Let's go carefully, step-by-step through this prophecy. You will notice the various times mentioned. The overall prophecy totals 70 weeks which is composed of shorter periods as follows:
7 weeks (verse 25)
+ 62 weeks (verse 25)
+ 1 weeks (verse 26 & 27)
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= 70 weeks (verse 24)
So our timeline begins looking like this:
What are the beginning and ending points of the 69 week period? (verse 25)
- Beginning - "from the going forth of the commandment to restore and rebuild Jerusalem...
- Ending - "...unto the Messiah the Prince..."
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...shall be "69" weeks
Our timeline now looks like this:
Have you noticed that we've got a bit of a problem here; namely;
- 70 weeks = 1 year, 4 months and 2 weeks. This is an odd amount of time.
- It is an extremely short period of time.
- There is no way that 1 year, 4 months & 2 weeks can extend from 5 centuries before Christ (the time when Darius gave a command to rebuild Jerusalem) until Christ's time.
How in the world can we possibly make such a short amount of time fit the historical facts?
