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25     Know and understand:
From the utterance of the word
    that Jerusalem was to be rebuilt[a]
Until there is an anointed ruler,
    there shall be seven weeks.
In the course of sixty-two weeks
    it shall be rebuilt,
With squares and trenches,
    in time of affliction.
26 After the sixty-two weeks
    an anointed one[b] shall be cut down
    with no one to help him.
And the people of a leader who will come
    shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.
His end shall come in a flood;
    until the end of the war, which is decreed,
    there will be desolation.
27 For one week[c] he shall make
    a firm covenant with the many;
Half the week
    he shall abolish sacrifice and offering;
In their place shall be the desolating abomination
    until the ruin that is decreed
    is poured out upon the desolator.”(A)

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Footnotes

  1. 9:25 From the utterance…to be rebuilt: from the time of Jeremiah’s prophecy. Anointed ruler: either Cyrus, who was called the anointed of the Lord to end the exile (Is 45:1), or the high priest Jeshua who presided over the rebuilding of the altar of sacrifice after the exile (Ezr 3:2). Seven weeks: forty-nine years, an approximation of the time of the exile. In the course of sixty-two weeks…rebuilt: a period of four hundred thirty-four years, roughly approximating the interval between the rebuilding of Jerusalem after the exile and the beginning of the Seleucid persecution.
  2. 9:26 An anointed one: the high priest Onias III, murdered in 171 B.C., from which the author dates the beginning of the persecution. Onias was in exile when he was killed. A leader: Antiochus IV.
  3. 9:27 One week: the final phase of the period in view, the time of Antiochus’ persecution. He: Antiochus himself. The many: the faithless Jews who allied themselves with the Seleucids; cf. 1 Mc 1:11–13. Half the week: three and a half years; the Temple was desecrated by Antiochus from 167 to 164 B.C. The desolating abomination: see note on 8:13; probably a pagan altar. Jesus refers to this passage in his prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem in Mt 24:15.