Daniel 9:26

After threescore and two weeks. The cutting off of the Messiah would take place, not within this period, but after its completion. This expression is not intended to fix the exact time when the calamitous event of the death of the Messiah would take place. That is done in v. 27, where the event is placed “in the midst of the week.”

Cut off. According to this prophetic statement, Messiah would not appear as the Jews expected, a glorious conqueror and emancipator. Instead, He would meet a violent death; He would be “cut off.” On the term “cut off” meaning death, see Gen. 9:11.

But not for himself. Literally, “and nothing to him.” The meaning of this phrase is not clear. Many possible meanings have been suggested, such as “and shall have nothing,” “he shall not be,” “and there was no helper to him.”

And the people. The marginal reading, “and they [the Jews] shall be no more his people,” found in some Bibles, is unsupported by the Hebrew.

The city and the sanctuary. An obliteration of the Temple and the city of Jerusalem, is here foretold. This was fulfilled by the Romans in A.D. 70. The Roman soldiers took blazing firebrands and deliberately set them in the interior woodwork of the Temple structure, with the result that it was soon utterly demolished. For “the people of the prince that shall come” the LXX reads “the king of nations.”

With a flood. That is, in the sense of being overwhelming (see Isa. 8:7, 8).

Desolations are determined. The passage may literally be rendered, “unto the end [shall be] war, a determination of ruins.”