Daniel 9:26, 27 And after three score and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself… And after three score and two weeks, etc. (vers. 26, 27). The angel passed from the restoration of the city to the coming of Messiah and the close of the Judaic dispensation. This is the manner of prophecy to seize on the great epochs in the history el the Divine dealings with man. I. THE DEATH OF THE CHRIST. 1. It was to be violent. "Messiah was to be cut off." An ominous and portentous phrase to every Jewish mind. Ever used of the close of the career of the wicked (Exodus 31:14; Psalm 37:9; Proverbs 2:21, 22). The phrase implies a supernatural agent too; so in this case (Acts 2:23). 2. Without cause. In Hebrew, literally, "There is nothing to him." The Septuagint gives the meaning doubtless: Καὶ κρίμα οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν αὐτῳ. "In him was no sin;" he "did no sin;" he "knew no sin." Pilate's verdict: "I find in him no fault at all." II. THE DESTRUCTION OF THE JEWISH POLITY. 1. The instruments. "And the people of a prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary." That the prince is not the Christ is evident: (1) Because of his designation - simply "a prince." (2) He is to "come" clearly from without the Jewish state. (3) His invasion was to be after the death of Messiah. So the context indicates. History shows that the prince was Titus. 2. The mode. "And its end with inundation, and to the end, war; decree of desolations." The foreign army should sweep everything before it. The war was to be exterminating. No intermission of calamity until no city was left on which calamity could fall. 3. The reason. Note the inner connection of the passage between the cutting off of Messiah and the fall of the city and polity - between Calvary and the coming of Titus (Luke 19:41-44). When Christ wept over the city, the nation in heart had rejected him. Formally, and in so many words, in the course of a few days they discarded their only Saviour. For that rejection, city and nation descended into the abyss. As it was at the end of the Jewish economy, so shall it be at the close of the Christian. The condemnation will not be sin, but rejection, or neglect of the sinner's Saviour (John 3:18). III. THE CONFIRMATION OF THE COVENANT. 1. The Confirmer. The Lord Jesus. His august Personality has been prominent throughout. The actions described in ver. 24 are his. In Isaiah 42:1-7, specially in ver. 6, Christ is described as Divine Covenant incarnate. 2. The covenant. Neither the old nor the new, but that one comprehensive covenant of salvation, of which they were transcripts. 3. Its confirmation was by the Redeemer's words of grace, miracles, and death; by the Pentecostal effusion; by the first preaching of the gospel, especially to the Jews. 4. The time. From the commencement of the Lord's ministry to about the time of the death of Stephen and the scattering of the Jewish Church - about seven years. By that time the nation rejected both the Messiah and that Spirit who came with Pentecostal power and grace. Then was the nation dead, waiting for the fire of the Divine judgments. The "hebdomads seventy" were ended. Henceforth the history in the Acts of the Apostles turns to the Gentiles. 5. With whom. "With many." But all showed the nation's sin. IV. THE CESSATION OF SACRIFICE. "He shall cause the sacrifice," etc., that is, Christ the Lord. 1. In mercy. The sacrifices might cease: (1) either literally; (2) or, their object accomplished, they might become useless, and in time disappear. In the latter sense they were made to cease. No need of the finger of the type, when the glory of the Antitype filled the world. Herein mercy. He offered up sacrifice for the people's sins "once, when he offered up himself." "Once in the end of the world" he "put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." 2. In judgment. Not long was it ere in judgment they ceased literally. 3. In permanence. Ceasing, they cease for ever, and no power of man can ever restore what has been doomed by God. (See description of the signal attempts of Julian the Apostate to restore the sacrifices, and its remarkable failure, an Dr. Smith's Dict. of the Bible, art. Jerusalem, by James Fergusson, vol. 1:1015, b.) "The Word of our God stands for ever." V. THE CONSUMMATION We read, "And upon the wing of abominations, a desolator; even until destruction, and that determined, shall be poured upon the desolate." The passage would be difficult before the events, intentionally so, but not so difficult after. The design was, perhaps, to throw out fragments of thought rather than give a continuous idea; to light up with lightning rather than with sunshine. After speaking of the cessation of sacrifice, attention is fixed on the temple, some high point of it, soaring portion, "wing." A "wing of abominations," the temple hateful on account of its corruptions. The temple must become detestable (1) by corruption; (2) from within, ere any desolator is allowed to touch it. Note the lesson well. But having become abominable, look! watch! behold the desolator, i.e. the Roman! But how long shall the Roman eagle look down upon the temple threateningly? "Until destruction, and that which is decreed, shall be passed upon the desolate." Daniel's prayer was offered in sight of a desolate Jerusalem; the vision opened by the angel ends with a desolation more appalling. "How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" - R. Parallel Verses KJV: And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. |
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