Footnote

a Some say that this prophecy refers to two ‘anointed ones.’ One, they suggest, would appear after 7 weeks (49 years), the other after an additional 62 weeks (434 years). But this is neither what the text says nor how Jews of the first century C.E. viewed the matter. The Greek Septuagint translation, for example, links together the two periods that the Hebrew text has as “seven” and “sixty-two” “year weeks.” Viewing the Hebrew in this way, only one Messiah would be due after 69 weeks (483 years).

As to the viewpoint of this prophecy held by Jews at the beginning of the Common Era, a rabbi of the seventeenth century, Menasseh ben Israel wrote in his work De Termino Vitae [“Concerning the End of Life”]: “Some would accept those 70 weeks as meaning that after their end the Messiah would come who would constitute them rulers of the whole world. Indeed, all who took up arms against the Romans at that time held that opinion.”