sons for concluding that it ought so likewise to be understood here, I have translated it accordingly*. • It is translated in the same manner by Bp. Lloyd. CHAPTER CHAPTER V. Concerning the mutual relation of the different clauses of the prophecy considered in the ab stract. It is highly useful and important to obtain a clear T view in the abstract of the mutual relation of the different clauses of a prophecy, before we attempt to interpret that prophecy by applying it to facts. Such was the plan, on which Mr. Mede drew up his Clavis Apocalyptica; wherein the synchronisms of the different parallel parts of the Revelation are merely arranged and established, without even an attempt to explain the meaning of the predictions themselves. These being duly arranged, he was then prepared to enter upon the work of regular exposition by comparing the prophecies with their supposed historical accomplishment. The plan is so judicious, that I purpose to adopt it in the following investigation. Dan. DAN. IX. 24. Weeks seventy are the precise period upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to complete the apostasy, and to perfect the sin-offerings, and to make atonement for iniquity, and to cause him who is the righteousness of the eternal ages to come, and to seal the vision and the prophet, and to anoint the Most Holy One. 25. But know and understand, from the going forth of an edict to rebuild Jerusalem unto the Anointed One the Prince shall be weeks seven and weeks sixty and two: it shall be rebuilt, with perpetual increase and firm decision, even in the short space of the times. 26. And, after the weeks seven and the weeks sixty and two, the Anointed One shall cut off by divorce, so that they shall be no more his, both the city and the sanctuary. For the people of the prince that shall come shall act corruptly: but the end thereof shall be with a flood; and unto the end of a war firmly decided upon shall be desolations. 27. Yet he shall make firm a covenant with many for one week. And in half a week he shall cause the sacrifice and meat-offering to cease (for upon the border shall be the abomination that maketh desolate), even until an utter end, and that firmly decided upons, shall be poured upon the desolator. From an attentive view of this prophecy we may, I think, establish the following positions, which will be useful in binding down the interpretation of it within certain fixed limits and in checking any unwarrantable flights of imagination. 1. The seventy weeks, mentioned in the 24th verse, must be understood as looking prospectively. This point I argue in the following manner. -is rendered se שבעים שבעים The expression venty weeks by all the old versions*: it is so understood by all the ancient commentators in their several expositions of the prophecy it is likewise so understood by the Jewish writers, notwithstanding the formidable argument which it holds forth in favour of Christianity: and the general context of the whole prediction imperiously requires, that it should be so understood. The version of it proposed by Dr. Blayney, namely weeks sufficient, possesses none of these recommendations. It contradicts the translation, which has generally been I have already observed, that the oriental versions may however, like the Hebrew, be ambiguous. received received both by ancients and moderns, both by Jews and Christians: it does not quadrate with the context of the prophecy: it exhibits Daniel as affecting unnecessary obscurity: it produces a phraseology unparalleled in Scripture: it is palpably contrived to serve a turn. If then the expression must necessarily be rendered seventy weeks, those seventy weeks must necessarily look prospectively; because the particulars to be accomplished within them cannot be shewn to have been accomplished within the precise number of seventy weeks or 490 years previous to Daniel's vision. 2. Since the seventy weeks are the appointed period to effect six different particulars specified by Daniel, their termination must be marked by the effecting of some one or more of these particulars. This is manifest from the circumstance of the seventy weeks being a precise limited time. If they do not expire with some one of the specified particulars, but extend beyond the last of them, then they cannot with propriety be simply said to have been appointed for the effecting of them because, if they extend beyond the last to no remarkable era, then a smaller portion of time, precisely reaching to the last, ought to have been marked out; and, if they extend beyond the last to an era noted for some remarkable event, then that event ought to have been specified in the list of particulars, other$ 2 wise |