What has always astonished me is that people can read Chapter 9, see that vv. 1-19 consists of Daniel praying about the exile, and then see little to no connection to the exile in the answer he is given in vv. 24-27. Indeed, vv. 20-23 make it clear that vv. 24-27 are the response to Daniel's supplication in vv. 1-19, which is all about God forgiving Israel and bringing the exile to an end.
In fact, the text tells us that this is what it is all about:
I, Daniel, came to understand from the sacred books that, according to the word of YHWH
What this means is that the 70 weeks of Daniel is talking about the length of the exile. The 70 years of Jeremiah have been expanded due to the perpetual nature of Israel's sin, as the warning in Leviticus 26 states would happen if Israel kept sinning.
14 “‘But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands,and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, 16 then I will do this to you: I will bring on you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and sap your strength. You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it. 17 I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you.
18 “‘If after all this you will not listen to me, I will punish you for your sins seven times over. 19 I will break down your stubborn pride and make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like bronze.20 Your strength will be spent in vain, because your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees of your land yield their fruit.
21 “‘If you remain hostile toward me and refuse to listen to me, I will multiply your afflictions seven times over, as your sins deserve. 22 I will send wild animals against you, and they will rob you of your children, destroy your cattle and make you so few in number that your roads will be deserted.
23 “‘If in spite of these things you do not accept my correction but continue to be hostile toward me, 24 I myself will be hostile toward you and will afflict you for your sins seven times over. 25 And I will bring the sword on you to avenge the breaking of the covenant. When you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be given into enemy hands. 26 When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will be able to bake your bread in one oven, and they will dole out the bread by weight. You will eat, but you will not be satisfied.
27 “‘If in spite of this you still do not listen to me but continue to be hostile toward me, 28 then in my anger I will be hostile toward you, and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over. 29 You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. 30 I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars and pile your dead bodies[b] on the lifeless forms of your idols, and I will abhor you. 31 I will turn your cities into ruins and lay waste your sanctuaries, and I will take no delight in the pleasing aroma of your offerings. 32 I myself will lay waste the land, so that your enemies who live there will be appalled. 33 I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins. 34 Then the land will enjoy its sabbath years all the time that it lies desolate and you are in the country of your enemies; then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. 35 All the time that it lies desolate, the land will have the rest it did not have during the sabbaths you lived in it.
36 “‘As for those of you who are left, I will make their hearts so fearful in the lands of their enemies that the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight. They will run as though fleeing from the sword, and they will fall, even though no one is pursuing them. 37 They will stumble over one another as though fleeing from the sword, even though no one is pursuing them. So you will not be able to stand before your enemies.38 You will perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will devour you. 39 Those of you who are left will waste away in the lands of their enemies because of their sins; also because of their ancestors’ sins they will waste away.
40 “‘But if they will confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors—their unfaithfulness and their hostility toward me, 41 which made me hostile toward them so that I sent them into the land of their enemies—then when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they pay for their sin, 42 I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. 43 For the land will be deserted by them and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them. They will pay for their sins because they rejected my laws and abhorred my decrees. 44 Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or abhor them so as to destroy them completely, breaking my covenant with them. I am the Lord their God. 45 But for their sake I will remember the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God. I am the Lord.’” 46 These are the decrees, the laws and the regulations that the Lord established at Mount Sinai between himself and the Israelites through Moses.
Daniel 9 is not attempting to give some prediction of when Christ is going to come. It is simply arguing that the reason why the Jews are still be ruled over by Gentiles (e.g., the Seleucid Empire, and more specifically, Antiochus IV) is due to the fact that the exile has been extended because Judah's rebellion.
The 70 weeks describes the time of the exile when the atonement for Judah's sins will be paid by Judah in the manner described above. This is the time frame when all of the prophecy dealing with Judah's exile will be "sealed up" or "confirmed." This is the time frame that will bring an end to their iniquity and establish perpetual righteousness because it will rid them of their love affair with other gods. It will also be the time frame in which the temple is rebuilt and consecrated. Read v. 24 now in this light.
“Seventy weeks [lit. seventy sevens] have been determined
concerning your people and your holy city
to put an end to rebellion,
to bring sin to completion,
to atone for iniquity,
to bring in perpetual righteousness,
to seal up the prophetic vision,
and to anoint a most holy place
Notice also that it is within this time frame, not after it, that all of this will take place. Most evangelicals read this as though the time frame adds up to the time of Christ, which it does not, and then attempt to make it about Christ's atonement; but from this verse and the next that all of this occurs within the time frame. Again, I do not take the time frame as literal. It is a literary use of Leviticus 26 to convey the idea that the exile has been extended.
Verse 25 is thought to seal the deal that this is somehow talking about Christ because it uses the words "Messiah the Prince" (note how a translation can bias a reading). However, what the text actually calls the figure is the "anointed ruler." Judah did not have a Jewish king under the Seleucids. Instead, their religious ruler was the high priest who also functioned as a type of governor. The priests, especially the high priest, were referred to as "anointed ones." This text just notes the combination of the two offices of priest and governor. What the verse actually tells the reader, then, is that this office will be established within the time period of the extended exile.
So know and understand:
From the issuing of the command to restore and rebuild
Jerusalem until an anointed ruler arrives,
there will be a period of seven weeks [lit. seven sevens] and sixty-two weeks [lit. sixty-two sevens]
It will again be built, with plaza and moat,
but in distressful times.
Notice that the office of the anointed ruler will be established seven weeks after the decree. The fact that the sixty-two weeks is divided up is significant, since v. 26 will make it clear that either one of these priests or the office itself will meet its end after the 62 weeks.
This all poses a problem for the traditional interpretation. For one, if the seven weeks and sixty-two weeks are added together to provide a time frame until Christ arrives, why is he cut off after sixty-two weeks? Why not after the entire time frame? Why split it up?
And if Christ is arriving after the seven weeks but is cut off after 62, then this cannot speak of Christ, as He would have come seven years after the decree and then lived for another 434 years until His crucifixion.
Of course, when added together, adjusting the years to be 360 day years, adjusting for the Roman calendar, picking one of three decrees that go out to rebuild Jerusalem (the one most convenient for the interpretation), and then attempting to get an exact date of that decree from historical sources that may not be accurate, one can get in the general time period of Christ in the first century.
My point is that such an interpretation ignores the context that this is happening within the time frame of the exile, that it is not talking about the work of Christ in the first century but the atonement of the Jews in the exile, and that it is concerned with the establishment of Judah after the exile as it runs into conflict with Antiochus IV in the second century B.C.
It also attempts to see the time frame as a literal period that leads up to the first century, which does not seem to be the intention of the author at all. In fact, this time period very clearly leads up to the time of Antiochus IV and his defiling of the temple, a temple that is afterward reconsecrated and the sacrifices therein resume (9:26-27 // 8:9-14 // 11:21-35).
Since that is the context of v. 26-27, vv. 24-25 cannot be speaking of Christ in the first century A.D., and the text most certainly cannot be speaking of the temple in the first century A.D.
Now after the sixty-two weeks,
an anointed one will be cut off and there will be nothing for him.
As for the city and the sanctuary,
the people of the coming ruler will defile them.
But his end will come speedily like a flood.
Until the end of the war that has been decreed
there will be desolation.
He will confirm a covenant with many for one week.
But in the middle of that week
he will bring sacrifices and offerings to a halt.
On the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate until the decreed end is poured out on the one who makes desolate.”
In the context of Daniel, this refers to Antiochus IV. The temple is not destroyed, but it is defiled and made desolate by Antiochus. It must be reconsecrated afterward and is back up and running after a time of consecration, which lasted 3 and a half years (8:14), i.e., the same amount of time that it had been defiled by the persecution/desolation of Epiphanes (7:25; 12:7).
Obviously, if the coming prince, which is clearly Antiochus IV in Daniel, comes after the anointed one who is cut off, then this cannot refer to Christ who does not come on the scene for another 170 years, and does not die for another 200 years.
Likewise, the persecution of Antiochus IV marks the end of the exile in Daniel. It is the time of release, the time of deliverance from death in more ways than one. It hails the ultimate end and can be spoken of as one with it, so the final victory of the saints, bodily resurrection from the dead (12:1-3), the coming of the Son of Man in the clouds (7:11-14, 25-27), and the destruction of all other kingdoms but God's upon the earth (2:34-35, 44-45) are seen as one with this event (. This is what the prayer is about because this is what the entire Book of Daniel is about.
This does not mean that these things cannot be applied to other events and times. It just means that such is an application, not what Daniel itself is saying. Hence, when Christ talks about the abomination of desolation in the Synoptics, He is making an application of Daniel to a new, but similar, situation; and in order to understand what He means by it, Daniel must be interpeted rightly in its own context and in its own time.
Fascinating. I will definitely be giving this more thought.
ReplyDelete