3, 4. (a) What are the “seventy weeks,” when did they start, and when end? (b) What events marked the last ‘week of years’ as important?

³ In Daniel 9:24-27 we read of a period of “seventy weeks of years” (An American Translation; Moffatt), or a total of 490 years, as starting “from the going forth of the word to restore and to rebuild Jerusalem.”a When was that? The Bible account at Nehemiah 2:1-7 states that “in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king” of Persia, the king himself instructed his Jewish cupbearer, Nehemiah, to return to the city of his forefathers and “rebuild it.” According to secular history, this “twentieth year of Artaxerxes” would be 455 B.C.E. Counting 490 years from that date, we come to the year 36 C.E. Daniel’s prophecy tells us that the last ‘week of years,’ 29-36 C.E., is of special importance. And why?

⁴ It is because “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.” So Messiah would appear at the start of that seventieth week of years. This would also mark the start of the “last days” of the Jewish system of things, during the first seven years of which judgment period Messiah would confirm the Abrahamic covenant toward those Jews who accepted him. “At the half” of that week of years, that is, in 33 C.E., Messiah would be “cut off” in death, his own great sin-atoning sacrifice ‘causing sacrifice and gift offering [according to Israel’s law] to cease’ as being no longer of any value.​—Hebrews 10:12, 18.

 5. (a) What indicates that the Jews were well acquainted with the time feature of the “seventy weeks”? (b) Why were the Jews disappointed as to their expectation? (c) How true did Daniel’s prophecy prove to be?

⁵ No doubt the Jews were well acquainted with the time feature of the “seventy weeks,” for the Bible writer Luke tells us that in those days “the people were in expectation” of the Christ. (Luke 3:15) However, their hopes were pinned on the coming of a glorious warrior-king, who would lead the Jews to victory over their Roman oppressors. Their faith did not extend to their believing that Messiah would be “cut off,” murdered, in 33 C.E. Nor would they place credence in the prophetic warning that Jerusalem and its people would again undergo “an extermination.” But how true Daniel’s prophecy proved to be when Jerusalem was devastated by the Roman legions under General Titus in 70 C.E.!

[Box on page 14]

“SEVENTY WEEKS OF YEARS” (Daniel 9:24-27)

FROM the “going forth of the word” of king of Persia to Nehemiah in 455 B.C.E.

455 - 1 B.C.E. = 454 years

1 B.C.E. - 1 C.E. = 1 year

1 C.E. - 36 C.E. = 35 years

455 B.C.E. - 36 C.E. = 490 years

Messiah “cut off . . . at the half of the week,” April 33 C.E.

TO the end of special favor to Jews in 36 C.E. with conversion of Cornelius’ household