4:12 Its foliage was attractive and its fruit plentiful;
on it there was food enough for all.
Under it the wild animals 2 used to seek shade,
and in its branches the birds of the sky used to nest.
All creatures 3 used to feed themselves from it.
9:24 “Seventy weeks 4 have been determined
concerning your people and your holy city
to put an end to 5 rebellion,
to bring sin 6 to completion, 7
to atone for iniquity,
to bring in perpetual 8 righteousness,
to seal up 9 the prophetic vision, 10
and to anoint a most holy place. 11
1 tn Aram “the beasts of the field” (also in vv. 23, 25, 32).
2 tn Aram “the beasts of the field.”
3 tn Aram “all flesh.”
3 tn Heb “sevens.” Elsewhere the term is used of a literal week (a period of seven days), cf. Gen 29:27-28; Exod 34:22; Lev 12:5; Num 28:26; Deut 16:9-10; 2 Chr 8:13; Jer 5:24; Dan 10:2-3. Gabriel unfolds the future as if it were a calendar of successive weeks. Most understand the reference here as periods of seventy “sevens” of years, or a total of 490 years.
4 tc Or “to finish.” The present translation reads the Qere (from the root תָּמַם, tamam) with many witnesses. The Kethib has “to seal up” (from the root הָתַם, hatam), a confusion with a reference later in the verse to sealing up the vision.
5 tc The present translation reads the Qere (singular), rather than the Kethib (plural).
6 tn The Hebrew phrase לְכַלֵּא (lÿkhalle’) is apparently an alternative (metaplastic) spelling of the root כָּלָה (kalah, “to complete, finish”), rather than a form of כָּלָא (kala’, “to shut up, restrain”), as has sometimes been supposed.
7 tn Or “everlasting.”
8 sn The act of sealing in the OT is a sign of authentication. Cf. 1 Kgs 21:8; Jer 32:10, 11, 44.
9 tn Heb “vision and prophecy.” The expression is a hendiadys.
10 tn Or “the most holy place” (NASB, NLT); or “a most holy one”; or “the most holy one,” though the expression is used of places or objects elsewhere, not people.