Shmuel Silberman
Daniel 9
Daniel 9, missionaries claim,
predicts the death of the Messiah near the end of
9:24.
Seventy weeks [490 years] have been decreed upon your people and upon the city
of your Sanctuary to terminate the transgression and to end sin, and to expiate
iniquity, and to bring eternal righteousness, and to seal up vision and
prophet, and to anoint the Holy of Holies. 25. And you shall know and
understand that from the emergence of the word to restore and to rebuild
Jerusalem until an anointed prince shall be seven weeks
[49 years]; and in sixty-two weeks [434 years ] it will return and be built
street and trench, but in troubled times. 26. And after the sixty-two weeks,
an anointed one will be cut
off, and he will be no more, and the people of the coming monarch will destroy
the city and the Sanctuary, and his end will come about by inundation, and
until the end of the war, it will be cut off into desolation. 27. And he will
strengthen a covenant for the princes for one week, and half the week he will
abolish sacrifice and meal- offering, and on high, among abominations, will be
the dumb one, and until destruction and extermination befall the dumb one (Judaica
Press).
Missionaries maintain crucified Jesus
is that “cut off” messiah.
This view is fraught with
problems. It relies on mistranslation,
unlikely punctuation, unlikely dating, and ignoring the repetition of the word
“anointed.”
A number of Christian translations of
Daniel 9 write “the Messiah.” Their aim
is to show that this anointed one is the same person called in the
post-Biblical age “the Messiah” i.e. the Davidic Messiah. This is incorrect. The Hebrew text contains no definite article,
and there are no capital letters in Hebrew.
It says “a messiah”, not “the Messiah.”
We explained that “messiah” (anointed one) refers to any king or
priest.
The next question is, of which anointed
one does Daniel speak? In fact there are two anointed persons in Daniel 9! The first is associated with the end of seven
weeks (49 years) and the second is “cut off” at the end of sixty-two seeks (434
years) We quote again from Daniel 9:
25. And
you shall know and understand that from the emergence of the word to restore
and to rebuild Jerusalem until an anointed prince shall be seven weeks
[49 years]; and in sixty-two weeks [434 years ] it will return and be built
street and trench, but in troubled times. 26. And after the sixty-two weeks,
an anointed one will be cut off
Missionaries present these verses as if there is
only one anointed coming at the end of sixty-nine weeks (483 years). This view is without merit. Were this true, there would be no reason to
break a period of sixty-nine weeks into sixty-two and seven, and no reason to
write “anointed” two times.
The 1611 edition of King James Version (KJV)
correctly puts a semicolon between the two clauses (“…shall be seuen weeke; and threescore and two weekes, the street shall
be built againe, and the wall euen in troublous times”). This is in agreement with the Masoretic
accents in Hebrew Bibles. Unfortunately, the modern KJV (and other Christian
translations) removes the semicolon:
9:25 Know therefore and understand, [that]
from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build
KJV
creates the false impression that Daniel 9:25-26 speaks of only one anointed
i.e. Jesus, who comes after sixty-nine weeks (7+62=69).
This is a peculiar and awkward way to
say "sixty-nine weeks." In Dr. Michael Brown’s own words, “why not
simply state ‘…shall be sixty-nine weeks’ rather than ‘seven weeks and
threescore and two [62] weeks.’” 1 Brown’s answer: “There was a prophetic significance
to these two specific sets of weeks, the first set covering 49 years, being the
time during which
Brown attempts to resolve the issue as
follows: “… if there are two anointed ones, the second anointed one is the
Messiah.” 2 Brown
continues to say if there is only one anointed, that too is Jesus.
This is hardly convincing. We have explained that the 'one anointed’
theory lacks a good explanation for why “anointed” is said twice with reference
to seven and sixty-two weeks respectively.
The suggestion that perhaps only the second anointed is Jesus prompts
the question, who is the first anointed?
Brown claims the “word to rebuild
After mentioning Cyrus, Joshua the high
priest and Zerubabel, Brown notes, “None of these figures, however, can be
decisively identified as the anointed leader of whom the text speaks, nor is
there a rock-solid interpretation that explains how the forty-nine year period
beginning with Daniel 9:25 ends with any of them. Some of them have chronological problems (as
in the case of Cyrus) or problems in determining exactly why the text singled
them out or how someone would identify them as the anointed one in question.
Why them?.” 4
In other words, Brown has not a
clue. In fact he understates the problem. Not only Cyrus but Joshua and Zerubabel also
appear on the scene long prior to the end of 49 years after the decree of
Artaxerxes.
Brown then proceeds to revisit the
belief that there is only one anointed.
For this he needs to explain what seven and sixty-two weeks
represent: “…that interpretation puts
the emphasis on the proper division of the years (49 years for the rebuilding
of
Say what? If
the word to rebuild
9:25 Know
therefore and understand, [that] from the going forth of the commandment to
restore and to build
KJV says nothing here about a building process of
forty-nine years. It says the time span
between the “commandment” to build
Finally, 9:26 does not fit the KJV rendering of
9:25. 9:26 tells us that a “cut off
messiah” comes after sixty-two weeks.
Sixty-two weeks after what? The
true answer is, after the seven weeks.
However, KJV in 9:25 joined seven and sixty-two into one time frame,
saying that Messiah comes after sixty-nine weeks. In truth, the “cut off messiah” is unrelated
to the seven weeks. Those seven weeks belong exclusively to “messiah prince”, a
different individual.
Missionaries mistranslate “ein lo” as “not for himself.”
KJV reads, “And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off,
but not for himself (9:26)” The literal translation is “he has nothing.”
Judaica Press reflects this meaning: And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one will be cut off, and he
will be no more. The motive of
KJV is obvious: to create the impression that an anointed one dies on behalf of
others i.e. a sacrifice. The true connotation is that an anointed one will
vanish.
There
is a more basic problem with a missionary reading of Daniel 9: Jesus was not
anointed! There are Biblical regulations
for anointing Jewish kings, which Jesus did not satisfy. The oil used to “anoint” Jesus was not the
correct substance (Exodus 30:22-25), he
was not anointed by a recognized prophet (1 Samuel 10:1), he was not anointed
on the correct part of the body (Exodus 29:7) etc. (see http://messiahtruth.com/anointed.html
for source material)
The
missionary explanation of Daniel 9 is a mess. The text provides no evidence
that Messiah son of David will come during the
For additional problems with the missionary
explanation and a legitimate Jewish perspective of Daniel 9, see The
Testimony of Scripture by Yisroel Blumenthal.
Footnotes
1.
Dr. Michael L. Brown, Answering
Jewish Objections to Jesus; Vol. 3, p. 103; Baker Books, January 2000
2.
Ibid, p.109
3.
Ibid, p. 107
4.
Ibid, p. 110
5.
Ibid, P. 110