Here's my attempt to clear up some confusion about this text. A large number, if not the majority of Evangelical Christians believe there's going to be a seven year period of tribulation after the church is supposedly raptured out. However, most of them cannot tell you where this seven year tribulation is found in the Bible. Well, here's where they get it. They say somehow prophetic time is put on hold between the sixty-ninth and seventieth week of Daniel's seventy week prophecy, and that as soon as the church is raptured out, that's when the seventieth week begins. I see several problems with this theory, but the main problem I have with it is the event that takes place in the midst of the seventieth week. The only event in history that took place that could cause "the sacrifice and the oblation to cease," in other words the end of offering of animal and other sacrifices to atone for sin, was the death of the Lamb of God (Jesus) on the cross. That event took place in 31 A.D. Do you see my point?

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.

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.

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.

And he shall confirm the covenant
With many for one week:
And in the midst of the week
Shall he 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 chapter nine, verses twenty-four
Through twenty-seven.

Music by Jack Marti 2004