Daniel 9:25-26

DANIEL—NOTE ON Daniel 9:25 The promised restoration of God’s people and sanctuary will come in three stages. The first seven periods of sevens will run from the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem to the time when that rebuilding is complete. This period of restoration will be a time of trouble, as will the subsequent sixty-two periods of sevens after the city had been rebuilt. The messianic ruler will make his appearance at the end of these 69 sevens. Even the appearing of this anointed one, a prince, will not immediately usher in the peace and righteousness that Jeremiah 31:31 anticipated. Instead, the anointed one will himself be cut off, leaving him with nothing, surely a reference to the crucifixion of Christ. After the cutting off of the anointed one, the people of the prince who is to come will destroy Jerusalem and its sanctuary. Many commentators understand this “coming prince” as a reference to the Roman general Titus, whose army destroyed Jerusalem in A.D. 70, or as a reference to a future antichrist. Other interpreters understand him to be the same “anointed prince” anticipated in Daniel 9:25. This person is addressed as “anointed one,” where the focus is on his priestly work of offering himself as a sacrifice, and as a “ruler” whose people fail to submit to his rule. The principal cause of the destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 was the transgression of God’s people in rejecting the Messiah that God had sent to them (Luke 19:41).