In Daniel 9:26, the prophet Daniel predicts the death of the Messiah.
This important prophetic verse puts a timestamp on the death of the Jewish Messiah. This article continues our look at the Book and Daniel. And more specifically, chapter nine is a crucially important passage of prophecy.
Verses twenty-four to twenty-seven of this chapter give us details of the famous seventy-weeks prophecy. That prophecy is essentially a math equation. And if we follow that math equation properly, it will lead us to the date on which the Messiah was to appear in Israel. Of course, this is past tense. The Messiah has already come in the person of Jesus Christ. But the prophet Daniel received this prophecy from the angel Gabriel more than five hundred years before Jesus’ ministry began. Daniel was anxiously awaiting the end of the Jewish captivity in Babylon. A fellow prophet, Jeremiah, prophesied that the Babylonian captivity would last seventy years.
So, he prayed, asking the Lord if it was true what Jeremiah prophesied.
The Lord answered in the affirmative. He confirmed what Daniel hoped. The seventy years of captivity were nearing an end. Soon, something significant would change. The Jews were about to receive permission to return home. The Babylonian Empire at the time was strong and dominant but its reign over the known world was brief. But the mighty empire would soon be overrun by enemies. God saw this in advance. Below, we see our key verse in context within the seventy-weeks prophecy.
The Messiah prophecy
Gabriel’s Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks
Daniel 9:25-27
…25Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, until the Messiah, the Prince, there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench but in times of distress.26Then after the sixty-two weeks, the Messiah will be cut off and will have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood, and until the end, there will be war; desolations have been decreed.
27And he will confirm a covenant with many for one week, but in the middle of the week, he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of the temple will come the abomination that causes desolation, until the decreed destruction is poured out upon him.”
Scholars agree to see the Messiah.
Jewish and Christian scholars agree that this prophecy predicts the arrival of the Messiah. But there is considerable debate regarding when the Anointed One was scheduled to arrive. The simple answer came from working through the equation. From point “A” to point “B” 490 years would pass. And during the passing of those years, certain events would transpire. The Jews were to return to the Promised Land. And they would oversee the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple. Enemies would fight them, and try to stop the completion of those two projects.
By the time the number of years reached 483, the Messiah was destined to arrive. But after 483 years, the Chosen One would die. Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 are two key chapters that make it clear that crucifixion would lead to the death of Christ.
This was a truly significant word from the Lord. Christ would finally arrive, but then He would die as a criminal. Few Jewish scholars ever fully grasped what God intended with this shocking reversal. The suffering and dying Messiah wasn’t taken seriously. It was discounted as an allegory. They were wrong.
Ever since Satan convinced Eve to take a bite of fruit, people had anxiously awaited the Chosen One. Gabriel’s prophecy brought the Messiah closer to reality. But many readers and Rabbis must have been shocked and stumped when they learned about the death of the Anointed One. So they made excuses and dreamed up allegories to explain Daniel’s prophecy.
Mind the gap in the weeks
There is a gap in the 490 years. (I’m not convinced it’s only 490 years, but I’ll leave that discussion for another time.)
The seventy weeks that Gabriel predicted were linear. Count the years, and at the end, those alive would see the Messiah. And he did arrive as promised. Jesus announced his arrival by fulfilling a Messianic prophecy from the Book of Zechariah. He sat upon a young donkey and marched into Jerusalem as a triumphant king and priest. Today, that celebration is commonly called Palm Sunday. The children and adults waved palm branches and cheered as Jesus rode into Jerusalem. But the celebration would soon turn toward a crucifixion.
As our key verse says, the Messiah was about to be killed. Crucifixion was the cruelest of Roman execution methods of that day. Jesus hinted to his disciples that he would die in that fashion. If the math was correct, Jesus was about to face execution. And it turns out, the math was correct.
I’m going to brush over the gap theory for now without giving a more full explanation. I’ll just explain it simply by saying the seventy weeks prophecy was put on hold after the ‘sixty-two weeks’ section of the prophecy. Gabriel’s prophecy is still one week; or seven years away from complete fulfillment. That remaining week will play out in the near future.
Here’s the key verse again.
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.”
Now let’s break down some of the key phrases in the verse.
Who is the Messiah in this verse? It was and still is Jesus. There was never any historical figure who even remotely fit the description other than Jesus. But shockingly, some Bible experts are still wrestling with the text.
Read the following quotes from two respected commentaries as they each grapple with the identity of the Anointed One.
By “Messiah” we must understand the same person who is spoken of in Daniel 9:25.
This quote is from the Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers
And now let’s see the exact opposite scholarly opinion from another commentary.
The ‘anointed one’ cannot be the same as the ‘anointed one’ of Daniel 9:25; for he lives 62 ‘weeks’ (i.e. 434 years) after him.
This quote came from the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Despite what the Cambridge scholars wrote, the Messiah in verse twenty-five is the same person in verse twenty-six. Gabriel said a period of seven and then sixty-two weeks (483 years) would pass before the Anointed One appeared. But when he appeared, he would be executed. The plain reading of the text is simpler than what some experts try to make it.
He will have nothing.
When Jesus arrived as God’s Anointed, he should have been received well by his Jewish brethren. But pride prevented his acceptance, especially from the religious leaders. They couldn’t accept the way Jesus rebuked them. Plus he didn’t do what they thought the Messiah would do. They expected a dominant warrior king, not a humble servant. So, as this part of the verse makes clear, Jesus received nothing.
He didn’t defeat his enemies, claim a throne, or even win praise among his Jewish brethren. Only a small band of fishermen were willing to devote their time to hear him teach. To them, he did fulfill the servant role that God’s prophets had predicted. But unfortunately, most of the Jews had their hearts set on a warrior king. So their Chosen One arrived, and they didn’t recognize him.
Earlier, I mentioned a gap in the seventy-weeks prophecy. The fact that Jesus wasn’t received by his Jewish brethren is probably the main reason why this prophecy wasn’t fulfilled during his ministry. Jesus told them they missed their opportunity, and thus, they were to be removed from the land. But though the Jews could have recognized Jesus as the Christ, the prophets predicted his rejection.
So God would then inflict an extended period of judgment. At God’s appointed time, the seventy-weeks prophecy will begin once more. I’ll begin that discussion when I get into Daniel 9:27.
The Prince who is to come:
This ‘Prince’ also has a considerable amount of debate surrounding him. Exactly who is this coming Prince? This will be an “evil ruler”. But it’s not the ruler that many people think it was. Some scholars say this ‘Prince’ was Titus, the Roman Emperor. And there is a good reason to come to that conclusion. The armies of Titus sacked the city of Jerusalem. They came to quell another rebellion. Only this time they weren’t messing around. To the Romans, they saw it as another unruly bunch of peasants who rebelled against the rule of Rome. The Jews had pushed the Romans too far. So they taught them a severe lesson. God’s hand was in the work of the Roman legions who sacked the city and burned and tore the Temple of God to the ground.
God’s prophets saw these events far into the distant past. Since the Messiah was destined to be rejected, the Lord would send the Jews into a much longer period of captivity. Thus the diaspora was born into the historical context. As predicted, the Jewish nation was cast as bread into the ocean of nations.
The seventy-weeks prophecy would pause for a long intermission.
So, wasn’t Titus the ‘Prince’ who destroyed the city and temple? Yes, he was, but he was only a type of the future ‘Prince.’ The ‘Prince who is to come will destroy the city and the temple in the last week. Remember that the last week was put on pause.
But some think there isn’t a pause in the prophecy. Let’s consider the following.
Working through the math
Remember, a math equation was given to Daniel. The Messiah was predicted to arrive during the end of the seven and then the sixty-two-week periods. That’s after 483 years. After that, Jesus was crucified. The prophecy said that after the sixty-two weeks, the Chosen One was to going to be cut off and have nothing. As a matter of fact, about six days after Jesus presented himself as king and priest, he was hanging on a cross. So that part of the prophecy was fulfilled precisely. This ‘Prince who is to come’ was supposed to destroy the city and the temple inside the last week of the prophecy.
Did that happen?
No! It did not happen. Titus cannot be the ‘Prince who is to come.’ He was only a type for us to look at and learn from. Nothing happened once the Messiah was cut off. The pause in the prophecy began. And about forty years later, Titus and the Roman army came in and destroyed Jerusalem–forty years later. The math equation must work or the prophecy isn’t true. We can’t try to fit Titus into the prophecy forty years after Jesus died on the cross.
“If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”
Titus is not guilty as charged. We must look for another evil leader to fulfill the prophecy. He will come to power in the last days. He will be the person Daniel refers to as the “little horn.” This “little horn” will lead a coalition of nations and control the entire Middle East. But his strength will reach around the world. Many people will submit to his power. And many people will die.
There is a future ‘Prince’ who will destroy the city and the sanctuary. He will do this inside the final week of Gabriel’s prophecy. The final week will commence again after an important event. I will dive into a discussion of that event in the next article of this series focused on this amazing prophecy.
How would you respond if a twelve-foot titan from another world came calling for help?
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