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

Recent Expositions of Daniel.
We must, however, proceed to examine the interpretation
given of the subsequent verses, upon which it is chiefly that
Z6ckler bases his view of the entire passage. He reads ver.
25, "From the going forth of the word to restore and to build
Jerusalem unto an anointed, a prince, are seven weeks; and
during two and sixty weeks it shall be restored and built with
street end moat (i. e. the process of its restoration and upbuilding shall be continued at intervals through these 434 years),
but in troublous times." The anointed prince he takes to be
Cyrus, whom God calls his anointed, Isa. xlv.; and who made
his appearance 49 years after Jerusalem was destroyed by
Nebuchadnezzar, B. C. 588. But would any man not sorely
pressed by the exigencies of a theory ever dream of fixing upon
the destruction of Jerusalem as the time of " the going forth
of the word to restore and to build" it? If the 49 years interveniing between Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus are to be identified with the seven weeks of this prophecy, there would seem
to be more reason in the preposterous method adopted by
Eichhlorn. who reckons themn backward instead of forward, and
starting with the decree of Cyrus permitting the Jews to return
to their own land, finds the anointed prince in the king of
Babylon!
The allegation that the 70 weeks of Daniel begin at the same
time with the 70 years of Jeremiah, if it were well founded,
would not lead us to fix upon the destruction of Jerusalem as
their common point of departure. On the contrary, it is plain
that the term of subjection to Babylon predicted Jer. xxv. 12,
xxix. 10, begins from the fourth year of Jehoiakim (B. a. 606).
For, 1, this is the year that the prediction was first uttered,
Jer. xxv. 1. 2. In that year Jerusalemn was captured by Nebuchadnezzar and the exile properly commenced; the first deportation of exiles then occurred, the king became a vassal of
Nebuchadnezzar and Judea tributaryto him, only the shadow of
a kingdonm remaining for a few years in Jerusalem, 2 Kgs. xxiv.
1, 2 Chron. xxxiv. 6, 7, Dan. i. 2. 3. The seventy years were
completed in the first year of Cyrus (B. c. 536), 2 Chlron. xxvi.
21, 22, Ezra i. 1, with which Zech. i. 12, is entirely consistent.
4. Daniel must have so reckoned them, for he was himself
carried away by Nebuchadnezzar in that expedition which
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