What Does Daniel 9:27 Mean?
And he shall make the covenant strong with many for one seven. In the half of the seven he shall cause the slaughter and the gift to rest. Upon the wing of loathed things comes the one who empties, and until it runs out, what is cut out shall be poured upon the emptied one.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.THE KEY
The verse pairs a covenant made strong with sacrifice made to cease, then places a determined ending over the desolation.
THE MEANING
This verse presents a covenant being made strong for a bounded week, then sacrifice and offering being made to stop at its midpoint. Abomination spreads desolation, yet the ruin has a limit: the determined completion is poured upon the desolating one.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that desecration can continue without limit; this verse gives it a determined completion.
THE ROOT
הִגְבִּיר
higbir
GROWS FROM
גבר
g-b-r
Be strong or prevail; in this causative form, make strong or cause to prevail.
The verb rendered confirm means to make strong or cause to prevail. The covenant is portrayed as being strengthened, and the same root names both a mighty one and might itself.
ALSO GROWS
gibbor: Mighty one; warrior.
גִּבּוֹר
The shared root makes the force of the covenant’s strengthening audible.
gevurah: Might; strength.
גְּבוּרָה
This branch reveals the strength carried by the action rendered confirm.
יַשְׁבִּית
yashbit
GROWS FROM
שבת
sh-b-t
Cease, desist, or rest; in this causative form, bring something to a stop.
The verb says that the offerings are made to stop. Its root also names Sabbath, joining this stoppage to the wider language of cessation and rest.
ALSO GROWS
shavat: Cease; rest.
שָׁבַת
This verb shares the root and makes the action of stopping explicit.
shabbat: Sabbath; a day of cessation and rest.
שַׁבָּת
The same root links the offerings’ forced stoppage with a word for recurring cessation.
מְשֹׁמֵם
meshōmēm
GROWS FROM
שמם
sh-m-m
Be desolate, devastated, or appalled.
“emptied one” in this verse is meshōmēm. This root can name both devastation and the stunned response to it. Desolate therefore carries the sense of ruin that arrests the one who encounters it, not merely an empty place.
ALSO GROWS
shemamah: Desolation; a devastated place.
שְׁמָמָה
This noun makes the ruin associated with the verse’s desolating image concrete.
shamem: Be desolate or appalled.
שָׁמֵם
This verbal form shares the root and holds ruin together with the shock it produces.
THE PATTERN
Desecration and oppression occupy a measured interval whose ending is fixed within the text.
For the Lord, the LORD of hosts, will make a finish, decreed, in the midst of all the land.They will fall by the mouth of the sword, and be led away captive into all the nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled by the nations until the seasons of the nations are filled.But throw out the court that is outside the temple, and do not measure it, for it is given to the nations, and they trample the set-apart city for forty-two months.THE THREAD
And I heard a set-apart one speaking, and a set-apart one said to a certain one who was speaking, "How long is the vision of the continual and the rebellion that lays waste, giving both the set-apart place and the army to be trampled?"The phrase rendered transgression of desolation uses the same שמם root as desolate in Daniel 9:27. The shared root connects the desolating act with the ruin it produces, and brings the stopped sacrifice and the devastated sanctuary into one image.
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