# 'He' and 'he'?



## JM (Sep 5, 2020)

I'm not sure where this quote came from but I found it stored on my computer a very old "eschatology" folder. On the surface it seems to make sense but I would like other, more knowledge folks to chime in, please and thanks.

_Quote:

The issue at Daniel 9 is the simple pronoun; he, she, it, they and them.

A simple pronoun does need to point back to a "familiar" or "close" antecedent.
However, this is not a rule of grammar that definitely fixes that antecedent. We have been taught in composition that too many he’s and she’s, etc. often leaves the reader confused as to which person is in view. Thus it is advisable to re-name or identify the various individuals in a narrative so that the subsequent pronouns have a specific person to point back to.

The speaker does not do that, so we have to really examine it to find out which noun the he refers back to.

Also, there is no relative clause here. There is a continuous narrative. The relative clause would be introduced by a relative pronoun. It is not so easy to simply break apart a narrative and "cut off" what refers to who.

We have two main issues it seems. (1) are there two "princes" or one? (2) If there are two, to which one do the various simple pronouns point back to?
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First then: At Daniel 9, we have TWO people.
1. Messiah the prince
2. The prince who is to come

There is debate about whether these are one and the same. But there is a HE identified in the last clause of verse 27, who is certainly NOT the Messiah. It says, "and what is decreed is poured out on the one who makes desolate.” So we MUST have two people in the context. Grammar does not help us determine whether the “he” of verse 27, "he will make strong a covenant," is referring to Messiah the prince or to the prince who is to come. We must rely on the context and the attendant language that is used to describe what these two people do and what happens to them.

However, we are not stuck with that. For in verse 26, we have some help. The phrase, "and his end will come with a flood." Is often translated as "its" end - referring to the city and sanctuary. But there are two problems. (1) the city and sanctuary results in a plural idea and the pronoun is singular. Therefore, "its" is not right. (2) the pronoun (his, its) is a masculine pronoun and therefore must refer to a masculine antecedent. The word “city,” is a feminine noun. The word prince is a masculine noun.

Thus, it should be "and his end will come with a flood." The question is then, who is the he of "his"? Does the end of Messiah the prince come with a flood? No. Does the end of "the prince who is to come" come with a flood? Yes. That is the final destruction of that coming prince. It might seem out of place to us to make a reference to the final destruction of this "prince who is to come," but not according to the intent of the writer - or rather SPEAKER, for it is Gabriel who is verbalizing this (Daniel just writes it down later).

To quote Keil and Delitzsch - In the following clause: "and his end with the flood,"
the suffix refers simply to the hostile NAGID, whose end is here emphatically placed over against his coming.

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Then there is the issue concerning the “he” of verse 27. We have to once again rely on context (close and far) to determine who the “he” is. The “he” cannot refer to the Messiah because (1) he did NOT make a strong covenant FOR 7 YEARS. (2) he did NOT break a 7-year covenant at the midpoint.

There is a natural gap of time between the 69th and the 70th week. It is at least 40 years long. It is found in verse 26: 1. Messiah is cut off that is the end of the 69th week, 2. according to the "messiah" theory, the 70th week must begin immediately with the making of a covenant, 3. but the text does not allow for that. It immediately jumps 40 years from the cutting off of Messiah to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans.

Everything in v. 27 happens in regard to the 70th week. That includes the destruction that is poured out on the one who makes desolate. (end quote) _

Thanks again,

jm


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## Eyedoc84 (Sep 6, 2020)

I only interpret one “he”. The city and sanctuary are destroyed by a “they”. It’s not the prince that shall come, but the PEOPLE of the prince that shall come. Titus himself is not the primary destroyer in this passage, but the Romans.


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