This is an excellent exegesis and exposition (by Dr. Peter J. Gentry) of Daniel 9 concerning Daniel’s prayer and the 70 weeks revelation that is given to Daniel by God as the time and the anointed one (Jesus Christ) put an end to our need for sacrifices in the middle of the 70th week by dying on the cross for sinners. There is no pause between the 69th week and the 70th week since midway in the 70th week is predicted the death of Christ to put away sin. Dr. Gentry says, “457 B.C. (= Artaxerxes’s Commission to Ezra (Ezra 7:11-26), then, is the correct date to begin marking off the seventy sabbaticals because this “word” to rebuild the city is associated with the return of Ezra and the re-establishing of the judiciary, central to the concept of a city (Ezra 7:25,26).”
Dr. Gentry also mentions some issues we must pay attention to in our interpretation:
- The cultural and historical setting
- The linguistic and textual data, but also carefully analyze and consider
- The literary structures
- The apocalyptic genre of the text
- The relation of Daniel 9 to other prophetic texts inthe Old Testament, and above all
- The metanarrative or biblical theological framework crucial for making sense of any individual text.
Lack of understanding as to how apocalyptic and prophetic literature communicates has hinderedthe church especially in the lasthundred years. In addition, a failure to grasp the larger story that alone makes sense of the details in this text have resulted in imposingon it a framework of understanding foreign to it.
