Daniel 9:24-27is a key biblical passage. It is the only Old Testament passage which refers to the Messiah as “Messiah.” Elsewhere He is called “Shiloh” (Genesis 49:10), the “Root of Jesse” (Isaiah 11:10), the “Righteous Branch” (Jeremiah 23:5), the “Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6), etc. But the name by which He is known best, “Messiah,” appears in only one passage:Daniel 9:24-27. Here is an excerpt from that passage
“Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people. . . . So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary” (NASB 1995).
Exactly what is meant by “seventy weeks”? The phrase by itself is ambiguous, but taken in context the meaning is clear. Daniel’s prayer inDaniel 9:3–19refers to the fulfillment of a specific seventy-year period, the seventy years of the Babylonian captivity (as prophesied by Jeremiah). Daniel received the seventy weeks prophecy in response to his prayer. The “weeks” are sets of seven years. The prophecy foretells a period of seven times seventy weeks yet to come, or seventy seven-year periods. Seventy seven-year periods are 490 years.
The prophecy specifies that “from the issuance of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, until the Messiah, the Prince, there will be seven weeks [49 years] and sixty-two weeks [434 years]. . . . Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and will have nothing” (Daniel 9:25-26, BSB).