SteveMiller wrote:Kenneth Greifer wrote:Rolf,
I have heard people say something that there is a indefinite period of time that is not mentioned in the prophecy after the 69 weeks or in the middle of the 70th week. I don't know if it is based on a religious belief or the Hebrew of Daniel 9. Some of them say that is based on the Hebrew, but I am not sure why. Is there any Hebrew grammar reason for that belief or is it a religious belief?
The gap between the 69th and 70th week is to match history and other prophecies in the OT and NT, so you may call that a religious reason. I would say that all prophecies should be interpreted in the light of other prophecies and history.
When we read the total passage in context, there’s a gap between just before the 63rd to the 69th “weeks”. This gap can be accounted for in history. But this gap still keeps the 70 “weeks” united as one unit.
SteveMiller wrote:There is some linguistic justification for the gap here in Daniel 9:24 & 27:
In v24, the verb נֶחְתַּ֥ךְ (root חתך) is a hapax. In Rabbinic Hebrew it means to cut. Arabic hataka = tore apart.
God divided out 70 sevens of years upon Daniel's people, Israel.
These 70 sevens are cut out of time and are mainly concerning Israel.
Since they are cut out, they should not be required to be contiguous.
Why? That “cutting out” concerns only the 70th “week”? The rest you consider as a unit? That inconsistency suggests a problem.
SteveMiller wrote:The gap between the 69th and 70th weeks is called the times of the Gentiles (Luke 21:24) in the NT.
In verse 26, Messiah is cut off
after 62 “weeks”, in other words, between 62 and 63 “weeks”. If the 62 “weeks” are taken as following the first seven “weeks”, that means that Messiah is cut of during the 70th “week”. But if the 62 “weeks” are concurrent with the 70 “weeks” total and the first seven “weeks”, then Messiah was cut off during the five years between 434 and 441 years after Nehemiah was commanded to rebuild Jerusalem. The exact year is not given.
SteveMiller wrote:This gap time is also mentioned in :
Hosea 3:4 For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim:
5 Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; and shall fear the LORD and his goodness in the latter days.
The final 7 years are covered in detail in Revelation. They are split into 2 halves of 3.5 years each.
Another linguistic reason for the gap is
וְהִגְבִּ֥יר at the start of v27.
This is a waw-consecutive, which according to rabbinic grammar, which I follow, says that this takes place AFTER the previous verse.
Rabbinic grammar, according to Waltke and O’Connor, dates back to late second temple period. Under the influences of no native speakers of Biblical Hebrew, first Persian (Farsi) and later Greek then Latin, spoken Hebrew was changed from Biblical grammar to largely Indo-European grammar. We can see the first movement towards that change in the book of Esther. Rabbinic grammar is the same as Tiberian Hebrew, which was very different from Biblical Hebrew.
In Biblical Hebrew, the use of the Qatal verb at the beginning of verse 27 indicates a change of emphasis, from the destruction of the city and temple, to the seven year period when the people mentioned in verse 26 impose their “treaty” upon many, half way through that seven year imposition of their “treaty” sacrifices are stopped.
SteveMiller wrote:So this 70th week takes place AFTER the destruction of the temple and holy city in v26.
This time frame is also implied because we would expect that v27 takes place after v26 which takes place after v25, etc.
If verse 26 is taken after verse 25, then we have the arithmetic of 7 + 62 + 62 + 1, no way do we get 70.
If we take the two 62s as being the same 62 but following the 7, then Messiah is cut off during the 70th “week”.
If we take the 70, the 7 and the 62 “weeks” as being concurrent, then it all fits together. The final 1 “week” is not counted as concurrent because it’s mentioned in connection with the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple.
SteveMiller wrote:I do not know of any way to get from the word to bring back Jerusalem to the destruction of the temple in 70 AD in 490 years without a gap.
I don’t see how the gap fits in the text, neither linguistically nor historically. The only reason the gap is posited is because of the insistence that the 62 “weeks” follow the first seven “weeks”. But there’s no linguistic reason for the 62 to follow the 7. The prophesy fails to match history when the 62 is taken as following the first 7. But the prophesy matches both Biblical Hebrew grammar and history if the 62 “weeks” are taken an concurrent to the first 7 “weeks”.
Karl W. Randolph.