Notes on Daniel: Daniel 9 – Is there a break in the seventieth week?

In the introduction to this book, I explained how a misinterpretation of the last verses of Daniel 9 by the dispensationalist system necessitates a break in the seventieth week. Dispensationalists say that Christ was crucified “in the middle of the [seventieth] week.” Then the clock stops for a break of about 2000 years to bring us to the current time. The dispensationalist looks for the seventieth week to resume with the coming of the Antichrist and a revived Roman Empire.

Book

In the Days of These Kings

Jay Rogers

The Book of Daniel in Preterist Perspective

The overarching message of Daniel is that Jesus the Messiah is even now ruling over the nations. He is the King of kings. Daniel tells us that Messiah’s kingdom will advance in the whole world from “generation to generation” (Daniel 4:4,34). Christ’s dominion is “given to the people of the saints of the most High” (Daniel 7:22). Our purpose then is to see “all people, nations, and languages … serve and obey him” (Daniel 7:14,27).

This comprehensive work offers a fascinating look at the book of Daniel in preterist perspective. Great attention is paid to the writings of ancient and modern historians and scholars to connect the dots and demonstrate the continuity of Daniel’s prophecy with all of Scripture.

There is no indication in Scripture that there is a break in the seventy weeks of Daniel that leads us to the time of Christ and then picks up again during the future. I see the seventy weeks as continuous. The best possible explanation of Daniel is the preterist interpretation. The events described in Daniel were fulfilled before or during the generation of Jesus Christ.

I also do not see a problem with a chronology that has the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem beginning some 40 years after the seventy-week (490-year) time period was fulfilled. In AD 30, the sacrifices ceased to have any effect when the Messiah was “cut off” causing “the sacrifice and the oblation to cease” (Daniel 9:26,27). It is also not necessary to find in Daniel an exact chronology that describes the destruction of the Temple in AD 70. We find that 40 year chronology in Matthew, Mark and Luke.

“This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled” (Matthew 24:34; cf. Matthew 16:28, 23:36, Mark 13:30,31; Luke 11:50, 21:32,33).

This concurs with Calvin’s Commentary on Daniel.

But we are now treating of a profanation of the temple, which should prove, if I may use the phrase, eternal and irreparable. Without the slightest doubt, this prophecy was fulfilled when the city was captured and overthrown, and the temple utterly destroyed by Titus the son of Vespasian. This satisfactorily explains the events here predicted (Calvin, Commentary on Daniel 9:27).

Calvin has all of the “seventy weeks” of Daniel 9 fulfilled in successive, chronological order prior to AD 70, agreeing with the preterist view.