Daniel 9:26 Commentary and Bible Study

After sixty-two weeks (plus the seven weeks; they are not mentioned again; that brings us to sixty-nine weeks) Messiah will be cut off. So it is seven weeks until the street and wall of Jerusalem is built, and another sixty-two weeks until Messiah is cut off, put to death. He will experience a violent death – the term ‘cut off’ is often used in the Old Testament for the death penalty. Christ was forsaken and he was put to death on Calvary’s cross. ‘And shall have nothing.’ Christ left no descendants on earth, nor property, goods – even his clothing was divided among the soldiers. But of course he has been given all power in heaven and in earth (Matthew 28:18), and all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are his (Colossians 2:3).‘But not for himself’ – no indeed; for his blood bought people. He will die a sacrificial death, a substitutionary death, for his chosen people, and that will accomplish all that is spoken of in verse 24.‘And the people of the prince that shall come’ – who is that prince? It is not Christ; this is a distinct person now, hence identified as ‘the prince that shall come’. This one will destroy the city, Jerusalem, and the sanctuary. This is literal prophecy. The destroyer of Jerusalem after Christ was cut off in AD 70 was the Roman emperor Titus, emperor-to-be at the time he destroyed Jerusalem. So the prince that shall come is obviously Titus, the Roman emperor-to-be, whose troops would destroy the city and the sanctuary. Christ speaks of this in his end time discourse in Matthew 24 and parallel passages. He gave specific directions to believers living there at the time, that they should escape when they see the situation developing. Josephus records the horror of those events, the holding out of the Jews in Jerusalem who were surrounded by the Roman forces, and the eventual fall of the city with great violence and the destruction of the temple.‘And the end thereof shall be with a flood.’ Was there a flood? No, not a literal flood. Has something gone wrong? No, the Hebrew only uses a term which means that there will be an overwhelming destruction and sacking of the city. The same word is used for a flood. Our translators have chosen ‘flood’, but all that is actually said is ‘an overwhelming’, and it was an overwhelming destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. There was no hope of defending against Titus.‘Unto the end of the war desolations are determined.’ This is the nearest Daniel gets to anything beyond Christ. The fall of the city and the sacking of the temple is not actually the end of the world just yet – ‘desolations are determined.’ That is into and beyond the seventieth week, and it is very vague. Does it speak of the Jewish nation, and all the horrors they will experience up to the end of the world?