Daniel 9.26c-The Third Event Taking Place After the Sixty-Ninth Week
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Tuesday January 21, 2014
Daniel: Daniel 9:26c-The Third Event Taking Place After the Sixty-Ninth Week
Lesson # 290
Please turn in your Bibles to Daniel 9:24.
Daniel 9:24 “Seventy units of seven years have been decreed for the benefit of your people as well as for the benefit of your holy city in order to put an end to the rebellion and in addition to bring sin to an end as well as to atone for iniquity likewise to bring about everlasting righteousness as well as to seal up prophetic vision and in addition to anoint the most holy place. 25 Therefore, please know, yes please carefully consider: From the issuing of the command to restore, yes to rebuild Jerusalem until an anointed one, a prince, there will be seven units of seven years and sixty-two units of seven years. It will be restored, yes it will be rebuilt with a public square as well as a defensive trench even during distressful times. 26 Then, after the sixty two-units of seven years, the Messiah will be executed so that He possesses nothing. Next, the people of the coming leader will destroy the city as well as the sanctuary. Indeed its end will take place with a flood. Yes, there will be war up to the end. Desolations have been decreed.” (My translation)
Daniel 9:26 “Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined.” (NASB95)
“Even to the end there will be war” is emphatic because it is advancing upon and intensifying the previous statement, which says that the destruction of the city of Jerusalem will take place with a flood meaning it will be destroyed by war.
The advancement and intensification is that Jerusalem and the nation of Israel will face war after the sixty-ninth week but will also have to endure war right to the end of the seventieth week.
“To the end there will be war” is composed of the preposition ʿǎḏ (עַד) (ad), “to” and its object is the noun qēṣ (קֵץ) (kates), “end” and then we have the noun mil·ḥā·mā(h) (מִלְחָמָה) (mil-khaw-maw´), “war” which is followed by the verb ḥā·rǎṣ (חָרַץ) (khaw-rats´), “are determined” and then we have the verb šā·mēm (שָׁמֵם) (shaw-mame´), “desolations.”
The noun qēṣ means “end” and marks the cessation of the seventy weeks.
The construct state of the noun qēṣ means it is governing the word which follows it which is mil·ḥā·mā(h) and expresses a genitive relation between the two words.
However, most interpret the construct state of the noun qēṣ as not being connected with mil·ḥā·mā(h).
Their reasoning is that in the preceding clause there is no express mention of war and that if the war which resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem is meant, we would expect an articular construction mil·ḥā·mā(h) which would of course be anaphoric.
So this interpretation would indicate that up to the end there will be war (ESV, LEB, NIV, TNIV, NRSV, HCSB).
Further support for this interpretation is found in the use of the noun qēṣ in the book of Daniel where it is often used for the end of Daniel’s seventieth week (8:17, 19; 11:35, 40; 12:4, 9, 13).
The noun qēṣ is also the object of the preposition ʿǎḏ, which denotes a continuous extent of time up to a point and is a temporal marker indicating that something occurs up to the time indicated by its object or sometimes during the time indicated by its object.
Therefore, this prepositional phrase indicates that there will be war up to the end.
At this point in verse 26, we have the figure of asyndeton which is employed here to emphasize the statement that desolations have been decreed by God for Jerusalem.
This figure is designed to get the reader to reflect up this statement.
It is also employed here to emphasize that Gabriel’s statement that desolations have been decreed by God for Jerusalem is very solemn.
“Desolations are determined” denotes that desolations have been decreed by God for Jerusalem.
Daniel 9:26 “Then, after the sixty two-units of seven years, the Messiah will be executed so that He possesses nothing. Next, the people of the coming leader will destroy the city as well as the sanctuary. Indeed its end will take place with a flood. Yes, there will be war up to the end. Desolations have been decreed.” (My translation)
Daniel 9:26 comes to an end with an emphatic clause.
Gabriel advances upon his statement that Jerusalem’s end will come with a flood and intensifies it by informing Daniel that there will be war up to the end of the seventieth week for the city of Jerusalem.
Then very solemnly he tells him that desolations have been decreed by God for Jerusalem.
Therefore, the elect angel is informing Daniel that Israel and her capital city will continue to suffer terribly right up to the end of the seventieth week.
Gabriel is telling us here in the church age that Israel and its capital city will suffer terribly from the Roman invasion in 70 A.D. right up to the Second Advent of Jesus Christ, which terminates the seventieth week and the time of the Gentiles.
The Times of the Gentiles will come to an end upon the completion of these 490 prophetic years.
The times of the Gentiles refers to an extended period of time when the Gentiles are the dominant world powers and Israel is subject to those powers.
It extends from the Babylonian capture of Jerusalem under Nebuchadnezzar in 605 B.C. and continues through the Tribulation (Revelation 11:2) and ends with the Second Advent of Jesus Christ.
This period of history includes the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and the church age and the Tribulation period.
Gabriel is thus teaching with these last two statements in verse 26 that from the destruction of the city of Jerusalem in 70 A.D by the Romans up to the end of the seventieth week, war and desolation will characterize the experience of the Jews and their capital city.
The Jews revolted against the Romans in 135 A.D. but this was put down decisively.
From this time on Israel ceased to exist as a political entity.
The Muslims exercised control over Palestine from 1100 to 1291.
By 1517, it has fallen to the Ottoman Turks.
The first Zionist settlement in Palestine was established in 1882.
The Balfour Declaration of 1917 stated Britain’s support of a national Jewish homeland in Palestine.
The British occupied Palestine in 1918.
Hitler’s persecution of the Jews in Europe increased Jewish migration to Palestine during the 1930’s and 40’s.
Relations between Arabs and Jews deteriorated during this time.
After World War II, the United States supported the Zionist state.
The United Nations voted in 1947 to partition Palestine.
On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel was proclaimed and war broke out between Israel and Egypt, Transjordan (later Jordan), Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.
Israel however was victorious.
Israel was attacked again in 1967 and 1973 and in each instance, they were victorious.
The State of Israel has not been attacked since 1973.
However, Israel’s relation to her neighbors continues to be strained.
So we can see that Gabriel’s last two statements in Daniel 9:26 have come to pass in history.
The Jewish people ceased to exist in Jerusalem and Palestine from 70 A.D. until recently when in 1948 they became a nation again and from the time they were reinstated in the land, they have suffered through several wars.
In Daniel 9:26, Gabriel makes clear that there is a time gap between the end of the sixty-ninth week and the seventieth week since he informs Daniel that there will be three major events taking place between these two weeks.
First there will be the execution of the Messiah which was fulfilled by Jesus Christ’s crucifixion.
The second event will be the destruction of the city of Jerusalem and the temple by the people of the coming leader.
This was fulfilled in 70 A.D when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the temple.
The last event is that there will be war up to the end of the seventieth week for the Jewish people and their capital city.
Desolations have been decreed by God for Jerusalem.
This too has been fulfilled in history.