page_title: Prophecy of Seventy Weeks
section_title: Composition and structure
hierarchical_section_title: Prophecy of Seventy Weeks / Composition and structure
caption_attribution_description: English: Tsalenjikha cathedral
context_page_description: In the Bible, the Prophecy of Seventy Weeks is a prophecy given to Daniel by the angel Gabriel in response to Daniel's prayer for God to act on behalf of his people and city. The angel informs him that seventy "weeks" have been decreed for them, and then gives a detailed but cryptic description of those weeks.
  The prophecy has proved notoriously difficult for readers, despite it having been the subject of "intense exegetical activity" since the Second Temple period. For this reason scholars continue to follow James Alan Montgomery in referring to the history of this prophecy's interpretation as the "dismal swamp" of critical exegesis.
caption: Gabriel. A 14th-century fresco from the Tsalenjikha Cathedral by Cyrus Emanuel Eugenicus.
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