Holy Bible

And I met my face unto the Lord God. Daniel 9:3 Setting the Face unto the Lord J. E. Dalton, B.D. Daniel, when he would seek God, "set his face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer." He was an eminently holy man, and far advanced in piety. His example cannot be an unfitting one to follow. 1. There must be great difficulties to the proper and effectual seeking after God. Some things we do without difficulty; our mind goes naturally and easily to their performance. Before man's fall, his mind would as naturally turn to God rejoice in Him, and be lifted up towards Him, as he now delights in a bright and glorious day. It is not so now. It is a very difficult matter set ourselves rightly to seek God. Man cannot seek God aright unless the power of God works in him to bring him to do it. How can any bring a broken and a contrite heart, which is the proper offering before God, unless God the Spirit break it? Do we naturally give up sin, or naturally wish to do it? Is it easy to confess our sins, to find them out, to ascertain them, whether sins of the heart or life? Try earnestly and honestly to seek God, and you will soon find the difficulty. Various hindrances indeed there are, in coming to the Mercy Seat. 2. Multitudes are ever seeking God who do not set their faces to seek. Scripture is clear respecting wavers. There are many persons of this kind, earnest to-day, dead again to-morrow; by fits at prayer, and then prayerless again. Such obtain nothing of the Lord. Others, though seeking, will not give up every wilful sin. Who can he a Christian without a sacrifice? Who can enter the strait gate without a struggle? You seek in vain if you allow a worldly spirit; unless you come to God, and honestly and earnestly wish to have the love of the world destroyed in your heart. There is one way of approach to God, and but one; one name and one only to plead — the name of Jesus Christ. 3. Some hints on the setting of our face unto the Lord our God. You must give time for this. There must be going to work in right earnest; diligent inquiry for the sins of the life, and for the sins of the heart, and a confessing them with real sorrow before God. There must be, from the beginning of our seeking, a looking for, and a reliance upon, God's help. And we may look for His help. The first honest and sincere cry or sigh of a returning sinner is noticed by a gracious God. That cry never goes up for help in vain. 4. The importance of thus "setting our face unto the Lord God to seek." Remember that we cannot succeed without this. Think of the blessings which God bestows upon those who thus seek, what wonderful promises He has made to them. They deserve all such seeking and sacrifices as we have shown to be needful. You are commanded thus to seek God. God's commands are the most gracious and beneficent things to us that there are. 5. Special reasons which may be given to different individuals why they should at once resolvedly, looking up to God for help, do this:(1) Those who have never yet thus "set their face unto the Lord God" Your eternal happiness depends upon your seeking, or your everlasting perdition.(2) Turn to some Christians. Some of you are hindered by something in your course. If you would follow Daniel's example you might be freed from this hindrance. Again, someone is in a particular strait and difficulty. Does no door open? Is the way dark? Have recourse to thus seeking to God. Go to this duty at once. It must be done now. Let there be no delay. Begin now, earnestly, resolvedly, in prayer and dependence of God's merciful help, and the result shall not be an early failure or disappointment. God will help the soul at its first really sincere and honest cry to Him for help. ( J. E. Dalton, B.D. ) Righteousness not a Position but a Direction Brooke Herford, D.D. That is a good word about the young Hebrew, Daniel — it says so much. "I set my face to the Lord God." And that is the real question about life: which way are you facing; in which direction are you really looking and living? Righteousness, not a position, but a direction. Let me first make this distinction plain, and then you will see the importance of it. The common idea, then, of the difference between right and wrong is that right and wrong are two, separate territories as it were, and that there is a boundary line dividing them, like the frontier line between two countries, and that anywhere on the right side of that boundary line is right. Or, people figure particular sins as if they were separate provinces in the general territory of wrong, each sin with its own boundary line, on one side of which you are in sin — but that so long as you have not actually crossed that line into sin, you are all right. And a great deal of the moral discussion of the world has been spent on trying to map out these exact lines where the right ends and the wrong begins, the line up to which you may go without sinning. Well, that seems very plausible — and yet a glance into real life, and at some of the very commonest matters of right and wrong, is sufficient to show that at any rate there is a great deal of life in which it is quite impossible to draw any such distinct lines between right and wrong! Try to draw the line between industry and idleness, and to say exactly how industrious a man ought to be in order not to be counted an idler. But you cannot do it! Or, take selfishness. Who can lay down exactly how far I ought to consider myself, and mark the point at which selfishness begins; or how far I ought to do what I like, or how far give up to others? Why it cannot be done, if you were to argue about it for a year! Or, take such constantly present questions as that of right and wrong in eating and drinking, or any kind of indulgence. Is there any clear line to be drawn between what is temperate and what is intemperate? Certainly covetousness is a sin. But where exactly does it begin to be so? So it is, palpably, with regard to a great deal of right and wrong. But really, it is so even in things which at first sight look so clear and distinct in their moral outline that you are apt to say — that there can be no haziness or uncertainty in them. Take truth, for instance, or honesty. Truth is apt to look just as exact and precise as a mathematical figure — whether a thing is true or not true, whether you are telling the truth or not — it seems as if it ought to be possible to define that anyhow. And honesty! Is anyone going to say that honesty and dishonesty shade off into one another — why it seems like sapping the very clearest distinction of morality. And yet it is so. No exact line can be drawn in either matter. If you had been sheltering a fugitive slave in the old days of slavery, would truth make it your duty to answer the question if he was with you? Or, if you are bargaining about some goods you want to sell, does honesty require you to tell everything you know to their disadvantage, or is it enough if you answer truly every actual question that is asked you? Must truth be told to criminals when it will help them in a crime? And so I might go through every part of human conduct, and the more closely you look into it, the more you will find that there is no such thing as drawing any absolute line between right and wrong anywhere. But what does that mean? That, therefore, there is not any real difference between them, or that the distinction between them is imperceptible? Not for a moment. The difference between right and wrong is the most tremendous distinction in the world. No distinction of painful or pleasant can compare with it — only it is not of that sort There comes in the thought — and I think it is a helpful thought, that it is not a difference of place or position, but of direction. A single illustration gives it to you at once. It is simply like the difference between east and west. Is there any dividing line between east and west? No! Who can tell where the east stops and the west begins? No one; and yet does that mean that there is no difference between east and west, or that it is a hazy, obscure difference? Not at all. Simply it is this same difference not of two places, but of two directions. You cannot possibly draw a dividing line between east and west, but you can tell in a moment whether you are going east or west, or whether your face is set towards the east or towards the west. And so, though there never was a line drawn which could divide exactly right from wrong, you can tell in a moment whether you are living in the direction of right or in the direction of wrong. There, then, is thee true distinction — and now let us follow it out a little and see the importance of it. For it begins at the very beginning of life, and it lies at the root of all clear, strong righteousness. And, on the other hand, that idea that righteousness consists in not crossing some dividing line into wrong, is just the most treacherous and fertile source of wrong. As long as one fancies that sin only begins at some distinct line, one is tempted to go just as near that line as one can — while really the sin is begun, and going on all the time that one is facing that way! You can see how this works, from the cradle up. You mothers — you tell your little child, playing about you as you work, not to go out of the room. And it goes to the door — and it looks out — and if you speak it says, "I didn't go out." And then it puts one foot just on the threshold — very likely looking at you all the while — and then ventures it a little further, — and still, when you shake your head, it says, "I haven't gone out!" Do you know why it is so hard to teach children the true lesson — not merely to keep from crossing some actual line of wrong, but to keep from looking that way, or going that way at all? Because so many of those who want children to be taught that lesson have not learned it themselves! Men and women are constantly just like that little child. They do not intend to sin, or at least they feel they must not, and. they think they will not. But they will look towards it, and they will go to the very edge of it, and look over, and perhaps put one foot on the very threshold — and yet if conscience brings them up with a round turn, they try to justify themselves by saying that they have not actually crossed the line! That is how nine-tenths of the world's sinning comes! Young men, don't you know how this often works in a young man's life — this trying how near one can go to the edge of sin without actually going over the edge? A young fellow comes up from school, or from some country home, to take his place in the great world, and the false glamour of it by and by begins to get hold of him. But he does not mean to sin; he has grace enough to shrink from that. No — he won't sin, be says; but he begins to go with those who do; he hears them talk and brag of the pleasures they have; he half envies them the daring with which they sin — and he will go to places where it is all about — and still when conscience comes in, in quiet hours, he tries to take some poor comfort by making believe with himself that he has not actually sinned. Sinned? Why, his whole attitude is sin. His face and his heart are set towards sin all the time. And it is the same all through life. Just look up the record of any ten men who have got into jail, and. you will find that nine out of the ten were led the first stops of the way which brought them there by that mischievous idea that there was some dead-line of sin, which if they did not cross, they would be right. And not only is this the source of actual crime — and of what the world definitely labels sin — but also it is the source of all the poor, unworthy life that there is in the world. The people who are not exactly thieves — but who will take an advantage of you if they can; the people who oven while they are working have not their hearts really set to work, but are facing towards idleness and amusement; that character which in business is always "sailing rather close to the wind," and, still more common in the world, that kind of life which perhaps plumes itself on never breaking a commandment or doing anything wrong, and yet that has no real love of goodness, no genuine desire for goodness — that is the kind of life which keeps the world back, and keeps the church back, and keeps the tone of society low and mean. Friends, this is God's call to us. Not just to keep from certain forbidden things, or from crossing some actual line of sin — but to set our faces clear the other way — towards right, towards all the just, pure, kind, godly life. It is Christ and all His setting forth of life that have brought this out fully for us — no longer law, but love, no longer the mere keeping from a certain list of forbidden things, but, active, forward-looking service. That is the secret of effective life and of happy life to keep righteousness before us as the whole direction of our living. There is not a day, hardly an hour, but this principle — of righteousness being not a position, but a direction — comes in. It cuts right through the moral casuistry by which the steps of duty so easily get entangled, in discussing just how far this or that way may be pursued without some actual sin! Then does righteousness, in this thought of it, become not a drag, but a motive power, not a restraint, but an inspiration, not condemnation, but glory! I do not say that it is easy; there is no way of looking at it that can make righteousness easy. One may set one's face ever so earnestly in the right direction, and still the tempting passions will allure and the weak resolution will flag and stumble. The Roman moralist confessed that while he loved the better, he sometimes followed the worse — and even Paul himself says that though he delights in the law of God after the inward man, yet he finds another law in his members bringing him into captivity to sin and death. No! There is no grand moral victory even that way, even by facing the right way — and still, it is the only really onward way at all — and with the heart and face set really towards right and God, strength must keep growing — and the sense of a Divine help that will not give us up, and the upward way becomes not quite so hard; and even through clinging weakness and sin, to keep the heart still set towards the right is itself — no! not victory, but the promise of some final victory, the prophecy of how at last we may be lifted out of the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God! ( Brooke Herford, D.D. ) Daniel, the Man of Prayer Alex.Whyte, D.D. The prophet Daniel became a great proficient both in penitential and in intercessory prayer as the years went on. And he came to that great proficiency just as a great proficiency is come to in any other science or art; that is to say, by constant, and unremitting, and enterprising practice. Lord teach us to pray, said a disciple on one occasion to our Lord. But not even our Lord, with all His willingness, and all His ability, can teach any of us to pray. Every man must teach himself this most personal, and most secret, and most experimental; this greatest and best of all the arts. Every man must find out the best ways of prayer for himself. There is no royal road; there is no short or easy road to proficiency in prayer. You must also have special and extraordinary seasons of prayer, as Daniel had, over and above his daily habit of prayer. Special and extraordinary; original and unparalleled seasons of prayer, when you literally do nothing else day nor night but pray. Now, it is plain that you cannot teach a lifetime of experiment and attainment like that to any chance man; and, especially, you cannot teach it to a man who still detests the very thought of such prayer. It was his yoke in his youth that first taught Daniel to pray. And Babylon taught Daniel and his three friends all to pray, and to pray together in their chambers as we read. To be arrested in their father's houses by Nebuchadnezzar's soldiers; to have Babylonian chains put on their hands and their feet; to see the towers of Zion for the last time: to be asked to sing some of the songs of Zion to amuse their masters as they toiled over the Assyrian sands — you would have been experts yourselves in a school of prayer like that Jeremiah, a great authority on why some men pray, and why other men never pray, has this about you in his book: "Moab hath been at his ease from his youth up; he hath settled on his lees; he hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel: neither hath he gone into captivity; and, therefore, his taste remaineth in him, and his scent is not changed." The ninth chapter of Daniel is dear to every old devotional hand. It is delightful with a delight that is not known to neophytes. It is positively delightful to see the old prophet allying in his chamber and spelling out the book of the prophet Jeremiah, the first copy of which has just been smuggled across the wilderness from Jerusalem to Babylon. We sit over and spell out old authors in literature and religion, if they are sufficiently old; but it would not pay to make a contraband trade of the authors and the preachers of to-day to the authors of to-day or to the preachers either. We exploit and plagiarise the great preachers of the great past, but we do not find much to repay us in the pulpit of our day. Only Daniel studied Jeremiah as much as if Jeremiah had been Moses himself, and more. And he not only studied a prophet whom we would call his contemporary, and his colleague, but, old prophet and old priest as he himself was, he took a new start in fasting, and in sackcloth, and in ashes, and in prayer of all kinds as he sat over Jeremiah's now book, and felt on the floor of his chamber holding the book to his heart. Had we been in Daniel's place, I will wager what we would have said as we read that seventy years' passage on the new parchment: "The Lord's ways — if this is indeed the Lord — His ways are not equal," we would have said. "Here am I getting on to old age in Babylon, and no intimation has come to me like this. Surely I was the man that needed it, and had earned it. Why Jeremiah? What has he done? And besides, has he not fallen sway to our oppressors?" I have a feeling that I would not have been in such a meek temper as Daniel was over that book the ink of which was still wet. O Daniel, a man greatly beloved! and who deserved to be! "Why," asks Pascal, "why has God established prayer?" And the first answer out of the three that Pascal gives to himself is this — "To communicate to His creatures the dignity of causality." And Daniel was of Pascal's deep, believing and original mind. For Daniel, just because he read and believed that deliverance was at the door, all the more see himself to pray as if his prayer was to be the alone and predestinated cause of the coming deliverance. Daniel put on sackcloth, and fasted, and prayed, and went back upon all his own and all his people's sins in a way that confounds us to our face. We cannot understand Daniel. We are not deep enough. He prayed, and fasted, and returned to an agony of prayer, as if he had never heard of the near deliverance; he prayed in its very presence as if he despaired of ever seeing it. He fasted and prayed as he had not done all these seventy fasting and praying years. Read, all you experts in prayer, read with all your mind, and with all your heart, and with all your experience, and with all your imagination this great causality chapter. It is written by a proficient for proficients. It is written by a great saint of God for all such. Read it and think. Read it with your Pascal open before you. Read it and sink down into the deep things of God and the soul. Read it and practise it till you know by experiment and experience that decree, and covenant, and prophecy, and promise, and all, however sure, and however near, are all only fulfilled in immediate and dependent answer to penitential and importunate prayer. Read it and pray as never before after the answer has actually begun. See the answer out to the last syllable before you begin to restrain penitence and prayer. And after the answer is all fulfilled, still read it and the still deeper chapters that follow it, till you learn new fasting, and new sackcloth, and new ashes, and new repentance, away out to your saintliest old age. Read Daniel's greatest prayer, and "Know thy dread power — a creature yet a cause." ( Alex.Whyte, D.D. ) Daniel's Prayer R. Gordon, D.D. Acquainted as Daniel was with the word of God as delivered by the prophets who had foretold the captivity and restoration of Judah, and confiding in the unchangeable faithfulness of that word, as his whole life testified that he did, the return of his countrymen to Jerusalem was an event on which he must have assuredly reckoned, not only as certain, but as very near. Nor were there wanting other and very unequivocal intimations to give Daniel the assurance that this event was at hand. He saw, in the conqueror of Babylon, the very person who had been referred to by name in the prophecies of Isaiah, a hundred and seventy years before. If ever there was a future event which might have been reckoned on with absolute certainty, it was this restoration of the Jewish captives to the land and city of their fathers. And yet, so far from supposing that there was no place for prayer to occupy, among the various means that were employed to bring about that event, it was just his firm belief in the certainty and nearness of it that set Daniel upon fervent and persevering supplications for its accomplishment. Because he contemplated the near approach of this deliverance, he gave himself to special prayer for the fulfilment of the promise. 1. The prayer itself was just expressing or embodying in language the state of Daniel's mind as directed towards an object, in the accomplishment of which he felt a most intense interest. The believer never can, without belying his principles, deliberately desire anything that he knows to be contrary to the will, and inconsistent with the glory of God. He supplicates conditionally — so qualifying his petition as that it may be given him, if agreeable to his Maker's will, or conducive to the manifestation of his Maker's glory. But, if true to his principles, he never can cease vehemently to desire what he does know to be accordant with the will, and subservient to the glory of God. 2. With regard to the rank which Daniel's prayer occupied among the various agencies or means that were to be employed in bringing about the object of it, he had good reason to believe that it was neither without a definite place nor in itself devoid of efficacy. Daniel knew that the event for which he longed and prayed necessarily involved in it the spiritual amendment of Judah. He saw that the return of their heart to God was essential to their triumphant return to the land of their fathers; and he felt, therefore, that humiliation and confession of sin was not only a becoming exercise in him at such a moment, but, in reality, a fulfilment in part of the very promise in which he confided. The agency of prayer is indeed a less obvious and palpable thing than that outward co-operation, whereby mankind are rendered subservient to the accomplishment of the Divine purposes. But is it not an agency of an unspeakably loftier character? Is it not the co-operation of an immortal spirit, hearing the impress of the Divine image, and at the moment acting in unison with the Divine will? By some such views of prayer I would endeavour to remove the difficulties of those who may have been perplexed by subtle speculations on the place which it occupies, and the efficacy which belongs to it in the economy of grace; difficulties which, in reality, have nothing more to do with prayer than with anything else connected with human agency. ( R. Gordon, D.D. ) Prayer for National Prosperity J. M. Sherwood, D.D. As the prophet made the sins, the perils, and the needs of his nation his own, and confessed and supplicated as for his life, so should we. Our sins and transgressions are as great and as many as our mercies; our perils are as real and imminent and fearful as our exaltation and opportunity and overflowing outward prosperity. I. Lot us name SOME OF OUR MERCIES, PRIVILEGES AND OPPORTUNITIES. 1. Take into view our national heritage — its locality, extent, richness, and abounding resources — unparalleled in the history of nations. 2. Our Providential history. Our ancestral stock, Puritan, Huguenot, etc. Our wondrous growth and development. God's special interpositions, as in war. 3. The character of our institutions. A free ballot, a free Bible. II. Let US NOT OVERLOOK OUR PERILS, for they are many and imminent. 1. The decadence of personal integrity and public morality. 2. The rapid influx of a foreign and alien element. 3. The enormous growth and corrupting influence of our great cities. 4. The increasing prevalence of vice, pauperism, and crime throughout the land. 5. The grasping policy and overshadowing influence of combinations and monopolies. 6. The growing alienation of the great labouring class from the Church and from Christianity. 7. The audacity and strength of the Rum Power, allied with corruption in politics, to legalise the traffic in making drunkards, and in gambling on race-courses, and to keep in office disreputable and wicked men in many of our leading cities. ( J. M. Sherwood, D.D. ) Prayer John Cumming, D.D. Prayer is often miconceived in all churches and by all parties. 1. The end of prayer, offered in private, is not to inform God. Many persons pray as if they wish to tell God what God does not know. 2. Prayer is not loud speaking, or much speaking, or any one special form whatever. 3. Prayer is not prescribed in the Scripture, or offered by a true believer, in order to work any change in God. 4. We must not associate prayer with any idea of atonement or expiation. 5. Some persons give up all hope, because God does not hear them. They say, "Our prayers are so mixed with wandering and simple thoughts, and are so imperfect that we cannot pray aright." This implies a lingering notion that our prayers are expiatory, or a title to Heaven. 6. We must not pray, "to be seen of men." 7. Prayer is not to be an excuse or apology for the neglect of duties. 8. It is not an exercise suited merely to a great crisis. 9. Prayer should be addressed unto God, as our Father; and in the name and through the mediation of Christ; and in the strength and with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. ( John Cumming, D.D. ) Daniel's Prayer Joseph A. Seiss This chapter, more than any other in the Book of Daniel, lays open to us the inner life of the prophet. It shows that he who was so illustrious in his wisdom and public relations was no less noted for his wisdom and public relations, was no less noted for his deep spirituality and earnest private devotions, whilst it suggests that the former were largely the result of the latter. True faith and living piety help to make wise and great. It appears that Daniel was a student of prophecy, of unfulfilled prophecy, and especially of the numbers and dates contained in the sacred predictions. Many consider such studies and anxieties the most barren and dangerous to which we can give ourselves. There is much reason to suspect that one of the real causes of the superficiality and leanness of modern piety is that the professed people of God no longer understand or believe what the prophets have written, and refuse to study or hear about things to come as God has revealed them for our learning. There is abundant material in this prayer of Daniel on which to dwell with interest and pride. The manner of it was deliberate, reverent, humble, and self-chastening. The character and attributes which this piece of devotion ascribes to Deity are also very impressive and sublime. The grandeur and awfulness of Eternal Majesty are blended with unsearchable goodness and faithfulness, presenting to our contemplation "the great and dreadful God, keeping covenant and mercy to them that love Him and keep His command-merits," whose almighty hand is in all the administrations on earth and in Heaven, and all whose ways are righteousness and truth. The prayer is also occupied with confession of sin as the cause of Israel's miseries. The expressions on this point are the most explicit, unreserved, and contrite. The great subject of the prayer was not simply that affliction might be removed, but that the house and ordinances of God might be restored, and a true, spiritual recovery wrought; for it avails but little to be released from particular punishments of sin if the inner cause of them be not healed. So the plea upon which this prayer rests is the truest and only availing one — not and merit of man, not any right or claim on the sinner's part, but alone and entirely the mercy of God and the honour of His great name. ( Joseph A. Seiss , D.D.) With fasting, and sackcloth and ashes Fast-Day Service This is the first bright star which shines in the midst of the darkness of our sins. God is merciful. He is just — as just as if He were not merciful. He is merciful — as merciful as if He were not just, and in very deed more merciful than if He were too lenient, instead of blending a wise severity of justice with a gracious clemency of long suffering. We should rejoice that we have not this day to address the gods of the heathens. You have not to-day to bow down before the thundering Jove; you need not come before implacable deities, who delight in the blood of their creatures, or rather, of the creatures whom it is pretended that they have made. Our God delights in mercy, and in the deliverance of Britain from its ills. God will be as much pleased as Britain; yea, when Britain shall have forgotten it, and only the page of history shall record His mercies, God will still remember what He did for us in this day of our straits and difficulties. As to the hope that He will help us, that is a certainty. There is no fear that when we unite in prayer God will refuse to hear. It is as sure as that there is a God, that God will hear us; and if we ask Him aright, the day shall come when the world shall see what Britain's God has done, and how He has heard her cry, and answered the voice of her supplications. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) Aids to Devotion Calvin remarks that Daniel, though naturally alert in prayer to God, was yet conscious of the want of sufficiency in himself; and hence be adds the use of sackcloth and ashes and fasting. He observes that everyone conscious of his infirmity ought to collect all the aids he can command for the correction of his sluggishness, and thus to stimulate himself to ardour in supplicating God. The Fast-Day Nat. Meeres, B.D. The necessity and practice of fasting and repentance is set forth both in the Old and New Testaments. From the text we learn that Daniel was wont to fast, and to supplicate the Majesty of Heaven for the pardon of those national sins which he knew would justly draw down the indignation of the Almighty. Notice the special duties of fasting, such as a serious inspection into our hearts, and close self-examination of ourselves. Closely connected with this is the confession of sin. How strikingly was this manifested in the prayer of the text. Again, holy resolutions of amendment should be found in the strength of Christ, and with a due regard to His glory. Intercession is also peculiarly a duty at this season of humiliation, not only in public prayer, but also in private. Mercy to others is a peculiarly suitable accompaniment to fasting and supplication. On these days of public humiliation, when we are called upon to prostrate our guilty souls before Almighty God, sure it must become us to take such a view of the ravages of sin, and its awful consequences upon the guilty sons of Adam, as shall direct our faith to that one great sacrifice which can alone be efficacious for the healing of the nations, and for the introduction of that dispensation wherein we learn something of the achievements of the Prince of Peace; which peace shall be brought about by the subjugation of sin, and the conquest of those passions which war against the soul, and prove so fatal to man's best interests, and so bedim his prospects of future happiness. Learn that the judgments of the Lord are calculated to teach the world righteousness. It ought never to be forgotten that, in the view of Omniscience, God sees the beginning and ending of all human events, from the hour of Nature's nativity to the last moment of all earthly dissolution. We may refer the darkest dealing

Benson Commentary Daniel 9:1 In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans; Daniel 9:1-2 . In the first year of Darius — That is, immediately after the overthrow of the kingdom of Babylon, which was the year of the Jews’ deliverance from captivity. This Darius was not Darius the Persian, under whom the temple was built, as some have asserted, to invalidate the credibility of this book; but Darius the Mede, who lived in the time of Daniel, and is called Cyaxares, the son of Astyages, by the heathen historians: see note on chap. Daniel 6:1 . In the first year of his reign, I Daniel understood by books, &c. — Namely, by the several prophecies of Jeremiah 25:11-12 ; Jeremiah 29:10 , which are called so many books: see Jeremiah 25:13 ; Jeremiah 30:2 . We may learn from hence, that the later prophets studied the writings of those prophets who were before them, especially for the more perfect understanding of the times when their prophecies were to be fulfilled. The same they did by several of their own prophecies. That he would accomplish seventy years, &c. — Concerning the time from whence these seventy years are to be dated, see note on Jeremiah 25:11-12 . Daniel saw a part of Jeremiah’s prediction fulfilled, by the vengeance which the Lord had taken upon the house of Nebuchadnezzar; but he saw no appearance of that deliverance of the Jews which the prophet foretold. This was the cause of his uneasiness, and the motive of his prayers. Daniel 9:2 In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem. Daniel 9:3 And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes: Daniel 9:3 . I set my face unto the Lord God — This expression does not merely mean, that he directed his face to the place where the temple had stood: it signifies also his resolution to apply to God with the utmost seriousness, fervency, importunity, and perseverance, for the accomplishment of his promises respecting the restoration of his people. It denotes, says Henry, “the intenseness of his mind in this prayer, the fixedness of his thoughts, the firmness of his faith, and the fervour of his devout affections in the duty.” To seek by prayer and supplication, &c. — God’s promises, in general, are conditional, and intended, not to supersede, but to excite and encourage our prayers: this was especially the case with regard to God’s promise of restoring the Jews from captivity after seventy years, and this condition was particularly expressed when the promise was made by Jeremiah 29:10-14 , where God says, Ye shall call upon me, and I will hearken unto you, &c., and will turn away your captivity, &c. Here we see Daniel complied with the condition; he sought unto the Lord with all his heart, (and undoubtedly excited others to do the same,) and the Lord was found of him. With fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes — In token of humiliation, sorrow for their sins, and grief for the duration of their captivity. Daniel 9:4 And I prayed unto the LORD my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments; Daniel 9:4 . I prayed unto the Lord my God — Daniel could approach God with confidence, knowing him to be his God in covenant, his reconciled God and Father. Observe, reader, we must know God to be our God, if we would pray in faith, and with success, when we apply to him for any blessing. And made my confession — Both acknowledging his justice and holiness, and my own and my people’s iniquity. The more pious men are, and the better they are acquainted with themselves and God, the greater is the sense they have of their past guilt and present unworthiness, and the deeper is their humiliation: see Job 42:6 ; and 1 Timothy 1:15 . Observe, reader, in every prayer we must make confession, not only of the sins we have committed, (which is what we commonly call confession,) but of our faith in God, and dependance upon him; our sorrow for sin, and our resolutions against it. It must be our confession, the language of our own convictions, and what we ourselves do heartily subscribe to. And said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God — A God of whom it is our duty always to stand in awe, and who art well able to deal with the greatest and most terrible of thy churches enemies; keeping covenant and mercy to them that love him — Fulfilling his promises to his people, and showing them mercy and loving-kindness, even beyond what he hath promised. Daniel 9:5 We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments: Daniel 9:5 . We have sinned, and have committed iniquity — Daniel uses the same confession here that is prescribed, in Solomon’s consecration prayer, to be used by the Jews in the land of their captivity; with a promise subjoined, of a favourable answer that God would make to their supplications presented to him on such an occasion: see the margin. And being one of the Jewish nation, he speaks of their sins as his own; and, though certainly a most holy man, puts himself among the greatest sinners. There seems to be a kind of gradation in the prophet’s confessions here, beginning with sins in general, and rising to rebellion and apostacy. Daniel 9:6 Neither have we hearkened unto thy servants the prophets, which spake in thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. Daniel 9:7 O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of faces, as at this day; to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and unto all Israel, that are near, and that are far off, through all the countries whither thou hast driven them, because of their trespass that they have trespassed against thee. Daniel 9:7-10 . O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee — Thou hast done us no wrong in any of the calamities which thou hast brought upon us; but hast shown thyself to be just and holy, nay, merciful and gracious, punishing us far less than our iniquities deserved. But unto us confusion of faces — But ignominy and shame belong to us; and the contempt and ill treatment we have met with has been no more than we justly deserved. To the men of Judah, and unto all Israel that are near, &c. — To the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, that are near, by the rivers of Babylon; and to the ten tribes, that are afar off, in the land of Assyria. Confusion belongs not only to the common people of our land, but to our kings, our princes, and to our fathers, who ought to have set a better example, and to have used their authority and influence for the checking of the threatening torrent of vice and profaneness. Neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord — Though we were under infinite obligations to obey him; to walk in his laws — Which were all holy, just, and good; which he set before us by his servants the prophets — By Moses, and the succession of prophets that followed him; who re-enforced the law of Moses, and gave the people new instructions from God upon emergent occasions. Daniel 9:8 O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee. Daniel 9:9 To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against him; Daniel 9:10 Neither have we obeyed the voice of the LORD our God, to walk in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets. Daniel 9:11 Yea, all Israel have transgressed thy law, even by departing, that they might not obey thy voice; therefore the curse is poured upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of Moses the servant of God, because we have sinned against him. Daniel 9:11-14 . Yea, all Israel have transgressed thy law — Not here and there one, but the generality of them; the body of the people have transgressed, by departing, and taking themselves out of the way, that they might not hear, and so might not obey thy voice: therefore the curse is poured upon us, and the oath, &c. — That is, the curse that was ratified by an oath in the law of Moses. This further justified God in their troubles, that he only inflicted the penalty of the law, of which he had given them fair notice. It was necessary for preserving the honour of God’s veracity, and saving his government from contempt, that the threatenings of his word should be executed; otherwise they would have looked but as bugbears, nay, they would have had no terror in them. And he hath confirmed his words against us — Because we broke his laws, And against our judges that judged us — Because they did not, according to the duty of their places, punish the breach of God’s laws. He informed them frequently, that if they did not execute justice, as terrors to evil-doers, he must and would take the work into his own hands; and now, says Daniel, he has confirmed what he said, by bringing upon us a great evil — In which the princes and judges themselves have deeply shared. For under the whole heaven hath not been done, &c. — See note on Lamentations 1:12 ; Lamentations 2:13 ; Ezekiel 5:9 . As it is written, &c., all this is come upon us — This is a devout acknowledgment, that, from the very beginning of their state, they had been forewarned that such evils as they now suffered would come upon them, when they forsook the Lord their God, and turned aside from the observation of his law. And it is an humble confession of God’s justice and providence, in making his judgments exactly fulfil the threatenings denounced many ages before by Moses. Yet we made not our prayer before the Lord our God — Not in a right manner, as we should have made it, with a lowly, penitent, and obedient heart; we have been smitten, but have not returned to him that smote us; literally, we have not entreated the face, or, as Wintle translates it, have not deprecated the wrath, of the Lord our God. We have taken no care to make our peace with God, and reconcile ourselves to him. Daniel set his brethren a good example of praying continually, but he was sorry to see how few there were that followed his example; in their affliction it was expected they would seek God early, but they sought him not, so as to turn from their iniquities and understand his truth. Therefore hath the Lord watched upon the evil — Hebrew, watched over the evil; namely, hath taken care that his threatenings should be fulfilled, as a just judge takes care that execution be done, according to the sentence pronounced; because we have not been melted, he hath kept us still in the furnace, and watched over it to make the heat yet more intense; for when God judges he will overcome, and will be justified in all his proceedings. Daniel 9:12 And he hath confirmed his words, which he spake against us, and against our judges that judged us, by bringing upon us a great evil: for under the whole heaven hath not been done as hath been done upon Jerusalem. Daniel 9:13 As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us: yet made we not our prayer before the LORD our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and understand thy truth. Daniel 9:14 Therefore hath the LORD watched upon the evil, and brought it upon us: for the LORD our God is righteous in all his works which he doeth: for we obeyed not his voice. Daniel 9:15 And now, O Lord our God, that hast brought thy people forth out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and hast gotten thee renown, as at this day; we have sinned, we have done wickedly. Daniel 9:15 . And now, O Lord, who hast brought thy people forth, &c. — A form of supplication used in several places of Scripture, whereby devout persons entreat God to continue his favours, by recounting his former mercies toward them. And hast gotten thee renown, or, made thee a name, as at this day — That is, even to this day, namely, by bringing Israel out of Egypt; and wilt thou lose the credit of that, by letting them perish in Babylon? Didst thou get renown by that deliverance which we have so often commemorated, and wilt thou not now also get thee renown by this which we have so often prayed for, and so long waited for? We have sinned, we have done wickedly — Here Daniel confesses again God’s being just and good in all his ways; and that it was owing to themselves only that all these evils were come upon them. Daniel 9:16 O Lord, according to all thy righteousness, I beseech thee, let thine anger and thy fury be turned away from thy city Jerusalem, thy holy mountain: because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and thy people are become a reproach to all that are about us. Daniel 9:16-17 . According to all thy righteousness let thine anger be turned away — The word righteousness here, as in many other places of Scripture, is equivalent to mercy; (see the margin;) from thy holy mountain — The place whereon thy temple stood. Jerusalem and thy people are become a reproach — Our conquerors and others, who know into what a miserable condition we are brought, mock at us, and say, See to what a state the people are reduced, who boasted themselves to be the chosen people of the Lord of heaven and earth! Now, therefore, cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary — Return in mercy to us, and show that thou art reconciled to us, by repairing the desolations of thy sanctuary. For the Lord’s sake — That is, as some interpret the expression, for thine own sake; that is, do this that thou mayest do honour to thyself. Or rather, as most Christian interpreters understand the words, for the Lord Christ’s sake; for the sake of the Messiah promised, who is Lord. The Hebrew word, here rendered Lord, is ???? , Adonai, the word used for the Messiah Psalm 110:1 , where David calls him his Lord. It is for Christ’s sake, and because of the atonement he has made for sin, that God causes his face to shine upon sinners, when they repent and turn to him. In all our prayers, therefore, that must be our plea; we must make mention of his righteousness, even his only. He himself has directed us to pray in his name. Daniel 9:17 Now therefore, O our God, hear the prayer of thy servant, and his supplications, and cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate, for the Lord's sake. Daniel 9:18 O my God, incline thine ear, and hear; open thine eyes, and behold our desolations, and the city which is called by thy name: for we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies. Daniel 9:18-19 . O my God, incline thine ear and hear — The prophet’s importunity, in these verses, is very remarkable and affecting, and shows how exceedingly he had it at heart to have his request granted. Open thine eyes, and behold our desolations — Especially the desolations of thy city and temple: or, look with pity upon a most distressing and piteous case. For we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousness — That is, our righteous acts. We do not hope to have success for the sake of any thing we have done, do, or ever can do, as if we were worthy to receive thy favour, as if we could merit it by any good in us, or could demand any thing as a debt; but for thy great mercies — The only sources of all our blessings. Grant what we ask, to make it appear thou art a merciful God. Observe, reader, the good things we request of God we call mercies, because we expect them purely from God’s mercy. And because misery is the proper object of mercy, therefore the prophet here spreads the deplorable condition of God’s church and people before him, as it were, to move his compassion. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; defer not — Forgive our sins, and then hasten our deliverance. That the mercy which we ask may be granted, let the sin, that stands in the way of our receiving it, be removed; O Lord, hearken and do — Not hearken and speak only, but hearken and do: do that for us which none else can do, and that speedily. As he now sees the appointed day approaching, he could pray in faith that God would make haste to them, and not defer the expected blessing. Daniel 9:19 O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, hearken and do; defer not, for thine own sake, O my God: for thy city and thy people are called by thy name. Daniel 9:20 And whiles I was speaking, and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the LORD my God for the holy mountain of my God; Daniel 9:20-21 . And while I was speaking and praying, &c. — We have here the answer that was immediately sent to Daniel’s prayer, and it is a very remarkable one; as it contains the most illustrious prediction of Christ, and gospel grace, that is extant in any part of the Old Testament. Daniel here observes, and lays a great emphasis on, the time when this answer was given; While I was speaking, says he, Daniel 9:20 , yea, while I was speaking in prayer, Daniel 9:21 . Before he rose from his knees, and while there was yet more which he intended to say if the answer was not given. He mentions the two heads which he chiefly insisted on in prayer, and which, perhaps, he designed yet further to enlarge upon. 1st, He was confessing sin, his own sin, and the sin of his people Israel. 2d, He was making supplication before the Lord his God, and presenting petitions to him as an intercessor for Israel. Now while Daniel was thus employed, he had both a grant made him of the mercy he prayed for, and had a discovery communicated of a far greater and more glorious redemption, which God could work out for his church in the latter days. He further observes, that as this answer was given him at the very moment when he was requesting it, and before he had concluded his petitions, so it was about the time of the evening oblation — The altar was in ruins, and there was no oblation offered upon it; but, it seems, the pious Jews, in their captivity, daily thought of the times when it should have been offered, and at those hours endeavoured to set forth before God their prayers as incense, and the lifting up of their hands as a morning or evening sacrifice, Psalm 141:2 . The evening oblation was a type of the great sacrifice which Christ was to offer in the evening of the world; and it was in virtue of that sacrifice that Daniel’s prayer was accepted, and this glorious discovery of redeeming love was made to him: the Lamb opened the seals of prophecy in the virtue of his own blood, Revelation 5:5 . Daniel informs us here also by whom this answer was sent. It was not communicated to him in a dream, or by a voice from heaven; but, for the greater certainty and solemnity of it, an angel was sent from heaven to bring it to him. The man Gabriel — That is, the angel Gabriel, appearing in a human shape, whom I had seen in the beginning — Or, before, see Daniel 8:16 ; being caused to fly swiftly — An expression used to signify the haste he made to bring Daniel an answer to his prayer. Angels are winged messengers, quick in their motions, and delay not a moment to execute the orders they receive. But, it would seem, that at some times they are directed to use more expedition, and make a quicker despatch than at others, as, it appears, was the case with Gabriel now; touched me — Probably to infuse additional strength and courage into him, that he might be perfectly recollected, have the proper use and exercise of all his faculties at this important season, and might at once understand and retain a perfect remembrance of the whole message which the angel was commissioned to bring him from God. Daniel 9:21 Yea, whiles I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation. Daniel 9:22 And he informed me , and talked with me, and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee skill and understanding. Daniel 9:22-23 . And he informed me — Namely, on what errand he came; and talked with me — That is, familiarly, as one friend talks with another. And said, O Daniel, I am come to give thee skill and understanding — To reveal to thee things of infinite importance, and to make thee understand them. Mr. Wintle reads this verse in connection with the preceding, as follows: “Even as I was yet speaking — the man Gabriel — reached me, about the time of the evening oblation; when he brought information, and talked with me, and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to improve thee in understanding.” At the beginning of thy supplication the commandment came forth — God’s command to me, to instruct thee further in what should hereafter befall the city and temple of Jerusalem, in the behalf of which thou didst pour forth thy supplications. Here was a remarkable completion of that promise, Isaiah 65:24 , While they are yet speaking I will hear. For thou art greatly beloved — Learned men have observed a near affinity between the prophecy of Daniel and the Revelation of St. John; and we may take notice that much the same title is given to both. Daniel is styled here, and chap. Daniel 10:11 ; Daniel 10:19 , a man greatly beloved; and the character given to St. John is, that of the disciple whom Jesus loved, John 21:20 ; John 21:24 . Therefore, understand the matter, and consider the vision — Apply thy mind carefully to what is said, for this prophecy contains in it truths of the greatest importance. Our Saviour plainly refers to these words, which are repeated Daniel 9:25 , when, explaining the latter part of this prophecy of the final destruction of Jerusalem, he adds, Let him that readeth understand, Matthew 24. Daniel 9:23 At the beginning of thy supplications the commandment came forth, and I am come to shew thee ; for thou art greatly beloved: therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision. Daniel 9:24 Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. Daniel 9:24 . Seventy weeks, &c. — Weeks not of days, but of years, or, seventy times seven years, that is, four hundred and ninety years, each day being accounted a year according to the prophetic way of reckoning, (see note on Daniel 7:25 ,) a way often used in Scripture, especially in reckoning the years of jubilee, which correspond with these numbers in Daniel: see Leviticus 25:8 . See also Genesis 29:27 , where, to fulfil her week, is explained by performing another seven years’ service for Rachel; and Numbers 14:34 , where we read, that according to the number of the days which the spies employed in searching out the land of Canaan, even forty days, the Israelites were condemned to bear their iniquities, even forty years. Thus God says likewise to Ezekiel, cotemporary with Daniel, I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days three hundred and ninety days. I have appointed thee EACH DAY FOR A YEAR. Nor was this mode of expression in use only among the Jews; for Varro, speaking of himself, says, he was entered into the twelfth week of his age, at the close of which he would have been eighty-four years old. In these instances, the days evidently denote solar years, which were in use throughout the Jewish history; so that there is no probability that the angel should here intend any such singularity, as counting by lunar years. Are determined upon, or concerning, thy people — Hebrew ????? , are decided. The great event specified was not to be protracted beyond this period, fixed and determined in the counsels of God. To finish the transgression — The reader will observe, the expression is not, to finish transgressions, but ????? , the transgression; a word which is derived from a theme which signifies, “to revolt, to rebel, to be contumacious, to refuse subjection to rightful authority, or obedience to a law which we ought to observe.” To finish such transgression, is expressed by a word ( ???? ) which denotes universality, to cancel, or annihilate. Dr. Apthorp, in his Discourses on Prophecy, vol. 1. p. 262, justly observes, that the diversity of expression respecting the several benefits here promised to the world by the Messiah, may be well supposed to intend so many distinct and determinate ideas. “In a prophecy of such moment,” says he, “we cannot suppose a mere co-acervation of synonymous terms, but each word is emphatic, and proper to its subject. The appropriate sense of each may be investigated, from their use and significance in other passages of Holy Scripture.” Accordingly, by the word transgression, he here understands man’s first disobedience, with its direful effects, the depravation and mortality of human nature. And by finishing this transgression he understands, “cancelling the primeval guilt of Adam’s apostacy, and reversing the sentence of mortality then passed on all the human race.” In other words we may properly understand by the expression, the abolishing the guilt and fatal effects of that disobedience, in such a manner that no man shall perish eternally merely on account of the sin of our first parents, or the depravity entailed upon us thereby; to counteract the influence of which, sufficient grace is procured for us, and offered to us in the gospel of Christ. Concerning this first benefit of our redemption, the apostle treats explicitly Romans 5:12-21 , a passage which the reader is particularly requested carefully to consider, as containing a full justification of the exposition here given of the first clause of this verse; man’s first disobedience, termed by the apostle the one offence, and the offence of one, being represented by him as introducing death into the world, and all our misery; and the obedience, or righteousness of one, and the free gift, procured for all mankind, and actually conferred on all penitent believers, as the one meritorious cause and source of our salvation. “No words can express, or thought conceive, the greatness of this redemption. Imagination faints under the idea of a Divine Benefactor effacing sin, annihilating death, and restoring eternal life.” And to make an end of sins — “As, in the appropriate sense of the words, the transgression denotes one original act of apostacy and rebellion against a positive command of God; sins, in the plural, emphatically express all the vices [offences] against conscience, all the crimes against civil society, and all sins against God, which have ever reigned among men. The redemption by Christ hath abolished all the fatal effects of moral evil, with respect to such as believe and obey the gospel;” not only cancelling their actual guilt by a gracious remission, but even renewing their fallen nature, stamping them with the divine image, and thus both entitling them to, and preparing them for, the immortality lost by the fall. And to make reconciliation for iniquity — In these words is expressed the manner in which our redemption from death and sin hath been effected. “The word ??? , rendered reconciliation here, is the etymon of our English word, to cover. Its primary meaning is, to hide, or conceal, the surface of any substance, by inducing another substance over it. Thus the ark is commanded to be pitched, or covered, within and without, to secure it from the waters of the deluge. Sin, when grievous, and ripe for punishment, is said to be before God, or in his sight: a propitiation is the covering of sin, [procuring] God’s hiding his face from our sins, and blotting out our iniquities: see Romans 3:23 ; Romans 3:25 . The word redemption implies a price paid for those who are set at liberty: the price is the blood of Christ; that blood a sacrifice; and the sacrifice an expiation for sinners, that is, for all mankind. This is the first and leading notion of the divine expedient for saving sinners, the sacrifice and blood of Christ. The second principal idea under which this redemption is represented, is that of substitution, and satisfaction, by another’s suffering for our guilt; and in this way of stating the doctrine, still the principal and leading idea is that of a sacrifice, and the blood of a victim;” namely, Christ’s dying for the ungodly: see Romans 5:6-9 . Inasmuch as Christ, by dying in our stead, “hath prevented either the extinction or [eternal] misery of a whole species, and hath obtained for us a positive happiness, greater than we lost in Adam; every considerate man must think it fit, that to effect such a redemption, some great expedient should be proposed by God himself, to vindicate his wisdom and moral government, in suffering so much vice and confusion to end so happily.” Add to this, that “so congenial to the most generous sentiments of the human mind is the idea of one devoting himself for another, for many, and for all, that all antiquity abounds with such examples and opinions. Not that the Scripture doctrine of Christ’s satisfaction, in itself so luminous, needs any support from foreign testimony; but it is certain that a general consent, founded in nature, or divine institution, or both, hath led men to seek expiation of conscious guilt, in the way of voluntary substitution, and vicarious devotement. The chief reason of that prejudice, which is by some entertained against a doctrine so essential to peace of conscience, is founded on inattention to ancient religious customs. By the sacrifice of Christ, victims and sacrifices are abolished; but all the ancient religions abounded with them to a degree which we should think astonishing, and scarcely credible. Oceans of blood flowed round their altars; and the Levitical rites were instituted on purpose to adumbrate Christ’s expiation, and to introduce all that admirable spirituality and [pious] devotion, which is now the distinguishing excellence of Christianity.” — Dr. Apthorp. To bring in everlasting righteousness — The three former particulars already considered import the removing the greatest evils; this, and the two following, imply the conferring of the greatest benefits, and all by Jesus Christ. This clause, says Dr. Apthorp, “may admit of two interpretations, which both concur in Christ, and are consistent with each other: our justification by faith in him, and our subsequent study [practice] of personal virtue. The first is a gratuitous act of Christ; the second is characteristic of his true disciples. In the former sense, Jeremiah styles him by his divine title, JEHOVAH OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. And in both senses Christ Jesus is made unto us wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption.” To speak a little more distinctly: to bring in everlasting righteousness, according to the gospel, evidently includes three things: 1st, To bring in Christ’s righteousness, or his obedience unto death, as the ground of our justification and title to eternal life, he being the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. 2d, To bring holiness, the divine nature, or the Spirit of God, with his various graces, into our souls, making us conformable to his image, as our meetness for that future felicity. And, 3d, For our direction in the way that leads to it; to lay before us, for our observation, a complete rule of life and manners. Of this last particular, which Dr. Apthorp includes in the everlasting righteousness here spoken of, as being immutable in its obligations, and eternal in its sanctions, he speaks as follows: “When we consider the Christian morality in its ground of obligation, [namely, the will of God,] its principle of charity, and in its detail of special duties, we are struck with admiration at the simplicity and perfection of a rule of life, which, without any artificial system, extended the Jewish law, and combined all the excellences of Gentile philosophy; the elevation of Plato, without his mysticism; the reasonableness of Aristotle, without his contracted selfishness, and worldly views; tempering the rigour of Zeno with the moderation of Epicurus; while, by the greatness of its end, it reforms, refines, and elevates human nature from sense to spirit, from earth to heaven.” And seal up the vision and prophecy — Hebrew, ????? ???? ????? , to seal vision and prophet; prophet being put for prophecy. The words are a Hebraism, and when expressed in modern language signify, 1st, The accomplishing, and thereby conf

Expositor's Bible Commentary Daniel 9:1 In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans; THE SEVENTY WEEKS THIS chapter is occupied with the prayer of Daniel, and with the famous vision of the seventy weeks which has led to such interminable controversies, but of which the interpretation no longer admits of any certainty, because accurate data are not forthcoming. The vision is dated in the first year of Darius, the son of Achashverosh, of the Median stock. We have seen already that such a person is unknown to history. The date, however, accords well in this instance with the literary standpoint of the writer. The vision is sent as a consolation of perplexities suggested by the writer’s study of the Scriptures; and nothing is more naturally imagined than the fact that the overthrow of the Babylonian Empire should have sent a Jewish exile to the study of the rolls of his holy prophets, to see what light they threw on the exile of his people. He understood from "the books" the number of the years "whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet for the accomplishing of the desolation of Jerusalem, even seventy years." Such is the rendering of our Revisers, who here follow the A.V ("I understood by books"), except that they rightly use the definite article. Such too is the view of Hitzig. Mr. Bevan seems to have pointed out the real meaning of the passage, by referring not only to the Pentateuch generally, as helping to interpret the words of Jeremiah, but especially to Leviticus 26:18 ; Leviticus 26:21 ; Leviticus 26:24 ; Leviticus 26:28 . It was there that the writer of Daniel discovered the method of interpreting the "seventy years" spoken of by Jeremiah. The Book of Leviticus had four times spoken of a sevenfold punishment-a punishment "seven times more" for the sins of Israel. Now this thought flashed upon the writer like a luminous principle. Daniel, in whose person he wrote, had arrived at the period at which the literal seventy years of Jeremiah were-on some methods of computation-upon the eve of completion; the writer himself is living in the dreary times of Antiochus. Jeremiah had prophesied that the nations should serve the King of Babylon seventy years, { Jeremiah 25:11 } after which time God’s vengeance should fall on Babylon; and again, { Jeremiah 29:10-11 } that after seventy years the exiles should return to Palestine, since the thoughts of Jehovah towards them were thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give them a future and a hope. The writer of Daniel saw, nearly four centuries later, that after all only a mere handful of the exiles, whom the Jews themselves compared to the chaff in comparison with the wheat, had returned from exile; that the years which followed had been cramped, dismal, and distressful; that the splendid hopes of the Messianic kingdom, which had glowed so brightly on the foreshortened horizon of Isaiah and so many of the prophets, had never yet been fulfilled; and that these anticipations never showed fewer signs of fulfilment than in the midst of the persecuting furies of Antiochus, supported by the widespread apostasies of the Hellenising Jews, and the vile ambition of such renegade high priests as Jason and Menelaus. That the difficulty was felt is shown by the fact that the Epistle of Jeremy ( Daniel 9:2 ) extends the epoch of captivity to two-hundred and ten years (7 X 30), whereas in Jeremiah 29:10 "seventy years" are distinctly mentioned. What was the explanation of this startling apparent discrepancy between "the sure word of prophecy" and the gloomy realities of history? The writer saw it in a mystic or allegorical interpretation of Jeremiah’s seventy years. The prophet could not (he thought) have meant seventy literal years. The number seven indeed played its usual mystic part in the epoch of punishment. Jerusalem had been taken B.C. 588; the first return of the exiles had been about B.C. 538. The Exile therefore had, from one point of view, lasted forty-nine years- i.e. , 7 X 7. But even if seventy years were reckoned from the fourth year of Jehoiakim (B.C. 606?) to the decree of Cyrus (B.C. 536), and if these seventy years could be made out, still the hopes of the Jews were on the whole miserably frustrated. Surely then-so thought the writer-the real meaning of Jeremiah must have been misunderstood; or, at any rate, only partially understood. He must have meant, not "years ," but weeks of years-Sabbatical years. And that being so, the real Messianic fulfilments were not to come till four hundred and ninety years after the beginning of the Exile; and this clue he found in Leviticus. It was indeed a clue which lay ready to the hand of any one who was perplexed by Jeremiah’s prophecy, means, not only the week, but also "seven," and the seventh { Leviticus 25:2 ; Leviticus 25:4 } and the Chronicler had already declared that the reason why the land was to lie waste for seventy years was that "the land" was "to enjoy her Sabbaths"; in other words, that, as seventy Sabbatical years had been wholly neglected (and indeed unheard of) during the period of the monarchy-which he reckoned at four hundred and ninety years-therefore it was to enjoy those Sabbatical years continuously while there was no nation in Palestine to cultivate the soil. Another consideration may also have led the writer to his discovery. From the coronation of Saul to the captivity of Zachariah, reckoning the recorded length of each reign and giving seventeen years to Saul (since the "forty years" of Acts 13:21 is obviously untenable), gave four hundred and ninety years, or, as the Chronicler implies, seventy unkept Sabbatic years. The writer had no means for an accurate computation of the time which had elapsed since the destruction of the Temple. But as there were four hundred and eighty years and twelve high priests from Aaron to Ahimaaz, and four hundred and eighty years and twelve high priests from Azariah I to Jozadak, who was priest at the beginning of the Captivity, -so there were twelve high priests from Jozadak to Onias III; and this seemed to imply a lapse of some four hundred and ninety years in round numbers. The writer introduces what he thus regarded as a consoling and illuminating discovery in a striking manner. Daniel, coming to understand for the first time the real meaning of Jeremiah’s "seventy years," "set his face unto the Lord God, to seek prayer and supplication with fasting and sackcloth and ashes." His prayer is thus given:- It falls into three strophes of equal length, and is "all alive and aglow with a pure fire of genuine repentance, humbly assured faith, and most intense petition." At the same time it is the composition of a literary writer, for in phrase after phrase it recalls various passages of Scripture. It closely resembles the prayers of Ezra and Nehemiah, and is so nearly parallel with the prayer of the apocryphal Baruch that Ewald regards it as an intentional abbreviation of #/RAPC Bar 2:1 . Ezra, however, confesses the sins of his nation without asking for forgiveness; and Nehemiah likewise praises God for His mercies, but does not plead for pardon or deliverance; but Daniel entreats pardon for Israel and asks that his own prayer may be heard. The sins of Israel in Daniel 9:5-6 , fall under the heads of wandering, lawlessness, rebellion, apostasy, and heedlessness. It is one of the marked tendencies of the later Jewish writings to degenerate into centos of phrases from the Law and the Prophets. It is noticeable that the name Jehovah occurs in this chapter of Daniel alone (in Daniel 9:2 , Daniel 9:4 , Daniel 9:10 , Daniel 9:13 , Daniel 9:14 , Daniel 9:20 ); and that he also addresses God as El, Elohim, and Adonai. In the first division of the prayer ( Daniel 9:4-10 ) Daniel admits the faithfulness and mercy of God, and deplores the transgressions of his people from the highest to the lowest in all lands. In the second part ( Daniel 9:11-14 ) he sees in these transgressions the fulfilment of "the curse and the oath" written in the Law of Moses, with special reference to Leviticus 26:14 ; Leviticus 26:18 , etc. In spite of all their sins and miseries they had not "stroked the face" of the Lord their God. The third section ( Daniel 9:15-19 ) appeals to God by His past mercies and deliverances to turn away His wrath and to pity the reproach of His people. Daniel entreats Jehovah to hear his prayer, to make His face shine on His desolated sanctuary, and to behold the horrible condition of His people and of His holy city. Not for their sakes is He asked to show His great compassion, but because His Name is called upon His city and His people. Such is the prayer; and while Daniel was still speaking, praying, confessing his own and Israel’s sins, and interceding before Jehovah for the holy mountain-yea, even during the utterance of: his prayer-the Gabriel of his former vision; came speeding to him in full flight at the time of’: the evening sacrifice. The archangel tells him: that no sooner had his supplication begun than he sped on his way, for Daniel is a dearly beloved one. Therefore he bids him take heed to the word and to the vision:- 1. Seventy weeks are decreed upon thy people, and upon thy holy city- 1. to finish (or "restrain") the transgression; 2. to make an end of (or "seal up," Theodot.) sins; 3. to make reconciliation for (or "to purge away") iniquity; 4. to bring in everlasting righteousness; 5. to seal up vision and prophet; and 6. to anoint the Most Holy (or "a Most Holy Place"). 7. From the decree to restore Jerusalem unto the Anointed One (or "the Messiah"), the Prince, shall be seven weeks. For sixty-two weeks Jerusalem shall be built again with street and moat, though in troublous times. 2. After these sixty-two weeks- 1. an Anointed One shall be cut off, and shall have no help(?) (or "there shall be none belonging to him"); 2. the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the cityand the sanctuary; 3. his end and the end shall be with a flood, and war, anddesolation; 4. for one week this alien prince shall make a covenant with many; 5. for half of that week he shall cause the sacrifice and burnt offering to cease; 6. and upon the wing of abominations [shall come] one that maketh desolate; 7. and unto the destined consummation [wrath] shall be poured out upon a desolate one(?) (or "the horrible one"). Much is uncertain in the text, and much in the translation; but the general outline of the declaration is clear in many of the chief particulars, so far as they are capable of historic verification. Instead of being a mystical prophecy which floated purely in the air, and in which a week stands (as Keil supposes) for unknown, heavenly, and symbolic periods-in which case no real information would have been vouchsafed-we are expressly told that it was intended to give the seer a definite, and even a minutely detailed, indication of the course of events. Let us now take the revelation which is sent to the perplexed mourner step by step. 1. Seventy weeks are to elapse before any perfect deliverance is to come. We are nowhere expressly told that year-weeks are meant, but this is implied throughout, as the only possible means of explaining either the vision or the history. The conception, as we have seen, would come to readers quite naturally, since Shabbath meant in Hebrew, not only the seventh day of the week, but the seventh year in each week of years. Hence "seventy weeks" means four hundred and ninety years. { Leviticus 26:34 Ezekiel 4:6 } Not until the four hundred and ninety years- the seventy weeks of years- are ended will the time have come to complete the prophecy which only had a sort of initial and imperfect fulfilment in seventy actual years. The precise meaning attached in the writer’s mind to the events which are to mark the close of the four hundred and ninety years-namely, (a) the ending of transgression; (b) the sealing up of sins; (g) the atonement for iniquity; (d) the bringing in of everlasting righteousness; and (e) the sealing up of the vision and prophet {or prophecy Comp. Jeremiah 32:11 ; Jeremiah 32:44 }- cannot be further defined by us. It belongs to the Messianic hope. {See Isaiah 46:3 , Isaiah 51:5 ; Isaiah 53:11 Jeremiah 23:6 . etc.} It is the prophecy of a time which may have had some dim and partial analogies at the end of Jeremiah’s seventy years, but which the writer thought would be more richly and finally fulfilled at the close of the Antiochian persecution. At the actual time of his writing that era of restitution had not yet begun. But another event, which would mark the close of the seventy year-weeks, was to be "the anointing of a Most Holy." What does this mean? Theodotion and the ancient translators render it "a Holy of Holies." But throughout the whole Old Testament "Holy of Holies" is never once used of a person , though it occurs forty-four times. Keil and his school point 1 Chronicles 23:13 as an exception; but " Nil agit exemplum quod litem lite resolvit. " In that verse some propose the rendering, "to sanctify, as most holy, Aaron and his sons for ever"; but both the A.V and the R. V render it, "Aaron was separated that he should sanctify the most holy things, he and his sons forever." If there be a doubt as to the rendering, it is perverse to adopt the one which makes the usage differ from that of every other passage in Holy Writ. Now the phrase " most holy" is most frequently applied to the great altar of sacrifice. It is therefore natural to explain the present passage as a reference to the reanointing of the altar of sacrifice, primarily in the days of Zerubbabel, and secondarily by Judas Maccabaeus after its profanation by Antiochus Epiphanes. {#/RAPC 1Ma 4:54 } 2. But in the more detailed explanation which follows, the seventy year-weeks are divided into 7 + 62 + 1. (a) At the end of the first seven week-years (after forty-nine years) Jerusalem should be restored, and there should be "an Anointed, a Prince." Some ancient Jewish commentators, followed by many eminent and learned moderns, understand this Anointed One ( Mashiach ) and Prince ( Nagid ) to be Cyrus; and that there can be no objection to conferring on him the exalted title of "Messiah" is amply proved by the fact that Isaiah himself bestows it upon him. { Isaiah 45:1 } Others, however, both ancient (like Eusebius) and modern (like Gratz), prefer to explain the term of the anointed Jewish high priest, Joshua, the son of Jozadak. For the term "Anointed" is given to the high priest in Leviticus 4:3 ; Leviticus 6:20 ; and Joshua’s position among the exiles might well entitle him, as much as Zerubbabel himself, to the title of Nagid or Prince. (b) After this restoration of Temple and priest, sixty-two weeks ( i.e. , four hundred and thirty-four years) are to elapse, during which Jerusalem is indeed to exist "with street and trench"-but in the straitness of the times. This, too, is clear and easy of comprehension. It exactly corresponds with the depressed condition of Jewish life during the Persian and early Grecian epochs, from the restoration of the Temple, B.C. 538, to B.C. 171, when the false high priest Menelaus robbed the Temple of its best treasures. This is indeed, so far as accurate chronology is concerned, an unverifiable period, for it only gives us three hundred and sixty-seven years instead of four hundred and thirty-four:-but of that I will speak later on. The punctuation of the original is disputed. Theodotion, the Vulgate, and our A.V punctuate in Daniel 9:25 "From the going forth of the commandment" ("decree" or "word") "that Jerusalem should be restored and rebuilt, unto an Anointed, a Prince, are seven weeks, and sixty-two weeks." Accepting this view, Von Lengerke and Hitzig make the seven weeks run parallel with the first seven in the sixty-two. This indeed makes the chronology a little more accurate, but introduces an unexplained and a fantastic element. Consequently most modern scholars, including even such writers as Keil, and our Revisers follow the Masoretic punctuation, and put the stop after the seven weeks, separating them entirely from the following sixty-two. 3. After the sixty-two weeks is to follow a series of events, and all these point quite distinctly to the epoch of Antiochus Epiphanes. (a) Daniel 9:26 -An Anointed One shall be cut off with all that belongs to him. There can be no reasonable doubt that this is a reference to the position of the high priest Onias III, and his murder by Andronicus (B.C. 171). This startling event is mentioned in #/RAPC 2Ma 4:34 , and by Josephus ("Antt.," 12. 5:1), and in Daniel 11:22 . It is added, " and no to him. " Perhaps the word "helper" { Daniel 11:45 } has fallen out of the text, as Gratz supposes; or the words may mean, "there is no [priest] for it [the people]." The A.V renders it, "but not for himself"; and in the margin, "and shall have nothing"; or, "and they [the Jews] shall be no more his people." The R. V renders it, "and shall have nothing." I believe, with Dr. Joel, that in the Hebrew words veeyn lo there may be a sort of cryptographic allusion to the name Onias. (b) The people of the coming prince shall devastate the city and the sanctuary (translation uncertain). This is an obvious allusion to the destruction and massacre inflicted on Jerusalem by Apollonius and the army of Antiochus Epiphanes (B.C. 167). Antiochus is called "the prince that shall come ," because he was at Rome when Onias III was murdered (B.C. 171). (g) "And until the end shall be a war, a sentence of desolation" (Hitzig, etc.); or, as Ewald renders it, "Until the end of the war is the decision concerning the horrible thing." This alludes to the troubles of Jerusalem until the heaven-sent Nemesis fell on the profane enemy of the saints in the miserable death of Antiochus in Persia. (d) But meanwhile he will have concluded a covenant with many for one week. In any case, whatever be the exact reading or rendering, this seems to be an allusion to the fact that Antiochus was confirmed in his perversity and led on to extremes in the enforcement of his attempt to Hellenise the Jews and to abolish their national religion by the existence of a large party of flagrant apostates. These were headed by their godless and usurping high priests, Jason and Menelaus. All this is strongly emphasised in the narrative of the Book of Maccabees. This attempted apostasy lasted for one week- i.e. , for seven years; the years intended being probably the first seven of the reign of Antiochus, from B.C. 175 to B.C. 168. During this period he was aided by wicked men, who said, "Let us go and make a covenant with the heathen round about us; for since we departed from them we have had much sorrow." Antiochus "gave them license to do after the ordinances of the heathen," so that they built a gymnasium at Jerusalem, obliterated the marks of circumcision, and were joined to the heathen. {#/RAPC 1Ma 1:10-15 } (e) For the half of this week ( i.e. , for three and a half years) the king abolished the sacrifice and the oblation or meat offering. This alludes to the suppression of the most distinctive ordinances of Jewish worship, and the general defilement of the Temple after the setting up of the heathen altar. The reckoning seems to be from the edict promulgated some months before December, 168, to December, 165, when Judas the Maccabee reconsecrated the Temple. (z) The sentence which follows is surrounded with every kind ofuncertainty. The R. V renders it, "And upon the wing [or, pinnacle] of abominations shall come [or, be] one that maketh desolate." The A.V has, "And for the overspreading of abominations" (or marg., "with the abominable armies") "he shall make it desolate." It is from the LXX that we derive the famous expression, "abomination of desolation," referred to by St. Matthew { Matthew 24:15 cf. Luke 21:20 } in the discourse of our Lord. Other translations are as follows:- Gesenius: "Desolation comes upon the horrible wing of a rebel’s host." Ewald: "And above will be the horrible wing of abominations." Wieseler: "And a desolation shall arise against the wing of abominations." Von Lengerke, Hengstenberg, Pusey: "And over the edge [or, pinnacle] of abominations [cometh] the desolator"; -which they understand to mean that Antiochus will rule over the Temple defiled by heathen rites. Kranichfeld and Keit: "And a destroyer comes on the wings of idolatrous abominations." "And instead thereof" ( i.e. , in the place of the sacrifice and meat offering) "there shall be abominations." It is needless to weary the reader with further attempts at translation; but however uncertain may be the exact reading or rendering, few modern commentators doubt that the allusion is to the smaller heathen altar built by Antiochus above ( i.e ., on the summit) of the "Most Holy"- i.e. , the great altar of burnt sacrifice-over-shadowing it like "a wing" ( kanaph ), and causing desolations or abominations ( shiqqootsim ) That this interpretation is the correct one can hardly be doubted in the light of the clearer references to "the abomination that maketh desolate" in Daniel 11:31 Daniel 12:11 . In favour of this we have the almost contemporary interpretation of the Book of Maccabees. The author of that history directly applies the phrase "the abomination of desolation" to the idol altar set up by Antiochus. {#/RAPC 1Ma 1:54 ; 1Ma 6:7 } (h) Lastly, the terrible drama shall end by an outpouring of wrath, and asentence of judgment on "the desolation" (R.V) or "the desolate" (A.V). This can only refer to the ultimate judgment with which Antiochus is menaced. It will be seen then that, despite all uncertainties in the text, in the translation, and in the details, we have in these verses an unmistakably clear foreshadowing of the same persecuting king, and the same disastrous events, with which the mind of the writer is so predominantly haunted, and which are still more clearly indicated in the subsequent chapter. Is it necessary, after an inquiry inevitably tedious, and of little or no apparent spiritual profit or significance, to enter further into the intolerably and interminably perplexed and voluminous discussions as to the beginning, the ending, and the exactitude of the seventy weeks? Even St. Jerome gives, by way of specimen, nine different interpretations in his time, and comes to no decision of his own. After confessing that all the interpretations were individual guesswork, he leaves every reader to his own judgment, and adds: " Dicam quid unusquisque senserit, lectoris arbitrio derelinquens cujus expositionem sequi debeat ." I cannot think that the least advantage can be derived from doing so. For scarcely any two leading commentators agree as to details; -or even as to any fixed principles by which they profess to determine the date at which the period of seventy weeks is to begin or is to end; -or whether they are to be reckoned continuously, or with arbitrary misplacements or discontinuations; -or even whether they are not purely symbolical, so as to have no reference to any chronological indications; -or whether they are to be interpreted as referring to one special series of events, or to be regarded as having many fulfilments by "springing and germinal developments." The latter view is, however, distinctly tenable. It applies to all prophecies, inasmuch as history repeats itself; and our Lord referred to another "abomination of desolation" which in His days was yet to come. There is not even an initial agreement-or even the data as to an agreement-whether the "years" to be counted are solar years of three hundred and forty-three days, or lunar years, or "mystic" years, or Sabbath years of forty-nine years, or "indefinite" years; or where they are to begin and end or in what fashion they are to be divided. All is chaos in the existing commentaries. As for any received or authorised interpretation, there not only is none, but never has been. The Jewish interpreters differ from one another as widely as the Christian. Even in the days of the Fathers, the early exegetes were so hopelessly at sea in their methods of application that St. Jerome contents himself, just as I have done, with giving no opinion of his own. The attempt to refer the prophecy of the seventy weeks primarily or directly to the coming and death of Christ, or the desolation of the Temple by Titus, can only be supported by immense manipulations, and by hypotheses so crudely impossible that they would have made the prophecy practically meaningless both to Daniel and to any subsequent reader. The hopelessness of this attempt of the so-called "orthodox" interpreters is proved by their own fundamental disagreements. It is finally discredited by the fact that neither our Lord, nor His Apostles, nor any of the earliest Christian writers once appealed to the evidence of this prophecy, which, on the principles of Hengstenberg and Dr. Pusey, would have been so decisive! If such a proof lay ready to their hand-a proof definite and chronological-why should they have deliberately passed it over, while they referred to other prophecies so much more general, and so much less precise in dates? Of course it is open to any reader to adopt the view of Keil and others, that the prophecy is Messianic, but only typically and generally so. On the other hand, it may be objected that the Antiochian hypothesis breaks down, because-though it does not pretend to resort to any of the wild, arbitrary, and I had almost said preposterous, hypotheses invented by those who approach the interpretation of the Book with a priori and aposteriori assumptions-it still does not accurately correspond to ascertainable dates. But to those who are guided in their exegesis, not by unnatural inventions, but by the great guiding principles of history and literature, this consideration presents no difficulty. Any exact accuracy of chronology would have been far more surprising in a writer of the Maccabean era than round numbers and vague computations. Precise computation is nowhere prevalent in the sacred books. The object of those books always is the conveyance of eternal, moral, and spiritual instruction. To such purely mundane and secondary matters as close reckoning of dates the Jewish writers show themselves manifestly indifferent. It is possible that, if we were able to ascertain the data which lay before the writer, his calculations might seem less divergent from exact numbers than they now appear. More than this we cannot affirm. What was the date from which the writer calculated his seventy weeks? Was it from the date of Jeremiah’s first prophecy, { Jeremiah 25:12 }B.C. 605? or his second prophecy, { Jeremiah 29:10 } eleven years later, B.C. 594? or from the destruction of the first Temple, B.C. 586? or, as some Jews thought, from the first year of "Darius the Mede?" or from the decree of Artaxerxes in Nehemiah 2:1-9 ? or from the birth of Christ-the date assumed by Apollinaris? All these views have been adopted by various Rabbis and Fathers; but it is obvious that not one of them accords with the allusions of the narrative and prayer, except that which makes the destruction of the. Temple the terminus a quo . In the confusion of historic reminiscences and the rarity of written documents, the writer may not have consciously distinguished this date (B.C. 588) from the date of Jeremiah’s prophecy (B.C. 594). That there were differences of computation as regards Jeremiah’s seventy years, even in the age of the Exile, is sufficiently shown by the different views as to their termination taken by the Chronicler, { 2 Chronicles 36:22 } who fixes it B.C. 536, and by Zechariah, { Zechariah 1:12 } who fixes it about B.C. 519. As to the terminus ad quota , it is open to any commentator to say that the prediction may point to many subsequent and analogous fulfilments; but no competent and serious reader who judges of these chapters by the chapters themselves and by their own repeated indications can have one moment’s hesitation in the conclusion that the writer is thinking mainly of the defilement of the Temple in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes, and its reconsecration (in round numbers) three and a half years later by Judas Maccabaeus (December 25th, B.C. 164). It is true that from B.C. 588 to B.C. 164 only gives us four hundred and twenty-four years, instead of four hundred and ninety years. How is this to be accounted for? Ewald supposes the loss of some passage in the text which would have explained the discrepancy; and that the text is in a somewhat chaotic condition is proved by its inherent philological difficulties, and by the appearance which it assumes in the Septuagint. The first seven weeks indeed, or forty-nine years, approximately correspond to the time between B.C. 588 (the destruction of the Temple) and B.C. 536 (the decree of Cyrus); but the following sixty-two weeks should give us four hundred and thirty-four years from the time of Cyrus to the cutting off of the Anointed One, by the murder of Onias III in B.C. 171, whereas it only gives us three hundred and sixty-five. How are we to account for this miscalculation to the extent of at least sixty-five years? Not one single suggestion has ever accounted for it, or has ever given exactitude to these computations on any tenable hypothesis. But Schurer has shown that exactly similar mistakes of reckoning are made even by so learned and industrious a historian as Josephus. 1. Thus in his "Jewish War." (6:4:8) he says that there were six hundred and thirty-nine years between the second year of Cyrus and the destruction of the Temple by Titus (A.D. 70). Here is an error of more than thirty years. 2. In his "Antiquities" (20. 10.) he says that there were four hundred and thirty-four years between the Return from the Captivity (B.C. 536) and the reign of Antiochus Eupator (B.C. 164-162). Here is an error of more than sixty years. 3. In "Antt.," 13. 11:1, he reckons four hundred and eighty-one years between the Return from the Captivity and the time of Aristobulus (B.C. 105-104). Here is an error of some fifty years. Again, the Jewish Hellenist Demetrius reckons five hundred and seventy-three years from the Captivity of the Ten Tribes (B.C. 722) to the time of Ptolemy IV (B.C. 222), which is seventy years too many. In other words, he makes as nearly as possible the same miscalculations as the writer of Daniel. This seems to show that there was some traditional error in the current chronology; and it cannot be overlooked that in ancient days the means for coming to accurate chronological conclusion were exceedingly imperfect. "Until the establishment of the Seleucid era (B.C. 312), the Jew had no fixed era whatsoever"; and nothing is less astonishing than that an apocalyptic writer of the date of Epiphanes, basing his calculations on uncertain data to give an allegoric interpretation to an ancient prophecy, should have lacked the records which would alone have enabled him to calculate with exact precision. And, for the rest, we must say with Grotius, " Modicum nee praetor curat, nec propheta. " The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.