When Did the Seventy Weeks of Daniel 9:24 Begin?

This is a summary of two scholarly articles by Shea and Rodríguez respectively, available on the
“Biblical Research Institute” website.
9:25 analysed
The Lord promised to His prophets that Jerusalem and its temple would be rebuilt after the de-
struction it would suffer. In the first year of Darius the Mede (538 B.C.), Daniel, the prophet and
Babylonian court official, set about offering up to God earnest prayers on behalf of the exiles
from Judah (Dan 9:1-19). He pleaded with the Lord to forgive His rebellious people and restore
them to their land and capital city.
In response God sent him a prophetic word via Gabriel (Dan 9:21-23). Gabriel said to Daniel that
70 weeks are “decreed” (RSV, NASB) concerning his people and their holy city (9:24). He
continued:
From the issuing of the decree [or word, command or thing] to restore and rebuild
Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens’ [or
weeks], and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ It will be built [MT reads “it will be restored and
rebuilt”] with streets [or plaza] and a trench [or moat], but in times of trouble (9:25).
This identifies the event that would initiate the prophetic period of seventy weeks. Daniel prayed
for God to restore his people. The 70 weeks starts with the decree to rebuild and restore
Jerusalem.
The passage identifies the initiation and the extension of the prophetic period by combining the
prepositions “from” and “until”.
The word translated “decree, (Hebrew abar)” has a wide range of meanings in the Old Testament
such as “thing,” “speech,” and “command”.
“To rebuild” stresses the physical reconstruction of the city. The verb translated “restore” is
not used in the Old Testament to designate a physical reconstruction. The restoration of
Jerusalem in Daniel 9:25 points to a time when the city was going to be returned to the Jews to
be ruled according to their own laws as a theocentric organization, for instance:
The Aramean king said to Ahab, king of Israel, “I will return [shûb, “restore”] the
cities my father took from your father.” (I Kings 20:34).
In this case “to restore” is to return the cities to the original owner and does not include the idea of
rebuilding the cities because they had not been destroyed. To restore them meant that they
would be ruled by the Israelites themselves according to their own laws.
Azariah, king of Judah, is described as “the one who rebuilt Elath and restored
[shûb] it to Judah.” (2 Kings 14:22)
We find here the two verbs we found in Daniel—”to rebuild” and “to restore.” The city had been in
ruins, it was rebuilt and then it was restored to Judah. (cf 1 Kgs 12:21).
At the end of Daniel 9:25 we read about the restoration and rebuilding of “the street and the
moat.” It is generally accepted that the first one, “street,” does not mean “street” but designates
“a broad open space” within the city. It was located by the gate of the city (Neh 8:16); there
proclamations were made (2 Chr 32:6; Esth 6:9), people were instructed (Neh 8:1, 3), legal
decisions were made (Ezra 10:9), and justice was to be practiced (Isa 59:14). The open square
or plaza of a town or city had an important social function and also an official administrative and
judicial function. One can conclude that the plaza “was a symbol of the people’s freedom in
using the laws of their God” in the administration of society.
The second term, “trench,” is difficult to translate. It is commonly rendered “moat, conduit” but
that rendering is far from certain. The verbal root means “cut, decide.” The verb is used to
express the idea of a legal decision or verdict (1 Kgs 20:40; cf Dan 9:26, 27). The verb and its
derivatives are used in the Old Testament to express the idea of “decide, determine.” Based on
that it has been suggested that the noun in Daniel 9:25 means “decision-making” and indicates
that the judiciary power of Jerusalem based on the law of God will be restored to the people.
According to Daniel 9:25 the decree that would initiate the 70 weeks would allow the people to
rebuild the city, e.g. the walls of Jerusalem and to govern themselves on the basis of the
theocratic law.
Older translations, such as the KJV, translated the word involved here as "weeks," while a more
recent one, the NIV, prefers the translation of "sevens." The net effect of both translations is the
same length of time, for those commentators who prefer the translation of "sevens" acknowledge
that they are sevens of years. For those who retain the older translation of "weeks," each of the
weeks is made up of seven days, and each prophetic day is taken as a historical year according
to the apocalyptic hermeneutical principle of a day for a year (see Ezek 4:6; Num 14:34). Thus
the only real difference between the two schools of thought is whether or not the year-day
principle needs to be invoked here. In either case the total number of years comes out at 483
years (7x7) + (7x62) = 483. Linguistic evidence relevant to the question still favors the translation
"weeks." Even the NIV puts "weeks" in the margin.
Most translations of 9:25, such as the KJV quoted above, indicate that the seven weeks and the
sixty-two weeks belong together as a compound unit. The Anointed One will then appear after
69 weeks (483 years). Some modern translations separate the two time periods. The RSV reads
“to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks." Then after inserting a
period to close the sentence, it begins a new sentence, "Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built
again." According to this punctuation an anointed one will appears after seven weeks (49 years).
The rationale by which these time units have been separated in translations, such as the RSV,
involves the amount of weight put on the punctuation mark, 'athnah, in the Hebrew text as pointed
by the Massoretes. There are a number of problems with this treatment. In the first place, an
'athnah is not a soph pasûq, just as a comma is not a period. A soph pasûq ends verses of the
Hebrew text just as a period ends an English sentence, but the Mathnah is used only at the
approximate middle of the Hebrew sentence, in contrast to the comma, which sets off phrases.
To divide the Hebrew sentence into two sentences with a period as a divider in English just
because an Mathnah is located in the middle of it is not warranted by the Hebrew accent and is
not good translating. The arbitrary nature of the RSV punctuation here can be borne out by a
comparison with what they have done with the rest of Daniel 9. No other examples occur in the
RSV text of Daniel 9 in which an 'athnah is represented with a period.
The seven and sixty-two weeks in Daniel 9:25 therefore belong together as a compound making
up sixty-nine weeks or 483 historical years until the coming of the Messiah. If the starting point
for this period can be found, the date for His coming 483 years later can be fixed. So we turn
next to that important starting point.
Word
The starting point was to be a going forth of a "word" to restore Jerusalem.
Daniel was studying the scroll of Jeremiah about the prophecy of the desolation of Jerusalem for
seventy years. Jerusalem was to be restored at the end of that period of time. Because the
message that came to Jeremiah is termed a "word" in 9:2 and the same Hebrew term is used in
Daniel 9:25, some historical-critical scholars equate the "word" in Daniel 9:25 with the "word of
the Lord to Jeremiah".] Doing so would place the commencement of the 70 weeks of Daniel back
in the time of Jeremiah, about 593 B.C.
This type of interpretation overlooks the fact that the term for "word" is used again twice in Daniel
9:23. If one is to look for linguistic connections, here in verse 23 is a far more reasonable one to
use than the reference in 9:2 to the time of Jeremiah. A further contrast between 9:2 and 9:25 is
that 9:2 refers to "the word of the Lord," whereas in verse 25 it is just "a word" with neither the
divine name nor an article used with it.
Neither is the “word” which Daniel is to understand (9:23) the decree for the rebuilding of
Jerusalem (9:25). It is the entire prophecy. The fact that the perfect form of the verb is used
(9:23) indicates that the word had already gone forth, and having gone forth it had reached
Gabriel who was now going to give it to Daniel. The "word" about the reconstruction of Jerusalem
describes a future event, as was part of the prophecy. Thus the "word" of 9:25 is neither the
word of the Lord to Jeremiah in 9:2 nor the word of the Lord through Gabriel to Daniel in 9:23.
Four decrees
Many scholars, from different religious traditions, have found in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah
the fulfillment of the Danielic prediction. But the interpretation of the evidence has not been a
simple matter because there are several different decrees concerning the exiles and Jerusalem.
A brief summary of the main elements in the narrative recorded in Ezra and Nehemiah would
include the following:
1. Cyrus issued a decree in 538 B.C. (Ezra 1:1-4; cf Isa 45:1) granting authority to the Jews
to return to Jerusalem, to rebuild the temple, and to collect money in Babylonia for the
project.
2. The Jews arrived at Judah and began to rebuild the temple. A series of internal reasons
led the returnees to stop the project. In 520 B.C., encouraged by Haggai and Zachariah,
Zerubbabel and Joshua reinitiate the building of the temple.
3. There was strong opposition to the rebuilding of the temple by the neighboring people. It
was necessary for Darius, in 520 B.C. (Ezra 6:1-12), to re-confirm the decree of Cyrus.
In spite of problems, the temple was finished and dedicated in 515 B.C. (Ezra 6:15, 16).
4. Even after the temple was finished (4:6), the enemies of the Jews wrote letters against
them to King Xerxes (485-465 B.C.).
5. In 458 or 457 B.C. Artaxerxes issued a decree which restored the authority of the Jews
to govern themselves on the basis of the law of God (Ezra 7:12-26). It also gave permis-
sion to Ezra to return to Jerusalem with a group of exiles.
6. Persian officials were able to stop the rebuilding of the city but in 444 B.C. Nehemiah
was authorized by Artaxerxes to go to Jerusalem to rebuild the wall of the city (Nehemiah
2). The decree of 457 B.C. was renewed.
7. Shortly thereafter the wall was finished under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah.
We can divide the books into two main sections. Ezra 1-6 deal with the rebuilding of the temple;
and Ezra 7 - Nehemiah 13 with the restoration and rebuilding of the city.
The order of the Persian kings mentioned in the books follow the order of the kings in Persian
history. Not all the Persian kings are mentioned in Esdra-Nehemiah but those mentioned are well
known:
Ezra-Nehemiah Persian History
Cyrus (Ezra 1:4; 4:3; 5:13; 6:3, 14) Cyrus (539-530 B.C.)
Cambyses (530-522 B.C.)
Pseudo Smerdis (522 B.C.)
Darius (Ezra 4:5, 24; 5:6; 6:1, 13) Darius (522-486 B.C.)
Xerxes (Ezra 4:6) Xerxes (486-465 B.C.)
Artaxerxes I (Ezra 4:7, 8, 11, 23; 6:14; 7:1; 8:1; Artaxerxes I (465-423 B.C.)
Neh 2:1; 5:14; 13:6)
Darius II (Neh 12:22) Darius II (423-405 B.C.)
Artaxerxes II (405-359 B.C.)
Cyrus
9:25 uses the specific name of the city, Jerusalem. There can be no question that we must look
to the circumstances under which that city was rebuilt. A city is not a temple and a temple is not
a city, though a city may contain a temple or be located near one.
The decree issued by Cyrus is considered by some to be the one mentioned in Daniel 9:25
because Isaiah prophesied that Cyrus would rebuild Jerusalem (Isa 44:28; 45:13). However,
Cyrus did not decree that Jerusalem be rebuilt. His decree is recorded in Ezra 1:2-4:
“This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me
all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at
Jerusalem in Judah. Anyone of his people among you—may his God be with him,
and let him go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord, the God
of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem.”
What is built is not the city but only the temple. Cyrus himself was therefore not to be directly
responsible for the rebuilding of the city. Isaiah must be understood as that he initiated a
process that would ultimately lead to a decree authorizing the rebuilding of Jerusalem. Cyrus
in Isaiah’s prophecy stood not just for his own person but also represented the other Persian
kings that came after him, one of whom would issue the decree announced by the prophet.
Darius
The second decree is the one by Darius. According to Ezra 5, Zerubbabel and Joshua, under the
influence of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, reinitiated the project of rebuilding the temple
several years after it was stopped. When Tatnai, governor of the province, saw the building
activities, he questioned the legal basis for what they were doing and wrote a letter to Darius
asking him to verify the information he had obtained from the Jews in Jerusalem. An investigation
was made and the decree of Cyrus was found. Consequently, Darius issued another decree
confirming the first one (Ezra 6:3-12). The decree of Darius is not significantly different from
Cyrus’ edict. The only important difference is that the king ordered Tatnai not to interfere with
the project of rebuilding the temple and to impale anyone who would oppose it.
The decree of Darius I was therefore only supplementary to Cyrus’s decree, and only authorized
the rebuilding of the temple (Ezra 6:14-16). The temple was completed in the sixth year of
Darius I, 516 B.C., but the city was still in ruins, and this was the condition in which Nehemiah
found it in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes I, some 70 years later.
Artaxerxes – Ezra 7
We must look beyond the rebuilding of the temple for the next major building project in Jerusa-
lem. There actually were two decrees which were involved in this later event, much like the
previous two decrees focused on the temple. Both were issued by Artaxerxes. This new pair of
official rulings is found in Ezra 7 and Nehemiah 2.
The decree given to Ezra is recorded in Ezra 7:12-26 as a copy of the decree in the original
Aramaic language, as an official decree of Artaxerxes. Wide-ranging authority is accorded to
Ezra in this decree:
(1) Permission to the exiles to return to Jerusalem,
(2) Permission to draw upon the treasury of the Trans-Euphrates province up to the amount
of 100 talents of silver (see Ezra 7:21, 22).
(3) Permission to establish a legal system based on the Torah for all the Jews in Judeah
and throughout the Trans-Euphrates province. This included setting up magistrates and
judges to enforce the law. For anyone who would not obey his teachings in these mat-
ters Ezra was authorized to execute punishment up to the death penalty (Ezra 7:25, 26).
The province of Trans-Euphrates included more than Judea. It included all of Syria that was
located west and south of the Upper Euphrates River. Thus by this decree Ezra was given
authority not over the Jews only, but also over persons and territory outside of Judea (Ezra 7:25).
His authority over non-Jews is probably the most remarkable feature of the decree.
The decree does not specifically mention the rebuilding of the city, but the rebuilding of the city is
required. Ezra had been granted legal and judicial courtroom authority (Ezra 7:15, 26) which
needed to involve the establishment of places of judgment. Such places were typically the
"gates" of the city wall where the judges met for their judgment activities, as may be intended by
the “street” of 9:25. Without building facilities proper civil judicial activities were not possible.
In addition, Ezra 4:12, 13 indicates that Ezra did indeed go ahead and undertook the rebuilding.
Ezra 4:7-23 states that a group of Persian officers in Trans-Euphrates wrote a letter to Artaxerxes
recording their opposition to the rebuilding of Jerusalem by the Jews. In the letter they stated
two important things. First, they mentioned to the king that the city was being rebuilt, the walls
were being finished, and the foundations were being repaired. Second, this rebuilding was being
done by “the Jews who come up from you to us” and who were in Jerusalem (4:12). The phrase
“from you to us” indicates that the rebuilding was being done by a group of exiles who had been
authorized by Artaxerxes to return to Jerusalem. According to Ezra 7 the king authorized Ezra
and the exiles to return to Jerusalem. It was this group of exiles who were rebuilding the city.
In the letter the Persian officers tried to persuade the king to stop the project arguing that
Jerusalem had always been a rebellious city and that in fact it was because of that that the
Babylonians destroyed it (Ezra 4:13, 15). The letter argued that if the Jews were permitted to
finish their project they could take control of the Trans-Euphrates province and would stop paying
taxes and tribute to the king (vss. 13, 16).
It is important to observe that the letter does not suggest in any way that the rebuilding of the city
and its walls was being done without royal consent. Since the officers were trying to damage
the Jewish community, had the rebuilding being illegal they would have used the argument of
insubordination to the king against them. The arguments they used presuppose that the
rebuilding was authorized by the king.
The answer to this letter given by the king also suggests that the Jews had been authorized by
Artaxerxes to rebuild the city. Once the complaint was received the king did not check whether
the Jews had been authorized to rebuild Jerusalem. He knew that they had been legally autho-
rized to do what they were doing. He could only stop the project on the basis of a potential insur-
rection in the future. Hence, he checked the history of Jerusalem and it was confirmed that it had
been a rebellious city, and based on that he ordered that the project be stopped (vs. 19). We
should notice that the decree allowing for the rebuilding of the city was not cancelled out but its
execution was postponed by the king to a future time to be determined by him. This he did
during the time of Nehemiah (Nehemiah 2).
The Persian officers took the letter of the king, went to Jerusalem “and by force and power made
them [the Jews] cease” (Ezra 4:23). It is difficult to know the full meaning of that last phrase but it
certainly indicates that the officers employed military force to stop the project and that at least
some sections of the wall were destroyed. This explains why it took Nehemiah only 52 days to
rebuild the wall of the city (Neh 6:15). It is to this attack on the Jews and the city that Nehemiah 1
refers.
In Nehemiah 1 Nehemiah is informed that those who returned to Palestine were “in great trouble
and shame” and that “the walls of Jerusalem” were broken down and the gates destroyed by fire
(1:3). This was in 444 B.C.; about 13 years after Ezra arrived at Jerusalem. The reaction of
Nehemiah to this information (vs. 4) is so strong that this report cannot refer to the destruction of
Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar some 140 years previously. The report must refer to a recent
event. It therefore indicates that the rebuilding of the city had been in progress but was stopped
and much of the work done had been damaged and/or destroyed.
Apart from permission to rebuild the city, the king in his Ezra-decree restored the authority of the
Jews to govern themselves on the basis of the law of God. It is to this type of restoration that
Daniel 9:25 was pointing in its prophetic announcement.
Artaxerxes – Nehemiah 2
Some Evangelical commentators hold that we should work instead from the date of 444 B.C. (the
communication given by Artaxerxes to Nehemiah) to begin this period. The argument is that it is
only in this decree that the rebuilding of the city is explicitly mentioned. This line of reasoning
overlooks the fact that the decree had to include the rebuilding ánd the restoration of the city.
The “decree” of 444 B.C. deals only with the walls.
Further, the reaction of Nehemiah to the news in Nehemiah 1 indicates that he was under the
impression that the city was being rebuilt. This means that he understood that Ezra and the
returning exiles were authorized to and were rebuilding the city. Then any future assault upon the
city would be what Nehemiah was concerned about.
The relation between the decree of Ezra and Nehemiah's decree was that of initial authorization
and supplementary authorization. What Ezra went and started was then taken up and carried
on to partial completion by Nehemiah. As in the preceding case of Cyrus' initial decree and
Darius' supplementary authorization, Artaxerxes' two decrees can be seen as a pair. In both
cases the initial decree resulted in a return of Israelites and led to the commencement of the
project, but both reconstruction projects required supplementary authorization to complete them;
with the temple in the first case and the city in the second.
In order for the 69 weeks to predict when Jesus of Nazareth would become the Messiah, those
beginning in 444 B.C. are forced to shorten it. This is done by assuming that each of the 483
years consist of only 360 days, and then counting days from 444 B.C. A full 483 years from
444 B.C. overshoots the ministry and death of Jesus by at least five years by almost any stan-
dard. But this brings them only to the crucifixion, not to His appearance, as required by 9:25.
We should therefore look to the first decree of the second set—the one given to Ezra—which led
to the commencement of the construction of the city, for fixing the point for the beginning of the
prophetic and historical period outlined by Daniel.
Chronology
Now that decree the decree which Artaxerxes I gave to Ezra needs to be dated. Ezra 7:9
indicates that Ezra and his fellow returnees left Babylon on the first day of the first month of
Artaxerxes' seventh year.
Absolute dates for the reign of Artaxerxes I can be established through knowledge of the dates
for the two preceding kings, Darius I and Xerxes. The dates for these kings are well known
because both men conducted invasions of Greece and Greek historians dated their reigns in
terms of the well-understood Olympiad dating system. In addition we have sources from the
Ancient Near East which include papyri from Egypt dated to the reign of Artaxerxes and the
constant flow of contract tablets written in cuneiform when Babylonia was under Persian control.
We also have Ptolemy's Canon, in which the reigns of ancient kings back to the mid-eighth
century B.C. were dated and fixed by means of eclipses and astronomical-mathematical
calculations. In other words, we are in a very good position to give a very accurate fix to the
dates for Xerxes and of his son Artaxerxes, who followed him. These clearly indicate that
465 B.C. was the twenty-first and last year of Xerxes and that 464 B.C. was the first full official
year of Artaxerxes I.
The Babylonian calendar year began with the month of Nisanu (Jewish Nisan) in the spring of the
year, March-April in our calendar. If Ezra began Artaxerxes' years according to the Persian-
Babylonian system then his seventh regnal year of Artaxerxes began in the spring (Mar/Apr) of
458 B.C. The decree then would have been given before Nisan 1 of 458 B.C., or sometime in the
sixth year of Artaxerxes, 459-458 B.C.
The Jewish civil calendar began in the fall (Sept/Okt) with Tishri 1 (Tashritu of the Babylonians).
If Ezra began Artaxerxes' years according to the Jewish civil year then his seventh year began in
the fall (Sep/Okt) of 458 B.C. This does not mean that month I fell in Sept-Oct. In the case of the
fall-to-fall year, the month numbers do not change, they run VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, I, II, III, IV, V,
VI. Then the decree would probably have been given during that winter of 458-457 B.C., and the
journey took place during the spring and summer of 457 B.C.
We find an example of this strange way of counting the months in the book of Nehemia. Nehe-
miah received the news concerning Jerusalem in the ninth month (Chisleu) of Artaxerxes 20th
year (Neh 1:1). He was then authorized to attend to these matters the first month (Nisan) of the
same 20th year of Artaxerxes (Neh 2:1). Nisan (the 1st month) therefore followed after Chislau
(the 9th month) in the same year. There can be only one way to explain these dates historically
as they stand, i.e., that they were reckoned upon the base of a fall-to-fall year which began in the
seventh month for in the fall-to-fall year the number of the months ran VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, I,
II, III, IV, V. Thus in the fall-to-fall year the first month came six months after the seventh month.
There is no evidence from the book of Ezra that he used a fall calendar. But because Nehemiah
was a contemporary and compatriot of Ezra's, the use of a fall calendar in Nehemiah's book can
be taken as very strong evidence that Ezra used it too.
Another example of this strange way of numbering months is found in the Elephantine papyri.
Among these papyri is one which has direct implications for the type of regnal year that was
employed by Jews who served in Egypt. Kraeling papyrus No. 6 contains dates which locate its
month of Tammuz, the 4th month of the Jewish year (or July) 420 B.C. Kraeling papyrus No. 7 is
dated to Tishri (or October) of the same year, 420 B.C. But the regnal year number of Darius II,
under whom these texts were written, changes between the texts from year three of the July
papyrus to year four of the October papyrus. This means that the year number of the king,
according to the usage of the people who wrote these papyri, changed at the fall New Year of
Tishri 1 rather than of the spring new year of Nisan 1. Thus, while Ezra and Nehemiah used the
Jewish fall calendar in their documents, other Jews exiled in Egypt were also using it a quarter
of a century later in their part of the diaspora.
The use of the fall calendar for the civil or regnal years of the kings who reigned in Jerusalem can
be demonstrated from the biblical dates for Solomon. Their use continued through the divided
monarchy, as demonstrated by the synchronisms in the biblical record. Its use is specifically
demonstrated by a comparison between 2 Kings and extrabiblical documents at the end of the
monarchy. Jews carried this calendar into exile with them into Babylon and they continued to use
it there, as is evidenced by the dates in Ezekiel. In the postexilic period Nehemiah, Ezra's fellow
worker, provides direct textual evidence of the use of this kind of calendar. Other exiles
elsewhere continued to use that same calendar. Thus the conclusion that Ezra used a fall-to-fall
calendar for the dates in his book rests upon very solid ground.
We have arrived at March/April 457 B.C. as the date when Ezra and his fellow returnees left
Babylon. The issue of the decree would have required a period of negotiation. The Jews would
have been aware of this possibility and might have prepared for it. They also would want to use
as much as possible of the spring and summer for the journey and their establishment in Judea.
It is therefore possible that the decree could have been issued also in March/April 457 B.C.
Daniel 9:25 may now be paraphrased here to identify its starting point as, "From the going forth of
the word (the decree of Artaxerxes I) to restore and to rebuild Jerusalem (by Ezra according to
the decree of Ezra 7 and the actions of Ezra 4), in 457 B.C."
Messiah the Prince
69 weeks, or the 483 of full historical years culminates in A.D. 27. (There was no year 0.) The
final question of this study is, What do the words "unto Messiah the Prince" mean? They should
indicate the time for the coming of the Messiah. It should be noted carefully what a Messiah is.
According to its verbal root, Messiah means an anointed one. Thus the Messiah is one who is
anointed. Before that anointing the person involved was not fully the Messiah yet. Thus we are
not talking here about the time of the Messiah's birth or the time of His death; we are talking
about the time when He would appear as the Messiah. There is one person and one only who
fulfills this requirement, and that is the one who was anointed as the Messiah in A.D. 27; Jesus of
Nazareth. His anointing at the Jordan River, by both John the Baptist and His heavenly Father,
took place in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar (Luke 3:1, 21, 22). While there are other
possible ways of reckoning this regnal year of Tiberius, it certainly is a reasonable and standard
procedure accepted by many commentators, chronographers, and historians to reckon it from
A.D. 12. Utilizing that procedure and starting from the beginning point established above in
457 B.C. leads us to one specific individual as the Messiah of this prophecy—Jesus Christ. In
other words, the establishment of 457 B.C. as the starting point of the 70-week prophecy of
Daniel 9 is one of the strongest indicators among the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament
that Jesus truly was all that He claimed to be.
Read also
Does Daniel contain predictive prophecy? When was Daniel written?
http://www.scribd.com/doc/20676003/5-Daniel-Date-Summary