In the first division of the prayer (vv. 4-10) Daniel admits the faithfulness and mercy of God, and deplores the transgressions of his people from the highest to the lowest in all lands.
In the second part (vv. 11-14) he sees in these transgressions the fulfilment of "the curse and the oath" written in the Law of Moses, with special reference to Lev. xxvi. 14, 18, etc. In spite of all their sins and miseries they had not "stroked the face" of the Lord their God.[599]
The third section (vv. 15-19) appeals to God by His past mercies and deliverances to turn away His wrath and to pity the reproach of His people. Daniel entreats Jehovah to hear his prayer, to make His face shine on His desolated sanctuary, and to behold the horrible condition of His people and of His holy city. Not for their sakes is He asked to show His great compassion, but because His Name is called upon His city and His people.[600]
Such is the prayer; and while Daniel was still speaking, praying, confessing his own and Israel's sins, and interceding before Jehovah for the holy mountain--yea, even during the utterance of his prayer--the Gabriel of his former vision came speeding to him in full flight[601] at the time of the evening sacrifice.[602] The archangel tells him that no sooner had his supplication begun than he sped on his way, for Daniel is a dearly beloved one.[603] Therefore he bids him take heed to the word and to the vision:--
1. Seventy weeks are decreed upon thy people, and upon thy holy city[604]--
(α) to finish (or "restrain") the transgression;
(β) to make an end of (or "seal up," Theodot. σφραγίσαι) sins;[605]
(γ) to make reconciliation for (or "to purge away") iniquity;
(δ) to bring in everlasting righteousness;
(ε) to seal up vision and prophet (Heb., _nābî_; LXX., προφήτην); and
(ζ) to anoint the Most Holy (or "a Most Holy Place"; LXX., εὐφρᾶναι ἅγιον ἁγίων).
2. From the decree to restore Jerusalem unto the Anointed One (or "the Messiah"), the Prince, shall be seven weeks. For sixty-two weeks Jerusalem shall be built again with street and moat, though in troublous times.[606]
3. After these sixty-two weeks--
(α) an Anointed One shall be cut off, and shall have no help (?) (or "there shall be none belonging to him");[607]
(β) the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary;
(γ) his end and the end shall be with a flood, and war, and desolation;
(δ) for one week this alien prince shall make a covenant with many;
(ε) for half of that week he shall cause the sacrifice and burnt offering to cease;
(ζ) and upon the wing of abominations [_shall come_] one that maketh desolate;
(η) and unto the destined consummation [_wrath_] shall be poured out upon a desolate one (?) (or "the horrible one").
Much is uncertain in the text, and much in the translation; but the general outline of the declaration is clear in many of the chief particulars, so far as they are capable of historic verification. Instead of being a mystical prophecy which floated purely in the air, and in which a week stands (as Keil supposes) for unknown, heavenly, and symbolic periods--in which case no real information would have been vouchsafed--we are expressly told that it was intended to give the seer a definite, and even a minutely detailed, indication of the course of events.
Let us now take the revelation which is sent to the perplexed mourner step by step.
1. Seventy weeks are to elapse before any perfect deliverance is to come. We are nowhere expressly told that _year-weeks_ are meant, but this is implied throughout, as the only possible means of explaining either the vision or the history. The conception, as we have seen, would come to readers quite naturally, since _Shabbath_ meant in Hebrew, not only the seventh day of the week, but the seventh year in each week of years. Hence "seventy weeks" means four hundred and ninety years.[608] Not until the four hundred and ninety _years_--the seventy _weeks of years_--are ended will the time have come to complete the prophecy which only had a sort of initial and imperfect fulfilment in seventy _actual_ years.