the Jewish priesthood had by then fallen. Nehemiah’s return to Jerusalem following a visit to Artaxerxes (compare Ne 5:14; 13:6, 7) is thought to have taken place after this. Just how long after 455 B.C.E. he personally continued his efforts in building Jerusalem, the Bible does not reveal. However, the work was evidently completed within 49 years (seven weeks of years) to the extent necessary, and Jerusalem and its temple remained for the Messiah’s coming.​—See MALACHI, BOOK OF (Time of Composition).

Messiah’s Arrival After ‘Sixty-Nine Weeks.’ As to the following “sixty-two weeks” (Da 9:25), these, being part of the 70 and named second in order, would continue from the conclusion of the “seven weeks.” Therefore, the time “from the going forth of the word” to rebuild Jerusalem until “Messiah the Leader” would be 7 plus 62 “weeks,” or 69 “weeks”​—483 years—​from the year 455 B.C.E. to 29 C.E. As mentioned above, in the autumn of that year, 29 C.E., Jesus was baptized in water, was anointed with holy spirit, and began his ministry as “Messiah the Leader.”​—Lu 3:1, 2, 21, 22.

Thus, centuries in advance Daniel’s prophecy pinpointed the exact year of the Messiah’s arrival. There is no confirmation that the Jews in the first century C.E. had made calculations on the basis of Daniel’s prophecy for Messiah’s appearance. But the Bible reports: “Now as the people were in expectation and all were reasoning in their hearts about John: ‘May he perhaps be the Christ?’” (Lu 3:15) Although they were expecting the Messiah, they evidently could not pinpoint the exact month, week, or day of his arrival. Therefore, they wondered whether John was the Christ, even though John evidently began his ministry in the spring of 29 C.E., about six months before Jesus presented himself for baptism.

“Cut off” at the half of the week. Gabriel further said to Daniel: “After the sixty-two weeks Messiah will be cut off, with nothing for himself.” (Da 9:26) It was sometime after the end of the ‘seven plus sixty-two weeks,’ actually about three and a half years afterward, that Christ was cut off in death on a torture stake, giving up all that he had, as a ransom for mankind. (Isa 53:8) Evidence indicates that the first half of the “week” was spent by Jesus in the ministry. On one occasion, likely in the fall of 32 C.E., he gave an illustration, apparently speaking of the Jewish nation as a fig tree (compare Mt 17:15-20; 21:18, 19, 43) that had borne no fruit for “three years.” The vinedresser said to the owner of the vineyard: “Master, let it alone also this year, until I dig around it and put on manure; and if then it produces fruit in the future, well and good; but if not, you shall cut it down.” (Lu 13:6-9) He may have referred here to the time period of his own ministry to that unresponsive nation, which ministry had continued at that point for about three years and was to continue into a fourth year.

Covenant in force “for one week.” Daniel 9:27 states: “And he must keep the covenant in force for the many for one week [or seven years]; and at the half of the week he will cause sacrifice and gift offering to cease.” The “covenant” could not be the Law covenant, for Christ’s sacrifice, three and a half years after the 70th “week” began, resulted in its removal by God: “He has taken it [the Law] out of the way by nailing it to the torture stake.” (Col 2:14) Also, “Christ by purchase released us from the curse of the Law . . . The purpose was that the blessing of Abraham might come to be by means of Jesus Christ for the nations.” (Ga 3:13, 14) God, through Christ, did extend the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant to the natural offspring of Abraham, excluding the Gentiles until the gospel was taken to them through Peter’s preaching to the Italian Cornelius. (Ac 3:25, 26; 10:1-48) This conversion of Cornelius and his household occurred after the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, which is generally considered to have taken place in about 34 C.E.; after this the congregation enjoyed a period of peace, being built up. (Ac 9:1-16, 31) It appears, then, that the bringing of Cornelius into the Christian congregation took place about the autumn of 36 C.E., which would be the end of the 70th “week,” 490 years from 455 B.C.E.

Sacrifices and offerings ‘caused to cease.’ The expression ‘cause to cease,’ used with reference to sacrifice and gift offering, means, literally, “cause or make to sabbath, to rest, to desist from working.” The “sacrifice and gift offering” that are ‘caused to cease,’ according to Daniel 9:27, could not be Jesus’ ransom sacrifice, nor would they logically be any spiritual sacrifice by his footstep followers. They must refer to the sacrifices and gift offerings that were offered by the Jews at the temple in Jerusalem according to Moses’ Law.

“The half of the week” would be at the middle of seven years, or after three and a half years within that “week” of years. Since the 70th “week”