What is the significance of the 70 "sevens" of Daniel 9:24-27? Most scholars agree that this is referring to 70 units of 7 years, or 490 years.
While I certainly think a time-frame is being given here, I also think there is a significance to 490 years that goes deeper than merely being able to do the math (not matter how you view the dates, you run into problems because we don't have the exact dates given to us in Scripture).
I would argue that these numbers find their ultimate significance in the Sabbath and Jubilee principles found in Leviticus 25-26. You see, God commanded His people to separate one day out of every seven days (the Sabbath day). And, He commanded them to separate one year out of every seven years (the Sabbath year). And, He commanded them to celebrate a year of Jubilee after 7 Sabbath years (or after every 49 years).
The year of Jubilee was a huge celebration. All land was returned to its original owner; all Jewish slaves were released; and all debts were cancelled.
So, 490 years is 10 Jubilee units. This is an intensification of the Jubilee concept, pointing to the ultimate Jubilee. This is the Jubilee of all Jubilees. God is alerting Daniel to His plan to send a Messiah who would usher in God’s final and ultimate Jubilee. Jesus Christ is the fulfillment and intensification of all that the Law foreshadowed.
2 comments:
Amen! I believe you are right on the money. The Gospel of John seems to use a lot of festal imagery to identify Jesus as the fulfillment of Israel's calendar. The way that God prepared for the coming of Christ through redemptive history is marvelous.
This morning I read this quote of Jonathan Edwards: "What has been said, may show us how great a person Jesus Christ is, and how great his errand into the world, weeing there was so much done to prepare the way for his coming. God had been preparing the way for him through all ages of the world from the very beginning. If we had notice of a certain stranger being about to come into a country, and should observe that a great preparation was made for him, great things were done, many alternations made in the state of the whole country, many hands employed, persons of great note engaged in making the preparation; and all the affairs and concerns of the country ordered so as to be subservient to the design of entertaining that person, it would be natural for us to think, surely this is some extraordinary person, and it is some very great business that he is coming upon. How great a person then must he be, for whose coming the great God of heaven and earth, and Governor of all things, spent four thousand years in preparing the way! Soon after the world was created, and from age to age he has been doing great things, bringing mighty events to pass, accomplishing wonders without number, often overturning the world in order to it. He has been causing every thing in the state of mankind, and all revolutions and changes in the habitable world, from generation to generation, to be subservient to this great design. -- Surely this must be some great and extraordinary person, and a great work indeed it must needs be, about which he is coming. A History of the Work of Redemption, Quoted in John Carrick, The Preaching of Jonathan Edwards, Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2008.
Oops! Sorry for the typo. Edwards did not say "weeing" but "seeing". Only slightly worse is when I misspelled "bowl" as "bowel" on several slides in a PhD colloquium! What made it worse was that it was a presentation on ancient Jewish exorcism, so I was talking about magic bowls. Unfortunately, I had written magic bowels! The good news is that in the story of Tobit there really are magic bowels of a fish that were used to drive a demon away from his great love. Bringing that fact to light only slightly lessened my embarrassment.
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