Daniel 9:24-27 is a prophecy concerning the Messiah (Hebrew Ma·shi´ach) or Christ (Greek Khri·stos´). Daniel 9:24 says that "there are seventy weeks that have been determined upon (Daniel's) people and upon your holy city, in order to terminate transgression, and to finish off sin, and to make atonement for error, and to bring in righteousness for times indefinite, and to imprint a seal upon vision and prophet, and to anoint the holy of holies." How was this fulfilled ?
God set a timetable or appointed time to "terminate transgression, and to finish off sin", to "make atonement for error", "to bring in righteousness for times indefinite", "to imprint a seal upon vision and prophet", and "to anoint the holy of holies". To accomplish this, "seventy weeks" of years had been determined or set by God.
At Daniel 9:25, the angel told Daniel that "you should know and have the insight that from the going forth of the word to restore and to rebuild Jerusalem until Mes·si´ah the Leader, there will be seven weeks, also sixty-two weeks." The "seventy weeks" is a period of 490 years starting "from the going forth of the word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem." This "word" went forth in 455 B.C.E., "in the month Ni´san, in the twentieth year of Ar·ta·xerx´es (Longimanus) the king", that Nehemiah made a request of King Artaxerxes to "send me to Judah, to the city of the burial places of my forefathers, that I may rebuild it."(Neh 2:1, 5)
Over the course of "seven weeks" or 49 years, repair work on the city and the walls went forward, with the walls being completed on the 25th day of Elul (August-September), in just 52 days.(Neh 6:15) After the rebuilding of the walls first, the repairing of the rest of Jerusalem went forward. As to the first seven “weeks” (49 years), Nehemiah, with the help of Ezra and, afterward, others who may have succeeded them, worked, “in the straits of the times,” with difficulty from within, among the Jews themselves, and from without, on the part of the Samaritans and others.(Neh 4:1)
As to the following “sixty-two weeks” (Dan 9:25), these, being part of the 70 and named second in order, would continue from the conclusion of the “seven weeks.” Therefore, the time “from the going forth of the word” to rebuild Jerusalem until “Messiah the Leader” would be 7 plus 62 “weeks,” or 69 “weeks”—483 years—from the year 455 B.C.E. to 29 C.E. In the autumn of that year, 29 C.E., Jesus was baptized in water, being anointed with holy spirit, and began his ministry as “Messiah the Leader.”(Luke 3:1, 2, 21, 22)
Daniel 9:26 says that "after the sixty-two weeks Mes·si´ah will be cut off, with nothing for himself." Verse 27 says that God "must keep the covenant in force for the many for one week; and at the half of the week he will cause sacrifice and gift offering to cease." Hence, the Abrahamic covenant was to be kept "in force for the many for one week", whereas "at the half of the week" will "sacrifice and gift offering (the Mosaic Law covenant) cease".
Hence, with Jesus death on Nisan 14, 33 C.E., 3 1/2 years later or "half of the week", "sacrifice and gift offering" ceased, for this brought to an end the Mosaic Law covenant that had been in force for over fifteen hundred years for the nation of Israel. Daniel 11:22 also prophetically speaks of Jesus as the "Leader of the covenant" that was "broken" at his death. The need for the animal sacrifices and the gift offerings prescribed by the Law ceased when the resurrected Jesus presented the value of his sacrificed human life to God in heaven.
Although the Jewish priests continued to make offerings until the destruction of Jerusalem’s temple in 70 C.E., such sacrifices were no longer acceptable to God. They had been replaced by a better sacrifice, one that never had to be repeated. The apostle Paul wrote that Christ "offered one sacrifice for sins perpetually . . . For it is by one sacrificial offering that he has made those who are being sanctified perfect perpetually.”(Hebrews 10:12, 14)
How, then, could it be said that the Messiah “must keep the covenant in force for the many for one week” ? Because he kept the Abrahamic covenant in force. Until the 70th week ended, God extended the blessings of that covenant to Abraham’s Hebrew offspring. But at the end of the “seventy weeks” of years, in 36 C.E., the apostle Peter preached to the devout Italian man Cornelius, his household, and other Gentiles. And from that day on, the good news began to be declared among people of the nations.(Acts 3:25, 26; 10:1-48; Galatians 3:8, 9, 14) Thus, in 36 C.E., the Abrahamic covenant that God made with Abraham, for "all nations to bless themselves" through his "seed"(Gen 22:18), in 1943 B.C.E., was now extended, not only to the Jews but now to Gentiles, with the conversion of Cornelius.