Countdown to the Destruction of Jerusalem
The chronology of Daniel 9:24–27 sets the fulfillment of Daniel 8:9–12 in AM 3830 = 69/70 CE. The computation is straightforward, and the resulting date permits a single historical interpretation of the vision: the destruction of the Second Temple by Roman armies.
The most significant textual observation from Daniel 9 concerns the opening verse of the vision. This verse permits two readings, both of which are intended. The consonantal Hebrew text of this verse in Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia reads:
בשנת אחת לדריוש בן אחשורוש מזרע מדי אשר המלך על מלכות כשדים
This verse is critical because it establishes the only internal textual epoch for the chronology that appears later at Daniel 9:24–27. The key ambiguity in its consonantal text is the antecedent of אשר, an indeclinable relative particle. On the one hand, the antecedent may be דריוש בן אחשורוש (“Darius, son of Xerxes”), in which case a valid English translation is:
In the first year of Darius, son of Xerxes, from the race of the Medes, who was made to reign over the kingdom of the Chaldeans. (Dan 9:1)
On this reading, Darius is the character “Darius the Mede” from the well-known court tale of Daniel in the lions’ den (Dan 5:31–6:28). Since “Darius the Mede” is not a historical person, it follows from this reading that the subsequent chronology need not correspond with any specific episode of actual history. Multiple comparisons with history are permitted, with a consequent loss in epistemic significance. The purpose of this reading is intentional, authorial misdirection, a subject for a future installment of this blog.
The same loss does not apply to the permitted alternative antecedent. That alternative is זרע מדי (“the race of the Medes”). In this case, a valid English translation is:
In the first year of Darius, son of Xerxes, from the race of the Medes, which was made to reign over the kingdom of the Chaldeans. (Dan 9:1)
Despite its unusual complexity, the expression “the race of the Medes, which was made to reign over the kingdom of the Chaldeans” is a sensible phrase. The peoples of the ancient Near East used “Mede” as a metonym for any Iranian, so the phrase identifies the Persians, the “Medes” who indeed conquered “the kingdom of the Chaldeans,” a reference to Babylon. On this reading, Darius is the Achaemenid Persian king Darius II, since “son of Xerxes” here may refer to a grandson of Xerxes, an attested biblical usage (cf. Gen 29:5; 2 Chron 22:9). Since Darius II is a historical person, this reading establishes the specific epoch for the subsequent chronology: AM 3339 = 423/2 BCE, his first regnal year in the Hebrew calendar. Only a single comparison with history is permitted.
For the sake of brevity and focus, we must set aside here Daniel’s reference to Jeremiah (9:2) and his prayer (9:3–19), which are nevertheless important elements that deserve separate treatment in later installments. For now, we turn to Gabriel’s interruption of that prayer, when he announces that a “word” went out just as Daniel began his petition:
I was still speaking in prayer when the man Gabriel—whom I had seen in the vision on the previous occasion—reached me deeply wearied at the time of the evening offering. Then he explained and spoke with me. He said, “Daniel, I now have come to give you understanding. When your pleas for mercy began, a word went out, and I have come to declare it, for you are highly esteemed. Now consider the matter and understand the vision. Seventy sabbatical cycles are conceded to your people and to your holy city, to end the transgression, to seal an offence, and to atone an iniquity; to bring in eternal righteousness, to confirm a vision and a prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. Know and understand that from the going out of the word to rebuild Jerusalem once more until an anointed one becomes a prince there will be seven sabbatical cycles, and for sixty-two cycles it will return, for it will be rebuilt with a public square and an aqueduct despite the distress of those times. But after the sixty-two cycles an anointed one will be cut off, and he will have nothing. For an army of a prince, the coming one, will destroy the city and the holy temple, and its end will be as a flood, for desolations are decreed until the end of a war. Yet a covenant among the masses will become strong for one cycle, and in the middle of the cycle it will put an end to a sacrifice and an offering. But on account of a bird of abominations it will be put to shame, even as far as a complete destruction. For what is decreed will be poured out upon a desolation. (Dan 9:21–27)
The Hebrew term rendered here as “sabbatical cycles” is conventionally translated as “weeks,” and this fact deserves comment. That the intended units are seven-year cycles ending in a Shmita, known among Christians as a “sabbatical year,” is evident from the context, and this unit of time is not obscure. The archaeological record has long attested to its use as a practical calendrical unit, and observant Jews have reckoned the cycle of the Shmita without interruption since the foundation of the Second Temple. This fact is most easily recognized in the precise alignment of the current observance with the Second Temple’s foundation, but its continuity does not rest on this evidence alone. Support also comes from the complete population of sabbatical year notices from the Maccabees to Maimonides, the distribution of which is firmly centered on the traditional practice. Almost all deviations concern a single year, and these errors are evenly distributed in either direction, matching the distribution one would expect from random error.
Though the translation “weeks” is technically correct, it is sufficiently imprecise to be materially misleading. It obscures, for the uninformed reader, an essential constraint on any historical correspondence with this prophecy. The prophecy is explicitly predicting the destruction of Jerusalem in a post-sabbatical year, a year immediately after a Shmita, because its promised restoration and subsequent reprieve from that destruction end seventy sabbatical cycles from the epoch of the prophecy.
And this feature of the text is not without symbolic meaning. In The Jubilee from Leviticus to Qumran: A History of Interpretation, John Bergsma compellingly shows that the sabbatical year and the associated practice of the Jubilee were ritual observances reaffirming the sanctity of the temple, its precincts, and the inhabitants of its sacred territory, the Jewish people. The prophecy therefore transforms a ritual practice associated with purification, release, and restoration into the instrument for dating the destruction of the temple, the desecration of its precincts, and the violation of the very people whose sanctity it should reaffirm. In fact, the conventional interpretation views the seventy cycles as ten Jubilee cycles of forty-nine years each (John J. Collins, Daniel: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993], 352). Since a Jubilee is always a post-sabbatical year, we may read the prophecy as setting the destruction of Jerusalem in a Jubilee. The theological inversion is striking, and the translation “weeks” obscures it.
Apart from this critical observation that this chronology is a sabbatical chronology, three more observations deserve immediate notice. The first is the description of Gabriel as a figure from the vision “on the previous occasion.” This description is an explicit reference to his expository role at the conclusion of Daniel 8 (Dan 8:15-26). Gabriel also explains that his present purpose is to “give Daniel understanding.” This assertion is an apparent reference to Daniel’s lack of understanding after Gabriel’s first exposition, and the command to “understand the vision” through the sabbatical chronology reinforces this idea (Dan 8:27; 9:22–23). The text therefore presents the sabbatical chronology as a continued exposition on the vision of the ram and the goat (Dan 8:1–12).
The second observation is the implicit identity of the “prince, the coming one” mentioned at Daniel 9:26. This “prince” is the final horn-king described at Daniel 8:9–12; the text permits no other interpretation. The Hebrew visions of Daniel freely use the term “king” as a metonym for dynasties, kingdoms, and even civilizations, and this usage applies to both this prince and the horn-king. Moreover, within the Hebrew visions, the destruction of the Second Temple is a unique act. It can only happen once, yet both the army of this prince and the final horn-king destroy it (Dan 8:9–12; 9:26–27). This prince and the horn-king therefore represent one and the same political entity. The fact that the sabbatical chronology continues Gabriel’s exposition on this destruction only reinforces this conclusion. The sabbatical chronology is more than a countdown to the destruction of Jerusalem. It is a countdown to the historical accomplishment of Daniel 8:9–12.
The third observation concerns the epoch of the sabbatical chronology. This epoch is the first year of Darius II, given at Daniel 9:1. The logic is clear. As Gabriel states it, the explicit epoch is “the going out of the word” (מצא דבר) to restore Jerusalem (Dan 9:25). Within the immediate context, this description ties the epoch to the “word” that “went out” (יצא דבר) when Daniel began his petition (Dan 9:23). The parallel in the original language between these expressions is unmistakable, and this petition began in the year of the vision described at Daniel 9:1. Though many commentators propose alternative epochs, all of them are logically problematic. They are freely selected, and this free selection permits the reader to decide the historical fulfillment of the prophecy. Yet such an approach can never establish a historical fulfillment intended by the visions’ authors, which is the object of this analysis.
The Hebrew visions of Daniel therefore do something remarkable here. Something that occurs nowhere else in biblical prophecy, not even in the Aramaic core of Daniel. It may occur nowhere in recorded human prophecy. Here the visions equip the reader with clear tests capable of falsifying any claim of their own historical accomplishment.
To be clear, these tests are not a comprehensive evaluation of the sabbatical chronology. Given its complexity and detail, the evaluation of its accuracy based solely on its agreement with the surviving historical record and that record’s academic reconstruction would be naive and irresponsible. It would not account for the possibility of error in the record itself or in its prevailing reconstruction. The appropriate methodology evaluates the historical generativity of the prophecy: it asks whether the chronology resolves difficulties in the surviving evidence or reveals previously unrecognized historical relationships. Though such an evaluation is well within the realm of possibility, it is nonetheless far from a trivial undertaking, and even then the results might not be decisive.
The chronology nevertheless empowers us with simple, decisive tests with which to evaluate its alleged accomplishment. We need only ask three obvious questions about its epoch, duration, and conclusion. Does the identified epoch match a sabbatical or post-sabbatical year from which seventy sabbatical cycles could be reasonably reckoned? Does Jerusalem survive the subsequent seventy cycles? Does a Western kingdom destroy the city and its temple in the post-sabbatical year that immediately follows this time of reprieve?
And the prophecy passes all three tests. It passes the first question. The first year of Darius II in the Hebrew calendar is the sabbatical year AM 3339 = 423/2 BCE. It passes the second question. The final year of the subsequent seventy sabbatical cycles is AM 3829 = 68/69 CE, and despite the many troubles of the intervening period, Jerusalem stood from the beginning of this period until its end. Finally, it passes the third question. The post-sabbatical year that immediately followed the seventy cycles is AM 3830 = 69/70 CE, the very year the Romans destroyed Jerusalem.
Consider these results carefully. They are too simple to disguise a serious error. The first year of Darius II emerges as the epoch from the text itself, and its synchronizations with AM 3339 and 423/2 BCE are certain. The number 3339 is a multiple of seven, which shows the year AM 3339 is indeed a sabbatical year. That Jerusalem stood undestroyed from AM 3340 to AM 3829 is an indisputable fact. So is its total destruction by the Roman Empire (a Western kingdom for the purposes of Daniel) in the post-sabbatical year AM 3830. These textual and chronological correspondences do not merely suggest that the final horn-king in Daniel 8:9–12 signifies the Roman Empire.
They prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.
