² tn Heb “who keeps for us the weeks appointed for harvest.

³ tn This is the occupation, or business of the work week.

¹ sn Bridal week. An ancient Hebrew marriage ceremony included an entire week of festivities (cf. Judg 14:12).

¹ sn The first day of the week is the day after the Sabbath.

¹ tn Heb “the seven weeks.” The translation uses a pronoun to avoid redundancy in English.

³ sn Zechariah’s division would be on duty twice a year for a week at a time.

¹ tn This is an adverbial accusative of time, indicating that work may be done for six days out of the week.

¹ tn Heb “three weeks of days.” The inclusion of “days” here and in v. 3 is perhaps intended to call attention to the fact that these weeks are very different in nature from those of chap. 9, which are “weeks of years.”

³ sn They fulfilled the sayings. The people in Jerusalem and the Jewish rulers should have known better because they had the story read to them weekly in the synagogue.

² tn The Targum to Job clarifies that it was the first day of the week. The fact that it was in the house of the firstborn is the reason.

¹ sn The first day of the week would be early Sunday morning. The Sabbath (and in this year the Passover) would have lasted from 6 p.m. Friday until 6 p.m. Saturday. Sunday would thus mark the first day of the following week.

¹ sn The Feast of Unleavened Bread was a week long celebration that followed the day of Passover, so one name was used for both feasts (Exod 12:1-20; 23:15; 34:18; Deut 16:1-8).

² sn That is, one for each. A mina was a Greek monetary unit worth 100 denarii or about four months’ wages for an average worker based on a six-day work week.

¹ sn The law only required fasting on the Day of Atonement. Such voluntary fasting as this practiced twice a week by the Pharisee normally took place on Monday and Thursday.

² tn The “seven days” is the adverbial accusative explaining that the ritual of the filling should continue daily for a week. Leviticus makes it clear that they are not to leave the sanctuary.

² tn The text literally has “and seven days were filled.” Seven days gave Pharaoh enough time to repent and release Israel. When the week passed, God’s second blow came.

¹ 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 seventy “sevens” of years, or a total of 490 years.

⁴ sn The accents in the MT indicate disjunction at this point, which would make it difficult, if not impossible, to identify the “anointed one/prince” of this verse as messianic. The reference in v. 26 to the sixty-two weeks as a unit favors the MT accentuation, not the traditional translation. If one follows the MT accentuation, one may translate “From the going forth of the message to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until an anointed one, a prince arrives, there will be a period of seven weeks. During a period of sixty-two weeks it will again be built, with plaza and moat, but in distressful times.” The present translation follows a traditional reading of the passage that deviates from the MT accentuation.

³ sn The days of Unleavened Bread refer to the week following Passover. It was celebrated for seven days beginning on the fifteenth day of the month Nisan (March-April) after the Passover (Exod 12:1-20; Ezek 45:21-24; Matt 26:17; Luke 22:1).

¹ tn Grk “the Passover of the Jews.” This is the final Passover of Jesus’ ministry. The author is now on the eve of the week of the Passion. Some time prior to the feast itself, Jerusalem would be crowded with pilgrims from the surrounding districts (ἐκ τῆς χώρας, ek tēs chōras) who had come to purify themselves ceremonially before the feast.