Yer. 27 has given greater trouble to critics than any other in the whole passage; and, indeed, the common theory by which the seventy weeks are made to end with the crucifixion is flatly contradicted by the cessa- tion of the daily sacrificial offerings at the Temple " in the middle of the week." All attempts to crowd aside this point are in vain; for such an abolition could not be said to occur in any pertinent sense before the offer- ing of the great sacrifice, especially as Jesus himself, during his ministry, always countenanced their celebra- tion. Besides, the advocates of this scheme are obliged to make this last "week" encroacli upon the preceding "sixty-two weeks," so as to include John the Baptist's ministry, in order to make out seven years for "con- firming the covenant ;" an<l when they have done this, they run counter to the previous explicit direction, which makes the first sixty-nine weeks come down " to the IMessiah," and not end at John. By means of the double line of dates exhibited in the alwve dia- gram, all tliis is harmoniously adjusted ; and, at the same time, the only satisfactory interpretation is re- tained— that, after the true atonement, these typical ob- lations ceased to have any meaning or efficacy, although before it they could not consistently be dispensed with, even by Christ and his apostles.
The seventy weeks, therefore, were allotted to the Jews as their only .season of favor or mercy as a Church, and we know that thej' were not immediately cast off upon their murder of Christ (see Luke xxiv, 27 ; Acts iii, 12- 26). The Gospel was specially directed to be lirst preached to them; and not onh' during our Saviour's personal ministry, but for several years afterwards, the invitations of grace were confined to them. The first instance of a " turning to the (ientiles" pro]icr was the baptism of the Roman centiwion Cornelius, during the fourtii year after the resurrection of Christ. In this interval the Jewish people had shown their determined opposition to the new "covenant" by imprisoning the apostles, stoning Stephen to death, and officially pro- scribing Christianity through Saniicdrim. Soon after this martyrdom occurred the conversion of Saul, who " was a chosen vessel to bear God's name to the Gen- tiles;" and about two years after this event the door was thrown wide open for tiieir admission into the cov- enant relation of the Church, instead of the Jews, by the vision of Peter and the conversion of Cornelius. Here we find a marked epoch, fixed by the finger of
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God ill all the miraculous circumstances of the event, as well as by the formal apostolical decree ratifying it, and obviousl}' forming the great turning-point between the two dispensations. We find no evidence that "many" of the Jews embraced Christianitj' after this period, although they had been converted in great num- bers on several occasions under the apostles' preaching, not only in Jud;ca, but also in Galilee, and even among the semi- Jewish inhabitants of Samaria. The Jews had now rejected Christ as a nation with a tested and in- corrigible hatred; and having thus disowned their God, they were forsaken by him, and devoted to destruction, as the prophet intimates would be their retribution for that "decision" in which the four hundred and ninety years of this their second and last probation in the promised land w-ould result. It is thus strictly true that Christ personally and by his apostles "established the covenant" which had formerly been made, and was now renewed, with many of the chosen people for pre- cisel}' seven years after his public appearance as a teacher; in the verj' middle of which space lie super- seded forever the sacrificial offerings of the Mosaic rit- ual by the one perfect and sufficient offering of his own body on the cross.
In the latter part of this verse we have a graphic outline of the terrible catastrophe that should fail upon the Jews in consequence of their rejection of the Mes- siah— a desolation that should not cease to cover them but by the extinction of the oppressing nation : it forms an appendix to the main prophecy. Our Saviour's lan- guage leaves no doubt as to the application of this pas- sage, in his memorable warning to his disciples that when they should be about to "see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place," they should then " flee into the moun- tains" (Matt, xxiv, 15, 16 ; comp. xxiii, .30, 38).
la the scheme at the head of preceding page, several chronological points has-e been partially assumed which entire satisfaction with the results obtained would re- quire to be fullj' proved. A minute investigation of the grounds on which all the dates involved rest would occu- py too much space for the present discussion ; we there- fore content ourselves with determining the two boun- darj' dates of the entire period, trusting the intermedi- ate ones to such incidental evidences of their correctness as may have been afforded in the foregoing elucidation, or may arise in connection with the settlement pro- posed (see Browne, Ordo Sceclorum, p. 96 - 107, 202). If these widely distant points can be fixed by definite data independently of each other, the correspondence of the interval will afford strong presumption that it is the true one, which will be heightened as the subdi- visions fall naturally into their prescribed limits; and thus the above coincitlence in the character of the events will receive all the confirmation that the nature of the case admits.