Daniel 9:24
Seventy weeks are shortened upon thy people, and upon thy holy city, that transgression may be finished, and sin may have an end, and iniquity may be abolished; and everlasting justice may be brought; and vision and prophecy may be fulfilled; and the saint of saints may be anointed.
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Septuaginta hebdomades abbreviatæ sunt super populum tuum et super urbem sanctam tuam, ut consummetur prævaricatio, et finem accipiat peccatum, et deleatur iniquitas, et adducatur justitia sempiterna, et impleatur visio et prophetia, et ungatur Sanctus sanctorum.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἑβδομήκοντα ἑβδομάδες συνετμήθησαν ἐπὶ τὸν λαόν σου καὶ ἐπὶ τὴν πόλιν τὴν ἁγίαν τοῦ συντελεσθῆναι ἁμαρτίαν, καὶ τοῦ σφραγίσαι ἁμαρτίας καὶ ἀπαλεῖψαι τὰς ἀδικίας, καὶ τοῦ ἐξιλάσασθαι ἀδικίας καὶ τοῦ ἀγαγεῖν δικαιοσύνην αἰώνιον, καὶ τοῦ σφραγίσαι ὅρασιν καὶ προφήτην, καὶ τοῦ χρίσαι ἃγιον ἁγίων.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- שָׁבֻעִ֨ים שִׁבְעִ֜ים נֶחְתַּ֥ךְ עַֽל עַמְּךָ֣ וְעַל עִ֣יר קָדְשֶׁ֗ךָ לְכַלֵּ֨א הַפֶּ֜שַׁע ולחתם חטאות וּלְכַפֵּ֣ר עָוֺ֔ן וּלְהָבִ֖יא צֶ֣דֶק עֹֽלָמִ֑ים וְלַחְתֹּם֙ חָז֣וֹן וְנָבִ֔יא וְלִמְשֹׁ֖חַ קֹ֥דֶשׁ קָֽדָשִֽׁים
Haydock's commentary
Seventy weeks (viz. of years, or seventy times seven, that is, 490 years) are shortened; that is, fixed and determined, so that the time shall be no longer. (Challoner)
This is not a conditional prophecy. Daniel was solicitous to know when the seventy years of Jeremias would terminate. But something of far greater consequence is revealed to him, (Worthington) even the coming and death of the Messias, four hundred and ninety years after the order for rebuilding the walls should be given, (Calmet) at which period Christ would redeem the world, (Worthington) and abolish the sacrifices of the law. (Calmet)
Finished, or arrive at its height by the crucifixion of the Son of God; (Theod.) or rather sin shall be forgiven. Hebrew, "to finish crimes to seal (cover or remit) sins, and to expiate iniquity."
Anointed. Christ is the great anointed of God, the source of justice, and the end of the law and of the prophets, (Acts x. 38. and 1 Corinthians i. 30; Romans x. 4.; Calmet) as well as the pardoner of crimes. These four characters belong only to Christ. (Worthington)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
The Epistle of Barnabas The Epistle of Barnabas, Chapter XVI. The spiritual temple of
Moreover, I will also tell you concerning the temple, how the wretched [Jews], wandering in error, trusted not in God Himself, but in the temple, as being the house of God. For almost after the manner of the Gentiles they worshipped Him in the temple. But learn how the Lord speaks, when abolishing it: “Who hath meted out heaven with a span, and the earth with his palm? Have not I?” “Thus saith the Lord, Heaven is My throne, and the earth My footstool: what kind of house will ye build to Me, or what is the place of My rest?” Ye perceive that their hope is vain. Moreover, He again says, “Behold, they who have cast down this temple, even they shall build it up again.” It has so happened. For through their going to war, it was destroyed by their enemies; and now they, as the servants of their enemies, shall rebuild it. …
Tertullian The Five Books Against Marcion, Marcion Rejected the Preceding Portion of St. Luke's Gospel. Therefore This Review Opens with an Examination of the Case of the Evil Spirit in the Synagogue of Capernaum. He Whom the Demon Acknowledged Was the Creator's Christ
My present discussion is, how the evil spirit could have known that He was called by such a name, when there had never at any time been uttered about Him a single prophecy by a god who was unknown, and up to that time silent, of whom it was not possible for Him to be attested as “the Holy One,” as (of a god) unknown even to his own Creator. What similar event could he then have published of a new deity, whereby he might betoken for “the holy one” of the rival god? Simply that he went into the synagogue, and did nothing even in word against the Creator? As therefore he could not by any means acknowledge him, whom he was ignorant of, to be Jesus and the Holy One of God; so did he acknowledge Him whom he knew (to be both). For he remembered how that the prophet had prophesied of “the Holy One” of God, and how that God’s name of “Jesus” was in the son of Nun. …
St Augustine Reply to Faustus the Manichæan, Faustus denies that the prophets predicted Christ. Augustin proves such prediction from the New Testament, and expounds at length the principal types of Christ in the Old Testament
44. The same Saviour is spoken of in Daniel, where the Son of man appears before the Ancient of days, and receives a kingdom without end, that all nations may serve Him. In the passage quoted from Daniel by the Lord Himself, "When ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place, let him that readeth understand," the number of weeks points not only to Christ, but to the very time of His advent. With the Jews, who look to Christ for salvation as we do, but deny that He has come and suffered, we can argue from actual events. Besides the conversion of the heathen, now so universal, as prophesied of Christ in their own Scriptures, there are the events in the history of the Jews themselves. …
St Augustine Reply to Faustus the Manichæan, Faustus states his objections to the morality of the law and the prophets, and Augustin seeks by the application of the type and the allegory to explain away the moral difficulties of the Old Testament
85. The time when the kingdom was removed from the tribe of Judah was the time appointed for the coming of Christ our Lord, the true Saviour, who should come not for harm, but for great good. Thus was it prophesied, "A prince shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his loins, till He come for whom it is reserved: He is the desire of nations." Not only the kingdom, but all government, of the Jews had ceased, and also, as prophesied by Daniel, the sacred anointing from which the name Christ or Anointed is derived. Then came He for whom it was reserved, the desire of nations; and the holy of holies was anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows. Christ was born in the time of the elder Herod, and suffered in the time of Herod the tetrarch. …
St Jerome Against the Pelagians, Book II
24 . The prophecy of the seventy weeks shows that the prophet looked to God alone for the establishment of righteousness.
The Fathers are given as they wrote. Where a passage lays the Passion on the Jewish people, the Church teaches that it cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).