(24) Seventy weeks.— Great difficulty is experienced in discovering what sort of weeks is intended. Daniel 9:25-27 are sufficient to show that ordinary weeks cannot be meant. Possibly, also, the language ( Daniel 10:2 , margin “weeks of days”) implies that “weeks of days” are not...
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(24) Seventy weeks.— Great difficulty is experienced in discovering what sort of weeks is intended. Daniel 9:25-27 are sufficient to show that ordinary weeks cannot be meant. Possibly, also, the language ( Daniel 10:2 , margin “weeks of days”) implies that “weeks of days” are not intended here. On the other hand, it is remarkable that in Leviticus 25:1-10 the word week should not have been used to signify a period of seven years, if year-weeks are implied in this passage. However, it is generally assumed that we must understand the weeks to consist of years and not of days (see Pusey’s Daniel, pp. 165, 166), the principle of year-weeks depending upon Numbers 14:34 , Leviticus 26:34 , Ezekiel 4:6 . The word “week” in itself furnishes a clue to the meaning. It implies a “Heptad,” and is not necessarily more definite than the “time” mentioned in Daniel 7:25 . Are determined.—The word only occurs in this passage. Theod. translates συνετμήθησαν; LXX., ἐκρίθησαν; Jer. “abbreviatœ sunt.” In Chaldee the word means “to cut,” and in that sense “to determine.” The object “determined” is twofold: (1) transgression and sin; (2) reconciliation and righteousness. To finish.—The Hebrew margin gives an alternative rendering, “to restrain,” according to which the meaning is “to hold sin back” and to “prevent it from spreading.” If this reading is adopted it will be parallel to the second marginal alternative, “to seal up,” which also implies that the iniquity can no more increase.