“And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself:” (Daniel 9:26a).

The focus now moves towards Jesus. We know when that seventy weeks-of-years began (457 B.C.). It is made up of seventy seventh-sabbatical years. Within that timeframe there are ten Jubilee cycles – and we just learned that Messiah the Prince, Jesus Christ, the anointed one – would be baptized and anointed during the sixty-ninth Sabbatical year. That is when He began His ministry. That is when the foundation for the Christian church and era began to be laid.

Four hundred and ninety years were given to bring in everlasting righteousness. The great controversy between good and evil must be completed within that time period. Verse 24 has already made it clear that the issue Gabriel is addressing is an end-to-sin issue within a timed prophecy!

A step in that direction occurred at Jesus’ baptism. John the Baptist resisted the task of baptizing Jesus. Firmly, Jesus said to him, “Suffer it to be so now: For thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15). That is, “Permit Me to be baptized of you, John, for it is necessary to demonstrate every aspect of righteousness.”

In the requirements laid out by Gabriel to establish a holy people, three belonged to man and three were judicial acts of God. The first legal measure that God would exercise was to bring in everlasting righteousness. Thus, this seventy-week prophecy demanded that Messianic issues be addressed. At the Messiah’s anointing He began the public demonstration, which would last three and a half years, showing what righteousness was like – a characteristic His church was to possess.

“Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face…. In thy name shall they rejoice all the day: and in thy righteousness shall they be exalted…. For the Lord is our defense; and the Holy One of Israel is our King” (Psalm 89:14, 16, 18).

The record says, “after threescore and two weeks” the Messiah would be cut off. Most scholars see this to mean sometime after the sixty-two weeks noted in the previous verse. That would include the previous seven weeks also. Thus, in general terms, at some point after the sixty-nine weeks are completed (after 27 A.D., the baptismal year), when Jesus was to be anointed, He would be cut off. We will be told quite precisely that that would occur in the middle of the following week.

Within this astounding prophecy Jesus is beginning to work out the divine plan to bring in everlasting righteousness. Do you grasp what this means? The everlasting covenant is about to get heaven’s signature. Christ’s death would ratify God’s part of that phenomenal plan. His signature of blood would identify Him as a blood Brother to mankind, legally permitting Him to purchase back His kindred even before the next Jubilee!

“If thy brother be waxen poor, and hath sold away some of his possession, and if any of his kin come to redeem it, then shall he redeem that which his brother sold…. After that he is sold he may be redeemed again; one of his brethren may redeem him: Either his uncle, or his uncle’s son, may redeem him, or any that is nigh of kin unto him of his family may redeem him; or if he be able, he may redeem himself” (Leviticus 25:25, 48-49). Jesus became kin to us all, which paved the way to redeem or purchase us back!

The great theme of redemption, eradicating sin and fully restoring God’s people, is in Daniel 8–12 and put distinctly within the seventy-weeks-of-years timeframe!

Its prophecy is for all time. It is not limited to a Jewish probation. Those 490 years encircle everyone everywhere who claims the name of Jesus. Relegating it to the past robs mankind of what will be finished in the whole book of Revelation as part of that timeframe. Putting the last week into a future dispensation mocks the very covenant of grace being worked out in this Messianic prophecy! Hermeneutic prejudice and linguistic minutia must be set aside. Contextual exposition is critical to grasp these celestial truths.

After the sixty-nine weeks the Messiah is “cut off” (karath or karat). This word has deep theological meaning. In a literal sense it is to cut something off or down, such as a tree, part of a body or even an idol. However, it is a metaphor in two important areas: (1) To eliminate or destroy by a violent act (Genesis 9:11, 41:36, etc.), (2) to “cut” or make a covenant (Deuteronomy 29:1, 12, 14, 25; 31:16, etc.).

The contextual implications encompass both figurative meanings. Jesus – Messiah the Prince – the “one on top” – is violently eliminated, completing His part in that covenant! That promise needed blood, which flowed from His broken body. It was our kin brother who gave it! Remember Daniel 12, when Jesus raised both hands in an oath regarding those three time prophecies? His left hand was a blood oath or promise. Now that He is cut off, those three time prophecies, by the name of the God of heaven and the blood of Jesus Christ, will occur at the end of time! From the anointing all the way to the cross, legal and salvic issues are being worked out so righteousness could supervene. God’s covenant provisions show that mercy and justice meet when the Messiah is karath. That violent death, in mercy, made legally accepable man’s part of 9:24! That death satisfys the divine judgment of Genesis 2:17.

Who Jesus Dies For

The record simply says, “not for himself” – or more literally, “there shall be nothing to him.”[1] His blood was shed for others. He died to save others. Self was given up in a selfless act. For our sins He died.

“Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? … He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not…. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all…. Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand” (Isaiah 53:1, 3, 5-6, 10).

“Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed” (I Peter 2:24).