It cannot properly be said that there has been any partial accomplishment of the “one week” of years of Daniel 9. Scripture does not present the matter in that light at all. It simply says that “after the three score and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off and shall have nothing” (see margin).
The one week is future. Who is he who confirms a covenant for one week? He is the prince of verse 26, who was future when his people destroyed Jerusalem, city and temple, after Christ was cut off. He was yet future when John penned the Book of Revelation. “Five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space” (chap. 17:10). [Does anyone ask, “Where is the Roman beast or empire now?” We are living during an interregnum which may end at any time.] He is future still, being the seventh head of the beast. The eighth head only lasts half a week of years or forty-two months (chap. 13.). It is therefore the seventh head which confirms a covenant for a week of years, which the eighth breaks when he comes up healed of his mortal wound. Wounded as “seventh,” he comes back as “eighth.”
The second beast, or false prophet (doubtless the Jewish Antichrist) comes up after the first, and the abomination of desolation is promptly set up in the holy place. (This seems to be done in momentary confederacy with the Assyrian. See Isaiah 8:7, 8, 18:14-18.)
The “seventh” head comes to his end in the universal upsetting under the sixth seal, when the heaven itself departs as a scroll when it is rolled together. That is the end for the Roman earth of rulers drawing their authority from God according to Daniel 2, for though the beast of Revelation 13. is also part of that great image, it draws its authority from the dragon who for the first time is able to give “his power and his seat and great authority.” F. M. H.