Daniel 9:26

And after the threescore and two weeks shall an anointed one be cut off, and shall have no …] The -anointed one" cannot be the same as the -anointed one" of Daniel 9:25; for he lives 62 -weeks" (i.e. 434 years) after him. The language is intentionally allusive and ambiguous. The term -anointed" (see on Daniel 9:25) is used sometimes of the high-priest; and the reference, it seems, is here to Onias III. Onias III. was high-priest till b.c. 175, when he was superseded by his brother Jason, who by the offer of 440 talents of silver purchased the office from Antiochus for himself (2Ma 4:7-9). Jason held office for three years, at the end of which time a certain Menelaus, whom he had employed as his agent to carry the 440 talents to the king, took advantage of the occasion to secure the high-priesthood for himself by offering Antiochus 300 talents more. The money promised by Menelaus not being paid, he was summoned before the king. When he arrived he found Antiochus absent in Cilicia and a courtier named Andronicus representing him at Antioch. Menelaus, anxious to secure Andronicus's favour, presented him with some golden vessels which he had stolen from the Temple. Onias, who was in the neighbourhood, hearing of what he had done, rebuked him sharply for his sacrilege; and Menelaus, resenting the rebuke, prevailed upon Andronicus to assassinate Onias. Antiochus, upon his return home, was vexed with what had occurred, and (according to 2 Macc.) had Andronicus put to death at the very spot at which he had murdered Onias (2Ma 4:7-9; 2Ma 4:23-38). The assassination of one who was the lawful high-priest was an occurrence which might well be singled out for mention in the prophecy; and how the godly character of Onias, and his unjust end, impressed the Jews, appears from what is said of him in Malachi 3:1; Malachi 3:1-2; 2MMalachi 4:2; 2Ma 4:35-37; 2Ma 15:12 [339]. On the chronological difficulty involved in the verse, see below, p. 146 f.

[339] This account of the end of Onias III. is accepted generally by historians (e.g. Ewald, v. 295; Schürer 2, i. 152; Grätz ii. 2, 303): but 2 Macc. (which alone records it) is known to contain much that is not historical; and Josephus not only does not mention the assassination of Onias, but, while he sometimes (Ant.xii. ix. 7, xiii. iii. 1 3, xx. x.) speaks of Onias" sonas fleeing to Egypt, and founding there the temple at Leontopolis, elsewhere (B. J.i. i. 1, vii. x. 2 3) says that Onias himself, after Antiochus attack upon Jerusalem in 170 (Introduction, p. xliii.), fled to Egypt, and founded the temple at Leontopolis (cf. Bäthgen, ZATW., 1886, pp. 278 282). On, these and some other grounds, Wellhausen (Gött. Gel. Anz.1895, pp. 950 6; Isr. u. Jüd. Gesch.3, 1897, pp. 244 7), partly following Willrich (Juden u. Griechen vorder Makkab. Erhebung, 1895, pp. 77 90), regards the account of Onias" murder in 2 Macc. as apocryphal: see, however, on the other side, Büchler, Die Tobiaden u. die Oniaden(1899), pp. 106 124, 240 f., 275 f., 353 6, whose conclusion on this subject has the weighty support of the historian Niese, Kritik der beiden Makkabäerbücher(1900), p. 96 f. IfWellhausen's view is correct, the reference in this verse of Dan. will be to the cessation of the legitimate high-priesthood, when Jason was superseded by the Benjaminite (2Ma 4:23; cf. Malachi 3:4; Malachi 3:4; Büchler, p. 14) Menelaus.

and shall have no.…] The clause is difficult; though the same text (ואין לו) was perhaps already read (but rendered incorrectly) by the LXX. (καὶ οὐκ ἔσται), and is distinctly implied by Aq., Symm., and the Pesh. The rendering -and shall have nothing " may be defended by Exodus 22:3 [Hebrews 2], though, it is true, the -thing" lacking is there more easily supplied from the context than is the case here; but the sense obtained is not very satisfactory, and the sentence (in the Heb.) reads also incompletely; we should have expected, -and shall have no [helper]." as Grätz would actually read, comparing Daniel 11:45, or -[successor]," or -[seed]," or something of the kind. Still, if the text be sound, this, it seems, must be the meaning: the -anointed one," when he is -cut off," will have nought, i.e. he will be left with nothing, no name, no house, no legitimate successor. (LXX. and be no more, would be the correct rendering of ואיננו; but this reading is suspiciously easy.) The rendering of A.V., -but not for himself," is an impossible one: אין is not a synonym of לא, but always includes the substantive verb, -there is not," -was not," -shall not be" (the tense being supplied according to the context).

the people of a prince that shall come viz. against the land, the verb being used in the same hostile sense which it has in Daniel 1:1; Daniel 11:13; Daniel 11:16; Daniel 11:21; Daniel 11:40-41. The allusion is to the soldiery of Antiochus Epiphanes, who set Jerusalem on fire, and pulled down many of the houses and fortifications, so that the inhabitants took flight, and the city could be described as being -without inhabitant, like a wilderness" (1Ma 1:31-32; 1Ma 1:38; 1Ma 3:45) -people" being used as in 2 Samuel 10:13; Ezekiel 30:11, &c., of a body of troops. On the treatment which the Temple received at the same time, see above on Daniel 8:11.

but his end(shall be) with a flood he will be swept away in the flood of a Divine judgement. The word (cf. Daniel 11:22) may be suggested by Nahum 1:8; cf. the cognate verb (also of an overwhelming Divine judgement) in Isaiah 10:22 (- overflowingwith righteousness," i.e. judicial righteousness, judgement), Isaiah 28:2; Isaiah 28:15; Isaiah 28:17-18; Isaiah 30:28.

and until the end(shall be) war, (even) that which is determined of desolations until the end (i.e. until the close of the seventieth week, the period pictured by the writer (see on Daniel 8:17) as the -end" of the present dispensation), the war waged by Antiochus against the saints (Daniel 7:21) will continue, together with the accompanying -desolations," determined upon in the Divine counsels. The word rendered -that which is determined," which recurs in Daniel 9:27, and Daniel 11:36, is a rare one; and is manifestly a reminiscence of Isaiah 10:23; Isaiah 28:22. For -desolations," comp. 1Ma 1:39; 1Ma 3:45; 1Ma 4:38 (quoted in the notes on Daniel 8:11).