The first is: " He shall confirm the covenant to many for one week." Following the example of Theodotion, many (Hav., Hgstb., Aub., v. Leng., Hitzig, Hofm.) regard *inN W2W as the subject: one week shall confirm the covenant to many. But this poetic mode of expression is only admissible where the subject treated of in the statement of the speaker comes after the action, and therefore does not agree with WTO T,33n? where the confirming of the covenant is not the work of time, but the deed of a definite person. To this is to be added the circumstance that the definitions of time in this verse are connected with those in ver. 25, and are analogous to them, and must therefore be alike interpreted in both passages. But if, notwithstanding these considerations, we make iriK Jft3B> the subject, the question then presses itself upon us, Who effects the confirming of the covenant? Havernick, Hengstenberg, and Auberlen regard the Messias as the subject, and understand by the confirming of the covenant, the confirming of the New Covenant by the death of Christ. Ewald, v. Lengerke, and others think of Antiochus and the many covenants which, according to 1 Mace. i. 12, he established between the apostate Jews and the heathen Greeks. Hitzig understands by the " covenant " the
O. T. Covenant, and gives to TOW the meaning to make grievous: The one week shall make the covenant grievous to many, for they shall have to bear oppression on account of their faith. On the other hand, Hofmann (Schriftbew.) renders it: The one week shall confirm many in their fidelity to the faith. But none of these interpretations can be justified. The reasons which Hengstenberg adduces in support of his view that the Messias is the subject, are destitute of validity. The assertion that the Messias is the chief person spoken of in the whole of this passage, rests on the supposition, already proved to be untenable, that the prince who was to come (ver. 26) was the instrument of the Anointed, and on the passages in Isa. liii. 11 and xlii. 6, which are not parallel to that under consideration. The connection much more indicates that Nagid is tue subject to "P33H, since the prince who was to come is named last, and is also the subject in the suffix of tejp (his end), the last clause of ver. 26 having only the significance of an explanatory subordinate clause. Also u the taking away of the daily sacrifice combines itself in a natural way with the destruction (ver. 26) of the city and the temple brought about by the N3H TJ3; " — further, " he who here is represented as ' causing the sacrifice and oblation to cease' is obviously identical with him who changes (ch. vii. 25) the times and usages of worship (more correctly: times and law) " (Kran.). u The reference of TO?n to the ungodly leader of an army, is therefore according to the context and the parallel passages of this book which have been mentioned, as well as in harmony with the natural grammatical arrangement of the passage," and it gives also a congruous sense, although by the Nagid Titus cannot naturally be understood.!V"J3 TOjn means to strengthen a covenant, Le. to make a covenant strong (Hitzig has not established the rendering: to make grievous). *' Covenant " does not necessarily mean the covenant of God (Old Testament or New Testament Covenant), since the assertion that this word occurs only in this book with reference to the covenant of God with Israel (Hgstb.) does not also prove that it must here have this meaning; and with regard particularly to ch. xi. 22, it is very questionable. The expression rp"in TOW with? is analogous to JVT3 m_3 [icere fcedus] with?; and the construction with? signifies that as in the forming of a covenant, so in the confirming of a covenant, the two contracting parties are not viewed as standing on an equality, but he who concludes or who confirms the covenant prevails, and imposes or forces the covenant on the other party. The reference to the covenant of
God with man is thus indeed suggested, yet it is not rendered necessary, but only points to a relation analogous to the concluding of a covenant emanating from God. O^? with the article signifies the many, i.e. the great mass of the people in contrast with the few, who remain faithful to God; cf. Matt. xxiv. 12. Therefore the thought is this: That ungodly prince shall impose on the mass of the people a strong covenant that they should follow him and give themselves to him as their God.
While the first clause of this verse announces what shall happen during the whole of the last week, the second treats only of the half of this period. Jftltfn "»sn we cannot grammatically otherwise interpret than the definition of time mentioned immediately before, and thus, for reasons given above, cannot take it as the subject of the clause, but only as the accusative of the duration of time, consequently not in the sense of the ablative: in the midst of the week. The controversy whether W here means half, or midst, has no bearing on the matter, and acquires significance only if we interpret '•Vn, in opposition to the context, as synonymous with W?, or witn Klief., which is equally untenable and impossible in this context, regard Sft3#n W as an absolute definition. W signifies only half, not midst. Only where the representation of an extent of space or period of time prevails can we render it, without a change of its meaning, by the word midst. In the half of the night is the same as in the middle of the night, at midnight, Ex. xii. 29; in the half of the firmament, Josh. x. 13, is the same as in the middle of the space of the heavens across which the sun moves during day; in the half of the day of life is the same as in the middle of the period of life, Ps. cii. 25. But during the half of the week is not the same as: in the middle of the week. And the objection, that if we here take "■yn in the sense of half, then the heptad or cycle of seven would be divided into two halves (Klief.), and yet of only one of them was anything said, is without significance, because it would touch also the explanation u and in the midst of the heptad/' since in this case of the first, before the middle of the expiring half of the week, nothing also is said of what shall be done in it. If Kliefoth answers this objection by saying that we must conceive of this from the connection, namely, that which brings the power of Antichrist to its height, then we shall be able also, in the verbally correct interpretation of WlWri '•yn, to conceive from the connection what shall happen in the remaining period of the ^f. Yet weaker is the further objection: " that which is mentioned as coming to pass Jft3$n Wf the causing of the offering of sacrifice to cease, is something which takes place not during a period of time, but at a terminus " (Kliefoth); for since IV3^n does not properly mean to remove, but to make to rest, to make quiet, it is thus not conceivable why we should not be able to say: The sacrifice shall be made to rest, or made still, during half a week.
In the verbally correct interpretation of Jfi3$n *5tn, the supposition that the second half of the heptad is meant loses its support, for the terminus a quo of this half remains undefined if it cannot be determined from the subject itself. But this determination depends on whether the taking away of the sacrifice is to be regarded as the putting a complete termination to it, or only the causing of a temporary cessation to the service of sacrifice, which can be answered only by our first determining the question regarding the historical reference of this divine revelation, nnr nn:^ bloody and unbloody sacrifice, the two chief parts of the service of sacrifice, represent the whole of worship by sacrifice. The expression is more comprehensive than W-j cn* vni* H> the continuance in worship, the daily morning and evening sacrifice, the cessation of which does not necessarily involve the putting an end to the service of sacrifice.
The third clause of this verse, DO#b ETCh^ f)33 5»yi? is difficult, and its interpretation has been disputed. The LXX. have rendered it: koX eirl to lepov /38e\vyfia twv iprj/jLcoaecov earat. Theodotion has given the same rendering, only omitting earat,. The Vulgate has: et erit in templo abominatio desolationis. The church interpreters have explained the words in accordance with these translations, understanding by D^p^'?]33 the abomination of idols in the temple, or the temple desecrated by the abomination of idols. Havernick explains the words of the extreme height of abomination, i.e. of the highest place that can be reached where the abominations would be committed, i.e. the temple as the highest point in Jerusalem; Hengstenberg, on the contrary, regards the u wing of the abominations " as the pinnacle of the temple so desecrated by the abomination that it no longer deserved the name of a temple of the Lord, but the name of an idol-temple. Auberlen translates it u on account of the desolating summit of abominations," and understands by it the summit of the abominations committed by Israel, which draws down the desolation, because it is the desolation itself, and which reached its acme in the desecration of the temple by the Zealots shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem. But no one of these interpretations is justified by the language here used, because *)J3 does not signify summit, highest point. This word, it is true, is often used figuratively of the extremity or skirt of the upper garment or cloak (1 Sam. xv. 27, xxiv. 5; Hag. ii. 12), of the uttermost part, end, of the earth, Isa. xxiv. 16, and frequently in the plur. of the borders of the earth, in the rabbin, also of the lobes of the lungs, but demonstrably never of the summit as the highest point or peak of an object; and thus can mean neither the temple as the highest point in Jerusalem, nor the pinnacle of the temple desecrated by the abomination, nor the summit of the abomination committed by Israel. " It is used 'indeed," as Bleek (Jahrbb. v. p. 93) also remarks, a of the extreme point of an object, but only of that which is extended horizontally (for end, or extremity), but never of that which is extended perpendicularly (for peak)." The use of it in the latter sense cannot also be proved from the irrepvyiov tov iepov, Matt. iv. 5, Luke iv. 9. Here the genitive tov iepov, not tov vaov, shows that not the pinnacle, i.e. the summit of the temple itself, is meant, but a wing or adjoining building of the sanctuary; and if Suidas and Hesychius explain TTTepvyiov by aKpwTrjptov, this explanation is constructed only from the passages of the N. T. referred to, and is not confirmed by the Greek classics.
But though TTTepvyiov may have the meaning of summit, yet this can by no means be proved to be the meaning of ^3. Accordingly D"Wj95? *133 cannot on verbal grounds be referred to the temple. This argument from the words used is not set aside by other arguments which Hengstenberg brings forward, neither by the remark that this explanation harmonizes well with the other parts of the prophecy, especially the removal of the sacrifice and the destruction of the temple, nor by the reference to the testimony of tradition and to the authority of the Lord. For, with reference to that remark, we have already shown in the explanation of the preceding verses that they do not refer to the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, and thus are not reconcilable with this interpretation of D^P^ fl??« But the testimony of tradition for this interpretation in Josephus, De hello Jud. iv. 6. 3, that by the desecration of the temple on the part of the Zealots an old prophecy regarding the destruction of the temple was fulfilled, itself demonstrates (under the supposition that no other passages occur in the book of Daniel in which Josephus would be able to find the announcement of bloody abomination in the temple which proceeded even from the members of the covenant people) nothing further than that Joseph us, with many of his contemporaries, found such a prophecy in this verse in the Alexandrine translation, but it does not warrant the correctness of this interpretation of the passage. This warrant would certainly be afforded by the words of our Lord regarding "the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place" (Matt, xxiv. 15 f.; Mark xiii. 14), if it were decided that the Lord had this passage (Dan. ix. 27) alone before His mind, and that He regarded the " abomination of desolation " as a sign announcing the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. But neither of these conditions is established. The expression /3$e\vy/ia rf}? eprjfjLuxreoos is found not only in Dan. ix. 27 (where the LXX. and Theod. have the plur. iprjfjLuxrecov), but also in Dan. xi. 31 (@8. iprj/Acoaeax;) and Dan. xii. 11 (to j3S. rrjs ipTj/jLcoaecos), and thus may refer to one of these passages. The possibility of this reference is not weakened by the objection, " that the prophecy Dan. xi. and xii. was generally regarded as fulfilled in the Maccabean times, and that the fulfilling of ch. ix. was placed forward into the future in the time of Christ" (Hgstb.), because the Lord can have a deeper and more correct apprehension of the prophecies of Daniel than the Jewish writers of His time; because, moreover, the first historical fulfilling of Dan. xi. in the Maccabean times does not exclude a further and a fuller accomplishment in the future, and the rage of Antiochus Epiphanes against the Jewish temple and the worship of God can be a type of the assault of Antichrist against the sanctuary and the church of God in the time of the end. Still less from the words, " whoso readeth, let him understand" (Matt, xxiv. 15), can it be proved that Christ had only Dan. ix. 27, and not also xi. 31 or xii. 11, before His view. The remark that these words refer to "O^a pa (understand the matter), Dan. ix. 23, and to?3KTn SHftt (know, and understand), does not avail for this purpose, because this reference is not certain, and "U'nrrnN pa (and he understood the thing) is used (ch. x. 1) also of the prophecy in ch. x. and xi. But though it were beyond a doubt that Christ had, in the words quoted, only Dan. ix. 27 before His view, yet would the reference of this prophecy to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans not be thereby proved, because in His discourse Christ spake not only of this destruction of the ancient Jerusalem, but generally of His irapovaia and the avvreXeia rod alwvo? (Matt.
xxiv. 3), and referred the words of Daniel of the /3&i\vy/j,a ti)? ipji/uLcoaecos to the irapovala tov vlov rov dvOpcirrrov.
On these grounds we must affirm that the reference of the words under consideration to the desecration of the temple before the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans is untenable.
But also the reference of these words, as maintained by other interpreters, to the desecration of the temple by the fi&iXvy/xa iprj/jLGoaecDs (1 Mace. i. 54), built on the altar of burnt-offering by Antiochus Epiphanes, is disproved on the verbal ground that ^? cannot designate the surface of the altar. In favour of this view the DDtyp PP$?, Dan. xi. 31 (the abomination that maketh desolate), is principally relied on, in order to establish the connection of DWD with D^pB>; but that passage is of a different character, and the difference of number between them opposes the connecting together of these two words. The singular DWp cannot be connected as an adjective with D^pP. But the uniting of DBB>B with the noun *)33 gives no meaning, and besides has the parallels ch. xi. 31 and xii. 11 against it. In this passage before us Opfefo can only be the subject; and the clause is neither to be connected with the preceding nor with the following, but is to be interpreted as containing an independent statement. Since in the preceding context mention is made of a Nagid who shall make desolate the city and the sanctuary, and shall take away the bloody and the unbloody sacrifice, it is natural to regard the DWD; desolater, as the Nagid, and to identify the two. The circumstance that it does not refer to it by the article (D wran) is no valid objection, because the article is in no way necessary, as Dpbto is a participle, and can be rendered as such: " on the wings of abomination he comes desolating." *]J3?V can, without ingenuity, be rendered in no other way than on wings, D^pB* signifies not acts of abomination, but objects of abomination, things causing abomination, and is constantly used of the heathen gods, idol-images, sacrifices to the gods, and other heathen abominations. The connection of D^pB* permits us, however, with Reichel, Ebrard, Kliefoth, and Kranichfeld, to think on nothing else than that wings (^lj?) are attributed to the D^njj>B\ The sing. *)33 does not oppose this, since it is often used collectively in a peculiar and figurative meaning; cf. e.g, *)J3 pV^, Prov. i. 17, with D?aj3 ^3, Eccles. x. 20, the winged, the bird; and jnxn ^2 {from the uttermost part of the earth), Isa. xxiv. 16, is not different from H?? ™s^?? Job xxxvii. 3, xxxviii. 13, just as fl")3N, wing, plumage, Ps. xci. 4, Deut. xxxii. 11, is found for nfaax (wings), Ps. lxviii.
14. But from such passages as Deut. xxxii. 11, Ex. xix. 4, and Ps. xviii. 11, we perceive the sense in which wings are attributed to the D^pK>, the idolatrous objects.1 In the first of these passages (Deut. xxxii. 11), wings, the wings of an eagle, are attributed to God, because He is the power which raises up Israel, and lifting it up, and carrying it throughout its history, guides it over the earth. In Ps. xviii. wings are attributed to the wind, because the wind is contemplated as the power which carries out the will of God throughout the kingdom of nature. " Thus in this passage wings are attributed to the tMRptf, idol-objects, and to idolatry with its abominations, because that shall be the power which lifts upwards the destroyer and desolater, carries him, and moves with him over the earth to lay waste " (Klief.),2
The last clause, 'Ul njsnj;^ is differently construed, according as the subject to:JiVI, which is wanting, or appears to be wanting, is sought to be supplied from the context. Against the supposition of Havernick and Ebrard, who take Tjnfl as impersonal: " it pours down," it is rightly objected that this word is never so found, and can so much the less be so interpreted here, since in ver. 11 it is preceded by a definite subject. Others supply a subject, such as anger (Berth.), or curse and oath from ver. 11; the former is quite arbitrary, the latter is too far-fetched. Others, again (Hengstenberg, Maurer), take ^V"™ ^J? (the consummation and that determined) as the subject. This is correct according to the matter. We cannot, however, so justify the regarding of 1jn as a conjunction: till tliat; for, though IX? is so used, ^V\ is not; nor, once more, can we justify the taking of rwiPM ITO as a whole as the subject (Hofmann), or of n^TJTO^ alone as the subject (v. Leng., Hitzig, Klief oth), since W is not repeated before nyjJIJ! on account of the) (with v. Leng), nor is nyjn^l alone supplied (with Hitz.), nor is the 1 before •"^"ID-1. to be regarded (with Klief.) as a sign of the conclusion. Where i introduces the conclusion, as e.g. ch. viii.
1 The interpretation of J. D. Michaelis, which has been revived by Hofmann, needs no serious refutation. They hold that D^pfcJJ P]33 signifies an idol-bird, and denotes the eagle of Jupiter or Zeus. Hofm. repeats this interpretation in his Schriftbew. ii. 2, p. 592, after he had abandoned it.
2 Similarly, and independently of Kliefoth, Kranichfeld also explains the words: " The powerful heathen enemy of God is here conceived of as carried on (^y) these wings of the idol-abomination, like as the God of the theocracy is borne on the wings of the clouds, and on cherubim, who are His servants; cf. Ps. xviii. 11, civ. 3."
14, it is there united with the verb, and thus the expression here should in that case be ™f}Ul W?V -^ne relative interpretation of SJflfi is the only one which is verbally admissible, whereby the words, " and till the consummation and that determined," are epexegetically connected to the foregoing clause: u and till the consummation and that determined which shall pour down upon the desolater." The words ^JTJJJJ] '"V? remind us of Isa. x. 23 and xxviii. 22, and signify that which is completed = altogether and irrevocably concluded, i.e. substantially the inflexibly decreed judgment of destruction. The words have here this meaning, as is clear from the circumstance that nvnnj points back to tlSfttiW T\'pm (ver. 26, desolations are determined), and n;>3 "ly corresponds toH?. *W (ver. 26). In ch. xi. 31 Eftfe is not in a similar manner to be identified with DDfe^ but has the active signification: "laying waste," while DW has the passive: " laid waste." Both words refer to the Nagid, but with this difference, that this ungodly prince who comes as the desolater of the city and the sanctuary will on that account become desolate, that the destruction irrevocably decreed by God shall pour down upon him as a flood.
Let us now, afte^r explaining the separate clauses, present briefly the substance of this divine revelation. We find that the verses 25-27 contain the following announcement: From the going forth of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the appearance of the Messias seven weeks shall pass awTay; after that, during threescore and two weeks the city shall be restored and built up amid the oppressions of the times; but after the sixty-two weeks the Messias shall be cut off, so that to Him nothing remains, and the city, together writh the sanctuary, shall be destroyed by the people of a prince who shall come, who shall find his end in the flood; but the war shall continue to the end, since destruction is irrevocably decreed. That prince shall force a strong covenant for one week on the mass of the people, and during half a week shall take away the service of sacrifice, and, borne on the wings of idol-abominations, shall carry on a desolating rule, till the firmly decreed judgment shall pour itself upon him as one desolated. — According to this, the first seven weeks are determined merely according to their beginning and their end, and nothing further is said as to their contents than may be concluded from the definition of its terminus a quo, " to restore and to build Jerusalem," namely, that the restoring and the building of this city shall proceed during the period of time indicated. The sixty-two weeks which follow these seven weeks, ending with the coming of the Messias, have the same contents, only with the more special definition, that the restoration and the building in the broad open place and in the limited place "shall be carried on in oppressive times. Hence it is clear that this restoration and building cannot denote the rebuilding of the city which was destroyed by the Chaldeans, but refers to the preservation and extension of Jerusalem to the measure and compass determined by God in the Messianic time, or under the dominion of the Messias, since He shall come at the end of the seven weeks, and after the expiry of the sixty-two weeks connected therewith shall be cut off, so that nothing remains to Him.
The statements of the angel (vers. 26, 27) regarding the one week, which, because of the connection, can only be the seventieth, or the last of the seventy, are more ample. The cutting off of the Messias forms the beginning of this week; then follows the destruction of the city and of the sanctuary by the people of the coming prince, who shall find his end in the flood, not immediately after his coming, but at the end of this week; for the war shall continue to the end, and the prince shall take away the service of sacrifice during half a week, till the desolation determined as a flood shall pour down upon him, and make the desolater desolated. If we compare with this the contents of ver. 24, according to which seventy weeks are determined to restrain transgression, to make an end of sin and iniquity, partly by atonement and partly by shutting up, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to consecrate a new most holy, we shall find that the reciprocal statements are so related to each other, that vers. 25-27 present what shall be done in the course of the seventy weeks, which are divided into three periods, but ver. 24 what shall be the result of all these things. The seventieth week ends, according to ver. 27, with the judgment on the destroyer of the city and the sanctuary of God; but with this judgment shall be the conclusion of the divine counsel of salvation, or the kingdom of God shall be consummated. This was revealed to the prophet in ch. vii., and thus does not need to be here expressly repeated. If that which, according to ver. 24, shall happen with the expiry of the seventy appointed weeks stood after ver. 27, then would the connection of the judgment on the last enemy of God with the consummation of the kingdom of God appear here also distinctly to view. But it was not necessary after ch. vii. to give express prominence to this connection here; and Gabriel here first mentions the positive aim and end of the divine plan of salvation with Israel, because he gives to the prophet a comforting answer to remove his deep distress on account of his own sins, and the sin and guilt of his people, and therein cannot conceal the severe affliction which the future would bring, because he will announce to him that by the sins of the people the working out of the deliverance designed by God for them shall not be frustrated, but that in spite of the great guilt of Israel the kingdom of God shall be perfected in glory, sin and iniquity blotted out, everlasting righteousness restored, the prophecy of the judgment and of salvation completed, and the sanctuary where God shall in truth dwell among His people erected. In order to establish this promise, so rich in comfort, and firmly to ratify it to Daniel, he unveils to him (vers. 25-27), in its great outlines, the progress of the development of the kingdom of God, first from the end of the Exile to the coming of the* Messias; then from the appearance of Christ to the time far in the future, when Christ shall be cut off, so that nothing remains to Him; and finally, the time of the supremacy and of the victory of the destroyer of the church of God, the Antichrist, and the destruction of this enemy by the irrevocably determined final judgment. If, now, in this he says nothing particular regarding the first period of this development, regarding the time from the Exile to Christ, the reason is, that he had already said all that was necessary regarding the development of the world-kingdom, and its relation to the kingdom and people of God, in the preceding revelation in ch. viii. It is the same angel Gabriel who (ch. viii.) comforted Daniel, and interpreted to him the vision of the second and third world-kingdom, and who here brings to him further revelations in answer to his prayer regarding the restoration of the holy city, which was lying in ruins, as is expressly remarked in ver. 21. — Also regarding the second long period which passes from the appearance of the Messias to His annihilation (Vernichtung), i.e. the destruction of His kingdom on the earth, little is apparently said, but in reality in the few words very much is said: that during this whole period the restoration and building shall proceed amid the oppressions of the times, namely, that the kingdom of God shall be built up to the extent determined by God in this long period, although amid severe persecution. This persecution shall during the last week mount up to the height of the cutting off of Christ and the destruction of His kingdom on the earth; but then with the extermination of the prince, the enemy of God, it shall reach its end.
But if, according to what has been said, this revelation presents the principal outlines of the development of the kingdom of God from the time of Daniel to its consummation at the end of this epoch of the world, the seventy TOB> which are appointed for it cannot be year-weeks, or cycles of seven years, but only symbolically defined periods of measured duration. This result of our exposition contradicts, however, the usual interpretations of this prophecy so completely, that in order to confirm our exposition, we must put thoroughly to the test the two classes of opposing interpretations— which, however, agree in this, that the definitions of time are to be understood chronologically, and that under the O^P year-weeks are to be Understood — and examine whether a chronological reckoning is in all respects tenable.
The first class of expositors who find the appearance of Christ in the flesh and His crucifixion, as well as the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, prophesied of in this passage, adduce in support of their view, partly the agreement of the chronological periods, partly the testimony of Christ, who referred ver. 27 to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. How does it now stand with these two arguments?
The first Hengstenberg (Christol. iii. 1, p. 137) introduces with the remark, a The predominant view in the synagogue and in the church has always been, that the seventy weeks, as well as the shorter periods into which the whole period is divided, are closely fixed and limited. The opposite supposition becomes very suspicious by this, that it is maintained only by such as come into conflict with the chronology by their hypotheses, or take no interest in chronological investigations." He then seeks first to confute the arguments brought forward in favour of the supposition that the chronological definitions are only given in the lump (in Bausch und Bogen)y and then to present the positive arguments for the definiteness of the chronological statements. But he has in this identified the definiteness of the prophecy in general with its chronological definiteness, while there is between these two ideas a noticeable difference. Of the positive arguments adduced, the first is, that the seventy weeks stand in closer relation to the seventy years of Jeremiah, in so far as regards chronological definiteness, when the seventy years of Jeremiah are understood as strictly chronological and as chronologically fulfilled. But the force of this argument is neutralized by the fact, that in Jeremiah a chronologically described period, "years," is in this prophecy, on the contrary, designated by a name the meaning of which is disputed, at all events is chronologically indefinite, since weeks, if seven-day periods are excluded by the contents of the prophecy, can as well signify Sabbath or jubilee periods, sevenyear or seven times seven - year epochs. Still weaker is the second argument, that all the other designations of time with reference to the future in the book of Daniel are definite; for this is applicable only to the designations in ch. viii. 14 and xii. 11, 12, in which evening-mornings and days are named, but not to the passages ch. vii. 25, xii. 7, and iv. 13 (16), wThere the chronologically indefinite expression, time, times, occurs, which are arbitrarily identified with years.
There remains thus, for the determination of the time spoken of in this prophecy, only the argument from its fulfilment, which should give the decision for the chronological definiteness. But, on the contrary, there arises a grave doubt, from the circumstance that among the advocates of the so-called " church Messianic interpretation " the terminus a quo of the prophecy is disputed; for some of these interpreters take the edict of Cyrus (b.c. 536) as such, while, on the other hand, others take the edict which Artaxerxes issued on the return of Ezra to Jerusalem for the restoration of the service of God according to the law, in the seventeenth year of his reign, i.e. in the year B.C. 457, and others, again, among whom is Hengstenberg, take the journey of Nehemiah to Jerusalem with the permission to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, i.e. B.C. 445, or according to Hengstenberg, B.C. 455, as the terminus a quo of the seventy weeks — a difference of eighty-one years, which in chronological reckoning is very noticeable.
In our interpretation of ver. 25, we have given our decided opinion that the 'U1 3*B?n? "O^j from the going forth of which seventy years are to be reckoned, refers to the edict of Cyrus permitting the Jews to return to their fatherland, and the arguments in favour of that opinion are given in p. 352. Against this reference to the edict of Cyrus, Havernick, Hengstenberg, and Auberlen have objected that in that edict there is nothing said of building up the city, and that under Cyrus, as well as under the succeeding kings, Cambyses, Darius Hystaspes, and Xerxes, nothing also is done for the building of the city. We find it still unbuilt in the times of Ezra and Nehemiah (Ezra ix. 8, x. 13; Neh. i. 3, ii. 3, v. 34, iv. 1, vii. 4). Although from the nature of the case the building of the temple supposes the existence also of houses in Jerusalem (cf. Hag. i. 4), yet there is not a single trace of any royal permission for the restoration of the people and the rebuilding of the city. Much rather this was expressly forbidden (Ezra iv. 7-23) by the same Artaxerxes Longimanus (who at a later period gave the permission however), in consequence of the slanderous reports of the Samaritans. 11 There was granted to the Jews a religious, but not a political restoration.', For the first time in the seventh year of Artaxerxes Longimanus the affairs of Israel took a favourable turn. In that year Artaxerxes granted to Ezra permission to go to Jerusalem, entrusting him with royal letters of great importance (Ezra vii. 11-26, particularly vers. 18, 25 f.); in his twentieth year he gave to Nehemiah express permission to rebuild the city (Neh. ii.). Following the example of the old chronologist Julius Africanus in Jerome and many others, Hav., Hgstb., Reinke, Reusch, and others regard the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, while Auberlen, with Calovius, Newton, M. Geier, Gaussen, Pusey, and others, regard the seventh year, as the terminus a quo of the seventy weeks. But that the arguments derived from the absence of any mention being made in the edict of Cyrus of the building of Jerusalem against the reference of 'til 12ft NVb to that edict are not very strong, at least are not decisive, is manifest from what Auberlen has advanced for the seventh and against the twentieth year. Proceeding from the proposition, correct in itself, that the time of Ezra and that of Nehemiah form one connected period of blessing for Israel, Auberlen thence shows that the edict relating to Nehemiah had only a secondary importance, as the sacred narrative itself indicates by the circumstance that it does not mention the edict at all (Neh. ii. 7, 8), while the royal letters to Ezra (Ezra vii.) are given at large. Since it was the same king Artaxerxes who sent away Ezra as well as Nehemiah, his heart must have been favourably inclined toward Israel in his seventh year. u Then must the word for the restoration and building of Jerusalem have gone forth from God." The consciousness of this is expressed by Ezra himself, when, after recording the royal edict (ch. vii. 27), he continues: " Blessed be Jehovah, the God of our fathers, which hath put such a thing as this in the king's heart, to beautify the house of the Lord ivhich is in Jerusalem; and hath extended mercy tome before the king and his counsellors, and before all the king's mighty princes."
Bat, wo must reply, wherein does the mercy extended to Ezra before the king consist? Is it in the permission to build up Jerusalem? Certainly not, but in the beautifying of the house of Jehovah in Jerusalem. And to that alone the royal authority granted to Ezra (Ezra vii.) refers. Of the building of the city there is not a word said. Only the means, as it appears, of restoring the temple-worship, which had fallen into great decay, and of re-establishing the law of God corresponding thereto, were granted to him in the long edict issued by the king.1 If the clause, "from the going
] Aubcrlen, it is true, remarks (p. 138): — " The authority given to Ezra is
so extensive that it essentially includes the rebuilding of the city. It refers certainly, for the most part [rather wholly), to the service of the sanctuary; but not only must Ezra set up judges (ch. vii. 25), he is also expressly permitted by the king to expend as it seems good to him the rest of the silver and gold (ch. vii. 18). How he then understood the commission, Ezra himself says clearly and distinctly in his prayer of repentance: ' Our Lord hath extended mercy unto us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to give us a reviving, to set up the house of our God, and to repair the desolations thereof (of our God), and to give us a wall in Judah and Jerusalem.' The argument from this passage lies not merely in the "H H (encircling ivall), but especially in this, ' to repair the desolations thereof.' This could not be the desolations of the temple, which had been long before this rebuilt, and therefore we may understand by it the desolations of Jerusalem." But the strength of this
argumentation rests merely on a verbally free rendering of the verse referred to (Ezra ix. 9). The circumstance that Ezra speaks of the kings (in the plur.) of Persia, who showed favour to the Jews, indicates that he meant not merely that which Artaxerxes had done and would yet do in the future, but that he refers also to the manifestation of favour on the part of kings Cyrus, Darius Hystaspes, and Artaxerxes; thus also the expression, " to give us a wall," cannot refer to the permission to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, which Artaxerxes some years later first granted to Nehemiah. Moreover, the expression, " to give us a Via in Judah and Jerusalem," shows that by Via cannot be understood the fortified walls of Jerusalem; for **na never denotes the walls of a city or fortress as such, bflt always only the encompassing wall of a vineyard, which meaning is found in Mic. vii. 11, Ezek. xiii. 5. "Via is therefore to be understood here figuratively: encompassing wall in the sense of divine protection; and the meaning is not this: " that the place protected by the wall lies in Judah and Jerusalem; but in Judah and Jerusalem the Persian kings have given to the new congregation of the people a secure dwelling-place, because the power of the Persian kings secured to the Israelites who had returned from captivity the undisturbed and continued possession of their land " (Bertheau). The objection also, that Vfihin cannot be the ruins of the temple, because it was already built, is set aside as soon as we express the infinitive TE>yrp, as it is rightly done, by the prseterite, whereby this word refers to the completed building of the temple. Cf. with this Hengstenberg's extended refutation of this argument of Auberlen's (Christol. iii. 1, p. 144).
forth of the commandment," etc., cannot refer to the edict of Cyrus, because in it there is no express mention made of the rebuilding of Jerusalem, so also, for the same reason, it cannot refer to that which was issued by Artaxerxes in favour of Ezra. Auberlen's remark, however, is correct, when he says that the edict relating to Nehemiah is of secondary importance when compared with that relating to Ezra. Strictly speaking, there is no mention made of an edict relating to Nehemiah. Nehemiah, as cup-bearer of Artaxerxes, entreated of the king the favour of being sent to Judah, to the city of his fathers' sepulchres, that he might build it; and the king (the queen also sitting by him) granted him this request, and gave him letters to all the governors on this side the Euphrates, that they should permit him undisturbed to prosecute his journey, and to the overseers of the royal forests, that they should give him wood " for the gates of the palace which appertained to the house, and for the wall of the city " (Neh. ii. 4-8). However important this royal favour was in its consequences for Jerusalem, — for Nehemiah built the walls of the city, and thereby raised Jerusalem to a fortified city guarded against hostile assaults, — yet the royal favour for this undertaking was not such as to entitle it to be designated as 'W 13H KVb? a going forth of a commandment of God. But if, in favour of the reference of 131 NVb to the edict of Ezra, Auberlen (p. 128 ff.) attaches special importance to the circumstance that in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah are recorded two periods of post-exilian history, the first of which — namely, the time of Zerubbabel and of the high priest Joshua under Cyrus and Darius Hystaspes — we may designate the period of the building of the temple, the second — namely, the time of Ezra the priest, and Nehemiah the Tirshatha, under Artaxerxes Longimanus — we may designate the period of the restoration of the people and the building of the city, — the former the time of the religious, and the latter that of the 'political restoration; and, in seeking to establish this view, he interprets the first part of the book of Ezra as a whole in itself, and the second as a whole taken in combination with the book of Nehemiah; — if this is his position, then Hengstenberg has already (Christol, hi. p. 149) shown the incorrectness of this division of the book of Ezra, and well remarks that the whole book of Ezra has the temple as its central-point, and views with reference to it the mission of Ezra as well as that of Zerubbabel and Joshua. There is certainly an inner connection of the mission of Ezra with that of Nehemiah, but it consists only in this, that Ezra's religious reformation was secured by Nehemiah's political reform. From the special design of the work of Ezra, to describe the restoration of the temple and of the service of God, we must also explain the circumstance that nothing is said in it of the building of the city of Jerusalem. Besides, this building, before Neheiniah's arrival in Judah, had not further advanced than to the re-erection of houses for the returned exiles who had settled in Jerusalem. Every attempt to restore the walls was hindered and frustrated by the enemies of Judah, so that the gates and the walls were yet lying burnt and in ruins on Nehemiah's arrival (Neh. i. 3, ii. 3, 5). Therefore neither the absence of any mention in the decree of Cyrus of the building of the city, nor the fact that the rebuilding of the city walls was first effected by Nehemiah, forms a decisive argument against the reference of NVb 'W "m to this edict; and we must maintain this reference as the only correct one, because this edict only, but not that which gave permission to Ezra or that which gave authority to Nehemiah to build the city walls, formed an epoch marking a crisis in the development of the theocracy, as this is connected in the announcement of Gabriel with the £oino; forth of the word to restore Jerusalem.
Not less doubtful is the matter of the definition of the terminus ad quern of the seventy ^V?'^, and of the chronological reckoning of the whole period. As for the terminus ad quern, a sharply defined factum must form the conclusion of the sixty-ninth week; for at this point the public appearance of Christ, His being anointed with the Holy Ghost, is named as the end of the prophecy. If this factum occurred, according to Luke iii. 1, in the year of Rome 782, the twentieth year of Artaxerxes — i.e. the year 455 B.C., according to the usual chronology — would be the year 299 A.u.c.; if we add to that sixty-nine weeks = 483 years, then it gives the year 782 A.U.C. In the middle of this last week, beginning with the appearance of the Anointed, occurred His death, while the confirming of the covenant extends through the whole of it. With reference to the death of Christ, the prophecy and its fulfilment closely agree, since that event took place three and a half years after His baptism. But the terminus ad quern of the confirming of the covenant, as one more or less moveable, is capable of no definite chronological determination. It is sufficient to remark, that in the first years after the death of Christ the efckoyr) of the Old Covenant people was gathered together, and then the message of Christ was brought also to the heathen, so that the prophet might rightly represent the salvation as both subjectively and objectively consummated at the end of the seventy weeks for the covenant people, of whom alone he speaks (Hgst. pp. 163 f., 180). Thus also Auberlen, who, however, places the end of the seventy weeks in the factum of the stoning of Stephen, with which the Jews pressed, shook down, and made full to the overflowing the measure of their sins, already filled by the murder of the Messias; so that now the period of grace yet given to them after the work of Christ had come to an end, and the judgment fell upon Israel.
"We will not urge against the precise accuracy of the fulfilment arrived at by this calculation, that the terminus a quo adopted by Hengstenberg, viz. the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, coincides with the 455th year B.C. only on the supposition that Xerxes reigned but eleven years, and that Artaxerxes came to the throne ten years earlier than the common reckoning, according to which Xerxes reigned twenty-one years, and that the correctness of this view is opposed by Hofm., Kleinert, Wieseler, and others, because the arguments for and against it are evenly balanced; but with Preiswerk, whose words Auberlen (p. 144) quotes with approbation, considering the uncertainty of ancient chronology on many points, we shall not lay much stress on calculating the exact year, but shall regard the approximate coincidence of the prophetical with the historical time as a sufficient proof that there may possibly have been an exact correspondence in the number of years, and that no one, at all events, can prove the contrary. But we must attach importance to this, that in this calculation a part of the communication of the angel is left wholly out of view. The angel announces not merely the cutting off of the Messias after seven and sixty-two weeks, but also the coming of the people of a prince who shall lay waste the city and the sanctuary, which all interpreters who understand rPPD JT?3* of the death of Christ refer to the destruction of Jerusalem and of the temple by the Komans; he also says that this war shall last till the end of the seventy weeks. The destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans followed the death of Christ, not after an interval of only three and a half years, but of thirty years. Accordingly, the seventy weeks must extend to the year 70 A.D., whereby the whole calculation is shown to be inaccurate. If we yet further remark, that the advocates of this exposition of the prophecy are in a position to give no sufficient reason for the dividing of the sixty-nine weeks into seven and sixty-two, and that their reference of the seven weeks to the time of the rebuilding of Jerusalem under Nehemiah, and of the sixty-two weeks to the period from the completion of this building to the appearance of Christ in the flesh, stands in open contradiction to the words of the text; finally, that the placing of the twentieth year of Artaxerxes as the terminus a quo of the reckoning of the "Q"T N^'b cannot be correct, — then may we also regard the much commended exact concord of the prophecy with the actual events of history derived from this interpretation of the verse as only an illusion, since from the "going forth of the word" to restore Jerusalem to the destruction of that city by Titus, not seventy weeks or 490 years elapsed, but, according as we date the going forth of this word in the year 536 or 455 B.C., 606 or 525 years, i.e. more than eighty-six, or at least seventy-five, year-weeks, passed. This great gulf, which thus shows itself in the calculation of the &yyy as year-weeks, between the prophecy and its chronological fulfilment, is not bridged over by the remark with which Auberlen (p. 141) has sought to justify his supposition that Ezra's return to Judah in the year 457 B.C. formed the terminus a quo of the seventy weeks, while yet the word of the angel announcing the restoration and the building up of Jerusalem first finds its actual accomplishment in the building of the city walls on Nehemiah's return — the remark, namely, that the external building up of the city had the same relation to the terminus a quo of Daniel's seventy year-weeks as the external destruction of Jerusalem to that of Jeremiah's seventy years. u The latter begin as early as the year 606 B.C., and therefore eighteen years before the destruction of Jerusalem, for at that time the kingdom of Judah ceased to exist as an independent theocracy; the former begin thirteen years before the rebuilding of the city, because then the re-establishment of the theocracy began." We find a repetition of the same phenomenon at the end of the seventy weeks. " These extend to the year 33 a.d. From this date Israel was at an end, though the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans did not take place till the year 70 a.d." For Jeremiah did not prophesy that the destruction of Jerusalem should last for seventy years, but only that the land of Judah would be desolate seventy years, and that for so long a time its inhabitants would serve the king of Babylon. The desolating of the land and Judah's subjugation to the king of Babylon did not begin with the destruction of Jerusalem, but with the first siege of the city by Nebuchadnezzar in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, i.e. in the year
606 B.C., and continued till the liberation of the Jews from Babylonian bondage by Cyrus in the first year of his reign, in the year 536 B.C., and thus after seventy years were fully accomplished. Jeremiah's chronologically definite prophecy is thus accurately fulfilled; but Daniel's prophecy of the seventy weeks is neither chronologically defined by years, nor has it been altogether so fulfilled as that the 70, 7, 62, and 1 week can be reckoned by yearweeks.
The New Testament also does not necessitate our seeking the end of the seventy weeks in the judgment the Romans were the means of executing against the ancient Jerusalem, which had rejected and crucified the Saviour. Nowhere in the N. T. is this prophecy, particularly the n^;? ma*., referred to the crucifixion of our Lord; nor has Christ or the apostles interpreted these verses, 26, 27 of this chapter, of the desolation and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. However general the opinion may be that Christ, in speaking of His Trapovaia, Matt, xxiv., Mark xiii., and Luke xxi., in the words orav "Byre to (38e\vyfia tt)s iprjjMoaeax; to pr)6ev Sia Aaviijk rov Trpofajrov, k.t.X. (Matt. xxiv. 15, cf. Mark xiii. 14), had before His eyes this prophecy (Dan. ix. 26, 27), yet that opinion is without foundation, and is not established by the arguments which Havernick (Dan. p. 383 f.), Wieseler (die 70 Wochen, p. 173 ff.), Hengstenberg (Beitr. i. p. 258 ff., and Christol. iii. I, p. 113 ff.), and Auberlen (Dan. p. 120 f.) have brought forward for that purpose. We have already, in explaining the words D'VW *)?? ^, ver. 27, p. 370, shown that the pSeXvyfia Trjq eprjfjLcbaecDS, found in the discourse of Christ, is not derived from Dan. ix. 27, but from Dan. xi. 31 or xii. 11, where the LXX. have rendered Ep'^9 TW by to fiSeXvy/jia t?/9 ipTjficocreco^. For the further confirmation of the arguments in behalf of this view there presented, we wish to add the following considerations. The appeal to the fact that Josephus, in the words (Antt. x. 11. 7) AavtrjXos Kal irepl tt)? tu)V 'Pcofialoov rjye/JLQVias aviypatye, ko\ otl M uvtcov iprjpLwOrjaeTa^ referred to the prophecy Dan. ix., and gave this interpretation not only as a private view of his own, but as (cf. De Bell. Jud. iv. 6. 3) TraXaio? Xoyos dvSpwv, i.e. represented the view of his people, as commonly received, even by the Zealots,— this would form a valid proof that Dan. ix. was at that time commonly referred to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, only, however, if besides this no other prophecy of the book of Daniel could be apparently referred to the destruction of the Jewish state by the Romans. But this is not the case. Josephus and his cotemporaries could find such a prophecy in that of the great enemy (Dan. vii. 25) who would arise out of the fourth or Roman world-kingdom, and would persecute and destroy the saints of the Most High. What Josephus adduces as the contents of the ttclKcuos \6yos avSpcov, namely, rore ti-jv ttoKlv aAoocreadcu teal KaTa(p\ey7]a6a0aL ra ayia vofiw 7roXe/iov, occurs neither in ch. ix. nor in any other part of the book of Daniel, and was not so defined till after the historical fulfilment. Wieseler, indeed, thinks (p. 154) that the words t)]v ttoXiv KaracpXeyijcreaOai, k.t.X., perfectly correspond with the words of Daniel, Vhpf}) ^?ijl rvn^? ch. ix. 26 (shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, E. V.); but he also concedes that Josephus interpreted the kind of desolation, perhaps with reference to Dan. xi. 33 (? 31), after the result, as a total desolation. It is thus granted that not only in ch. ix., but also in ch. xi., Daniel predicted a desolation of the city and the sanctuary which could be interpreted of their destruction by the Romans, and the opinion, that besides ch. ix. no other part of Daniel can be found, is abandoned as incorrect. But the other circumstances which Josephus brings forward in the passage quoted, particularly that the Zealots by the desecration of the temple contributed to the fulfilling of that iraXaios Xoyos, are much more distinctly contained in Dan. xi. 31 than in ch. ix. 26, where we must first introduce this sense in the words (ver. 27) *)33 bv DDBfo D^pr^ (pn the wing of abominations one causing desolation). Similarly the other passages are constituted in which Josephus speaks of ancient prophecies which have been fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. No one specially points to Dan. ix.
But if the proof from Josephus could be made more valid than has yet been done, that the Jews of his time referred Dan. ix. to the overthrow of the Jewish commonwealth by the Romans, yet thereby it would not be proved that Christ also shared this Jewish opinion, and set it forth in His discourse, Matt, xxiv., as an undoubted truth. In favour of this view it has indeed been arsued, " that the iv Toircp dylcp fully corresponds to eVt to lepov j3EeXvy/jba twv iprifjLcoaecQv earat, (LXX., Dan. ix. 27):" Hengstenberg, ChristoL p. 117. But it is still more inconsistent with the proof from the Alexandrian translation of the verses before us than it is with that from Josephus. In the form of the LXX. text that has come down to us there are undoubtedly two different paraphrases or interpretations of the Hebrew text of vers. 26 and 27 penetrating each other, and therein the obscure words of Daniel (after ch. xi. 31 and xii. 11) are so interpreted that they contain a reference to the desolation of the sanctuary by Antiochus.1 The MRplP P|33 by, incomprehensible to the translators, they interpreted after the Knp?»] I??1?, ch. xi. 31, and derived from it the iiri to lepov. But Christ derived the expression to [SZeXvyfia t?}s ip7)fico(7ea)<; as well as the Ictto)? iv tottco ctytco from ch. xi. 31, cf. with ch. xii. 11, but not from ch. ix. 27, where neither the original text, " on the wings of abomination shall the desolater come," nor the LXX. translation, eVt to lepov ^SeXvy/xa tcov iprjfJLcocrecov co-rat, — "over the sanctuary shall the abomination of the desolations come," leads to the idea of a " standing," or a " being placed," of the abomination of desolation. The standing (eWco?) without doubt supposes the placing, which corresponds to the *3)W (ccooovoi, LXX.) and the nn?1. ^erotfiaodf] Bodrjvat, LXX.), and the iv tottco ayicp points to t^Ji???, ch. xi. 31, since by the setting up of the abomination of desolation, the sanctuary, or the holy place of the temple, was indeed desecrated.
The prophecy in Dan. xi, treats, as is acknowledged, of the desolation of the sanctuary by Antiochus Epiphanes. If thus the Lord, in His discourse, had spoken of the fioeXvyfia ttJ? ip. eo-rcb? iv tottco dylco as a sign of the approaching destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, it would not remotely follow that He referred this prophecy (ch. ix.) to that catastrophe. Much more would He then, as Kliefoth (p. 412) has well remarked, " represent that which Antiochus Epiphanes did against Jerusalem as an historical type of that which the Romans would do." He would only say, " As once
1 That the Septuagint version (ch. xi. 31, xii. 11, ix. 24-27) is not in reality a translation, but rather an explanation of the passage as the LXX. understood it, is manifest. " They regard," as Klief. rightly judges, " ver. 24 and the first half of ver. 25 as teaching that it was prophesied to Daniel that Israel would soon return from exile, that Daniel also would return, and Jerusalem be built. The rest they treat very freely. They take the second half of ver. 25 out of its place, and insert it after the first clause of ver. 27; they also take the closing words of ver. 26 out of their place, and insert them after the second clause of ver. 27. The passage thus arranged they then interpret of Antiochus Epiphanes: They add together all the numbers they find in the text (70 + 7 + 62 = 139), and understand by them years, the years of the Seleucidan aera, so that they descend to the second year of Antiochus Epiphanes. Then they interpret all the separate statements of the times and actions of Antiochus Epiphanes in a similar manner as do the modern interpreters. Cf. Wieseler, p. 200 ff."
was done to Jerusalem by Antiochus, according to the word of Daniel, so shall it again soon be done; and therefore, if ye see repeating themselves the events which occurred under Antiochus in the fulfilment of Daniel's word, then know ye that it is the time for flight." But regarding the meaning which Christ found in Dan. ix. 26 and 27, not the least intimation would follow therefrom.
But in the discourse in question the Lord prophesied nothing whatever primarily or immediately of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, but treated in it, as we have already remarked, p. 370, generally of His irapovala and the avvreXeca rod alotvos, which He places only in connection with the destruction of the temple. The occasion of the discourse, as well as its contents, show this. After He had left the temple, never to enter it again, shortly before His last sufferings, while standing on the Mount of Olives, He announces to His disciples, who pointed to the temple, the entire destruction of that building; whereupon they say to Him, " Tell us irore ravra earcu kol tL to a^pbelov tt}? arj<; irapovalas teal avvrekelas rov alwvos? " for they believe that this destruction and His irapovala take place together at the end of the world. This question the Lord replies to in a long discourse, in which He gives them the wished-for information regarding the sign (arjfielov, Matt, xxiv. 4-31), and regarding the time (irore) of His irapovala and the end of the wrorld (vers. 32-34). The information concerning the sign begins with a warning to take heed and beware of being deceived; for that false messiahs would appear, and wars and tumults of nations rising up one against another, and other plagues, would come (vers. 4-7). All this would be only the beginning of the woes, ue. of the afflictions which then would come upon the confessors of His name; but the end would not come till the gospel was first preached in all the world as a testimony to all nations (vers. 8-14). Then He speaks of the signs which immediately precede the end, namely, of the abomination of desolation in the holy place of which Daniel prophesied. With this a period of tribulation would commence such as never yet had been, so that if these days should not be shortened for the elect's sake, no one would be saved (vers. 15-28). To this He adds, in conclusion, the description of His own irapovala, which would immediately (evOew) follow this great tribulation (vers. 29-31). He connects with the description of His return (ver. 32 f.) a similitude, with which He answers the question concerning its time, and thus continues: " When ye see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, this yeved shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled. But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only" (vers. 33, 34, 36).
From this brief sketch of the course of the thought it clearly appears that the Lord speaks expressly neither of the destruction of Jerusalem, nor yet of the time of that event. What is to be understood by ftSeXvyfia, r. ip. He supposes to be known to the disciples from the book of Daniel, and only says to them that they must flee when they see this standing in the holy place, so that they may escape destruction (ver. 15 ff.). Only in Luke is there distinct reference to the destruction of Jerusalem; for there we find, instead of the reference to the abomination of desolation, the words, " And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that its iprj/uLcocn$ is nigh" (Luke xxi. 20). According to the record of all the three evangelists, however, the Lord not only connects in the closest manner the tribulation commencing with the appearance of the /3$e\vy/na t. ep., or with the siege of Jerusalem, with the last great tribulation which opens the way for His return, but He also expressly says, that immediately after the tribulation of those days (Matt. xxiv. 29), or in those days of that tribulation (Mark xiii. 24), or then (rore, Luke xxi. 27), the Son of man shall come in the clouds in great power and glory. From this close connection of His visible irapovala with the desolation of the holy place or the siege of Jerusalem, it does not, it is true, follow that " by the oppression of Jerusalem connected with the irapovaia, and placed immediately before it, the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans cannot possibly be meant; " much rather that the discourse is a of a desecration and an oppression by Antichrist which would come upon the two? ayios and Jerusalem in the then future time, immediately before the return of the Lord, in the days of the dXtyLs neycikr)" (Kliefoth). But just as little does it follow from that close connection — as the eschatological discourse, Matt, xxiv., is understood by most interpreters— that the Lord Himself, as well as His disciples, regarded as contemporaneous the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans and His visible return in the last days, or saw as in prophetic perspective His Trapovaia behind the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and thus, without regard to the sequence of time, spoke first of the one event and then of the other. The first conclusion is inadmissible for this reason, that the disciples had made inquiry regarding the time of the destruction of the temple then visibly before them. If the Lord, in His answer to this question, by making mention of the j3Si\vyfia t. ep. eaTcos iv tottw dyioy, had no thought of this temple, but only of the toVo? ayios of the future, the temple of the Christian church, then by the use of words which the disciples could not otherwise understand than of the laying waste and the desolation of the earthly sanctuary He would have confirmed them in their error. The second conclusion is out of harmony with the whole course of thought in the discourse. Besides, both of them are decidedly opposed by this, that the Lord, after setting forth all the events which precede and open the way for His wapovaia and the end of the world, says to the disciples, u When ye see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors" (Matt. xxiv. 33), and solemnly adds, u This yeved" i.e. the generation then living, u shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled" (ver. 34). Since the iravra ravra in ver. 33 comprehends all that goes before the irapovaia, all the events mentioned in vers. 15-28, or rather in vers. 5-28, it must be taken also in the same sense in ver. 34. If, therefore, the contemporaries of Jesus and His disciples — for we can understand nothing else by rj <yevea avrr) — must live to see all these events, then must they have had a commencement before the destruction of Jerusalem, and though not perfectly, yet in the small beginnings, which like a germ comprehended in them the completion. Hence it is beyond a doubt that the Lord speaks of the judgment upon Jerusalem and the Jewish temple as the beginning of His nrapovala and of the avvjekeia rov alcovos, not merely as a pre-intimation of them, but as an actual commencement of His coming to judgment, which continues during the centuries of the spread of the gospel over the earth; and when the gospel shall be preached to all nations, then the season and the hour kept in His own power by the Father shall reach its completion in the eirifyaveia -n}? irapovala? avrov (2 Thess. ii. 8) to judge the world.1 According
1 This view of the parousia of Christ has been controverted by Dr. A. Christiani in his Bemerkungen zur Auslegung der Apocalypse mit besonderer Riicksicht auf die chiliastisclie Frage (Riga 1868, p. 21), — only, however, thus, that notwithstanding the remark, " Since the words 'xoevrec roevrot, Matt. xxiv. 34, plainly refer back to ver. 33, they cannot in the one place signify more than in the other," he yet refers these words in ver. 34 to the event of the destruction of Jerusalem, because the contemporaries of Jesus in reality lived to see it; thus giving to them, as they occur in ver. 34, a much more limited sense than that which they have in ver. 33.
to this view, Christ, in His discourse, interpreted the prophecy of Daniel, ch. xi., of the abomination of desolation which should come, and had come, upon Jerusalem and Judah by Antiochus Epiphanes, as a type of the desolation of the sanctuary and of the people of God in the last time, wholly in the sense of the prophecy, which in ver. 36 passes over from the typical enemy of the saints to the enemy of the people of God in the time of the end.
Thus the supposition that Christ referred Dan. ix. 26 and 21 to the overthrow of Jerusalem by the Romans loses all support; and for the chronological reckoning of the seventy weeks of Daniel, no help is obtained from the New Testament.
We have now to take into consideration the second view regarding the historical reference of the seventy weeks prevailing in our time. The opponents of the genuineness of the book of Daniel generally are agreed in this (resting on the supposition that the prophecies of Daniel do not extend beyond the death of Antiochus Epiphanes), that the destruction of this enemy of the Jews (Ant. Ep.), or the purification of the temple occurring a few years earlier, forms the terminus ad quern of the seventy weeks, and that their duration is to be reckoned from the year 168 or 172 B.C. back either to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, or to the beginning of the Exile. Since now the seventy yearweeks or 490 years, reckoned from the year 168 or 172 B.C., would bring us to the year 658 or 662 B.C., i.e. fifty-two or fifty-six years before the commencement of the Exile, and the terminus a quo of Jeremiah's prophecy of seventy years, a date from which cannot be reckoned any commencing period, they have for this reason sought to shorten the seventy weeks. Hitzig, Ewald, Wieseler, and others suppose that the first seven year-weeks ( = forty-nine years) are not to be taken into the reckoning along with the sixty-two weeks, and that only sixty-two weeks = 434 years are to be counted to the year 175 (Ewald), or 172 (Hitzig), as the beginning of the last week filled up by the assault of Antiochus against Judaism. But this reckoning also brings us to the year 609 or 606 B.C., the beginning of the Exile, or three years further back. To date the sixty-two year-weeks from the commencement of the Exile, agrees altogether too little with the announcement that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem during sixty-two weeks it shall be built, so that, of the most recent representatives of this view, no one any longer consents to hold the seventy years of the exile for a time of the restoring and the building of Jerusalem. Thus Hitzig and Ewald openly declare that the reckoning is not correct, that the pseudo-Daniel has erred, and has assumed ten weeks, i.e. seventy years, too many, either from ignorance of chronology, " or from a defect in thought, from an interpretation of a word of sacred Scripture, springing from certain conditions received as holy and necessary, but not otherwise demonstrable" (Ewald, p. 425). By this change of the sixty-two weeks = 43 i years into fifty-two weeks or 364 years, they reach from the year 174 to 538 B.C., the year of the overthrow of Babylon by Cyrus, by whom the word u to restore Jerusalem " was promulgated. To this the seven weeks ( = forty-nine years) are again added in order to reach the year 588 or 587 B.C., the year of the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, from which the year-weeks, shortened from seventy to sixty, are to be reckoned.
This hypothesis needs no serious refutation. For a reckoning which places the first 7 weeks = 49 years aside, and then shortens the 62 weeks by 10 in order afterwards again to bring in the 7 weeks, can make no pretence to the name of a "scientific explanation." When Hitzig remarks (p. 170) "that the 7 weeks form the 7rpcoTov ^euSo? in the (Daniel's) reckoning, which the author must bring in; the whole theory of the 70 year- weeks demands the earlier commencement in the year 606 B.C." — we may, indeed, with greater accuracy say that the irp&Tov TJrevSo? of the modern interpretation, which needs such exegetical art and critical violence in order to change the 70 and the 62 weeks into 60 and 52, arises out of the dogmatic supposition that the 70 wTeeks must end with the consecration of the temple under Antiochus, or with the death of this enemy of God.
Among the opponents of the genuineness of the book this supposition is a dogmatic axiom, to the force of which the words of Scripture must yield. But this supposition is adopted also by interpreters such as Hofmann, Reichel (die 70 Jahreswochen Dan. ix. 24-27, in the Theol Stud. u. Krit. 1858, p. 735 ff.), Fries, and others, who recognise the genuineness of the book of Daniel, and hold the announcement of the angel in these verses to be a divine revelation. These interpreters have adopted this view for this reason, that in the description of the hostile prince who shall persecute Israel and desecrate the sanctuary, and then come to his end with terror (vers. 26 and 27), they believe that they recognise again the image of Antiochus Epiphanes, whose enmity against the people and the sanctuary of God is described, ch. viii. 9 ff., 23 f. It cannot, it is true, be denied that there is a certain degree of similarity between the two. If in vers. 26 and 27 it is said of the hostile prince that he shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, and put an end to the sacrifice and the meat-offering for half a week, then it is natural to think of the enemy of whom it is said: he " shall destroy the mighty and the holy people " (E. V. ch. viii. 24), " and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away " (ch. viii. 11), a and he shall take away the daily sacrifice" (ch. xi. 31), especially if, with Hofmann, we adopt the view (Schriftbew. ii. 2, p. 592) that between the expressions " take away the daily sacrifice" (*P?£- ["^9!?, remove] B'1"!']), and " he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease" (nrOKB H3J JV2t£), there "is no particular distinction."1 But the predicate "particular" shows that Hofmann does not reject every distinction; and, indeed, there exists a not inconsiderable distinction; for, as we have already remarked, IWin denotes only that which is permanent in worship, as e.g. the daily morning and evening sacrifice; while, on the other hand, nnDftl J"QT denotes the whole series of sacrifices together. The making to cease of the bloody and the unbloody sacrifices expresses an altogether greater wickedness than the taking away of the daily sacrifice. This distinction is not set aside by a reference to the clause DWO D^j3P *£3 ^ (ver. 27) compared with D»feto pptfn orot (ch. xi. 31). For the assertion that the article in DDfefo pi^n (ch. xi. 31, "the abomination that maketh desolate") denotes something of which Daniel had before this already heard, supplies no proof of this; but the article is simply to be accounted for from the placing over against one another of "PDJJiJ and pptin. Moreover the D»fe>» pptfn is very different from the Dgfeto D*¥ij3B> CJ33 by. The being carried on the wings of idolabominations is a much more comprehensive expression for the might and dominion of idol-abominations than the setting up of an idol-altar on Jehovah's altar of burnt-offering.
As little can we (with Hofm., p. 590) perceive in the N*2n, closely connecting itself with *ltt#3 tejpi (ver. 26), a reference to the divine judgment described in ch. viii., because the reference
1 We confine ourselves here to what Hofra. in his Schriftbew. has brought forward in favour of this view, without going into the points which he has stated in his die 70 Wochen, u. s. w. p. 97, but has omitted in the Schriftbew., and can with reference to that earlier argumentation only refer for its refutation to Kliefoth's Daniel, p. 417 ff.
to the enemy of God spoken of in cli. vii. 8 and 24 is as natural, yea, even more so, when we observe that the enemy of God in ch. vii. is destroyed by a solemn judgment of God — a circumstance which harmonizes much more with *lBBb ^i? than with ")3L-^ T D2N3, which is said of the enemy described in ch. viii. Add to this that the half-week during which the adversary shall (ch. ix. 27) carry on his work corresponds not to the 2300 eveningmornings (ch viii. 13), but, as Delitzsch acknowledges, to the 3^ times, ch. vii. 25 and xii. 7, which 3^ times, however, refer not to the period of persecution under Antiochus, but to that of Antichrist.
From all this it therefore follows, not that the prince who shall come, whose people shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, and who shall cause the sacrifice to cease, is Antiochus, who shall raise himself against the people of the saints, take away the u continuance " ( = daily sacrifice), and cast down the place of the sanctuary (ch. viii. 11), but only that this wickedness of Antiochus shall constitute a type for the abomination of desolation which the hostile prince mentioned in this prophecy shall set up, till, like Pharaoh, he find his overthrow in the flood, and the desolation which he causes shall pour itself upon him like a flood.
This interpretation of vers. 26 and 27 is not made doubtful also by referring to the words of 1 Mace. i. 54, a>KoS6/x7jaav fi&eXvyfia ipr)/jLooo-€Q)<; iirl to dvo-LacrTrjpLov, as an evidence that at that time Dan. ix. 27 was regarded as a prophecy of the events then taking place (Hofm. Weiss, i. p. 309). For these words refer not to Dan. ix. 27, where the LXX. have ^BeXvyfia iprjfjLcoo-eooVj but to Dan. xi. 11, where the singular fiSeXvyfjua ipy/Awo-em stands with the verb ko\ Booaovac (LXX. for ^rn")), to which the a>KoSo/jLrjaerac visibly refers.
If, therefore, the reference of vers. 26, 27 to the period of Antiochus' persecution is exegetically untenable, then also, finally, it is completely disproved in the chronological reckoning of the 70 weeks. Proceeding from the right supposition, that after the 70 weeks, the fulfilling of all that was promised, the expiating and putting away of sin, and, along with that, the perfect working out of the divine plan of salvation for eternity, shall begin, — thus, that in ver. 24 the perfecting of the kingdom of God in glory is prophesied of, — Hofmann and his followers do not interpret the 7, 62, and 1 wTeek which are mentioned in vers. 25-27 as a division of the 70 weeks, but they misplace the first-mentioned 7 weeks at the end of the period consisting of 70 such weeks, and the following 62 -4- 1 in the time reaching from the be^innin^ of the Chaldean supremacy in the year 605 to the death of Antiochus Epiphanes in the year 164, which makes 441 years = 63 year- weeks; according to which, not only the end of the 62 + 1 weeks does not coincide with the end of the 70 weeks, but also the 7+62 + 1 are to be regarded neither as identical with the 70 nor as following one another continuously in their order, — much more between the 63 and the 7 weeks a wide blank space, which before the coming of the end cannot be measured, must lie, which is not even properly covered up, much less filled up, by the remark that " the unfolding of the 70 proceeds backwards." For by this reckoning 7 + 62 + 1 are not an unfolding of the 70, and are not equal to 70, but would be equal to 62 + 1 + some unknown intervening period + 7 weeks. This were an impossibility which the representatives of this interpretation of the angel's communication do not, it is true, accept, but seek to set aside, by explaining the 7 weeks as periods formed of 7 times 7, or jubilee-year periods, and, on the contrary, the 62 + 1 of seven-year times or Sabbath-periods.
This strange interpretation of the angel's words, according to which not only must the succession of the periods given in the text be transposed, the first 7 wreeks being placed last, but also the word D^iDCJ in the passages immediately following one another must first denote jubilee (49 year) periods, then also Sabbath-year (7 year) periods, is not made plain by saying that " the end of the 62 + 1 week is the judgment of wrath against the persecutor, thus only the remote making possible the salvation; but the end of the 70 weeks is, according to ver. 24, the final salvation, and fulfilling of the prophecy and consecration of the Most Holy — thus the end of the 62 + 1 and of the 70 does not take place at the same time;" and — " if the end of the two took place at the same time, what kind of miserable consolation would this be for Daniel, in answer to his prayer, to be told that Jerusalem within the 70 weeks would in troublous times again arise, thus only arise amid destitution!" (Del. p. 284). For the prophecy would furnish but miserable consolation only in this case, if it consisted merely of the contents of vers. 25&, 26, and 27, — if it said nothing more than this, that Jerusalem should be built again within the 70 weeks in troublous times, and then finally would again be laid waste. But the other remark, that the judgment of wrath against the destroyer forms only the remote making possible of the salvation, and is separated from the final deliverance or the completion of salvation by a long intervening period, stands in contradiction to the prophecy in ch. vii. and to the whole teaching of Scripture, according to which the destruction of the arch-enemy (Antichrist) and the setting up of the kingdom of glory are brought about by one act of judgment.
In the most recent discussion of this prophecy, Hofmann (Schriftbew. ii. 2, p. 585 ff., 2 Aufl.) has presented the following positive arguments for the interpretation and reckoning of the period of time in question. The message of the angel in vers. 25-27 consists of three parts: (1) A statement of how many heptades shall be between the going forth of the command to rebuild Jerusalem and a Maschiach Nagid; (2) the mentioning of that which constitutes the contents of sixty-two of these periods; (3) the prediction of what shall happen with the close of the latter of these times. In the first of these parts, "Hi with the following infinitive, which denotes a human action, is to be taken in the sense of comma?idmentj as that word of Cyrus prophesied of Isa. xliv. 28, and the rebuilding of Jerusalem is to be interpreted as in this passage of Isaiah, or in Jeremiah's prophecy to the same import, and not as if afterwards a second rebuilding of Jerusalem amid the difficulty and oppression of the times is predicted; then will the sixty-two heptades remain separated from the seven, and not sixtynine of these, but only seven, be reckoned between the going forth of the command to build Jerusalem again and the Maschiach Nagid} since in ver. 26 mention is made not of that which is to be expected on the other side of the sixty-nine, but of the sixty-two times; finally, the contents of the seven times are sufficiently denoted by their commencement and their termination, and will remain without being confounded with the building up of Jerusalem in troublous times, afterwards described.
All these statements of Hofmann are correct, and they agree with our interpretation of these verses, but they contain no proof that the sixty-two weeks are to be placed after the seven, and that they are of a different extent from these. The proof for this is first presented in the conclusion derived from these statements (on the ground of the correct supposition that by Maschiach Nagid not Cyrus, but the Messias, is to be understood), that because the first of these passages (ver. 25a) does not say of a part of these times what may be its contents, but much rather points out which part of them lies between the two events in the great future of Israel, and consequently separates them from one another, that on this account these events belong to the end of the present course of the world, in which Israel hoped, and obviously the seven times shall constitute the end of the period consisting of seven such times. This argument thus founds itself on the circumstance that the appearing of the Maschiach Nagid which concludes the seven weeks, and separates them from the sixty-two weeks which follow, is not to be understood of the appearance of Christ in the flesh, but of His return in glory for the completion of the kingdom which was hoped for in consequence of the restoration of Jerusalem, prophesied of by Isaiah {e.g. ch. lv. 3, 4) and Jeremiah (e.g. ch. xxx. 9). But we could speak of these deductions as valid only if Isaiah and Jeremiah had prophesied only of the appearance of the Messias in glory, with the exclusion of His coming in the flesh. But since this is not the case — much rather, on the one side, Hofmann himself says the 'U1 n^'np 121 may be taken for a prediction, as that Isa. xliv. 28, of Cyrus — but Cyrus shall not build the Jerusalem of the millennial kingdom, but the Jerusalem with its temple which was destroyed by the Chaldeans — and, on the other hand, here first, if not alone, in the prophecies ch. xxv. and xxix., by which Daniel was led to pray, Jeremiah has predicted the return of Israel from exile after the expiry of the seventy years as the beginning of the working out of the divine counsel of salvation towards Israel, — therefore Daniel also could not understand the '1U1 ywrb Hi otherwise than of the restoration of Jerusalem after the seventy years of the Babylonish exile. The remark also, that nothing is said of the contents of the seven weeks, warrants us in no respect to seek their contents in the time of the millennial kingdom. The absence of any mention of the contents of the seven weeks is simply and sufficiently accounted for from the circumstance, as we have already (p. 375) shown, that Daniel had already given the needed information (ch. viii.) regarding this time, regarding the time from the end of the Exile to the appearance of Christ. Still less can the conclusion be drawn, from the circumstance that the building in the sixty-two weeks is designated as one falling in troublous times, that the restoration and the building of Jerusalem in the seven weeks shall be a building in glory. The T\\l2?) y&\k (to restore and to build, ver. 25a) does not form a contrast to the D*$n pto nnm 2WR (= E.V. shall be built again, and the wall even in troublous times, ver. 25b), but it is only more indefinite, for the circumstances of the building are not particularly stated. Finally, the circumstance also, that after the sixty-two hejptades a new devastation of the holy city is placed in view, cannot influence us to escape from the idea of the second coming of Christ in the last time alomr with the building of Jerusalem during the seven heptades, since it was even revealed to the prophet that not merely would a cruel enemy of the saints of God (in Antiochus Epiphanes) arise out of the third world-kingdom, but also that a yet greater enemy would arise out of the fourth, an enemy who would perish in the burning fire (ch. vii. 12, 2G f.) in the judgment of the world immediately before the setting up of the kingdom of glory.
Thus neither the placing of the contents of the seven weeks in the eschatological future, nor yet the placing of these weeks at the beginning instead of at the end of the three periods of time which are distinguished in vers. 25-27, is established by these arguments. This Fries (Jahrb. /. deutsche Theol. iv. p. 254 ff.) has observed, and rightly remarked, that the effort to interpret the events announced in ver. 26 f. of the tyranny of Antiochus, and to make this epoch coincide with the close of the sixty-two year-weeks in the chronological reckoning, cannot but lead to the mistake of ineluding the years of Babylon in the seventy year-weeks — a mistake which is met by three rocks, against which every attempt of this kind must be shattered. (1) There is the objection that it is impossible that the times of the destruction and the desolation of Jerusalem could be conceived of under the same character as the times of its restoration, and be represented from the same point of view; (2) the inexplicable inconsequence which immediately arises, if in the seventy year-weeks, including the last restoration of Israel, the Babylonish but not also the Romish exile were comprehended; (3) the scarcely credible supposition that the message of the angel sent to Daniel was to correct that earlier divine word which was given by Jeremiah, and to make known that not simply seventy years, but rather seventy year-weeks, are meant. Of this latter supposition we have already (p. 323) shown that it has not a single point of support in the text.
In order to avoid these three rocks, Fries advances the opinion that the three portions into which the seventy year-weeks are divided, are each by itself separately to be reckoned chronologically, and that they form a connected whole, not in a chronological, but in a historico-pragmatical sense, " as the whole of all the times of the positive continuance of the theocracy in the Holy Land lying between the liberation from Babylonish exile and the completion of the historical kingdom of Israel " (p. 258); and, indeed, so that the seven year-weeks, ver. 25a, form the last part of the seventy year-weeks, or, what is the same, the jubilee-period of the millennial kingdom, and the sixty-two year-weeks, ver. 26a, represent the period of the restoration of Israel after its liberation from Babylon and before its overthrow by the Romans — reckoned according to the average of the points of commencement and termination, according to which, from the reckoning 536 (edict of Cyrus), 457 (return of Ezra), and 410 (termination by the restoration), we obtain for the epoch of the restoration the mean year 467 B.C.; and for the crisis of subjection to the Roman power A.tJ.C. 691 (the overthrow of Jerusalem by Pompey), 714 (the appointment of Herod as king of the Jews), and 759 (the first Roman procurator in Palestine), we obtain the mean year 721 a.u.c. = 33 ^.c, and the difference of these mean numbers, 467 and 33, amounts exactly to 434 years = 62 year-weeks. The period described in ver. 26 thus reaches from the beginnings of the subjection of Israel under the Roman world-kingdom to the expiry of the time of the diaspora of Israel, and the separate year-week, ver. 27, comprehends the period of the final trial of the people of God, and reaches from the bringing back of Israel to the destruction of Antichrist (pp. 261-266).
Against this new attempt to solve the mystery of the seventy weeks, Hofmann, in Schriftbew. ii. 2, p. 594, raises the objection, " that in ver. 26 a period must be described which belongs to the past, and in ver. 27, on the contrary, another which belongs to the time of the end; this makes the indissoluble connection which exists between the contents of the two verses absolutely impossible." In this he is perfectly right. The close connection between these two verses makes it certainly impossible to interpose an empty space of time between the cutting off of the Anointed, by which Fries understands the dispersion of Israel among the heathen in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and the coming of Antichrist, a space which would amount to 1800 years. But in opposition to this hypothesis we must also further remark, (1) that Fries has not justified the placing of the first portion of the seventy year-weeks (i.e. the seven weeks) at the end, — he has not removed the obstacles standing against this arbitrary supposition, for his interpretation of the words T.3J rVK>» *W, u till Messias the prince shall be," is verbally impossible, since, if Nagid is a predicate, then the verb IW could not be wanting; (2) that the interpretation of the Wd ma* of the abolition of the old theocracv, and of the dispersion of the Jews abandoned by God among the heathen, needs no serious refutation, but with this interpretation the whole hypothesis stands or falls. Finally, (3) the supposition requires that the sixty-two weeks must be chronologically reckoned as year-weeks; the seven weeks, on the contrary, must be interpreted mystically as jubilee-periods, and the one week as a period of time of indefinite duration; a freak of arbitrariness exceeding all measure, which can no longer be spoken of as scripture interpretation.
Over against such arbitrary hypotheses, we can regard it as only an advance on the way toward a right understanding of this prophecy, that Hofmann (p. 594) closes his most recent investigations into this question with the following remarks: — u On the contrary, I always find that the indefiniteness of the expression Wyj, which denotes a period in some Way divided into sevens, leaves room for the possibility of comprehending together the sixty-three and the seven weeks in one period of seventy, as its beginning and its end.... What was the extent of the units of which the seventy times consist, the expression ^3E> did not inform Daniel: he could only conjecture it." This facilitates the adoption of the symbolical interpretation of the numbers, which, after the example of Leyrer and Kliefoth, we regard as the only possible one, because it does not necessitate our changing the seventy years of the exile into years of the restoration of Jerusalem, and placing the seven weeks, which the text presents as the first period of the seventy weeks, last.
The symbolical interpretation of the seventy D^n^ and their divisions is supported by the following considerations: — (1) By the double circumstance, that on the one side all the explanations of them as year-weeks necessitate an explanation of the angel's message which is justified neither by the words nor by the succession of the statements, and do violence to the text, without obtaining a natural progress of thought, and on the other side all attempts to reckon these year-weeks chronologically show themselves to be insufficient and impossible. (2) The same conclusion is sustained by the choice of the word ^38? for the definition of the whole epoch and its separate periods; for this word only denotes a space of time measured by sevens, but indicates nothing as to the duration of these sevens. Since Daniel in ch. viii. 14 and xii. 11 uses a chronologically definite measure of time (evening-mornings, days), we must conclude from the choice of the expressions, seven, seven times (as in ch. vii. 25 and xii. 7 of the like expression, times), which cannot be reckoned chronologically, that the period for the perfecting of the people and the kingdom of God was not to be chronologically defined, but only noted as a divinely appointed period measured by sevens. " They are sevens, of that there is no doubt; but the measure of the unit is not given: " thus Lammert remarks (Zur Revision der bibl. Zahlensymb. in den Jahrbb. f. D. Theol. ix. 1). He further says: " If the great difficulty of taking these numbers chronologically does not of itself urge to their symbolical interpretation, then we should be led to this by the disagreement existing between Gabriel's answer (ver. 22) and Daniel's question (ver. 2). To his human inquiries regarding the end of the Babylonish exile, Daniel receives not a human but a divine answer, in which the seventy years of Jeremiah are reckoned as sevens, and it is indicated that the full close of the history of redemption shall only be reached after a long succession of periods of development."
By the definition of these periods according to a symbolical measure of time, the reckoning of the actual duration of the periods named is withdrawn beyond the reach of our human re* search, and the definition of the days and hours of the development of the kingdom of God down to its consummation is reserved for God, the Governor of the world and the Ruler of human history; yet by the announcement of the development in its principal stadia, according to a measure fixed by God, the strong consolation is afforded of knowing that the fortunes of His people are in His hands, and that no hostile power will rule over them one hour longer than God the Lord thinks fit to afford time and space, in regard to the enemy for his unfolding and ripening for the judgment, and in regard to the saints for the purifying and the confirmation of their faith for the eternal life in His kingdom according to His wisdom and righteousness.
The prophecy, in that it thus announces the times of the development of the future consummation of the kingdom of God and of this world according to a measure that is symbolical and not chronological, does not in the least degree lose its character as a revelation, but thereby first rightly proves its high origin as divine, and beyond the reach of human thought. For, as Leyrer (Ilerz.'s Bealenc. xviii. p. 387) rightly remarks, "should not He who as Creator has ordained all things according to measure and number, also as Governor of the world set higher measures and bounds to the developments of history? which are to be taken at one time as identical with earthly measures of time, which indeed the^ eventus often first teaches (e.g. the seventy years of the Babylonish exile, Dan. ix. 2), but at another time as symbolical, but yet so that the historical course holds and moves itself within the divinely measured sphere, as with the seventy weeks of Daniel, wherein, for the establishing of the faith of individuals and of the church, there lies the consolation, that all events even to the minutest, particularly also the times of war and of oppression, are graciously measured by God (Jer. v. 22; Job xxxviii. 11- Ps. xciii. Sf.)."1
To give this consolation to the faithful is the object of this revelation, and that object it fully accomplishes. For the time and the hour of the consummation of the kingdom of God it belongs not to us to know. What the Lord said to His disciples (Acts i. 7) before His ascension, in answer to their question as to the time of the setting up of the kingdom of Israel—" It belongs not to you to know Xpovovs y Kcupobs ow 6 irar^p Wero iv rf) 18% e|cWa"— that He says not only to the twelve apostles, but to the whole Christian world. That the reason for this answer is to be sought not merely in the existing condition of the disciples at the time He uttered it, but in this, that the time and the hour of the appearance of the Lord for the judgment of the world and the completion of His kingdom in glory are not to be announced beforehand to men, is clear from the circumstance that Christ in the eschatological discourse (Matt. xxiv. 36; Mark xiii. 32) de^ clares generally, « Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only." According to this, God, the Creator and Euler of the world, has kept in His own power the determination of the time and the hour of the consummation of the world, so that we may not expect an announcement of it beforehand in the Scripture. What has been advanced in
1 Auberlen, notwithstanding that he interprets the seventy Q^p chronologically as year-weeks, does not yet altogether misapprehend the 'symbolical character of this definition of time, but rightly remarks (p. 133 f.), "The history of redemption is governed by these sacred numbers; they are like the simple foundation of the building, the skeleton in its organism. These are not only outward indications of time, but also indications of nature and essence " What he indeed says regarding the symbolical meaning of the seventy weeks and their divisions, depends on his erroneous interpretation of the prophecy of the appearance of Christ in the flesh, and is not consistent with itself.
opposition to this view for the justifying of the chronological interpretation of Daniel's prophecy of seventy weeks, and similar prophecies (cf. e.g. Hengstb. Christol. iii. 1, p. 202 ff.), cannot be regarded as valid proof. If Bengel, in Or do Temporum, p. 259, 2d ed., remarks with reference to Mark xiii. 32: a Negatur prcevia scientia, pro ipso duntaxat prcesenti sermonis tempore, ante passionem et glorificationem Jesu. Non dixit, nemo sciet, sed: nemo scit. Ipse jam, jamque, sciturus erat: et quum scientiam diei et Jiora? nactus fuit, ipsius erat, scientiam dare, cni vellet et quando vellet" — so no one can certainly dispute a priori the conclusion u Ipse jam," etc., drawn from the correct statements preceding, but also every one will confess that the statement u Ipsius erat" etc., cannot prove it to be a fact that Jesus, after His glorification, revealed to John in Patmos the time and the hour of His return for the final judgment. Bengel's attempt to interpret the prophetical numbers of the Apocalypse chronologically, and accordingly to reckon the year of the coming again of our Lord, has altogether failed, as all modern scientific interpreters have acknowledged. So also fails the attempt which has been made to conclude from what Christ has said regarding the day of His irapovcria, that the Scripture can have no chronologically defined prophecies, while yet Christ Himself prophesied His resurrection after three days.
CHAP. X.-XII. THE REVELATION REGARDING THE AFFLICTION OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD ON THE PART OF THE RULERS OF THE WORLD TILL THE CONSUMMATION OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
In the third year of the reign of Cyrus, Daniel received the last revelation regarding the future of his people, which gives a fuller unfolding of the hostile attitude of the world-power toward the people and the kingdom of God from the time of the Persian dominion to the end of the days, as well as regarding the powerful protection which the covenant people shall experience amid the severe oppressions they wTould be exposed to for their purification. This revelation connects itself, both as to its contents and form, so closely with ch. viii., that it is to be viewed as a further unfolding of that prophecy, and serves for the illustration and confirmation of that which was announced to the prophet shortly before the destruction of the Chaldean world-kingdom regarding the worldkingdoms that were to follow, and their relation to the theocracy. It consists of three parts: — (1.) There is the description of the appearance of God as to its nature, the impression it produced on the prophet, and its object (ch. x. 1-xi. 2a). (2.) The unveiling of the future, in brief statements regarding the relation of the Persian and the Javanic world-kingdoms to Israel, and in more comprehensive descriptions of the wars of the kings of the north and the south for the supremacy, with the hostilities thence arising against the kingdom of God — hostilities which aim at its destruction, but which, because of the powerful succour which is rendered to Israel by Michael the angel-prince, shall come to an end in the destruction of the enemy of God and the final salvation of the people of God (ch. xi. 26-xii. 3). (3.) This revelation concludes with the definition of the duration of the time of oppression, and with the command given to Daniel to seal up the words, together with the prophecy, till the time of the end, and to rest till the end come: " For thou shalt rest and stand in thy lot at the end of the days" (ch. xii. 4-13).