Daniel's 70 week prophecy subdivisions (7 - 62 - 1)

[3 Resurrections]

Recently the church I am currently attending has been addressing the subject of the specific subdivisions within Daniel's 70 week prophecy.  There has been much speculation by many over the years as to why this prophecy was originally broken down into these particular sets of time periods - 7 weeks, then 62 weeks, then 1 single final week. 

For the moment, I am only going to address the division between the first 7 weeks (49 years) and the transition to the next 62 weeks (434 years).

The event which jumpstarted the beginning of Daniel's first 7 weeks (the 49 years) was the decree to rebuild Jerusalem given by Artaxerxes I in the twentieth year of his reign (in 454 BC).  Nehemiah organized the rebuilding of Jerusalem's walls that year in a recorded 52 days time.  From the time of that decree given by Artaxerxes I in 454 BC, the first 49 years passed until Malachi, the last of the prophets, had finished exercising his prophetic ministry.  Then began a period of 62 weeks (434 years) of prophetic silence for Israel.  This has been called the "inter-testamental period".  It lasted until Daniel's prophesied coming of "Messiah the Prince", Jesus Christ, broke that prophetic silence in AD 30 with the beginning of His public miraculous ministry in Israel, causing His disciples to believe on Him. 

The reason that Daniel divided these two periods of 7 weeks (49 years) from the following 62 weeks (434 years), was in fulfillment of one of the six themes which this 70-week prophecy was going to accomplish - "to seal up the vision and prophecy" (Daniel 9:24).  This "sealing up" was to reserve the fulfillment of those prophecies for times to follow after the 62 weeks (434 years).