To Gino Re: "Question about "the covenant" in Daniel 9:27"
Gino wrote:
After all, isn't the same fellow that confirms "the covenant", the same one who also breaks it? And causes the daily sacrifices to cease, and places the abomination that maketh desolate? So the latter end is his dealing with the old covenant by breaking it and profaning it. So why cannot the earlier part deal with the the old covenant by his confirming it?
Greetings Gino,
Dan 9:27 “And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week:” Can we make the “he” apply to some future prince 2500 years in the future, not even named in the context of the prophecy, or must it pertain to the subject mentioned? We know that the pronoun “he” is not to be connected with the word “prince” in the expression “the people of the prince,” for prince is the object of the modifying clause “of the prince.” A pronoun cannot properly have as its antecedent the object of a modifying clause. To be grammatically correct the pronoun “he” must refer back to the noun “Messiah!”
One of the most incredible distortions imposed upon this prophecy is the unbelievable fact that many assert this pronoun “he” refers back to the prince in the phrase “the people of the prince,” whom they insist is/was Titus. Yet this pronoun for Titus is not only Titus they tell us, no, it is someone who will live nearly 2000 years after Titus, someone they identify as the Antichrist. So they create three princes out of the one mentioned by totally disregarding the context, the rules of grammar and verification through other scriptures.
Since “he” does indeed speak of “Messiah,” can we see where Messiah did “confirm the covenant with many (Jews)?” Indeed we can because the New Testament corroborates the Old, Gal. 3:17, “the covenant, that was confirmed (#4300) before of God in Christ.” By whom did God confirm the covenant? Paul says it was confirmed in Messiah. Another confirmation of the truth is Ro. 15:8, “Jesus Christ was a minister...to confirm (#950) the promises made unto the fathers.” He confirmed the promises (#1860) God formed into a covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Another testimony is Heb. 9:16-17, quoting vs. 17, “For a testament is of force (#949) after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth.” The word “force” is from the same Greek word translated “confirmed” in Ro. 15:8, see Mt. 26:28; He. 8:6 & 10:9.
#4300 prokuroo, to ratify previously:-confirm before.# 949 bebaios, stable (lit. or fig.):-firm, of force, steadfast, sure.
# 950 bebaioo, from 949; to make firm, establish, confirm, make sure
Although this was an everlasting covenant, it was only confirmed or in force with the “many” for one week. In Mt. 15:24 Jesus says, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” This is also seen in Ac. 3:26 “Unto you first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you,” Peter is here speaking to the “men of Israel” (vs. 12). Paul says the same thing in Ro. 1:16, “to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” Even after the Christians were scattered following Stephen’s death they were “preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only” (Ac. 11:19), see Mt. 10:5-6 & Jo. 1:31. Why did God cutoff preaching to the Jews? The answer is found in Ac. 13:46, “It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing you put it from you (vs. 45), and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles,” also Mt. 21:42-45; Ac. 28:27 & Ro. 10:21. When did this happen? Ac. 18:6, “Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean: from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles,” and Ac. 28:28.
The word “many” (#7227) is used throughout the Old Testament to signify a group of people or even a nation. Here are just a few instances: Ex. 5:5; 1 Ki. 4:20; Ezr. 10:13; Is. 8:15; Dan. 8:25 & 11:33; Mal. 2:6. He confirmed (strengthen or brought into force) a covenant with many (all Israel) but only a few (the remnant) accepted it, the rest were blinded (Ro. 11:7).
Verse 27b “and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease,” this has lead some to say this is where the antichrist breaks the covenant with the Jews mentioned above. Look again, it does not say the covenant is broken, for that matter the covenant is not even mentioned or implied. The second action does not have to necessarily be the undoing of the first, if it does then the covenant is only for 3½ years and not seven. Did the Messiah “cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease?” Hebrews chapter 10 tells us it is so. Verses 1 and 2 explains how if under the law sacrifices could have made man perfect, they would “have ceased to be offered,” and in vs. 14 that was the result, “For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” Now reading verses 5 through 12, we see in vs. 9, “He (God the Father) taketh away the first, (vs. 5 “Sacrifice and offering,”) that He may establish the second” (vs. 5 the body Jesus to be the final sacrifice). Showing in vs. 19 that we may now enter into the Holy of Holies through the new veil, which is Christ’s flesh (vs. 20). That is why at the moment of the Saviour’s death the old veil was “rent in twain from the top to the bottom” (Mt. 27:51). This was God demonstrating that the building on the Temple Mount was no longer His dwelling place, just as Jesus had prophesied in Jn. 4:21-24. In Heb. 9:8 we see the way into the holiest place of all, God’s presence, was not yet made manifest (Christ manifested in the flesh, vs. 11 & 1 Ti. 3:16) while the first tabernacle “was yet standing.” A. T. Robertson, in Word Pictures in the New Testament Vol. 5, pg. 397, translates this last phrase as “(having standing stasin #4714), the first tabernacle still having a place.” W. E. Vine, in Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words vol. 4, pg. 72 sees it this way, “to have a standing, lit., has a standing.” Strong’s #4714, “stasis, a standing, i.e. (by analogy) position.”
Blessings,David S