As Riddlebarger points out, the seventy weeks are not meant to be taken literally but are instead symbolic, “reflect[ing] important biblical theological elements of Israel’s prior history.” The church is now in the period of the remaining “time, and times, and half a time” (Rev. 12:14).

Many Christians have been taught the dispensationalist view of the end times, which claims that all the seventy weeks mentioned in Daniel 9:24 have already occurred except for the last “week” (a period of seven years), which is yet to come. Dispensationalism asserts that “he [who] shall put an end to sacrifice and offering” in Daniel 9:27 is referring to the antichrist to come:

“Seventy weeks are decreed about 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….And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.” (Dan. 9:24, 27)

Yet, there is no legitimate basis for placing a gap between the first sixty-nine weeks and the last week of the seventy weeks in Daniel 9:24-27, with the last week supposedly occurring at some unknown time in the future. In fact, the “anointed one” to whom Daniel refers in verses 25 and 26 is the same “he” in verse 27—namely, Jesus Christ.

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