Daniel 9:24
“Seventy ‘sevens’ are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy Place.” (NIV)
Today’s Reading: Daniel 9:24
Our last prophecy in Daniel 9:24 and event that will take place during the seventy “sevens” is the anointing of the Most Holy Place. Let’s first define the terms and then see what we can discover about this prophecy.
The Hebrew word for “anoint” is māšaḥ which almost always describes the deliberate application of oil on a person, place or object to set them apart for service to God. This word was used almost seventy times in the Old Testament such as:
“I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and where you made a vow to me. Now leave this land at once and go back to your native land” (Gen 31:13).
“After you put these clothes on your brother Aaron and his sons, anoint and ordain them. Consecrate them so they may serve me as priests” (Ex 28:41).
“Make these into a sacred anointing oil, a fragrant blend, the work of a perfumer. It will be the sacred anointing oil. Then use it to anoint the tent of meeting, the ark of the covenant law, the table and all its articles, the lampstand and its accessories, the altar of incense, the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils, and the basin with its stand. You shall consecrate them so they will be most holy, and whatever touches them will be holy” (Ex 30:25-29).
God prescribed the anointing of many things to Moses so that these people, places and things would be designated as His or holy. This anointing oil that Moses made was considered so sacred that if anyone attempted to make it and put it on themselves they would be “cut off” or essentially deported from Israel.
Once Moses had constructed the tabernacle, he anointed it and everything in it:
“When Moses finished setting up the tabernacle, he anointed and consecrated it and all its furnishings. He also anointed and consecrated the altar and all its utensils” (Num 7:1).
Once the tabernacle was fully anointed, God instructed the Israelites to take twelve days (one day for each tribe) to bring sacrifices to complete the dedication of the tabernacle. After these twelve days of sacrifices were completed, Moses was then allowed to enter the Most Holy Place where God would speak to him.
So one possible interpretation of this prophecy could be that there will be a physical temple that resembles the original tabernacle and the first two temples that no longer exist. These houses of God contained a Most Holy Place that was anointed by God to be the place where God would speak to the high priest. There is no Jewish temple today so then one would have to assume that a new temple will be built before this prophecy can be fulfilled.
The Hebrew word translated as “the Most Holy Place” is qōdeš which can mean “the Most Holy Place” but can also mean . This word is used over 450 times in the Old Testament in a variety of ways to signify something being holy or set apart for God. It is also used to describe where God dwells such as:
“Hear my cry for mercy
as I call to you for help,
as I lift up my hands
toward your Most Holy Place” (Ps 28:2).
“There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells” (Ps 46:4).
God doesn’t really live in a tabernacle or temple. We know that the tabernacle of Moses was simply an earthly replica of the true Most Holy Place that is in heaven:
“They [high priests] serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: ‘See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain’” (Heb 8:5).
And according the author of Hebrews, the true tabernacle is in heaven and Jesus currently serves us as the High Priest there:
“We do have such a high priest [Jesus], who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by a mere human being” (Heb 8:1-2).
Thus, we could assume that this prophecy of Daniel has already been fulfilled by Jesus because you can assume that if Jesus is serving as the High Priest of heaven, then that Most Holy Place has been anointed or set apart for God. Furthermore, Gabriel calls the Messiah “the Anointed One” in his interpretation of this very prophecy and Jesus even referred to himself as the temple as did John in his Revelation:
“I tell you that something greater than the temple is here” (Matt 12:6).
“Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.’ They replied, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?’ But the temple he had spoken of was his body” (John 2:19-21).
“I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple” (Rev 21:22).
So the anointing of the Most Holy Place could be the anointing of Jesus himself. He was anointed by God and also actually anointed by a sinful woman with alabaster before his death. But there’s yet a third possibility as well. God now lives inside of His people through the Holy Spirit. Our bodies and the church as a whole are considered God’s temple:
“Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple” (1 Cor 3:16-17).
“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies” (1 Cor 6:19-20).
So I believe that the Most Holy Place has most likely already been anointed. But which place the Most Holy Place is remains to be seen. But regardless of which Most Holy Place this prophecy says will be anointed, we can see how sacred God declared his tabernacle to be to Moses. They spent a considerable amount of time and money to anoint it and there were grave consequences for anyone who did not treat it as holy.
God considers us equally holy and sacred. We are set apart to be servants of God and we should consider our bodies to be holy temples where God lives and does His work. Honoring God with our bodies is our act of worship:
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship” (Rom 12:1).
Christ in the Old Testament 
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