Dating
in 9.24-27
The eschatological time frame proposed
by both versions is similar except at one point, namely 9.24-27. The MT asserts
that 70 sevens have been determined upon the people and the city (9.24). What
follows immediately is a break down of the 70 into three different periods. The
first is of seven sevens’ and the next is of 62 sevens’ duration (9.25). The
following verse is devoted to events at the end of this second period, before
turning its attention the one remaining seven left out of the 70. Dan. 9.27 describes something that happens
halfway through that final seven. The LXX is identical in 9.24 with its
reference to 70 sevens. But in 9.25 there is no reference to the first two
periods of seven and 72. Where the MT speaks of what will happen after the 62
sevens in 9.26, the LXX speaks of what will be ‘after 7 and 70 and 62’. The
Greek does not use the numbers to qualify any particular type of span of time,
but one is presumably to be understood. Dan. 9.27 LXX includes a substantial
amount of plus material. There is reference to the end of seven, but no mention
of the middle of the seven. In addition the Old Greek repeats the 77 and 62,
but this time they are 77 ‘times’ (καιρους)
and 62 ‘years’ (ετη).
There are two possible approaches
to this problem. The ne adopted by Jeansonne is that all the differences can be
explained by ‘plausible misreading of the Hebrew text and by later shifting of
phrases’ (Jeansonne, Daniel 7-12, p. 130). Therefore, no theological or interpretational
significance can be attached to the differences. A second approach typified by
Montgomery is that the 77 and 62 of the LXX in fact may represent the 139th year
of the Seleucid era, and is therefore a deliberate dating of the events in
question (Montgomery, Daniel, p. 395). He is not certain, however,
whether the translator’s achievement is intentional or accidental. Bruce is
less tentative and takes Montgomery’s argument further when he sees deliberate theological
interpretation in the LXX numbers. In his view the date 139 is the Seleucid era
would be the time when the anointed one, the high priest Onias III, was removed
(171 BCE) (Bruce, ‘Earliest Old Testament Interpretation’, pp. 44-45).
The LXX as it stands is not particularly
coherent in its use of numbers. Both versions represent 9.24 as an overview of events
subsequently detailed in 9.25-27. It is also possible that a word has been
misread as a number seven rather than a period of time, ‘seven’, to produce the
77, and that there has been some misplacement of material between 9.25 and 9.26,
as well as some duplication of material into 9.26 in the LXX (Beckwith, ‘Daniel
9’, pp. 527-28, says the LXX is an interpretation but admits that it therefore
perpetrated an ‘extraordinary corruption’ of the text in doing so. Bruce, ‘Earliest
Old Testament Interpretation’, p. 44, also admits ‘an astonishing alternation of
the original text’). In either instance the anointed one has his locus in the
cult or nation of Israel. Since the culminating action of the period in 9.24 is
‘to anoint’ (למשׁח) the holy of holies, it is likely that the ‘anointed one’ (משׁח)
of 9.25-26 MT is also understood in those cultic terms. Those who attach a
chronological significance to the 77 and 63 of the LXX are compelled to take a
less cultic and more nationalistic, if not messianic, view of what or who is
intended by the anointed one. However the difference came about, the figure
understood by the LXX is markedly different from that portrayed in the MT, in a
way reminiscent of the two views of the son of man in ch. 7. (T. J.
Meadowcroft, Aramaic Daniel and Greek Daniel: A Literary Comparison [Journal
for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 198; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic
Press, 1995], 259-60)