[716] See too Joel ii. 2.
[717] Enoch xc. 16.
[718] Rev. xvi. 14, xix. 19.
[719] Comp. Matt. xxiv. 6, 7, 21, 22.
[720] Such is the reading of the LXX., Vulgate, Peshitta, Symmachus, etc.
[721] Zech. xiv. 1-7.
[722] Comp. vii. 10: "And the books were opened."
[723] Mal. iii. 16.
[724] Rev. xx. 12-15. Compare too Phil. iv. 3: "With Clement also, and the rest of my fellow-workers, whose names are in the book of life."
[725] "Many sleepers in the land of dust" seems to mean the dead. Comp. Jer. li. 39; Psalm xxii. 29; 1 Thess. iv. 14; Acts vii. 60. For "shame" see Jer. xxiii. 40. The word for "abhorrence" only occurs in Isa. lxvi. 24. The allusion seems to be to the ἀνάστασις κρίσεως (John v. 29), the δεύτερος θάνατος of Rev. xx. 14. Comp. Enoch xxii.
[726] Isa. lxvi. 24.
[727] It is certain that the doctrine of the Resurrection acquired more clearness in the minds of the Jews at and after the period of the Exile; nor is there anything derogatory to the workings of the Spirit of God which lighteth every man, in the view which supposes that they may have learnt something on this subject from the Babylonians and Assyrians. See the testimonies of St. Peter and St. Paul as to some degree of Ethnic inspiration in Acts x. 34, 35, xvii. 25-31.
[728] See Ezek. xxxvii. 1-4.
[729] Theodoret says that "many" means "all," as in Rom. v. 15; but there it is "_the_ many," and the parallel is altogether defective. Hofmann gets over the difficulty by rendering it, "And in multitudes shall they arise." Many commentators explain it not of the final but of some partial resurrection. Few will now be content with such autocratic remarks as that of Calvin: "Multos hic ponit pro omnibus ut certum est."
[730] Lit. "those that justify the multitude." Comp. Isa. liii. 11, and see Dan. xi. 33-35.
[731] Matt. xiii. 43; 1 Cor. xv. 41; Rev. ii. 28.
[732] Comp. Zech. iv. 10. This sense cannot be rigidly established.
[733] He refers to 1 Macc. i. 9, which says of the successors of Alexander, καὶ ἐπλήθυναν κακὰ ἐν τῃ γῃ.
[734] Jerome guesses that they are the angels of Persia and Greece. The word הַיְאר lit. "the canal," is often used of the Nile.
[735] The LXX. reads καὶ εἷπα, "and I said," making Daniel the speaker (so too the Vulgate); but the form of the passage is so closely analogous to viii. 13, as to leave no doubt that here too "one saint is speaking to another saint."
[736] Comp. Gen. xiv. 22; Deut. xxxii. 40, "For I lift up My hand unto heaven, and say, I live for ever"; Ezek. xx. 5, 6, etc.
[737] Those who can rest content with such exegesis may explain this to imply that "the reign of _antichrist_ will be divided into three periods--the first long, the second longer, the third shortest of all," just as the seventy weeks of chap. ix. are composed of 7 × 62 × 1.
[738] By way of comment see 1 Macc. v.; 2 Macc. viii.
[739] לֵךְ is encouraging, as in ver. 13.
[740] Comp. Rev. xxii. 11.
[741] The small heathen altar to Zeus was built by Antiochus upon the great altar of burnt offering on Kisleu 15, B.C. 168. The revolt of Mattathias and his seven sons began B.C. 167. Judas the Maccabee defeated the Syrian generals Apollonius, Seron, and Gorgias B.C. 166, and Lysias at Beth-sur in B.C. 165. He cleansed and rededicated the Temple on Kisleu 25, B.C. 165.
[742] The "time, times, and a half." The 1,290 days, 1,335 days and the 1,150 days, and the 2,300 days of viii. 14 all agree in indicating three years with a shorter or longer fraction. It will be observed that in each case there is a certain reticence or vagueness as to the _terminus ad quem_. It is interesting to note that in Rev. xi. 2, 3, the period of 42 months = 1,260 days = 3-1/2 years of months of 30 days with no intercalary month.