Quite a few scholars suggest that the seventy weeks of Daniel should be split in 69 weeks + 1 week. After 69 weeks of years had elapsed, the Messiah will appear. He will then be cut off with nothing for himself (Dan. 9:24-26a). The final week of seven years, these insist, will only take place during the Great Tribulation, the leader or prince being a false messiah or antichrist (Dan. 9:26b, 27).
A major obstacle, contradicting such a view, is the use of masculine “weeks” in the Hebrew text of Dan. 9:24. This means that the seventy weeks should be viewed as a unit, and not as individual fragments. The Seventy Weeks Prophecy has all to do with the first appearance of the Messiah and the siege of Jerusalem (cf. Luke 21:20-22).
Hebrew "sevens" or "weeks": שָׁבעֻיִם . The noun שָׁבעֻיִם ("weeks") in Daniel 9:24 is masculine plural. Only in Daniel does the masculine plural of this word occur (9:24, 25 [twice], 26; 10:2, 3); elsewhere in the Old Testament the feminine plural is used. As has been documented by major biblical Hebrew grammars, in cases of double-gender plurals the masculine ending ים ◌ִ—stresses totality, fullness, wholeness, and entirety, whereas the feminine plural ending וֹת —stresses constituent parts. Thus, according to Hasel (following Joüon and Muraoka), שׂ דֶָח ("field") with the feminine plural ending means "individual fields, individual farms," whereas with the masculine plural ending it has the more comprehensive sense of "fields, countryside" in a more unitary sense. Likewise, the noun אֲלמֻּ ה ("sheaf") with the masculine plural ending refers to sheaves in general, whereas with the feminine plural ending it refers to individual sheaves. Applying this distinction to Daniel 9:24, one would expect that since the masculine plural ending is used the seventy weeks are viewed as a total unit, stressing completeness and unity. The feminine form, on the other hand, would have emphasized the individual weeks of the period under discussion. This emphasis on totality in turn helps explain why the verb "has been determined" in verse 24 is singular, even though the subject ("weeks") is plural. On the basis of the morphology of the plural ending of the word "weeks" Hasel says, "It is inappropriate from the linguistic and syntactical point of view to separate the sum total of the ‘seventy-week’ period of time into sixty-nine weeks that are continuous and a last week that is separated from them by a ‘gap,’ ‘parenthesis,’ or some other time element which places the seventieth week in the future" (p. 118). Rather, he states, "the masculine plural form šāb̠uʿîm in Dan 9:24 is employed to emphasize the sum total of the ‘seventy weeks’ as a complete and uninterrupted span of time" (p. 117).
Daniel’s Seventy Weeks Prophecy predicts the appearance of the Messiah on earth as Jehovah God’s king designate. It also envisages the destruction of the Jewish system by the Romans, and the levelling of Jerusalem and its temple. It has to do with the suffering of the Jews in 70 CE. Jesus did compare conditions in Jerusalem during the Roman siege to conditions on earth during the Great Tribulation (Luke 21:20-25). The suffering of the Jews trapped in Jerusalem could be viewed as a precedent of what is to come.
"The Hebrew Masculine Plural for ‘Weeks’ in the Expression ‘Seventy Weeks’ in Daniel 9:24," Gerhard F. Hasel, Andrews University Seminary Studies 31 (1993): pp. 105-118.
