What Daniel Says About the Messiah in the Prophesy of Seventy Weeks

There are two Hebrew terms which mean 'disappear'

אינו He is not there.

ואין לו He disappears, he has disappeared.


I put both down for comparison. My point was that the distinction can be made in Hebrew, and Daniel has the second expression, not the first.

More fully:

The first expression is used of Enoch. “He walked with the angels (ha-Elohim). And he was not (he was not there any more); for God (Elohim) took him (had taken him)”. In Biblical Hebrew ואיננו (ve-enénnu) is the equivalent of ואינו (ve-enó).

The distinction is like this. The first means he she or it does not exist or does not exist any more. Of a person, it could mean he has died, but only if something is added. In the case of Enoch it means he was transported (to Heaven, not to Australia). If said of an empire, it would mean it no longer exists. The second means he is no longer present, he has vanished, he is off the scene. It does not mean he has died. His whereabouts might be well known, but he is not HERE or ACTING IN THIS CONTEXT.

The verb yikkaret does not mean he will die. I know everyone says it does, but it does not. If the context allows AND DEMANDS IT, it can mean he will be killed, as the Peshitta translates it. But the meaning without preconceptions is that he will stop acting in his function. THIS VERB IS NOT NORMALLY USED OF PEOPLE. It is used of dynasties, for example. Its use in relation to a person is not normal. It is JARRING. The meaning can only be that he stops acting as Anointed Leader. The sentence says (over-translating) “The OFFICE of Anointed Leader will terminate. He will disappear from the scene”.

A bit more. There is one common use of the Biblical Hebrew narrative future of KRT in the feminine passive (ve-nichreta ונכרתה) in reference to a person. Someone is sure to raise this as an objection, so here is the answer. In several places in the Torah, it says that if a soul (nefesh, feminine) does some defined thing or does not do some defined thing, that soul “will be cut off” from its (her) people. Rabbinic exegesis on the superficial level says this means death before the age of fifty. (This is why in John it is objected by someone that Jesus is not yet fifty. He has not ye proven his genuineness). If you look more carefully, what is meant is that death before that age can be a sign of this having happened, but not everyone in this category dies before fifty and not everyone that dies before fifty is in this category. The Rabbinic Hebrew noun is karet. Look this up in Jastrow. The meaning of karet is separation of the individual soul from its group identification. Note carefully that it does not in itself mean death. It means the end of adhesion of the individual soul to the group, and the ending of its share in the salvation of the group. The most salient offence [sic] causing karet is not to keep the Sabbath, but there are others.

Otherwise, KRT refers to the end of a dynasty.

Oversimplifying, ve-enó means he no longer exists or is no longer on this earth or at least no-one knows if he is still on this earth. Like when Rumsfeld said they knew exactly what had become of Bin Laden. Their reliable intelligence informed that he was alive in Afghanistan, or otherwise was dead in Afghanistan or was alive in some other country. I’m not making this up. On the other hand, ve-en lo means he vanishes rather than disappears. His whereabouts might be still be well known and he might still be active. So Daniel says (paraphrasing): (a) “The office of Anointed Leader will be terminated (like the termination of a dynasty). There is no longer any office of Anointed Leader”; OR (b) “The individual Anointed Leader will be separated off (from “the Jews” in the sense the expression has in the NT). He won’t be there doing the job (though he will be alive and well as king, and he MIGHT EVEN STILL BE ANOINTED LEADER, but “the Jews” have no share in it)”. I will see what the Yosippon has as the wording in Agrippa’s speech.

If the final editing of Daniel was before the time of Agrippa, then the first meaning was intended. Agrippa interpreted the words in the second meaning. This is important. We don’t have to say the final editing of Daniel was in the time of Agrippa. This gets rid of a difficulty.


You must look up the root KRT in a full dictionary of Biblical Hebrew, one big enough to give the full range of meanings with examples. You don’t need the recent one published by Brill’s. (Who else?). The Hebrew and English Lexicon known as BDB or Brown-Driver-Briggs of about 1910 is now available in reprint very cheaply. You need it.