The Sanctuary and Twenty-three Hundred Days

DETERMINED, IN Verse 24, MEANS CUT OFF

” ‘Seventy weeks are determined’, literally ‘cut off’. The Hebraists all admit that the word determined, in our English version, does signify ‘cut off’. Not one has disputed it.”-JOSIAH LITCH, Midnight Cry, Vol. iv, No. 25. S23D 18.1

“Thus Chaldaic and Rabbinical authority, and that of the earliest versions, the Septuagint and Vulgate, give the single signification of ‘cutting off’ to this verb. Should it be inquired why a tropical sense has been attributed to it, such as ‘determining’ or ‘decreeing,’ it may be answered that the reference of the verse (in which it occurs) to Daniel 8:14, was unobserved. It was therefore supposed that there was no propriety in saying ‘seventy weeks are cut off’, when there was no other period of which they could have formed a portion. But as the period of 2300 days is first given, and verses 21 and 23, compared with Daniel 8:16, show that the ninth chapter furnishes an explanation of the vision in which Gabriel appeared to Daniel, and of the ‘matter’-(the commencement of the 2300 days)-the literal (or rather, to speak properly, the only) signification demanded by the subject matter, is that of ‘cut off’”.-PROF. WHITING, Midnight Cry, Vol. iv, No. 17. S23D 18.2

“Seventy weeks have been cut off upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sin offerings, and to make atonement for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy.” Daniel 9:24. Whiting’s Translation. S23D 18.3

The facts which are set before us in the above, from Litch and Whiting, should not be forgotten. S23D 18.4

1. The word rendered “determined” (verse 24), literally signifies “cut off”. 2. “The vision” which Gabriel came to explain, contained the period of 2300 days; and in the explanation he tells us that “seventy weeks have been cut off” upon Jerusalem and the Jews. This is a demonstration that the seventy weeks are a part of the 2300 days. Hence the commencement of the seventy weeks is the date of the 2300 days. And the fact that the seventy weeks were fulfilled in 490 years, as all admit, is a demonstration that the 2300 days from which this period of 490 days was cut off, is 2300 years. S23D 19.1