Things that won't happen;- The peace treaty

The full title of this theme ought to be “Things that won’t happen in the end-times”.
I’m referring to those anticipated events, featuring in speculations about the end-times, which are based on misinterpretations of what the Bible says.

In this case, I’m looking at “the peace treaty arranged by the antichrist”.
This expectation seems to be based on the prophecy that the prince who is to come “shall make a strong covenant with many for one week”, which will be the last of the seventy “weeks of years”. (Daniel ch9 v27).
So any critique of the “peace treaty” theory needs to be based on a better understanding of what the verse means.

I will accept the tradition of identifying this prince with the domineering king at the end of ch11, and the dominating Beast of Revelation ch13.
“Antichrist” is a convenient label for this person, so I’m not going to quarrel with it.
The important point is that he achieves power in the world, which is then directed against God and his people.

Therefore the “week of years” should be understood as the lifespan of his power.
“Seven” is the symbolic number associated with God. The implication is that the prince rules only as long as God allows him to rule, so there is no need for us to take the period as a literal “seven years”.

If this ruler maintains his power for “a week of years”, then ”he makes strong covenant with many for one week” is describing how he maintains his power.

The effect of a covenant, in the culture of that period, was to establish a relationship between two parties. It might be setting up an agreement between equals, as in the case of Abraham and Abimelech, or defining a subordinate relation, as in the covenants between God and his people.
So the significance of “making covenant with many” will be that the prince has achieved and secured his power by recruiting supporters, and binding them to himself by many separate covenants.

In fact that’s how power always works, in practice. No one man can manage a large population single-handed. He needs henchmen to accept and transmit his authority.
The authority of a mediaeval monarch and the authority of a modern Mafia boss are both established on a network of subordinates, expressing their allegiance in the manner appropriate to the respective cultures.
Now the original model for the last king in Daniel was the infamous Antiochus Epiphanes, whose power in Jerusalem was first based on a local faction that was willing to support him.
So the quoted verse in Daniel, understood properly, reflects what he was doing to establish his authority.

In the same way, domination over a wider world would be achieved by working through subordinate rulers.
History shows how Hitler’s power in Europe was extended by his different relationships (“many covenants”) with men like Mussolini, Franco, Pierre Laval in France, and Admiral Horthy in Hungary.
The same thing is happening in Revelation, when the “ten kings”, who govern the world in general, “give over their power and authority to the Beast”. (Revelation ch17 v13) The autocracy established by this collaboration is able to rule the world “for one hour” (which is the equivalent of Daniel’s “week”).

The statement in Daniel is the equivalent of the statement just quoted from Revelation.
It means that “the prince who is to come” has established, through “many covenants”, an elaborate network of clients and allies to underpin his power.
With their assistance, he governs his world unchallenged as long as God allows him to govern.
But in the second part of the verse, the second half of the “week”, the second half of the “hour”, his over-confidence incites him to challenge God himself, and the tribulation follows.

So where does the “peace treaty” theory come from?
The starting-point is that Daniel’s “covenant with many” is taken to mean a single agreement with multiple partners, in the style of modern diplomacy.
What would be the circumstances of such an agreement?
The preliminary assumption is that all these events must be focussed upon Jerusalem and upon “Israel”, in the geographical sense of the term.
There’s a further assumption that these events will be taking place in the near future, preferably in our own lifetime.
When these two rather questionable assumptions are combined, they seem to point us towards the current friction between the nation-state of Israel and their neighbours.
That is what turns the agreement into a “peace treaty”.
The supposition is that the prince helps to broker a general settlement, or else makes a treaty of his own with Israel themselves.

Since the covenant is said to last for seven years, another supposition is that the seven-year time limit is built into it, as one of the clauses.
But the actual life-span of an agreement doesn’t have to depend on the intended life-span.
In fact that is rather unlikely, in the case of a peace treaty.
When peace agreements are made, the normal aspiration is that they should last indefinitely.
The only exception that comes to mind, offhand, is the Twelve Years’ Truce (1609-1621) in the war between Spain and the independent Netherlands.
As for the detail that the negotiators of the treaty break off at eleven-thirty every morning for a cup of tea, I think I may have made that one up.
The imaginative reconstruction of end-time history has not quite got that far.

The supposed peace treaty has been worked up by speculators who are eager to flesh out the scanty Biblical details about the events of the end-times, and build them into a consecutive narrative.
It is necessary to construct a narrative about the course of political events in those days, because the Bible itself does not provide one.
When prophecy talks about the end-times (which is not very often), the message is focussed on three main points;
1 ) There will be a power which sets itself against God and his people.
2 ) God will deal with them, in his own time.
3 ) Our function in this crisis will be to remain trusting and faithful.

That Is really all we need to know.
Armed with that information, the man of faith should be ready for anything that gets thrown at him.
Only the weaker faith needs the re-assurance of an elaborate and comforting timetable.

Where ya been ?
A Jordanian has supposedly leaked the Treaty that most likely will be signed this year.
You missing out on stuff.

a reply to: Gothmog
Peace treaties will happen. I'm not denying peace treaties in general, just prophetically predicted peace treaties.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Sorry,but way too long to read while eating my dinner.

a reply to: mamabeth
The OP is a thousand characters shorter than my usual length.
Even so, you have permission to wait until you've finished eating.

At the same time, we were also instructed to watch and study that we not be taken unaware by the times and season too. I think it likely that's where so many of the predictions get started - people trying to figure out what they should be watching for like so many weathermen trying to see the storms rolling in.

a reply to: ketsuko
I just don't think that God will be providing any political events as clues. The things we need to watch out for are more direct symptoms of hostility towards God.

originally posted by: DISRAELI
a reply to: ketsuko
I just don't think that God will be providing any political events as clues. The things we need to watch out for are more direct symptoms of hostility towards God.

Plenty of that going on all over. If that marks the season, then we're hip deep in it.

a reply to: ketsuko
The really crucial event we're told to look for is an abomination (that is, something directing worship towards another god), which brings desolation (that is, a sense of loss of contact with the true God).

a reply to: DISRAELI

Honestly, I think we're even seeing that or the start of it.

Plenty of spiritually empty young folk out there looking for something to fill that void. They're ready to turn to anything that they think will fill the emptiness ... except religion because they've been taught that it's bad, hokey, and anti-modern/anti-science.

Right now, they're into various forms of activism to scratch that itch.

originally posted by: DISRAELI
a reply to: Gothmog
Peace treaties will happen. I'm not denying peace treaties in general, just prophetically predicted peace treaties.

Yet , this treaty between the US , Palestinians , and Israel seems to "fit the bill"

a reply to: ketsuko
When it's imposed by political authority and made complusory, that's when we're really in trouble.

originally posted by: DISRAELI
a reply to: ketsuko
When it's imposed by political authority and made complusory, that's when we're really in trouble.

China has the system. All it takes is for someone to make it a "spiritual" experience, but SJW progressivism is already a form of puritanism and verging on religion in some ways now. Marry the two and you have what it will take.

Of course, I have no idea how it actually will happen. I only see things that bother me springing up in society around us. I have a young son, you see, so worry on my part is to be expected to some degree, but it will either happen ... or not.

a reply to: Gothmog
There are no signs of an "antichrist", which has to mean something more than "prominent political figure".

a reply to: ketsuko
Yes, that's the kind of thing. "Climate change" needs to be added to the list. Once panic overcomes belief in scientific solutions, that will become a religious movement of terrifying power.

If you don't mind I would like to help you understand what the 69 weeks and the 1 week for a total of 70 weeks refer to. You will see this has nothing to do with end times. It has reference to the appearing of the Messiah.

The prophecy is here:

"You should know and understand that from the issuing of the word to restore and to rebuild Jerusalem until Mes·siʹah the Leader, there will be 7 weeks, also 62 weeks. She will be restored and rebuilt, with a public square and moat, but in times of distress."-Daniel 9:25.

The word that was issued to rebuild Jerusalem was given in the 20th year of the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus
when he granted permission to Nehemiah to return to Jerusalem to oversee the building:

"In the month of Niʹsan, in the 20th year of King Ar·ta·xerxʹes...Then I said to the king: “If it pleases the king, let letters be given me for the governors of the region Beyond the River, granting me safe passage until I reach Judah, 8 as well as a letter to Aʹsaph the keeper of the Royal Park, so that he may give me timber for beams for the gates of the Fortress of the House and for the walls of the city and for the house where I will go.” So the king gave them to me, for the good hand of my God was upon me."-Nehemiah 1:7, 8.

This was the year 455 B. C. E.

The weeks are weeks of years. 69 in total. So 69 weeks of years, or 483 years after the issue to rebuild the walls in Jerusalem Messiah would appear. If you count 483 years from 455 B. C. E. you come to the year 29 C. E. In that year Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in water and also reborn with the holy spirit.

The last week of years refer to the 3 1/2 years of Jesus' ministry of preaching the good news of God's kingdom and his death:

"And after the 62 weeks, Mes·siʹah will be cut off, with nothing for himself...and at the half of the week, he will cause sacrifice and gift offering to cease."-Daniel 9:27.

When Jesus preached he only went to the Jews, he even said so:

“I was not sent to anyone except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."-Matthew 15:24.

The "many" who the covenant was kept in force with were the Jews. So after Jesus died his apostles and disciples who were ALL Jews or proselytes (a convert to Judaism) were to only preach to the house of Israel for another 3 1/2 years, for a total of 7 years.

At the end of the 7 years, 3 1/2 years after Jesus had died, the end of the 70 weeks of years, the holy spirit lead the apostle Peter who was given the keys of the kingdom to an uncircumcised gentile Roman Centurion Cornelius, and he and his entire household were baptized with holy spirit, and then given water baptism and welcomed into the Christian congregation.


Here is a chart that explains the things quite nicely:

a reply to: SimpleIdea
In an older thread, I've looked at some of the difficulties in the various approaches to the 70 weeks;
The unsolved puzzle of the seventy weeks
The difficulties that belong to your approach can be traced back to taking the text in isolation, without taking into account the overall context of the book of Daniel.

The most important point is that the second half of Daniel is taking the notorious Antiochus Epiphanes as the model of the hostile king. "Causing the sacrifice to cease", like "abomination of desolation" in ch11 and Matthew ch24, is a reference to what Antiochus did when he erected an idol in the temple at Jerusalem (abomination), stopping the traditional sacrifices (or transferring them to the new idol, which comes to the same thing), and giving God's people the sense that their primary contact point with God had been blocked off (desolation). Therefore "causing the sacrifice to cease" has to be meant by the writer of Daniel in a bad sense, and the person that does it has to be a hostile ruler modelled on Antiochus. So trying to present these things in a "good" sense and apply them to the ministry of Jesus simply will not do. It is the exact opposite of what the writer of Daniel could have meant.

Coming now to the end of the week. You are forgetting that this whole vision comes in answer to Daniel's query (v2) about the end of the desolations of Jerusalem. So the end of the final three-and-a-half days, as the end of the seventy weeks, has to be the time when the troubles of God's people come to an end and their relationship with God is fully restored. That is confirmed by comparing what ch12 says about the "time, two times and half a time", which is recognisaably another way of saying "three and a half". The close of this period is defined as the time when all these troubles and tribulations, including "the shattering of the power of the holy people" (ch12 v7), come to an end; a time when everything is "accomplished" and there is a final settlement. The conversion of Cornelius is an important development, but it doesn't come anywhere close to what Daniel is promising.

Finally the "cutting off" of the anointed one and the destruction of the city are supposed to be happening at the beginning of the final week. I think "cutting off" has to mean something more drastic than your own suggestion, though at least you avoid the flaw (which I've seen elsewhere) of proposing the Crucifixion twice, once as the "cutting off" and again as the "ending of sacrifice". And you say nothing about the destruction of the city, presumably because A.D. 70 won't fit into your time-scheme properly.

This mini-series is really about the way futurists sometimes invent things by taking Biblical statements out of context. Your interpretation illustrates how non-futurists can make the same mistake.

originally posted by: DISRAELI
a reply to: ketsuko
Yes, that's the kind of thing. "Climate change" needs to be added to the list. Once panic overcomes belief in scientific solutions, that will become a religious movement of terrifying power.

Stop living in fear; you are being manipulated, harvested for that emotion. Listen to yourself: PANIC, TERRIFYING, RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT..you are invoking a state of emotional paralysis by these proclamations.

a reply to: DISRAELI
The prince to come wwas Jesus The covenant of peace was to the Jewish nation He was cut off in the mist of the week. The a time of testing God gave them 40 years to repent after the vail had been torn they did not stop the abomination of animal sacrifices so God tore the temple down.

a reply to: JON666
Your first remark repeats what Simpelidea says above, so I will repeat to you what I said to Simpelidea;

"The most important point is that the second half of Daniel is taking the notorious Antiochus Epiphanes as the model of the hostile king. "Causing the sacrifice to cease", like "abomination of desolation" in ch11 and Matthew ch24, is a reference to what Antiochus did when he erected an idol in the temple at Jerusalem (abomination), stopping the traditional sacrifices (or transferring them to the new idol, which comes to the same thing), and giving God's people the sense that their primary contact point with God had been blocked off (desolation). Therefore "causing the sacrifice to cease" has to be meant by the writer of Daniel in a bad sense, and the person that does it has to be a hostile ruler modelled on Antiochus. So trying to present these things in a "good" sense and apply them to the ministry of Jesus simply will not do. It is the exact opposite of what the writer of Daniel could have meant. "

Also the word "abomination", in the Old Testament (and certainly in the episode of Antiochus and in Daniel) refers to the worship of another God. Moloch was an abomination, the image of Moloch was an abomination, the fact that kingdom Israrel offered sacrifice to Moloch was an abomination. Also it is clear from the rest of the verse that "stopping the sacrifice" is introducing the abomination. The explanation is (always remweber that rhis is modelled on Antiochus Epiphanes) that introducing the worship of a false god and stopping the worship of the true God are a single combined operation. The first is abomination, the second is desolation. This is not about what Jesus did or about the existing sacrifices