The Pulpit Commentary — Daniel — Section 299

d<'l'icee have been tried t,o equll.l'e ma ltcre. girls playing." .And ths tMU, even In Ewald drope out seventy )'e&l'!I. Professor t.ro1tblo1t8 times. This wu o~rtainly ful- Bl'van justly ch!Ll'Rcteri111ea this devioo as filled in the days of Nehemiah; one I\I\B fant11stic. Hitzig would m11ko the firet only to read the Book of Nehemiah to eoe BC'Ven yee.rs run pitre.llel with the firet seven that. The word haroote, translated "wiill," W<'ekB of the @ixty-two. Profe880r Bc,11n is of somewhat doubtful signillcn.nco. H rejects thi@ as" highly artificial, and eooroely means (Iso.. x. 22) " I\ determiniition." In reconcilable with the text." So, age.in, in Job xli. 22 (30) it is tmnslated "I\ thrcshing- company ";th Graf and Comill, be takes wain," whereas in Prov. iii. 14 it mCl\119 refuge in the e.uthor's ignore.nee. If, age.in, "fine gold." Fiirst would me.ke it moe1n we> tn ke H.O. 164, the date the critics wish here "a. marked-off quarter of e. oity." to make the tenninm ad quem, which is Gesenius makes it meiin here "a ditch"- rhosen hC'C8use it is the year of the puri- a view that Winer also holds. Cornill ficntion of the temple; if four hundred e.nd (' Siebzig Jahrwoohon,' p. 5) sllys most in- C'ighty-three yea.re are added to that de.to, we terpreters explain harootz, from tho Ta.r- have n.c. 647-e. date the.t falls within the gumic, as "ditches." It would seem tha.\ reign of Manasseh. As, however, the point e. better rendering would be " o. palisade:" of time is the e.nointing of e. holy one, e.nd the ruling idea. of all meanings, BCIve the there is reference aleo to e.n e.nointcd prince last, a.s pointed out by Winer, is "sharp- in this verse, a more plausible date would ness." "A ditch" or "a. wa.11" conveys be n.c. 153, the year when Jonathan the no suggestion of sharpness, but "a. pali• brother of Judo.s the Me.oce.bee assumed the sade" does. Not impossibly, before the Ii ig-h priesthood (I Maoc. x. 21) ; t,o thisadd wa.11 was erected, the city wa.s protected by 4S3. and G36 is the resnl1- date during " a. palisade,'' and would certainly be set ,TOl!ie.h'e reign. Of course, the refuge is the up in troublous times. It is to be observed ignore.nee of our author; he didn't know that the events referred to in these two last any better. The difficulty is to underste.nd. clauses have no distinct temporal relation if he was so ignore.nt as to whe.t we.s so com- to the weeks. We might surmise that it p,ne.tively near his own time, how he was referred to the time during which the oity so well informed as to Babylonian 1dfairs. we.s being rebuilt-street and palisade-but The critics cannot make the author of Daniel we are destitute of information which might o.t once excepticma.lly ignore.nt e.nd excep- enable us either to confirm or contradict that tionally well-informed. If, however, we view. This period may be during the Ma.o- take Mr. Galloway's reading (' Shadow on oabee.n struggle ; we cannot tell. the Sundial,' p. 48) of the LXX. Version of Ver 26.-And after three soore and two this verse, we have " seven &nd seventy weeks shall lllessiah be out off, bnt not for weeks " or five hundred &nd thirty-nine himself: and the people of the prinoe that vears. If we reckon these years from the shall oome shall destroy the oity and the decree of Cyrus, B.C. 538, we reach A.D. 2. sanctuary ; and the end thereof shall be Meuiah the Prince; "the anointed prince." with a flood, and unto the end of the war Both priests and kings were anointed, as a. desolations ars determined. The version of eign of consecration to their office. Very the LXX. is nearly unintelligible as it rarely are priests referred to as "anointed," stands, though the genesis of each sopara.te a.nd never withont e. distinct statement that clause from a text a.kin to the Massoretio they are priests, whereas "the Lord's can be easily understood, "And after seven anointed" e.l ways applies to kings. Priests and seventy a.nd sixty-two, the anointing a.re sometimes called" rulers," "l',l; (n•geed), shall be taken e.way, a.nd shall not be, and but only in relation to the temple.· Never is the kingdom of the heathen she.ll destroy princedom and the e.nointing combined ~ the city &nd the S&nctue.ry with the re"a.rd to priest. These idea.s a.re connected Messiah, a.nd his end shall come with wrath, in° regard to Solomon (1 Chron.. xxix. 22). and it shall be we.rred with we.r till the We do not deny that this title would apply time of the end." The first cla.nse ho.a to the later Maccabeans, like Alexander strayed from the end of the preceding Jannrens, who was at once high priest and verse, and c•~:;if!I (shib•eem), "seventy," is con- kmg. We also note, however, that it applies fused with c•p;:if!I (sliiboo•eem), "weeks." It to our Lord, who claimed to be anointed is a possible thing that the Kabbalistio use "to preach good tidings" (Luke iv. 18). of numbers had something to do with this The street Booll be l,uiU aga,in. R•hob, number, for if theee numbers are expressed " street " is really " broad place." Instead in letters, and the letters taken as initie.le, of the 'teaps of confused rubbish, the city we have the initials of this sentence 1)) JOI W'1S onec more to be laid off in orderly .erects und sq naree, eo that Zechariah'1 ?:i:i n•ov,o, "The time until tl,e overthrow p,·s0pti<ccy CJig,,t be fultilltd (viii. 5\ "The of Babylon." They must have read nniinJ n, 0(;\i. of Llie city sLall be full of boys B.lld in.stead of ~•~9. It _i,s d.iillcult to under-- err. ix. 1-27.] THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 271