Daniel 9:27

27. And he shall confirm R.V. reads, “And he shall make a firm covenant with many for one week.” Expositors of the old school generally make the “Messiah” (Daniel 9:26) the subject here. He shall make strong his new covenant of grace (Hebrews 9:13) during his life, in his death and resurrection, and for a short time afterward this “week” being variously estimated as running to Pentecost, to the conversion of St. Paul, or farther still into the Christian era. But according to this method of interpretation it is not easy to find a period of seven years or thereabouts which could be naturally described as the week during which our Lord made firm his covenant. Some expositors make the “one week” refer to “the last period of the Jewish dispensation;” but is it consistent to make the sixty-ninth week end with the death (the “cutting off”) of the Messiah (Daniel 9:26), and then to consider the week following as a part of the Jewish dispensation? It is one of the difficulties of this theory that the “cutting off” of Christ (Daniel 9:26) should have occurred seemingly before the crisal week opens in which “he shall make a firm covenant with many” (Daniel 9:27). For fuller discussion, see Introduction, II, 10. The newer interpretation is that Antiochus, by his many alliances with other princes and the covenant made with apostatizing Jews, was able to keep himself strong for one week (the first seven years of his reign, 175-168 B.C.), and during this period he was confirmed in his heartless persecutions of the Jews. Although the Hebrew word “covenant” usually refers to God’s covenant with Israel, this usage is not universal. (See Hosea 12:1; Amos 1:9.) By a very slight change, however, the phrase may be rendered, “he shall cause many to transgress the covenant;” which was indeed sadly true of Antiochus, for we have independent Jewish testimony that “many Israelites” turned heathen at his command, consenting to profane the Sabbath, and even to set up altars to idols and sacrifice to them swine’s flesh and other unclean offerings ( 1Ma 1:10-15 ).

And in the midst of the week, etc. R.V. reads, “and for the half of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation [ meal offering ] to cease.” The older school of expositors refer this to the cessation of the temple sacrifices, when Christ through the eternal Spirit offered himself as a Lamb without spot to bear the sins of the world (compare Hebrews 8-10). But was it only for half a week that these temple sacrifices were to cease? Or, if the A.V. is preferred, is it historical truth to say that in the middle of the week following the one in which the Christ was “cut off” (Daniel 9:26) these sacrifices came to an end? Their typical virtue ended with the crucifixion, not half a week later; while beast sacrifices actually continued to be offered on the temple altar down to the destruction of Jerusalem, A.D. 70. Scholars who favor the new interpretation see in this half week a clearer allusion to the “time, times, and half a time” mentioned previously by Daniel, during which the saints were delivered into the hands of Antiochus Epiphanes (see note Daniel 7:25) and the sacrifices (as all acknowledge) were abolished for some three and a half years; from perhaps June, 168 B.C., to December, 165 B.C.

And for the overspreading of abominations, etc. The R.V. (which is accepted in substance by scholars of all schools) reads, “and upon the wing of abominations shall come one that maketh desolate.” R.V., margin, “upon the pinnacle of abominations.” The older commentators generally explain this as having reference to the idolatrous eagle standards of the Roman armies, which spread desolations wherever they came. The newer school explains it in harmony with the similar but clearer phrase found in Daniel 11:31, Daniel 12:11, where it evidently has an allusion to the heathen altar built by Antiochus Epiphanes on the temple altar of Jehovah, and where on Chislev (December) 25, B.C. 168, sacrifice was offered to the Olympic Zeus. This altar is actually called ( 1Ma 1:51 ; 1Ma 1:54 ; 1Ma 6:7 ) “the abomination of desolation.” This sacrilege certainly caused desolations and made even the most sacred altar of Jehovah an “abomination.” Although Farrar suggests that the heathen altar may have seemed to overshadow the great altar of burnt offering “like a wing,” it is not best to press any vivid pictorial meaning out of the word “wing,” as the exact thought of the Hebrew is uncertain. For the possible connection of this winged abomination with the Babylonian representations of evil genii see Speaker’s Commentary, in loco. The Greek version used by our Lord (Matthew 24:15) seems to favor the modern view that this abomination specially referred to the desecration of the “holy place.”

Even until the consummation, etc. The R.V. reads, “and even unto the consummation, and that determined, shall wrath be poured out upon the desolator (margin, ‘desolate’).” There are various readings of this very difficult phrase, but the general meaning certainly is that the desolations shall come to the divinely determined end and the desolator shall be punished. If we read “desolate,” with R.V., margin, instead of “desolator,” as the last word of the chapter, this would refer plainly to Jerusalem and would emphasize the statement that up to the very week of Messianic triumph desolations and afflictions should overwhelm the holy city. For this picture of Messianic triumph see Daniel 12:1-3. We cannot think that there is here any direct prophecy of the second coming of Christ or the end of the world; neither can we think that the passage as a whole has direct and primary reference to the coming and crucifixion of our Saviour and the destruction of the temple by the Romans. We have given our reasons for doubting this, and might add the suggestive fact that “neither our Lord nor his apostles nor any of the earliest Christian writers once appealed to the evidence of this prophecy” (Farrar), which would be superlatively astonishing if this were a direct chronological proof that Jesus was indeed the Christ. On the other hand, we must never forget that in all prophecy the future is pictured in the present with an historic exit point in the background. It has been said that the seers of God were not “children of their time but were exalted above their time.” Whether that was true or not of the prophets as individuals, it certainly was true of their Messianic visions. They often spake better than they knew. Daniel’s vision does not stop with Antiochus; the picture which he paints fits upon him only as the forerunner of an enemy of the theocracy still more dreadful. As Professor Simcox has written in the Cambridge Bible, “If the Book of Daniel be accepted as a really inspired prophecy, the visions admit of but one explanation. The oppression of Antiochus is foretold in part for its own sake, as an important episode in the temporal and religious history of God’s people; in part also as a type of a greater and still more important oppression” ( The Book of Revelation, p. 21).