Jesus: From Genesis to Revelation

Day 3: The Anointed One Cut Off and the Resurrection of the Dead

Reading

Historical Context

Daniel 9 opens with the prophet in prayer – one of the most searching confessions in all of Scripture – prompted by his reading of Jeremiah’s prophecy that Jerusalem’s desolation would last seventy years (Jeremiah 25:11-12; 29:10). Daniel has done the math. The seventy years are nearly complete. He prays not with triumphalism but with agonized repentance on behalf of his people: “We have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled” (Daniel 9:5). Into this prayer the angel Gabriel arrives “in swift flight” (muaph bi’aph) at the time of the evening sacrifice – a detail that connects the moment to the temple liturgy even though the temple lies in ruins. The sacrifice may have ceased, but its hour still structures heaven’s timetable.

Gabriel’s message reframes the seventy years into seventy “weeks” (shabuim – literally “sevens”), yielding a period of 490 years. The Hebrew is compressed and notoriously difficult, but the broad strokes are clear: a period is decreed “to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place” (Daniel 9:24). Six purposes, each escalating in scope. The final purpose – limeshoach qodesh qodashim (“to anoint a most holy”) – uses language drawn from the consecration of the tabernacle (Exodus 30:26). Something – or someone – is being set apart as the ultimate holy of holies.

The anointed one (mashiach) appears twice in the passage. After sixty-nine weeks, “an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing” (Daniel 9:26). The Hebrew ve’ein lo (“and nothing to him” or “and shall have nothing”) is devastating in its brevity. The anointed one – the consecrated ruler – is cut off (yikkaret), a verb used throughout the Torah for covenant exclusion and violent death (cf. Genesis 17:14; Leviticus 7:20). He dies. And he has nothing. No throne, no kingdom, no vindication – at least not yet. The passage then describes the destruction of “the city and the sanctuary” by “the people of the prince who is to come,” language that finds its historical fulfillment in Rome’s destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.

Daniel 12 shifts to the end of all things. Michael the archangel rises. A time of tribulation comes “such as never has been since there was a nation” (Daniel 12:1). And then: “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2). This is the Old Testament’s clearest statement of bodily resurrection – not the survival of a disembodied soul, but the awakening of those who sleep in the dust, an echo of Genesis 3:19 (“to dust you shall return”). The dust that received Adam’s body will give it back. The verb yaqitsu (“shall awake”) treats death as sleep – temporary, interruptible, subject to a morning that will surely come.

The book closes with a personal word to Daniel: “Go your way till the end. And you shall rest and shall stand in your allotted place at the end of the days” (Daniel 12:13). Three verbs, three movements: go (live your remaining life), rest (die and await), stand (rise at the appointed time). The promise of resurrection is not a general theological principle. It is a personal address: you, Daniel, will rise. The grave is a pause, not a period.

Christ in This Day

The anointed one “cut off” in Daniel 9:26 is the figure the New Testament identifies as Jesus of Nazareth. The verb yikkaret carries covenantal weight – to be “cut off” is to be severed from the community, from the land of the living, from every covenant promise. When Isaiah describes the Suffering Servant, he uses nearly identical language: “He was cut off out of the land of the living” (Isaiah 53:8). Jesus himself repeatedly taught his disciples that the Son of Man “must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed” (Mark 8:31). The “must” (dei) is not fatalism – it is the fulfillment of what Daniel saw. The Messiah’s death is not an interruption of God’s plan. It is the center of it. The anointed one is cut off precisely so that the six purposes of Daniel 9:24 can be accomplished: transgression finished, sin ended, iniquity atoned for, everlasting righteousness inaugurated.

The phrase “and shall have nothing” (ve’ein lo) captures the theology of the cross with devastating economy. On the cross, Jesus had nothing. No throne. No army. No vindication visible to the naked eye. His disciples scattered. His body was placed in a borrowed tomb. He was, to every human observer, cut off. Yet the resurrection answers the “nothing” with everything. The one who had nothing receives “all authority in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18). The sequence Daniel encoded – cut off, then given dominion (Daniel 7:14) – is the sequence of Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Cross, then crown. Death, then dominion. The anointed one who has nothing becomes the Son of Man who has everything.

Daniel 12:2 provides the Old Testament foundation for the bodily resurrection that Jesus proclaimed and embodied. When Jesus stood at Lazarus’s tomb and said, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25), he was not introducing a new concept. He was claiming to be the reality Daniel 12 had anticipated. Paul makes the connection explicit: “Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20). The “many who sleep in the dust” will awake because one who slept in the dust has already awakened. Jesus’ resurrection is not an isolated miracle. It is the first morning of a new creation – the guarantee that every grave will open, that Daniel himself will “stand in his allotted place,” and that the dust of Genesis 3:19 does not have the final word.

Key Themes

Connections

Old Testament Roots

The “cutting off” of the anointed one echoes the covenant-curse language of Genesis 17:14 and Leviticus 7:20 – exclusion from the covenant community through death. Isaiah 53:8 uses the same verb to describe the Servant’s death. The resurrection of Daniel 12:2 fulfills the hope expressed in Job 19:25-27 (“I know that my Redeemer lives… and after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God”) and Isaiah 26:19 (“Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy”). The “dust” of Daniel 12:2 deliberately echoes Genesis 2:7 (formed from dust) and Genesis 3:19 (returning to dust).

New Testament Echoes

Luke 24:25-27 records the risen Jesus explaining to the Emmaus disciples that “the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory,” interpreting “Moses and all the Prophets” – a category that includes Daniel. John 5:28-29 directly echoes Daniel 12:2: “An hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.” Acts 3:18 declares that “what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled.”

Parallel Passages

Isaiah 53:1-12 – the Suffering Servant cut off from the land of the living. Psalm 22:1-31 – the righteous sufferer abandoned by God yet vindicated before the nations. Hosea 6:2 – “After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up.” Ezekiel 37:1-14 – the valley of dry bones, where God breathes life into the dead.

Reflection Questions

  1. The anointed one is “cut off and shall have nothing.” How does this three-word description – ve’ein lo, “nothing to him” – capture the theology of the cross? What does it mean that the Messiah’s path to everlasting dominion passes through total dispossession?

  2. Daniel 12:2 describes the dead as “sleeping in the dust.” How does the metaphor of sleep change the way you think about death? What does it imply about the certainty of awakening?

  3. “You shall rest and shall stand in your allotted place at the end of the days” (Daniel 12:13). The angel speaks to Daniel personally. How does the individual specificity of this promise – not merely “the dead shall rise” but “you shall stand” – address your own fears about mortality?

Prayer

Father, we stand in awe of the mystery Daniel received: an anointed one cut off and left with nothing, yet through that cutting off, transgression finished and everlasting righteousness brought in. We thank you that this is not a riddle without a name. It is Jesus – rejected, crucified, buried, and raised. He had nothing on the cross so that we might have everything in him. We thank you for the promise of Daniel 12 – that those who sleep in the dust shall awake, that the grave is not a destination but a resting place, that a morning is coming when every tomb will open at the sound of your Son’s voice. Speak to us as you spoke to Daniel: “You shall rest, and you shall stand.” Let that promise quiet our fear of death and ground our hope in the resurrection that has already begun in Christ, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. In his name we pray. Amen.