(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