done. They had not, indeed, made a golden calf and worshiped the idol; but they had received Tobiah the Ammonite, into a chamber of the temple; they had withheld the tithes and neglected the daily sacrifices; they had profaned the Sabbath, and again contracted alliances with the heathen; and in a word, they had given to the world another illustration of the weakness, the folly, and the depravity of

human nature.

With all the zeal of Elijah, did Nehemiah devote himself to the correction of these evils. But the people were prone to transgress; and many of them seem to have persevered in their wickedness. For soon after this, Malachi charged them with the sin of ingratitude; with perverting and despising the ordinances of God; with violating the solemn covenant of marriage; and with robbing God of his rights and glory.

With Malachi the spirit of prophecy departed. His prediction concerning John the harbinger, was the last divine oracle heard by the nation, till that great reformer appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming the near approach of the reign of Heaven.

These facts are important in themselves, and in their relations to various other themes. They illustrate many portions of sacred history; the great weakness and sinfulness of human nature as it is; and the laws, means, and operations of that mysterious and wonderful providence that numbers the hairs of our heads, governs kingdoms, and controls worlds. They serve also to introduce, and in some measure to explain, several most interesting prophecies. To the consideration of one of these we shall devote the remainder of this article. It relates to the first advent of the Messiah, and reads as follows: "Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression and to make an end of sin, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy. Know, therefore, and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto the Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks; the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. And after threescore and two weeks shall the Messiah be cut off, but not for himself; and the people of the prince that shall come, shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war, desolations are determined. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week; and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate,

even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate." Daniel ix. 24-27.

This is a most comprehensive prophecy. Its complete exegesis would require a minute consideration of the following particulars: the seventy weeks; their division into three distinct periods, and the proper historical and chronological characteristics of each; the destruction of the city and the sanctuary; and the final period of their desolation. Some of these items fall within our present prescribed limits; others will be considered hereafter.

In modern usage, the term week invariably denotes a period of seven days. But it was not always so used by the Jews and other nations of antiquity. The first time that it occurs in history, it marks a space, not of seven days, but of seven years. "Fulfil her week," said Laban to Jacob; the import of which was perfectly understood by both parties. In the Jewish calendar, this usage was very common. The regular occurrence of the sabbatical year and the year of jubilee, as they are described in the 25th chapter of Leviticus, made it necessary to speak often of this hebdomadal division of years as well as of days; and the holy and joyful associations of these institutions would render this the more frequent.

Other portions of sacred history show the same analogy between days and years, and prove that the former do sometimes represent the latter. The spies were forty days in searching the land of Canaan, and the people who rebelled on account of their evil report, were condemned to wander in the desert forty years. "After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years." Num. xiv. 34. So, also, in the symbolic siege of Ezekiel. "Lie thou, also, upon the left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it: according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it thou shalt bear their iniquity. For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days; so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on the right side; and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days; I have appointed thee each day for a year." Ezek. iv. 4–6.

From these premises we conclude, that in the sacred style of the Bible, days, weeks and months, may have a symbolical, as well as a literal meaning; and therefore, that whether these seventy weeks are weeks of days, or weeks of years,-whether they represent four hundred and ninety revolutions of the sun upon his axis, or the same number of revolutions in his orbit, must be determined by the general scope of the prophecy and its actual fulfilment. From the former,

Daniel would infer with much probability, that these weeks are weeks of years. The scope of the prophecy refers particularly and exclusively to the Jews, in their national and ecclesiastical capacity; to the period during which they would fulfil their mission as God's peculiar people, in the enjoyment and under the administration of their own laws and institutions. "Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to restrain the transgression, and to make an end of sin-offering, and to make expiation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy." The angel, therefore, limits the duration of this period from the publication of the decree to restore and to build Jerusalem to the time when the oblation should cease, and with it the Jews should cease to be God's peculiar and covenanted people. It is not, however, probable that the Jews would return to Jerusalem, rebuild the city, restore the constitution of Moses, and fulfil their mission as a people, in the short space of four hundred and ninety literal days. And therefore, it is probable from the internal evidence of the prophecy, that these seventy weeks are symbolic periods; that God has here, as in the case of Ezekiel, appointed a day for a year; and consequently, that they are equivalent to four hundred and ninety years.

This conclusion has been fully confirmed by the testimony of the most authentic history. Of this the sequel will furnish the proof. We shall, therefore, regard this as a settled question, and hereafter speak of these as weeks of years.

Their subsequent division into three distinct chronological epochs, next claims our attention. The first of these consists of seven weeks; the second of sixty-two weeks; and the third of one week. Or, according to the interpretation just given, the first is a period of fortynine years; the second of four hundred and thirty-four years; and the third of seven years.

This is not a merely arbitrary division of time. These periods are defined by three of the most important events in sacred history. The restoration of the Jewish state marks the first; the coming of the Messiah, the second; and his crucifixion, the third. The first commences with the going forth or publication of the decree to restore and to build Jerusalem, and continues forty-nine years; the second begins with the close of the first, and ends with the first advent of Christ; the third immediately succeeds the second, and embraces the short period of our Lord's personal ministry on earth.

The whole prophecy, therefore, depends chronologically on the publication of the decree for the restoration of Jerusalem. When was this done? What is the date of this important historical and chrono¬

logical epoch? We have seen that four proclamations were made by different kings of Persia, respecting the Jews and their return to Palestine. The first was made by Cyrus, 536 B. C.; the second by Darius Hystaspes, 519 B. C.; the third by Artaxerxes Longimanus, 458 B. C.; and the fourth by the same monarch, 445. To which of these, then, does Gabriel refer? Not to the first; for this related, not to the restoration of Jerusalem, but to the rebuilding of the temple: nor to the second; for this was a mere confirmation of the first. But to restore Jerusalem, implies much more than to rebuild its temple, to rear its walls, to pave its streets, to ornament its walks, to multiply its houses, and to decorate its palaces. These things, indeed, constituted the body, but not the spirit, of the Holy City. Without the practical workings of the Mosaic constitution, Jerusalem, even in the days of Solomon, would have been as a lifeless carcass; as a marble statue without a vivifying spirit.

But to Ezra belongs the honor of restoring this constitution. To this day, by the common consent of Jew and gentile, he is called "The Restorer of the Law." He was, therefore, the architect of the Holy City; the rebuilder and the restorer of Jerusalem Proper.

It matters not, that in this work he was assisted by Nehemiah; that while the former was restoring the Law, the latter was rebuilding the walls. They were coadjutors in the work. The commission of Nehemiah was but an appendix to that previously obtained by Ezra the scribe. They may, therefore, be regarded as together forming one royal decree for restoring and rebuilding Jerusalem. It must not, however, be dated from the adjunct, but from the principal; not from the twentieth, but from the close of the sixth year of Artaxerxes Longimanus.

From this epoch, then, the prophecy must be chronologically reckoned. Let us now see how this terminus a quo will correspond with the historical event which marks the terminus ad quem of each period. Ezra must have obtained his commission near the last of the 458th year before the commencement of the Christian era. For on the first day of the next year, 457 B. C., and seventh year of Artaxerxes, he left Babylon for Jerusalem. Ezra vii. 8-9. About thirteen years after the publication of this decree, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, 445 B. C., Nehemiah obtained permission to go to Jerusalem to build her walls, set up her gates, and assist Ezra in the general work of reformation. Neh. ii. 1. He remained there twelve years, and then went back to Susa.. Neh. xiii. 6. "At the end of days" he obtained permission to return to Jerusalem to complete its restoration. The precise date of this is unknown. It was, however, in the pontificate of Joiada. For the last recorded act of this great SERIES IV.-VOL. VI.

reformer, was the expulsion of Manasseh, one of the sons of Joiada the high priest, from Jerusalem. Neh. xiii. 28. But according to the best authorities, Joiada succeeded his father Eliashib, in the sacerdotal office, 413 B. C.; which was forty-five years after Ezra obtained his commission from Artaxerxes. Only four years, therefore, of the period decreed for the restoration of Jerusalem, remained after Joiada assumed the mitre: and it is reasonable to suppose that these were spent in effecting the reformations described in the 13th chapter of Nehemiah. The removal of Manasseh the son of Joiada, the high priest, and son-in-law of Sanballat, may, therefore, with much proba bility, be assumed, not only as the last work of Nehemiah, but also as the closing scene of Ezra's reformation, and the terminus of the first period.

It was, too, as we have seen, a time of great trouble; of enemies without, and enemies within. For the proof of this we again refer the reader to the testimony of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Josephus. We may, therefore, conclude, that the first part of the prophecy has been ful-. filled; and proceed to the consideration of the second.

If from the close of the year 409 B. C., we reckon sixty-two prophetic weeks or four hundred and thirty-four years, it will bring us down to the end of the twenty-fifth year of the Christian era. But Christ did not appear as a public messenger, as the Messiah, the Anointed of God, till he was about thirty years of age. How, then, shall these accounts. be reconciled? The error is not in Gabriel's prophecy, nor in Luke's testimony, but in the calculation of Dionysius Exiguus, a monk of the sixth century. In A. D. 525, he proposed the birth of Christ as the era from which all dates should be computed throughout Christendom. His suggestion was received. with favor and soon generally adopted. Bat in his reckoning, he committed a mistake of about four years. This is now generally conceded. Hence, in most polyglot Bibles, is inserted as a marginal. note, opposite the birth of Christ, "The fourth year before the common account called Anno Domini." If, then, to our last result, we add four years for the error of Dionysius, it will bring us to the close of the twenty-ninth year after the birth of Christ. And Luke says, "When all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also. being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him. And a voice came from heaven which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased. And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age." About the close, then, of the sixty-ninth week, or in the very beginning of the seventieth, Jesus was baptized by John, anointed by the Holy Spirit, and introduced to the Jews by God him.