(This is my Sunday post on Monday.)
The remarkable prophecy concerning the time of Christ's coming is known as the prophecy of sixty-nine weeks.

24 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.


25 Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks:(approx 109 years) the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.

God presented the timetable in the form of a riddle....and scholars have spent countless hours unraveling its exact days.
However, those who studied the Old Testament law at the time of Christ's coming had already deciphered the riddle.
They knew his coming was imminent; in fact, they knew it would happen in the very century in which it did.
The King did not come in royal robes with a crown upon his head; and the Old Testament also told them  this;  nonetheless the Israelites remained sure that God would raise up for them a king in the image and visage of their great kings of the past.
Those are topics for another post, however.  Today, we are looking at the Prophecy of the Sixty-Nine Weeks. 
The Jews of the First Century were not able to be as precise as today's Biblical scholars, but they did understand the oracle well enough to know that the King's arrival was imminent.

The Old Testament book containing this prophecy was written by Daniel, a Jewish captive of the Babylonians who became a high official of both Babylonia and Persia during the sixth century BC. In chapter 9, Daniel records that after he pleaded with God to turn His wrath away from the Jewish people, God sent him a prophetic message through the angel Gabriel.

There are three time periods referenced in Daniel 9:24-27 printed above:  ("Seventy 'sevens'),  - (seven 'sevens'), and  - (sixty-two 'sevens').  According to Leviticus 25:8 printed below, one "seven" equals seven years.  The "sevens" referenced in Daniel 9:24-27, are seven year periods.

Leviticus 25:8 (NIV) "'Count off seven sabbaths of years--seven times seven years--so that the seven sabbaths of years amount to a period of forty-nine years.

1. "Seventy 'sevens'" is four hundred and ninety (490) years.


2. "seven 'sevens,'" is forty nine (49) years.


3. "sixty-two 'sevens.'" is four hundred and thirty four (434) years.

The first time period that Daniel referenced was "Seventy 'sevens' . 

Daniel 9:24 (NIV) "Seventy 'sevens' are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy.

Daniel's vision is concerning Daniel's people, and Daniel's holy city.  Daniel is Jewish, and his holy city is Jerusalem.  Daniel's vision is about the Jewish people, and Jerusalem.  In Daniel 9:24 printed above, Daniel listed six very distinct events that will occur during the "Seventy 'sevens'.

1. "to finish transgression,"


2. "to put an end to sin,"


3. "to atone for wickedness,"


4. "to bring in everlasting righteousness,"


5. "to seal up vision and prophecy"


6. "and to anoint the most holy."

Written more than 600 years before Jesus Christ came the first time, Daniel's prophecy implies that there would be TWO decrees "to restore and rebuild Jerusalem", and that those TWO decrees would set events in motion that would culminate in "the Anointed One, the ruler" coming TWO times.  Daniel gave TWO time periods, until the coming of the ONE King: "the Anointed One, the ruler".  Those TWO time periods areseven 'sevens,' and sixty-two 'sevens.'

Daniel 9:25 (NIV) "Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven 'sevens,' and sixty-two 'sevens.'

 

Daniel 8:27 (NIV) I, Daniel, was exhausted and lay ill for several days. Then I got up and went about the king's business. I was appalled by the vision; it was beyond understanding.

Very little was known about the coming of the Messiah, the Anointed One, the ruler.  Daniel did not know that the Messiah, the Anointed One, the ruler would actually be God Almighty.  It was believed that the Anointed One, the ruler would establish an earthly kingdom at the time of the Messiah's coming.  Even though Daniel gave TWO time periods, Daniel did not understand that the Anointed One, the ruler would actually come twice.

Daniel did not understand that the Messiah would be the Anointed One when He came the first time, but the Messiah would not be the ruler until He came the second time.  After the sixty-two 'sevens,' referenced inDaniel 9:26 printed above, the Messiah is only titled as the Anointed One at the Messiah's first coming, after which the Messiah was, "cut off and will have nothing".  Daniel 9:26 did not title the Messiah as the rulerat the Messiah's first coming.  The Messiah's first coming occurred sixty-two 'sevens,', or four hundred and thirty four years (434) after the first "issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem".

Daniel did not know that at the Messiah's first coming, the Anointed One, would be Crucified, buried, and raised to life on the third day.  Daniel did not have the faintest idea that after the Messiah's first coming, the Anointed One, would leave the earth, go back to Heaven, and be physically absent from the earth for 2,000 years, and then come back to earth a second time after the seven 'sevens,' as the Anointed One, the ruler, to establish the Messiah's Millennial Reign.

Daniel wrote the Book of Daniel while in exile in Babylon.  At that time, the Jewish people had been separated for the first time from Jerusalem and their Temple.  At the time that the Book of Daniel was written, it was not known that the Jewish people would be able to return to Jerusalem, and that the Jewish people would then be removed for the second time from their homeland, and separated from their Temple.  

href="https://www.cynet.com/Jesus/prophecy/orders.htm">https://www.cynet.com/Jesus/prophecy/orders.htm

phrases.