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Seventy WeeksInsight on the Scriptures, Volume 2
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“Cut off” at the half of the week. Gabriel further said to Daniel: “After the sixty-two weeks Messiah will be cut off, with nothing for himself.” (Da 9:26) It was sometime after the end of the ‘seven plus sixty-two weeks,’ actually about three and a half years afterward, that Christ was cut off in death on a torture stake, giving up all that he had, as a ransom for mankind. (Isa 53:8) Evidence indicates that the first half of the “week” was spent by Jesus in the ministry. On one occasion, likely in the fall of 32 C.E., he gave an illustration, apparently speaking of the Jewish nation as a fig tree (compare Mt 17:15-20; 21:18, 19, 43) that had borne no fruit for “three years.” The vinedresser said to the owner of the vineyard: “Master, let it alone also this year, until I dig around it and put on manure; and if then it produces fruit in the future, well and good; but if not, you shall cut it down.” (Lu 13:6-9) He may have referred here to the time period of his own ministry to that unresponsive nation, which ministry had continued at that point for about three years and was to continue into a fourth year.
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Seventy WeeksInsight on the Scriptures, Volume 2
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Desolations to the city and the holy place. It was after the 70 “weeks,” but as a direct result of the Jews’ rejection of Christ during the 70th “week,” that the events of the latter parts of Daniel 9:26 and 27 were fulfilled. History records that Titus the son of Emperor Vespasian of Rome was the leader of the Roman forces that came against Jerusalem. These armies actually entered into Jerusalem and the temple itself, like a flood, and desolated the city and its temple. This standing of pagan armies in the holy place made them a “disgusting thing.” (Mt 24:15) All efforts made prior to Jerusalem’s end to quiet the situation failed because God’s decree was: “What is decided upon is desolations,” and “until an extermination, the very thing decided upon will go pouring out also upon the one lying desolate.”
A Jewish View. The Masoretic text, with its system of vowel points, was prepared in the latter half of the first millennium C.E. Evidently because of their rejection of Jesus Christ as the Messiah, the Masoretes accented the Hebrew text at Daniel 9:25 with an ʼath·nachʹ, or “stop,” after “seven weeks,” thereby dividing it off from the “sixty-two weeks”; in this way the 62 weeks of the prophecy, namely, 434 years, appear to apply to the time of rebuilding ancient Jerusalem. The translation by Isaac Leeser reads: “Know therefore and comprehend, that from the going forth of the word to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the anointed the prince will be seven weeks: [the stop is represented here by a colon] and during sixty and two weeks will it be again built with streets and ditches (around it), even in the pressure of the times.” The translation of the Jewish Publication Society of America reads similarly: “shall be seven weeks; and for threescore and two weeks, it shall be built again.” In these two versions the words “during” and “for,” respectively, appear in the English translation, evidently to support the translators’ interpretation.
Professor E. B. Pusey, in a footnote on one of his lectures delivered at the University of Oxford, remarks on the Masoretic accenting: “The Jews put the main stop of the verse under שִׁבְעָה [seven], meaning to separate the two numbers, 7 and 62. This they must have done dishonestly, למען המינים (as Rashi [a prominent Jewish Rabbi of the 11th and 12th centuries C.E.] says in rejecting literal expositions which favored the Christians) ‘on account of the heretics,’ i.e. Christians. For the latter clause, so divided off, could only mean, ‘and during threescore and two weeks street and wall shall be being restored and builded,’ i.e. that Jerusalem should be 434 years in rebuilding, which would be senseless.”—Daniel the Prophet, 1885, p. 190.
As to Daniel 9:26 (Le), which reads, in part, “And after the sixty and two weeks will an anointed one be cut off without a successor to follow him,” the Jewish commentators apply the 62 weeks to a period up to the Maccabean age, and the term “anointed one” to King Agrippa II, who lived at the time of Jerusalem’s destruction, 70 C.E. Or some say this was a high priest, Onias, who was deposed by Antiochus Epiphanes in 175 B.C.E. Their applications of the prophecy to either of these men would rob it of any real significance or import, and the discrepancy in the dating would make the 62 weeks no accurate time prophecy at all.—See Soncino Books of the Bible (commentary on Da 9:25, 26), edited by A. Cohen, London, 1951.
In an attempt to justify their view, these Jewish scholars say that the “seven weeks” are, not 7 times 7, or 49 years, but 70 years; yet they count the 62 weeks as 7 times 62 years. This, they claim, referred to the period of Babylonian exile. They make Cyrus or Zerubbabel or High Priest Jeshua the “anointed one” in this verse (Da 9:25), with the “anointed one” in Daniel 9:26 being another person.
Most English translations do not follow the Masoretic punctuation here. They either have a comma after the expression “seven weeks” or in the wording indicate that the 62 weeks follow the 7 as part of the 70, and do not denote that the 62 weeks apply to the period of rebuilding Jerusalem. (Compare Da 9:25 in KJ, AT, Dy, NW, Ro, Yg.) An editorial note by James Strong in Lange’s Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Da 9:25, ftn, p. 198) says: “The only justification of this translation, which separates the two periods of seven weeks and sixty-two weeks, assigning the former as the terminus ad quem of the Anointed Prince, and the latter as the time of rebuilding, lies in the Masoretic interpunction, which places the Athnac [stop] between them. . . . and the rendering in question involves a harsh construction of the second member, being without a preposition. It is better, therefore, and simpler, to adhere to the Authorized Version, which follows all the older translations.”—Translated and edited by P. Schaff, 1976.
Numerous other views, some Messianic and some non-Messianic, have been set forth as to the meaning of the prophecy. It may be noted, in this connection, that the earliest available Septuagint translation badly distorts what is in the Hebrew text. As explained by Professor Pusey, in Daniel the Prophet (pp. 328, 329), the translator falsified the stated time period, as well as added, altered, and transposed words, in order to make the prophecy support the struggle of the Maccabees. That obviously distorted translation has been replaced in most modern editions of the Septuagint with one made by Theodotion, a Jewish scholar of the second century C.E., whose rendering conforms to the Hebrew text.
Some attempt to change the order of the time periods of the prophecy, while others make them run simultaneously or deny that they have any actual time fulfillment. But those presenting such views become hopelessly entangled, and their attempts to extricate themselves result in absurdity or in an outright denial that the prophecy is inspired or true. Of the latter ideas particularly, which raise more problems than they solve, the aforementioned scholar, E. B. Pusey, remarks: “These were the impossible problems for unbelief to solve; it had to solve them for itself, which was, so far, easier; for nothing is impossible for unbelief to believe, except what God reveals.”—P. 206.
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