[621] Steudel, Hofmann. So too Cornill, p. 10: "Ein frommer Jude das Hoher Priesterthum mit Onias für erloschen ansah."

[622] Comp. ואין לו and חניו (Joël, Notizen, p. 21).

[623] Jos., Antt., XII. v. 4; 1 Macc. i. 29-40.

[624] Here again the meaning is uncertain; and Grätz, altering the reading, thinks that it should be, "He shall abolish the covenant [with God] for the many"; or, "shall cause the many to transgress the covenant."

[625] Dan. ix. 27. Heb., Zebach oo-minchah, "the bloody and unbloody offering."

[626] The special allusion, whatever it may precisely mean, is found under three different designations: (i) In viii. 13 it is called happeshang shomeem; Gk., ἡ ἁμαρτία ἐρημώσεως; Vulg., peccatum desolationis. (ii) In ix. 27 (comp. ix. 31) it is shiqqootsîm m'shomeem; Gk., βδέλυγμα τῆς ἐρημώσεως; Vulg., abominatio desolationis. (iii) In xii. 11 it is shiqqoots shomeem; Gk., τὸ βδέλυγμα ἐρημώσεως; Vulg., abominatio in desolationem. Some traditional fact must (as Dr. Joël says) have underlain the rendering "of desolation" for "of the desolator." In xi. 31 Theodotion has ἠφανισμένων, "of things done away with," for ἐρημωσέων. The expression with which the New Testament has made us so familiar is found also in 1 Macc. i. 51 (comp. 1 Macc. vi. 7): "they built the abomination of desolation upon the altar." There "the abomination" seems clearly to mean a smaller altar for heathen sacrifice to Zeus, built on the great altar of burnt offering. Perhaps the writer of Daniel took the word shomeem, "desolation," as a further definition of shiqqoots, "abomination," from popular speech; and it may have involved a reference to Lev. xxvi. 15-31: "If ye shall despise My statutes ... I will even appoint over you terror ... and I will make your cities waste, and appoint your sanctuaries unto desolation." The old Jewish exegetes referred the prophecy to Antiochus Epiphanes; Josephus and later writers applied it to the Romans. Old Christian expositors regarded it as Messianic; but even Jerome records nine different views of commentators, many of them involving the grossest historic errors and absurdities. Of Post-Reformation expositors down to the present century scarcely two agree in their interpretations. At the present day modern critics of any weight almost unanimously regard these chapters, in their primary significance, as vaticinia ex eventu, as some older Jewish and Christian exegetes had already done. Hitzig sarcastically says that the exegetes have here fallen into all sorts of shiqqootsîm themselves.

[627] Comp. πτερύγιον (Matt. iv. 5).

[628] Kuenen, Hist. Crit. Onderzook., ii. 472.

[629] Any one who thinks the inquiry likely to lead to any better results than those here indicated has only to wade through Zöckler's comment in Lange's Bibelwerk ("Ezekiel and Daniel," i. 186-221). It is hard to conceive any reading more intolerably wearisome; and at the close it leaves the reader in a state of more hopeless confusion than before. The discussion also occupies many pages of Pusey (pp. 162-231); but neither in his hypothesis nor any other are the dates exact. He can only say, "It were not of any account if we could not interpret these minor details. De minimis non curat lex." On the view that the seventy weeks were to end with the advent of Christ we ask: (1) Why do no two Christian interpreters agree about the interpretation? (2) Why did not the Apostles and Evangelists refer to so decisive an evidence?

[630] On this, however, we may remark with Cornill, "Eine Apokalypse, deren ἀποκαλύψεις unenthülbar sind, wäre ein nonsens, eine contradictio in adjecto" (Die Siebzig Jahrwochen, p. 3). The indication was obviously meant to be understood, and to the contemporaries of the writer, familiar with the minuter facts of the day, it probably was perfectly clear.

[631] Luke ii. 25, 26, 38; Matt. xxiv. 15. Comp. 2 Thess. ii.; Jos., Antt., X. xxii. 7.

[632] "Scio de hac quæstione ab eruditissimis viris varie disputatum et unumquemque pro captu ingenii sui dixisse quod senserat" (Jer. in Dan., ix.). In other words, there was not only no received interpretation in St. Jerome's day, but the comments of the Fathers were even then a chaos of arbitrary guesses.

[633] Pusey makes out a table of the divergent interpretation of the commentators, whom, in his usual ecclesiastical fashion, he charitably classes together as "unbelievers," from Corrodi and Eichhorn down to Herzfeld. But quite as striking a table of divergencies might be drawn up of "orthodox" commentators.

[634] Thus Eusebius, without a shadow of any pretence at argument makes the last week mean seventy years! (Dem. Evan., viii.).

[635] Jost (Gesch. d. Judenthums, i. 99) contents himself with speaking of "die Liebe zu prophetischer Auffassung der Vergangenheit, mit möglichst genauen Zahlenagaben, befriedigt, die uns leider nicht mehr verständlich erscheinen."

[636] In Clem. Alex., Strom., i. 21.

[637] Cornill, p. 14; Bevan, p. 54.

[638] Schürer, Hist. of Jewish People, iii. 53, 54 (E. Tr.). This is also the view of Graf, Nöldeke, Cornill, and many others. In any case we must not be misled into an impossible style of exegesis of which Bleck says that "bei ihr alles möglich ist und alles für erlaubt gilt."

[639] The LXX. date it in "the first year of Cyrus," perhaps an intentional alteration (i. 21). We see from Ezra, Nehemiah, and the latest of the Minor Prophets that there was scarcely even an attempt to restore the ruined walls of Jerusalem before b.c. 444.

[640] Lit. "great warfare." It will be seen that the A.V. and R.V. and other renderings vary widely from this; but nothing very important depends on the variations. Instead of taking the verbs as imperatives addressed to the reader, Hitzig renders, "He heeded the word, and gave heed to the vision."

[641] Lit. "weeks of days" (Gen. xli. 1; Deut. xxi. 13: "years of days").

[642] "Bread of desires" is the opposite of "bread of affliction" in Deut. xvi. 3. Comp. Gen. xxvii. 25; Isa. xxii. 13, etc.

[643] Comp. Amos vi. 6; Ruth iii. 3; 2 Sam. xii. 20, xiv. 2.

[644] He fasted from Abib 3 to 24. The festival of the New Moon might prevent him from fasting on Abib 1, 2.

[645] Hiddekel ("the rushing") occurs only in Gen. ii. 14. It is the Assyrian idiglat.

[646] For the girdle see Ezek. xxiii. 15. Ewald (with the Vulg., Chald., and Syriac) regards Uphaz as a clerical error for Ophir (Psalm xlv. 9). LXX., Μωφάζ (Jer. x. 9, where alone it occurs). The LXX. omit it here. Vulg., Auro obrizo.

[647] Heb., eben tarshish (Exod. xxviii. 2); Vulg., crysolithus; R.V. and A.V., "beryl" (Ezek. i. 16). Comp. Skr., tarisha, "the sea."

[648] Theodot., τὰ σκέλη; LXX., οἱ πόδες (Rev. i. 15)—lit. "foot-hold"; Vulg., quæ deorsum sunt usque ad pedes.

[649] This description of the vision follows Ezek. i. 16-24, ix. 2, and is followed in Rev. i. 13-15. The "deep murmur" is referred to the sound of the sea by St. John; A.V., "the voice of a multitude"; LXX., θόρυβος. Comp. Isa. xiii. 4; Ezek. xliii. 2.

[650] Rashi guesses that they were Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.

[651] Comp. Acts ix. 7, xxii. 11.

[652] Comp. Hab. iii. 16; Dan. viii. 18.

[653] Lit. "shook" or "caused me to tremble upon my knees and the palms of my hand."

[654] x. 11. LXX., ἄνθρωπος ἐλεεινὸς εἶ; Tert., De Jejun., 7, "homo es miserabilis" (sc., "jejunando").

[655] The protecting genius of Persia (Isa. xxiv. 21; Psalm lxxxii.; Ecclus. xvii. 17).

[656] Michael, "who is like God" (Jude 9; Rev. xii. 7).

[657] Heb., nôthartî. "I came off victorious," or "obtained the precedence" (Luther, Gesenius, etc.); "I was delayed" (Hitzig); "I was superfluous" (Ewald); "Was left over" (Zöckler); "I remained" (A.V.); "Was not needed" (R.V. marg.). The LXX. and Theodoret seem to follow another text.

[658] LXX., "with the army of the king of the Persians."

[659] Again the text and rendering are uncertain.

[660] So Hitzig and Ewald. The view that they are distinct persons is taken by Zöckler, Von Lengerke, etc. Other guesses are that the "man clothed in linen" is the angel who called Gabriel (viii. 16); or Michael; or "the angel of the Covenant" (Vitringa); or Christ; or "he who letteth" (ὁ κατέχων, 2 Thess. ii. 7), whom Zöckler takes to be "the good principle of the world-power."

[661] Thus in the LXX. (Dent, xxxii. 8) we read of angels of the nations. See too Isa. xlvi. 2; Jer. xlvi. 25. Comp. Baruch iv. 7; Ecclus. xvii. 17; Frankel, Vorstudien, p. 66.

[662] Daniel, p. 162.

[663] On this chapter see Smend, Zeitschr. für Alttest. Wissenschaft, v. 241.

[664] Ewald, Prophets, v. 293 (E. Tr.).

[665] Doubtless the three mentioned in Ezra iv. 5-7: Ahasuerus (Xerxes), Artaxerxes, and Darius.

[666] Heb., Hakkôl—lit. "the all." There were probably Jews in his army (Jos. c. Ap., I. 22: comp. Herod., vii. 89).

[667] Zöckler met the difficulty by calling the number four "symbolic," a method as easy as it is profoundly unsatisfactory.

[668] Herod., iii. 96, iv. 27-29.

[669] Q. Curt., X. v. 35.

[670] See Grote, xii. 133. Alexander had a natural son, Herakles, and a posthumous son, Alexander, by Roxana. Both were murdered—the former by Polysperchon. See Diod. Sic., xix. 105, xx. 28; Pausan., ix. 7; Justin, xv. 2; Appian, Syr., c. 51.

[671] The King of the Negeb (comp. Isa. xxx. 6, 7). LXX., Egypt. Ptolemy assumed the crown about b.c. 304.

[672] See Stade, Gesch., ii. 276. Seleucus Nicator was deemed so important as to give his name to the Seleucid æra (1 Macc. i. 10, ἔτη βασιλείας Ἑλλήνων).

[673] Diod. Sic., xix. 55-58; Appian, Syr., c. 52. He ruled from Phrygia to the Indus, and was the most powerful of the Diadochi. The word one is not expressed in the Hebrew: "but as for one of his captains." There may be some corruption of the text. Seleucus can scarcely be regarded as a vassal of Ptolemy, but of Alexander.

[674] Appian, Syr., c. 55; Polyænus, viii. 50; Justin, xxvii. 1. See Herzberg, Gesch. v. Hellas u. Rom., i. 576. Dates are not certain.

[675] Jer., ad loc. (Dan. xi. 6).

[676] The rendering is much disputed, and some versions, punctuating differently, have, "his seed [i.e., his daughter] shall not stand." Every clause of the passage has received varying interpretations.

[677] Polyb., v. 58.

[678] Heb., nasîkîm; LXX., τὰ χωνευτά; Vulg., sculptilia.

[679] Herodotus (iii. 47) says that he ordered the images to be burnt. On the Marmor Adulitanum, Ptolemy Euergetes boasted that he had united Mesopotamia, Babylonia, Persia, Susiana, Media, and all countries as far as Bactria under his rule. The inscription was seen at Adules by Cosmas Indicopleustes, and recorded by him (Wolf u. Buttmann, Museum, ii. 162).

[680] R.V. marg., "He shall continue more years than the King of the North." Ptolemy Euergetes died b.c. 247; Seleucus Kallinikos, b.c. 225. It must be borne in mind that in almost every clause the readings, renderings, and interpolations vary. I give what seem to be the best attested and the most probable.

[681] Justin, xxvii. 2.

[682] See 3 Macc. i. 2-8; Jos., B. J., IV. xi. 5. The Seleucid army lost ten thousand foot, three hundred horse, five elephants, and more than four thousand prisoners (Polyb., v. 86).

[683] Justin says (xxx. i): "Spoliasset regem Antiochum si fortunam virtute juvisset."

[684] Chāzôn, "the vision." Grätz renders it, "to cause the Law to totter"; but this cannot be right.

[685] E.g., Joseph, and his son Hyrcanus.

[686] Polyb., xxviii. 1; Liv., xxxiii. 19; Jos., Antt., XII. iii. 4. See St. Jerome, ad loc.

[687] Vulg., terra inclyta; but in viii. 9, fortitudo.

[688] In the choice of the Hebrew words qatsîn cher'patho lo, Dr. Joël suspects a sort of anagram of Cornelius Scipio, like the ἀπὸ μέλιτος for Ptolemy, and the ἵον Ἥρας for Arsione in Lycophron; but the real meaning and rendering of the verse are highly uncertain.

[689] Liv., xii. 19: "Otiosum, nullisque admodum rebus gestis nobilitatum."

[690] 2 Macc. iii. 7 ff. The reading and rendering are very uncertain.

[691] Joël, Notizen, p. 16.

[692] See Jost, i. 110.

[693] Vulg., vilissimus et indignus decore regio; R.V., "to whom they had not given the honour of a kingdom"; Ewald, "upon him shall not be set the splendour of a kingdom." Dr. Joël sees in nibzeh a contemptuous paronomasia on "Epiphanes" (Notizen, p. 17).

[694] Dan. viii. 22; 2 Macc. v. 25.

[695] Jos., Antt., XII. v. 1.

[696] Jerome, amicitias simulans.

[697] See 1 Macc. iii. 30; 1 Macc. i. 19; Polyb., xxvii. 17; Diod. Sic., xxx. 22. What his unkingly stratagems were we do not know.

[698] Liv., xliv. 19: "Antiochus per honestam speciem majoris Ptolemæi reducendi in regnum," etc.

[699] Or "Paunch." He was so called from his corpulence. Comp. the name Mirabeau, Tonneau.

[700] 2 Macc. v. 5-21; 1 Macc. i. 20-24.

[701] The LXX. render this ἥξουσι Ῥωμαῖοι. Comp. Numb. xxiv. 24; Jerome, Trieres et Romani. On "Chittim" (Gen. x. 4) see Jos., Antt., I. vi. 1.

[702] Polyb., xxix. 11; Appian, Syr., 66; Liv., xlv. 12; Vell. Paterc., i. 10. According to Polybius (xxxi. 5), Epiphanes, by his crafty dissimulation, afterwards completely hoodwinked the ambassador Tiberius Gracchus.

[703] 2 Macc. vi. 2. Our best available historical comments on this chapter are to be found in the two books of Maccabees.

[704] 1 Macc. ii. 42, iii. 11, iv. 14, vii. 13; 2 Macc. xiv. 6.

[705] Diod. Sic, xxxi. 1; 1 Macc. i. 43. Polybius (xxxi. 4) says "he committed sacrilege in most of the temples" (τὰ πλεῖστα τῶν ἱερῶν).

[706] Jahn (Heb. Com., § xcii.) sees in the words "neither shall he regard the desire of women" an allusion to his exclusion of women from the festival at Daphne. Some explain the passage by his robbery of the Temple of Artemis or Aphrodite in Elymais (Polyb., xxxi. 11; Appian, Syr., 66; 1 Macc. vi. 1-4; 2 Macc. ix. 2). All is vague and uncertain.

[707] Polyb., xxvi. 10; 2 Macc. vi. 2; Liv., xii. 20. The Hebrew Eloah Mauzzîm is understood by the LXX., Theodotion, the Vulgate, and Luther to be a god called Mauzzim (Μαωζείμ). See Herzog, Real-Encycl., s.v. "Meussin." Cicero (c. Verr., vii. 72) calls the Capitol arx omnium nationum. The reader must judge for himself as to the validity of the remark of Pusey (p. 92), that "all this is alien from the character of Antiochus."

[708] R.V. The translation is difficult and uncertain.

[709] The LXX. here render this expression (which puzzled them, and which they omit in vv. 16, 41) by θέλησις. Theodot., τὴν γῆν τοῦ Σαβαείμ.

[710] Ewald takes these for metaphoric designations of the Hellenising Jews. Some (e.g., Zöckler) understand these verses as a recapitulation of the exploits of Antiochus. The whole clause is surrounded by historic uncertainties.

[711] The origin of the name Maccabee still remains uncertain. Some make it stand for the initials of the Hebrew words, "Who among the gods is like Jehovah?" in Exod. xv. 11; or of Mattathias Kohen (priest), Ben-Johanan (Biesenthal). Others make it mean "the Hammerer" (comp. Charles Martel). See Jost, i. 116; Prideaux, ii. 199 (so Grotius, and Buxtorf, De Abbreviaturis).

[712] Vulg., Aphadno. The LXX. omit it. Theodot., Apadano; Symm., "his stable."

[713] Porphyry says that "he pitched his tent in a place called Apedno, between the Tigris and Euphrates"; but even if these rivers should be called seas, they have nothing to do with the Holy Mountain. Apedno seems to be a mere guess from the word אפדן, "palace" or "tent," in this verse. See Jer. xliii. 10 (Targum). Roland, however, quotes Procopius (De ædif. Justiniani, ii. 4) as authority for a place called Apadnas, near Amida, on the Tigris. See Pusey, p. 39.

[714] Jahn, § xcv.

[715] 2 Macc. ix.; Jos., Antt., XII. ix. 1, 2; Milman, Hist. of the Jews, ii. 9. Appian describes his lingering and wasting illness by the word φθίνων (Syriaca, 66).

[716] See too Joel ii. 2.

[717] Enoch xc. 16.

[718] Rev. xvi. 14, xix. 19.

[719] Comp. Matt. xxiv. 6, 7, 21, 22.

[720] Such is the reading of the LXX., Vulgate, Peshitta, Symmachus, etc.

[721] Zech. xiv. 1-7.

[722] Comp. vii. 10: "And the books were opened."

[723] Mal. iii. 16.

[724] Rev. xx. 12-15. Compare too Phil. iv. 3: "With Clement also, and the rest of my fellow-workers, whose names are in the book of life."

[725] "Many sleepers in the land of dust" seems to mean the dead. Comp. Jer. li. 39; Psalm xxii. 29; 1 Thess. iv. 14; Acts vii. 60. For "shame" see Jer. xxiii. 40. The word for "abhorrence" only occurs in Isa. lxvi. 24. The allusion seems to be to the ἀνάστασις κρίσεως (John v. 29), the δεύτερος θάνατος of Rev. xx. 14. Comp. Enoch xxii.

[726] Isa. lxvi. 24.

[727] It is certain that the doctrine of the Resurrection acquired more clearness in the minds of the Jews at and after the period of the Exile; nor is there anything derogatory to the workings of the Spirit of God which lighteth every man, in the view which supposes that they may have learnt something on this subject from the Babylonians and Assyrians. See the testimonies of St. Peter and St. Paul as to some degree of Ethnic inspiration in Acts x. 34, 35, xvii. 25-31.

[728] See Ezek. xxxvii. 1-4.

[729] Theodoret says that "many" means "all," as in Rom. v. 15; but there it is "the many," and the parallel is altogether defective. Hofmann gets over the difficulty by rendering it, "And in multitudes shall they arise." Many commentators explain it not of the final but of some partial resurrection. Few will now be content with such autocratic remarks as that of Calvin: "Multos hic ponit pro omnibus ut certum est."

[730] Lit. "those that justify the multitude." Comp. Isa. liii. 11, and see Dan. xi. 33-35.

[731] Matt. xiii. 43; 1 Cor. xv. 41; Rev. ii. 28.

[732] Comp. Zech. iv. 10. This sense cannot be rigidly established.

[733] He refers to 1 Macc. i. 9, which says of the successors of Alexander, καὶ ἐπλήθυναν κακὰ ἐν τῃ γῃ.

[734] Jerome guesses that they are the angels of Persia and Greece. The word הַיְאר lit. "the canal," is often used of the Nile.

[735] The LXX. reads καὶ εἷπα, "and I said," making Daniel the speaker (so too the Vulgate); but the form of the passage is so closely analogous to viii. 13, as to leave no doubt that here too "one saint is speaking to another saint."

[736] Comp. Gen. xiv. 22; Deut. xxxii. 40, "For I lift up My hand unto heaven, and say, I live for ever"; Ezek. xx. 5, 6, etc.

[737] Those who can rest content with such exegesis may explain this to imply that "the reign of antichrist will be divided into three periods—the first long, the second longer, the third shortest of all," just as the seventy weeks of chap. ix. are composed of 7 × 62 × 1.

[738] By way of comment see 1 Macc. v.; 2 Macc. viii.

[739] לֵךְ is encouraging, as in ver. 13.

[740] Comp. Rev. xxii. 11.

[741] The small heathen altar to Zeus was built by Antiochus upon the great altar of burnt offering on Kisleu 15, b.c. 168. The revolt of Mattathias and his seven sons began b.c. 167. Judas the Maccabee defeated the Syrian generals Apollonius, Seron, and Gorgias b.c. 166, and Lysias at Beth-sur in b.c. 165. He cleansed and rededicated the Temple on Kisleu 25, b.c. 165.

[742] The "time, times, and a half." The 1,290 days, 1,335 days and the 1,150 days, and the 2,300 days of viii. 14 all agree in indicating three years with a shorter or longer fraction. It will be observed that in each case there is a certain reticence or vagueness as to the terminus ad quem. It is interesting to note that in Rev. xi. 2, 3, the period of 42 months = 1,260 days = 3½ years of months of 30 days with no intercalary month.