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

Recent Expositions of Daniel.
On the contrary it is expressly stated that these weeks are
to be reckoned from "the going forth of the word to restore
and to build Jerusalem." Jeremiah's prophecy of the exile
and its duration cannot with any propriety be so regarded.
The earliest period that could be imagined to answer to this
description is the first year of Cyrus, when leave was granted
to the exiles to return to their own land and " build the house
of God which is in Jerusalem," Ezra i. 1-4. But no restoration of the city in any just sense of the term followed upon
this edict; nor upon the renewed permission to prosecute the
work upon the temple in the second year of Darius Hystaspes,
Ezra, ch. vi.; nor upon the mnission of Ezra in the seventh year
of Artaxerxes, which was chiefly concerned with the service
of the sanctuary, Ezra ch. vii. The city was still in ruins and
its walls unbuilt, and nothing effectual had been done towards
its restoration until in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, when
Nehemiah was authorized and empowered to rebuild "the
city of his fathlers' sepulchres," Neh. i. 3, ch. ii. According
to the terms of the prophecy, therefore, this is the date from
which its weeks are to be counted.
Z6ckler's division of the 25th verse may at first silght appear to be the most natural distribution of the clauses. In so
enigmatical a passage, however, this consideration is not of itself decisive; especially as the terms of the prophecy plainly
point to, if they do not compel a different division. Seventy
weeks (490 years) were to introduce Messianic blessings; after
the sixty-two weeks, which followed the first seven in the partition of the seventy (i. e. after 483 years), Messiah was to be
cut off; it is far mn(ore likely, therefore, that the prophet intends to say that 483 years extend to the time of his appearance than 49 years; unless his life on earth was to be out of
all proportion to other human lives. Accordingly, although
the Masoretic accents, which are often rhythmical rather than
logical, assign the sixty-two weeks to the second clause of the
verse, several of the ancient versions combine the "seven weeks
and threescore and two weeks," and connect both with the
first clause as is done by our English translators. And that
this is the correct rendering is put beyqnd question by its correspondence with the fulfilment, which in any case of obscu
1871.]
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