Well, before I asked the question about being more specific I read that portion of Daniel over a few times to see if I could understand your meaning. So the repetition of scripture here is fine, but does not explain your interpretation specifically.
Ancient Hebrew writers did not organize their thoughts and words in a chronological fashion the way we do. By default their logic organized what they wrote in subject blocks and not according to our Greco-Roman step philosophy. So I wonder if the "straightforward manner" you are talking about takes that into consideration and what specifically about the text leads you to suspect that a chronological interpretation is warranted.
In addition, it is generally accepted that the prophets glimpsed mountain ranges of future historical events but, because of their distant perspective, the specific order of the peaks was not necessarily distinguishable to them. Only the unfolding of God's redemptive plan would reveal these finer details.
The other thing I find missing in Daniel 9, if a chronological perspective is adopted (and I am not saying it should be), is any hint that what was being prophesied was to have any kind of interruption in history.
True on most of that.
Likewise in the NT often as well: descriptions do not always follow a linear order.
As for your last point, the division actually begins after the phrase "but not for himself" in verse 26, and continues on to the end of the chapter, leaving verse 24 in limbo.
And Daniel is told more than once in Daniel, that he is not to know the exact times or seasons for all that.
Case in point, how the book ends...
Daniel 12:8 And I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things? 12:9 And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. 12:10 Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand. 12:11 And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. 12:12 Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days. 12:13 But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days.
But he is not to know when that would be.
No surprise there...
The Lord's Own Words about His cutting off, but not for Himself...
Matthew 26:28 For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
Followed by an obvious gap in time, in between that, and this...
26:29 But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.
And He constantly does that - alludes to a time sometime yet future divided by a gap in time between His 1st and His 2nd Advent...
Matthew 19:28 And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 19:29 And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life. 19:30 But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first.
Luke 19:12 He said therefore, A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return.
Thus, His assertion in the following...
Acts 1:6 When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? 1:7 And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.
Leaving Daniel 9: 24 in limbo.
Til Paul.
He was given a bit more detail about this delay...which is what this is addressing...
Romans 9:19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
In other words, Paul is rhetorically addressing the Jew's "what's the hold up now?"
To which Paul responds by remind the Jew of other times in Israel's past wherein God Prophesied events that played out within His Own timeframe, given His Sovereignty to do so...
9:20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? 9:21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
That reminder out of the way, he then goes into one more delay...
9:22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: 9:23 And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, 9:24 Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
Afterwhich, Paul then relates other times from Israel's past in which God had delayed things, the result being that it had only looked as though God had been through with Daniel's people and Holy City, etc.
Romans 9:25 As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved. 9:26 And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God. 9:27 Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved: 9:28 For he will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth. 9:29 And as Esaias said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been as Sodoma, and been made like unto Gomorrha.
Daniel's exact concern about the future of his people and their Holy City, in his prayer to the Lord, at the beginning of Daniel 9.
Acts 17:11, 12
