The Seventy Sets of Seven Prophecy: Everything Happens According To God’s Timetable
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# The Seventy Sets of Seven Prophecy: Everything Happens According To God’s Timetable
By Greg Laurie
__October 4, 2025
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(Photo: CommonSpace Images)
Daniel 9 begins with Daniel praying. This wasn’t unusual. Daniel prayed a lot. In Daniel 9, however, his prayer is especially urgent. Daniel had been in captivity in Babylon for about sixty-six years. Based on his understanding of the prophecies of Jeremiah, the captivity would end in less than four years. Daniel prayed for God to show mercy on His people, who were scattered throughout the land, and to restore the city of Jerusalem.
Suddenly the angel Gabriel appeared to provide an answer (of sorts) to Daniel’s prayer. Gabriel revealed to Daniel a complex prophecy involving seventy sets of seven. There’s a lot of math involved, not to mention a conversion from the ancient calendar to the modern one, but here’s the basic gist of the prophecy.
God’s people are given a timeframe of “seventy sets of seven.” Sixty-nine of those sets of seven will take place between the time the command is given to rebuild Jerusalem and the time a ruler—the Anointed One—enters the city. The final set of seven will take place when another ruler makes a treaty but then breaks it by defiling the temple.
Each set of seven represents seventy years, for a total of 490 years. The prophecy then divides that period into three smaller ones—one of forty-nine years, one of 434 years, and one of seven years.
This breakdown gives us a kind of clock for when the Messiah will return and what will be happening in the world when He does. But the timeline isn’t consecutive. It didn’t predict that Jesus would return in 490 years. There’s a break in it that makes it impossible to pin down. There are, however, some parts that lend themselves to specific interpretations.
The first set of seven likely began on March 4, 444 BC. That’s the day Arta