God’s Word for You

Daniel 9:25-27 On the wingtip of abominations

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Friday, December 26, 2025

25 Know this and understand it: From the time that the word went out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the time of the Messiah, the Prince, comes, there shall be seven ‘sevens’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ Jerusalem shall be rebuilt with streets and a moat, but in a troubled time.

Symbolic numbers come tumbling out in this verse, along with the word “Messiah,” the title which in Greek is Christ, the Anointed One. Notice that he is also called the Prince. The first symbolic number is that there will be seven “sevens,” which might be best to take as divinely holy periods of time. This is all we can say for certain about these numbers:

1, They represent periods of time, but whether all of them are equal or not isn’t stated.

2, “Seven” may not refer to weeks or years, but to some other indefinite period such as the way we talk about “ages” or “eras.”

3, Seven such “eras” therefore might not equal 49 years (seven times seven years) but something else.

What we can say with certainty is that this reckoning of time begins with the order to rebuild the temple. But this was ordered more than once. First, when Cyrus gave the first order in 538 BC, second, Darius reaffirmed this order in 517 (Ezra 6:1-12). Third, Artaxerxes sent a group back with the same order in 458 (Ezra 7:11-26). And fourth, Nehemiah asked for permission to do the same thing in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, or 445 BC (Nehemiah 2:7-8). If we want our numbers to “come out” as perfectly as possible, we might want to use the Ezra 7:11-26 passage, which takes us just about to 33 AD (if the full seventy “sevens” means 490 years, although this is by no means certain), which is arguably a year very close to the year of Jesus’ crucifixion. But is that the way we should do this math? Isn’t such speculative math beyond us? I don’t want to build “a house of cards” on one single supposition, only to have it prove incorrect, because it might damage the faith of some fine Christian people. I think it’s wiser to say, “I don’t know,” but to trust that the measurement makes sense to God.

The “moat” of this verse might not be a channel filled with water, but a “trenching war (that) channels fields.” Such ditches are for soldiers faced with all sorts of weapons, from arrows and flung stones (1 Chronicles 26:15) to rocks thrown by hand. These might lie outside the city walls, or even be “in the suburbs close intrench’d.” Troubled times, indeed.

26 After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Messiah will be cut off and will have nothing. The people of a ruler who will come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end will come with a flood, and there will be war until the end. Desolations have been decreed.

A further “sixty-two ‘sevens’” would come between the order to rebuild and the arrival of Christ. Christ in this case is not described in terms of his work, nor of his dual nature as God and man. Instead, this is a reference to the time of his arrival. At that time, two important events are foreseen here. First, Christ will be “cut off and have nothing.” This means he would meet with a violent death (2 Samuel 14:16; 2 Kings 9:8). Isaiah also said that Christ “will be cut off from the land of the living” (Isaiah 53:8). As for “having nothing,” who could have less than Christ did on the cross, where the soldiers even cast lots to divide the last of his clothing before he was dead, and where he was cut off even from the Father’s love?

Second, an enemy would come and destroy the city and the sanctuary. “The people of a ruler who will come” seems clearly to refer to the Roman army under Titus who destroyed the temple and burned the city of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Jesus foretold, “How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! There will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again” (Matthew 24:19,21).

The reference to the “flood” in verse 26 is perhaps a terrible foreshadowing of the amount of blood that would be spilled at that time, a river of blood.

27 He shall make a covenant with many for one ‘seven,’ and for half of the ‘seven’ he shall cause sacrifice and offering to cease. On the wingtip of abominations will be one who causes desolation, until the decreed end is poured out upon the one who causes desolation.”

The “he” that begins the verse is not the same “one” in the second sentence. Therefore, since “the one who causes desolation” is certainly the Antichrist or one who will foreshadow the Antichrist, the previous someone seems to more clearly refer to Christ. Also, it is hard to understand the devil or the Antichrist ever making a covenant with anybody.

Would the Savior, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, “cause sacrifice and offering to cease”? This must be at least one reason why many think that this couldn’t be the Messiah, whether they think Christ is the Messiah or not. They can’t imagine one of God’s servants (even the Son of God) making sacrifice come to an end. But this is one of the things that Christ came to do, which was to fulfill all of the sacrifices. We learn about this in clear terms in Hebrews: “By one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy… ‘Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.’ And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin” (Hebrews 10:14,17-18). Since he has atoned for wickedness (Daniel 9:24), there is no longer any more atonement to be made.

In the final sentence of verse 27, I have translated “On the wingtip of abominations.” This will sound different to many readers who are used to the NIV, which added the words “of the temple.” The King James Version has, “the overspreading of abominations.” This “overspreading” seems to be a way of saying “skirt” of some kind. The word is canaph, wing (of an army, 1 Maccabees 9:1) or the extremity of a thing such as a building, or a storm (2 Samuel 22:11), or some terrible event. Since we are used to the word “wing” but “extremity” or “extreme end” is implied, I have translated “wingtip.” This also seems to fall in line with the coming of trouble.

The one who brings trouble, the abomination and the desolation, will finally be overthrown by the Word of God through Christ. “The Lord Jesus will overthrow him with the breath of his mouth and destroy him by the splendor of his coming” (2 Thessalonians 2:8). And so, even if not every detail is clear to us—such as the abomination itself, which may have been a pagan idol—we pray, Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!

Sin’s dreadful doom upon us lies;
Grim death looms fierce before our eyes.
Oh, come, lead us with mighty hand
From exile to our promised land.

There shall we all our praises bring
And sing to you, our Savior King;
There shall we laud you and adore
Forever and forevermore.

Friedrich Von Spee (1592-1635)

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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