There may well be more interpretations than there are weeks to this prophecy of Daniel 9:24- 27. While many different views have been around for a number of centuries the consensus of orthodox Christianity, until recent times at least, has almost always agreed that the fulfillment of these six promises were to be achieved through the Messiah, and that they were fulfilled during the century of Christ's life on earth.

This interpretation, long held by most of the early Church Fathers as well as the reformers, has now become a minority view in this last century and a half. I will leave it to others to address the errors of this modern view in the world. ¹ - and they are many and grievous - this article will examine the text itself. Hopefully I will convince the thoughtful reader, open Bible before him or her, of the treasure that we have before us. When the text is put in it's right setting as one of the clearest and most encouraging promises concerning Christ, "the Author and Finisher of our faith", the lesser view will (this is my prayer) be shown for what it is: a Christ dishonoring cheat and a blurring of that wonderful truth of the one people of God. To know this passage and to meditate on it's truths can't help but strengthen our faith and magnify our Redeemer. God's people are constantly in need of the Living Waters and of the Balm of Gilead. But the modern Dispensational interpretation takes this away and trades it for superficially pleasing fictions that have little to do with Christ. This Balm of Gilead - at least some of it's particular comfort - is by them hermeneutically sealed up from the saints, Jews and Gentiles alike who know Jesus, for whom it is divinely intended ². May God open our eyes to His wonderful provisions!

Here is the text that we need to study:

"Seventy weeks are determined upon your people and upon your holy city, to finish ["restrain"] the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy."

"Seventy weeks" = one unit = 490 years. This will have to be dealt with in a separate article. At any rate, if I can convince you what the six foretold events here are, and to Whom they refer, the timing will take care of itself.

"your people", "your holy city". The ones and the place Daniel prayed for, the Jews and Jerusalem. And yet "people" has a wider significance (Matt. 1:21, Rom. 9:26, 2nd Cor. 6:16, 1st Pet. 2:9- 10) as sure as Abraham is called "father of many people" and as sure as Japheth will dwell in the tents of Shem.

Christ is said to have done 6 things for His people (including us, since we are also part of the Israel of God and are sharers in their promises - Galatians 3:16; 6:16; 2nd Cor. 1:20):

1. Restrain transgression.
2. Make an end for sins.
3. Make reconciliation for iniquity.
4. Bring in everlasting righteousness.
5. Seal up the vision and prophecy.
6. Anoint the Most Holy (Christ is the "Most Holy").

The last three events especially seem to relate to Christ as Prophet, Priest and King. But more on that later.

1. RESTRAIN TRANSGRESSION
Strong's Concordance says this:

{3607} kala', kaw-law'; a primitive root; to restrict, by act (hold back or in) or word (prohibit): finish, forbid, keep (back), refrain, restrain, retain, shut up, be stayed, withhold.

But hold that thought. I seriously wonder where that "finish" comes from. A better source is Gesenius's "Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament". He makes no reference to the "finish" or "end" definition of KALA. Unfortunately, I have this book only in hard copy, so you will have to take my word for it : )

I did a search of the word on a Bible CD and came up with 17 occurrences from the Old Testament. As far as I know, these are the only uses of this word, KALA. A closer examination will reveal that none of them suggest the use of "finish" or "put an end to". The fact that that usage is insisted on in Daniel 9:24 - and nowhere else - makes me strongly suspect that Procrustean exegesis is going on, reading -into- the text to protect a system (eisegesis - the dreaded "Icy-Jesus"). In all other uses of the word (see below), it is translated by, "restrained", "refrained", "retained", "withhold", "forbid", "shut up", "stayed" (KJV for "held back"). The rendition at Dan. 9:24 is the sole oddball rendition. A study of the various cognates to this word (in Hebrew - and even in other languages) make the case even stronger. BTW, the "shut up" or "hemmed in" aspect shows up in words like "carcel" (jail) & "incarcerated" .

Here are the Old Testament uses of the word KALA:

Ge 8:2 The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained;

Ge 23:6 Hear us, my lord: thou art a mighty prince among us: in the choice of our sepulchres bury thy dead; none of us shall withhold from thee his sepulchre, but that thou mayest bury thy dead.

Ex 36:6 And Moses gave commandment, and they caused it to be proclaimed throughout the camp, saying, Let neither man nor woman make any more work for the offering of the sanctuary. So the people were restrained from bringing.

Nu 11:28 And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of Moses, one of his young men, answered and said, My lord Moses, forbid them.

1Sa 6:10 And the men did so; and took two milch kine, and tied them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home:

1Sa 25:33 And blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou, which hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself with mine own hand.

Ps 40:9 I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have not refrained my lips, O LORD, thou knowest.

Ps 40:11 Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me, O LORD: let thy lovingkindness and thy truth continually preserve me.

Ps 88:8 Thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from me; thou hast made me an abomination unto them: I am shut up, and I cannot come forth.

Ps 119:101 I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep thy word.

Ec 8:8 There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither hath he power in the day of death: and there is no discharge in that war; neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it.

Isa 43:6 I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth;

Jer 32:2 For then the king of Babylon's army besieged Jerusalem: and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the prison, which was in the king of Judah's house.

Jer 32:3 For Zedekiah king of Judah had shut him up, saying, Wherefore dost thou prophesy, and say, Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it;

Eze 31:15 Thus saith the Lord GOD; In the day when he went down to the grave I caused a mourning: I covered the deep for him, and I restrained the floods thereof, and the great waters were stayed: and I caused Lebanon to mourn for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him.

Da 9:24 Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.

Hag 1:10 Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit.

2. MAKE AN END OF SINS
Many of us here remember the first Gulf War and the televised images of oil wells in the Gulf region burning almost out of control. The smoke from the burning could be seen clearly from space. I say "almost" out of control, because, though it took awhile, every one of those fires was extinguished.

"Gosh, thanks for the history lesson, Tom. What does this have to do with Daniel 9:24?"

The point is this: The method used to extinguish those fires illustrates the first and second of these prophesied events:

1. The fires first had to be capped. It would be ridiculous to put out fires while they were still being fed at the source, while fuel was still pouring out. So the firefighters stopped the fire, by means of a momentary explosion, arrested the pouring out of fuel (both liquid and oxygen). They then capped the well before it could re-ignite.

This is what Jesus did. First he took care of sin (singular) at its source. As far as we are concerned, He capped sin. This is the principle of sin, and Satan as the arch Fire-starter. In Christ's perfect life, death on the Cross and resurrection we have the strong man overcome by the Stronger Man (Mark 3:27, Luke 11:21- 22), Satan bound (Rev. 20:1- 3). He triumphed openly over him by the Cross (Col. 2:13- 15). This is the previous post's "shutting up" (KALA) of transgression.

2. Then the individual fires (plural) could be put out. The Gulf War firefighters may not have used foam, but I will use it for this part of the illustration, since it fits the Hebrew word used here fairly well. CHATHAM (KJV "make an end of") really means "to cover up" - and because it is covered up, to hide from view. (Song of Sol. 4:12 is a good example). This is where God casts our sins behind His back because of Christ's death for us. This happened only at Calvary and will never be repeated.

I suspect that, like in the previous clause, a definition is read into the words, and not drawn out of the words. And, like in the previous clause, the assumption is that this clause ("make an end of sins") is referring to the end times, and not to the times of Christ, since clearly, sin has not been made an end of. No, that is true: Sin still exists to afflict, at times, the best of Christians. yet they are covered up. That is why the saint doesn't lose his salvation by an act of sin. For that matter, that is also why Old Testament saints like David did not lose theirs.

John Owen says this about this part of Daniel 9:24:

"And the most proper sense of the word [CHATHAM] is "to cover or conceal," and thence "seal," because thereby a thing is hidden...Now, to hide sin or transgression, in the Old Testament, is to pardon it, to forgive it. As, then, the former expression (KALA) respected the stop that was put to the power and progress of sin by the grace of the gospel, as Titus 2:11, 12, so does this the pardon and removal of the guilt of it by the mercy proclaimed and tendered in the gospel."

RESTRAINED, BUT NOT FINISHED
"Seventy weeks are determined for your people, and for your holy city, to shut up [restrain] the transgression,..."

Like I wrote above, "KALA" is never rendered "to finish" or "put an end to", except (dubiously, I contend) here in Daniel 9:24. It should rather be translated "shut up", "restrained", etc. I also listed all of the occurrences of the word in the previous post, so I won't repeat them here.

RESTRAINING TRANSGRESSION IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
This prophesied event is seen in the New Testament. Whether what is being restrained in the following passages is sin or Satan, the one who had enslaved us by sin, these passages are all speaking of the same time, that time when Christ freed us on the Cross and restrained transgression. Sin is not totally destroyed, neither is Satan. Yet his power has been broken by the Cross.

Each of the verses below illustrate, I believe, the foretold restraining of Dan. 9:24. The exact word in each verse that describes that event I have rendered in ALLCAPS:

"Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might RENDER POWERLESS him who had the power of death, that is, the devil," (Hebrews 2:14)

"And you know what RESTRAINS him now, so that in his time he will be revealed. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now RESTRAINS will do so until he is taken out of the way." (2nd Thess. 2:6- 7)

"Or how can anyone enter the strong man's house and carry off his property, unless he first BINDS the strong man? And then he will plunder his house." (Matt. 12:29)

"But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are undisturbed But when someone stronger than he attacks him and OVERPOWERS him, he takes away from him all his armor on which he had relied and distributes his plunder." (Luke 11:20- 22)

(This verse does not have the "restrain" aspect. However the cross-reference above it - clearly the same event - does.)

"Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss and a GREAT CHAIN in his hand. And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and BOUND HIM for a thousand years; and he threw him into the abyss, and SHUT IT and SEALED IT OVER HIM, so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time." (Rev. 20:1- 3)

3. MAKE RECONCILIATION FOR INIQUITY
We now come to the third event of Christ's ministry for His people. We are told in this passage that He will come "to make reconciliation for iniquity". This reconciliation had occurred at the cross. This is when reconciliation was first effected, by the perfect life and sinless death of the God-man, Christ Jesus, the perfect sacrificial Lamb of God. Because there was (is) no blemish in His sacrifice, or fault in His life of demonstrated holiness, we too, who believe in Christ's sacrifice for us, are totally accepted in Christ (Eph. 1:6).

"Reconciliation" means to "hide", "cover" or "pardon". This is what God does with our sins in view of Christ's payment for them. It is not as though, strictly speaking they cease to exist. (That day will come. Wonderful thought!) We are pardoned because of the peace attained for us by Christ (Eph. 2:14- 22; especially verses 13- 17). Christ is our peace. Matthew Henry writes: "He is not only the peace-maker, but the peace. He is the atonement."

He is our reconciliation, our ongoing means of acceptance with God. This prophesied reconciliation is not only found here in Dan. 9, but was promised as far back as Genesis 3:15, when our first parents were first encouraged with the good news of a coming Savior.

Where else do we read of this reconciliation that we have through Christ Jesus? Here are just some of the many verses that could be quoted:

Ro 5:11 And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.

2Co 5:18 And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;

Col 1:20 And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.

Heb 2:17 Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.

Think of it! How greatly this doctrine magnifies Jesus Christ, our great High Priest! Approaching the altar as the Priest without blemish He presented the perfect sacrifice - Himself! Who among the godliest of the Old Testament Priests could have foreseen that they were, in their persons and vocation, types of such an astounding act of God? Christ is the High Priest who puts an end to all other priests - and to the Levitical priesthood altogether. Jesus Christ was at the same time "Priest of the most high God" (Heb. 7:1), "holy, innocent, undefiled, separate from sinners" (verse 26) and the "Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29), both sacrificer and sacrifice.

The next phrase ("bring in everlasting righteousness") is a positive statement of what is here stated negatively. The two phrases go together. In fact, some see these next three events as being chiastic to the first three. A chiasm is an inverted structure that God's Word often uses, as in ABCCBA. I am not sure, however, if there is a chiasm here. At any rate, that will have to wait till later.

GENERAL COMMENTS ON THE FINAL THREE EVENTS
These last three prophesied events confirm the Messiah as Priest, Prophet and King:

1. His Priesthood is shown by his bringing in everlasting righteousness. He did this by living a righteous - perfect - life, and by being the spotless Lamb, sacrificed for our sin. His death, as well as His life, pleads for us. As Wesley well put it:

"Five bleeding wounds He bears,
Sustained on Calvary.
They pour effectual prayers.
They strongly plead for me,".

What has this to do with "everlasting righteousness"? Everything. It is at the Cross that Christ is able to be, as our Perfect Priest 2, "both just and justifier of him who has faith in Jesus" (Romans). In Christ we are declared righteous by imputation so that we can be increasingly righteous in experience. This is having "Christ formed in us".

2. His office as Prophet is shown by his sealing up of vision and prophecy. God spoke before to us in various ways, but from the time of the unveiling of the Gospel He has now spoken to us through the Son. Christ is the Prophet who puts an end to all prophets and prophecy (Heb. 1:1- 2).

3. His Kingship is shown by his anointing of the Most Holy. Some versions imply that the anointing is of the most holy PLACE, yet that word is not in the original. Textually, either "place" or "person" is a possible recipient of "anoint". Scripturally, I believe the case is much stronger for a person, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ .

Now let us let at these last three events in more individual detail:

4. BRING IN EVERLASTING RIGHTEOUSNESS
The next phrase ("bring in everlasting righteousness") is the first of three positive statements. The first three events prophesied in Daniel were largely negative, that is, a taking care of a negative situation - our sin. For God to do His work, He must first rectify the mess we have made. This reminds us of God's mission for the prophet Jeremiah (Jer. 1:10):

"See, I have this day set you [speaking to the prophet] ...
To root out and to pull down,
To destroy and to throw down.
To build and to plant."

Now we get into God's building up through Jesus Christ. This bringing in of "everlasting righteousness" is nothing less than the new life that we have in Christ Jesus. "Not having our own righteousness". This the righteousness which (or Who) that the Holy Spirit convinces the saints ( and saints-to-be) of (John 16:10). Sadly, very many of the Jews had missed (and still miss) the glory of this righteousness, having held onto their own works-righteousness (Rom. 10:3- 4). There are many passages in the Old testament (especially in Isaiah) that promise this righteousness to come to God's people. Below is just one of many, Isaiah 56:1:

"Thus says the LORD, Keep judgment, and do justice: for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed."

Isaiah 45:17:

"But Israel shall be saved in the LORD with an everlasting salvation: ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end."

The "everlasting salvation" here is this same everlasting righteousness. The "Israel" here is not national Israel, but the true "Israel of God" (Gal. 5:16, Rom. 2:28- 29; 11:26- 27).

Romans 5 is a rich source of information of this righteousness that is the possession of all saints. Since we are reconciled by His death (vs. 10) we are likewise saved by His life. We now reign in life because of the gift of God's grace, applying Christ's righteousness to us (vs. 17ff). Not only this, but we also are enabled to actively work out Christ's righteousness in our lives (Romans 6:13-23, Phil. 2:12- 13, Rev. 19:8). All saints are perfectly righteous positionally, yet we are far from perfect experientially. To be sure, I believe we will always have faults up until the last day of our lives, yet every true saint will grow in grace. God does not have any still-born children.

There are very many other passages that beautifully elaborate this righteousness we have in Christ: 2nd Cor. 5:20- 21; John 6:40; Phil. 3:9, etc.

5. SEAL UP VISION AND PROPHECY

Continued on this page.

N.B. I apologize for the five footnotes not working as I planned. I will consult the HTML manual and say which "i" I didn't dot! The notes are at the bottom of the second page.