But here our masters are by no means agreed amongst them- selves, nor do they know what to answer unto this inquiry; and if they do guess at any one, it is not because they think it possible he should be designed, but because they think it impossible for them to keep life in their cause and not to speak when the sword of truth lies at the heart of it. Some of them, therefore, affirm the Messiah spoken of to be Cyrus, whom God calls inv, his “anointed,” Isa. xly. 1. But what the cutting off or death of Cyrus should make in this prediction they know not; nor do they endeavour to show that any thing here mentioned to fall out with the cutting off of the Messiah hath the least relation unto Cyrus or his death. And if, because Cyrus is once called the “anointed” of the Lord, he must be supposed to be intended in that place, where no one word or cir- cumstance is applicable unto him, they may as well say that it is Saul the first king of Israel who is spoken of, seeing be also is called nin’ mv, “The anointed of the Lorn,” 1 Sam. xxiv. 7, as was
850 DANIEL’S PROPHECY VINDICATED. [ EXERC. XIV.
Zedekiah also, Lam. iv. 20. But it must needs be altogether in- credible unto any, unless they are Jews, who can believe what they please that serves their ends, that because the Lord calleth Cyrus his “ anointed,” in reference unto the especial work of destroying the Babylonian empire,—in which sense the term “ anointing,” namely, for a designation unto any employment, is obvious and familiar in the Old Testament,—he should therefore be esteemed the promised Messiah of the people of God, who is here evidently described. But that which casts this fancy beneath all consideration is the time allotted to the cutting off of the Messiah.
Those amongst the Jews themselves who begin the account of the weeks from the most early date imaginable, fix their epoch in the giving of the promise unto Jeremiah concerning their return from captivity, which was in the days of Jehoiakim. Now, from thence unto the death of Cyrus, no computation will allow above eighty years; which comes short somewhat above four hundred years of the season here allotted for the cutting off of the Messiah. And the same is the case with Joshua, Zerubbabel, and Nehemiah, whom some of them would have to be designed: for neither were any of them penally cut off ; nor did they cause in any sense the sacrifices to cease, but endeavoured to continue them in a due manner ; nor did they live within some hundreds of years of the time determined; nor was any thing besides here foretold wrought or accomplished in their days.
39. Abarbanel, and after him Manasseh Ben Israel, with some others of them, fix on Agrippa the last king of the Jews, who, as they say, with his son Monabasius, was “ cut off,” or slain, at Rome by Vespasian. A learned man, in his Apparatus ad Origines Eccle- siasticas, mistakes this Agrippa for Herod Agrippa, who was oxwAn- x6Cpwros, Acts xii. 23. But he who died long before the destruction of the city is not intended by them, but the younger Agrippa, the brother and husband of Bernice. Neither is there any colour of probability in this fancy; for neither was that Agrippa ever properly king of the Jews, having only Galilee under his jurisdiction, nor was he ever anointed to be their king, nor designed of God unto any work on the account whereof he might be called his “ anointed,’ nor was he of the posterity of Israel, nor did he by any thing deserve an illustrious men- tion in this prophecy. Besides, in the last fatal war, he was still of the Roman side and party, nor was he cut off or slain by Vespasian, but after the war lived at Rome in honour and died in peace; yea, he did not only outlive Vespasian, but Titus and Domitian, his sons, also, and continued unto the third year of Trajan, as Justus the Tiberian assures us in his History, whose words are reported by Photius in his Bibliotheca. So that, ody dys, there is nothing of truth, no colour of probability, in this desperate figment.
40. Their last evasion is, that by “ Messiah the Prince,” the office
SECT. 39-41.] DANIEL’S PROPHECY VINDICATED. 331
of magistracy and priesthood, and in them all anointed unto autho- rity, are intended. These, they say, were to be cut off in the destruction of the city. And herein they have the consent of Afri- canus, Clemens Alexandrinus, and Eusebius, among the ancients, who are also followed by some later writers. But this evasion also is of the same nature with the former, yea, more vain than they, if any thing may be allowed so to be. The angel twice mentioneth the Messiah in his message ;—first, his coming and anointing, Dan. ix. 25; and then his cutting off, verse 26. If the same person or thing be not intended in both places, the whole discourse is equivocal and unintelligible, no circumstance being added to difference between them who are called by the same name in the same place. And to suppose that the Holy Ghost by one and the same name, within a few words, continuing his speech of the same matter without any note of difference or distinction, should signify things diverse from one another, is to leave no place for the understanding of any thing that is spoken by him. The Messiah, therefore, who was to come, and be anointed, and cut off, is one and the same individual person. Now, it is expressly said that there shall be seven weeks, and sixty- two weeks,—that is, four hundred and eighty-three years,—‘“‘from the going forth of the decree unto Messiah the Prince.” I desire, there- fore, to know whether that space of time was past before they had any such magistrates or priests as they pretend afterwards were cut off. This is so far from truth, that before that time the rule of the Asmonzans, the last supreme magistrates of their own nation, was put to an end. This pretence, therefore, may pass with the former. And this perplexity of the modern Jews, in their attempts to apply this prophecy unto any other thing or person besides the true Messiah, confirms our exposition and application of it. There is no other person that they can imagine unto whom any one thing here mentioned may seem to belong, much less can they think of any in whom they should all centre andagree. It is, then, the promised Messiah, the hope and expectation of the fathers, whose coming and cutting off are here foretold.