Paul: A Biography

by N.T. Wright

Daniel 9, picking up from Deuteronomy’s promise of restoration, announces precisely that idea of an extended exile: the “seventy years” that Jeremiah said Israel would stay in exile have been stretched out to seventy times seven, almost half a millennium of waiting until the One God would restore his people at last, by finally dealing with the “sins” that had caused the exile in the first place. The scheme of “seventy sevens” resonated with the scriptural promises of the jubilee—this would be the time when the ultimate debts would be forgiven.10 Devout Jews in the first century labored to work out when the 490 years would be up, often linking their interpretations of Daniel to the relevant passages in Deuteronomy. This was the long hope of Israel, the forward-looking narrative cherished by many who, like Saul of Tarsus, were soaked in the scriptures and eager for the long-delayed divine deliverance. And many of them believed that the time was drawing near.

This section presents elements of the book of Daniel as the frame for the existential questions that troubled devout Jews of Paul's time.