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neither could it be said of them that " they instructed many," for there is no record of any grand accession of proselytes to the Jews' religion through their teaching: nor again could it be said of them that "they fell by the sword, and flame, and spoil, and captivity many days" the fact being that (except in the case of some that would not resist when attacked on the Sabbath-day)3 they were from the very commencement successful in their patriotic enterprizes, at first in more petty guerilla warfare, then soon after in a decisive battle with Antiochus' chief general, Lysias; the result of which, besides probably precipitating the horrible death of Antiochus,5 was the cleansing of the Temple just three years from the setting up of Jupiter's image within it by Apollonius, restoration of the Mosaic ritual, and establishment of the high priesthood and sovereignty over the Jewish people in the Maccabean family, where it continued thenceforward for several generations.7-Moreover in what follows after this, about the wilful King, and the Kings of the South and the North pushing at him,s the historical interpretation fails still as palpably as before: forasmuch as Antiochus Epiphanes, the supposed wilful King on this hypothesis, instead of not worshipping the God of his fathers, like Daniel's wilful King,9 was as much given to the worship of Jupiter as his Greek ancestors before him; and neither was pushed at by Egypt's now prostrate king, nor (being himself in this prophecy the King of the North) could have had

2

1 Verse 33.

Applying the "they," as these interpreters do, to the faithful and understanding ones of the former part of the verse. I shall observe under the next head on its possible, or rather probable, reference to a different class of persons.

31 Mac. ii. 32-38.

4 See the history in the chapters ii, iii, and iv of 1 Macc.

Ibid. vi. 5-16. His death is said to have occurred, A.S. 149.

6 Compare 1 Macc. i. 57 and iv. 52. From the former passage it appears that it was on the 15th of the month Chisleu, (the ninth of the Jewish months, or January) in the year of the Greeks, i. e. of the Seleucidean Era, 145, that the idol abomination was set up by Apollonius: from the latter that it was on the 25th of the same month A.S. 148 that the temple was cleansed, and the altar rededicated.

7 See the Maccabean History in the Apocrypha, as before; or Josephus. 3 Verse 37.

8 Dan. xi. 36, 40.

the King of the North come against him.-2. There are two expressions in the verse under consideration, designative alike of the desolating power and the desolation itself, which seem to me to give intimation that the history of Antiochus Epiphanes is here broken off from, and another and different enemy of Daniel's people referred to. For the former is spoken of thus; "And arms shall stand up from, or after, him :" a phrase only to be interpreted, I believe, agreeably with the precedents of other analogous Hebrew phrases in the prophecy, of some new prince or power, arising after in respect of time, or from him, in respect of origin, that was before the subject of description.1 And the latter has the definite article prefixed to it, "The abomination making desolate" as if to designate either one particular desolating abomination previously made known to Daniel, (Dan. ix. 27,) or that which was to be emphatically the grand abomination of desolation : 2 on neither of which grounds could that spoken of in the passage before us mean the idol set up in the Temple by Antiochus Epiphanes; there having been no previous prediction of it,3 and the desolation it caused being one of very short duration.

And in fact, while thus excluding the abomination set up by Antiochus, this little but very significant particle in the prophetic language seems to me very strikingly to point out that which was afterwards set up by the Romans, as the one intended: both as being that which introduced the longest and greatest desolation of the Jewish temple and city, and that which alike other previous prophecies, and more especially the one commu

1 See my Note on the Hebrew preposition, p. 139 suprà; also those on yi, Baxır, and, to stand or stand up, pp. 124, 121.

Compare too, as to the figure, a somewhat different one in Vol. i, p. 138 Note; where we read that another neck growing out behind from his own, was understood by Domitian to signify a new and different line of emperors.

2 See Note p. 140.

3 In Dan. viii. 13 a transgression of desolation is spoken of, not an abomination of desolation. And in proof of its meaning something very different from the abomination set up in Jerusalem by Antiochus Epiphanes, see my explanation of that prophecy, Vol. iii. p. 374, &c.

4 A desolation of Judah is often predicted, which was to last up to the time

nicated to Daniel himself a little before by the angel Gabriel, distinctly foretold.-Nor is there wanting other evidence to corroborate this conclusion, as to the meaning of the prediction. 1st. The very singular circumstance of Gabriel's adoption of the language of Balaam's ancient prophecy, when bringing the Romans just before on the prophetic scene, "And ships shall come from Chittim," might naturally be supposed to indicate not only that the same power was there intended by him that was intended by Balaam, but that the desolation of the Hebrew nation here next after spoken of, was the same also with that which was next after foreshown by the Spirit that spoke through Balaam; which last was expressly said to be caused by them of the ships from Chittim.-2. Our Lord's specification of the abomination of desolation that was to be set up by the Romans as the one spoken of by Daniel the Prophet,3 though explicable by reference simply to the prophecy in Daniel's ninth chapter, does yet on the most natural interpretation imply a reference to this also.1-3. No epoch of transition from the third of the four great empires to the fourth, in the Angel's far-ranging prophecy, could be so fit, according to the evidence of history, as that when the Roman ambassadors arrived in ships from Chittim at Alexandria. For, as Mede and the two Newtons have observed, that precise year was the epoch of the overthrow of the Macedonian kingdom, and its conversion into a subject-province by the Romans: 5 and indeed the

of her ultimate restoration snd conversion. So, for example, Isa. iii. 26, compared with the sequel, vi. 11, xlix. 8. 21, lxiv. 10, &c. 1 Dan. ix. 27.

2 Numb. xxiv. 24; "And ships shall come from Chittim, and shall afflict (or oppress) Asshur, and shall afflict Eber, and he too shall perish for ever." See Prof. Lee on Eusebius' Theophania, Pref. p. cxiv.

3 Matt. xxiv. 15: "When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth let him understand)" &c; compared with Luke xxi. 20, "When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh."

4 This is the only passage where the precise phrase "abomination of desolation" is used, except in xii. 11, the sequel of this same prophecy. In Dan. ix. 27, the wording is, "For the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate; "-or, according to the reading of a manuscript of the 13th century, celebrated by Michaelis, and adopted by Clarke,-" And in the temple of the Lord there shall be abomination." In Dan. viii. 13, as before said, it is "the transgression of desolation.”

After the overthrow and capture of King Perseus in the battle of Pydna.

very act of their thus dictating terms between the SyroMacedonian and Egypto-Macedonian dynasties, was at the time a notification to the world that the Roman arms held now the world's supremacy, having, like the emblem on one of their standards,1 stood up above the Grecian; just agreeably with this prophecy, which might almost before-hand have been understood to signify as much. 4thly, and finally, it appears from Jerome that the Jews themselves in his time, who had the two interpretations alike before them, did apply this prophecy, not to the abomination of desolation set up by Antiochus, but to that far more awful one set up by the Romans.3

This important preliminary point being settled, our course will be clearer for the sequel.

B.C. 168.-So Æmilius Sura, as cited by the Roman historian Velleius Paterculus, i. 6, and quoted by Mede and Bishop Newton; " Assyrii principes omnium gentium rerum potiti sunt; deinde Medi; postea Persæ; deinde Macedones : exinde, duobus regibus Philippo et Antiocho, qui à Macedonibus oriundi erant, haud multo post Carthaginem subactam devictis, summa imperii ad Populum Romanum pervenit."

On the top of one of the well-known Roman standards an open hand turned upwards was the terminating ornament. Engravings may be seen in Montfaucon, or other Books on Roman Antiquities. So too on some of the Roman quadrantes. 2 For in the Maccabees the application had evidently been made to Antiochus Epiphanes; and the Christians of Jerome's time many of them applied it to Antichrist, so as stated in the next Note.

3 Jerome's words are (in loc.); "Judæi hoc nec de Antiocho Epiphane, nec de Antichristo, sed de Romanis intelligi volunt, de quibus suprà dictum est, 'Et venient trieres (sive Itali atque Romani), atque humiliabitur.' Post multa, inquit, tempora de ipsis Romanis, qui Ptolemæo venere auxilio, et Antiocho comminati sunt, consurget rex Vespasianus; surgent brachia ejus et semina, Titus filius cùm exercitu; et polluent sanctuarium, auferentque juge sacrificium, et templum tradent æternæ solitudini."-On the trieres see the notice from Jerom, in Note', p. 137, suprà.

The same Father on Matt. xxiv. 15, after referring to Dan. ix. 27, thus gives his own judgment on the abomination of desolation, meant by Christ: "Potest aut de Antichristo intelligi, aut de imagine Cæsaris quod Pilatus posuit in templa, aut de Hadriani equestri statuâ; "or, again, as he adds, of all wrong doctrine that may stand in the Holy Place, i. e. in the Church.

Ambrose too on Luke xxi. 20 (Lib. x. 15) thus notes the Jews' opinion "Vere Hierusalem ab exercitu obsessa est et expugnata à Romano duce; unde Judæi putaverunt tunc factam abominationem desolationis, (viz. that predicted alike in Dan. ix. and xi.) eo quod caput porci in templum jecerint, illudentes Romani Judaicæ ritum observantiæ." Which explanation, however, Ambrose himself reprobates. Let me observe, that the fact that Ambrose alludes to is confirmed and illustrated by a Roman medal of one of the Emperors, which, on the obverse has the device of a woman in bonds standing under a palm-tree, with the legend Judæa Devicta; on the reverse, a sow with its litter: it being said that the Emperor Claudius ordered a sow to be placed over the gate of the temple at Jerusalem.

In one manuscript, Wintle observes, the word arms in this verse is followed

2. The second and next subdivision of this part of the prophecy sketches the events that would follow on this setting up of the abomination of desolation by the Romans (as I supposed) in the Jewish Temple, down to the rise of the wilful or apostate King:-a sketch contained in verses 32-35, inclusive.'

And it is supposed by Sir Isaac and Bishop Newton, and other interpreters who, in common with them and myself, understand the abomination meant of that placed by the Romans, that they whose character and history are here given, are simply the Christian body; a body constituted just before Judah's desolation, and here depicted under the two-fold classification of its faithful and unfaithful members and that there is no allusion made

by, that is of the sea, or of the West: evidently, if a gloss, written by one who took the same view as the above of the meaning of the passage.

*

132. "And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt + by flatteries: but the people § that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits. 33. And they that understand among the people shall instruct many : ||

y, the participle Hiphil, from, a verb (the opposite, says Gesenius, to signifying, 1. to be guilty, 2. to be wicked, as Dan. ix. 15. This Hiphil form occurs again xii. 10, "The wicked shall do wickedly." +, the Hiphil form of , to be profaned, or polluted; as Psalm cvi. 38, "The land was polluted with blood." The Hiphil here gives the active sense of profaning, or making profane and heathenish. So Gesenius. And perhaps instead of he being the nominative understood, it may be something like the French on," One shall corrupt," or, "They shall be corrupted." But the Greek version and the Vulgate, (as also the Armenian) read the word as in the plural, not singular : ‘Οι ανομούντες διαθήκην επάξουσιν εν ολισθήμασι Impii in testamentum simulabunt fraudulenter." Thus Wintle prefers to read; ; translating the clause, "Those that impiously disregard the covenant will dissemble in flatteries."

חֲלַקְלָקוֹת The similar word .בַּחֲלָקוֹת :

occurs both in verse 21 suprà and verse 34 following: in the former case of Antiochus Epiphanes obtaining the kingdom by his flatteries and dissimulation; in the latter, (if Newton's interpretation be correct) of the religious dissimulation and hypocrisy of false professors of Christianity.-See Note* p. 133 suprà. The reader will see presently the necessity of attention to the possible religious reference of this word. In the Critici Sacri in loc. one expositor thus renders the clause; "Et impiè deserentes fœdus inducet ut subdolè agant per hypocrisin :" applying the charge of flatteries, or hypocrisy, to the seduced, not the seducer.

§, a word used as well of the Jews, while God's people, as of the Gentiles. I, Greek ovvnσovσiv eis woλλa' and so Wintle, "Shall have understanding in many things." But the word may be active, in the sense to instruct. So Dan. viii. 16, Job vi. 24, Neh. viii. 8, 9, Psalm cxix. 34: in the two first of which passages the preposition follows the verb, as here.-It occurs in a different sense in verse 37 infrà.

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