Chapter VI
The Book of Daniel is rejected because, it is alleged, its predictions end with Antiochus Epiphanes, and proofs are abundant that it was written in the Maccabean age. The question arises, therefore, whether any part of the prophecy relates to a later period, and if so, whether it has received fulfilment with a definiteness which ought to carry conviction to the minds of fair and reasonable men. The great central prophecy of the book supplies the answer. This famous prediction of the Seventy Weeks, therefore, demands a fuller notice than has been accorded to it in the preceding chapter. Here Dr Farrar’s taunt is all too well founded respecting the divergence which marks the rival schemes of expositors; and the effect which the study has had upon his mind has been to lead him to adopt Kuenen’s exegesis, which is perhaps the most preposterous of them all. But let anyplain man, ignoring everything which has been written upon the subject, turn to the passage with a determination to reject all strained or mystical interpretations, and to accept the words in their simple and obvious meaning, and at what results will he arrive? Here is the text of Dan. ix. 24-27 :J —
“Seventy weeks are decreed upon thy people and upon thy holy city to finish transgression and to make an end of sins and to make reconciliation for iniquity and to bring in everlasting righteousness and to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy Know therefore and discern that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the anointed one (or Messiah) the prince shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks it shall be built again with street and moat even in troublous times 1 See Appendix, Note I.
And after the threescore and two weeks shall the anointed one (or Messiah) be cut off and shall have nothing and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary and his end shall be with a flood and even unto the end shall be war desolations are determined And he shall make a firm covenant with many for one week and for half the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease.”
In the midst of much that is full of difficulty, certain points here are absolutely clear. The realisation of full Messianic blessing for Daniel’s people and city was thus to be deferred till the close of a period described as “seventy weeks.” Lesser periods are mentioned of “seven weeks,” “sixty-two weeks,” and “one week.” But as these together make up “seventy weeks,” they are clearly subdivisions of the main period. The epoch of the era, therefore, was to be the issuing of a decree to rebuild Jerusalem; and after the close of the middle period (the sixty-two weeks) the Messiah should be cut off.
Now, it is not questioned that these “weeks” are sevens of years. It is not questioned that the Holy City was rebuilt — not the Temple, for that is not mentioned here at all, but the street and moat — i.e., the town and ramparts of Jerusalem. It is not questioned that this restoration was carried out by Nehemiah in pursuance of a decree issued by Artaxerxes Longimanus in the twentieth year of his reign. And it is not questioned that the reign of Artaxerxes dated from B.C. 465. Only two possible questions therefore arise, and to these a clear answer can be given: What was the date of the Jewish month Nisan? and of what kind of year was the prophetic era composed?
Though the details of the Jewish calendar in ancient times cannot now be ascertained, the general principles on which it was arranged are definitely known. The New Year was proclaimed at the first appearance of the moon at the season of the vernal equinox. The date of the new moon in question was (at Jerusalem) jh. 9m. a.m. on the 13th March B.C. 445, l and the phasis may be reckoned as occurring on the following day. The 14th March b.c. 445, therefore, is unmistakably the epoch of the prophetic period.
That the prophetic year was not the ordinary year was noticed sixteen centuries ago by Julius Africanus.2 The ancient year of the world was the luni-solar year of 360 days, and it is reasonably certain that this was the form of year in use both at Jerusalem and Babylon at the time the prophecy was given. It was the year in use in the Noachian age, 150 days being specified as the interval between the 17th day of the second month and the 1 7th day of the
1 Owing to the cardinal importance of this date, I have not relied here upon my own calculations. When writing my book on this subject {The Coming Prince), I referred the question to the Astronomer-Royal, the late Sir George Airy, and the date here given has his authority.
2 He fixed upon the lunar year.
seventh month. Tradition testifies that it was the year which Abraham knew in his Chaldean home, and which was afterwards preserved in his family. And Sir Isaac Newton avers that
“All nations, before the just length of the solar year was known, reckoned months by the course of the moon, and years by the return of winter and summer, spring and autumn; and in making calendars for their festivals, they reckoned thirty days to a lunar month, and twelve lunar months to a year, taking the nearest round numbers, whence came the division of the ecliptic into 360 degrees.”
And in quoting this statement, Sir G. C. Lewis declares that “all credible testimony and all antecedent probability lead to the result that a solar year containing twelve lunar months, determined within certain limits of error, has been generally recognised by the nations adjoining the Mediterranean from a remote antiquity.” l But this o-oes no further than to make out a prima
1 Ast. of the Ancients, ch. i. § 7.
y6 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS DEN.
facie case in favour of the luni-solar year. Decisive evidence may be appealed to in support of it.
First, we have the testimony of the Book of the Revelation, which, referring to the visions of Daniel, twice describes the half of the prophetic week as “forty-two months,” and twice as 1260 days. And of course 1260 days are equal exactly to three and a half luni-solar years. And the last proof is equally clear and striking. The occasion of Daniel’s prayer was the near approach of the close of the era of the Desolations. He “understood by the books the number of the years, whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, for the accomplishing of the Desolations of Jerusalem, even seventy years.” It is not certain whether this referred to the scrolls of the prophecies of Jeremiah, or to the books of the Law. In neither case, it may be remarked in passing, is there the least force in the objection of the critics upon this point.
Here, as in many other instances, they blindly follow the German sceptics. We are expressly told that the exiles had the “books” of Jeremiah; and it is simply incredible that Daniel had not the scrolls of the Law. Professor Bevan indeed assumes this; and separating himself here from his allies of the critics, suggests that the passage which Daniel had before him was the warning of Leviticus xxvi., that a sevenfold punishment should be meted out to national sins. But surely to apply this principle chronologically is to strain the words unduly. May I offer an alternative suggestion?
It was not until their Holy Temple was dedicated, and the Temple worship established, that the people entered fully into their national responsibilities. Now one of the most characteristic of those responsibilities was the observance of the Sabbatic years; and that ordinance — that every seventh year the land was to lie fallow — had been systematically neglected. The Temple was dedi-J% DANIEL IN THE CRITICS’ DEN.
cated at the Feast of Tabernacles in the eleventh year of King Solomon, which year was therefore the epoch of the cycle of Sabbatic years. And the intervening period between that year and the end of the Desolations (b.c. 1005 to 520), when reckoned exclusively, was 483 years, or 70 x 7 lunisolar years of 360 days. Here, then, is the explanation why the era of the Desolations was fixed at seventy years; and it was presumably the twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus that Daniel had before him. In the language of the Chronicler, the Desolations were to continue “until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years.” 1
One link only is wanted to complete this chain of proof. The connection between the seventy weeks of the prophecy and the seventy years of the Desolations is universally admitted: what, then, was the “year” of the Desolations? The era was computed from the beeinnino- of the siee, for from the day on which the invading army invested the city, the land was laid waste, and all agricultural pursuits were suspended. This was on the 10th day of the 10th month, in the 9th year of Zedekiah 1 (b.c. 589). This, then, was the epoch of the era: can its close be ascertained with equal definiteness?
Here a most striking fact claims notice. For sixteen years the execution of the decree of Cyrus for the rebuilding of the Temple was thwarted by the local authorities in Palestine, and it was not till the second year of Darius Hystaspis (b.c. 520) that the work proceeded. In this there was a divine purpose, for the judgment of the Desolations still rested upon the land. But in that year the prophets Haggai and Zechariah were inspired to declare that the “set time “had come.” Consider now,” the prophet proclaimed, “from this day and upward, from
1 2 Kinqs xxv. 1; cf. Ezek. xxiv. 1.
the four and twentieth day of the ninth month, even from the day that the foundation of the Lord’s Temple was laid, consider it:... from this day will I bless you.”1 Now, if I have calculated aright the moon’s place for these respective years, the ist Nisan in B.C. 589 was the 15th March, and in b.c. 520 it was the 2d April.2 Therefore the period from the 10th Tebet in the one year to the 24th Kislev in the other was precisely 25,200 days. And 25,200 days make up exactly 70 luni-solar years of 360 days.
To what, then, does all this lead us? The edict for the rebuilding of Jerusalem is to be assigned to the ist Nisan, b.c. 445. From that epoch “unto the Messiah, the Prince,”
1 Hag. i. 1,2; ii. 18, 19; and cf. Ezra v. and vi.
2 I find by calculation that in B.C. 589 the Paschal newmoon was on the 14th March at about 5 o’clock P.M., and in B.C. 520 it was on the ist April about noon. The ist Nisan, therefore, was probably on the following day in both cases, as the new year was not proclaimed until the moon had been actually seen by credible witnesses. See Lindo’s Jewish Cat., and Clinton’s Fasti Rom., vol. ii. p. 240. was to be sixty-nine sevens of prophetic years. But 483 years of 360 days contain 173,880 days; and 173,880, computed from the first day of Nisan in the 20th year of Artaxerxes, ended on the 10th day of Nisan in the iSth year of Tiberius Caesar — the day when, in fulfilment of this, and of Zechariah’s prophecy, our Lord made His first and only public entry into Jerusalem.
The well-known words, so exquisite in their solemn pathos, may fitly be repeated here: “And when He was come near, He beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known in this day, even thou, the things which belong to thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.” 1 “Despised and rejected” He had been during all the days of His sojourn among them, but that
1 Luke xix. 41, 42. See R.V. and Alford’s Greek Testament, in loco. Also cf. Zech. ix. 9. According to Luke iii. 1, the beginning of our Lord’s ministry was in the fifteenth year of Tiberius. No date in history is more definitely fixed, and the date of the crucifixion is thus clearly marked as falling in his eighteenth year. See Appendix, Note II.
F was the destined day on which their decision was to be irrevocable and their doom was to be sealed.
As the elucidation of this great prophecy of the Seventy Weeks is my personal contribution to the controversy about the Book of Daniel, I may be pardoned if even at the cost of repetition I emphasise still further this conclusion. The “seventy weeks” of the twenty-fourth verse of the ninth chapter of Daniel are seven times the seventy years of “the desolations of Jerusalem” mentioned in the second verse. As this is universally admitted, it needs no proof. That term of seventy years was a divine judgment upon the holy city and land. The epoch of it is definitely recorded in Scripture, and I may add that for five-and-twenty centuries, and down to the present time, upon the anniversary of that day “the fast of Tebet” has been observed by the Jews in every land. And the terminus ad quern of the period is specified with equal definiteness and emphasis, for the years were measured out with all the precision of a judicial sentence. The intellieent reader, therefore, can ascertain for himself that, .as the era of the neglected “Sabbaths” was measured in years of 360 days, so also the duration of the judgment imposed for that neglect was exactly, and to the very day, seventy luni-solar years of 360 days. And with the plain and simple clew thus obtained he can solve for himself the hitherto unsolved problem of the “seventy weeks.” Four hundred and eighty - three (69 x 7) similar years measured from the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, when the “commandment” to build Jerusalem was given, ended, not vaguely and with a margin of error, but precisely and to the very day, upon that Sunday in Passion Week when, for the first and only time in His ministry on earth, our Lord caused His Messiahship to be openly proclaimed.
1 From the 1st Nisan B.C. 445 to the 6th April A.D. 32 was 476 years + 24 days =173,880 days, and 69x7 years of 360
The logic of this is inexorable. Either the result is an accidental coincidence, or else it is an overwhelming proof that the visions of Daniel were a divine revelation. A coincidence! Suppose some one averred that the distance between St Martin’s -le-Grand and the post-office at Leamington or Gloucester was 173,880 yards, and this were proved to be accurately correct: what would be thought of a man who objected that the result was “an accidental coincidence”? “Credulity of the incredulous!” we might well exclaim.
It is for the reader to judge whether this is an instance of “the acervation of endless conjectures,” or a legitimate appeal to plain facts and the positive statements of Scripture.
days = precisely 173,880 days. It would be quite impossible within the limits of these pages to deal with the seventieth week of the prophecy, or to discuss the many incidental questions here involved. Elsewhere I have dealt exhaustively with the whole subject, and have answered every difficulty and objection which can be urged against the scheme. See Appendix, Note II.