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yet again, at the time appointed" (a phrase designative apparently of some notable epoch) this same Northern King was to invade the kingdom of the South a third time, but with a result quite different from that of either of his former expeditions, "ships from Chittim " coming against him, (the expression is most remark

1 28. “Then * shall he return into his land with great riches : and his heart shall be against the holy covenant: † and he shall do exploits; ‡ and return to his own land. 29. At the time appointed § he shall return, and come toward || the south but it shall not be as the former, or as the latter.¶ 30. For the ships of Chittim ** shall come against him: therefore shall he be grieved,ft and return,if and have indignation §§ against the holy covenant : so shall he do || he shall even return, and have intelligence with them that forsake the holy covenant."¶¶

* Or, And.

+ with na literally covenant of holiness. The phrase is used also in verses 30, 32 ; and in all of the holy Jewish religion.

Or prosper; or perhaps, do the thing his heart was bent on ; i. e. the oppression of the Holy Covenant, or Jewish religon.

§ See on verses 24, 27, pp. 133, 134, suprà, Notes § and ***.

|| 2; perhaps rather into. So Wintle, "He shall advance again into the south." ¶ Or, as (at) the first time, or as (at) the latter time.-Wintle observes that the Hebrew may be rendered, "But the latter shall not be like the former." Antiochus Epiphanes made a primary demonstration against Egypt, and occupied the Province of Palestine, which more properly belonged to Egypt, before his grand campaign and success against it foretold in verses 25, 26. Thus the one version or the other may be here adopted, according as with the author of the 2nd Book of Maccabees we reckon three, or with others only two, as the number of Antiochus Epiphanes' anti-Egyptian expeditions.-Some Hebrew noun like an expedition, seems to be understood.

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**

. Ships from or of Chittim. One manuscript, Wintle says, reads, as in the famous parallel passage, Numb. xxiv. 24; of which says Prof. Lee (Euseb. Theoph. p. cviii) this is manifestly an echo. (See Bochart, Phaleg. iii. 5).--In Gen. x. 4, Isa. xxiii. 1, and Ezek. xxvii. 6, the word ' is spelt with one, as here: in Jer. ii. 10 with two.-Gesenius says, ،، What particular part of the West it may mean is doubtful." The writer of the 1st Book of Maccabees, i. 1, understands it of Greece; Vitringa (on Isa. xxiii. 1) of Italy. For "of the four sons of Javan he thinks Elisha means the Peloponnesians, Tharsis the Spaniards, Dodanim, or Rhodanim, the Gauls as distinct from the Celts, and Cethiim the people of Italy." Wintle.-Jerom says ad loc. "Siim quippe, et Chittim, quos nos trieres et Romanos interpretati sumus, Hebræi Italos volunt intelligi atque Romanos."

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++ Shall be grievously troubled." Wintle. Sept. TATEIVWÕNσETAI. ‡‡ Or, "shall again have :" a not unfrequent sense of this verb, where conjoined with another; as observed already Note 1 p. 127.

"shall have indignation:" whence the verbal noun of the same radicals, used in verse 36 in the sense of indignation, which will be there observed on.

|||| It might be, “And he shall prosper, and he shall return."

¶¶ The existence of such forsakers of the holy covenant is an important characteristic of the time intended. On which point, as well as others, the history is well illustrated by 1 Mac. i. &c, and Josephus. See Wintle, Newton, and the Universal History.

able,) and causing his precipitate return to his own land, in indignation which would vent itself against "the holy covenant," or Jews' religion and law, and evil alliance with certain that forsook it,-so Antiochus Epiphanes returned the next year in a third expedition into Egypt, now prostrate before him; but, when expecting to reduce it finally under his sway, was stopped on a sudden by the unlooked-for intervention of Roman ambassadors, just arrived in ships from Italy, the scriptural Chittim; and being forced to resign the prey, groaning and grieving, as Polybius describes it, vented his indignation against the Jews and their holy covenant; attacked Jerusalem a second time with a detachment of his returning army,-a second time massacring its inhabitants, a second time defiling its temple; and, building a garrison-fortress in the city of David, in conjunction with Menelaus the high priest and other apostate Jews. of his party, issued a proclamation abrogating the Jewish religion and ritual, and enjoining the heathen worship of Jupiter Olympius in its stead.'

Thus we come to the close of the first Part of this prophecy. And on the whole, I think the evidence has been such as to show that we can scarcely have been wrong in the historical application that we have founded on it. There are, no doubt, some obscurities and ambiguities of words and of construction, more especially

The following chronological tabular view of the chief events of the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, referred to in the prophecy, may be useful. It is taken from the Universal History, Vol. ix.

B. C.

176

171

171

168

Antiochus Epiphanes begins to reign.

His first expedition against Egypt, and defeat of Ptolemy's forces between Mount Casius and Pelusium.

His second expedition against Egypt, advance to Memphis, and success in getting Ptolemy Philometor into his hands :—whereupon the Egyptians of Alexandria set up Philometor's brother Ptolemy Physcon. He attacks Jerusalem on his return to Antioch. Antiochus' third expedition against Egypt. He invests Alexandria, and is repulsed by the Roman ambassadors. Returning, he detaches Apollonius and a part of his army against Jerusalem; who storms it, and sets up the statue of Jupiter Olympius in the Temple. 165 Antiochus, after hearing, when near Babylon, of the defeat of his viceroy Lysias by Judas Maccabeus, hastens his return to Syria; and on the road dies miserably.

1 One very notable verbal example of these ambiguities is that of the Hebrew

in regard of some of the pronouns personal;' with a view to the solution of which obscurities we have consulted the history supposed to be referred to, and affixed a meaning accordingly. In such particulars the parallelism exhibited between the prophecy and the history can have but little weight, towards establishing the truth of our general explanation. But there is so much of the prophecy that is in its grammatical sense clear, and in the particulars thus clearly predicted characteristic and distinctive, and on these points, or rather this series of points, the agreement with it of the Ptolemæan and Se

word in verse 16: a word rendered in our English translation consumed ; in other versions, as we have seen, perfected a sense almost the reverse. Another example is connected with the word of verse 6: which the English translation explains as her father; Wintle and Boothroyd as her son; the Septuagint as the young woman; Aben Ezra as her mother. But here the different meanings arise out of the differences of punctuation; or, as in Wintle and Boothroyd's translation, a difference of reading.

1 Viz. verse 6, "Neither shall he stand;" a pronoun grammatically applicable either to the King of the North or King of the South :-verse 11, "And he shall set forth a great multitude, and the multitude shall be given into his hand;" where the sense requires different persons to be understood by the he and his: but who the one, and who the other, is only to be inferred from the history :* verse 24, " Scatter among them," or "Scatter what is belonging to them;" where the pronoun them may be referred either to Syrians or Egyptians :-verse 25, "But he shall stand."

2 Such is the series of particulars following ;-the reconcilement of the primary difference between the two kingdoms by the marriage of the King of the South's daughter to the King of the North ;-the failure of this expedient from the circumstance of her abandonment in the new country of her adoption, and apparently her murder; the avenging of her wrongs by her brother, the next King of the South, his triumphant invasion of the Northern King's territory, and deportation into Egypt not only of other spoil, but of sundry gods also of the people of the land ;—the attempts of the next King of the North, and the next but one, at the recovery of their territory and honour; the total defeat of this latter in the first instance, and success in the second; and thereupon his making up the quarrel with the Southern King by some marriage-scheme, and turning his face to the isles of the Mediterranean, and capturing them, until sternly repulsed by some prince or general, on whom that attack was deemed an indignity, and dying soon after ingloriously ;-then the reign of a mere raiser of taxes, as the next King of the North;-then his being followed by a king contemptible, and the very reverse of eroavns (illustrious), and this last invading Egypt with more success than any of his predecessors, once and again, until stopped by the very singular intervention of ships of Chittim: then, finally, his venting his rage against the Jews and their religion, in alliance with certain apostates to heathenism from out of their own body. All these points seem to be unambiguous, alike in the prediction and the historical fulfilment.

The word "For," beginning verse 13 in our translation, does not help to determine the ambiguity: its original Hebrew being simply, usually rendered and.

leucidean history is so striking, that I conceive we may rest in the persuasion of its having been certainly thus far fulfilled, so as explained, with full and well-grounded satisfaction.

§ II. THE SECOND PART OF DANIEL'S PROPHECY.

In this second part (including from chapter xi. 31 to the end of chapter xii,) the prophecy naturally arranges itself under five sectional subdivisions: 1st, the prediction of the setting-up of the abomination of desolation, contained in verse 31;-2nd, the sketch of events following thereupon, until the rise of the wilful or apostate King, given in verses 31-36;-3rd, the description of this apostate King, in verses 36-39 inclusive;-4th, the resumed notice of the Kings of the South and North, and their enterprizes, in connection with the apostate King's time and reign, verses 40—45;—5thly, and finally, the sketch of the concluding catastrophe, issuing in the grand consummation, and the deliverance and blessedness of Daniel's people, contained in chap. xii.

1. Now with regard to the first of these sectional subdivisions,' were we simply to follow the course of history, we might naturally suppose the prediction it contains to have reference to that same Antiochus Epi

131. "And arms shall stand † on his part: ‡ and they shall pollute & the sancBpaxioves, as before. +2, the same verb as in verse 3, &c.

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, from 7, properly from, out of. So verse 7, "Out of a branch from her roots" Dan. viii. 9, Out of one of them came forth a little horn: &c. But it also indicates chronologically succession after. So Gen. xxxviii. 24, "Three months after; " Deut. xv. 1, At the end of every seven years," &c: also in verse 33 of this chapter, After they have made agreement;" and 2 Sam. xxiii. 4," After rain." And such I conceive to be the meaning here; understanding him, viz. the King of the North previously spoken of, as the noun after the preposition.-Wintle translates, "from these," viz. the ships of Chittim. But how will the Hebrew allow of this? The view of the Jewish interpreters mentioned by Jerome will be seen in Note 3, p. 144.

Our English translation seems to me not happy in its rendering of this preposition; for it gives no idea of the various possible meanings of the phrase.

The verb is one of general application in the Piel, in the sense of profaning or defiling anything sacred, such as the priests, sanctuary, sabbath, name of God, &c; Lev. xix. 8, xxi. 9, Mal. ii. 11, Exod. xxxi. 14, Lev. xviii. 21, &c.

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phanes that was the subject of the verses preceding, and his setting up of what might well be called an abomintion of desolation in Jerusalem. For history tells us, that after the repulse of this Syrian King from Egypt by the stern mandate of the Roman ambassadors, he did not only show" indignation against the holy covenant,' by attacking the still holy city Jerusalem, breaking down in part its walls and houses, and massacring many of its inhabitants, but that he also by a decree abrogated the Jewish worship, enjoined conformity on pain of death to the Greek heathen religion, defiled the temple by the blood of the Jewish worshippers, set up the statue there of Jupiter Olympius, and at the same time, placing a garrison in a strong fort built in the City of David, fell on all that might come up to worship after the Mosaic ritual, and thereby made the temple and the city desolate. Yet, on more careful consideration, strong reasons will I think strike the careful inquirer against this historical application of the passage. For, 1st, it will be found most difficult, if not impossible, to explain the sequel of the prophecy consistently with it. With regard to the people spoken of immediately after as "knowing their God," antithetically to certain that are styled covenant-transgressors, they must on this hypothesis of interpretation be supposed the Maccabean patriots, that rose up in insurrection against Antiochus and his heathenish ordinance. But, as Bishop Newton observes,

tuary of strength;* and shall take away the daily sacrifice: + and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate." 2 Verse 32.

1 See the history in the first chapter of 1 Maccab.

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Or the sanctuary; "the fortress. So Psalm xcvi. 6; Beauty and strength are in his sanctuary: " strength not, I conceive, as some would have it, because of the temple being fortified, and therefore strong, but as implying the presence and protection of Him in whom is everlasting strength.

+ So Dan. xii. 11 and viii. 11. Greek Tov evdeλexiouov. Compare Exod. xxix. 42, Numb. xxviii. 6, Ezra iii. 5, Nehem. x. 33, &c.

I DDWP YIWN. The same occurs again in chap. xii. 11; only without the article prefixed to the first word, and with the second in the Kal conj. not the Piel. In ix. 27 we have also the same phrase, but with the word abominations in the plural.—The former word (translated in the Greek ßdeλvyμa) applies generally to things unclean (as garments, food, &c, Nahum iii. 6, Zech. ix. 7); but is used specially and most frequently of idols.

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