Daniel 9:21-26
In those days: Behold the man, Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, flying swiftly, touched me at the time of the evening sacrifice. And he instructed me, and spoke to me, and said: O Daniel, I am now come forth to teach thee, and that thou mightest understand. From the beginning of thy prayers the word came forth: and I am come to shew it to thee, because thou art a man of desires: therefore, do thou mark the word, and understand the vision. Seventy weeks are shortened upon thy people, and upon thy holy city, that transgression may be finished, and sin may have an end, and iniquity may be abolished; and everlasting justice may be brought; and vision and prophecy may be fulfilled; and the Saint of saints may be anointed. Know thou, therefore, and take notice: that from the going forth of the word, to build up Jerusalem again, unto Christ, the Prince, there shall be seven weeks, and sixty-two weeks: and the street shall be built again, and the walls, in straitness of times. And after sixty-two weeks Christ shall be slain: and the people that shall deny him shall not be his. And a people, with their leader, that shall come, shall destroy the city, and the sanctuary: and the end thereof shall be waste, and after the end of the war the appointed desolation.
Haydock
Verse 21. The man Gabriel. The angel Gabriel in the shape of a man. Ch. C. viii. 16. — Sacrifice, between the two vespers, (Num. xxviii. 4.) after the ninth hour, which was a time of prayer. Acts iii.
- C.
Verse 23. Desires. His zeal and mortification merit this title. W. — He was an object of God’s love. S. Jer. C. x. 11. and xi. 8. C.
Verse 24. Seventy weeks(viz. of years, or seventy times seven, that is, 490 years) are shortened; that is, fixed and determined, so that the time shall be no longer. Ch. — This is not a conditional prophecy. Daniel was solicitous to know when the seventy years of Jeremias would terminate. But something of far greater consequence is revealed to him, (W.) even the coming and death of the Messias, four hundred and ninety years after the order for rebuilding the walls should be given, (C.) at which period Christ would redeem the world, (W.) and abolish the sacrifices of the law. C. — Finished, or arrive at its height by the crucifixion of the Son of God; (Theod.) or rather sin shall be forgiven. Heb. “to finish crimes to seal (cover or remit) sins, and to expiate iniquity.” — Anointed. Christ is the great anointed of God, the source of justice, and the end of the law and of the prophets, (Acts x. 38. and 1 Cor. i. 30. Rom. x. 4. C.) as well as the pardoner of crimes. These four characters belong only to Christ. W.
Verse 25. Word, &c. That is, from the twentieth year of king Artaxerxes, when, by his commandment, Nehemias rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, 2 Esd. ii. From which time, according to the best chronology, there were just sixty-nine weeks of years, the is 483 years, to the baptism of Christ, when he first began to preach and execute the office of Messias. Ch. — The prophecy is divided into three periods: the first of forty-nine years, during which the walls were completed; (they had been raised in fifty-two days, (2 Esd. vi. 15.) but many other fortifications were still requisite) the second of four hundred and thirty-four years, at the end of which Christ was baptized, in the fifteenth of Tiberius, the third of three years and a half, during which Christ preached. In the middle of this last week, the ancient sacrifices became useless, (C.) as the true Lamb of God had been immolated. Theod. — A week of years denotes seven years, as Lev. xxv. and thus seventy of these weeks would make four hundred and ninety years. V. Bede. Rat. temp. 6 &c. W. — Origen would understand 4900 years, and dates from the fall of Adam to the ruin of the temple. Marsham begins twenty-one years after the captivity commenced, when Darius took Susa, and ends in the second of Judas, when the temple was purified. This system would destroy the prediction of Christ’s coming, and is very uncertain. Hardouin modifies it, and acknowledges that Christ was the end of the prophecy, though it was fulfilled in figure by the death of Onias III. See 1 Mac. i. 19. Senens. Bib. viii. hær. 12. and Estius. From C. vii. to xii. the changes in the East, till the time of Epiphanes, are variously described. After the angel had here addressed Daniel, the latter was still perplexed; (C. x. 1.) and in order to remove his doubts, the angel informs him of the persecution of Epiphanes, as if he had been speaking of the same event. We may, therefore, count forty-nine years from the taking of Jerusalem (when Jeremias spoke, C. vi. 19.) to Cyrus, the anointed, (Is. xlv. 1.) who was appointed to free God’s people. They would still be under the Persians, &c. for other four hundred and thirty-four years, and then Onias should be slain. Many would join the Machabees; the sacrifices should cease in the middle of the seventieth week, and the desolation shall continue to the end of it. Yet, though this system may seem plausible, it is better to stick to the common one, which naturally leads us to the death of Christ, dating from the tenth year of Artaxerxes. C. — He had reigned ten years already with his father. Petau. — All the East was persuaded that a great king should arise about the time; when our Saviour actually appeared, and fulfilled all that had been spoken of the Messias. C. Diss. — Ferguson says, “We have an astronomical demonstration of the truth of this ancient prophecy, seeing that the prophetic year of the Messias being cut off was the very same with the astronomical.” In a dispute between a Jew and a Christian, at Venice, the Rabbi who presided…put an end to the business by saying, “Let us shut up our Bibles; for if we proceed in the examination of this prophecy, it will make us all become Christians.” Watson, let. 6. — Hence probably the Jews denounce a curse on those who calculate the times, (H.) and they have purposely curtailed their chronology. C. — Times, &c. (angustia temporum) which may allude both to the difficulties and opposition they met with in building, and to the shortness of the time in which they finished the wall, viz. fifty-two days. Ch.
Verse 26. Weeks, or four hundred and thirty-eight years, which elapsed from the twentieth of Artaxerxes to the death of Christ, according to the most exact chronologists. C. — Slain. Prot. “cut off, but not for himself, and the people of the prince that,” &c. H. — S. Jerom and some MSS. read, Christus, et non erit ejus. The sense is thus suspended. The Jews lose their prerogative of being God’s people. C. — Christ will not receive them again. S. Jer. – Gr. “the unction shall be destroyed, and there shall not be judgment in him.” The priesthood and royal dignity is taken from the Jews. Theod. — The order of succession among the high priests was quite deranged, while the country was ruled by the Romans, and by Herod, a foreigner. C. — Leader. The Romans under Titus. Ch. C.