Daniel 9:26 – Messiah Shall Be Cut Off
“And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.” Daniel’s prophecy of the seventy weeks provides the most chronologically precise prediction of Christ’s coming in all of Scripture. Not only does it identify when the Messiah would appear; it declares what would happen to Him—He would be cut off, executed, killed. Yet this death would not be for Himself but for others. In the mathematical precision of Daniel’s vision lies the gospel of substitutionary sacrifice.
Daniel’s Seventy Weeks
Daniel 9 records the prophet’s prayer of confession for Israel’s sins during the Babylonian exile. In response, the angel Gabriel revealed a prophetic timeline: “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy” (Daniel 9:24).
These seventy weeks—literally “seventy sevens”—are understood as weeks of years, totaling 490 years. Gabriel divides this period into segments: seven weeks (49 years) and sixty-two weeks (434 years) until Messiah the Prince, then a final week during which covenant will be confirmed. The starting point is “the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem” (Daniel 9:25).
When Artaxerxes issued the decree allowing Nehemiah to rebuild Jerusalem’s walls in 445 BC, the prophetic clock began ticking. Calculating 483 years (69 weeks) forward—with adjustments for calendar differences between prophetic years of 360 days and solar years—brings us to approximately AD 32-33. This is precisely when Jesus Christ presented Himself to Israel, entered Jerusalem on a donkey, and was rejected and crucified.
The traditional reading recognizes this remarkable chronological precision. Daniel predicted not merely that a Messiah would come but when He would come. The prophecy established a divine timeline that history fulfilled with mathematical accuracy. Jesus arrived exactly on schedule.
The Troubling Phrase
“Messiah shall be cut off” presents a theological difficulty. The Hebrew term karat (cut off) typically indicates violent death, often as judgment. To be cut off is to be eliminated, destroyed, killed. But how can the Messiah—the promised deliverer, the hope of Israel—be cut off? The expectation was that Messiah would conquer Israel’s enemies, not be conquered by them; that He would reign in triumph, not die in apparent defeat.
The phrase “but not for himself” intensifies the mystery. His death accomplishes nothing for Him personally—no benefit, no vindication, no self-interest. This is death for others, death serving purposes beyond the one who dies. The Messiah’s cutting off is vicarious, representational, substitutionary.
Furthermore, the consequences following Messiah’s death seem catastrophic rather than triumphant. “The people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.” Jerusalem destroyed? The temple demolished? These sound like judgments upon Israel, not blessings through Israel. How does Messiah’s death lead to such devastating outcomes?
Many Jewish interpreters struggled with these implications, preferring to identify the passage with other figures or future scenarios. The idea of a suffering, dying Messiah clashed with expectations of a conquering king. Yet the text stands: Messiah will be cut off. His death will occur after the sixty-nine weeks, before the temple’s destruction. And this death will not be for Himself.
Cut Off at Calvary
Jesus Christ fulfilled Daniel’s prophecy with precision that cannot reasonably be attributed to coincidence. He appeared in Israel during the exact timeframe Gabriel indicated. He was acknowledged as Messiah by His followers—”Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). And He was cut off—crucified outside Jerusalem at the demand of His own people and the execution of Rome.
The phrase “not for himself” describes the nature of His death. Jesus did not die for His own sins—He had none. He did not die for His own crimes—He was innocent. Pilate declared, “I find no fault in this man” (Luke 23:4). He died for others. “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). The cutting off was substitutionary: the Messiah dying in place of the guilty.
The destruction of Jerusalem and the temple followed in AD 70, exactly as Daniel predicted. The Roman armies under Titus—”the people of the prince that shall come”—demolished the city and sanctuary, leaving not one stone upon another as Jesus had warned. This destruction came as consequence of Israel’s rejection of their Messiah. Having cut off the Prince of Life, they experienced the desolation He had foretold.
Cut Off That We Might Be Joined
The cutting off of Messiah accomplishes what Daniel 9:24 declared: finishing transgression, making an end of sins, making reconciliation for iniquity, bringing in everlasting righteousness. These purposes required Messiah’s death, not despite His messianic identity but because of it. Only the Messiah could accomplish what needed doing, and it could only be accomplished through His being cut off.
To be cut off is the penalty for covenant breaking throughout Scripture. “That soul shall be cut off from his people” (Genesis 17:14). The Messiah took upon Himself the curse that covenant breakers deserved. He who kept the covenant perfectly was cut off as though He had broken it utterly. “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13).
Because He was cut off, those united to Him by faith will never be cut off. “I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand” (John 10:28). The security that believers enjoy rests on the cutting off that Christ endured. He experienced the ultimate severance so that we might know eternal union. He was rejected so that we might be accepted. He was abandoned so that we might never be forsaken.
The seventy weeks prophecy reveals that God’s salvation plan operates by divine timetable and divine method. The timetable: precise to the year when Messiah would appear. The method: Messiah cut off, not for Himself but for others. Nothing in Christ’s death was accidental or unexpected from heaven’s perspective. “Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain” (Acts 2:23). The cross was planned before time and executed on schedule within time.
The Appointed Time, Your Response
Daniel’s prophecy demonstrates that God keeps His word with precision. When He announced 483 years until Messiah, He meant exactly that. When He declared the Messiah would be cut off, it happened precisely as stated. When He warned that Jerusalem and the temple would be destroyed after Messiah’s rejection, it occurred within a generation.
This precision should strengthen faith. The God who fulfilled Daniel’s prophecy will fulfill every remaining promise. Christ will return as surely as He came the first time. The final week of Daniel’s prophecy will unfold exactly as God revealed. Heaven operates not by wishful thinking but by sovereign decree.
Yet Daniel 9:26 also presents a solemn warning. Israel rejected and cut off their Messiah; Jerusalem’s destruction followed. The consequences of refusing God’s provision are severe. The temple that was Israel’s glory became Israel’s ruin because they refused the One the temple pointed to. Religious privilege does not protect those who reject the Messiah to whom that privilege points.
But for all who receive rather than reject, the cutting off of Messiah becomes the doorway to life. Not for Himself—for you. His death accomplishes what your death could never achieve: reconciliation with God, forgiveness of sins, everlasting righteousness credited to your account. The Messiah cut off invites the cut off to come home. Will you come? The same prophecy that predicted His death predicted its purpose—to make an end of sins and bring in everlasting righteousness. That purpose is offered to you today. Receive the One who was cut off, and find yourself joined to God forever.