If we now reckon from Christ's thirtieth year [Luke 3:23] backward through the Greek and Persian kingdoms for four hundred and ninety years, we arrive exactly at the twentieth [Nehemiah 2:1] and last year of Cambyses, the third king or the second king in Persia alter Cyrus, that Cyrus who permitted the building of the temple at Jerusalem, II Chronicles 36[:22-23], and Ezra 1[:1-3]. However, more than forty-six years later Cambyses, and after him Darius Longimanus (who had previously vowed to do so [I Esdras 4:43]), permitted the building of the city of Jerusalem, which was done under Nehemiah. All this is set forth in the books of Nehemiah and Ezra. Thus, if we take the seventy weeks as beginning with Nehemiah's departure from Persia [Nehemiah 2:1-11], that is, about the seventh year of Darius Longimanus, it corresponds exactly with our Christ.
Now Gabriel says [Daniel 9:24], "Seventy weeks (that is, four hundred and ninety years) are determined concerning your people and your holy city." This is as if he were to say: Your nation of the Jews and the holy city of Jerusalem have yet four hundred and ninety years to go; then they will both come to an end. As to what shall actually transpire, he says that transgression will be finished and forgiveness sealed and iniquity atoned for and everlasting righteousness brought in, and vision and prophecy fulfilled, that is, that satisfaction will be made for all sins, forgiveness of sins proclaimed, and the righteousness of faith preached, that righteousness which is eternally valid before God. This it is to which all the prophets and the whole of Scripture bear witness, as Paul in Romans 1[:17] and Peter in Acts 2[:38-39] testify. For before it there has been nothing but sin and work-righteousness, which is temporal and invalid in the sight of God. I know of course that some invariably interpret the little Hebrew word "Hathuth" here as "sins"; I have taken it to mean "forgiveness"-as Moses sometimes does, and as it is used in Psalm 51[:7]-not without reason.
