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Daniel 9:25

Know thou therefore, and take notice: that from the going forth of the word, to build up Jerusalem again, unto Christ the prince, there shall be seven weeks, and sixty-two weeks: and the street shall be built again, and the walls in straitness of times.

Challoner: From the going forth of the wordThat is, from the twentieth year of king Artaxerxes, when by his commandment Nehemias rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, 2 Esd. 2. From which time, according to the best chronology, there were just sixty-nine weeks of years, that is, 483 years to the baptism of Christ, when he first began to preach and execute the office of Messias.-- Ibid.

Challoner: In straitness of timesangustia temporum: which may allude both to the difficulties and opposition they met with in building: and to the shortness of the time in which they finished the wall, viz., fifty-two days.

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The verse in its languages

Vulgate (Clementine): Scito ergo, et animadverte : ab exitu sermonis, ut iterum ædificetur Jerusalem, usque ad christum ducem, hebdomades septem, et hebdomades sexaginta duæ erunt : et rursum ædificabitur platea, et muri in angustia temporum.
Septuagint (Swete): καὶ γνώσῃ καὶ συνήσεις ἀπὸ ἐξόδου λόγου τοῦ ἀποκριθῆναι καὶ τοῦ οἰκοδομῆσαι Ἰερουσαλὴμ ἓως χριστοῦ ἡγουμένου ἑβδομάδες ἑπτὰ καὶ ἑβδομάδες ἑξήκοντα δύο· καὶ ἐπιστρέψει καὶ οἰκοδομηθήσεται πλατεία καὶ τεῖχος, καὶ ἐκκενωθήσονται οἱ καιροί.
Hebrew (WLC): וְתֵדַ֨ע וְתַשְׂכֵּ֜ל מִן מֹצָ֣א דָבָ֗ר לְהָשִׁיב֙ וְלִבְנ֤וֹת יְרֽוּשָׁלִַ֨ם֙ עַד מָשִׁ֣יחַ נָגִ֔יד שָׁבֻעִ֖ים שִׁבְעָ֑ה וְשָׁבֻעִ֞ים שִׁשִּׁ֣ים וּשְׁנַ֗יִם תָּשׁוּב֙ וְנִבְנְתָה֙ רְח֣וֹב וְחָר֔וּץ וּבְצ֖וֹק הָעִתִּֽים

Haydock's commentary

Word, &c. That is, from the twentieth year of king Artaxerxes, when, by his commandment, Nehemias rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, 2 Esdras ii. From which time, according to the best chronology, there were just sixty-nine weeks of years, that is 483 years, to the baptism of Christ, when he first began to preach and execute the office of Messias. (Challoner)

The prophecy is divided into three periods: the first of forty-nine years, during which the walls were completed; (they had been raised in fifty-two days, (2 Esdras vi. 15.) but many other fortifications were still requisite) the second of four hundred and thirty-four years, at the end of which Christ was baptized, in the fifteenth of Tiberius, the third of three years and a half, during which Christ preached. In the middle of this last week, the ancient sacrifices became useless, (Calmet) as the true Lamb of God had been immolated. (Theod.)

A week of years denotes seven years, as Leviticus xxv. and thus seventy of these weeks would make four hundred and ninety years. (Ven. Bede, Rat. temp. 6 &c.; Worthington)

Origen would understand 4900 years, and dates from the fall of Adam to the ruin of the temple. Marsham begins twenty-one years after the captivity commenced, when Darius took Susa, and ends in the second of Judas, when the temple was purified. This system would destroy the prediction of Christ's coming, and is very uncertain. Hardouin modifies it, and acknowledges that Christ was the end of the prophecy, though it was fulfilled in figure by the death of Onias III. See 1 Machabees i. 19; Senens. Bib. viii. hær. 12; and Estius. From chap. vii. to xii., the changes in the East, till the time of Epiphanes, are variously described. After the angel had here addressed Daniel, the latter was still perplexed; (Chap. x. 1.) and in order to remove his doubts, the angel informs him of the persecution of Epiphanes, as if he had been speaking of the same event. We may, therefore, count forty-nine years from the taking of Jerusalem (when Jeremias spoke, chap. v. 19.) to Cyrus, the anointed, (Isaias xlv. 1.) who was appointed to free God's people. They should still be under the Persians, &c., for other four hundred and thirty-four years, and then Onias should be slain. Many would join the Machabees; the sacrifices should cease in the middle of the seventieth week, and the desolation shall continue to the end of it. Yet, though this system may seem plausible, it is better to stick to the common one, which naturally leads us to the death of Christ, dating from the tenth year of Artaxerxes. (Calmet)

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He had reigned ten years already with his father. (Petau.)

All the East was persuaded that a great king should arise about the time; when our Saviour actually appeared, and fulfilled all that had been spoken of the Messias. (Calmet, Diss.)

Ferguson says, "We have an astronomical demonstration of the truth of this ancient prophecy, seeing that the prophetic year of the Messias being cut off was the very same with the astronomical." In a dispute between a Jew and a Christian, at Venice, the Rabbi who presided....put an end to the business by saying, "Let us shut up our Bibles; for if we proceed in the examination of this prophecy, it will make us all become Christians." (Watson, let. 6.)

Hence probably the Jews denounce a curse on those who calculate the times, (Haydock) and they have purposely curtailed their chronology. (Calmet)

Times, &c. (angustia temporum) which may allude both to the difficulties and opposition they met with in building, and to the shortness of the time in which they finished the wall, viz. fifty-two days. (Challoner)

Where a note speaks of the Jewish people, the Church teaches that the Passion 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).

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. …

St Victorinus of Pettau On the Creation of the World

Behold the seven horns of the Lamb, the seven eyes of God, the seven eyes are the seven spirits of the Lamb; seven torches burning before the throne of God seven golden candlesticks, seven young sheep, the seven women in Isaiah, the seven churches in Paul , seven deacons, seven angels, seven trumpets, seven seals to the book, seven periods of seven days with which Pentecost is completed, the seven weeks in Daniel , also the forty-three weeks in Daniel ; with Noah , seven of all clean things in the ark; seven revenges of Cain , seven years for a debt to be acquitted, the lamp with seven orifices, seven pillars of wisdom in the house of Solomon .

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 Cyril of Jerusalem On the words Incarnate, and Made Man

19. But we seek still more clearly the proof of the time of His coming. For man being hard to persuade, unless he gets the very years for a clear calculation, does not believe what is stated. What then is the season, and what the manner of the time? It is when, on the failure of the kings descended from Judah, Herod a foreigner succeeds to the kingdom? The Angel, therefore, who converses with Daniel says, and do thou now mark the words, And thou shalt know and understand: From the going forth of the word for making answer , and for the building of Jerusalem, until Messiah the Prince are seven weeks and three score and two weeks . Now three score and nine weeks of years contain four hundred and eighty-three years. …

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).