“Seventy weeks are decreed”
Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and your holy city to stop their transgression, to put an end to sin, to make atonement for iniquity (Daniel 9:24 BSB)
What it sounds like today
A prophecy measured in ordinary seven-day weeks.
The cultural key
The English 'weeks' misleads a modern reader into thinking of seven-day weeks. The Hebrew term is shavua, literally 'a seven,' a unit or bundle of seven, much as our word 'dozen' means a unit of twelve without specifying twelve of what. So 'seventy sevens' is the phrasing, and the context supplies the unit: Daniel has just been praying over the 'seventy years' of exile foretold by Jeremiah (9:2), and the Law itself counts time in 'seven sevens of years' leading to Jubilee (Leviticus 25:8). Read against that background, the 'seventy sevens' are overwhelmingly understood as seventy periods of seven years, a span of roughly 490 years decreed for God's climactic work of ending sin, atoning for iniquity, and bringing everlasting righteousness through 'the Messiah, the Prince.' Whatever one makes of the detailed chronology, the basic linguistic point is essential: 'weeks' here means 'sevens,' units of seven years, so the prophecy spans centuries, not a few months.
Recovered meaning
'Seventy weeks' translates the Hebrew for 'seventy sevens,' units of seven, not calendar weeks. Given Daniel's focus on the seventy years of exile and the Law's counting in sevens of years, these are seventy seven-year periods, about 490 years decreed for God's climactic work through the Messiah.