Daniel 9 [Literal Translation]
24 “Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and your holy city, to restrain (the) transgression, to seal up sins, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy Place.
25 Know therefore and understand: from the issuing of the word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. In (the) times of distress, the street and the moat shall be built again.
26 And after the sixty-two weeks, the Anointed One shall be cut off and shall have nothing; and the people of a prince (who) is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with (the) flood; war shall continue to the end, and desolations are determined.
27 Within one week he shall confirm a covenant with (the) many; and in the midst of the week, he shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. On the wing of abominations comes one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.”
Let us first compare two passages of Scripture:
1. “From the time that the daily sacrifice is abolished and the abomination that causes desolation is set up, there will be 1,290 days.” (Daniel 12:11)
This passage clearly points to the Antichrist, which is generally undisputed.
2. “In the midst of the week, he shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering.” (Daniel 9:27)
There is disagreement over this passage. Some believe “he” refers to our Lord Jesus Christ, while others believe “he” refers to the Antichrist.
If we examine them closely, we find that these two passages do not point to the same thing. The first passage speaks of the Antichrist “abolishing the daily sacrifice”—he merely removes the daily burnt offerings required by the Law. The second passage speaks of “sacrifice and offering bringing to an end,” meaning that the entire system of sacrifices and offerings has ceased; it is not just the daily burnt offering that stops, but all of them. They are no longer needed.
Hebrews 10:8-18 provides a perfect interpretation for this passage in Daniel:
9 Then he said, ‘Here I am, I have come to do your will.’ He sets aside the first to establish the second.
10 And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
11 Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
12 But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God,
13 and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool.
14 For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
15 The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says:
16 ‘This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.’
17 Then he adds: ‘Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.’
18 And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.”
Therefore, “in the midst of the week, he shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering” refers exactly to how, within the one week, the Lord established the New Covenant with His own blood, allowing our sins to be forgiven so that sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary. “He” still refers to our Lord Jesus Christ!
Thanks and praise be to the Lord!
Note:
If you carefully read The Seventy Weeks and the 70th Week, you will find that this is also chronologically impossible under other interpretations, as this describes the first half of the 70th week, whereas the appearance of the Antichrist occurs in the second half of the 70th week.