Daniel’s Seventy Weeks and Biblical Prophecy

Daniel’s Seventy Weeks and Biblical Prophecy
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Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., Th.D. »Bio
June 13, 2005


The chronology provided in Daniel’s prophecy of the Seven­ty Weeks (Dan. 9:24–27) is a linchpin in the dispensa­tional system, although it is not crucial to any of the other millen­nial systems. John Walvoord comments that the “interpretation of Daniel 9:24–27 is of major importance to premillennialism as well as pretribulationism.” Being such, it is the “key” to prophe­cy and, consequently, “one of the most important prophecies of the Bible.” Surely O.T. Allis is correct when he observes that “the impor­tance of the prophecy of the Seventy Weeks in Dispensa­tional teaching can hardly be exaggerated.”[1]

This dependence upon Daniel 9 is unfortu­nate for dispensat­ionalism for two reasons. First, historically: great difficulties are associated with the interpretation of this passage. J.A. Mont­gomery calls the prophecy “the Dismal Swamp of Old Testa­ment criticism.”[2] E.J. Young comments: “This passage … is one of the most difficult in all the OT, and the interpretations which have been offered are almost legion.”[3]

Second, theologically: this “extremely important prophecy” is the most difficult for dispensationalists to make credible to those outside of their system. Even dispensationalist Robert Culver admits: “The difficulty of the verses that now lie before us is evident.”[4] He says, “Premillennial writers of two or three genera­tions ago were very far apart on the details. Much of the same diver­sity appears in premillennial contemporary writers.”[5] In fact, Daniel’s Seventy Weeks prophecy leads dispensationalism into one of its most strained peculiarities: the doctrine of the gap theory of the Church Age.[6] I will consider this later.

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