not merely during the first part of it, he was to confirm the covenant with many. Now we may easily conceive why his personal confirmation of the covenant with many should be particularly noticed in the prophecy: but it is not so easy to assign a reason, which his confirming the covenant during the half week which elapsed immediately after his death should be more noticed than his confirming it during any other period after his death*-3. The interpretation is inconsistent also in another respect. According to our common English translation, Messiah is to be cut off after the sixty two weeks added to the seven weeks, that is to say, after the sixty nine weeks: the interpretation represents him as being cut off, not precisely after the sixty nine weeks or at the end of them (which the word after must Speaking of this hypothesis, Dr. Blayney justly asks, "How can Christ be said to have confirmed the covenant, by "which the gospel covenant is understood, with many for one 46 week, when his ministry lasted by confession no more than "the half of it? Nor will it lessen the difficulty to allege, that the same covenant continued to be promulged by his disciples after his death for the remainder of the term. It "did so indeed; but not for one week only, but for many in succession: whereas the construction of the words "necessarily implies an action, of which the duration was li"mited to one week only." Dissert. on the seventy weeks. more P. 15. import, import, if it have any definite meaning), but three whole years subsequent to their expiration *. 3. There is yet another hypothesis, which computes the seventy weeks from the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, invented by Bp. Lloyd, adopted with some variations by his chaplain Mr. Marshall, and more recently by Mr. Butt, and approved of by Mr. Wintle. These commentators maintain, that the years of the seventy weeks are lunar years of 360 days each, and that they are to be estimated without taking any intercalation into the account: hence the sixty nine weeks, which reach unto the Messiah and which contain 483 such years, they reckon as being equal to no more than 476 solar years and 21 days-The twentieth year of Artaxerxes, agreeably to the canon of Ptolemy, they rightly place in the year 4269 of the Julian period and the year A. C, 445-Reckoning then 476 solar years and 21 days from the Nisan of this year, they are brought to the second month Ijar in the year 4745 of the Julian period; where, consequently, they place the expiration of the sixty nine weeks-But, after the sixty nine weeks, Messiah is to be cut off. Accordingly, in the Ni * The force of the important word after will be discussed more fully when I come to the hypothesis of Dr. Prideaux, who has defended the use of it in what he terms a large sense, that is to say an indefinite sense. san san of the Julian year 4746, at the first passover after their expiration, our Lord suffered death upon the cross-Having thus disposed of sixty nine weeks out of the seventy, they entirely separate the remaining single week from its predecessors; and fix it, though with some variation, to the period of the Jewish war in which Jerusalem was sacked by the Romans under Titus. The Bishop and Mr. Marshall suppose it to have commenced about September A. D. 63, when the Romans made a treaty of peace with the Parthians and others, and to have terminated in September A. D. 70, when at the close of its second half Jerusalem was taken by them and the daily sacrifice abolished; thus placing an interval of no less than 31 years between the end of the sixty ninth week and the beginning of the seventieth. Mr. Butt makes it commence yet later, and conceives it to be the seven years of the Jewish war, which some reckon to have begun A. D. 66 and to have ended A. D. 73; about the middle of which war (speaking in round numbers) Jerusalem was taken and an end put to the daily sacrifice. The main argument for thus insulating the last week is what Mr. Marshall calls its express character; that is to say, the circumstance of our Lord's citing Daniel's phrase the abomination of desolation, and his fixing the appearance of it to the time of the Jewish war *-At the end of the seven weeks, which form the first portion of the sixty nine weeks, Bp, Lloyd places the closing of the sacred canon by the addition of the book of Malachi: but Mr. Marshall conjectures, that the rebuilding of the city was completed at the time when they expired †. (1.) This interpretation I can as little admit as either of the preceding ones. To say nothing of -the erroneousness of its very principle, for we are not warranted in computing a series of years by lunar years of any description, there are many other additional objections to it. (2.) The separation of the seventieth week from the sixty nine weeks is a palpable and capital defect. According to the analogy of every other numerical prophecy, the seventy weeks, let them begin when they may, must be continuous, unless some very irrefragable argument can be adduced to prove the contrary. But, in the present instance, no conclusive argument is brought to authorize the separation of the last week from its fellows. It is urged indeed, that the abomination of desolation mentioned in the 27th verse is to be referred to the era of the Matt, xxiv. 15. + Bp. Lloyd's chronological tables iii. iv.-Marshall's Trea on the seventy weeks-Butt's Comment. on the prophecy he seventy weeks-Wintle's Translation of Daniel in loc. siege of Jerusalem; and therefore that the last week, during which a covenant is confirmed with many, must be similarly referred. I readily allow, that such is the proper arrangement of the abomination of desolation; and I think it sufficiently clear, that the half week (as Mr. Marshall rightly understands the phrase rendered in our common version the midst of the week *) belongs to the same period but it does not therefore follow, that this is likewise the case with the one week. Mr. Marshall's particular translation indeed, "the half of the week," does no doubt fix the one week to the same period as the half week, because it represents the half week as being the half of the one week: but the original may just as properly be rendered "the half "of a week," which permits us to consider the one week and the half week as wholly distinct, the expression being a general, not a particular, one. To warrant therefore our referring the seventieth week to the same period as the half week, we must * Dr. Prideaux agrees with Mr. Marshall in thus translating the original, as do likewise Sir Isaac Newton and Mr. Mede; and they are supported by the Vulgate, the Syriac, the Arabic, and the Greek version which bears the name of the xxx. Yet I think Prideaux and Marshall say too much in asserting that the phrase is incapable of being rendered the midst of the week. See Prideaux's Connect. Part i. B. v. p. 304—Mar❤ shall's treatise on the seventy weeks. p. 6, 254, |