Purpose
In Dispensationalism, God suspended His 490-year covenant with Israel at the Cross and postponed the last seven years to just before Christ’s return.
This article shows, firstly, that the covenant was not suspended at Christ’s death. After His death, Israel had one final opportunity to repent. For that purpose, God sent His Holy Spirit with great power, but only to Israel.
Secondly, this article shows that the 490 years ended a few years after Christ’s death, when Israel, with the stoning of Stephen, also rejected the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit fell only on Jews.
The first chapters of Acts show that God’s covenant with Israel did not end at the cross. On the contrary, He sent His Holy Spirit, His miracle-working, Spirit-filled disciples, and the gospel message with great power, but only to Jews (cf. Acts 10:45). For example:
• Jesus told His disciples to wait for the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem (Acts 1:4).
• His disciples received the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem on Pentecost – a day when Jews from every nation were gathered in Jerusalem (Acts 2:10, 5). This implies that God chose that day and place to give the apostles the opportunity to preach repentance to Jews from all over the world. Peter called on the gathered Jews to repent (Acts 2:38). On that day, 3000 were added to the Church, but they were all Jews (Acts 2:41, cf. 5:11).
• God empowered Peter to heal a lame man at the temple (Acts 3:2, 7). This implies that God wanted Peter to preach to the Jews at the temple. All the people gathered around Peter and the apostles; full of amazement (Acts 3:11). Peter urged them to repent. Many believed, and the church grew to 5000 men, all of them Jews (Acts 3:19; 4:4).
• After the apostles were jailed, an angel released them and told them to go and speak to the people in the temple. They preached every day in the temple (Acts 5:18, 20, 42).
• Peter proclaimed that God exalted Jesus “to His right hand as a Prince and a Savior, to grant repentance to Israel” (Acts 5:31).
In conclusion, the first seven chapters of Acts do not mention non-Jews at all. During those first years after the cross, while “the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly,” not a single non-Jew accepted the gospel or received the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:45). The church consisted of Jews only (Acts 6:7).
The Vision of the Unclean Animals
The situation changed when God, in Acts 10, a few years after the Cross, gave Peter the vision of the unclean animals (Acts 10:11, 12, 19-20). The purpose of that vision was not to teach the Church what they are allowed to eat. It was about who may receive the gospel and the Holy Spirit. Peter interpreted the vision as saying that God showed him not to regard Gentiles as unclean (Acts 10:28). He said:
“I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality, but in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him” (Acts 10:34-35; cf. 11:12).
That knowledge allowed Peter to accompany the Gentiles and preach to them. That shows that, before the vision, Christians thought of Gentiles as unholy or unclean, did not associate with them, and did not take the gospel to them.
While Peter spoke to the uncircumcised Gentiles, the Holy Spirit fell on them, and they spoke in tongues. This surprised the Jews (Acts 10:23, 44-45), meaning that this was the first time that Gentiles received the Holy Spirit.
The End of the Covenant
In Acts 6, the gospel proclamation still focused on the circumcised (Acts 6:7). But in Acts 10, by giving Peter the vision, God redirects the gospel to non-Jews. The chapters between Acts 6 and 10 describe Israel’s persecution of the believers, beginning with the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7, 8:1), and ending with Paul’s conversion (Acts 9:31). Paul’s conversion was part of the redirection of the gospel focus from Jew to Gentiles, for he was to become the apostle to the Gentiles (Rom 11:13; Gal 2:10). Therefore, this shift in the gospel’s focus, from Jews to Gentiles, coincided with Israel’s persecution of God’s Spirit-filled people.
However, the turning point was specifically Stephen’s death:
Firstly, the persecution of Christians began with the stoning of Stephen (Acts 8:1).
Secondly, Stephan announced the end of the covenant. As discussed, the entire Daniel 9 is based on God’s covenant with Israel. Stephen’s speech was similarly based on the covenant. But while Daniel confessed Israel’s sins and prayed for covenant renewal, Stephen announced God’s judgment in terms of the covenant:
Earlier speeches in Acts called hearers to repentance. In contrast, Stephen cited God’s mighty acts in the past for His people, showing that God was faithful. Then he listed Israel’s failures, showing that it was unfaithful. After his long recital of Israel’s history, he announced his verdict:
“You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did. Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become; you who received the law as ordained by angels, and yet did not keep it” (Acts 7:51- 53).
The Bible consistently says that Jesus sat down at God’s right hand (Luke 22:69; Heb 8:1-2; 10:12; cf. Col 3:1; Rom 8:34; Acts 2:33; 5:31; Mark 16:19; 1 Peter 3:22). But Stephen saw “Jesus standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:55). Jesus stood in judgment. Stephen was the conduit through whom Jesus announced judgment on Israel. Through Stephen, Jesus announced the end of God’s covenant with Israel.
According to Britannica, Jesus died on 3 April AD 33, and Stephen on 26 December AD 36. If these dates are correct, Stephen died 3½ years after the Cross.
Conclusions
The Final Seven Years
The “one week” of verse 27, symbolizing the final seven years, when “he” will confirm the covenant, was the period from Jesus’ baptism, 3½ years before the Cross, until Stephen’s death, 3½ years after the Cross. During those seven years, Jesus confirmed God’s covenant with Israel; firstly, through His personal preaching before He died and, secondly, for a further 3½ years after His death, by sending His disciples, empowered with the Holy Spirit, ONLY to Jews.
In other words, after Jesus died, Israel had one final opportunity to repent, and the Spirit called Israel to repentance. Never before or after in human history has God appealed for the heart of any nation like He did during those seven years.
The 490 years ended when Stephen died.
Daniel 9 does not specify a specific event for the end of the 490 years. However, as discussed, the 490 years were an extension of God’s covenant with Israel. Therefore, the end of the covenant was also the end of the 490 years. Since the gospel went only to Jews during the first few years after the Cross, the 490-year covenant did not end when Jesus died. Since God, after Stephen’s death (Acts 7; 8:1), suddenly redirected the gospel away from the Jews, his death marked the end of the 490-year covenant (cf. Matt 21:43).
Jesus ended the Jewish Sacrifices.
According to Daniel 9:27, “he” will end sacrifices in the middle of the last seven years. That describes Jesus’s death. He was the Lamb of God (John 1:29). The Jewish sacrifices pointed forward to His death. When He died, the Jewish sacrifices lost all significance.
What if Israel repented?
If Israel had accepted the message brought by the Holy Spirit after Christ’s death, history would have been very different. Then the nation of Israel would have proclaimed “the excellencies of Him” to the entire world in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Other Articles
Daniel 9
🔗 Summary of the articles below
🔗 Daniel 9 Explained, Verse-by-Verse
🔗 Introduction to Daniel 9
🔗 The 70 weeks renewed God’s covenant with Israel.
🔗 What was the Decree to Restore Jerusalem?
🔗 When did the 490 end?
🔗 Are the events described chronologically?
🔗 Who makes what covenant during the last seven years?
🔗 What is the Abomination of Desolation in 9:27?
🔗 When will the goals in 9:24 be fulfilled?
🔗 When did Daniel 9 say the Messiah would come?
🔗 Does Daniel 9 describe the same crisis as Daniel 7?
🔗 Was the vision the answer to Daniel’s prayer?
🔗 Where are the 70 years of Babylonian captivity in history?
🔗 The Book of Nehemiah – Valuable context for Daniel
🔗 Dispensational Interpretation – An Evaluation
🔗 Other Anomalies in the Dispensational Interpretation
🔗 Historical-Critical Interpretation of Daniel 9
🔗 The Symbolical Interpretation of Daniel 9
Other Core Articles
🔗 The Mark of the Beast
🔗 All articles on this Site
🔗 Daniel’s Little Horn Identified
🔗 Daniel 9 – Verse-by-Verse
🔗 Daniel 9 – Four Alternative Interpretations
🔗 The Dragon of Revelation 13
🔗 The Beast of Revelation
🔗 The Trinity Doctrine
🔗 The True Origin of the Trinity Doctrine
🔗 The Sabbath was part of the Arian Controversy.
🔗 Christ’s Return
Other Article Series
🔗 The Antichrist in Daniel
🔗 The 490 years of Daniel 9
🔗 Book of Revelation
🔗 Christology – Who is Jesus?
🔗 Why does evil exist?
🔗 Death, Eternal Life, and Eternal Torment
For general theology, I recommend Graham Maxwell.
Questions:
1. Why does this article nowhere allude to Daniel 9:24, which gives six goals to be established in the 70 weeks? How were these six goals established during or at the end of these 70 weeks, if these 70 weeks ended 3.5 years after the cross?
2. We have the cross and the destruction of city and temple in Daniel 9:26. In your explanation, this is repeated in obscure words in Daniel 9:27. Where in the text of Daniel 26, 27 do we see any indication of a repetition, as we see in Daniel 7:8, 20 and 24?
3. What is meant with ‘the overspreading of abominations’, wich is directly mentioned after the ‘cessation of the sacrifice and the oblation’?
4. What about the fulfillment of Daniel 12:11, which looks quite like Daniel 9:27? And what about the fulfillment of Mathew 24:15?
5. If the 70th week was all about the confirmation of one covenant, where does this leave the new covenant, that – in your view – was instituted by Jesus ‘at the midst of the week’ and which, according to Hebrews 8 and Jeremiah 31, was totally different from the old covenant?
Hi Peter
Thanks for the questions.
1. How were these six goals established? See my answer here.
2. Where in the text of Daniel 26, 27 do we see any indication of a repetition? See my answer here.
3. What is meant by ‘the overspreading of abominations’, which is directly mentioned after the ‘cessation of the sacrifice and the oblation’? The NASB reads: “on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate.” In my view, this refers to the Roman armies, destroying Jerusalem.
4. What about the fulfillment of Daniel 12:11, which looks quite like Daniel 9:27? I see your point. 12:11 says “the regular sacrifice is abolished” and 9:27 “he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering.” However, “the regular sacrifice” refers to Daniel 8, where this term appears three times. I think we should not confuse the visions of Daniel 8 and 9. This term also appears in 11:31, where doing away with the regular sacrifice is associated with setting up the abomination of desolation. This is not Christ’s death.
And what about the fulfillment of Mathew 24:15? What about it? It puts the abomination in Jesus’s future.
5. If the 70th week was all about the confirmation of one covenant, where does this leave the new covenant, that – in your view – was instituted by Jesus ‘at the midst of the week’ and which, according to Hebrews 8 and Jeremiah 31, was totally different from the old covenant? In my view, if the Jews accepted Jesus Christ, even in the 3 years after His Cross, there would never have been a ‘new’ covenant.
Hi, Andries,
What I meant was that we see a clear indication for repetition of events in the book of Daniel. For instance: Daniel 7:8 (the falling of 3 of the 10 horns) is repeated in Daniel 7:20 and 7:24 because Daniel is retelling his dream to a heavenly figure and because the heavenly figure is giving the explanation. I don’t see such an indication for any repetition of the events of Daniel 9:26 in Daniel 9:27. Should we therefore not conclude that Daniel 9:27 is about new events – not about the ‘cutting off’ of Messiah and about the destruction of city and sanctuary but about something that is to happen later?
Hi Peter, as I noted in my article on verse 27, the following are key phrases from verse 26 that are repeated in verse 27:
– Both verses refer to desolations (Strong number H8074) that are decreed or determined (Strong number H2782).
– Both verses use water as a symbol of the force of destruction: In verse 26, desolations will come with a “flood.” In verse 27, they are “poured out.”
– Both verses include the concept of completion: Verse 26 refers to the “end” (of the city). Verse 27 refers to a “complete destruction.”
Furthermore, as I discuss in another article, I see in Daniel 9 a form of Poetic Parallelism. The prophecy alternates between two foci: Jerusalem and the Messiah. As I read it, both verses 26 and 27 first describes the Messiah, and then Jerusalem. See here
Hi, Andries. The repetition of some words, to me, is no indication that the texts are about the same events. In Daniel 11, we also have the metaphor of ‘water’ multiple times – Dan.11:10, Dan.11:22, Dan.11:26, Dan.11:40, while these are all different events.
Moreover – the way in which Daniel 9:24-27 is communicated gives no indication of any repetition and the ‘poetic parallellism’ does not fit with the hasty deliverance of the message, given the 21 days during which the heavenly messenger was withheld. The message is very straightforeward and purely meant to give insight: ‘to give thee skill and understanding’, as the angel put it.
The repetition of words – in my view – has nothing to do with ‘poetic parallism’ but with the fact that ‘history doesn’t repeat itself but is certainly rhymes’. We see this on mulitiple occasions, for instance in the gospels: two miraculous catches of fish, two feedings of multitudes, two storms at the lake that were silenced, two cleansings of the temple. We see the rhyming of history also in the long run events with Israel. Jerusalem would be destroyed in 70 AD (gospel of Luke, Daniel 9:26) and it will again be destroyed at the start of the Endtime (gospels of Mathew and Mark and Revelation 11:2, Daniel 9:27). We see the rhyming of history in the attack on the woman in Revelation 12 – directly after the ascension in verse 5, 6 and directly after the casting to earth of the devil in verse 13. We see it even in the way in which the woman is delivered in verse 15,16: the flood of water (attacking armies) swallowed by the earth (much like Farao and his army were swallowed by water).
Another question: What are the indications that the ‘he’ in Daniel 9:27 refers to Messiah and not ‘the prince that shall come’?
Hi Peter
What are the indications that the ‘he’ in Daniel 9:27 refers to Messiah and not ‘the prince that shall come’?
“He” cannot refer to an end-time Antichrist because:
• It would mean that the prince and his people live 2000 years apart.
• The prophecy does not indicate such a gap.
• It would turn Daniel 9 into two unrelated prophecies, one about Christ, 2000 years ago, and one about an end-time Antichrist.
• There is no indication of Christ’s return in Daniel 9.
• The prophecy promises only one rebuilding of the city and the sanctuary.
• Jewish sacrifices cannot validly be resumed.
The covenant in v27 is God’s covenant:
• The full 490 years are an extension or renewal of God’s covenant with Israel. Therefore, the covenant in 9:27 is the last seven years of God’s covenant.
• The covenant pattern in Daniel 9, of (1) disobedience, (2) exile, (3) repentance, and (4) covenant renewal is the central theme that unites the prayer and the prophecy. This context speaks against the an altogether different covenant introduced in the last 7 years.
• Elsewhere in Daniel, “covenant” is always God’s covenant.
• In verse 27, the verb translated as “make a firm” in the NASB is “gâbar.” It means make firm an existing covenant, not making a new covenant.
• Elsewhere in the Bible, ‘the many,’ are God’s people.
“He,” who confirms the covenant for the seven last years, is the “Messiah:”
• In the prophecy’s pattern, it is the Messiah.
• The prophecy is also in the form of a chiasm, and in the chiasm, the one week refers to the Messiah.
• The main person in verse 26 is the Messiah, not the Roman prince.
• The prince in verse 26 is a supernatural being. It is the prince of Rome, like the prince of Israel, the prince of Persia, and the Prince of Greece later in the prophecy.
• Concepts such as putting a stop to sacrifice and grain offering, making atonement for iniquity, the killing of the messiah render the prophecy is thoroughly messianic.
For more details, see here.