Scripture and the earliest Church Fathers indicate a gap in Daniel's seventy weeks.

The prophecy of the seventy weeks was revealed to Daniel in the following words. "Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy." (Daniel 9:24)

First, we need to understand that, although most of our English translations say seventy weeks, the Hebrew word translated weeks was shabuwa' (word number 7620 in Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary) This word was used in the Old Testament for both a period of seven days and a period of seven years. Only the context could show whether days of years was meant. An in this case, the context clearly shows that the meaning could not even possibly been days. So it is not simply interpretation to take seventy weeks as meaning 490 years. This is a fully legitimate meaning of the Hebrew words used here.

Daniel was told, "Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times." (Daniel 9:26) Here we have sixty-nine weeks, or 483 years, from the going forth of the commandment to Messiah the Prince. Some claim that there is historical evidence that the triumphal entry occurred exactly 483 years, to the day, after the signing of this order. I cannot personally testify as to the accuracy of this claim. But history indeed confirms that it occurred at approximately that time.

But now the Divinely inspired account contains a break. We read, "And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined." (Daniel 9:25-26)

Two things were to happen after the sixty-two week second part of this account. And we know that both of them indeed happened exactly as explicitly stated. “Messiah” would “be cut off,” and “the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.” Messiah was indeed cut off, and the city and the sanctuary were indeed destroyed. We know from history that these two events did not happen within a seven year period. Most historians feel that our calendar is in error, and the actual date of Jesus’ birth was 4 BC. Since Jesus lived thirty-three years, that puts his death in 29 A.D. But the city was not destroyed until 70 A.D., forty-one years after that. So even if there are small errors in the accepted dates of history, we absolutely know that “the city and the sanctuary” were not destroyed in the same week (seven year period) that our Lord was crucified. But we need to notice that both of these events are presented before the last week is even mentioned. So here we see an absolutely undeniable break in the scriptural account of the seventy weeks.

But the last week is treated differently. It does not even say that this is the seventieth week. The only reason we know that it is the seventieth week is because all the rest of the weeks had already been used up. So this week had to be the seventieth one. We read, "And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate." (Daniel 9:27)

Now many imagine that this verse speaks of the cross. They want to interpret the word “for” in this verse as “in,” and claim that this was speaking of Jesus confirming God’s covenant with us “in” the seventieth week, and claim that Jesus was crucified at the middle of the seventieth week. But even if history were wrong by so many years, this interpretation does violence to the structure of the prophecy. For the last week is not even mentioned until after the two events that were to take place after the sixty-ninth week.

But an end time covenant that will not be fulfilled is clearly mentioned in other Old Testament prophecies. One of these is Isaiah 28:14-18, where we read, “Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem. Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves: Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste. Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place. And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.”

Again, in Isaiah 57:7-9 we read, “Upon a lofty and high mountain hast thou set thy bed: even thither wentest thou up to offer sacrifice. Behind the doors also and the posts hast thou set up thy remembrance: for thou hast discovered thyself to another than me, and art gone up; thou hast enlarged thy bed, and made thee a covenant with them; thou lovedst their bed where thou sawest it. And thou wentest to the king with ointment, and didst increase thy perfumes, and didst send thy messengers far off, and didst debase thyself even unto hell.”

So we see that the scriptures indeed clearly foretell a future covenant that God will not allow to be fulfilled. Daniel 9:27 is only one of several places where this covenant in mentioned.

Others imagine that the existence of this gap is a relatively new concept, first developed by the dispensational teachers of the nineteenth century. But this is an error. The oldest Christian commentary on Bible prophecy of any significant length that has survived to the present day is the last ten chapters of the famous work by Irenaeus titled “Against Heresies,” which is believed to have been written between the years 186 and 188. In this work Irenaeus spoke of the reign of an evil ruler whom he taught would come in the future, calling him “Antichrist,” and saying:

“And then he points out the time that his tyranny shall last, during which the saints shall be put to flight, they who offer a pure sacrifice unto God: ‘And in the midst of the week,’ he says, ‘the sacrifice and the libation shall be taken away, and the abomination of desolation [shall be brought] into the temple: even unto the consummation of the time shall the desolation be complete.’Now three years and six months constitute the half-week.” (Against Heresies, by Irenaeus, book V, chapter XXV, section 4)

So there can be no rational debate that Irenaeus taught that the last of the seventy weeks revealed to Daniel would be fulfilled in his own future, not in his past.
Something on the order of twenty or so years after Irenaeus penned these words, Hyppolytus wrote the very oldest Christian commentary on scripture that has survived to the present day. His work was a commentary on Daniel which is thought to have been written sometime between the years 202 and 211. Hyppolytus very clearly taught a gap in the prophecy of the seventy weeks, saying:

“For after sixty-two weeks was fulfilled and after Christ has come and the Gospel has been preached in every place, times having been spun out, the end remains one week away, in which Elijah and Enoch shall be present and in its half the abomination of desolation, the Antichrist, shall appear who threatens desolation of the world. After he comes, sacrifice and drink offering, which now in every way is offered by the nations to God, shall be taken away.” (Commentary on Daniel, by Hyppolytus, book 4, 35.3, as translated by T. C. Schmidt, and as available online at http://www.chronicon.net.)

Later in this same work, Hyppolytus said:

“Just as also he spoke to Daniel, “And he shall establish a covenant with many for one week and it will be that in the half of the week he shall take away my sacrifice and drink offering,” so that the one week may be shown as divided into two, after the two witnesses will have preached for three and a half years, the Antichrist will wage war against the saints the remainder of the week and will desolate all the world so that what was spoken may be fulfilled, “And they will give the abomination of desolation one thousand two hundred ninety days. Blessed is he who endures to Christ and reaches the one thousand three hundred thirty-five days!” (Commentary on Daniel, by Hyppolytus, book 4, 50.2)

Again, Clement of Alexandria whose work is believed to have “been given to the world in 194 A.D., wrote, “That the temple accordingly was built in seven weeks, is evident; for it is written in Esdras. And thus Christ became King of the Jews, reigning in Jerusalem in the fulfilment of the seven weeks. And in the sixty and two weeks the whole of Judæa was quiet, and without wars. And Christ our Lord, ‘the Holy of Holies,’ having come and fulfilled the vision and the prophecy, was anointed in His flesh by the Holy Spirit of His Father. In those ‘sixty and two weeks,’ as the prophet said, and ‘in the one week,’ was He Lord. The half of the week Nero held sway, and in the holy city Jerusalem placed the abomination; and in the half of the week he was taken away, and Otho, and Galba, and Vitellius. And Vespasian rose to the supreme power, and destroyed Jerusalem, and desolated the holy place. And that such are the facts of the case, is clear to him that is able to understand, as the prophet said.” (“The Stromata,” by Clement of Alexandria, book 1, chapter 21, from “The Early Church Fathers: Ante-Nicene Fathers,” edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, as found in its American edition edited by A. Cleveland Coxe,and as found online at Christian Classics Ethereal Library.)

Here we see that Clement, though he did not see the gap in the seventy weeks extending into his own future, as did both Irenaeus, who wrote before him, and Hyppolytus, who wrote after him, he also saw a short gap in the same prophey, putting the seventieth week in the time on Nero and Vespacian, nearly forty years after the end of the sixty-ninth week.

Since these are the only three surviving documents from this period that spoke of the subject, we see that this gap in the seventy weeks revealed to Daniel was not only indicated in the very text of the scriptures themselves, it was also taught by every Christian writer who commented on the subject in the first two centuries of the history of the church. (That is, of course, every such writer whose works have survived to the present day.)

The length of this gap is never stated in scripture. But two of the three Christian writers from before the year 200 who commented on when these things would take place, and whose works have been preserved, thought that it would be at the end of earth's six thousandth year. ( Epistle of Barnabas, chapter XV, Against Heresies, by Irenaeus, book V, chapter XXVII, sections 2-3 and book V, chapter XXXIII, section 2) Since they used the chronology of the Septuagint, that would mean that they expected the gap to be around 450 to 500 years.

Every other Christian writer who wrote on Bible Prophecy before the year 200, and whose works have been preserved, said there would be a future kingdom on this earth that would last a thousand years. (Dialogue With Trypho, by Justin Martyr, chapters LXXX-LXXXI and Eusebius' comments on Papias, The Church History, by Eusebius, book III, chapter XXXIX, sections 12-13.)

Indeed, in the early church futurism was so prevalent that in the fifth century Justin wrote that "We should therefore concur with the traditional interpretation of all the commentators of the Christian Church, that at the end of the world, when the Roman Empire is to be destroyed, there shall be ten kings who will partition the Roman world amongst themselves. Then an insignificant eleventh king will arise, who will overcome three of the ten kings." (Jerome’s comments on Daniel 7:8, as found in “Jerome’s Commentary on Daniel,” translated by Gleason L. Archer, Jr., published by Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, 1958.)