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seven days, according to the set time that Samuel had appointed." Samuel had said to him, "seven days shalt thou tarry, till I come to thee."* It is used in a particular manner to express the appointed annual festivals of the Jews, as the passover, and the feasts of first fruits and tabernacles; as we may instance in Exodus xxiii. 15, and Isaiah i. 14. The term, which our translators have, in the same 7th verse, rendered a half, in the margin they have rendered a part; which we adopt as the right sense, for the root signifies to divide any thing into parts, whether equal or unequal.+

Looking at this common use of the terms, it may be admitted, that the expression, time, times, and a part, signifies three rounds of the annual appointed feasts, and a part of a fourth,-that is three years, and an undefined part of a third year. That this is its meaning is confirmed by part of the explanation given, by the man clothed in linen, to Daniel, as an answer to the question he put to him. There are other particulars contained in that explanation; but, although it will make us depart a little from the order of the verses, (a matter 'which will, in the sequel, be found here of no injurious consequence,) we will first direct our attention to the particular explanation respecting the time, in the part of his answer, contained in the 11th and 12th verses.

In inquiring into the nature of that explanation, we must advert to the eighth verse, which leads on to it, and which is, " And I heard, and I understood not, and I said, O my Lord, what shall be the latter end of these things?"

* 1st Samuel x. 8.

† See Parkhurst.

What Daniel understood not was the immediately preceding terms of the man clothed in linen, " it shall be for a time, times, and a part; and when, in the finishing, the power of the holy people is scattered abroad, all these things shall be finished." He understood no part of this answer; for his negation, in the eighth verse, excepts no part of it. When, however, he received the answer to his question, (verses 9-13,) he then understood the whole; for he expressly tell us so, in the introduction of the vision, in chapter x., verse 1st, where he says, "he understood the thing, and had understanding of the vision." We thus ascertain, clearly, that the days, numbered in the 11th and 12th verses, are equivalent to, and an explanation of, the "time, times, and a part." Daniel, although he did not understand what was meant by time, times, and a part, understood what was meant by certain numbers of days, and would most naturally understand day, in the sense in which he himself uses the term, in the introduction of the vision; to which we will presently more particularly advert. Further :-it is to be observed, that the question which he puts in this eighth verse, "What shall be the latter end of these things?" has no more reference, than the one in the sixth verse, to the time that might intervene between the date of the vision and that of its final accomplishment. It refers only to the last things foreshewn. The term, which, in the eighth verse, we have translated latter end, denotes, according to Parkhurst, the hindermost, or extreme, parts. We shall instance its occurrence in Job xlii. 12, where this is certainly its meaning: "So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning." Daniel inquires, by в b

this question, then, into the particulars of he last events foreshewn to him, both in this vision, and in his two visions of the 8th and 9th chapters,-the time of trouble that was to end in the dispersion of his people, and the destruction of the city and sanctuary. All doubt about this point is dispelled by looking at a part of the answer of the man clothed in linen to Daniel, in the 11th verse, where the taking away the daily sacrifice, and the setting up the abomination of desolation,-circumstances formerly predicted as attending that destruction,*- are clearly recognised, by the man clothed in linen, as being among the things concerning which Daniel questioned him. In the 11th and 12th verses, then, we have an explanation of the 7th verse, and especially of what length of time is meant by the time, times, and a part.

The terms of the 11th and 12th verses are:-" And from the time the daily sacrifice is caused to be taken away, and to the setting up the abomination of desolation, a thousand two hundred and ninety days. He is blessed, that waiteth, and cometh to a thousand three hundred and five and thirty days." It is here said, in the 11th verse, that 1290 days should intervene between the taking away the daily sacrifice and the setting up the abomination of desolation. In the 12th verse, it is intimated, that the duration of the time of trouble of the latter end should be longer than the interval of 1290 days; for, that he should be blessed, or happy, and so be delivered from trouble,— not, who waited and came to the 1290 days, but who

* Daniel ix. 27.

waited and came to 1335 days, or to 45 days more than the 1290. The larger of these two numbers, then, comprehends the whole time of the events of the latter end, regarding which Daniel made inquiry; and it literally corresponds with the time, times, and a part, of the 7th verse,―understanding one time to express a year; for in 1335 days, reckoning, according to the Jewish mode, thirty days to a month, there are forty-four and a half months, or three years eight months and a half.

We have already observed, that there is a key given us, in this last vision of Daniel, which opens up to us the sense in which the word day is used in it; and that we must here understand it, in its most common sense, for a period of twenty-four hours, and not as representing a year. Daniel, in prefacing the vision, uses the term day in its most ordinary acceptation, and says, "I was mourning three weeks of days ;"* and the man clothed in linen uses it in the same sense, where he says, "the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days;" that is, as is clear from the context, during the whole time of Daniel's mourning. This is the sense in which the term day is used, in these two places, by Daniel, and by the man clothed in linen; and there is no indication whatever that the sense is afterwards changed in the vision. In all places, then, where it is used in it, we must surely take it in their sense.

These observations seem conclusively to prove, that we are here to understand the term day in its most common

*Daniel x. 2.

+ Daniel x. 13.

sense.

But there is yet another observation to be added to these, which can leave no remaining doubt on the point. The vision was granted to Daniel, to make him understand the former revelations, made to him on the same subject. This is its professed design, declared by the man clothed in linen.* In the strictest accordance with this design, he delivers the prophecy in plain and popular language, and uses terms in their most popular acceptation. There is, in the whole vision, very little of figurative or typical language, like that so often used in other prophecies, and in some of Daniel's former ones;— -as in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, and in his own visions of the four monarchies and of the ram and he-goat. We may even say, there is no such language in this last vision, excepting in the predictions of spiritual things; and even in them, the figurative language used is that which had been long established as popular among the Hebrews. This last prophecy of Daniel is the plainest of the prophecies in the Old Testament. Every thing in it is called by its common, popular, name. The proper names of countries, Persia, Greece, Egypt, Chittim, Libya, Ethiopia,-are simply expressed. A king, a kingdom, a nation, armies, fortresses, walled cities, the sword, flame, spoil, captivity, captives, horsemen, ships, gold, silver, costly stones, treasures, flatteries, the covenant, the sanctuary, the daily sacrifice, shame, contempt, knowledge, righteousness—all these,-all things, we may say,—are obviously to be understood in their most common acceptation. The term day cannot be a solitary exception

* Daniel x. 11, 12, 14.

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