However, these considerations have not proved decisive, and arguments in favor of the prayer's authenticity have also been advanced. Proponents of the view that the prayer is secondary argue that the context requires a prayer of illumination and not a communal confession of sin, and the beginning and end of the prayer are marked by duplications in verses 3-4a and verses 20-21a that are most plausibly interpreted as redactional seams. Still, it might be that the author(s) of the chapter incorporated (or adapted) a traditional prayer in the course of composition, in which case the prayer would not be a later addition. Modern critical scholars have sometimes argued that Daniel's prayer in verses 3–19 is secondary to chapter 9, as it contrasts sharply with the difficult Hebrew that is characteristic of Daniel. The prophecy of seventy weeks of years (verses 24–27).Desolations are decreed.Ģ7He shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall make sacrifice and offering cease and in their place shall be an abomination that desolates, until the decreed end is poured out upon the desolator. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. The angel Gabriel appears and tells Daniel that he has come to give wisdom and understanding, for at the beginning of Daniel's prayer a 'word' went out and Gabriel has come to declare this revelation (verses 20–23):Ģ4Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and your holy city: to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place.Ģ5Know therefore and understand: from the time that the word went out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the time of an anointed prince, there shall be seven weeks and for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with streets and moat, but in a troubled time.Ģ6After the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing, and the troops of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Summary ĭaniel reads in the 'books' that the desolation of Jerusalem must last for seventy years according to the prophetic words of Jeremiah (verse 2), and prays for God to act on behalf of his people and city (verses 3–19). James Alan Montgomery referred to the history of this prophecy's interpretation as the 'dismal swamp' of critical exegesis. The prophecy has been the subject of 'intense exegetical activity' since the Second Temple period. The Prophecy of Seventy Weeks is the narrative in chapter 9 of the Book of Daniel in which Daniel prays to God to act on behalf of his people and city ( Judeans and Jerusalem), and receives a detailed but cryptic prophecy of 'seventy weeks' by the angel Gabriel.

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