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to the Jews thenceforward in the prophecy; except in

yet they shall fall + by the sword and by flame, by captivity and by spoil, many days.§ 34. Now when they shall fall they shall be holpen with a little help; but many shall cleave to them with flatteries.** 35. And some of them † of understanding shall fall, to try them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to §§ the time of the end: because it is yet for a time appointed."

1, and. Our translators vary much in the rendering of this conjunctive particle. The ambiguity of the pronoun they should also be marked.

+, Sept. aolevnoovei, from to be weak, to totter, and so to fall: a verb used in the Niphal, as here, in verses 14, 19 preceding and also in verses 34, 35, 41 following. Compare 1 Sam. ii. 4, "They that stumbled (or staggered) are girded with strength;" said with reference to weakness: also Jer. vi. 21, "I will lay stumbling-blocks before this people, and the fathers and the sons together shall fall upon (or over) them: " Psalm cvii. 12, "They rebelled against the words of God, therefore he brought down their heart with labour, they fell down, and there was none to help; " and Jer. xxxi. 9, "I will cause them to walk in a straight way wherein they shall not stumble;" said of the falling through God's judgments on sin.

Compare Is. viii. 14, 15; "A man shall be for a gin and snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and many among them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken."

I, Gk. aixuaλwola. The same word is used in verse 8 of the prisoners taken and led into Egypt by Ptolemy Euergetes, in his great expedition against the Syrians; and very frequently in the Books of Moses, the Psalms, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Ezra, Nehemiah, of captives taken in war, especially of the captivity of Judah.-The word used of persons imprisoned by the civil magistrate, as Gen. xxxix. 20, is one quite different, ON.

So, simply days.

|| Wintle, "When they shall have fallen." Bundela, a word of general application, and not restricted to the case of helping such as have fallen, &c.

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as verse 21, on which see my Note. Nearly the same word occurs also in verse 32 just before.-The Greek version is, Kai прoσтednσovтAL προς αυτούς πολλοι εν ολισθημασι Wintle's; “Many shall be fastened to them through flatteries."

++, and from, or out of; i.e. some out of. Mark the selection here, in contrast with the generality of the statement in verse 33 just before.

.The same words occur again in chap. xii .לִצְרוּף בָּהֶם וּלְבָרֵר וְלַלְבֵּן 13

10," Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried: " which shows that the prophetic intimation is very far prospective, and that it reaches even to the time of the end.

Wintle (on xii. 10) thus distinguishes the particular meaning of each: "The word 77 is borrowed from wheat cleansed from the chaff; ? from cloth whitened by the fuller; 7, from goldsmiths who try and essay the metal, and separate it from the dross." The prefix in seems otiose if in the

sense through, it must refer to the sword, &c.-On the 777 compare Jer. iv. 11, "A dry wind toward the daughter of my people, not to fan, nor to cleanse :” &c. And on the other words, Mal. iii. 2. "He is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap."

§§ 7, either during, whilst, as Judg. iii. 26, Job i. 18: or until, as Gen. xlix. 10, "Until Shiloh come;" Josh. ii. 22, "Until the pursuers were returned."This two-fold meaning should be observed.

. So xi. 40, xii. 9: in the first of which parallel passages the

phrase will be remarked on.

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those chronological notices xi. 36, "Till the indignation be accomplished," and xii. 7, "When he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people,' whereby the Angel marked the end of the indignation against the Jews, and of their penal scattering, as the sign and epoch of the consummation. Thus the passage is explained by them in brief as follows:-He (the Roman Emperor and his officers) shall by flattering offers induce unfaithful Christians, the transgressors of the new covenant, to apostatize from the faith; but the faithful Christians shall be strong, and instruct many. Yet they shall fall many days by sword, flame, captivity, and spoil,-viz. in the ten Pagan persecutions,―till holpen by the little help of Constantine and his descendants' adoption and establishment of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Then many shall cleave to them with flatteries, or hypocritically join themselves to the Church: and divers of the true and sincere Christians fall afterwards by new persecutions, to try them, and purify them, till the time of the end.

But I cannot but think that there is here meant a double division of the people spoken of: viz. first, a division of the whole Jewish people into Jews rejecting Christianity, and Jews embracing it and becoming Christians (this in the two former verses :) then, a further division of the latter into the false and the true members of the professing Christian Church. For besides that we might expect, as I think, some notice of the desolated Jewish people at this sad crisis of their history, as well as of their desolate city,—just as in our Lord's prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem,' and other similar prophecies also,3-besides this, I say, there are various expressions in the two first verses of the passage under

1 Compare the figure of the two wings of the great eagle, &c, being given the woman, to help her, in Apoc. xii. 14, 16.

2 Luke xxi. 20, 24: "When ye see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh.... And great wrath shall be on this people; and they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." 3 Deut. xxviii. 32, 64, &c. &c.

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consideration which seem to me scarcely applicable, except to that unhappy people. Is the phrase "they that do wickedly against the covenant, a fit designation of the insincerity and worldliness in heart of such members of the Christian body as were ultimately induced in the time of Pagan Rome's persecutions to apostatize? Or, if previously open transgressors of the covenant, did they need at all to be corrupted? Again, was it the fact that the Roman emperors and chief magistrates did then seek by flatteries to draw Christians into apostacy from their faith; and this on a scale such as to be marked in history, and to answer to a notice like this in prophecy? Surely cruelty and violence, not flattery, were the characteristic weapons by which the Pagan powers sought to destroy Christianity,'--Further, did the Christians, as a body or people, fall during these times of Pagan persecution, so as the expression in verse 33 seems to indicate; or only a certain few from among them? -And, once more, could it be said of such as suffered in these persecutions, that they fell by captivity, as well as otherwise; a word used in Hebrew, just like the words that represent it in the Greek, Latin, English, and other versions, not of imprisonment by order of the civil magistrate, but of the taking of prisoners in war, and holding them, so taken, in captivity and exile ? 3

Thus my conclusion is that the Jews must be here meant, not Christians. And on the whole,-presuming that I may read the first clause in ver. 32 as Wintle, "They that do wickedly against the covenant will dissemble in

No doubt on certain occasions the presiding magistrates, like Pliny whom Bishop Newton specially refers to, urged the Christians brought before them to spare themselves, and sacrifice to the emperor's image. But this was not flattering offers. And as to the general and proper character of the Pagan mode of dealing with Christianity, let the reader, after perusing the history of the early persecutions in any ecclesiastical historian, judge for himself whether flattery, or cruelty and terror, was the weapon employed. See my historic sketch under the 5th Seal.

2 Mark the contrast of expression between this general statement, "And they shall fall," &c. and the particular and restricted statement in verse 35, "And out of them of understanding some shall fall," &c. See my Note + on the word, p. 146. 3 See Note p. 146.

flatteries," 1—I would thus briefly paraphrase the whole passage. In connexion with this time and fact of Jerusalem's desolation, the Jewish people generally, though wicked transgressors of the holy covenant, (a covenant just before confirmed and illustrated among them by their Messiah,) shall yet unite with this their transgression of it the show and profession of religious zeal, hypocritically dissembling: (a character of the Jews of that era prominently set forth in the burning words of Christ himself; 3 and set forth also as awfully by their own historian Josephus, in his description of them during the siege of Jerusalem.) On the other hand, they that know their God,-even Jehovah, their thenrevealed Messiah and Saviour, (such I cannot but believe the intent of the expression, especially as considering the time referred to)5-the disciples who, taught from above, shall know (what others cannot know) that

1 Wintle does not give this translation in support of the historical explanation that I advocate; for he has followed Bishop Newton in his view of the prophecy. For some corroboration to it see the ancient Greek and Latin versions in Note p. 145.

2 So it had been foreshown to Daniel previously. "And He (the Messiah) 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," &c. Dan. ix. 27.—I cannot err, I think, in supposing that this previous prophecy was remembered and applied by Daniel, while hearing the Angel's present revelations.

3 Matt. xxiii. 13-33: "Woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites," &c : xv. 7, 8; "Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me."-Compare Rom. ii. 23, written by St. Paul, characteristically in like manner of his nation, a few years later; "Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonourest thou God?" Compare too the prediction in Isa. xxix. 13, 14, declaring that the curse of moral blindness would be adjudged and attach to this dissembling people; even with the light shining around them.

4 One grand division of the Jews,-the most horrid and blood-thirsty perhaps of all during the siege, was that of the zealots for the law.

5 The phrase is one, I believe (I mean with the noun, the verb, and the possessive pronoun all together) by no means common. A somewhat near parallel occurs in Isaiah xl. 9, " Say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God !-a prophecy of the ultimate revelation of Jesus to them, as their Messiah the Lord Jehovah. The passage in Isa. xi. 9, about the "knowledge af Jehovah filling the earth," is also a partial parallel; though the possessive pronoun is wanting. And there too Christ seems to be meant. So also in Isa. lii. 7, "That saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth." And Jer. xxxi. 34, "They shall teach no more every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord," &c.

6 “ He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, (and which were born not of blood.... but of God,) beheld

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mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh,' shall not only understand themselves, but strong in faith and spirit, shall instruct and disciple many. Thus the Jewish people, as a nation, shall fall and be scattered, a monument of God's righteous indignation,2 by the sword and by flame, by captivity and by spoil, many days: whilst meanwhile the understanding ones, or disciples of the Messiah, shall not only otherwise advance in their work, but be holpen even on this world's theatre with a little help. Then, however, and on this gleam of visible prosperity, hypocrisy shall insinuate itself even into their body. Many shall cleave to them that are mere dissemblers in religion, just like the Jews before them, and so corrupt the professing people. And thus persecution shall arise against the sincere ones, even out of their own body; and this continue even to the time of the end. But the result shall be only, under the divine overruling, for their good: to try them, and purify them, and make them white; even as silver is purified, and the garment made whiter, by the fuller's soap and the refiner's fire.*

3. As to the third subdivision, containing the Angel's

his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father: " &c. John i. 10—14. --Compare too 1 Cor. ii. 7, "We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, which none of the princes of this world knew; for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. . . . But God hath revealed it to us by his Spirit." Also John xiv. 9; "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father: " and Col. ii. 9; "In him dwelleth all the fulness of the godhead bodily."

1 1 Tim. iii. 16.

2 I borrow the words "be scattered" and "indignation" from the verses xi. 36, xii. 7 infrà. 3 See Note 1, p. 147.

4 Compare and contrast with the above the comment of Ephrem Syrus on the parallel text in Dan. xii. 9, 10, " Many shall be purified and made white," &c. "Designat futuram apostolorum electionem, et credentium ad eosdem audiendos concursum, quos prædicit baptismi lavacro dealbandos: Judæos contrà, Christi interfectores, severè judicandos et puniendos."

5 36. "And the king* shall do according to his will:† and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against

* Wintle translates “a king; " but the Hebrew has the article,

.

↑ A phrase used before of Alexander the Great, verse 3; and also of Antiochus the Great, verse 16, with reference to the time of his successes in Syria and against Egypt.-Hence the impropriety of the title wilful king, especially as a distinctive one.

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