Recent Expositions of Daniel. By Prof. W. H. Green, D. D. [pp. 397-424]

Recent Expos8itions of Daniel.
implicitly or explicitly, a prediction of the ultimate salvation;
as on the other hand every prediction of the downfall of hostile powers either involves or expressly declares the final overthrow of all the enemies of God. Messiahl's coming and
kingdom form the background, more or less distinctly visible
in every prophetic picture.
There is no antecedent presumption from analogy, therefore, prior to the examination of the terms of this particular
prophecy, against the view maintained by Zockler, that it has
mingled reference to the times of the Maccabees, and to the
times of the Messiah, and while typically predictive of the
latter, it is directly predictive of the former. Such a coinbination would not only be entirely in accordance with prophetic usage in general, but in regard to these epochs in
particular. That signal crisis in the affairs of Israel, when
the Maccabees were raised up to be their champions and
defenders, did form a prophetic horizon, and from the
splendor of these foreseen successes, the people were instructed to anticipate the dawn of the brighter day beyond. As the Babylonish exile formed such a limit to
the prophets living prior to that event, from which their inspiration taught them to glance forward to the coming Redeemer; and as the change of dispensations constituted another such horizon, the prophets of the Old Testament not
distinguishing the protracted periods of waiting, and of
struggle through which the Kingdom of the Messiahl was to
win its way to final victory, but springing at once from its
establishment to its consummation; so to Daniel as to Zechariah, the next great crisis in rsrael's history, and the most
important prior to the advent, was that dark period of oppression and persecution by an offshoot of the Greek Empire,
and the signal deliverance that was to follow. Zechariah ch.
ix. connects God's protection of his people from the great
Greek conqueror in the full tide of his early successes with
the coming of Zion's king; and ch. x. the Maccabean triutliphs with the regathering of Israel out of all his dispersions.
And Daniel ch. xi.-xii. combines the persecutions and wretched end of Antiochus Epiphanes, with the general resurrection.
It would not in itself, therefore, be at all surprising to find a
1871.]
403