Daniel 9.27b-The Event Taking Place in the Middle of the Seventieth Week
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Thursday January 23, 2014
Daniel: Daniel 9:27b-The Event Taking Place in the Middle of the Seventieth Week
Lesson # 292
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. 27a Then, he will establish a firm covenant with the leaders, which will be one unit of seven years.” (My translation)
Daniel 9:27 “And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate.” (NASB95)
“But in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering” stands in direct contrast to Gabriel’s previous statement to Daniel that the coming ruler mentioned in Daniel 9:26 who will come from the people who will destroy Jerusalem and the temple in war will establish a firm seven year treaty with the leaders of Israel.
So the contrast is between Israel experiencing false peace under this treaty with the coming ruler and experiencing war as a result of this ruler breaking it.
“He will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering” is composed of the verb šā·ḇǎṯ (שָׁבַת) (shaw-bath´), “he will put a stop to” and then we have the noun zě·ḇǎḥ (זֶבַח) (zeh´-bakh), “sacrifice” which is followed by the conjunction wa (וְ) (waw), “and” which is followed by the noun min·ḥā(h) (מִנְחָה) (min-khaw´), “grain offering.”
The verb šā·ḇǎṯ means “to put an end to something, to stop” something from taking place and here it is used of the coming leader who comes from the people who will destroy Jerusalem and the temple putting an end to the sacrifices and grain offering in the temple.
The noun zě·ḇǎḥ means “sacrifice” and the noun min·ḥā(h) means “offering” and together they refer to the various sacrificial offerings mentioned in the book of Exodus and Leviticus which were offered to God.
“In the middle of the week” is composed of the noun ḥǎṣî (חֲצִי) (khay-tsee´), “the middle of” and then we have the noun šā·ḇûaʿ (שָׁבוּעַ) (shaw-boo´-ah), “week.”
The noun ḥǎṣî means “in the middle of” referring to the halfway point of a period of time.
The noun šā·ḇûaʿ means “a unit of seven years” and its articular construction is anaphoric meaning that it was used in the previous statement and is retaining the same referent and meaning here in this clause.
Therefore, these two words mean “in the middle of a unit of seven years” or “in the middle of a week” which constitutes three and a half years of 360 days according to the Jewish calendar.
Daniel 9:27 “Then, he will establish a firm covenant with the leaders, which will be one unit of seven years. However, he will cause the sacrificial offering to stop in the middle of this unit of seven years.” (My translation)
In Daniel 9:27, Gabriel informs Daniel that after the coming leader mentioned in Daniel 9:26 establishes a seven year treaty with the leadership of Israel which marks the beginning of the seventieth week or seventieth unit of seven years, he will cause the sacrificial offering to stop in the middle of this seventieth week.
This means that three and a half years into this treaty, the Antichrist will cause the sacrificial offering in the temple to stop, which implies that the temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem and the Levitical sacrifices will be reestablished.
The coming ruler who breaks this treaty with Israel during the seventieth week could not be Antiochus Epiphanes IV since nowhere in history or the Old Testament is he said to establish a seven year treaty with Israel and then break this treaty after three and a half years.
In fact, Paul teaches in 2 Thessalonians 2 that it will be the Antichrist who does this.
The apostle John also teaches this in the book of Revelation. Antiochus Epiphanes IV put a stop to the sacrifices in the temple in Jerusalem in the second century B.C. as predicted by Daniel chapter eight.
However, nowhere is he said to have established a seven year treaty with Israel and then break it after three and a half years.
The coming ruler who establishes this treaty with Israel and then after three and a half years breaks is by no means Jesus Christ since our Lord’s ministry did not last seven years.
Also His death on the cross did not bring a stop to the sacrifices in the temple.
Furthermore, he never set up an abomination that causes desolation in the temple.
Daniel 7:25 makes mention of the Antichrist putting an end to the sacrificial offering during the final three and a half years of the seventieth week.
Gabriel informs Daniel that this king will attempt to change the times, yes even the Law.
This does not appear to interpret anything from Daniel’s vision but is additional information which will be further developed in Daniel 9:27.
Some interpret this attempt to change times and law as an attempt to change moral and natural law of the universe.
However, there is nothing in the context of chapter seven or the book of Daniel which would seem to indicate this as the case.
There are others who think that this statement means that the Antichrist will impose a new legal system on all his subjects, doubtless based on totalitarian principles in which the service of the government or the state will be substituted for the absolute standards of God's moral law (Gaebelein, F, Editor: Expositor's Bible Commentary OT 7 Volume Set: Books: Zondervan Publishing)
Some speculate the Antichrist will attempt to adjust the time schedule so that there will no longer be a twenty-four hour day or attack the moral foundations of society.
However, it is better to interpret this statement that the Antichrist will attempt to change times and law as a reference to abolishing the various Levitical sacrifices which are related to the worship of Yahweh and replacing them with those pertaining to the worship of the Antichrist.
This is supported by the fact that this statement does not interpret anything in Daniel’s vision in chapter seven but is an addition which is developed further by Daniel 9:27, which says that Antichrist will put an end to these sacrifices.
In Daniel 7:25, the noun dāṯ means “law” referring to the Mosaic Law and specifically to the Levitical laws concerning sacrifices.
This is indicated by Daniel 9:27, 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4 and Revelation 13:1-8 which reveal that Antichrist will put an end to the Levitical sacrifices in order to establish the worship of himself during Daniel’s Seventieth Week.
The angelic interpreter’s last statement in Daniel 7:25 is emphatic informing Daniel that the saints of the Most High will be given into the power of this king represented by the little horn, who we know as the Antichrist.
This interprets the statement in Daniel 7:21 that the little horn will overpower the saints.
This refers to God’s people being killed by the Antichrist.
Then, Daniel is told that this will take place for three and a half years which is a reference to the last three and a half years of Daniel’s Seventieth Week, which constitutes the tribulation portion of this seven year period.
These three and a half years correspond with the “for a time (one year), times (two years), and a half time (six months)” in Daniel 7:25 and the “one thousand two hundred and sixty days” in Revelation 12:6 and the “forty-two months” in Revelation 11:2.
This three and a half year period is also not an interpretation of anything in Daniel’s vision in chapter seven but is added by the angel.
It is looking ahead to Daniel 9:27, which is a reference to the Seventieth Week of Daniel in which these future events described by the angel in Daniel 7:23-25 will take place.
This three and a half year period thus corresponds to the Antichrist putting an end to the sacrificial offering in the middle of the seventieth week.
The Antichrist will abolish the Levitical offerings in the temple in the middle of the seventieth week because he will establish a world-wide worship of himself.
Revelation 13:14-15 mentions Antichrist exalting himself as God and receiving the worship of the world as such.