“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.

A Jewish View. The Masoretic text, with its system of vowel points, was prepared in the latter half of the first millennium C.E. Evidently because of their rejection of Jesus Christ as the Messiah, the Masoretes accented the Hebrew text at Daniel 9:25 with an ʼath·nachʹ, or “stop,” after “seven weeks,” thereby dividing it off from the “sixty-two weeks”; in this way the 62 weeks of the prophecy, namely, 434 years, appear to apply to the time of rebuilding ancient Jerusalem. The translation by Isaac Leeser reads: “Know therefore and comprehend, that from the going forth of the word to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the anointed the prince will be seven weeks: [the stop is represented here by a colon] and during sixty and two weeks will it be again built with streets and ditches (around it), even in the pressure of the times.” The translation of the Jewish Publication Society of America reads similarly: “shall be seven weeks; and for threescore and two weeks, it shall be built again.” In these two versions the words “during” and “for,” respectively, appear in the English translation, evidently to support the translators’ interpretation.

Professor E. B. Pusey, in a footnote on one of his lectures delivered at the University of Oxford, remarks on the Masoretic accenting: “The Jews put the main stop of the verse under שִׁבְעָה [seven], meaning to separate the two numbers, 7 and 62. This they must have done dishonestly, למען המינים (as Rashi [a prominent Jewish Rabbi of the 11th and 12th centuries C.E.] says in rejecting literal expositions which favored the Christians) ‘on account of the heretics,’ i.e. Christians. For the latter clause, so divided off, could only mean, ‘and during threescore and two weeks street and wall shall be being restored and builded,’ i.e. that Jerusalem should be 434 years in rebuilding, which would be senseless.”​—Daniel the Prophet, 1885, p. 190.

As to Daniel 9:26 (Le), which reads, in part, “And after the sixty and two weeks will an anointed one be cut off without a successor to follow him,” the Jewish commentators apply the 62 weeks to a period up to the Maccabean age, and the term “anointed one” to King Agrippa II, who lived at the time of Jerusalem’s destruction, 70 C.E. Or some say this was a high priest, Onias, who was deposed by Antiochus Epiphanes in 175 B.C.E. Their applications of the prophecy to either of these men would rob it of any real significance or import, and the discrepancy in the dating would make the 62 weeks no accurate time prophecy at all.​—See Soncino Books of the Bible (commentary on Da 9:25, 26), edited by A. Cohen, London, 1951.

In an attempt to justify their view, these Jewish scholars say that the “seven weeks” are, not 7 times 7, or 49 years, but 70 years; yet they count the 62 weeks as 7 times 62 years. This, they claim, referred to the period of Babylonian exile. They make Cyrus or Zerubbabel or High Priest Jeshua the “anointed one” in this verse (Da 9:25), with the “anointed one” in Daniel 9:26 being another person.

Most English translations do not follow the Masoretic punctuation here. They either have a comma after the expression “seven weeks” or in the wording indicate that the 62 weeks follow the 7 as part of the 70, and do not denote that the 62 weeks apply to the period of rebuilding Jerusalem. (Compare Da 9:25 in KJ, AT, Dy, NW, Ro, Yg.) An editorial note by James Strong in Lange’s Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Da 9:25, ftn, p. 198) says: “The only justification of this translation, which separates the two periods of seven weeks and sixty-two weeks, assigning the former as the terminus ad quem of the Anointed Prince, and the latter as the time of rebuilding, lies in the Masoretic interpunction, which places the Athnac [stop] between them. . . . and the rendering in question involves a harsh construction of the second member, being without a preposition. It is better, therefore, and simpler, to adhere to the Authorized Version, which follows all the older translations.”​—Translated and edited by P. Schaff, 1976.