The Seventy-Sevens
Daniel 9:24
Seventy weeks are determined on your people and on your holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins…


A general summary of what those seventy-sevens are to see accomplished is the first thing explained by the angel. If we ask for what these periods are thus divided out, we here get the answer.

1. "To consummate transgression" — finish it, bring it to its final stopping-point, after which there will be no more of it.

2. "To make an end of sins" — seal them up, shut them in prison, so as never to break forth again.

3. "To cover iniquity" — expiate it by adequate satisfaction, blot it out, hide it for ever.

4. "To bring in everlasting righteousness" — put man in normal relations with God, set human life into thorough accord with Jehovah's will and law, induce a condition of moral rectitude, which thenceforward shall never again be interrupted, but endure for all the ages.

5. "To seal vision and prophet" — authenticate and vindicate by fulfilment, make good and finish out in fact and deed all that God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.

6. "To anoint" — consecrate, put into place and effectiveness — a "holiness of holinesses," which is the literal sense of the words in this last clause. It can refer to nothing less than the completed outcome of the redemptive administrations as a whole — the ultimate result and crown of grace and providence, of which all the prophets speak. Everything promised, prophesied, or ever to be hoped for Israel is thus summed up in what these seventy-seven years are to bring.

(Joseph, A. Seiss, D.D.)



Parallel Verses
KJV: Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.

WEB: Seventy weeks are decreed on your people and on your holy city, to finish disobedience, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy.




Shutting, Sealing, and Covering
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