Bijlage A
The Translation of Daniel 9:24-27, with text-critical justification
1. The textual basis and the reading principle
The translation stands on the written consonantal text (the ketiv) of the Codex Leningradensis (B19a), the basis of the BHS. This reading principle is principled and consistent: this book reads the consonants, the syntax, and the words as they stand written, not the Masoretic cantillation (the chant accents) as decisive authority. Those accents are a venerable reading tradition, laid over the consonants centuries later (±800-1000 AD); they are no part of the revelation and may not cut exegetical knots that the consonantal text leaves open. Where the oldest witnesses (Theodotion, the LXX, the Qumran fragments) confirm the written text, that weighs more heavily than a later vocalization or accent decision.
The divine-name convention follows the whole book: where the Tetragrammaton stands → YHWH; where Adonai/"Lord" stands → the Lord. God is addressed as You.
2. The translation
24 Seventy sevens are decreed over your people and over your holy city — to bring the transgression to completion, to seal up sin, to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy.
25 Know then and understand: from the going forth of a word to restore and to build Jerusalem, until an Anointed One, a Prince, are seven sevens; and for sixty-two sevens it shall be restored and rebuilt, with plaza and moat, but in distressful times.
26 And after the sixty-two sevens an Anointed One shall be cut off, and He has nothing. And the city and the sanctuary the people of a coming prince shall destroy; and his end comes in a flood, and to the end there is war — the desolations are firmly decreed.
27 And with overwhelming power he shall make a covenant strong for the many, for one week; and at the half of that week he shall make sacrifice and grain offering to cease. And upon a wing of abominations comes a desolator — until the consummation, the firmly decreed end, is poured out upon the desolator.
3. Text-critical and lexical notes, colon by colon
24a — נֶחְתַּךְ nechtak ("are decreed / cut out"). From the root חתך chatak, "to cut, to firmly decide" — in Biblical Hebrew a hapax in this sense. The basic meaning (to cut out) opens the whole "cutting field" of the pericope. No textual variant; the choice is purely the nuance "decreed" (decree) or "cut out" (measured out from time); the translation lets both resonate.
24d — לְכַלֵּא l'khalle ("to complete / to shut up"). A genuine ambiguity in the written text. The form admits two roots: kalah (כלה, "to complete, to make an end") and — in the aleph spelling — kala' (כלא, "to shut up, to restrain"). Both fit the transgression; no choice is made here (see Appendix E).
24e — ketiv/qere. The written text (ketiv) reads וּלְחָתֵם ul'chatem, "to seal" (from chatam); the reading tradition (qere) suggests וּלְהָתֵם ul'hatem, "to make an end of" (from tamam). This book follows the written chatam ("to seal up sin"), which moreover rhymes with the sealing of vision and prophet in 24h — the hinge word that gives this book its name.
24i — קֹדֶשׁ קָדָשִׁים qodesh qodashim ("a most holy"). Without the article. The usage in the Torah leans strongly toward the holy place / the sanctuary (the "holy of holies"); a Person-reading ("to anoint a Most Holy One," messianic) is grammatically possible but runs against the prevailing usage. The minority reading is named, but the weight lies on the place.
25 — the atnach and the "two anointed ones". This is the pivotal text-critical decision of the whole chapter. The Masoretic cantillation places the main accent (atnach) after "seven sevens," whereby the sentence breaks: "until an anointed one — seven sevens; and for sixty-two sevens it is rebuilt." Thus arise two anointed ones (49 years and 434 years apart) — the reading of the NRSV and of the Jewish tradition. This book rejects it, and indeed on text-critical, not dogmatic, grounds: (1) the accents are medieval and no part of the consonantal text; (2) the oldest translation that the church took over, Theodotion, reads the two numbers together toward one "anointed leader" (χριστοῦ ἡγουμένου); (3) Roger Beckwith and others have shown that the accentual split is best explained as a later, anti-messianic reading decision. The unitary reading (7 + 62 = 69 until one Anointed Prince) is therefore not an ignoring of an accent, but a refusal to make a late accent the judge. The seven do mark an inner seam (the restoration and the canon completed; see chapter 3), but there stands no second person.
25c — מֹצָא דָבָר motza davar ("the going forth of a word"). Jewel: this echoes 9:23, where at the beginning of Daniel's supplication "a word went forth" (yatza davar). One idiom welds prayer and prophecy together. (For the gematria of davar = 206, see Appendix B §4.)
25e — מָשִׁיחַ נָגִיד mashiach nagid ("an Anointed One, a Prince"). No article, but a title-in-function ("Anointed Prince"), not "some arbitrary anointed one." Nagid ("prince") is morally colorless and returns in 26e for another (see Appendix I).
25/24 — 95 or 96 letters (the qere/ketiv that determines 358/359). The ketiv of v. 24 counts 96 letters (body total 359 = Satan), the qere 95 (→ 358 = Mashiach/Nachash). This must be decided once on principle; because this book reads the ketiv, 359 holds as written and 358 is marked as speculative (Appendix B §5). The variant itself is orthographic (a matres), not substantial.
26b — יִכָּרֵת yikareth ("shall be cut off"). Niphal (passive) of karat, "to cut off." The Anointed One undergoes it. No variant.
26c — וְאֵין לוֹ we'ein lo ("and He has nothing"). A deliberate Janus: "has nothing" / "not for Himself" / "there is no one for Him." All three are grammatically real and theologically load-bearing; they remain open (Appendix E).
26e — עַם נָגִיד הַבָּא am nagid ha-ba ("the people of a coming prince"). It is the people that destroy the city; the prince "comes" still. The article (ha-) and the participle ba place him in the future from Daniel's standpoint (see Appendix I). Whether he appears before or after the destruction by his people, the participle does not decide. Theodotion read ʿim ("with") and set him alongside it: "with the coming leader" (σὺν τῷ ἡγουμένῳ τῷ ἐρχομένῳ).
26f — בַשֶּׁטֶף ba-sheteph ("in a flood"). Sheteph (flood, deluge) — a bolt-word that returns in 11:22 (nishtefu) and binds the end-king to this figure (Appendix I).
27a — וְהִגְבִּיר בְּרִית we-higbir berit ("and with overwhelming power he shall make a covenant strong"). Decisive lexical point: this is not the standard idiom karat berit ("to cut/make a covenant"), but the Hiphil of גבר gabar. Literally: "he shall make a covenant prevail, for the many." The Hiphil occurs only twice in the Bible: here and in Psalm 12:4, where the arrogant with smooth lips say: "with our tongue we will prevail [...] who is lord over us?" The word carries two sides. Overwhelming power: the Qal is "to prevail" (Exodus 17:11; Lamentations 1:16), the Hitpael "to set oneself up against God" (Job 15:25); the Old Greek Daniel renders "the covenant will dominate over many" (dynasteusei hē diathēkē eis pollous), and a little further "in making the covenant strong" (katischysai tēn diathēkēn); there the covenant is the subject, not the prince. Strengthening: the causative form makes something strong; Theodotion renders dynamōsei, "to strengthen," and the Piel is God's promise "I will strengthen the house of Judah" (Zechariah 10:6, 12). The many stand after le-: they are the recipients, not the direct object. English needs two expressions for the one verb: with overwhelming power and make strong. Daniel 11 joins the two: the covenant phase runs through ease (shalvah, 8:25; 11:21, 24), flattery (11:21, 32, 34) and reward (11:24, 39); the violence comes at the midpoint (11:31). The subject is grammatically the coming prince of 26e.
Under the lens. (1) The earlier translation "to force, to impose with force" is too narrow: the only other Hiphil has no coerced party, and la-rabbim makes the many the recipients. (2) The echo of Nimrod is defensible, not load-bearing. Gibbor occurs 160 times in the Bible; the root alone therefore makes no allusion. The link runs through Babel and Shinar: Nimrod the gibbor, whose kingdom begins in Babel in Shinar (Genesis 10:8-10); the tower in Shinar, built to "make a name" and "not be scattered" (11:2-4); Daniel's only Shinar (1:2) and his only gibbor in the Hebrew part, the king who "does according to his will" (11:3; cf. 8:4; 11:16, 36). Genesis does not name Nimrod as the builder of the tower. (3) Falsifier: if le- here merely marks the direct object (a late usage, under Aramaic influence), the stress on "for" falls away; the two sides of gabar itself remain. (4) The Old Greek makes the covenant the subject ("the covenant will dominate over many"). That carries the sense of overwhelming power, but not the person; a reading in which the new covenant gains the upper hand can appeal to it.
27d — יַשְׁבִּית זֶבַח וּמִנְחָה yashbit zevach u-minchah ("shall make sacrifice and grain offering to cease"). Shabat (Hiphil), the sabbath root; in all 40 hiphil forms in the Hebrew Bible "to make cease, to shut down, to remove" — never "to complete" (Appendix J §6). Zevach (bloody, the offering that is eaten) + minchah (bloodless, gift and tribute): as a fixed pair only six times in the Bible (1 Samuel 2:29; 3:14; Isaiah 19:21; Amos 5:25; Psalm 40:6; here), each time where faithfulness is at stake. It is not the standard formula for the whole cult — that is olah u-zevach, 43 verses — but the cult seen as homage. Decisive: strikingly absent are עֹלָה olah (burnt offering), חַטָּאת chatat (sin offering) and תָּמִיד tamid ("the continual") — the last precisely the word that Daniel 8:11-13; 11:31 and 12:11 use for the cessation of the cult. It is the same act; 9:27 names it by its meaning. Textual witnesses: Theodotion ἀρθήσεταί μου θυσία καὶ σπονδή, the same pair with which the LXX renders minchah va-nesekh in Joel 1:9, 13; the Old Greek paraphrases. A design indication, honestly labeled as such, not as lexical proof.
27e — וְעַל כְּנַף שִׁקּוּצִים מְשֹׁמֵם we-al kanaf shiqqutsim meshomem. Three difficult matters: (1) כְּנַף kanaf — "wing, edge, hem, pinnacle"; in Ruth 3:9 and Ezekiel 16:8 the covenant hem of protection over the bride, here inverted into a "wing of abominations" (Appendix E). (2) The sentence is grammatically broken — the main verb is missing; the Lord Himself fills it in with "standing" (ἑστός, Matthew 24:15). (3) Possible mocking distortion: shiqquts meshomem ("abomination of desolation") sounds like a mangling of Ba'al Shamayim ("lord of heaven"), the idol title — a well-known thesis in Second-Temple studies.
27f — וְעַד־כָּלָה וְנֶחֱרָצָה we-ad kalah we-necheratzah ("until a consummation, and indeed a firm decree"). Kalah here closes the arc that opened with l'khalle ha-pesha in 24d — one root spans the oracle. Necheratzah (from charats, "to cut, to decide") resumes the cutting field.
27g — תִּתַּךְ עַל־שֹׁמֵם titakh al-shomem ("is poured out upon the desolator"). Natak ("to pour out") is the prophetic word for outpoured wrath, and it echoes 9:11, where in Daniel's prayer "the curse was poured out (nittak) upon us." One verb closes the circle: from curse-over-the-people to judgment-over-the-enemy. שֹׁמֵם shomem is here a Janus: the desolator (person) or the desolated (the state/place).
4. The version witnesses, briefly
Theodotion (2nd century, but with older "kaige" roots): the Greek Daniel that the church took over in place of the divergent Old Greek (LXX) Daniel. Supports the unitary reading of 7+62 and the messianic "anointed leader."
Old Greek (LXX) Daniel: diverges sharply at points and was for that very reason set aside by the church; relevant as a witness, not as a basis.
Qumran (4QDanᵃ⁻ᵉ): confirm the consonantal Daniel text well before Christ and undercut the late dating (see Appendix G).
Vulgate / Peshitta: secondary witnesses, largely in line with the MT consonants.
5. Summary of the open places (the cruxes)
In keeping with the book-wide rule — in the case of genuine ambiguity no choice is made — here are the places where the written text bears more than one reading. Full elaboration in Appendix E.
24d l'khalle: "to complete" (kalah) or "to shut up" (kala').
24e ketiv/qere: "to seal up sin" (chatam) or "to make an end of sin" (tamam).
24i qodesh qodashim: holy place (majority) or holy Person (minority).
26c we'ein lo: "has nothing" / "not for Himself" / "no one for Him."
27g shomem: "upon the desolator" (person) or "upon the desolated" (state).
Compare God's Algorithm, Appendix E.