The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

The History of an Interpretation 25
Jewish rabbis were the first to begin applying this way of counting
prophetic time beyond the two references cited, and they did this
with the “seventy weeks” of Daniel 9:24–27, the first verse of
which states: “Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and your
holy city to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to
atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both
vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place.” 2
Despite this, the fact is that the “year-day” application was not
stated as a general principle until the first century C.E., by the rabbi,
Akibah ben Joseph (c. 50–132 C.E.). 3
Hundreds of years passed and it was only at the beginning of the
ninth century that a number of Jewish rabbis began to extend the
year-day principle to other time periods in the book of Daniel.
These included the 2,300 “evenings and mornings” of Daniel 8:14,
and the 1,290 days and 1,335 days of Daniel 12:11, 12, all of which
were viewed as having Messianic implication.
The first of these rabbis, Nahawendi, considered the 2,300
“evenings and mornings” of Daniel 8:14 as years, counting them
from the destruction of Shiloh (which he dated to 942 B.C.E.) to
the year 1358 C.E. In that year he expected the Messiah would
come! 4
Nahawendi was soon followed by others, such as Saadia ben
Joseph from the same century and Solomon ben Jeroham from the tenth
century. The latter applied the year-day principle to the 1,335 days
of Daniel 12:12. Counting them from the time of Alexander the
Great, he arrived at the year 968 C.E. as the date for the
redemption of Israel.
The famous rabbi, Rashi (1040–1105), ended the 2,300 year-days
in 1352 C.E., when he thought the Messiah would come.
2 While this prophecy speaks of weeks, this of itself does not mean that it lends
itself to an application of the “year-day principle.” To a Jew the Hebrew word for
“week,” shabû’a, did not always signify a period of seven days as in English.
Shabû’a literally means a “(period of) seven,” or a “heptad.” The Jews also had a
“seven” (shabû’a) of years. (Leviticus 25:3, 4, 8, 9) True, when “weeks of years”
were meant, the word for “years” was usually added. But in the later Hebrew this
word was often left to be understood as implied. When “weeks of days” were
meant, the word for “days” could sometimes be appended, as in the other passage
in Daniel where shabû’a is found. (10:2, 3) Daniel 9:24, therefore, simply asserts
that “seventy sevens are determined,” and from the context (the allusion to the
“seventy years” in verse 2) it may be concluded that “seventy sevens of years” are
intended. It is because of this apparent textual connection—and not because of
any “year-day principle”—that some translations (Moffatt, Goodspeed, AT, RS) read
“seventy weeks of years” in Daniel 9:24.
3 Froom, Vol. II, pp. 195, 196.
4 Ibid., p. 196. Nahawendi also counted the 1,290 days of Daniel 12:11 as a period
of years, beginning with the destruction of the second temple [70 C.E.] and
thereby arriving at the same date, 1358 C.E.
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