the errors in time if reckoned 490 years to the coming of Messiah the Prince. If the 490 years are reckoned from the first decree, they will terminate 46 years before the coming of the Messiah, if at the second 28 years before, but if at the third 32 years after, and if at the fourth 45 years after the coming of the Messiah. But in my humble opinion, days are days, weeks are weeks, months are months, years are years in all cases where the inspired writers do not say to the contrary. If any number of years must transpire from a certain event, "unto the coming of a prince," we should naturally suppose that the period would be completed when the prince appeared, or at least when he began to reign. We very properly reckon the Christian era from the birth of Christ, not from his death, yet our commentators have reckoned unto the death of Messiah the Prince, so that according to their theory and calculation, his advent predicted in this verse, takes place at his exit! There is another discrepance which stares C us in the face. The prophet does not say seventy weeks, but seven weeks. Read it, "Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks. Dr. Stonard says, 'that the seven weeks are prior to the 62 and separate from them:' he also adds that the term of seven weeks, is not only separate from the term of seventy weeks, but also prior thereto.' There is no instance in the original Scriptures where two units are used to make up another unit, as 7 and 2 to make up 9, which, with the 60 would be equal to 69, but this is a number not mentioned in the prophecy, but the 62 is repeated again in the next verse, evidently proving that 7 and 62 are separate numbers. Sir Isaac Newton maintains that it is a "doing violence to the language of Daniel, to take 7 weeks and 62 weeks for one number. Had that been Daniel's meaning he would have said sixty and nine weeks, and not 7 weeks and 62 weeks, a way of numbering used by no nation."* The prophet having stated that the Messiah would come 7 weeks after the going forth of "the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem:" then informs us what progress will be made in the work at the end of 62 weeks; namely, that "the street shall *Observations on Daniel, p. 151. be built again, and the wall" or ruin, “even in troublous times." Having stated the rebuilding of the city, and the expiration of the 62 weeks, the prophet proceeds to inform us what great event would occur next. Verse 26. "And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off." Here it is proper to remark that the word signifies to cut, and to cut off. But whenever the writers of the Hebrew Scriptures record the making of a covenant they (I believe) invariably employ this word to cut, which according to their idiom is to cut a covenant. In the first place where it is used in the Sacred Scriptures, Abraham was ordered to take an heifer, a goat, and a ram, and cut or divide them in the midst; and fire, (the symbol of Jehovah,) passed between the parts. Gen. xv. 9-17. "In the Lord cut a covenant with Abram, thy seed will I give this land." allusion to the same ceremony, Jer. xxxiv. 18. "They have not performed the words of the covenant which they had made before me when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof." Generally indeed the word covenant, is connected with the verb. But I beg leave to acquaint the Reader, that the word л alone, is rendered to make a covenant in our authorized same day the saying, unto There is an version in the following passages. 1. Sam. xi. 2. xx. 16. xxii. 8. 1. Kings viii. 9. I. Chron. xvi. 16. II. Chron. v. 10. vii. 18. Neh. ix. 38. Psa. cv. 9. Isa. lvii. 8. Hag. ii. 5. Now if it be properly so translated in the above eleven places, why may it not be so rendered in the twelfth? I once proposed this question to Dr. Pusey, Hebrew Professor at Oxford, and he replied 'It is not used in that sense in Niphal:' but, with all due deference to the learned Professor, this is begging the question; I believe it used so here, I do not think it is frequently used in this sense in Niphal, but it is allowed by all to be used to make a covenant eleven times in the active voice, and why not once in the passive, if the sense requires it? for that is the only rule to guide a translator in rendering the word : and I contend the sense does require that it should be rendered Messiah "shall be made a covenant." For with all the torture that has been applied to the original prophecy; and all the shifting of chronological dates, it cannot be proved that Messiah was cut off 490 years after a commandment given "to restore and build Jerusalem;" though there are many respectable authors who have tried to prove it; and though each has attempted to establish the same fact; yet such is the contrariety in their statements as to the time when it occurred, that their testimony |