Daniel's Prophecies: A Historical Interpretation (Part 3)

Part 2: https://universalistheretic.blogspot.com/2023/05/daniels-prophecies-historical_01614904781.html

    So far, all of the prophecies that we have examined in the book of Daniel cover ancient history up until the 2nd century BC and the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, occasionally going further to the fall of the Macedonian kingdoms to Rome in the 1st century BC. However, none of the prophecies go further than this, except for describing the resurrection and Messianic kingdom in general terms (like the other OT prophets). Traditionally, the prophecy of seventy ‘weeks’ in Daniel 9 is thought to refer to the death of Jesus Christ and the 70 AD fall of the Temple, which would make it the only one of Daniel’s prophecies to extend into the 1st century AD. Daniel 9 may be the most disputed prophecy in the Old Testament. But is this the most likely interpretation of it?

    The prelude to the prophecy

    In order to better understand the prophecy of Daniel 9, it’s necessary to examine the context. The actual prophecy was delivered by the messenger Gabriel to Daniel, after he prayed to God for the exile of the Israelites to end. The chapter begins as follows:

In [538 BC]... I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of Yahweh to the prophet Jeremiah, must be fulfilled for the desolations of Jerusalem, namely seventy years. Then I turned to the Lord God to seek an answer by prayer and supplication with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. (Dan. 9:1-3)

An important piece of context is that Daniel’s prayer, which led to the prophecy, was itself inspired by Jeremiah’s prophecy of the seventy-year exile to Babylon. Before Gabriel gave the prophecy to Daniel, he exhorted him to “understand the matter” (of the seventy-year exile) and then “consider the vision” (v. 23). The seventy ‘weeks’ of years were an extension of the exile, presumably brought about because the Israelites were disobedient.

    To understand why this is the case, we must look at the reason for the exile. Why did God exile the people to Babylon in the first place? Daniel says that it is because

“All Israel has transgressed Your law and turned aside, refusing to obey Your voice. So the curse and the oath written in the law of Moses, the servant of God, have been poured out on us because we have sinned against You... Just as it is written in the law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us.” (Dan. 9:11, 13)

Likewise, Jeremiah connects the exile to the fact that Israel has not followed the law of Moses, and Yahweh states, “Therefore I will bring upon them all the words of this covenant” (Jer. 11:8). This seems to refer to the covenant in Leviticus 26:

“But if you will not obey Me and do not observe all these commandments, if you spurn My statutes and abhor My ordinances, so that you will not observe all my commandments and you break My covenant, I in turn will do this to you: I will bring terror on you, consumption and fever that waste the eyes and cause life to pine away. You shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. I will set My face against you, and you shall be struck down by your enemies; your foes shall rule over you, and you shall flee though no one pursues you. And if in spite of this you will not obey Me, I will continue to punish you sevenfold for your sins.” (Lev. 26:14-18)

The same promise of sevenfold punishment is repeated in verses 21, 23-24, and 27-28 of the same chapter. Now we can see the basis of the seventy ‘weeks’ of years in Daniel 9. The Israelites were exiled to Babylon because they did not follow the Law; yet even after they were exiled, they still failed to follow the Law, and so their exile was extended from just seventy years to seventy times seven years. With this basis in mind, we are ready to begin interpreting the prophecy.

    The end purpose of the extended exile

    Fortunately, we don’t have to speculate about the purpose of the extended exile, because the messenger Gabriel explicitly tells us in Daniel 9:24:

“Seventy sevens are divided for your people, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity; to bring in perpetual righteousness, to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy.”

First, the seventy sevens are explicitly said to be “for your people.” This extended exile would be significant for Israel, but not for the Gentiles.

    The purpose of the extended exile is said to be sixfold, although the first four are essentially the same thing: “to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in perpetual righteousness.” This is often connected to Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross, which atoned for the sins of and brought justification to all mankind. However, we must keep in mind the basis for this exile, which is the covenant promises in the Law of Moses. The atonement and righteousness mentioned here are not the absolute justification that comes from Christ’s sacrifice, but the righteousness which comes from following the Law of Moses that Israel had transgressed. [1]

    The next purpose mentioned is “to seal up the vision and prophecy.” This is sometimes taken to mean that the end of the seventy sevens would fulfill all prophecy, and usher in the final state. However, this simply cannot be the case, because according to the New Testament, the Messianic kingdom is not the final state (1 Cor. 15:24-28; Rev. 20-22). Rather, in context, it seems that this refers to the specific vision and prophecy of the exile found in the Law of Moses (Lev. 26). The end of the seventy sevens would mark the end of the extended exile, thus “sealing up” this prophecy.

    The final purpose of the seventy sevens is “to anoint the Most Holy.” This implies that the seventy sevens, or at least part of them, would be characterized by a lack of sacrifice, resulting in a need to re-anoint the Most Holy place of the Temple where sacrifices were offered (Exod. 40:9-10). This re-anointing would occur at the end of the extended exile.

    In summary, the purpose of the extended exile seems to be entirely Mosaic in nature. The end of the seventy sevens does not necessarily correspond to the beginning of the Messianic kingdom, nor even to the atoning death of Christ. Rather, it is specifically a prophecy for and about Israel and its exile. The end of the seventy sevens correspond to the end of the exile to Babylon. If we look for this event in the historical record, it should correspond to the beginning of independent rule over Israel, an increase in Law-following, and a re-anointing of the Temple.

    Dating the seventy sevens

    Now that we have determined the basis and purpose of the seventy sevens, we can try to date them, if indeed this prophecy has been fulfilled already. Unfortunately, the translation of this passage has been affected by centuries of Christian tradition that it refers to the coming of Jesus Christ. Although this might end up being true, it’s best to start with a literal translation and try to exegete its meaning from there. Here is a hyper-literal translation of Daniel 9:25-27:

“Therefore know and understand [that] from the going-forth of the word regarding the restoration and rebuilding of Jerusalem, until an anointed ruler, [are] seven sevens. In sixty-two sevens, you will have returned with the street and the conduit rebuilt, but in troublesome times.

“And after the sixty-two sevens, an anointed one will be cut off and [have] nothing, and the people of the coming ruler will corrupt the sanctuary and the city. And its end [will be] as a flood, and until the end will be war. Desolations are decreed.

“And he will strengthen a covenant with many for one seven, but in the middle of the seven, he will end sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations [will be] the desolator, even until the destruction, and the decreed [thing] is poured out on the desolator.”

    The first period of seven sevens is said to be “from the going-forth of the word regarding the restoration and rebuilding of Jerusalem, until an anointed ruler”. The “anointed ruler” is typically understood by Christians to refer to Jesus; however, he did not live 49 years after a decree to rebuild Jerusalem. [2] In an exilic context, this could instead refer to Cyrus of Persia, who is called God’s anointed (Isa. 45:1). Cyrus’ decree which allowed the exiles to return to their homeland took place in 538 BC, which may be seen as the ending point of the first seven sevens.

    But did anything important happen 49 years before this (587 BC), which could be described as “the going-forth of the word regarding the restoration and rebuilding of Jerusalem”? Not coincidentally, 587 BC was the year that Jerusalem was sacked by the Babylonians, and it was also the same year that Yahweh told Jeremiah that Jerusalem would one day be restored and rebuilt. [3] Notably, the prophecy that Jerusalem would be rebuilt is described as a “word” (dabar) of Yahweh, which is the same word used in Daniel 9:25. Therefore, the first seven sevens of the prophecy can be dated to 587-538 BC.

    Next, we are told about sixty-two sevens during which the Jews would return and the street and conduit of Jerusalem would be rebuilt. Traditionally, the sixty-two sevens are thought to directly follow the first seven sevens. However, this is not necessitated by the text, and if the two periods were consecutive, this begs the question of why Daniel wouldn’t simply say “sixty-nine sevens.” [4] Therefore, it is conceivable that the sixty-two sevens began before the end of the seven sevens. Since the seventy sevens were intended to be an extension of the seventy year exile, it is plausible that the sixty-two sevens began at the same point as the seventy year exile, which is 605 BC (Dan. 1:1-4). Although this is admittedly only an educated guess, let’s test it and see what happens.

    If the sixty-two sevens began in 605 BC, then their endpoint would be in 171 BC. According to the prophecy, at the end of the sixty-two sevens, “an anointed one will be cut off and have nothing.” Did something like this happen in 171 BC? Interestingly, in this year, the high priest Onias III was murdered by Antiochus IV Epiphanes’ appointed governor Andronicus, after being exiled in the previous year (2 Macc. 4:30-35). [5] Furthermore, Gabriel says that “the people of the coming ruler will corrupt the sanctuary and the city,” which is a very accurate description of what happened in 167 BC, when Antiochus IV’s troops pillaged and occupied the city of Jerusalem, setting up a pagan altar in the Temple. [6] After this, the Maccabean War continued until 164 BC, seven years after Onias III’s death (cf. Dan. 9:26c).

    In summary, it seems that the first seven sevens of Daniel’s prophecy can be dated securely to 587-538 BC, since this is precisely the interval between the word of Yahweh to rebuild Jerusalem and the coming of God’s anointed, Cyrus. The sixty-two sevens of the prophecy can be dated to 605-171 BC, beginning at the same time as Daniel’s seventy years of exile, and the final seven can be dated to 171-164 BC, between the death of Onias III (“an anointed one”) and the end of the Maccabean War (“until the end will be war”).

The historical view of Daniel’s seventy ‘weeks’. Adapted from

Fig. 1 of Athas (2009).

    The final ‘seven’ and the Maccabean revolt

    Thus far in our interpretation of Daniel’s prophecies, we have seen that they all center around the persecution of the Jews by Antiochus IV Epiphanes and the Maccabean revolt. Now that we have dated the final ‘seven’ of the extended exile to 171-164 BC, it looks like this prophecy also centers around the same events. If this interpretation is correct, then the prophesied events of the final ‘seven’ should align with the historically known events of Antiochus IV’s reign.

    First, the messenger Gabriel says, “he will strengthen a covenant with many for one seven.” In context, “he” refers to the “coming ruler” of the previous verse, whose “people” will pillage the temple and city. We’ve already connected this event to the pillaging of Jerusalem by Antiochus IV’s troops in 167 BC, which means that the “coming ruler” must be Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Did this Seleucid king strengthen a covenant with many people? Fortunately, this exact event is recorded in 1 Maccabees 1:10-14:

From them [the Macedonians] came forth a sinful root, Antiochus [IV] Epiphanes, son of King Antiochus [III]... He began to reign in the 137th year of the kingdom of the Greeks [175 BC].

In those days certain renegades came out from Israel and misled many, saying, “Let us go and make a covenant with the nations around us, for since we separated from them, many disasters have come upon us.” This proposal pleased them, and some of the people eagerly went to the king [Antiochus IV], who authorized them to observe the ordinances of the Gentiles. So they built a gymnasium in Jerusalem according to the customs of the Gentiles, and made foreskins for themselves, and abandoned the holy covenant. They joined with the Gentiles and sold themselves to do evil.

More details are given in 2 Macc. 4:7-10, which tells us that this covenant was made when the Hellenizing high priest Jason came to office in 175 BC.

    This may seem to be contrary to Daniel 9:27, which says that the covenant lasted for one seven (171-164 BC). However, what Daniel actually says is that the covenant was “strengthened” (gabar) for one seven. With the support of Antiochus IV, the high priest Jason was ousted in 172/1 BC in favor of the even more Hellenizing high priest Menelaus (2 Macc. 4:23, 50). It was Menelaus who convinced the governor Andronicus to murder the Jewish claimant to the high priesthood, Onias III (2 Macc. 4:30-35), the event which (according to Dan. 9:26) marked the end of the sixty-two sevens. Therefore, this can be considered the “strengthening” of the covenant, which indeed lasted for seven years until Antiochus IV’s death. [7]

    Next, the messenger Gabriel says that “in the middle of the seven, he will end sacrifice and offering.” This happened in the summer of 167 BC, when Antiochus IV sent his troops into Jerusalem to occupy and pillage the city (1 Macc. 1:29-40). According to Josephus (Wars I.1.1), this is also when the daily sacrifices were outlawed (cf. 1 Macc. 1:41-46), and they continued to be prevented for three and a half years, until Chislev 164 BC (1 Macc. 4:52-54; 2 Macc. 10:5). [8]

    The third event that Gabriel describes is, “on the wing of abominations shall be the desolator.” This may be a reference to “the abomination of desolation” also mentioned in Dan. 11:31 and 12:11, which the Jews of the Maccabean revolt equated with the pagan altar that Antiochus IV set up in the Temple during Chislev 167 BC (1 Macc. 1:54). Alternatively, it might simply be a general reference to the many abominations committed during the persecution of the Jews from 167 to 164 BC.

    Finally, Gabriel states that “the destruction and the decreed thing [will be] poured out on the desolator.” The “desolator” is almost certainly Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who died in 164 BC, seven years after the strengthening of the covenant in 171 BC. His death is described as follows in 2 Maccabees 9:5-9:

But the all-seeing Lord, the God of Israel, struck him with an incurable and invisible blow. As soon as he stopped speaking he was seized with a pain in his bowels, for which there was no relief, and with sharp internal tortures — and that very justly, for he had tortured the bowels of others with many and strange inflictions. Yet he did not in any way stop his insolence, but was even more filled with arrogance, breathing fire in his rage against the Jews, and giving orders to drive even faster. And so it came about that he fell out of his chariot as it was rushing along, and the fall was so hard as to torture every limb of his body.

Thus he who only a little while before had thought in his superhuman arrogance that he could command the waves of the sea, and had imagined that he could weigh the high mountains in a balance, was brought down to earth and carried in a litter, making the power of God manifest to all. And so the ungodly man’s body swarmed with worms, and while he was still living in anguish and pain, his flesh rotted away, and because of the stench the whole army felt revulsion at his decay.

Although there may certainly be legendary details added to this story, the main takeaway is that Antiochus IV died of disease, and not by human hands. This was also prophesied about the “little horn” in Dan. 7:24-26 and 8:25.

    The end of exile

    With the death of Antiochus IV and the rededication of the temple in Chislev 164 BC, the final ‘seven’ of Daniel’s prophecy came to an end. Therefore, we should expect that the promises in Daniel 9:24 would come to pass at this time. Did this happen?

“...to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in perpetual righteousness”

As argued above, these promises do not refer to the absolute justification that comes from Christ’s sacrifice, but to the righteousness which comes from following the Law of Moses. Not coincidentally, after the end of the Maccabean revolt came a period of the most obedience to the Mosaic Law in all of Israel’s history. This change is even visible in the archaeological record. According to a recent monograph on the archaeological evidence for obedience to the Mosaic Law:

In each of the preceding chapters, we investigated practices and prohibitions legislated in the Torah which had come to be widely observed by the first century CE as integral components of a commonly followed Judaism. In chapter after chapter, we sought textual and material evidence that might indicate if these practices and prohibitions were being observed by regular Judeans in the centuries prior to the first century. In each and every case, we learned that the trail of the available evidence ends in the second century BCE at the earliest. In the preceding chapter, we learned that the second or first century BCE provides the earliest available evidence that regular Judeans were gathering in synagogues in order to read and interpret the Torah communally. The entirety of this evidence clearly establishes the second century BCE as the terminus ante quem for the initial widespread dissemination of the Torah among the Judean masses and its common acceptance as authoritative law. [9]

Prior to the 2nd century BC, there is no archaeological evidence that Israel followed the Law of Moses. This is actually in line with the biblical record, which tells us that only a small minority followed the Law for virtually all of Israelite history. However, with the Maccabean revolt and the formation of the independent Hasmonean Kingdom, the Law of Moses became widely acknowledged as authoritative for the first time in Israel’s history.

“...to seal up the vision and prophecy”

As argued earlier, “the vision and prophecy” refers specifically to the covenantal prophecy of Israel’s exile found in Leviticus 26. This prophecy stated that as long as Israel failed to obey the Law, their “foes” would rule over them (Lev. 26:17). Therefore, we should expect that with the end of the final ‘seven,’ Israel would once again become an independent kingdom for the first time since the Babylonian Exile. Admittedly, independent rule over all Israel did not begin in 164 BC. However, the pro-Jewish Maccabees did gain control over Jerusalem in that year, and continued to control a small portion of the country until the independent Hasmonean Kingdom was finally established in 141 BC. This was the first time since the Babylonian Exile that the Jews were without a foreign overlord.

“...and to anoint the Most Holy.”

Three and a half years after the cessation of daily offerings in 167 BC, the temple was re-dedicated and re-anointed in Chislev 164 BC, which marked the end of the final ‘seven’ of Daniel’s prophecy. This event is described with much fanfare in 1 Maccabees 4:36-58. After the Most Holy altar was re-anointed on the 25th of Chislev, the re-dedication was celebrated for eight days, which is the basis for the eight-day Jewish festival of Hanukkah.

    Conclusion

    All of the prophecies in the book of Daniel cover the period from the Babylonian Exile (6th c. BC) until the end of the Macedonian kingdoms (1st c. BC). They center around the Maccabean Revolt, which took place in 167-164 BC, during the reign of the anti-Semitic king Antiochus IV Epiphanes. This is even true of the ‘seventy weeks’ prophecy in Daniel 9:24-27, which has traditionally been interpreted to refer to the first and/or second comings of Jesus Christ, but actually fits the events of the Maccabean Revolt even better.

    The historical interpretation of the prophecies in Daniel certainly has some consequences for the eschatology of the New Testament. However, at this point, I’m not confident enough to say what these consequences are. Hopefully, in a future post, I will be able to delve more deeply into the prophecies of the New Testament; however, I need to do much more studying of these prophecies first.

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[1] This might be disputed on the grounds that it is said to be “perpetual” (olam) righteousness; however, as I have discussed elsewhere on my blog, the Old Covenant is frequently referred to as a “perpetual” (olam) covenant, along with its laws, feasts, and sacrifices.

[2] The typical Christian view is that the “anointed ruler” comes after both the seven sevens and the sixty-two sevens; however, an athnah punctuation mark in the Hebrew text clearly separates the two periods. Furthermore, if the two periods are consecutive with no event that separates them, then why didn’t Daniel simply write “sixty-nine sevens”? Some early Christian writers, in line with the Hebrew text, interpreted the “anointed ruler” as a post-exilic figure centuries earlier than Jesus (Clement, Stromata 1.21; Hippolytus, Comm. on Dan. 4.30).

[3] Jer. 30:18; 31:38; 32:44; 33:7-11; note that the date of these prophecies is given as the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, which is 587 BC (Jer. 32:1).

[4] George Athas, “In Search of the Seventy ‘Weeks’ of Daniel 9,” JHS 9 (2009), 7-8, 16-17.

[5] According to Lev. 4:3, 5, 16 and 6:22, the high priest is considered an “anointed one.”

[6] See my previous post on Daniel 11 for a more detailed description of this event.

[7] Note that Josephus (Antiquities XII.5.1) actually equates the beginning of the evil covenant with the rise of Menelaus in 171 BC.

[8] This is the same period described as “a time, times, and half a time” (Dan. 7:25; 12:7), “two thousand and three hundred evenings and mornings” (Dan. 8:14), and “one thousand two hundred and ninety days” (Dan. 12:11).

[9] Yonatan Adler, The Origins of Judaism: An Archaeological-Historical Reappraisal (London: Yale, 2022), 189.