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succeeded Dr. Ni
Church, and
Hebrew in the
The publication
"Tracts for the
1833. To these 1
contributor,
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the treatise on
succession, the
the church, the
fession, and a
came to be regar
"Puseyism,
which these new
ers maintained,
occasioned was g
Dictionary
"Puseyism," del
"to carry back
doctrines of the
an imagined per
haye been no gr
from the Church
we
ARTES
LIBRARY
1837
VERITAS
SCIENTIA
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
TUEBOR
SI-QUERIS-PENINSULAM AMINAM`
CIRCUMSPICE
PRESENTED BY THE
HEIRS OF
REV. W. E. CALDWELL
UDIVI U
In 1843 Dr. Pluvy pivaviisu
the University of Oxford a sermon
(now well-known) which was held to
maintain the doctrine of transubstan-
tiation. For this he was debarred
from preaching until 1846. Dr. Pusey
had always denied the " Romanizing
tendencies of the "Tracts for the
Times," and he did this specially when
they were censured publicly by the
Bishop of Oxford in 1838. But Dr.
Newman was received into the Roman
Catholic Church in 1845, leaving Ox-
ford finally in February, 1846.
Dr.
Pusey was not the champion of Ritual-
ista as such. He regarded it (according
to his own claim) only as a means to
an end. The great object of his life
was to bring back the Church of Eng-
land to a true conception of Catholic
doctrine. Hence in his later years he
was out of sympathy with the extreme
Ritualists, and did not hesitate to con-
demu their extravagant practices.
NAMUNONAMIAI
d to the upper
He took his
, owing to his
ments, he was
or of Hebrew
and for over
at office, with
nonry of Christ
a distinguished
itemporary and
luding Whate-
Froude, Keble,
nd others. In
e others origi-
the Tractarian
om a series of
they wrote and
which was to
;lish church to
1 the early ages
novement has
momentous and
widely extended which has ever arisen
in the church of England, and the
effects of which will influence the clergy
to the end of time. I cannot write in
favor of that movement begun in Ox-
ford just half a century since, nor will
I try to write against it. I know it has
had a most divisive and disastrous effect
on thousands of religious families, and
it has created scandals in the church
which have never been surpassed for
their painful effects on religious life.
The movement soon outstripped the
designs of its originators, and became
too vast for their control or direction.
Dr. Pusey is dead; a churchman of It has led hundreds of clergymen and
Dr. Pusey,
world-wide notoriety. He was born in churchmen into popery.
1800, and had therefore counted his miscalculating his influence, ventured
fourscore years and two, and had been to set on foot a plan to bring the Wes-
able to continue his public duties leyans into the church, but those as-
throughout his long life. Quiet and re-sumptions were permanently scattered
tiring naturally, he was not often seen by Rev. Thomas Jackson in a "Letter
either as a preacher or speaker; but in to Dr. Pusey," page 110, in 1842.
his sphere as an educator, there was no
better known figure in theological Ox-
ford. Pussyite and Puseyism were
terms found in newspapers and periodi-
cals forty years ago constantly.
It is well known that Dr. Pusey acted
as confessor to very many members of
the English church, and that his spiritual
counsel was sought and exercised far
Dr. and near. Young men going up for
Elward Bouverie Pusey was educated ordination eagerly put themselves un-
at Eiton and Christ church, Oxford. der him in that particular. Of his
|
BS
1555
.P98
1868
To L.L.
the Wer.. L. L. Noble-
with an
Carter preeting
from Bar K.
Enstive Side 1870.
1016
Haveed 1885
DANIEL THE PROPHET:
NINE LECTURES,
DELIVERED IN THE
DIVINITY SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
With copious Notes.
devaBY THE
REV. E. Bouve
PUSEY, D.D.
REGIUS PROFESSOR OF HEBREW, AND CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH.
SECOND EDITION, FIFTH THOUSAND.
SOLD BY JAMES PARKER & CO., OXFORD,
AND 377, STRAND, LONDON;
AND RIVINGTONS,
LONDON, OXFORD, AND CAMBRIDGE.
1868.
[All rights reserved.]
PLYMOUTH:
PRINTED AT THE PRINTING-PRESS OF THE DEVONPORT SOCIETY.
1868.
1-21-36
t En
PREFACE.
The following lectures were planned, as my contri-
bution against that tide of scepticism, which the pub-
lication of the "Essays and Reviews" let loose upon
the young and uninstructed. Not that those Essays
contained anything formidable in themselves. Hu-
man inventiveness in things spiritual or unspiritual
is very limited. It would be difficult probably to in-
vent a new heresy. Objectors of old were as acute
or more acute than those now; so that the ground was
well-nigh exhausted. The unbelieving school of
Geologians had done their worst. Chronology had
been pressed to the utmost long ago. The differences
of human form and of language lay on the surface.
The Jews had tried what pseudo-criticism could do
against the prophecies as to our Lord and His Church.
German rationalism had been deterred from no theory
in regard to Holy Scripture, either by its untenable-
ness or its irreverence. The Essays contained nothing
to which the older of us had not been inured for some
forty years. Their writers asserted little distinctly,
attempted to prove less, but threw doubts on every
thing. They took for granted that the ancient faith
had been overthrown; and their Essays were mostly
a long trumpet-note of victories, won (they assumed,)
without any cost to them, over the faith in Germany.
They ignored the fact, that every deeper tendency of
a.2
iv
PREFACE.
thought or each more solid learning had, at least, done
away with something shallow, something more ad-
verse to faith. They practically ignored all criticism
which was not subservient to unbelief. Yet the Es-
sayists, Clergymen (with one exception), staked their
characters, although not their positions, on the issue,
that the old faith was no longer tenable; that it was
dead and buried and the stone on the grave's mouth
fast sealed. Their teaching was said to be "bold."
Too "bold" alas! it was towards Almighty God; but,
from whatever cause, its authors shrank, for the most
part, from stating explicitly as their own, the unbc-
lief which they suggested to others. They under-
mined men's faith, without denying it themselves in
such definite terms as would materially risk their of
fices or positions. This, however, escaped notice; and
the shock was given, not by the things which were
said, (for the same had been said more clearly in pub-
lications avowedly infidel,) but that the faith was at-
tacked by those, who, from their position, were ex-
pected to be its defenders. Regarded as, (what the
Essays were, after a time, understood to be,) a challenge
to the Church of England to admit their misbelief
as allowable denial of truth, it has not befallen me
to read another book so cowardly. Had the writers
ventured, in plain terms, to deny half the truths, as
a
"First then to ascertain the real meaning of the passages ex-
tracted, and I must say that this is no easy task. If the author
had studied to express his sentiments with ambiguity, I doubt if he
could have been more successful." Dr. Lushington on Dr. Williams,
Judgment, p. 18. "I turn to Mr. Wilson's own words. It is in-
deed to be regretted that Mr. Wilson in his Essay has frequently
expressed himself in language so ambiguous as to admit of opposite
constructions." Dr. Lushington, Ib. p. 33. "This sentence is
PREFACE.
to the Bible or the Faith, which they suggested to
open to diverse interpretations, and some of its terms are self-con-
tradictory." Ib. p. 34. "Mr. W's use of these contradictory terms,
'supernaturally communicated speculation,' together with his im-
puting blame to those of the Clergy who would base the Church of
Christ, as a society, upon the possession of this 'supernaturally
communicated speculation,' rather than upon 'the manifestation of
the divine life in man' might leave upon some readers the impres-
sion that Mr. W. doubted whether the Holy Scriptures had been
supernaturally communicated, and that he doubted whether the
doctrines, as distinguished from the moral teaching of Chrsitianity,
were the necessary basis of the Church. Without saying this im-
pression of this passage is false, I cannot say that is necessarily the
true, especially considering this is a criminal case. As a criminal
charge, this Article cannot be supported." p. 34, 5. "The drift of
all the reasoning contained in these passages is to prove that sub-
scription to the xxxix Articles does not impose on the Clergy the
obligation of honestly believing them to be true and binding on
their consciences." Ib. 38.
"What is meant by 'passing by the side of the first five Articles,'
and 'as to the humanifying of the Divine word and the Divine
personalities, without directly contradicting impugning or refusing
assent to them?' The Clergy are bound by the King's declaration
to take the Articles in their literal and grammatical sense; the first
five Articles are the most important of all. Is it consistent with
their literal and grammatical sense to 'pass by' them? I think
not. Is it consistent with the declaration that 'they are agreeable
to the Word of God?' If so, why pass by? Is it consistent with
the declaration 'I do willingly and ex animo subscribe, &c?' I
think not. And yet, according to Mr. W., the clerk is to 'pass by'
these articles' without directly contradicting, impugning or refusing
assent to them.' In my opinion, this is not possible. I think that
the substance of what Mr. W. has written is this; to suggest modes,
by which the Articles subscribed may be evaded, contrary to the
King's declaration and the terms of subscription." Ib. p. 39, 40. Of
the other writers, the Rev. Prof. Powell was soon removed from
human judgment to the Judgment-seat of God. Mr. Pattison con-
tented himself with shewing the weakness of Evidence-writers of
the last century, without hinting on what grounds men's faith in
vi
PREFACE.
others to deny, they would have aroused the indigna-
tion of the whole believing people of England against
them, that they denied such truths and remained mi-
nisters of the Church of England.
Others, who wrote in defence of the faith, engaged
in larger subjects; I took, for my province, one more
confined but definite issue. I selected the book of
Daniel, because unbelieving critics considered their
attacks upon it to be one of their greatest triumphs.
The exposure of the weakness of some ill-alleged point
of evidence has often thrown suspicion on a whole
faith. The exposure of the weakness of criticism,
where it thought itself most triumphant, would, I hop-
ed, shake the confidence of the young in their would-
be misleaders. True! Disbelief of Daniel had become
an axiom in the unbelieving critical school. Only,
they mistook the result of unbelief for the victory of
criticism. They overlooked the historical fact that
the disbelief had been antecedent to the criticism.
Disbelief had been the parent, not the offspring of
their criticism; their starting-point, not the winning-
post of their course.
In other books of Holy Scripture, disbelief could
Jesus and His Gospel rests. He did not mention doctrine, except
to say that the command to destroy the Canaanites and the eternity
of future punishment are "questioned," (he does not say "denied,”)
by "natural conscience." Continued study of Professor Jowett's
Essay makes one think sadly, "What does there remain of Chris-
tianity, which the writer can believe ?"
b "Auberlen indeed defends [Daniel] but says, 'Die Unächtheit
Daniel's ist in der modernen Theologie zum Axiom geworden.''
Dr. Williams in Essays, p. 76. "It is one of the highest triumphs
and most saving facts of the more recent criticism, to have proved
that the book of Daniel belongs to the time of Antiochus Epiphanes."
A well known writer, now dead.
PREFACE.
vii
and did sever what, if true, (as it is,) was necessarily
Divine, from what admitted of being represented as
human. Rejecting what, if they accepted, they must
own to be from God, they assigned to man the hu-
manised residuum. They laid down, to their own
satisfaction, that the miracles, related in any histori-
cal book of Holy Scripture, were magnified represen-
tations of the real truth, or that insulated prophecies
were inserted after the event; or that a long-lived
C
e. g. Davidson, Introd. "The narratives of the Pentateuch are
usually trustworthy, though partly mythical and legendary. The
miracles recorded were the exaggerations of a later age.” i. 131.
"It is only necessary to examine the history as it lies before us,
to find in it a mythological, traditional, and exaggerated element,
forbidding the literal acceptation of the whole.-The ten miracu-
lous plagues, which spared the Israelites, while they fell upon the
Egyptians-the crowd of extraordinary interpositions of Jehovah
in behalf of the people as they journeyed through the wilderness,
shew the influence of later traditions on the narrative, in dressing
it out with fabulous traits. The laws of nature are unchangeable.
God does not directly and suddenly interfere with them on behalf
of his creatures; neither does he so palpably or constantly inter-
meddle with men's little concerns." Ib. 103. "The Almighty
does not violently interfere with the eternal laws of nature which
he established at first." Ib. 221. "In regard to the miraculous
element connected with these plagues, it appears that the national
traditions account for all that appears as miraculous. We resolve
what is miraculous in the plagues into a traditional element," &c.
Ib. 225. “The narrative of the passage of the Red Sea must not be
viewed as literal history. Later traditions exaggerated the event,
surrounding it with wonder, &c." Ib. p. 430. "The traditional and
mythical (in the passage of the Jordan) are perceptible. A mira-
cle is made out of a natural event." add pp. 470, 1. ii. 41, 2. 450.
iii. 32. 279, 80. 347.
a "It [Jacob's prophecy] has the form of a prediction; but it
is a vaticinium post eventum." (Dav. i. 198.) i. e. a falsehood, pro-
fessing to be "
a prophecy," but written "after the event." So
i. 338, of Balaam's prophecy; i. 428, of the prophecy of the judg-
viii
PREFACE.
prophet lived to recast his prophecies, and gave to
his prophecies of nearer events a definiteness which,
(they stated as confidently as if they had lived and
had heard them,) they had not when he uttered them*,
or, if the events prophesied were too remote to be so
accounted for, that the prediction must have been
given close upon the events, when human sagacity
could, (they held,) foresee them, and then, without
prejudice to their unbelief, they could afford to admire
what they claimed to be man's own.
The old pro-
phets, (they tacitly assumed,) were inferior to them-
selves; still, for their own times, they were, "'g amid
frailty and national contractedness," above their age.
The book of Daniel admitted of no such compro-
mises. Its historical portions are no history; for the
people, as such, had, in the period of their Captivity,
no history. The period was like one of those in the
book of Judges, whether of oppression or of rest, in
which their whole condition exemplified God's Pro-
vidence and dealings with them, and no marked change
occurred. Jeremiah had bidden them, in God's name,
live as peaceable denizens in the land of their capti-
vity. ❝h Build ye houses, and dwell; and plant gar-
dens, and eat the fruit of them; take ye wives, and be-
get sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons,
ment on the rebuilder of Jericho; ii. 452, of predictions in the
Judges; ii. 450, of others in Samuel; iii. 32, of those of Isaiah as
to Sennacherib and Hezekiah; iii. 99, 100, as to some of Jeremiah.
e Davids. iii. 146, 7. and 150, of Ezekiel.
f Dav. i. 383, of the predictions in Deuteronomy; iii. 15, of Is.
xxi; iii. 19, of Is. xxiii; iii. 98, of Jeremiah's prophecy of the 70
years' captivity of Judah.
8 Dav. ii. 456. Comp. Dr. Stanley, as quoted below, p. 257.
1 Jer. xxix. 5-7.
PREFACE.
ix
and give your daughters to husbands, that they may
bear sons and daughters; that ye may be increased
there, and not diminished. And seek the peace of the
city whither I have caused you to be carried away
captives, and pray unto the Lord for it; for in the
peace thereof ye shall have peace." Their habits in
their subsequent dispersions make it, in itself, proba-
ble, that they followed the advice. The Psalms of
the captivity describe them as waiting for God. But
a dissolved people, individuals scattered amid an over-
whelming population, with no unity save that of their
faith, has no history, unless it rebel. For history is
of changes. These had no power to change. The
history, then, in Daniel relates not to his people; nor
was it Daniel's office to record the history of his own
administration in the position to which, for the pro-
tection of his people, he had been raised. The book
of Daniel, then, has nothing of the nature of secular
history; it records only certain events whereby God
acted upon the Heathen Monarchs in whose keeping
His people, the depositories of His revelation to man,
for the time were. And these events were mostly su-
pernatural. The prophecies also are one connected
whole; they admit of no dislocation; they speak de-
finitely of a long period far beyond Daniel's time.
To the nearer future there was nothing to add. The
restoration from the captivity, the date of that resto-
ration, the name of the conqueror who was to grant
it, had been foretold already. In this respect, there
was nothing left but to await the flowing-by of the
seventy years. The temporal prophecies in Daniel
join on with those of Isaiah and Jeremiah.
i Davidson says, "Deliverance from Babylon is not predicted.
X
PREFACE.
The former prophets had predicted the destruction
of Babylon by the Medes and Persians, and the resto-
ration of Israel. The visions in Daniel shew the suc-
cession of world-empires, beginning with the descrip-
tion of the Babylonian world-empire and its displace-
ment by the Medo-Persian. Thenceforward, there is
no break. They are outlines, shaded here and there,
and at times more strongly, which embrace the whole
space from Nebuchadnezzar to (as every one admits)
Antiochus Epiphanes. Many a cleft is purposely left
out of the picture; as the years of Nebuchadnezzar's
worthless successors; or the century and a half of the
miserable kings of Persia from the gathering of the
storm against Greece by Xerxes until it rolled back
under Alexander; or lesser intervals in the yet later
period. Whatever details are given, the prophecies
are neither chronology nor history. But since there
is prophecy from the time of the Babylonian empire,
there is no date between that empire and the reign of
Antiochus Epiphanes, where men could place the wri-
ter. For, by placing him at any intervening point,
That event, which might be considered of greatest importance in
the eye of a Hebrew seer living in Babylon whither he had been
carried captive, is unnoticed." (iii. 174.) The prophets, who fore-
told the judgment of the Captivity, were also themselves consoled
by the prediction of the close of that judgment, (e. g. Ezek. xi.
13-20.) or God foretold by them that close, as He ever, in this life,
mitigates judgment by hope. Davidson assumes the spuriousness
of Jeremiah's prophecy of the restoration after the 70 years, the
later date of prophecies of Isaiah which predict the destruction of
Babylon and the restoration of Judah from it, and then, since, on
those and the like assumptions, that deliverance would not have been
prophesied before, and would have been predicted then, he argues
that Daniel too, had he lived then, must also have prophesied those
same events, had he prophesied at all.
PREFACE.
xi
they would have invented to themselves a prophet,
who should speak of things past as if he were prophe-
sying them, and yet prophesy, with equal distinctness,
those yet to come; half-forger, half-prophet. Men
had, then, no choice between believing all and disbe-
lieving all, compressing into the time before Antiochus
Epiphanes, as best they could, whatever they could
not evaporate into a mere ideal, and, as in the ancient
fable, laying the amputated and disjointed limbs of
the old prophet, piece by piece, into the cauldron
whence was to issue the renovated form of the Daniel
of the 19th century.
One prophecy only, which fills up outlines of the
earlier prophecy, stops with the Old Testament Anti-
Christ, Antiochus Epiphanes; the others exhibit in
the distant vista, the final establishment of the Gos-
pel, the second Coming of Christ, the Resurrection.
There being then no choice but to believe all or disbe-
lieve all, a school to whom it was a postulate, that
Almighty God did not reveal Himself to His creatures
except through their human reason, and that He did
not interfere in His own creation, must make its choice
to disbelieve all.
This being the real root of the objections to the
book of Daniel, I felt that any answer, which should
only consider critical or historical objections, must
fail of its end, because these are mere outworks, thrown
up to keep men off from the real issue, as to prophecy
or miracle. I therefore set myself primarily to shew,
1) that let men place the book where they would, there
is in it definite unmistakeable prophecy; 2) that such
definite prophecy as the minuter prophecies in Daniel,
the foreground of more distant and larger prophecy, is
xii
PREFACE.
in harmony with the whole system of prophecy, as well
in the Old Testament as in the prophecies of our Lord.
In the notes, I have set myself to answer, more in
detail than an oral lecture admitted, the criticisms,
which have been raised as pleas for an unbelief which
was antecedent to criticism. This I did, in order to
meet the pseudo-criticism on its own grounds, for the
sake of those who would see; well knowing that the
grace of God alone could touch those who now wish
not to see. I have also, here and there, pointed out
how the pseudo-critical argument recoils.
In the sketch of the gradual gathering of the Canon,
my argument was concerned with its close, not with its
beginning. For the main point, in which its history
bore on the book of Daniel, is, that it was closed be-
fore the date, where unbelievers place, and must place,
their pseudo-Daniel. Since the wildest criticism now
places but very few of the older books later than the
Captivity, the different theories, devised to remove
them from the date when they were written, affected
not this argument. But I have pointed out tokens of
a gradual formation of the Canon, because the ration-
alist school assumes as a convenient starting-point,
that the books of Holy Scripture were first collected
into one whole after the captivity. In regard to its
close, I have entered into the grounds alleged to bring
k The genuineness of the Pentateuch occupies two 8vo. volumes
of Hengstenberg. Obviously, the argument could not be condensed.
Forty years of study have only shewn me the more, both from lan-
guage and the subsequent books of the Old Testament, the evi-
dence of its genuineness, which I already believed on the autho-
rity of our Lord. In examining for my class the first volume of
Dr. Colenso, I could only be amazed that any mind could be sha-
ken by such arguments. Faith, of course, could not.
PREFACE.
xiii
down the date of Ecclesiastes, Ezra, Nehemiah, and
the Chronicles, both in disproof of the later closing of
the Canon, and in illustration of the sort of criticism,
which is used to prop up foregone conclusions.
But nothing is gained by a mere answer to objec-
tions, so long as the original prejudice, "there cannot
be supernatural prophecy," remains. Be the objec-
tions ever so completely removed, unbelief remains
unshaken, because these objections are put forward to
delude others, scarcely to blind itself; for they who
believe not, know well that the ground of their unbe-
lief rests on their conceptions of God and of His rela-
tion to man, not on history. And therefore, while I
have conscientiously read every thing which has been
written against the book of Daniel', and have met
1 The 3rd part of Dr. Davidson's Introduction to the O.T., which
contains what he has written against the book of Daniel, had not
appeared, until the four first lectures were printed. But his work
is only a reproduction of the rationalist German works which he
either epitomises or translates. I have not met with any new
argument or even an old argument more forcibly put in it. The
Hebrew criticisms are transferred from the German writers, some-
times in a way which implies ignorance of the elements of Hebrew.
Thus, Stähelin (Einl. §. 36.) alleged in proof of the lateness of the
books of Kings, "the aramaising suffixes 2 Kgs. iv. 2, 3, 7." Dr.
Davidson (ii. p. 37,) gives this, " for 2 Kgs. iv. 2.
for a
which
2 Kgs. iv. 7." The first, " for " may mean; " is for
the Masorethes pointed, but which they ought to have pointed
ab, although a not is their uniform punctuation." But in 2 Kgs.
iv. 7. Dr. D. overlooked, ", which Stähelin meant, although
they are marked by the Kri, and lighted upon, the regular fe-
minine Imperative, "go," which he supposed ought to be ab, al-
though, as being masculine, would have been a "false con-
cord." Again, Stähelin had said of the title of Proverbs xxxi.
hox anne: nun sựp a 7, "The words of king Lemuel; the ut-
terance which his mother taught him," "Hitzig and Bertheau
לְמוּאֵל מֶלֶךְ מַשָׂא אֲשֶׁר
xiv
PREFACE.
every argument in those writings, my own conviction
is, that the point really at issue remains, when they
are answered. For the real objection is, that God
should reveal Himself to His creature man, in any
other way than by the operation of man's natural rea-
son, or that He should tell man any thing, "beyond
the grasp of eye or hand."
It is mere dust in people's eyes, that some speak of
the present conflict, as a question of reconciling phy-
maintain, that he cannot thus, without the Article, be united with
Lemuel, that therefore it must stand in the stat. constr. with sp
'king of Massa."" p. 414. Dr. Davidson (ii. 338.) says,
"The
word Massa is not a proper name, because abpbh 'Lemuel
king of Massa,' is not Hebrew. To make it good Hebrew, he should
have the article prefixed." Were there even any such place as
'Massa,' any one knows that what Dr. D. says is not Hebrew, is
Hebrew; and that what he says would "make it good Hebrew"
is not Hebrew. As matter of history, Dr. D. tells us,
"It is in-
correct to say, as Hengstenberg and many others have donc, that
the series of opponents to the authenticity of the book of Daniel
was opened by Porphyry in the third century. Porphyry was not
the first impugner of Daniel. Hippolytus, a Roman bishop and
orthodox Christian writer, also referred the work to the Maccabe-
an period and Antiochus Epiphanes, as we know from his explana-
tions of his book, partly Greek and partly Syriac." And for this
he refers us to Ewald in the Gött. gel. Anz. 1859. p. 270, 1. Hip-
polytus an "impugner of Daniel!" Ewald says nothing of this;
but only alleges a certain amount of agreement of exposition as to
the Seleucidæ and Ptolemics. Yet Hippolytus believed that the
prophecy of the 70 weeks related to Jesus and ended in Him;
that the 4th empire was the Roman, that it would last to the end,
that Anti-Christ was yet to come. I see not what point of con-
tact there is between his expositions and Porphyry's, save those
which are common to Porphyry with all Christians, all but the
unbelief that they were "vaticinia post eventum." In Dr. Da-
vidson's "series of opponents to the authenticity of the book of
Daniel" there is a cleft, from Porphyry the Heathen to Collins the
Deist, of 1400 years.
PREFACE.
sical science and theology".
wilfully blind as to think it.
XV
Men can hardly be so
The contest runs along
m I deeply regret to see that Bp. Tait, in minimising or apologi-
sing for the opinion, expressed by the Judicial Committee upon
the inspiration of Holy Scripture, inadvertently aids this delusion.
He says, "It is satisfactory to feel assured that no Clergyman of
the Church of England can be called upon to maintain the unwar-
ranted position that the Bible is an infallible guide in questions of
physical science." (Preface to Five Discourses on the Word of God,
p. viii, &c.) The like words are ascribed to him in a speech in
Convocation. "He did not think that the Church was in dan-
ger, because the highest Court of Appeal had said, that a Clergy-
man was not legally liable, because he held that statements with
regard to physical science in the Bible were not the inspired Word
of God." The Court of Appeal did not limit their opinion to
"physical science." To imply that it did, would be to deceive
ourselves and others. This was not the issue raised by Dr. Wil-
liams or Mr. Wilson. In regard to Dr. Williams they put indeed
a non-natural construction on his words, which no honest man
could accept. The misbelief of Dr. Williams on the inspiration of
Holy Scripture was virtually condemned by the very terms in
which he himself was acquitted, as the heresy of Pelagius was
condemned at the Synod of Diospolis, which reversed the judg-
ment of S. Augustine and the African Synod as to himself.
regard to Mr. Wilson the issue on the one passage before them was
definite. Mr. Wilson stated, "the word of God is contained in
Scripture, whence it does not follow that it is coextensive with
it." (Essays, p. 176.) The Committee, in their opinion, laid down,
as Bp. Tait quotes them, that "it is not a contradiction to the law
of the Church-to affirm that any part of the Canonical Scriptures
of the Old and New Testaments, however unconnected with re-
ligious faith or moral duties, was not written under the inspira-
tion of the Holy Spirit." It justified Mr. Wilson's statement in a
way condemned by the two Primates. (The ABp. of Canter-
bury's Pastoral, p. 10, 11. ABp. of York's Pastoral, p. 10-13.)
But there is nothing to limit the Committee's opinion to "physi-
cal science." Probably it would cover any denial of the histori-
cal truth of any history in Holy Scripture, as when Mr. Wilson,
(although the passages were not before the Court,) denied "the
In
xvi
PREFACE.
the whole range of God's Revelation and of man's
thought. What should be one universal harmony
jars with one discord of rebellion. The fact of God's
Revelation, and the tokens which He gives of His re-
vealing Himself; His Being in Himself, and the mode
of His Being, His Character, His Attributes, His re-
lation to us His creatures, His rights over us, His
care and Providence towards us, what it is befitting
for Him to Be or to reveal, how He shall reveal what
He does reveal, what condescension towards us we
shall allow Him to use, in consideration of His high
Epicurean dignity, what aweful Justice we may ad-
mit Him to possess, consistently with our "moral
sense" of what His Attributes should be-every
thing is alike disputed: only men use courteous lan-
guage towards Him, as to a dethroned Monarch, Who
is to be treated with respect and the semblance of
royalty, provided that He transgress not the bounds
which His creatures assign to Him. Alas that,
while they are laying down the laws upon which it
beseems their Maker to act, they forget that He is
their Maker, that these brave words of their's arc
but like the speeches in the mouth of a player; that
the great reality, now veiled, is at hand; and that
thorough reliableness" of almost all the history in Holy Scripture,
to "the time of the divided kingdom," (i. c. nearly half of the
Old Testament, Essays, p. 170.) or implied the existence of an "ad-
mixture of legendary matter or embellishment in" the Gospels,
(Ib. p. 161.) and the want of "exactness" in that of St. John.
(Ib.) He spoke of "the dark patches of human passion and error,
which,” he said, "form a partial crust upon" Holy Scripture. (Ib.
p. 177.) People only blind themselves and others, when, with
such books or those of Dr. Colenso's before them, they speak of
the relation of physical science to Holy Scripture as the leading
question of this day.
PREFACE.
xvii
their God, Who bears so long with our presumptions,
will shew indeed, as He has said, "whose word shall
stand, Mine or their's. "
n
Physical science is made a battle-field, because it
is the favorite study of the day; the mistake made
about Galileo is a convenient Io Pæan over theologi-
ans. Theologians used wrong inferences from Holy
Scripture once; therefore we are to mistrust-what?—
the inferences of Theologians? No, but the Bible it-
self. And yet not we, in common life, but scientific
men, use the same language as before Galileo, "the
sun rises, the sun sets," the self-same language as the
Bible uses. The mistake was not in the language
of the Bible, but that men argued from language,
adapted, (as language relating to visible phænomena
must be,) to the phænomena whereof it speaks, as
though it necessarily contained scientific truth. The
claims of geology do not even touch upon theology.
The belief that creation, at least, dated backward for
countless ages, was current in the Church some 1400
years before Geology. "Six thousand years of our
world," says St. Jerome, "are not yet fulfilled; and
what eternities, what times, what originals of ages,
must we not think there were before, in which An-
gels, Thrones, Dominions, and the other Powers served
God, and, apart from the vicissitudes and measures of
times, subsisted, at the command of God!" "Almost
all the teachers of the Church throughout the world,"
says a later Greek writer P, "teach that the whole spi-
ritual and angelic being existed before this world out
n Jer. xliv. 28.
i. 15. Opp. iii. 38.
in Hexaem. Hom. i.
• in Tit. c. i. quoted by Petav. de Angel.
P Græc. Script. MS. ib. n. 22. See S. Basil
S. Greg. Naz., S. Chrys. and others. ibid.
b
xviii
PREFACE.
of nothing." Holy Scripture expressly speaks of the
stellar system, as existing before the foundation of
the earth." Where wast thou, when I founded the
earth? declare, if thou knowest understanding. Who
laid the measures thereof, for thou knowest! or Who
stretched out the line upon it? Whereon are the
foundations thereof sunken? or who laid the corner-
stone thereof? When all the morning stars jubilated
together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"
And this agrees with the remarkable parenthetic men-
tion of "the stars" in Genesis, when, in the detailed
account of the creation of the sun and moon and of
their offices for our earth, there are appended the sim-
ple words, "and the stars," as though it was intend-
ed only to guard against the error, that they might
otherwise be thought to be uncreated. Then, there
is nothing to connect the time spoken of in Gen. i. 2.
with that of the first great declaration of the creation
of all things in the beginning. "In the beginning God
created the heaven and the earth." Rather, of the
forms of speech, which could have been chosen, to ex-
press past time, that has been chosen, which least
connects the state, when the earth was one vast waste,
with the time when God created it. Both were in
past time; but there is nothing to connect those times
together". First, we have, as far back as thought can
9 Job xxxviii. 4-7.
The substantive verb not being used in Hebrew as a mere co-
pula, had Moses intended to say that the earth was waste and
desolate" when God created it, the idiom for this would have been
anan, (omitting the verb,) just as there actually follows,
oing up by aựng, "and darkness on the face of the deep." The in-
sertion of the past verb, n, has no force at all, unless it be used
to express what was the condition of the earth in a past time, pre-
PREFACE.
xix
reach, creation, in the beginning, of all those heavens
of heavens through those all-but-boundless realms
of space, and of our earth. Then, detached from this,
a past condition of the earth,-how far separated from
it, is not said,—but not a condition in which God, Who
made all things very good, ever made any things.
vious to the rest of the narrative, but in no connection at all with
what preceded. Such connection in Hebrew might have been ex-
pressed by 7, "and the earth became" or
or "was," &c. or by
the omission of the verb. Moses was directed to choose just that
idiom, which expresses a past time, anterior to what follows, but in
no connection of time whatever with what precedes. Yet, on the
other hand the "and," by which v. 2. is united with v. 1, shews
that v. 1. does not stand as a mere summary of what follows. The
revelation, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth," declares a fact by itself. To this is added that other fact,
"And the earth was (in the past, but at some unexplained time)
The explanations, given to get rid of this sim-
ple statement, illustrate its force. 1) The statement that v. 2. is a
mere summary, is precluded by the "and." 2) The explanation
"In the beginning, when God created the heaven and the earth,
the earth was, &c." besides being unnaturally artificial, is ungram-
matical. It must have been . 3) That of Ewald from
Rashi, "In the beginning, when God created the heaven and the
earth, (and the earth was then a chaos,) God said, Let there be
light," is yet more unnaturally artificial, and has the simple sense
of mankind against it. So would no Hebrew have written; so could
no reader understand it, except he wished it. Human will can
persuade itself of any thing.
"void and waste."
• The words tohoo va-bohoo, (obviously forming one idea, from
the alliteration,) are, in the two other places in Holy Scripture
where they occur together, used of desolation. Jeremiah (iv. 23)
predicts a future desolation, in pointed reference to the former con-
dition of the earth. The sentence, "I saw the earth and lo, tohoo
va-bohoo," is as near being a quotation of Gen. i. 2, "And the
earth was tohoo va-bohoo," as any words could be, which did not pre-
serve the precise grammatical structure. The addition, "and to the
heavens, and their light was not," exhibits the heavens as they were
when the earth was tohoo va-bohoo, and before the light was creat-
b2
XX
PREFACE.
He
What follows is connected with this state. First, we
have a contemporary condition, (as it is expressed in
Hebrew,) "and darkness upon the face of the deep; "
then a contemporaneous action, of more or less dura-
tion, "and the Spirit of God brooding upon the face
of the waters;" then successive action, (as this too is
expressed in Hebrew,) "And God said ;" which is con-
tinued on through the rest of the history of the Crea-
tion. It seems then that God has told us, in the two
first sentences, just what concerned us to know, first,
that He created all which is; then, how He brought
into order this our habitation which He has given
us. What intervened between that creation "in the
beginning" and that re-modelling for our habitation,
does not concern us; and on this God is silent.
tells us the first and the last, that He created all
things, and that He prepared this our beautiful earth
for us, and created all things in it and ourselves. In
the interval there is room for all the workings of God,
which Geology speaks of, if it speaks truly. The his-
tory of the Creation in Genesis falls in naturally with
it, in that it does say that this our mysterious habita-
tion, which God has made the scene of such wondrous
love, was created "in the beginning," i. e. before the
time of which it proceeds to speak. Another period
of undefined duration is implied by the words, "And
the Spirit of God was brooding upon the face of the
deep." For action, of course, implies time, in which
the action takes place. And this action was previous
ed, on the first day. Isaiah xxxv. 11, "He shall stretch out over
it the line of tohoo and the stones of bohoo," i. c. He shall, as it were,
measure it out, not to be built by line but to be destroyed, also re-
lates to an utter desolation of what had once been beautiful.
PREFACE.
xxi
to that of the first "day" of the creation, which be-
gins, like the rest, with the words, " And God said.”
[I do not allege this as the only solution of the pha-
nomena of Geology. I only say that it is a certain
fact, that Holy Scripture does leave two spaces, un-
measured by time, subsequent to the first creation of
the earth; and that these spaces, being absolutely un-
defined, admit of those all-but-boundless periods,
which modern Geologists claim, if so be that they
claim them truly. ed. 2.]
Geology, then, may pursue its course, with belief,
not unbelief, for its condition; only let it not be cre-
dulous, (as the way has too often been,) of any thing
which tends to unbelief, eager to find grounds to dis-
believe Scripture, averse only to believe itt.
t "Between the first and second, and between the second and
third, verses of the Biblical history of the creation, revelation
leaves two great white pages, on which human science may write
what it will, in order to fill up the blanks of natural history,
which revelation omitted itself to supply, as not being its office.
"Of each of these 'cartes blanches' revelation has only given a
superscription, a summary table of contents. The first runs, 'In
the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.' How this
was, how long it lasted, what followed thereon, what evolutions
and revolutions took place, down to that state of things which v. 2.
describes, it says nothing. Let human science fill up the void, if
it can.
“The 2nd ‘carte blanche' has the summary inscription, 'the earth
was void and waste, and the Spirit of God was brooding on the
face of the waters.' What influences the Spirit of God, Which
brooded over the waters, had upon them, what operations and for-
mations It called forth in them, revelation says not.-
"Revelation has, in the superscription of the two 'cartes blanches,'
laid an ever-firm and immoveable foundation, which leaves none
for Atheism or Pantheism. Experience, combination, and specula-
tion, investigation, and philosophy of nature or of religion, and
Theology may try to build further on this foundation. But no
xxii
PREFACE.
In like way, as to the flood. It is obviously mat-
ter of faith that the whole race of mankind perished,
except those who, obeying God, took refuge in the
ark. As for other questions, whether only the known
world, inhabited by man, (according to the analogy
of ǹ oikovµévn, “all the world," in the New Testament)
or whether our whole planet was submerged, is, I be-
lieve, not defined by Holy Scripture ". The question
may perhaps be cleared hereafter by careful observa-
tions of facts. Only, if science would make any real
progress, it must not be ruled by anthropomorphic
and degrading notions of God, as if any miracle were
"hard" for God. The difficulty as to the animals
found, each in their several habitats, in Australia,
New Zealand, &c, is properly no scientific difficulty.
It lies on the surface. But it presupposes, that the
"rest" of God, spoken of in Genesis, implies that He
created nothing afterwards; which is contrary to our
Lord's words, "My Father worketh hitherto and I
work," and to the fact that He is daily and hourly
creating those myriads of human souls which He in-
fuses into the bodies prepared by His Providence.
Science has, on the other hand, to account for the
fact, that the known population of the world is much
what it would be, according to recognised rules of
the increase of our race, dating from the received
Chronology of Noah, and starting with six persons *.
other foundation shall any one lay than that which is here laid."
Kurtz, Bibel u. Astronomie, 1853. p. 433.
"[See further Dr. Pusey's paper on the attitude of Theology to-
wards science, read at the Norwich Congress 1865.]
* See a remarkable article by Moigno in Les mondes, 1863. T. i.
pp. 516, 17. (Prof. Price kindly pointed it out to me.) It includes a
PREFACE.
xxiii
Rough as such calculations must needs be, they whol-
ly exclude the fabulous unbroken antiquity which
some claim for the human race.
In this thickening strife with unbelief, it is of much
moment for the Church and for individuals, that we
do not allow unbelievers to choose for us our battle-
fields. Rationalism, in its assaults, ever chooses
what is obscure, avoids what is clear; it chooses
what is minute, it avoids what is comprehensive; it
chooses what is negative, it avoids what is positive;
it chooses what is at a distance from the centre of
the faith, it avoids the central truth, or would fain
hide it in the cloud of dust raised in the subordinate
controversy. "Most," said Claudius of the German
paraphrasts of St. John's Gospel in the 18th century,
"frizzle at the evening cloud which floats over the
calculation by "Mr Faâ de Bruns, one of the most distinguished
scholars of Cauchy, now Professor at Turin," that, starting from
the received Chronology of the Flood "B.C. 2348, and taking as the
annual increase, a number not far from that which represents
the annual increase of the population of France, you would light
on the nct number of the population of the earth, 1400,000,000.
Europe
Asia
275,000,000.
755,000,000.
Africa
200,000,000.
America
60,000,000.
Australasia
3,000,000.
•
1293,000,000.”
M. Faâ de Bruns has included Noah alone with his 3 sons and
their wives, which is obviously wrong, according to the Bible and
the multiplication of the human race; but at the close of 4200, (the
number of the years from the Flood) the increase is so rapid that
the substitution of the real number, 6, does not make a difference
(Prof. Price tells me) of more than thirty five years and 25 days.
y See Claudius' Wercke (1774,) T. i. p. 9. "Paraphrases Evan-
gelii Johannis," &c.
xxiv
PREFACE.
surface of the full moon; but the full moon behind is
left in its still repose." Science, at one time, ridicul-
ed the history of the Creation, because Moses spoke of
light as existing independently of and before the sun.
Science now owns that Moses was right in distinguish-
ing light from the luminary". Yet, untaught by ex-
perience, men still press inferences from a science, not
as yet a century old, against that same history, forget-
ful or ignorant, that that same chapter which they
impugn, first of Holy Writ declared that truth, which
Heathen philosophy never dreamed of, against which
it struggled and still struggles, but which the hun-
dreds of millions of Christians and of the heresy of
Mohammed, and they themselves mostly, acknow-
ledge,―absolute creation at the will of God. Heathen-
ism conceived only of an eternity of matter developing
into life, or of a deity, in its weary loneliness, evolv-
ing worlds out of itself and embodying itself in them,
in order to be no longer alone, itself not the author
of life, but the life itself, such as it exists, insensate,
irrational, or sinning, in the various gradations of ex-
istence in the world. The cosmogonies of the ancients
were pantheistic, atheistic, or, at best, developement
of præexistent matter. Over against all these, Mo-
ses enunciated, as simple, undemonstrated truth, "In
the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
Men ask us to account for those thousands of years,
which Geology claims, as if our faith were to depend
upon our knowing the answer. Faith asks them in
return, how they account for the fact, that, through
Moses, that truth of the creation was made known,
which human reason cannot explain, which even now
zi Gen. i. 3-5. i Ib. 14-16.
PREFACE.
XXV
it relegates as far back as it can, in order to prevent
the dread reality of its Personal Creator from pressing
so closely upon it, while yet it is constrained to ac-
knowledge the fact of the Creation. God speaks still
through His words, "In the beginning God created
the heaven and the earth," and the soul, which lis-
tens, is sure that the truth spoken so simply, so sure-
ly, so unmistakeably, so alone, so different from all
speculations of philosophy, is from Him. In the
possession of that truth, which God first taught the
world through Moses, faith, yea, and God-enlightened
reason too, is sure that there is some solution for the
claims of Geology, be they what they may.
This has been, for some thirty years, a deep con-
viction of my soul, that no book can be written in
behalf of the Bible like the Bible itself. Man's de-
fences are man's word; they may help to beat off
attacks, they may draw out some portion of its
meaning. The Bible is God's Word, and through it
God the Holy Ghost, Who spake it, speaks to the
soul which closes not itself against it.
But if defences are weak, except as far as God
enables us to build them, or Himself "builds the
house" through man, defences, not built as He would
have them, will not only fall, but will crush those
who trust them. The faith can receive no real injury
except from its defenders. Against its assailants,
those who wish to be safe, God protects. If the
faith shall be (God forbid!) destroyed in England,
it will be not by open assailants, (such as the writers
in the Westminster Review, &c.) but by those who
think that they defend it, while they have themselves
lost it. So it was in Germany. Rationalism was
xxvi
PREFACE.
the product, not of the attacks on the Gospel but of
its weak defenders. Each generation, in its contro-
versies with unbelief, conceded more of the faith, un-
til at last it was difficult to see what difference there
was between assailants and defenders. Theology
was one great grave-yard; and men were disputing
over a corpse, as if it had life. The salt had "lost
its savour." The life was filed.
A writer, who seems to think exclusive adherence
a I stated this in my "Collegiate and Professorial teaching," pp.
53 sqq. and explained some things which, at 27, I purposely left
unexplained in my early book on Germany. Many things in it
were crudely said; I was also over-sanguine about the restoration
of faith, then beginning in Germany. But my sympathies were
solely with that revival of faith; my strictures were solely directed
against the "human system" built up in Lutheranism. Nothing
which I wrote had any bearing on the English Articles, whose posi-
tive teaching I ever valued, or any part of the Catholic faith, in
which, (as I acquainted myself with Rationalism as a duty,) God
ever, in His goodness, preserved me, without any temptation to
part with any of it. I say this, because some are fond of quoting
an early work of mine, the remaining copies of which I withdrew
some thirty years ago.
b It seems to be almost a principle with Dean Stanley, to hold
that to be uncertain which is assailed. Conviction, amid contradic-
tions of truth, seems to him undue dogmatism. His mind has been
remarkably characterised, as one which, "having a poetical faculty
of seeing resemblances, lacks the philosophical power of seeing dif-
ferences." In his lectures on the Jewish Church, worthless hea-
then or Jewish tradition (some of it entitled Mohammedan, as
drawn by Mohammed from his apostate Jewish teacher,) is mixed
up with Scripture truth, wherever it adds a poetic feature to the
history. But the impression is given, that most is alike tradition;
of which some being patently absurd and untrue, an atmosphere of
haze is thrown over the whole. Hints are given, as occasion sug-
gests, of the uncertainty of the date of this or that portion of
prophecy, against which German Rationalism has declared, as if it
were of no account. He does not seem to be conscious, what he
is parting with. He speaks, c. g. of "innocent questions about
PREFACE.
xxvii
to definite truth the great antagonist to the mind of
Christ, would have us to agree to differ in every par-
ticle of faith, yet to hold ourselves to be one in one
"common Christianity." Like the Pantheon of old
Rome, every thing is to be inshrined in one common
Temple of Concord, not of faith or minds or wills, but
of despair of truth. Nothing, in this new school,
is to be exclusively true, nothing is to be false.
No words are to have any exclusive meaning.
Every one is to decypher the old inscriptions as he
likes, so that he do not obtrude that meaning upon
others, as the sole meaning. "Everlasting" is to
one to mean "lasting for ever," to another, for what
seems to be " an age, as men say; "atonement” is,
to one, to mean only "being at one" with God some-
how, by imitation, or admiration of the "greatest
moral act ever done in this world;" to another, if he
likes, it is to be that Act of God's aweful Holiness,
which human thought cannot reach; to one the Bible
is to be, if he wills, "the word of God," so that he al-
low his neighbour to have an equal chance of being
the date of the book of Daniel," (J. Ch. p. 467. comp. p. 423)
when the question is, "Is that book Divine? or human, claiming
to be Divine?" One who teaches on these subjects, ought to
have made up his mind upon them. And so, of course, would
Dean Stanley, had he thought it of any account. Meanwhile,
truth and doubt are mixed up together; and to censure denial of
truth, is to secure his sympathy with the denial. The truth of
the Old Testament history, in its details, is apparently presuppos-
ed throughout his work; at the close (p. 521,) Dr Colenso's attacks
on the Pentateuch are endorsed, and we are told to reckon the
"errors and defects of the Old Testament" "amongst its safeguards."
p. 522. The same habit of indefiniteness extends to doctrine also,
even as to the doctrine of the Atonement. Indeed, he seems unable
to grasp or to state any doctrine definitely.
c Prof. Jowett on St. Paul, ii. 591.
xxviii
PREFACE.
right, who holds that it "contains" somewhere "the
word of God," i. e. a revelation, of no one knows what,
made, no one knows how, (it may be through man's
natural faculties, or his own thoughts or mind,) and
lying no one knows where, except that it is to be some-
where between Genesis and Revelations, but probably,
according to the neo-Christianity, to the exclusion of
both. We are to recognise together, that God the
Holy Ghost "spake by the prophets," yet not so as
to exclude their being fallible in matters of every-day
morality. The authority of Jesus is to be respected;
yet not so far but that modern critics may be held
to know more than He, our God. These things (as
far as they have been yet applied,) are, of course, the
beginning, not the end. On the same ground that
"everlasting," in the mouth of Jesus, is to be an am-
biguous word, so, and much more may we be called
upon to hold that "grace," "faith," nay, "God," are
ambiguous words, and to harmonize with those who
bold, like the Pelagians of old, that "grace" is God's
gracious help through man's natural powers, and only
so far the help of God, in that man received those
powers from God; or that "faith" is faithfulness; or
that "god" may (as the Arians taught) designate a
secondary god, and that the Mohammedans may
perchance hold the right faith, since the Socinians
declared themselves their "nearest fellow-champions
for the faith of one supreme God without personali-
ties or pluralities."
a "Epistle Dedicatory to Ameth Ben Ameth Embassador of the
mighty Emperor of Fez and Morocco to Charles II. King of Great
Britain," re-printed by Leslie, Works, i. 207-11. fol. see p. 209. and
Leslie's letter, Ib. p. 217. The Socinians never attempted to deny
the genuineness of the document.
PREFACE.
xxix
The servants are less than their Lord, from whom
they have their authority. In compass the misbelief
is larger, in essence it is less to misbelieve, that
"grace" is the working of man's natural faculties,
or "inspiration" their quickened exercise; it were
all one to say that "revelation" is man's own thought,
as to say that Jesus, the Fountain of truth and the
Truth, used one ambiguous or (God forgive it !) igno-
rant word in matter of truth.
It seemed, to one, the extreme of Theological hos-
tility, that I said, that they who deny eternal pu-
nishment, as inconsistent with the attributes of God, do
not really believe in the same God. This, to any
mind which reflects ever so little, is self-evident. For
it is God Himself, Who is revealed in His attributes.
They then, who hold that what Jesus revealed as to
God, is inconsistent with the attributes of God as
they themselves believe of God, do not believe in God
Whom Jesus revealed. To speak the truth, as I did,
thus plainly, (mournful as that truth is,) is alone real
faithfulness to God and true charity to man. It is
Jesus Who said, "He that believeth not, shall be
damned." Who those shall be, He Alone is the
Judge. Of this we are sure, that they will be those
only, who, through fault of their own, reject Divine
truth. But, since the rejection of truth, as well as
unholiness of life, will have to do with the final doom
of man, then, not to state the truth as explicitly as we
can, to allow truth and falsehood to be jumbled to-
gether in one evershifting kaleidoscope of opinions, to
e Rev. H. B. Wilson in the Daily News. Mr Maurice admits the
fact, but blasphemes God, Whose aweful Justice Christians adore.
Letter to the Bp. of London.
f S. Mark xvi. 16.
XXX
PREFACE.
allow that all may have an equal chance of being
right, and so, (since they are contradictories,) that
all have an equal chance of being false, is treason
to the God of truth, and cruelty to the souls of men.
We have been blamed already, that we do not
" consent to be taught, even by an enemy, and
accept the faith however imperfect, the adoration
however inconsistent, offered to Him, Who most
assuredly would never have broken that bruised reed
or quenched that smoking flax." This is but an
instance of that variegated use of terms, which de-
stroys all definiteness of meaning. It is not the
one or other "harsh or revolting expression," in
M. Renan's "Life of Jesus," which has so shocked
Christian Europe. It is the intense and entire un-
belief which underlies the whole of that patronising
novel, in which the supercilious insolence of supe-
riority, which makes allowance for its God, is more
sickening even than its hinted blasphemy. Of course,
there can be no vestige of "faith" or "adoration"
in that dreary picture, which describes a young
enthusiast, who had once "the germs of a true fana-
ticism"," at one time "iprobably not involving him-
self in innocent (!) frauds, whereby people tried to sc-
cure to him the title of son of David," which, how-
ever, "he accepted," but who finally became a "won-
der-workerk" against his will, conniving at fraud in
the resurrection of Lazarus, falling short of "the
delicacies of the critical spirit [of the 19th century]
whereby good faith and imposture are irreconcile-
able terms." Jesus was born a Jew, and "material
8 Dr Stanley's Farewell Sermon, pp. 18, 19.
i Ib. p. 237.
Jesus, p. 326.
h Renan, Vic de
k pp. 257 sqq.
¹ Ib. pp. 252, 3.
PREFACE.
xxxi
truth has little value for an Eastern. He sees all
through his ideas, his interests, his passions." I can-
not bring myself to translate or accumulate the blas-
phemies. They are essential to M. Renan's concep-
tion of Him Whom he once believed in as his God,
for whose "decline and fall" he now apologises, as
the faults of his age and nation, to which he "bent","
sooner than "a renounce his mission." "Faith," of
course there cannot be, in one who would explain as
human, what our Lord declared to be Divine. The
"adoration" of one, who, by force of circumstances,
is to have fallen short of the morality of the 19th
century, would be the hideous mockery of those who
bowed the knee before Him, and mocked Him, say-
ing, "Hail, king of the Jews." M. Renan believed
once; now he only thinks that his former belief
makes him the better judge of his Judge Whom he
has rejected. Dr Stanley bids us "think of our
controversies, as they will appear, when we shall be
forced to sit down at the feast with those whom we
have known only as opponents here, but whom we
must recognise as companions there." Would God,
it may be so! Joyous, besides its joy in God, will
be that reunion of His redeemed, when those who
have been severed for awhile, through no wilful re-
jection of the truth, shall, in the sight of the Ever-
blessed and Adorable Trinity, together see and adore
the perfect Truth. Yet in order that it may be so,
they who, through no merits of their own but through
the mercy of our God, have that one truth which He
has revealed, are bound the more not, through any
n Ib. pp. 264-9. • The Bible, its Form and
m Ib. p. 239.
Substance, p. 92.
xxxii
PREFACE.
fear of man, or faint-heartedness, or sloth, or dread
of repelling an already alienated world, to soften
or pare down the truth with which we are entrusted.
Rather, let the world say what it will, or the more
because it proposes this deadly peace, in which we
are to unite in one apathy of despair of God-given
truth, we must bear about with us the Apostle's
words; Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth,
and one convert him, let him know, that he which con-
verteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a
soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins.
S. MARK'S DAY. 1864.
NOTICE
TO THE SECOND EDITION.
The last sheets of this edition were in the press,
before I saw the advertisement of a Preface by Dr
Williams to a book on the Prophet Daniel. Happily,
however, there is little in that preface which requires
notice. Dr Williams has, for the most part, only re-
arranged the usual matter of the unbelieving school
of criticism, with a protest here and there, that it is
not unbelieving. It is to be considered compatible
with reverence to our Lord, that, whereas He, the
Truth, pronounced Daniel a Prophet, he was in fact
no prophet, and that the passage "a proves" only
"the canonical reception of Daniel at the time of
Christ's speaking;" in other words, it is to prove
that our Divine Lord spake after the manner of His
time and affirmed that which was believed to be true,
although, in fact, false.
As to the arguments in Dr Williams' Introduction,
he has added to those before him two paradoxes only,
the one about the Aryan words; the other that the
translation of the LXX. with its manifold falsifications
of the text, may be the original, of which the sacred
text is to be the translation, or, at least a selection.
a Dr Williams' Introd. to Mr. Desprez on Daniel, p. xxxvi.
C
xxxiv
Corrections of
of its "most dignified stories."
It is to do honour
to this paradox to say that it will be believed, when
Pope's translation shall be held to be the original
of Homer. For Pope's translation is not wilfully
disfigured.
The criticism in the Introduction of Dr Williams
is confined to the defence of his former error about
the "Macedonian word" pesanterin; the invention of
a new Greek word ashshaph; a masking of the mistakes
as to the Chaldee of Daniel which he had repeated
from others; and the paradox, that the Aryan words,
which others have pointed to as characteristic of
the date of the Captivity, rather fit in with the time
of Epiphanes, when many of them, as they stood in
Daniel, had ceased to be understood by the West-
ern Jews.
The importance of the subject requires some sup-
plementary remarks, for the sake of those who might
be misled by confident assertions, which they are not
able to verify.
1. Greek instruments.
It being a principle now acknowledged, that the
names of articles of commerce travel with the things
themselves, there is nothing more surprising in find-
ing the names of Greek instruments of music, in the
music-loving, commercial, luxurious, Babylon, than
in finding the Sanskrit, Malabar, and Tamul names of
the elephant, ape, algum-wood, as imported by Solo-
mon, in the book of Kings". The mere mention then
of the instruments themselves yielding no evidence
as to the date of the book of Daniel, it had to be
eked out by something else. Dr Williams tries to
supply it;
b Ib. § 6. p. xxv.
c. g. Delitzsch.
d See bel. p. 26.
Dr Williams' criticisms.
XXXV
1) e kathros, cithara, guitar. "How came other books of the Bible,
even those written in Babylon [Ps.cxxxvii.], to call a harp by its
Hebrew name kinnor, and only Daniel to use the Greek word ki-
thara?"
The objection is based on a mere assumption that
the kinnor and the kithara were the same instruments.
The existence of the two Greek words, κινύρα, κιθάρα,
shews, that they were not. The Hebrews, in the
captivity, used their own instrument kinnor; Nebu-
chadnezzar had imported, with one, or possibly two
other Greek instruments, the Greek instrument which
was older than Homer, the kithara. But it is even re-
markable that, whereas of the six instruments, speci-
fied at Nebuchadnezzar's festival, three have certain-
ly Aramaic names, there is no mention of any known
Hebrew instrument. For the "horn," "keren," (com-
mon as it is in all countries) is no where in the O. T.
spoken of absolutely as the name of a Hebrew instru-
ment. In one verse only, amid the preponderating use
of the word shophar, this same instrument which had
just before been spoken of (in the plural) as shopheroth
haiiobelims, is called keren haiiobel. The Hebrew in-
struments of music are commonly counted as ten.
The exclusion of them all from this enumeration in
Nebuchadnezzar's festival fits in with the history, but
would have been very unlikely in a book, written some
centuries afterwards in Palestine.
"
2) "If this were not enough, we find the word pesanteeryn or
psanteryon, which, whether its peculiar form be certainly, or but
e Dr Williams p. xviii.
f Ps. cxxxvii must have been written
after the captivity, since it speaks of the sitting by the waters of Babylon, as
a thing in the past. Still it speaks of their hanging up their unused harps, so
they must have had them there.
« obzira ningiv Jos. vi. 4. 8. 13.
o'bar ningiw vi, 6. nii vi. 4. S. 9. 13. bis. 16. 20. ninpiwa vi. 9. "piwa vi. 5. 20,
.5 .Jos. vi קֶרֶן הַיּוֹבֵל 5
c 2
xxxvi
Corrections of
probably, connected by Gesenius with the Macedonian use of N for
L (mentioned by Gregory of Corinth) must in any case be a mo-
dification of the Greek Psalterion." Note. "The Doric use does
not exclude the Macedonian, but renders it probable; the word
Vaλrýpιov could not have come from the Dorians; for it was not a
Dorian name, but was a comparatively modern substitute for the
older name µáyadıs, which meant the lyre with some special num-
ber of strings. (See Athenæus iv. p. 636.) Dr P. must pardon this
correction, which I would have spared, if his extreme confidence
had not taken such a tone of rebuke, not sparing even S. Gregory,
a Bishop and Father, as well as a grammarian.”
1) Had Dr Williams looked into the work of Gre-
gory of Corinth to which he refers, he would have seen
that Gregory (who lived not earlier than the 12th cen-
tury, it is not known how much later i) writes of the
Doric, but says not one word of the Macedonian dia-
lect. It was not I, but one of the best Greek Scho-
lars in England, who denied the existence of any
proof that was changed into v in Macedonian. On
the other hand, the change from the l into n, in Greek
words passing into Semitic dialects, is an acknow-
ledged fact.
2) There is no trace of any such Greek word as
psanterion. Psalterion, a genuine Greek name for a
musical instrument, occurs both in earlier and later
times. Even a Doric writer, Callicratidas a Laconi-
an, has the same form psalterion'. It is true, that
Apollodorus (about B. C. 140) says, "the magadis is
what we now call psalterion," explaining the disused
name of magadis. But he does not say (what would
not have been true), that psalterion was a modern
name. For Theophrastus, 180 years before, speaks
of it as a well-known instrument; "the ilex is suited
See Smith's Biogr. Dict. v. Pardus. k See below p. 28. 1 In Stob. Tit.
85. 16. T. iii. p. 178. Gaisf. m Ath. xiv. 40. p. 637. Hist. Plant. c. 6. n. 6.
Dr Williams' criticisms.
0
xxxvii
for cross-bars for lyres and psalteries." And his mas-
ter Aristotle speaks of " triangular psalteries," con-
sequently of one kind out of several; as Juba says,
that Alexander of Cythera "Pfilled up the psaltery
with strings," perfecting a simple instrument. The
name occurs also in a saying of Themistocles (born
only twentytwo years after the accession of Cyrus),
when jeered for his want of elegant accomplishments,
"that he knew not how to tune a lyre or handle a
psaltery, but, having received a city small and in-
glorious, he had made it glorious and great.
""
It was this familiar instrument in the time of The-
mistocles, which is represented on the sculptures of
Nineveh, and whose present Semitic name Santer, &c.
is an abridgment of the Pesanterin of Daniel¹.
3. Symphonia or Siphonia. If there were any evi-
dence that the Greek word ovμpwvía was ever used of a
single instrument, I would gladly have accepted the
explanation. It would then have fallen under the
same principle as the others, that the name of the mu-
sical instrument travelled with the instrument itself.
No Greek scholar, however, of England or Germany
admits this. I was therefore obliged to fall back up-
on the very possible Semitic etymology suggested by
Fürst.
To these Greek names of instruments, Dr Williams
adds a Greek word, of his own invention.
"'s What shall we say of Ashaphim, the wise men or diviners?
In the comparatively modern colluvies, called Syriac, the word has
been adopted out of Daniel. No Semitic warrant for it approaches
within ages the time required for a precedent, unless any one chooses
to make it a dialectic variation of the Hebrew Cashaph. Ashaph, I
suspect, can only be sophos."
• Problem. c. 18. n. 23. P Ath. iv. 81. p. 183. c.
See below p. 33.
$ p. xix.
Plut. Them. c. 2.
xxxviii
Corrections of
Dr Williams afterwards turns this suspicion into
certainty;
"Nor even that Greek words, and those not merely musical names
[names of musical instruments], defy all attempts to explain them
away;
""
and yet he does not himself attempt to point out any
other Greek word in Daniel, except this of Ashshaph,
besides the two (or, as he thinks, three) musical in-
struments.
""
The criticism, on which he rests this "suspicion,
is wrong on both sides. For 1) there is (what he
denies) a certain Aramaic etymology of Ashshaph;
2) There is no pretext for suspecting Ashshaph to be
a Greek word.
ers.
1) Ashshaph, it appears, was one who used incanta-
tions. The name is employed especially of those, who
by their voice charmed serpents ". It is so common a
word in Syriac, that it is even used to explain ano-
ther word, lochoosho, which is identical with the Hc-
brew lachash, the low sharp voice, used by such charm-
This agrees with the meaning of the word,
asheph, as given by the accurate Syriac lexicographer,
Bar Bahlul", "blew." This sense is connected with
other Semitic roots, as nashaph, nasham, shaaph, Heb.;
nasapha², Arab. vi. viii. "speak low, secretly," whose
meaning, though unconnected with the rest of the
root in Arabic, reappears in nasipho, "clandestine
conversation, a secret, a thing hidden." (Kam.) This
then is transferred to incantation, in the same way as
t P.
u Bar Bahlul. "It is used for énaoidds Ecclus. xii. 3, and in
xxxiii.
2 Chron. xxxvii. 6, quoted in Didasc. Apost. 28, 14, and for oiwviors in Rel.
Jur. 31. 11. The verb is used for énάooμev in Clem. Rom. Rec. 137. 3." Dr P.
Smith's Collectan.
* Rel. Jur. 21. 13. lochoosho stands in the text for
ashoofo, which the margin supplies.
y
asheph, i. q. alabba.” Ar.
z Dietrich in Gesenius Lex. illustrates asheph by the Arabic nasapha.
Dr Williams' criticisms.
a
xxxix
lachash Heb., lechash, Syr. Castell's Syriac lexicon
would have shewn Dr Williams, that the Syriac word
is not "adopted out of Daniel," since the verb too is
used in Syriac, but does not occur in Daniel. It
and its derivatives are, in fact, used in the best Sy-
riac authors, and any Syriac Scholar would know it
to be a genuine Syriac word.
2) Had ashshaph had ever so real a connection (which
it has not) with the root existing in Greek, Latin,
and (as Max Müller informs me) in old German and
Anglosaxon, this would have only been one of the
instances of the connection of languages. The cor-
respondence would have been in the root, not in the ac-
tual word.
On the other hand, 1) in Greek words, really adopt-
ed in Aramaic, the Greek s (as in oopòs) is always re-
presented by s, never by sh. Thus the likeness be-
tween the two words ashshaph, σopòs, amount to this,
that the word ashshaph consisting virtually of four
letters in Daniel, a. sh. sh. ph. it has one letter in
common with sophos, ph or f. 2) In the names of the
Greek instruments, Daniel retains the Greek termi-
nation, pesanterin, kathros (for kitharis.) 3) The *
is only prefixed to Greek words to facilitate the pro-
nunciation. Thus we have hy, Syr. for oxoλÌ, NO’IIN,
a See Ges. v. uns.
Dr Payne Smith furnishes me from his Collectanea,
with the instances, ashoopho, Bar Hebr. Chron. p. 175. 1. 2. p. 491. 1. 13.
S. Ephrem uses the derivative ashoophootho ii. 383. See also ab. p. xxxviii. n. u. x.
ooods, σaphs, sapio, stand connected in Liddell & Scott's Lex.
“In An-
glosaxon too safa is, thought, mind, intellect;' in old German, sefjan is to
"understand." Max Müller.
с
a Mr Desprez says, "To those [Greek words] may be added ashaphim,
astrologers, a word resembling of ropol of the Greeks, and which, it is said
[wrongly], has no derivation in Chaldee." p. 16. Mr D. overlooks that ashshaph
occurs in the singular in Dan. ii. 18, and so the ash could not be accounted
for; but further, although in Lexica some few Greek words appear, in which
xl
Corrections of
for oxĥμa, for orádiov &c. on the same principle
as, in French, Escuyer (Esquire) from scutiger; Espi-
er, espy, Ital. spiare; establir, establish, from stabilire;
and our estray, (A.S. Strægan). 4) No one, who ever
read a single classical Syriac writer, as S. Ephrem,
would speak of Syriac as a "colluvies." Greek words
are very rare indeed, and almost only ecclesiastical,
in the older Syriac. They came in, (Dr Payne Smith
tells me,) with the translation of so much Greek Theo-
logy by, and in the time of, S. James of Edessa in the
latter half of the 7th century, and indeed of some
Greek philosophic works of Aristotle and Porphyryf;
but still more, under the Abbassida. But the great-
er part of the Greek words which disfigure Syriac
Lexica, were never used by any Syriac writers. And,
even when they receive a Syriac termination, it is
self-evident that they are Greek. No one ever could
doubt in regard to them.
The attempt to make ashshaph a Greek word belongs
to the antiquated school of uncritical criticism of
Bertholdt and his compeers, which Germany at least
has outgrown. It remains then, as before, that there
occur in Daniel the name of one Greek instrument,
which we know to have been in use at Nineveh dur-
ing the Assyrian empire, and one, or at most two,
more, in an enumeration of musical instruments, em-
ployed in a great festival. The older inventors of
Greek words in Daniel were wrong as to language
the article (¿, oi, n,) is written in combination with the word, the exact Greek
pronounciation is retained, and the words themselves were never used in Syriac.
e See Assem. B. O. i. 475. sqq.
f Ib. p. 493. ¤ Dr Payne Smith
informs me that almost all the Greek words which appear in Bar Bahlul (and
from him e.g. in Bernstein) were collected from the margins of books translated
from the Greek and were, in fact, only the Greek words themselves, which the
translator noted down, as we ourselves often place in the margin a word which it
h
Dr Williams' criticisms.
xli
and facts, but they were right in the principle, that
foreign words, which should be any proof as to the
date of a book, must be among the common words of
a language. Our French words are a perpetual me-
morial of the Norman conquest; the Persian, Chinese,
Malay, Mexican, Malabar and other names of articles
of commerce in English are indications only of the
existence of that commerce. So also as to the musi-
cal instruments. They are no more evidence that
the book of Daniel was written amid intercourse with
Greeks, than the word χρύσος in Homer, or ἅρπη in
Hesiod, prove that they lived among Phoenicians.
2. Aryan words.
"How then [i. e. since "the indigenous Babylonians of Nebu-
chadnezzar's age were of the Syro-Arabian race, at the head of
which the Bible places Chesed,"] are we to explain the occurrence
of Iranian i. e. Indo-European words in Daniel? If he equalled
the highest historical instance of longevity, it would be a strange
employment for one on the brink of the grave, first to learn Per-
sian, then to translate into it portions of his former work and the
edict of Nebuchadnezzar."
I observed, in my work, "Of all these foreign
words it may be said, that they do not enter into
the prophet's ordinary style, nor do they in any way
influence it. All of them are technical names."
There are four Aryan names of officers of state, a fifth,
gedabar, in which the termination is Aryan; three
Aryan names of articles of dress or ornaments; one
of royal food. It is grotesque to speak of the occur-
rence of these words, as involving "a translation of
portions of Daniel's former works into Persian."
It
is difficult to render exactly. "The Theological words were collected by Anan-
Jesus Bishop of Hirta, and medical words (the two chief classes) by Hhonain.”
b See bel. p. 26, Dr Williams pp. xvii, xviii.
j p.xvi. k Seep. 38.
xlii
Corrections of
is absurdly untrue. But neither is it any thing sur-
prising, that foreign names of dress should have
come into Aramaic. It occurs in every language.
The name travels with the thing. In our own me-
mory several French names of articles of dress, espe-
cially of the head, have come in, such as were either
unknown formerly or were known by their Saxon
name. In like way there is abundant analogy for
foreign names of officers. Since pechah, being pro-
bably an Aryan, certainly a foreign, name, was adopt-
ed into Hebrew, when Solomon organised his foreign
possessions; since Sagan was known to Ezekiel as a
title of Assyrian officers, perhaps of Babylonian too;
so equally may other Aryan names of officers have
been received among the Babylonians.
It
Dr Williams passes "sicco pede" over the argu-
ment, that the meaning of many of these words was
forgotten at the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, where
they would place the book of Daniel. The objection
is a paradox of his own, in which, as he had no pre-
decessors, so, I trust, he will have no successors.
is an attempt to turn against the book of Daniel an
unanswerable argument as to its genuineness, that the
knowledge of Aryan names was natural to one, living
in the proximity of Aryan nations at Babylon, but
unaccountable in a Jew, supposed to live nearly four
centuries afterwards in Palestine, when the Persian
power had passed away for a century and a half.
The Aramaic of Daniel and Ezra.
Dr Williams limits his observations to an attempt
to gloss over the errors which he adopted from Ger-
man critics, without either confessing or denying
them. His original criticism was;
Dr Williams' criticisms.
xliii
"The texture of the Chaldee with such late forms as lechon,
deen and illeen, the pronominal m and h having passed into n— re-
move all philological and critical doubt as to the age of the book."
I pointed out in answer, 1) as to con, that the two
corresponding plural suffixes, con and hon, occur in
Ezra too, hon occurring even oftener than hom, and
con occurring in the only place where it is used with a
verb. Clearly, then, that cannot be "a late form"
which occurs in the earliest Chaldee which we have,
except that of Daniel, the Chaldee of Ezra. I placed,
moreover, under fourteen heads, the results of Mr
Mc Gill's careful comparison of the Biblical Chaldee
with that of the earliest Targums, which shewed in-
vincibly a marked correspondence between the Chal-
dee of Daniel and Ezra, and a marked difference be-
tween the Chaldee of both and that of the Targums.
Mr Mc Gill's conviction, as well as my own, was that
the Chaldee of Daniel bore traces of being earlier than
that of Ezra. Dr Williams, in answer, ignores all
this discussion, and, tacitly abandoning his own state-
ment of the lateness of the form chon, insists only on
the fact that Ezra, as well as Jeremiah (in his one
Chaldee verse) used the form lehom as well as lehon,
and misled by what I had said, "that com occurs five
times in Ezra, con once," adds, "more decidedly, the
pronoun for to you, in the proportion of five times to one
throughout Ezra, is lechom iii. 4. (comp. ii. 5. 9) where-
as in Daniel it is Lechon, iii. 4."-a large way of ex-
pressing that com (not lechom) occurs 3 times in the one
decrce of Artaxerxes, and twice in a previous chapter,
the same words being repeated.
But, besides ignoring all the larger subject, Dr
Williams ignores the fact that the use of both forms
1 Essays and Rev. p. 76.
xliv
Corrections of
is an anomaly in the book of Ezra. In none of the
dialects are both forms used. The Hebrew and Ara-
bic, as I observed, have the forms with m, the West-
ern Aramaic and the Samaritan have the forms with
12. Daniel then wrote pure Aramaic in writing hon,
con. The fact to be accounted for is, that in Ezra
both forms are used, not that Daniel used one only.
But then it is only part of a fact, which runs through-
out Daniel and Ezra, that Chaldee was not so fixed
in their time, as it was at the later period of the Tar-
gumists. This used to be explained by the assump-
tion of Hebraisms in Chaldee; Mr Mc Gill shewed
that this would not account for the facts; and to this
I added, that many of those forms, which, in an ear-
lier stage of comparative philology, used to be called
Hebraisms, occur in the Samaritan Aramaic also.
2. As to Dr William's second case, which was to
prove the "lateness" of Daniel's Chaldee, den, the
simple answer was, that Daniel did not use it all, but
that Ezra as well as Daniel used the emphatic form
denah. This then was rather a distinction of both Ezra
and Daniel from the later Aramaic, that they used a
form, denah, not found in later Aramaic, and that the
later Aramaic used a form, dein, not employed by
them. As a demonstrative pronoun, "this," denah
occurs with nearly equal frequency in both, sixteen
times in Daniel, and thirteen times in Ezra, and in
both, alike, as the predicate.
"This is the dream,"
"This is the copy of the letter;" or as an adjective
"this dream," "this house." In combination with
prepositions, including, it occurs fifteen times in
Daniel, eight times in Ezra, once in Jeremiah's one
verse.
Dr Williams' criticisms.
xlv
Dr Williams, in answer, drops his original state-
ment, and confines himself to this, (which I had
pointed out,) that Ezra alone has deec and dac; but
he omits what I also pointed out, that Daniel alone has
the form dicceen, which presupposes the form deec,
from which it is lengthened. Further, Daniel alone
has the original word, da, from which deec itself (as
all philologists would agree) was lengthened; and deec
itself occurs in the Targums, only with the fuller
mode of writing which they use in dein. So then
the argument stands thus; 1) Daniel alone has da,
*7, which, in this simple form, occurs besides only in
Nasorean; in Samaritan it becomes daah, п7; in the
Targums, hada (77). 2) Daniel alone has a form, dicceen,
(127) which does not recur in any dialect. 3) Ezra
alone has the intermediate form between da and dicceen
viz. deec (17) but this occurs in the Targums, only in
the fuller forms, 71, 7, 7. 4) Daniel and Ezra alike,
and Jeremiah also, use the form denah and compounds
of denah, neither of which is used in the Targums, al-
though they use dein and adverbial compounds of dein.
3. As to the 3rd case, the anomaly to be accounted
for, is, that Jeremiah in his single Aramaic verse,
and Ezra once, use, in Aramaic, the Hebrew elleh,
"these." It was not unnatural in Hebrews, writing
Aramaic. But it was not the word, used in Aramaic
for "these" in Ezra's time; for Ezra used elleh once
only, but the four other times, in which he had occa-
sion to express "these," he employed the word illecc,
which occurs in Daniel also ten times, but which the
Targumists do not use. Four times only, Daniel uses
the same demonstrative, el, with the more ordinary
ending, illein; once, illeen.
xlvi
Corrections of
In the prevailing idiom of both, Daniel and Ezra
agree in the use of a form, unknown to the Targums;
they differ, in that Ezra once uses the Hebrew equiva-
lent, and Daniel, on the other hand, uses the termina-
tion which occurs throughout Aramaic, and was
transmitted to the writers of the Targums. Dr.
Williams thinks it makes the use clearer to tabulate
these variations. I will correct his table;
Hebrew
in Aramaic. | Ezra 4 times,
Samar. Targ.
ailein alein
Aramaic.
Jeremiah,
Daniel 10 times,
Daniel 4 times
illein
Syr.
Ezra,
illeec
once illen
holein
once each,
elleh
illein
How the use of a termination, which (as appears
both from the dialects in this and from its use in other
pronouns,) is a genuine wide-spread pronominal end-
ing, can be indicative of a later date of Daniel, be-
cause it occurs also in the Targums, I cannot imagine.
I will only add the simple statement of Gesenius,
alas! an unsuspected authority. "The paragogic
termination -- occurs also in the pronouns 12, 13, 197,
ras, ran." Thes. p. 94. But no one, who had any know-
ledge of Aramaic or its dialects would doubt about it.
These are the only criticisms of Dr Williams, which
bear upon the book of Daniel. Some other remarks
on what I had said in regard to the two prophecies
as to our Lord, "Kiss the Son," (Ps. ii.) "He shall
be called-Mighty God," [Is. ix. 6. E. V.] I will not
characterise, because they are directed against myself.
But I trust that the exhibition of them will be my
excuse for not answering hereafter anything which
Dr Williams may say about me.
In regard to the rendering of the words nashsheku
Dr Williams? criticisms.
xlvii
bar, kiss the Son, he charges me with a series of sup-
pressions of truth.
"He [I] characteristically omits to make it clear to his readers.
that Bar never elsewhere in the Old Testament means Son, except
in a late and Chaldaized postscript to the Proverbs.'
On the contrary, I distinctly said, "[Bar] occurs
once besides in the undoubted sense, son, Pr. xxxi. 2."
As to that chapter being "chaldaized," the only proof
alleged by any one, besides the word bar itself, is the
plural termination in in, which is acknowledged to
be a poetic form. One, whose authority Dr Williams
would accept, says, "In the plural, the m is a sound
very peculiar to Hebrew, since in almost all other
Semitic languages it passes into n. Yet gradually the
Aramaic in finds its way into Hebrew, yet mostly
rather as a matter of dialect and here and there in
poets, Micah iii. 12, Job iv. 2, xxiv. 22, xxxi. 10, Pr.
xxxi. 3, Lam. iv. 3, (k'tib); in prose yet more rarely,
2 Sam. xxi. 20. (k'tib.) 1 Kings xi. 33, 2 Kings xi. 13."
No one now would call Job or Micah "Chaldaized."
"That if it could, in pure Hebrew, mean Son, it would require
the article;"
On the contrary, I denied that it would require the
article, instancing, Ps. xxi. and p in this same
Psalm, and referring to the statements of Delitzsch,
Gesenius and Ewald, as to the "Phabitual omission
of the article in poetry, where it would stand in prose."
"That the Old Testament never in any place mentions the Son
in the manner of St. John, without some affix or term of limitation,
e. g. my Son, thy Son;"
I was answering objections which had been raised,
not what had not been raised. Yet bar-enash, son of
m Dr. Williams Introd. p. lxiii.
• Ewald § 177.2 a. p. 460. Ed. 7.
"Daniel &c p. 476. [p. 479 ed. 2.]
P p. 478. [p. 481. ed. 2.]
xlviii
Corrections of
is
man, Dan. vii. 13, is equally a single expression; and
Mashiach, Messiah, Dan. ix. 26, which in like way
elsewhere construed with a genitive ; and tsemach,
"branch," stands, equally without the Article, as the
name of the Messiah, Zech. iii. 8, vi. 12.
That the verb kiss, or worship, joined with Bar here, rarely
takes a case without a preposition;'
""
On the contrary, I enumerated all the constructions
in which the verb kiss occurs; and stated that, occur-
ring in all thirty one times, "in the meaning, kiss, in
seven places, besides this Psalm, the object is in the
accusative."
"and, more rarely (if 1 Sam. x. 1 be admitted as a possible in-
stance), denotes the kiss of homage without a qualifying word;"
I do not understand this criticism. The word, kiss,
including the passage, 1 Sam. x. 1, (of which Gesenius
did not doubt, Thes. p. 923,) and Gen. xli. 10, (where
also he thought it probable, that the kiss of homage is
meant) is used of homage, five times in the O. T.;
once with, "kissed him" (Baal), 1 Kings xix. 18;
once with ↳, "all the people shall kiss T," (it is
thought most probably) "on thy mouth," Gen. xli. 10;
twice with the accusative; "kiss the calves," Hos.
xiii. 2, and in 1 Sam. x. 1, Samuel "kissed him"
[Saul], after anointing him king at the command of
God. Dr. Williams ignores the real ground of the
rendering, that, except in the idiom "drawers of the
bow," (which Gesenius has rightly derived from a
different root,) pw always means "kiss," and, except
in one instance, is followed, (whether with or without
a preposition,) by the object which is kissed. That
one exception does but confirm the rule, since in it
9 See below p. 183, 4.
r See below p. 479.
Dr Williams' criticisms.
xlix
(Ps. lxxxv. 11,) two subjects are mentioned, "righte-
ousness and peace have kissed," obviously, each other.
But if in this place, as every where else, the word
means "kiss," it can only be (as Gesenius saw) the kiss
of homage; and, according to the uniform construction,
77, which follows, must be the object of that homage.
"that the ancient versions, Septuagint, Vulgate, Chaldee, Arabic,
Aquila, three at least guided by pure Hebrew, found no possibility
of a son in the verse;"
On the contrary, I mentioned all these versions
(except the Polyglott Arabic, which, as being a
translation of the LXX, does not come into account)
and I set down the renderings, not of these only but
of Symmachus also.
"that the Syriac translators, naturally misled by their own lan-
guage, first fancied Bar to mean in Hebrew what it means in
Syriac;"
22
The fact, that the Syriac translation was carefully
rendered out of the Hebrew, and, in the first instance,
without employment of the Greek versions, is in
harmony with the Syriac tradition, that it was trans-
lated by contemporaries of the Apostles. It was
manifestly translated by a Christian, of Jewish birth.
It then, which translated the words, "kiss the Son,
was no late translation, nor an after-thought; it was
probably the second translation of the Hebrew Scrip-
tures, and prior to Aquila, as well as to Symmachus
and Theodotion. "Kiss the Son" was, from the close-
ness of the two dialects, expressed by the same two
words in Syriac as in Hebrew; the idiom was the
same in both; this surely is an illustration of the
Hebrew construction, nct an evidence of a mistake by
the Syriac translator. Dr W's. argument is, in fact;
"Bar in this place cannot mean son; therefore the
d
1
Corrections of
Syriac translator must have been mistaken;" which
is "begging the question."
"that the example once set was followed by Jews and Christians
(as after our last four years' experience, it may be followed morc
largely),
The example, set by a Syriac and Christian trans-
lator, followed by Jews, who did not know the lan-
guage and could not read the character! Aben Ezra
and Kimchi indebted to the Peshito! or the Zohar, and
the mystical interpretations of the Psalms, which pro-
bably embodied præ-Christian tradition. In regard
to Christians, it is historically known that, after the
meaning of the words had been long hidden by the
use of the LXX and the Vulgate, they recovered the
meaning out of Jewish sources.
"Yet that the great Rashi, whose Hebrew shoc-latchet it would
require many Professors to unloose worthily, reverted to the pure
Hebrew so far as to give in purity of heart (be-vor levav) as the
equivalent to Bar, though he took the word worship differently,
Rashi has his historical value, especially as pre-
serving traditional interpretation. As an interpreter
of words, he ranks very low. I will quote an unsus-
pected authority, Gesenius. "It may suffice, to cha-
racterise the three first ["Yarchi i. e. Rashi or Rabbi
Solomon Ishaki, Aben Ezra, Kimchi"], "that Yarchi
is almost entirely a traditional-talmudical interpreter ;
Aben Ezra incomparably more independent, less pre-
judiced, of sounder judgment; Kimchi an able Gram-
marian and compiler.-Their value for interpretation
depends mostly on the sources which they use, viz.
tradition, Talmudic Chaldee and Arabic use of words,
and the context, and especially on the more or less
• Handwörterb. pp. xiii.
See in Schöttgen, de Mess. ad loc. ii. p. 219.
xiv. ed. Dietr.
Dr Williams' criticisms.
li
happy judgment of each, in which respect the first
place belongs to R. Jona or Abulwalid, to the so cele-
brated Yarchi only one of the last places." I have
quoted Aben Ezra, as retaining the meaning Son. I
will add, that Kimchi hesitates not about the meaning
"kiss," nor that it is the kiss of homage; nor that a
person is designated by bar; nor that that person is
the object of the kiss of homage. He himself gives
as the first sense of bar, "Son"; but the general
sense remains the same in the other renderings which
he mentions, "kiss the pure one," or, "kiss the Elect."
I will give the passage,
"Nashshekoo is like, 'and he kissed all his brethren,' (Gen. xlv.
15.) and bar is like ben. And so,
And so, "what, my son (beri), and
what, the son (bar) of my womb?" (Prov. xxxi. 2.) Or the expla-
nation is from (lebare lebab) 'to the pure of heart' (Ps. lxxiii. 1.).
And if its interpretation is 'son,' its exposition is, 'kiss that son,
whom God hath called son' as he said, 'thou art my son.' And
the meaning of 'kiss' is after the custom of the servant to kiss the
hand of his master. And if its meaning is 'pure,' the exposition
is, 'what have you to do with me? for I am pure of heart, and
there is no iniquity in me, that ye should come and fight against
me, but ye ought to kiss me and confess that I am lord by the
command of God.' And it suits to explain bar from beroo lachem
ish, 'choose you a man' after the way of, 'Saul the chosen (bechir)
of the Lord.' (2 Sam. xxi. 6.)
I may observe that Kimchi finds no difficulty as to
the omission of the article, which Dr W. states to be
so important"; nay, he even supposes that bar might
not only stand absolutely for "the Son," (which has no
difficulty as being a substantive,) but even if it were
taken as an adjective, "the pure, """ the elect."
But in prophecies which relate to our Lord, Jews,
while they remain Jews, must be under a bias, be-
u See ab. p. xlvii.
d 2
lii
Corrections of
cause they reject Him. Rashi says plainly on this
Psalm, "Our Rabbins explained the meaning of the
king Messiah; but for the literal meaning and for the
refutation of heretics [Christians] it is best to explain
it of David himself." I have often observed how
Jewish interpreters will accept the true meaning of
words, if they can evade the inference; while others
put a forced meaning on the words, if they see no
way of escaping it. Rashi avows antagonism to
Christianity, as determining his interpretation: to
others, it is the guide to their interpretation, although
they do not avow it.
"and that in Isaiah xxxiii. 7. we find in Mar, 'bitterly,' a jus-
tification for our taking Bar adverbially."
In Isaiah, mar is joined with a neuter verb, "they
shall weep;" in the Psalm, Bar is united with an ac-
tive verb, and accordingly is the object of that verb.
Kimchi, even allowing the sense "elect" or "pure,"
still saw that, in any case, it must be the object of
the verb.
"Instead of thus interpreting Hebrew by Hebrew philology or
by critical history,-
If I did not "interpret Hebrew by Hebrew phi-
lology" in rendering nashshekoo bar, "kiss the Son,"
by what did Gesenius or Fürst (not to speak of the
Zohar or Aben Ezra) interpret it, when they ren-
dered in the self-same way, or Kimchi, when he pre-
ferred it? Are they at once neglectful of "Hebrew
philology," because they join an active verb with its
object, although their rendering best fits in with the
interpretation as to the Messiah?
* The words are given in Martini Pug. Fid. f. 421. p. 527. ed. Carpz. and
are extant in MSS. See Rashi ad loc. and on Ps. 21 ed. Breithaupt.
Dr Williams' criticisms.
liii
"Our Regius Professor flies to Phoenician, in order to tell us
that Bar, a son, 'belongs to the earliest stock of the language.""
No one questions that bar might mean 'son' in
Hebrew. The passage of Proverbs leaves no doubt.
The only question raised is, whether it is an Ara-
maic word, adopted in Hebrew. And for this ques-
tion, the appeal to Phoenician is in its place. For its
exstant remains being mostly derived from countries,
with which the Hebrews did not come into contact,
the correspondence can, in such cases at least, only
result from the similarity of the language at the early
date, when the two nations were separated.
“It is a blemish which he would treat bitterly in another, that
his Phoenician instances are conjectures drawn by disputed read-
ings through the Latinisms of Plautus and Livy (the first of them
having the drawback of not being in the Manuscripts of Plautus,
which for Mebar give Mehar) or else are names, of which not one
appears to have belonged to the Mother-Country; some are Cartha-
ginian, the most probable Maltese."
Of details I will speak presently. But as to the
general question, the fact, that the words are found,
not in the Mother-Country, but in the West, is that
which gives them their special value, as evidence.
Had the inscription or names been those of Tyre or
Sidon, it might have been said, "The words may have
passed from one language to the other, at any period
of their intercourse." But since there was no inter-
course between the Hebrews and Carthaginians, to
account for the word bar migrating from the one to
the other, then it must have been part of "the original
stock of the language" of both.
Dr W. proceeds to charge me with direct falsifi-
cation, where, as he hints, there was little fear of de-
tection. He says;
liv
Corrections of
"My edition of Gesenius's Phoenicia is of Leipzig 1838. I must
presume that the Regius Professor uses a different one, unless he
took a little liberty in an out of the way region."
Had Dr Williams taken the slightest care in exa-
mining Gesenius, before making his imputation, he
would have seen, that every citation of mine from Ge-
senius is exact.
"Though Gesenius gives Bar, as one out of three explanations
of what was then supposed to be in Plautus; "
He gives it as the explanation, deservedly rejecting
others: he, as well as three other writers, whom he
quotes, advisedly retains the word bar. But were the
rendering incorrect, the evidence would be stronger
without it. For if Plautus did use the word, he must
have taken it out of the spoken language; if he did
not, then the evidence for its existence in Phoenician
is confined to the most unchanging part of a language,
Proper Names. But in all languages it happens,
that proper names often retain meanings or, when
themselves compounded, embalm words which are lost
elsewhere. Any one, ever so little acquainted with
Hebrew, knows this as to Hebrew. We are familiar
with the fact, as to our own Saxon names of persons.
or places. Proper names survive almost any changes.
"Tartessus," till it perished, attested, by its name,
the Phoenician colonization of Southern Spain; Seville
and Malaga do so still; the Guadalquivir is a mc-
morial still of the Arab conquest. The Phoenician
names, in which "Bar" occurs, lived on, even if the
word itself ceased out of common use.
y Gesenius had deliberately preferred the reading of the editio princeps,
(which, of course, represents a MS.) mebar, to that of the three MSS,
mehar (Ges. Phon. p. 365.) It appears from the palimpsest, which A. Mai
collated, that the Punic text in Plautus had been variously corrupted, and a
single MS. which gives a good sense, is preferable to three, whose reading
admits of none.
Dr Williams' criticisms.
lv
"and though he interprets Carthaginian and Maltese names, some
of them, as Bomilcar, not very probably, by the same clue;
I distinguished those names which I thought to be
able and probable conjectures of Gesenius, from those
of which the word Bar was visibly a component part.
Of the first I said, "Gesenius also explains by it
the names &c;" among them, Bomilcar. Of the
other class no other interpretation can be given,
Barmelech, Barmokaros, or Berminas.
"he vouchsafes to bar no place in his Phoenician vocabulary
(p. 348.), but gives, as the native inscriptions 'sexcenties,' Ben as
the word for 'son.""
In his "Phoenician vocabulary," (so to call it) Ge-
senius does give bar a place, both by itself, and as en-
tering into Proper Names. The list, to which Dr
Williams refers, is limited to such Phoenician words,
as have been found on inscriptions and coins. Gese-
nius entitles it, "aremains of the Phoenician language
from inscriptions and coins." Yet here too, Bar has a
place in a Proper Name, Bar Melech, which occurs in
an Inscription, as I had quoted it. The use then of
bar and ben in Hebrew and Phoenician corresponds:
ben is, in both, the common word; bar, the rarer.
Barmelech, Barmokaros, Berminas, bear testimony,
that bar, son, was an old received word in the language
of the people, to which they belong. The fact, that
ben is (as it is in Hebrew) the common word for son in
the inscriptions, and that also in the inscription, in
which Bar Melech occurs, only the more illustrates
the antiquity of the form bar in the proper names,
of which it forms a part. For at the date of the in-
scriptions, it had ceased out of the ordinary language.
p. 470-475.
Gesen. p. 105.
a p. 346-357.
b
"Hannibal ben Barmelech,
lvi
Corrections of Dr Williams' criticisms.
Lastly, Bar Melech is not "a Maltese name," but
the name of a Phoenician, mentioned on a Phoenician
inscription, found at Malta. Malta was a Phoenician
colony; its name "Melite "" is itself Phoenician. It
came into the hands of the Carthaginians. The date
of the inscription is unknown; but, whereas the mo-
dern Maltese is an African Arabic, the inscription is
Phoenician.
In regard to Is. ix. 6, Dr Williams again ignores
the points at issue. I pointed out three facts, 1) that,
in the next chapter, x. 21, no one does or could ques-
tion that el gibbor means mighty God; but even a merc
human writer, who wished to be understood, would
not use the same idiom in two different senses, in two
following chapters; much less would the same title be
used of God in one chapter, of a mere man in the other.
2) That el, occurring absolutely in Hebrew 225 times, is
in every such case used of God only. 3) (after Gese-
nius) that "el is specially used in union with adjectives,
as an attribute of God." 4) That in one place only
(Ezek. xxxi. 11) el is used relatively, in its first appella-
tive sense, "The mighty of the nations." I should have
added that, according to Norzi, "the oldest editions
and most accurate MSS have cil, not el, (as I observed
as to the plural in Ez. xxxii. 21, that 23 MSS [and the
three oldest editions] have cilei.) This then would be
a different form, perhaps from a different roots. All
these facts as to the idiom Dr W. ignores, and answers
that gibbor, by itself, means "mighty," which no one
ever questioned; and refers to the two passages of Eze-
kiel, where cil, eilei are used relatively, and to another
plural idiom, benei eclim, (Ps. xxix. 1, lxxxix. 7.) which,
c Diod. v. 12.
מליטה d
f See De Rossi Varr. Lectt, ad loc.
Ausf. Lehrb. p. 380. ed. 7.
C
© p. 483. [pp. 486, 7. ed. 2.]
Any how, from . Ewald
Answer to Dean Stanley.
lvii
being plural, is beside the question of the use of the
singular, El, God.
I will add one word of personal explanation. On
two occasions, I believe, in my life I have purposely
used strong words in regard to those of whom I was
writing. The one was in the Preface to the first edi-
tion of this Volume. Dr Stanley has thus noticed it;
❝h The Oxford Professor of Hebrew will forgive me for referring
to his recent works, especially his book on Daniel the Prophet, for
expressions, which he has used doubtless from a sense that they
best answer the purpose for which they are employed, the unspar-
ing personal invectives, the frequent imputations of dishonourable
motives to his opponents, the extreme consequences and disastrous
conclusions which he draws from their arguments, the solemn ad-
jurations by which he invokes popular aid against them."
I do not remember ever "imputing" any "dis-
honourable motives to any opponents" nor "using
solemn adjurations in invoking public aid against
them." But Dr Stanley has seen rightly that I
used that "strong language," not as matter of feeling,
but deliberately, for an object which I had in view.
I will here, in a preface to the book of Daniel, only
explain the language of my former Preface. I used
it, in order (as far as in me lay) to disabuse the Eng-
lish mind. We, English, idolise our favourite vir-
tucs. As a nation, we excuse much in those whom
Fraser's Magazine No. 422, p. 266. The article, I understand, is in the main
a paper read by Dr Stanley at a meeting of Clergy at St. James' Rectory.
i Dr Stanley doubtless meant that I addressed my Preface to the "Case as
to the legal force of the judgment of the Privy Council,” “to those who love
God and His truth;" but it was an appeal for an amendment of a Court, not for
"aid against" any one. In like way, the appeal to the Clergy" for the love of
God," to sign a declaration of the truths which had been denied, had for its
object the solemn reaffirmation of those truths. It also was not directed against
any one, nor had any other bearing upon the Judicial committee (which is not
mentioned in it) than that it united the Clergy in affirming the faith, which
the Judicial Committee had denied.
lviii
Answer to
we believe to be open and courageous. The writers
of the Essays and Reviews had gained that character
very cheaply. Those who did not examine their
language carefully, thought them bold, because they
spoke against the received belief. They took it for
granted, that they who so wrote risked something.
The event shewed that they risked nothing. They
gained an adscititious interest to their writings by
the undeserved reputation for courage. And there-
fore I pointed out, that this apparent courage was but
real cowardice, that they insinuated disbelief or mis-
belief, which they dared not openly state. I staked
my reputation against their's, having well and care-
fully weighed their words, that either I was a false-
accuser, or that they had, without risk to themselves,
taught unbelief of central Christian truth. Had they
not gained that spurious reputation, I should, in de-
fending God's truth, have felt or expressed only sorrow
for those who had lost it. This is my abiding feel-
ing towards them. This is my prayer for them, that
they may recover the truth which they have lost. It
is consistent to grieve over the individual and to
condemn his act; the love of God and man may re-
quire both.
As for "drawing extreme consequences &c," this
is simply a question of fact, about which those who
believe God-given truth, and those, to whom all is
alike matter of opinion, must needs differ.
It is not I, alas; they are facts, relating to human
souls, which shed this mournful light over the effects
of that teaching, which, in that it would make every
thing to be matter of opinion, in fact denies any reve-
lation at all. For revelation must involve the certain-
Dr Davidson's criticisms.
lix
ty of that which is revealed. The effects of that teach-
ing, which Dr Stanley so defends, and for which, in
contrast with the old faith, he augurs such certain
victory, it requires but eyes to see. I should have
thought that the absolute and entire loss of faith in
all revelation, among many of the younger disciples
of his school, must have opened his eyes. It is again
Semler's scepticism, developed in the unbelief of
Bahrdt. May a brighter light and the effluence of
God's Holy Spirit dissipate that darkness visible, in
which men are so hopelessly blind, because they
think that they see.
* See Dr Wordsworth in Replies to Essays and Reviews pp. 490 sqq.
S. ANDREW'S DAY 1865.
P. S. Having noticed Dr Williams' retort, I have
almost entailed on myself the necessity of noticing
that of Dr Davidson and another stricture, which
have appeared in the interval of two years, since the
above has been in type. Dr Davidson's was, in self-
defence, necessary to him; the other seems to me
strangely gratuitous.
i. I made my statement as to Dr Davidson as mild-
ly as I could. His book was quoted and praised, as
a
See ab. Pref. pp. xiii, xiv. I repeated the statement in the Eirenicon p. 13.
I have not compared Dr Davidson's translation of Fürst's lexicon with the
original; but his rendering of Fürst's translation of a well-known Talmudic
phrase you, "folgerichtig, treu, ist N. in bezug auf seine meinung,”
i. e.“ N. (any given person) is consistent, true, in regard to his opinion," by, “a
noun is consistent, true, with relation to its meaning," implies a strange bold-
ness in translating what he did not understand. Overlooking or not knowing,
that stands for no, "any given person," represented by "N." (as in old
Latin and English books) he must have supposed N. to stand for "Nennwort,”
"noun," and then rendered "meinung" by "meaning," making the whole
senseless.
lx
Correction of
against the authenticity of certain parts of the O. T.;
and I therefore stated so much of the bare facts, as
should reassure mere English readers, 1) that his
work, being only a reproduction of rationalist German
arguments which he either re-wrote or translated,
added nothing to the existing stock of arguments
against the genuineness of books of Holy Scripture, or
the truthfulness of the miracles or prophecies therein.
2) I impugned his knowledge of Hebrew, and pointed
out two blunders, which would not have been com-
mitted by a candidate for our University Hebrew
Scholarships, being errors as to the elements of He-
brew Grammar. Dr Davidson denies the fact
which I stated as to the chief sources of his book,
and retorts the charge of ignorance. I made, before,
no charge of plagiarism against Dr Davidson. Since
he denies the fact, I will say how I arrived at it.
My guide to it lay, singularly enough, in Dr David-
son's own book. He nowhere acknowledged his
obligations. I learnt, in the first instance, the
source from which he borrowed, by verifying some
statements of his, that he did not agree with such or
such a German critic in some subordinate detail.
I employed the clue which I had thus lighted upon,
in other cases, and I invariably found in the author
from whom he expressed dissent in the note, the
main body of the arguments, which stood in the
text as if they were his own, and the Hebrew words,
which serve to give a colour of learning to them.
In regard to Dr Davidson's knowledge of Hebrew,
the answer which he had to make, if he made any,
was to shew that I had somehow mistaken him.
His way of charging ignorance against myself, only
Dr Davidson's criticisms.
lxi
shews that he is angry; it does not help to rehabili-
tate his own claim to knowledge.
His criticisms, which he thinks might be easily
multiplied, (and such criticisms might be multiplied
ad libitum) are ↳
b
-is said to be a simple sentence, stat ויהי דניאל עד שנת אחת לכורש המלך (1
ing that 'Daniel continued through the whole residue of the Baby-
C
lonian Empire "."
"
66 up
This rests on the well-known meaning of
to," "
usque,” “bis zu,'
""bis auf" like the Arabic
nn, as distinct from, which does not necessarily
signify more than direction "towards." It signifies
that the thing spoken of reaches to the term desig-
nated by .
"Until the morning" "until this day"
"until the evening" could not be said of anything
which did not reach to those terms, "morning,"
"evening," "the very day." So then the statement,
that "Daniel was till the first year of the king Cyrus,"
involves that he was up to that time, i. e. "through
the whole residue of the Babylonian empire," which
was terminated in that year by the conquest of Cyrus.
If we were to say of one who lived at the Restora-
tion, that "he was till the first year of William and
Mary," we should mean that he lived through the
Stuart Dynasty; if we said of one high in office un-
"Preface written for the English edition of Fürst's Hebrew Lexicon."
The publishers having courteously excluded the Preface, not thinking a
translation of a Hebrew Lexicon to be a fit vehicle for such a personal attack,
it has been circulated separately.
I do not understand the first clause which follows, "thus manifesting
ignorance of two points equally clear to tyros; first, that in whatever way "
is taken, whether by itself was, i, e. ‘existed, lived,' or, as closely connected with
y, was until, continued to,' the expression is contrary to Hebrew usage."
For Dr D. himself does not pronounce the text corrupt, and the construction
is exactly that of Jer. i. 3, except that there the subject is "the word of the
Lord,” here, a human being.
lxii
Correction of
der Louis xviii. that "he was till the first year of Na-
poleon iii.," we should mean that he passed through
the changes of the Bourbon and Orleans dynasties.
Or when Jeremiah says, "And it [the word of the
Lord] was () in the days of Jehoiakim King of
Judah, until (y) the end of the eleventh year of
Zedekiah, until () the carrying away of Jerusalem
captive in the fifth month," he does not mean to deny
that the word of God came to him afterwards, as we
know that it did. He simply says that he prophe-
sied during all that eventful period, without saying
any thing of what lay beyond.
ער
With regard to what lay beyond that term, the idiom
expresses nothing whatever; it does not, by the force
of the expression, either include it or exclude it.
One set of interpreters have wished, on doctrinal
grounds, to include the term beyond; others, on an-
ti-doctrinal grounds, to exclude it. It does neither.
Gesenius says very fairly, "When Noldiuss, "p. 534,
and the Commentators on Ps. ii. 11, maintained that
y includes the time beyond the term, this is so far
incorrect, as they maintain that this lies in the lan-
guage and the expression; but in the matter spoken of,
in several places (Gen 28, 15. Ps. 110, 1. 112, 8. Comp.
ews 1 Tim. ii. 13.) it does plainly lie just as clearly,
that the time beyond the term is not to be excluded."
This is all which any sound interpreter needs, and
what I have taught, so long as I have taught Hebrew,
near 40 years. To say then, that I "shew ignorance"
of "a point clear to tyros" that "ify here does not ex-
c Ib. xlii. 4. sqq.
f See also Thes. pp. 992.
d Jer. i. 3.
g Noldius subjoins the right explanation, "y in such wise marks the term
interposed, as not to deny or exclude that which follows."
Dr Davidson's criticisms.
lxiii
clude the time beyond that, up to which it specifies, it
does not certainly include it," is a simple calumny.
The error began with assailants. Marcellus rested
his misbelief as to our Lord's kingdom coming to an
end, on the inference from the words, Ps. 110, 1.;
others denied the perpetual virginity of the Bl.
Virgin, on the ground of the words S. Matt. i. 25;
some mistakenly met the erroneous assertion that
the period beyond was excluded, by the equally erro-
neous assertion that it was included. But criticism
has long seen that such supports of truth are needless
as well as groundless. The right principle was laid
down so far back as St. Gregory of Nazianzum ¹
"This mistake thou hast fallen into, from not know-
ing that ews, 'until,' is not altogether opposed to the
future. It lays down what is up to that point; but,
what is beyond that point, it does not deny. Or
how, not to mention the rest, will you understand
that, 'I will be with you to the end of the world ?'
as though after this He would not be (with us)."
h
“A beginner ought to know that anan (Hos. viii. 13) is not an in-
tensive form from am."
Yet Kimchi, who was no "beginner," renders it,
ma, "my gifts" which involves its being derived from
, and, if from 2, then it can only be an intensive
הבהבי
ויהב
ניהכהני
form, anan for anan, as Gesenius took it, who was also
no "beginner." I had weighed the other renderings,
but preferred this.
"That the poetical form any is not an 'intensive' one, meaning
'mighty salvation.""
What is it then, and why was it used? We are
Orat. 30. n. 4. p. 542. Ben.
lxiv
,אימתה, עזרתה, ישועתה
Correction of
beyond the elementary stage of criticism, when it was
thought explanation enough to call a form "poetic."
Why did the sacred poets use that form? To call it
simply "poetic" by way of explanation, is about as
philosophic, as when the "Bourgeois Gentilhomme"
imparted to his wife his newly acquired knowledge,
that she was "speaking prose." For "all which is
prose is not verse, and all which is not verse is prose."
Gesenius, Ewald, Fürst notice that these fuller forms,
Anyw, Anny, Ano's, are poetic; but poetry in the O. T. is
bound down by no laws of measure, which should re-
commend a more lengthened form. The form itself is
evidently a reduplication of the fem. termination, so
that one wonders how some critics, in the infancy of
the comparison of the dialects, could have thought it
identical with the "Status emphaticus" of Syriac,
i. e. the article. Gesenius, having followed at first
our Castle, &c. in so explaining it, hesitated about
it afterwards. Ewald, and Fürst, in two places',
think as I do. Ewald says in his positive way, "m I
that the above passages admit of no
other view." But the question recurs, why was the
reduplication used in these places? It is in har-
mony with its use elsewhere, and with the passages
themselves, to think it to be intensive. Prof. Lee
first, I think, pointed out the emphatic use of the 7
i The objections lie on the surface. 1) That it is wholly un-Hebraic, the
Hebrew article being prefixed to the word, 2) that in Jer. xi. 15.
the Heb. Article occurs.
still maintain,
.זאתה
Lehrgebaüde § 127. p. 545.
אימה
1 V. 70's and 10, "with ah appended, appia, which may be looked upon
as a poetically-doubled feminine-ending, as ɔ, anyw', annıy, anby, nnoy,
." In other places he calls it an "unaccented appended a," which is a fact,
but explains nothing. Gesenius calls it, in anby, any “the poet. Demonstr.;”
in, "the dem. ; " else," he paragogic;" which equally explains nothing.
m Ausf. Lehrb. p. 448, note 1, ed. 7.
Dr Davidson's criticisms.
lxv
appended to verbs, (which Gesenius still held to be
meaningless") and I think Lee was right. He-
brew poetry has more energetic forms. No other
explanation has been attempted.
"and that is not a collective,"
(
↳
Opinions differ. Gesenius thought that the was
a diminutive, which to me seemed peremptorily ex-
cluded by the fact, that the Name Carmel was given
to the well-known great fruitful Promontory. Die-
trich, on the contrary, says, "in, the is rather
magnifying; comp. the idiom, according to which it
is used for fruitful land,' (gefild) as the transforma-
tion of wastes and mountains, and the Proper Name
of a great Promontory." Ewald agrees with this in
substance; " wineland, i. e. fruitland, from ¤¬ɔ,
which, smaller, signifies a single vineyard." He re-
gards the l as being probably a softer pronunciation
of the n which forms abstracts or adjectives. His
explanation coincides with what I meant when I said
"bon is probably a collective from it [o]."
66
,כרם
The two remaining statements rest, the one on
what I did not say, the other, on a perversion of
what I did say ".
。 “Blunders of this sort, and they are numerous, extending even
to the attributing of a signification with power over' to the pre-
position itself, are only too consistent with the character of the
professor whose critical knowledge of Hebrew is in an inverse ratio
to the tenacity of his traditionalism."
ואחרון על עפר יקום ,I translated the words of Job
"The
last, He shall arise upon the dust;" I observed that
n On Gesen. Handwörtb. lit. ↳ p. 438. ed. 6.
p. 424. ed. 7.
e
° Ausf. Lehrb. 163. g.
lxvi
קום
Correction of Dr Davidson's criticisms.
,יקום על עפר this ; and as to the words
Dp with by signifies "arise against," not, "with power
over;" but I said that "no doubtful interpretation
of words could alter the essential meaning;" and I
gave accordingly double renderings, to illustrate
I gave two para-
phrases, "in manifestation of the Redeemer at the
end with power whether 1) on the earth or 2) over
his own [Job's] body specially." It is plain, that the
"manifestation with power," in my mind, lay in the
word p; 2) that this was the rendering which I did
not myself adopt; and 3) if I had adopted it, I should
have ascribed the meaning "with power over" not
to by alone, but to the whole phrase by pp, after the
analogy of by hwn &c., but that I did not adopt it, be-
cause, though possible, it was not an ascertainable
יקום
קום על use of the idiom
"Titles and offices do not confer knowledge, else the R. Prof. of
Heb. would not say, in defiance of facts, that does not, of itself,
signify without."
P
מן
6
I said " can no more, of itself, mean without'
than our preposition 'from.' Where we might ren-
der 'without,' the meaning is gained from the con-
text." But, contrariwise, where the context indi-
cates a place, there to say that signifies "without,"
is as unidiomatic and unnatural, as if, in English,
it were to be ruled, that "I saw from," meant “I
saw without.” The obvious rendering is," I said,
"from out of my flesh,' as the Versions shew."
66
מן
66
ii. Dr. Davidson, justly mistrusting the weight of
his own name, has appealed to Ewald, to back up
P See below pp. 508, 9.
9 See Ges. Thes. p. 1026.
* Mr Mc Gill has kindly furnished me with the following statement about
Mr. McGill on Kuenen's attack on Daniel. lxvii
his allegation against my knowledge of Hebrew. I
have ever respected Ewald's marvellous combination
of talent, and that philosophical acuteness whereby,
as he says, 66 as a youth of 19," he laid the foun-
יכו
Kuenen's Dutch contribution to the attacks on Daniel in his "Historisch-
kritisch Onderzoek naar het Ontstaan en de Verzamelung van de Boeken des
Ouden Verbonds." "His arguments, especially in regard to history and in-
terpretation, are for the most part the same as those you have already refuted.
In regard to the language they are somewhat peculiar. He says, 'along with
D (Ezr.) we find also in Daniel.' This is a misstatement. The article
in Gesenius' Thesaurus is incorrect. The former is altogether peculiar to Ezra,
and the latter alone is found in Daniel. He adds, 'But our knowledge of the
developement of the Jewish-Aramæan language is not accurate enough to en-
able us to decide as to the priority of either form. Yet every Scholar, who has
any acquaintance with Chaldee literature, knows that the pronominal forms
were shortened by time; that was gradually dropped at a later period even
from the suffixes ¡' and pɔ', which in the Babyl. Talm. are regularly ' and
And this is only one of many examples. So also in the second person
with participles and pronouns in the combined forms, and even in the preter-
ite, the Targumic n is only an in the Talmud. The only new argument is
derived from the orthography of Nebuchadnezzar's name. 'It is also worthy
of notice that the well-known king of the Chaldeans in Daniel, even in the
pretended edict Chap. iii. 31-iv. 34, is throughout called Nebuchad-Nezzar:
but it is perfectly certain that the original form is Nebuchad-Rezzar, as in the
writings of Jeremiah, and also in the Persian Inscriptions of Darius Hystaspis
(Spiegel, die Altpers. Keilinschr. S. 10. sqq.). How then can the younger
form occur in anything written by Daniel, the contemporary and Minister of
the king? Is not this even in itself a decisive proof of the later origin of
the Book?' A similar argument appears in his introduction to Jeremiah,
where he pronounces against the genuineness of Jer. xxvii-xxix, among
other reasons, on the ground that the form Nebuchadnezzar occurs 8 times
in them, Jer. xxvii. 6, 8, 20, xxviii. 3, 11, 14, xxix. 1-3, and Nebuchadrezzar
once only, xxix. 21, whereas the form Nebuchadn. occurs twice only besides
in Jeremiah, xxxiv. 1, xxxix. 5, and Nebuchadr. 25 times, viz. xxi. 2. 7,
xxii. 25, xxiv. 1, xxv. 1, 9, xxxii. 1. 28, xxxv. 11, xxxvii. 21, xxxix. 1, 11,
xliii. 10, xliv. 30, xlvi. 2, 13, 26, xlix. 30, 1. 17. li. 34. lii. 4. 12, 28, 29, 30.
I too have no doubt that—Rezzar is indeed the original form, and that R was
softened into N (a liquid like itself) that it might harmonise better with
the dental D. But such a convenient softening (to which there are many
analogies), must have occurred in the life-time of the king when his name
was in every one's mouth; not at a much later period when, under a totally
different dynasty, the only cause which could produce the change was no
longer in operation. The Jewish fabricator of a 'pretended' edict would
have been careful to use the original and rugged form, which had not only
been preserved in the writings of heathens, but even had been so frequently
e 2
lxviii
Answer to
dation of the scientific treatment of Hebrew Gram-
mar, which he has since continued. But then too,
naturally, eagerness in the defence of a master whom
he admired, Eichhorn, led him to take pleasure in
contradicting Gesenius, while the veteran Gesenius
treated with consideration and respect his able, eager,
and youthful critic. But Ewald has, I have under-
stood, had less influence than he otherwise would have
had, even with his own countrymen, on account of
the dictatorial tone which he assumes towards all
who differ from him. He has, I am told, tolerated
no contradiction, and when asked, how he came to
make some assertion so positively, said that he knew
used in Jeremiah that we cannot possibly suppose him ignorant of it." Je-
remiah himself has yet a third variation, Nebuchadrezzor (-), which is borne
out (as not being a mere variation of MSS) by the Chethibh in Ezr. ii. 1, Ne-
buchadnezzor; which is, itself, a fourth variation. Ezra has the form with n five
times, i. 7, ii. 1, v. 12, 14, vi. 5. the last in a decree of Cyrus. Daniel and
Ezra also agree in using a contracted form, omitting the unpronounced &,
which looks the more as if they wrote the name as it was pronounced,
not according to its etymology. The form with n occurs also six times in
the second book of Kings (xxiv. 1. 10, 11, xxv. 1. 8, 22.) which no one holds
to have been compiled, later than the latter part of the captivity; accord-
ingly, by a contemporary of Daniel. On the other hand five of the instances
of the form within Jeremiah occur in c. lii.,which some of these critics would
have to be taken from the book of Kings. It is manifest then, that the
use of the form Nebuchadnezzar, which occurs in a contemporary of Daniel,
cannot be a proof that the book was not written by the prophet. The
variation shews also that there cannot have been any such marked line
between the two pronunciations, as this argument would suppose. The
variations in orthography of proper names in our own language, at one and
the same time, might shew us the worthlessness of such speculations. I
am not satisfied with any etymology which has been attempted for the
kuduri in the name Nabu-kuduri-uzur; the last member is certainly
preserve." Mr Mc Gill consequently suggests that the form with n might
have come in the more readily, as being the first radical of 7; that the termina-
tion with o and a, zor, zar, are variations, according as the word was affect-
ed or no by the "; and that the original form was probably 3 771, the middle
word reappearing in the name 77. This is the more probable, since the
› is retained in the Imp. 3 in the four places in which it occurs, as well as
in the form with parag. and with the Suffix, Ps. cxli. 3. Prov. iv. 13.
Ewald's criticisms.
lxix
it "by the Holy Ghost," whatever he meant under
that name. I have manifoldly contradicted him, and
have, of course, fallen under his displeasure.
The occasion of the censures, which Dr. Davidson
has elicited and translated, has no interest purely
Theological. But it has a deep human interest.
For if Ecclesiastes is Solomon's, as used to be uni-
versally believed, it is evident that that man of ear-
ly promise and piety and that wonderful wisdom,
still proverbial through the East, after he had tasted
all the pleasures of this world, its glory and its wis-
dom, and had, through them, fallen from God, Whom
in youth he had so reverenced, repented and died
in the grace of God. The old belief that Ecclesiastes
was Solomon's, is a comfort, as a token of the mercy
of God towards him.
S
As to the critical question itself, it is a curious in-
stance of the prejudices of that former wild stage of
German Hebrew criticism, that a later criticism has
laid aside almost every ground, upon which the earli-
er rested. I have pointed out that Herzfeld, al-
though imagining, (chiefly on an anti-doctrinal pre-
judice as to the belief in a future state contained
therein) that Ecclesiastes was written after the cap-
tivity, swept away most of the rubbish, theretofore
alleged against it.
The ground being thus narrowed, the evidence that
I am incompetent to judge of Ecclesiastes, and
so of Daniel too, is limited to five words, which I
hold it to be nothing surprising that Solomon should
have known and used. The whole question is not
philological, but historical. We know the wide in-
• See below p. 327.
lxx
Answer to
tercourse, which Solomon had in all directions, the
Malabar, Sanskrit, Tamul names of foreign animals,
ivory, costly wood, imported by Solomon; and the
long-questioned name of Ophir, whence his gold came
to him, has been identified by more accurate know-
ledge of Indian Geography. We know also that So-
lomon reigned over the Aramæan tribes this side of
the Euphrates that he possessed, at least, one chief
passage of the Euphrates, Thapsacus, and we find a
title of tributary governors (Pechah) which can only
be explained by aid of Sanskrit and Zend; we know
also, alas! of the strange wives who turned away his
heart, Moabitesses, Ammonitesses, Edomitesses, Zido-
nians and Hittites, (of whom those of Moab and Am-
mon came from the border-land between Hebrew and
Aramaic; the Hittites probably spoke Aramaic). We
know also of his converse with the Queen of Sheba,
which implies the knowledge of the then Arabic or
Ethiopic. For certainly, amid all the wisdom of Solo-
mon, it is more probable that he was acquainted with
Arabic than she with Hebrew; and the idea that there
was an interpreter between them, would imply even a
more advanced stage of political intercourse. Many
Germans, amid their acknowledged learning, research,
power of combination, are but bad appreciators of the
weight of evidence, of which our English education
and our practical English character prepares us to
judge. To me, it seems a surpassing instance of in-
ability to appreciate evidence, that it could even be
imagined, that the existence of one word of Zend
original, of three common Aramaic words, and of one
purely Hebrew compound, could be evidence that a
book was not written by one, possessing the varied and
Ewald's criticisms.
special human knowledge of Solomon.
lxxi
German was
much Gallicised in the reign of Frederic the Great
through the Court. What marvel that Solomon's
Hebrew should have been, in a slight degree, in-
fluenced by his political or domestic circumstances?
In regard even to those words I drew attention to
the fact that the word of Zend origin, DD, was widely
spread, in that it was found in Pehlevi and Syriac,
and (on Max Müller's authority) in Armenian. The
inference was, that since it had found its way into
other languages, and, in the case of Syriac, into a
Semitic dialect, there was no such antecedent impro-
bability, that it should have penetrated to the cis-
Euphrates in Solomon's time. Ewald answers, that
no one "can take the Pehlevi for a language reach-
ing to Solomon's time," and "that the Syriac with
which we are acquainted is young." True, that we
have no knowledge of any language, out of the
Bible, of the date of Solomon. But Ewald has over-
looked the fact, that the "onus probandi" lies upon
himself. He lays down, that Solomon could not have
known the word "pithgam." I ask, "why not?"
Exotic words were known in Jerusalem at his date,
through his commerce; the title pechah was then
known; if, as Max Müller shews not to be improbable,
the original meaning of "pithgam" was "message,"
then "word," (as we say "sent word,") there is a
ground for its penetrating, as it did, into other lan-
guages. Ewald says that no evidence reaches up to
the time of Solomon. True; but the argument tells
the other way, that we should be modest in laying
down à priori, what could not have been the condition
of language in his time, of which we have no evi
lxxii
Answer to
dence except from the books of Holy Scripture them-
selves.
עבר
עֲבָר
גומץ
כבר
In like way and are Syriac forms and recur
in Syriac. They do not occur in any remains which
we have of Eastern Aramaic, or what is called Chal-
dee. The third word, s, pointed as the Masorites.
have pointed it, b, would be compounded of two in-
compatible conditional conjunctions; as, implying that
the thing spoken of, was;, that it was not. On this
ground, I thought and think it almost certain that
the punctuation is wrong, and that it is the Syriac
word 1. ¬y moreover and ¬ seem to have been brought
into the language by the author of Ecclesiastes him-
self, as also the word po "ditch" and "ceased"; for
they exist in no other Hebrew. I also pointed out that
he uses no one word "purely Chaldee" (i. e. East
Aramaic). Now so far from this being evidence of a
later origin, it rather fits in with the circumstances.
of Solomon. Solomon, both from his empire and his
domestic life, had occasion to be familiar with West-
Aramaic; and, in fact, there are words, and one form
of West-Aramaic, but not one form or word peculiar
to East-Aramaic, with which we have no account of
his intercourse. But the Hebrews in the Captivity
were in continual intercourse with East-Aramaic,
and had none with the West. In the Captivity
then we should have expected exactly the reverse,
that there should have been words peculiar to East-
Aramaic, and none peculiar to the West. The Ara-
maic words then of Ecclesiastes (as far as they go)
suit the time of Solomon, not that of the Captivity.
The only other evidence alleged by Ewald is the
Hebrew compound-conjunction pa; and, as Ewald
Ewald's criticisms.
lxxiii
disdains any other argument than his personal au-
thority, I must still say, that I am at a loss to ima-
gine why, since we have, throughout Hebrew, the con-
junctions, -, 1-, a similar compound, 122, "it
being thus," should be any evidence of any date
whatever. And for the word, on the ground of my
explanation of which Ewald pronounces so perempto-
rily upon my knowledge of Hebrew, I can only sup-
pose that he did not understand my English.
He says,
"behold,"
[it occurs 4
"But when he [I] tells us that by is identical with
(which is once interchanged in Daniel ii. 31 with
times in Daniel, ii. 31, iv. 7, 10, vii. 18.] according to a recognised
transference of language,) he betrays so complete, and I must say so
gross ignorance of all and every kind of philology, as well as of his-
torical knowledge, that one is ready to suppose he could never have
been appointed Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford."
Of course, so pointed, could not be identical with
To maintain this, would have been not ignorance
only, but absurdity. The consonants of the two
words are identical; the punctuation has been a
puzzle to others. I thought and think that by is
pointed wrongly. People depart very freely from
Hebrew punctuation; I do so, slowly; believing it
to be a valuable tradition. Gesenius too held that
the Hebrews was the same as hy in Syriac, in
Samaritan; but then, since no one thinks that either
in Syriac or Samaritan it is compounded, why are we
to be so certain that in Hebrew it should be this
strange compound and not a simple form? We have
in the Hebrew of the Bible, Targg. ; in the Targg.
we have also bb, "unless." Why these words should
not be the Syriac words,, with which they coin-
cide in orthography, I am at a loss to guess. Ge-
senius and Buxtorf too held it supposable, that the
lxxiv
Answer to Ewald's
ארו
was an adscititious letter, in which case it would
have been pointed as I proposed, b. They too did
not think it necessarily a compound. Further,
Gesenius thinks it more probable that the Ch.
(Dan. ii. 31.) should have been softened from N
(Dan. vii. 5, 6.), than that should have been hard-
ened from; and this, on the common principle that
the, is more commonly softened into 5, than converse-
ly. The special objection founded on the word
that it was a "later compound." In Eccl. vi. 6, Esth.
vii. 4, it signifies simply "if," as it does in Aramaic
and Samaritan. I supposed then, and suppose it to
be the same word. There is no ground against this,
except the punctuation, which any one abandons as
soon as it suits himt.
was,
iii. Mr Perowne's criticisms" seemed to me the
more gratuitous, because they have no bearing upon
the subject of the Book of Daniel.
Mr Perowne goes along in great measure with my
arguments. He admits the nullity of the objection
drawn from the names of Greek musical instruments;
and agrees that the Aryan words correspond with
the date of Daniel, not of the Pseudo-Daniel. He
admits that it has been made out by Mr Mc Gill,
(whose careful investigation I analysed) that the
Chaldee of Daniel and Ezra mutually correspond, and
are different from that of the Targums; only, on the
authority of Mr Deutsch, he supposes that the Targum
of Onkelos was not begun to be written till about
A.D. 200, and so 657 years after Ezra's latest Chaldee,
and 368 years after Antiochus Epiphanes B.c. 168;
-a supposition which would weaken the argument
t On 18, see further Note D under Dan. ii. 31.
"Contemporary Review Vol. i. No. 1.
and Mr Perowne's criticisms.
lxxv
from the difference between the Chaldee of Daniel
and that of the Targums, but not that from the gene-
ral agreement of the Chaldee of Daniel and Ezra.
Mr Perowne further says, "The use of the Aryan
words chiefly turns the scale on the side of the earlier
date;" and "we can admit the force of his [my] ar-
guments, so far as to think that he has shewn far more
convincingly than any one, who has yet made the
attempt, that the book of Daniel is not a late produc-
tion of the Maccabæan age, but belongs rightfully to
the age to which it was for centuries commonly
[universally, except by Porphyry] assigned."
This being so, since Mr Perowne agrees with me as
to the result, and since his criticisms do not relate
to the book of Daniel, I would gladly have passed
them by, but that one of them has negatively a theo-
logical bearing on the interpretation of the history
of the Creation. In one respect, I doubt not, that
various modern critics will censure my interpreta-
tions, and, as I think their interpretations, dry, su-
perficial, empty, so they will think mine "forced
and unnatural." The difference is this, that I think
it to be the character of Holy Scripture (as it is, in a
measure, of all deep sayings, even though human),
that it contains much more than, at first sight, ap-
pears; that it requires to be searched into, i. e. below
the surface; that it yields mines of treasure, when so
searched, which those who are content to remain on
the surface, do not see. Both the Old and New Testa-
ments have a word for this sort of "search"," this
* Mr Mc Gill has kindly put together for me the results of his reading, which
supports the old tradition of the antiquity of the Targums. See at the end.
y 177, ¿peuvâv.
lxxvi
Answer to
digging for the treasure hid in the field of Holy
Scripture, which they, who expect to find none, and
do not search, generally call by some bad name,
"fanciful," "forced," "unnatural," "far-fetched,"
and the like, because they have never taken the
trouble to go so "far," to "fetch" them. What
they call "grubbing" (grübeln) seems to me only a
bad name for what Holy Scripture recommends, viz.
not, to import meanings into Holy Scripture, (as
critics of all sorts do, and not least those who count
themselves rational critics par éminence) but to
"search out" the fullest meaning of the literal force
of its words, the words of God the Holy Ghost.
a) Mr Perowne gives as an instance of my "want
of accuracy, the same disposition to strain' the
meaning of texts," my rendering of Ps. xlviii. 14,
"This God is our God for ever and ever; He Himself
will be our guide over death." I, on the contrary,
contend that it is the only true and adequate meaning.
Mr P. sets out with acknowledging "the peculiar
difficulty attaching to the last words, as familiar to
all students of Hebrew." He pronounces the choice.
to lie between "guide unto death," and Hengsten-
berg's "at dying, i. e. when it comes to dying," by
which Hengstenberg means, not death at all, but
only danger of death.
"1
I had observed, "It is not up to (»), but over (b)
I said this in reference to Kimchi's statement that
the phrase was the same as my, which it is not.
would have had a good and definite meaning, "up
to;" i. e. that "up to death God would guide us," that
He would not forsake us up to the very last, till
death made all sure. has not this force. It
It may be
(6
על
Mr Perowne's criticisms.
lxxvii
used accidentally of a term, as we might say of a
flight of locusts that they took their flight from the
Arabian desert and came down upon the outskirts of
Egypt; but by does not mean "up to" "on to" by the
force of the term, any more than our corresponding,
upon." It was this confusion of Hebrew meanings,
as if a Hebrew particle or preposition meant, by its
own force, whatever in another language might idio-
matically be substituted for it, which made Noldius so
misleading a book, from the effects of which Hebrew
interpretation is not yet wholly emancipated. The
original force of gleams through in many places,
where, in idiomatic English, we should rather say
"unto." Thus the Psalmist says, "From the end of
the heavens is his [the sun's] going forth, and his
circuit is on (y) the end thereof." It pictures the sun
"sinking down," as we say, on the West. So light-
ning (Job xxxvii. 2) and rain are spoken of, as sent,
directed, upon the earth. So in the Psalm, a few verses
before, "As is Thy Name, O God, so is Thy praise
We may render it, by a "quid pro quo,'
"unto the ends of the earth;" but the special force
of is still perceptible, viz. that the praise of God
is spread over the whole earth, as Isaiah prophesied
that "the knowledge of the Lord should fill the earth,
as the waters cover the sea."
ך על קצוי ארץ
""
But Kimchi rightly saw that, though "guidance
up to death" would give a good meaning, to "guide
unto death" would not; for it would be the act not
of a Guardian but of a destroyer ".
Hitzig detaches my, which he makes one word, nohy "merkzeichen,"
saying, "On the ground of the rhythm, nothing further is expected after
' (comp. Is. xxxiii. 22), least of all (a guidance) to death, nyp by Pr.
xii. 28." Psalmen p. 267.
lxxviii
ness
""
אשר ינהגך יי שמה
;(במרבר)
,ינהגנו with על מות
Answer to
נָהַג
Hengstenberg's rendering seems to me on this
ground unidiomatic, because is so often used of
God's guidance of His people, and, when followed by
a name of a place, expresses, where or whither God
guides; "And He led them like a flock in the wilder-
Ps. lxxviii. 52; "whither the Lord shall
lead thee," "wx (De. xxviii. 37 and iv. 27.).
The natural construction, then, here too, is to con-
nect
by
not to taken by as an unconnected
contemporary circumstance, "by death," i. e. in peril
of death; where death is not, but where, but for God's
guidance, there would be peril of death. But if
the words be taken together, they cannot have the
meaning "by," as in the kindred word and con-
struction, by b7 (Is. xlix. 10. Ps. xxiii. 2.); for, there,
the image is of "leading by, along," what is refresh-
ing; "by springs of water shall He guide them,'
"He leadeth me beside waters of rest;" here, con-
trariwise, it is death.
""
There remains then, what I believe to be the na-
tural construction, against which nothing is alleged,
except that it seems to some to contain too much,
what the Syriac has expressed, "He shall guide over
death "." Those who set this aside have shewn their
conviction of the inadmissibility of any other render-
ing, by altering the text, yet therewith inventing a
form, not occurring elsewhere, to express a meaning
found everywhere.
x This is what Hengstenberg's explanation comes to.
y The rendering over death' (' über den Tod hinaus ') seems very full of
feeling, but is suspicious, as being altogether unprepared for." Ewald Psalmen
p. 72.
"The rendering ‘over death' (Mendelss. Stier &c) i. e. over death
and beyond,' (Syr.) unquestionably suits better, [than 'to' or, 'by death']
but overweights the expression, which then too is improbably singular.”
Delitzsch Psalmen i. 376.
לְעַל מֶן z It uses the preposition
Mr Perowne's criticisms.
lxxix
Mr Perowne pronounces that the choice lies be-
tween the two, "guide unto death" or "guide at
death," both of which I hold to be inadmissible. He
says that my criticism is "utterly worthless; " for
that never means "beyond." Of course, it does not.
Nor does our word, "over," which corresponds to it.
If we say, "he went over the sea," "he went over
the bridge," we mean that he completed the transit
over the sea, or the bridge. It is implied of course,
that, having thus passed over the obstacle, the river
or the sea, he did something on the other side,
whether he abode there or went further. Else he
would not have crossed them at all. But just as,
up to," in several places, expresses the continuance
"up to" a certain point, without implying that what
had continued up to that point, ceased when it had
reached it, so by may signify "over" without exclud-
ing what lay beyond. In German, you may say,
"er gieng über das meer," although they have an
idiom to express that he went "beyond" "über
das meer hin a "
66
This meaning is favoured further by the context and
by the idiom itself. The parallel clause says, "This
God is our God for ever and ever." It expresses the
consciousness of the soul's eternal relation to God, for
(as our Blessed Lord argued to the Sadducees) "God
is not the God of the dead, but of the living." Even
then if we rendered," He shall be our guide unto [i. e.
up to] death: "
or, with Hengstenberg," He guides us
at, in, dying," the general meaning would be the same.
For He Who is our guide "unto" or "in death," He
ª Ewald, so far from asserting the contrary, alludes to the paraphrase
"über den Tod hinaus," as a possible meaning.
lxxx
an
Answer to
Who had guided us with a shepherd's care till then,
would not then forsake us;-He, Who (the Psalmist
had just said)" is our God for ever and ever." But
further, is used of "driving" a flock metaphori-
cally, of God's leading His people like a flock (Is.
xlix. 10, lxiii. 14.), and that, with the mention of the
place, where or whither He should lead them,
(Deut. iv. 27, xxviii. 37.). It is then, I think, most
natural to render np by of the place of God's guidance.
No one would doubt, if it were by, that it signi-
fied "over the wilderness." Since might, natu-
rally, have the contrary meaning of a guidance to de-
struction, I suppose the Psalmist used to shew,
that it was a guidance not "unto" but "over"
that "last enemy."
מָוֶת
In regard to the correction of the text," for ever","
the idea of "guiding for ever" is foreign and con-
tradictory to Holy Scripture. "God is our God for
ever and ever;" but guidance belongs only to the
trials, difficulties, dangers of this life, not to the
fruition of eternal bliss.
b) On Psalm lxxiii. 20, I know not whether Mr Pe-
rowne mistakes my English or my Hebrew. He says
"In order to introduce this doctrine, [the punishment of the
wicked] Dr P. mistranslates one of the verses,
'As a dream, when one awaketh, O Lord,
In the awakening Thou shalt despise their image."
There is no pretence for such a rendering. The verb is a causa-
tive conjugation [Hifil], it is true, but so is the verb in the previous
• A great many MSS join the two words as though they were one, moby;
but De Rossi notes that one pointed MS only has other than the Masorethic
points. The Chaldee paraphrases as if it were, nohy, "youth," as though
"shall lead us youth," meant," as in the days of our youth;" others, “shall
Mr J. J. S. Perowne's criticisms.
lxxxi
clause. It would be just as reasonable to translate the first clause,
“As a dream, after the awakening," i. e. the causing others to
awake. The conjugation is, of course, here used intransitively,
&c. &c.
I never doubted of all this. Mr Perowne trans-
lates so far, as I did myself. I justified, in a note,
the rendering, "in the awakening," as a Hifil, (as
Mr Perowne also takes it) having in my mind the
other rendering, as a noun, "out of the city," which
our Prayer-book version has. But I said nothing
about the transitiveness or intransitiveness of the
word; I used the word "awakening" as a neuter, as
Stillingfleet does", on the self-same subject, "the
awakening" after death. I think this rendering more
natural, than to supply, with the Bible version,
"When Thou awakest," or, with Mr P., to take it
reflectively, "when thou stirrest up thyself;" a
meaning, which, moreover, never has.
The other question is grave, on account of its bear-
ing on the relation of geology to Theology, and the
mischievousness of weak explanations, which (as I
have myself pointed out) admit a difficulty by at-
tempting to explain it, and, failing to explain it, leave
matters worse than before. If we have nothing but
weak explanations to give, the only honest way is to
bide our time, and to own, "I do not know." The
believer is certain that God's word and His works
harmonise; if he knows not how to harmonise them,
he can afford to wait the developement, or to remain
guide us in the full vigour of our youth." AE. would render, with the same
pointing, “eternally;" others would make it a feminine plural for the common
word; others would detach it, and make it a musical mark. All
evince the difficulty, which they evade, but do not solve.
↳ See Richardson's Dict. v. Awake.
f
Mr. Perowne p. 118.
1
lxxxii
Answer to
ignorant. One thing alone he must not do. He
must not allow himself to be biassed to take up with,
or to advocate, forced or artificial or ignorant ex-
planations, without the requisite knowledge of the
subject.
I did not myself offer any one hypothesis as the
solution of the problem. I confined myself to the
statement, that any length of time, which might seem
eventually to be required by the facts of geology, need
not trouble the believer, even on this ground, that
Holy Scripture said nothing whatever about time.
Where then nothing was said on the one side, there
could obviously be no contradiction on the other. I
did not say that "this mode of speech implies a vast
gap-ages, it may be, of duration-between the first
verse and the second." I only said, that since the
two verses stand in no connection with each other,
it admits of them. It was not my business to enter
upon the claims of geology. I was only an interpreter
of the sacred record, and, in view of that record, I
said, "The claims of geology do not even touch
upon Theology."
What I said is equivalent to what I see that De-
litzsch said (whose Hebrew scholarship Mr Perowne
will not question). "The writer, taking his position
this side of the ne, or, as we may also say, in the
The .וְהָאָרֶץ הָיְתָה תְּהוּ וָבֹהוּ 2 .continues v בראשית midst of the
of
Preterite, with the subject so prefixed, is the usual
way of introducing a subsequent history and so of
beginning it. Gen. iii. 1, iv. 1, xviii. 17-20, Jud. xi. 1,
vi. 33. Ges. § 129,1.
d See ab. Pref. p. xvii.
The
is more than the ex-
• Comm. üb. d. Genes. p. 92. Ed. 3,
Mr J. J. S. Perowne's criticisms.
lxxxiii
pression of the Copula, erat; the earth, as it came
directly into being through God's creative power or
(we do not here yet decide hereon) as God's six-days'
creative operation found it already existing, qualis
cxstitit, was a 1721 177.
""
Delitzsch himself subsequently adopts this second
supposition; and owns that "there is much for, and
nothing against, the supposition, that the "Thohu
va Bohu' is the 'rudis indigestaque moles,' into which
God brought this earth, which He had first created
good, after the fall of Satan, to whom it had been
assigned as an habitation f."
On this I had expressed no opinion. Certainly,
the existence not of death only, but of savageness
of mutual destruction, in the præhuman periods, im-
plies the existence of evil, such as we know to have
existed in the fall of the rebel angels; and the ca-
tastrophes, of which geology gives evidence, attest
a destruction by the Creator, in which the lower
creation, by some rule of His, to us incomprehen-
sible in it's real principle and range, suffers together
with the intelligent beings which rebel against Him.
But I was concerned only with one specific objec-
tion as to time; and Delitzsch states, as I did, that,
had the writer intended to connect ver. 2. with ver. 1,
the form must have stood, not m Delitzsch
had, in earlier editions, argued against the opinion,
which he subsequently embraced.
וַתְּהִי
m
"That if v. 1 expressed the fact of the original
creation, and v. 2 that which the earth became, after
it had, before, been something else, you would have
f Ib.
p.
103.
s Ib. p. 101.
f 2
lxxxiv
Answer to
והיתה
""
expected that the fact of the decay would have been
expressed by nm, whereas the condition of decay is
expressed at once, by an. "Certainly;" he says,
"I answer, the writer must have written, had he
wished to exhibit to the reader the connexion of the
Chaos with a fact as to the world of spirits. But it
is very questionable, whether this connexion lay in his
mind. He relates simply the actual condition at the
beginning of this present world." Plainly the use
of the word could not have connected V. 2 with
a fact, which is not mentioned; but it would have
connected it with the original creation. As it is, verse
2 stands altogether unconnected with it.
היה
There are cases, in which words, arranged as they
are here, (the subject being placed before the verb
” and joined with the preceding by "And") form
a parenthesis. But then the context makes it clear,
that it is such¹. Rashi's attempt to make the second
verse a parenthesis, though followed by Ewald, con-
demns itself by the involved construction, which it
substitutes for the simple narrative. But then the
h As Ex. xxxvi. 7, " And the stuff was enough for them,” on ann nexbom ;
Jud. viii. 11, “And he smote the camp, and the camp was secure," MINDMI
п, “and Zebah and Zalmunnah fled." Jonah iii. 3, “And Jonah arose
n'n,
and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. And Nineveh was
mbmany
And Jonah began to enter * ונינוה היתה עיר גדולה לאלהים ",an exceeding great city
,היה עמרי
the city" &c. And so in other cases, where 77 is manifestly not the mere
copula, as Gen. xxxi. 5, "I see your father's countenance, that it is not to-
ward me as before, and the God of my father has been with me, 187b
and ye know &c." where the time of God's being with him is prior
to that expressed by "I see." Jud. vii. 1," and he encamped by Endor, and
the camp of Midian was on the North side of him &c." povo is my pro mondi, “and
the Lord said to Gideon &c." The Midianite camp was there previously.
"In the beginning of God's creating the heaven and the earth, (and the
earth was tohoo vabohoo, and darkness on the face of the deep, and the Spirit
of God brooding on the face of the water,) then (lit. "And") God said &c.”
So involved a sentence is not to be found in Hebrew. Much less would the
sacred writer go out of his way to make it unintelligible. There is no real
Mr J. J. S. Perowne's criticisms.
ותהי
lxxxv
only other alternative is, (as I said), that, being
past, relates to a past time, and that past time uncon-
nected with the time in the previous verse'. For had
Moses intended to connect it, he would have used the
common form
No one can doubt, that the
words, "And darkness on the face of the deep," ex-
press a contemporary condition with that of the earth
being tohoo vabohoo; no one can doubt, that the
words, "And the Spirit of God brooding on the face
of the waters," express continuous action, coexisting
with that state of things. No one doubts, of course,
that the words, "And God said," denote an action
of God which followed thereon. Since these denote
time, contemporary and subsequent, as little doubt
can there be, that the word an expresses time, upon
which that contemporary condition and action de-
pend, and by which they are determined. Relative
time is the very force of the participle; but then it
must be contemporary with time expressed before ;
which time is here expressed by the word, n. Had
not Moses' object been to express past time, the na-
tural construction would have been to omit n, just
היתה
doubt,(as versions, old and new, shew,) that the natural rendering is the simple
one, which has recommended itself to almost all, except Rashi, Aben Ezra
and Ewald. But to Ewald, what he wills is self-evident.
k See ab. p. xix.
1 Mr Perowne has mixed up with this case an entirely different idiom, in
which two persons having been previously spoken of, something is predicated
of each separately (Gen. iv. 2, xxix. 17.). Mr P. says, “Turn a single leaf of
the Bible and you will find a sentence of this kind." But the two instances
which he produces, stand alone in the Hebrew Bible, as may be seen by one
who examines in Fürst's Concordance the heads, m, n'ai, im. This is quite
different from the case in Gen. i. 2, where the narrative is continued in regard
to the one only. 1 Sam ii. 11, is not an additional instance, since there a
with the partic. my expresses the abiding ministering of Samuel. In Gen.
xxv. 27, (as has been noticed to me), the form is parallel ; but the word ma is
not inserted in the second clause.
lxxxvi
. וחשך על פני מים
Answer to
as the verb is omitted in the words which follow,
The continuity of the narrative implies
that denotes time, and if so, then every one ad-
mits, time subsequent to, but unconnected with, the
words, "In the beginning God created." They
express simply a past condition of the carth at the
beginning of the six days' creation; they express
nothing as to the relation of that condition with
the creation of heaven and earth "in the beginning."
They are simply the beginning of a new relation.
And this is, for the most part, the object of this
collocation. This collocation is the more remarkable
in the word, which there is no occasion to employ
as the mere copula, and which very seldom even
seems to be so employed. But every one also knows
that not in the case of the substantive verb only, but
in other verbs, the idiom, chiefly adopted in narrative
to detach what follows from what precedes, is that
which is here employed, viz. the placing of the subject
first, and then the past verb.
To turn once more to charges, to which Mr Pc-
m Thus Gen. iii. 1, n'n wɔn), "And the serpent was &c." which introduces
what follows, but is unconnected with the preceding ; Gen. xxxvi. 12, “And
Timnah was concubine to Eliphaz," beb wɔbo nın yɔom; Jud. xi. 1, “And
Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man,” b'n ma ma nyban пn; 1 Sam. iii. 1,
“And the word of the Lord was precious in those days," "p' 7'7 » 707; 2 Kings
iii. 4, " And Mesha, king of Moab, was a sheepmaster," pd 750 vʊını ;
2 Kings v. 1,
1," And Naaman was a great man,” beyn; And so
also in cases, where ¬¬ is manifestly more than the mere copula ; 2 Kings vii. 3,
“And four men lepers were there," by Duis nya; Nu. xxxii. 1,
"And many cattle were there to the children of Reuben, [i. e. they had
many c.] ; Jud. xx. 38, "and the appointed sign was to
where והמועד היה לאיש ישראל עם הארב ",the men of Israel with the liers in wait
the relater goes back to a previous arrangement, upon which the subsequent
history turns; Gen. xli. 56, “And the famine was on the whole face of the
earth," by an am, repeating a fact, antecedent to the command of
Pharaoh ; Ezek. xxxiii. 21," There came to me the escaped from Jerusalem,
saying, the city is taken, And the hand of the Lord was to me in the evening
before the escaped came," na "7, relating a previous event. In like
Mr J. J. S. Perowne's criticisms.
lxxxvii
rowne has lent his name ". I have never called a
man an unbeliever, because he "did not believe the
book of Daniel to have been written by that Pro-
phot." I have called no one an unbeliever, who
would himself, on reflection and understanding the
force of his terms, say that he believed in an histo-
rical revelation, or in any thing beyond that unwrit-
ten revelation, whereby God makes His Eternal
Being and Godhead and His eternal moral laws
known to the consciences of His rational creatures.
It is the way of the nineteenth century to use words
in unreal senses. It is a tribute to faith, that peo-
ple, in every stage of unbelief, persuade themselves
that they believe more than they do. Atheism and
Pantheism are names which shock such religious
feeling as remains, when all definite faith has van-
ished. There are also those, who make capital of
the terms of faith, taken in an unreal sense, and gain
an entrance for real unbelief under old theological
terms, "winning" as has been avowed, "new senses
for old words," and misleading those who are ready
to be misled. However, in all honesty, too, people
way Jer. xxxix. 14, 15, “And they sent and took Jeremiah from the court
of the prison &c. And to Jeremiah there came the word of the Lord, 77 .7b1,
"727, while he was yet in the court of the prison;" 1 Kings xiv. 30; “and war
ומלחמה היתה בין רה. ובין יו. ",was between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days
obɔ, and 1b. xv. 6, 7. 16. 32. 2 Chr. xiii. 2.
"We do lament that one, who could once speak in terms of so much candour
and moderation, not only of that distinguished man [Schleiermacher] but of
others like Lessing and Herder, whose theology has appeared more than doubt-
ful to cautious divines, should in later life have unlearned the charity, which
believeth all things, hopeth all things,'-that one who once hailed the
dawn of a better theology in connection with the name of Schleiermacher
should now stigmatise, as 'unbelievers' and ‘rationalists' all who venture to
doubt the genuineness of Daniel. Great and good men, like Arnold of Rugby,
do not deserve to have this reproach cast upon them, nor can it hurt them.'
I was not aware, that Dr Arnold had either denied or doubted it.
lxxxviii
Answer to
think that they believe in a God, because they be-
lieve in some sort of primal cause, a "Deus ex ma-
china," to explain the origin of creation, although
they have no more real belief in a Personal God,
than a Brahmin or a Chinese. It has been truly
said, that one who truly believes in God as He Is, is
half-way to being a Catholic. I do then think that
many are unbelievers, who do not avow it to them-
selves; that many more make a profession to the
world of the little nominal belief which they think
they have, in order to gain a standing-point whence
to act against what they know they have not: many
more would become unbelievers, if they followed out
their own admitted principles. But there is no limit
to human inconsistency, and I thank God for every
inconsistency, whereby any one holds any truth,
which may bind him, or bring him back, to God, or
hinder his going further from Him. What I have
pointed out, (and what some do not forgive me for
having pointed out) was, that this negative criti-
cism, which has disputed the divinity of so many,
or of all, the books of Holy Scripture, was itself the
result of a previous unbelief. This is simply a histo-
rical fact, a matter of Chronology. German unbelief
was older than the modern German criticism. Ger-
man rationalists were forced on their criticisms by
the necessity of their position. I need not repeat
what I have already said more fully. People boasted
of the results of that negative criticism, as though
they were the legitimate, nay, the necessary produce
of criticism; and our English persistency in our
belief was imputed to the absence of criticism among
us. And therefore I dwelt upon the fact, that the
Mr J. J. S. Perowne's criticisms.
lxxxix
unbelief was the parent of the criticism, not the
criticism of the unbelief. And this too I did, to re-
move from the eyes of the young a false prestige; and
on the same ground I have dwelt upon various in-
stances of "the credulity of the incredulous." I
have turned against sceptics their own weapons, and
used ridicule against the would-be-arguments of a
false criticism, which thought itself "free," because
it made free with God's Word, and "liberal," be-
cause it cast aside what it did not care for, while
it was enslaved to the requisitions of its own un-
belief, and held as unreasoningly and unreasonably
to the traditions of that unbelief, as it ever im-
puted to the criticism of believers. But never have
I undervalued genuine learning; nay, one thought
which has impressed itself upon me, from the study
alike of books of solid criticism, solid philosophy,
solid historical knowledge and deeper human truth,
has been, how, whether intentionally or unconscious-
ly, they must in the end subserve Divine truth.
Nor have I, I trust, lost my sympathy for any who,
however imperfectly, are feeling their way back to-
ward belief, or who, like Lessing or Herder, have
helped to break the ice of an unbelieving system, in
which men lay frost-bound by their own conceits, or
who, like Schleiermacher, by their more earnest
aspirations, prepared for the coming spring. I have
not spoken against individuals, when they have them-
selves spoken sincerely. But, apart from individuals,
I have tried to draw the veil off from men's eyes;
and especially to shew the young, that systems which
come to them with much shew, were but tinsel, that
much which called itself enlightenment was real dark-
XC
Answer to Mr J. J. S. Perowne's criticisms.
ness, that much which called itself rational belief
was real unbelief; that "opinions" and "beliefs" were
contradictories, mutually excluding one another; and
that the so-called liberality, which allowed to every
error a chance of having some truth, and claimed in
return that each truth should be held liable to contain
some error, does, in fact and as necessary consequence,
deny the existence of any real pure truth.
"Seek,
and ye shall find," our Lord said; but these make
the end of search, the discovery that nothing certain
is to be found, and, under the name of progress,
are drifting back to the condition of Heathen scepti-
cism before Christ came, the Light and the Truth.
CHRIST CHURCH,
TRINITY SUNDAY, 1867.
Ewald in his own country.
xci
ADDITIONAL NOTE ON P. XXIII.
It is the custom of the English to idolize names, which have ceased
to be objects of idolatry in their own country. Just now Ewald's
seems to be such a name. And since that name is used to give
currency and authority to many a theory, hostile to revelation,
I add a few words of warning, lest the greatness, which he has ac-
quired in one line, should be abused to lead people away from truth
in others, where he himself has no greater gifts than other men. Of
the marvellous acumen, by which he first founded the science of He-
brew Grammar, and changed it from a mere enumeration of undigested
and unexplained facts to a philosophical study, I have already spoken.
I admired the first outline of his Grammar forty years ago. I admire
it still in its later developement. O si sic omnia ! But the intense
self-confidence, which his consciousness of great talent and power
has engendered, has marred his work in every other branch of Hebrew
criticism. What seems to him right, is right. I know of none, since
that old self-confident school of J. D. Michaelis, who has distorted
the meaning of so many Hebrew words, or made such wild work of
Hebrew history, as Ewald, "because whatever occurs to him" (to
use Hüpfeld's words) "appears to him as certain as a revelation.”
(Vorr. z. d. Psalm. 1857. p. xix.) And therefore, Hüpfeld says," he is
specially wanting in all criticism of himself, in all capacity of compar-
ing his own performances with those of others (for which he possesses
no objective rule), nay in all capacity of distinguishing, in subjects of
investigation, what is easy from what is difficult, what is certain from
the uncertain or unestablished, the most fanciful imagination from
the most ascertained truth, because &c." Hüpfeld speaks also of
his boundless conceit, which imagines that, in his numerous writ-
ings, he has revealed pure and irrefragable truth; and since, amid all
the admiration which has been paid to him (such as half-truths most
find), he has not found so much blind belief as he requires, and has often
experienced even contradiction, he has not been ashamed to ascribe
this to hostility to the truth, and to ascribe to his contemporaries
that after the light had appeared, they loved darkness rather than
light;' and so, for years, he has so fallen out with all the world, and has
got into such mad rage, that he has long gained for himself the
mournful privilege of moral irresponsibility." Levy said of him in
1857, “Prof. Ewald has already called forth a little library, directed
against his judgments on Theological and philological works (under
xcii
Ewald
these last we include Semitic, Indo-Germanic and even African lan-
guages) in which he outsteps all decorum, and for which he has
employed his Jahrbücher d. Bibl. Wissenschaften, the prefaces to his
numerous writings, and alas! even the Götting. gel. Anzeigen. Since
however, all corrections, friendly or sharp, have remained fruitless,
of late a different course appears to have been adopted towards him.
He is wholly ignored, since, to use Hüpfeld's words, he has long since
gained for himself the mournful privilege of moral irresponsibility.'
Within the province of Theology this proceeding may be the wisest ;
since Ewald, in possession of most infallible truth, secing in his
opponents only Atheism, Popery, protestant Jesuitism, rabbinical
fancifulness, prejudice, ignorance and blindedness, is scarcely to be
brought to another mind. Moreover, those capable of judging are
numerous enough, that his perversenesses should be seen in the right
light." Phœniz. Stud. ii. p. 1,2. “H. Prof. Ewald nochmahls als Punier
gewürdigt." He concludes his criticisms with the words; “And Ewald,
who in the narrow space of an essay shews so much unacquaintance
with Phoenician, sits in judgment on men like Münk, Hitzig,
Schlottmann and others, and lectures them as schoolboys." p. 20.
Hüpfeld he followed most unrelentingly, and even of a writer who had
reviewed Hüpfeld favourably in the Studien und Kritiken, he said,
“The Reviewer understands of Hebrew as good as nothing, and Hüp-
feld shews his great incapacity to solve rightly even little difficulties in
Hebrew and in the Psalter." (Jahrb. 1857 p. 272. Anm. 1.) Hüpfeld
was of a school very hostile to Hengstenberg; yet, as far as verbal
criticism goes, he is, when not biassed by anti-doctrinal prejudice,
Of
often suggestive, as I cannot say that I have found Ewald.
"Instead of thought-
Ewald's historical judgement Knobel says,
fulness and conscientiousness, one finds in him [Ewald] every
where arbitrariness and superficialness; and even had he those
indispensable qualities, yet his want of historical perception and skill
in combination would unfit him to be an historian." Exeg. Vademecum
für H. Ewald p. 34. "From the above it will, it is to be hoped, suffi-
ciently appear, that Ewald is as deficient in the circumspection and
knowledge as in the forethought and conscientiousness which are
indispensable to the historian, and that it stands very ill with the
historical truths,' which he professes to have finally settled.”
(Ib. p. 50.)
C
To me it is very sorrowful, that one from whose early conscientious
in his own country.
xciii
grammatical labours I anticipated so useful a future, should so have
failed; still more, that self-confidence should have wasted such talents.
Enough for one man's life to have produced such a Grammar as his,
were it not that so much which might have been, has been spoiled.
To Dr Stanley and those of his school, to whom all earnest statements
of the consequences of misbelief appear like expressions of weakness º,
I would commend, for consideration, what in their idol, Ewald, is the
import of such language as the "mean [niederträchtiges] judgment
of De Wette," or the "incredible perverseness, ignorance and un-
feelingness," of another, or "his boundless ignorance and insolence
in matters of science," or to characterise a writing of Ritter, as “a
real excrescence of meanness and ignorance." "Such," says Levy, "is
but a slight specimen of Ewald's mild temper and select language,
when speaking of the performances of others. How modestly he ex-
presses himself as to his own in many places of his Jahrbücher, see
Von Gumpach Kritik and Antikritik als Streitschrift wider H. Ewald
p. xxii.and on the enriching the critical-technical stock of German by
a heap of words of abuse, see Ib. p. 8. sqq.”
Yet this were but an CC
argumentum ad hominem." The real
question is, whether we or Dean Stanley are right in the appreciation
of the tendency of certain teaching; we, in asserting that it is down-
wards to the denial of all faith, or he, that it is upwards, to more en-
lightened belief. I will cite a witness, whose partialities are not
on my side.
"A most learned and amiable man exercised extraor-
dinary influence over the education of the most advanced College
in Oxford. He led his pupils quietly on to the negation of all posi-
tive Creeds; not because he was an unbeliever in the vulgar sense of
the word, but because his peculiar mode of criticism cut the very
sinews of belief. The effects of his peculiar teaching may be traced
in many a ripened mind of the present day." [Pall Mall Gaz. March
28. 1868.] We, equally with this writer, acquitted the Professor
alluded to (as I did Semler) of foreseeing the effects of his teaching;
but he has, by his mode of teaching, been the parent of Oxford ration-
alism, as Semler was of German, without his will, yet as the natural
fruit of the seed which he sowed.
0 66
p. 266.
Theology of the nineteenth century" in Fraser's Magazine Feb. 1865,
CONTENTS.
Preface
. i-xxxii.
Preface to the 2nd edition, containing corrections of Dr Williams' and Dr
Davidson's criticisms, and answers to Ewald's and J. J. S. Perowne's
criticisms, and to some remarks of Dean Stanley's
xxxiii-xciii.
LECTURE I.
Introduction. Real grounds of objections raised to the book of Daniel, its
prophecies and miracles. Unity of his book. His character one through-
out. The Chaldee and Hebrew portions are from the same writer. Ground
of the variation of language. No Greek words, except the names of two
or three musical instruments, which were imported with them. Musical
instruments in Daniel not Macedonian. Macedonian Greek words in Da-
niel a fiction. Early intercourse between Greece and Assyria. The pesan-
terin of Daniel on Assyrian monuments. The Hebrew of Daniel and his use
of Aryan words agree with his time and circumstances. Remarkable dif-
ference of the Aramaic of Daniel and Ezra from that of the Targums; the
basis of the Targums was early. Shallow criticism on the Aramaic of Da-
niel repeated in the Essays and Reviews. Cumulative evidence from the
union of such Hebrew and Aramaic as those of Daniel.
LECTURE II.
•
p. 1-59.
The prophecies of the four empires, Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greek, Roman,
and the establishment of the kingdom of Christ during the fourth Empire.
Balaam's prophecy as to the Eastern and Western Empires. i. Circum-
stances and characteristics of the revelation of the four world-empires to
Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel's prophecy of the kingdom of Christ conceded.
Greatness of the admitted prophecy. Inconsistency of rationalist objec-
tions. Both the metals and the parts of the human form in the image of
Nebuchadnezzar's dream significant, in regard to the 4 empires. Characte-
ristics of the 4th empire. ii. Correspondence of the parts of Nebuchadnezzar's
dream of the 4 Empires with Daniel's vision; of the 2nd Empire with the
Medo-Persian; the third with the Macedonian. Heaviness, characteristic
of the aggressions of the Medo-Persian Empire; activity and intelligence
xcvi
CONTENTS.
of the third; terribleness and permanent subdual, of the fourth. Periods
distinguished in the fourth Empire in Daniel's vision. The ten "horns"
or kingdoms belong to a later period, yet are simultaneous. Contrast of
Roman Empire with those before it in Dionysius. The kingdom of God
the chief subject of Nebuchadnezzar's dream and Daniel's vision. The title,
"the kingdom of God" taken from Daniel and part of the popular belief be-
fore Christ came. Belief in the Messiah, as Man but more than man, also
rested on his prophecy, before our Lord, as shewn in the book of Enoch.
Title, "Son of Man," as used by our Lord, taken from Daniel. Daniel
prophesied the worship of the Son of Man. iii. Symbols in Daniel's second
vision, which are explained, in Daniel, to represent Persia and Greece, cor-
respond respectively with those of the 2nd and 3rd Empires, and disagree
with those of the 3rd and 4th. Antiochus Epiphanes does not correspond
to the Anti-Christ either of the viith or xith chapter of Daniel. Contrast
of his character with that of the Anti-Christ in Daniel ch. xi. Rationalists
miss the special character of this Anti-Christ and pervert the prophecy of
his death. It is in conformity with nature, that there should be types of
Anti-Christ. Eastern tradition of the 4th Empire and of the Messiah derived
from Daniel.
p. 60-101.
LECTURE III.
Attempts to make out four Empires, (subtracting the Roman,) which should
end with Antiochus. Four different experiments tried. The advocates
of each solution agree in holding the other three to be untenable. i. Ewald's.
The 1st Empire, the Assyrian, and Daniel an adaptation of an earlier
Assyrian Daniel, who is to have prophesied the overthrow of the Assy-
rian empire. Ezekiel's mention of Daniel, in each place, suits Daniel him-
self. Grounds of the selection of Daniel with Noah and Job as examples
of righteousness, and of the order in which Ezekiel names them. No ex-
planation of Daniel's being named in Ezekiel, unless he was the prophet.
No ground for Ewald's imaginary Daniel. Daniel's vision on the Hidde-
kel. Rivers, places of prayer among the Jews. The human-headed winged-
lion of Nineveh was an essentially different symbol from the eagle-winged
lion of Daniel; probably it, as well as the human-headed bull, was a reli-
gious symbol, certainly not a symbol of Assyrian empire. The lion or eagle
were symbols of Babylon, as well as of Assyria. ii. Babylonian Empire
under Nebuchadnezzar not a distinct empire from that of his successors.
Greatness of the Babylonian empire, under him, both in conquest and
internal policy. Medo-Persian inferior to Babylonian. Fainéant character
of Nebuchadnezzar's successors; in no sense a separate empire. iii. Medo-
Persian empire owned never to have existed as two.
Its unity presup-
posed in Scriptures which Rationalists allege the writer of the book of Da-
niel to know, and in Daniel himself. The authority of Darius stated in
Daniel to have been delegated. Xenophon's account likely, confirmed in
part against Herodotus by Inscriptions. Policy of placing Median Vice-King
CONTENTS.
xevii
at Babylon. Evidence from Daniel that he spoke of the Medo-Persian em-
pire as one. Inferiority of Persian empire to Nebuchadnezzar's, its immedi-
ate degeneracy after Cyrus, and permanent miserableness. Disagreement
of the symbol of the Persian empire in ch. 8. from that of the 3rd Empire in
ch. 7, and iv. of symbols and prophecies as to Alexander's successors from
those of the 4th Empire. Alexander's successors were one kingdom, only as
one with him. Alexander's central plan, to Hellenise Asia, and blend Greece
and Asia, followed by his successors. Union of Jews and Greeks in Egypt,
Cyrene, and Asia Minor. Lasting influence of his plan in God's Providence.
No ten-fold division in Alexander's empire. Failure of the varied attempts
to make out ten kings of Alexander's successors, or three who should
be uprooted. Attempts contradict Daniel and history. Roman world-
empire could not be foreseen at the date of people's alleged Pseudo-Daniel,
174, B.C. Evidence from the 3rd Sibylline book and from the 1st book of
Maccabees, that Roman Empire was not anticipated. . . p. 102–163.
LECTURE IV.
The prophecy of the 70 weeks and of the death of the Messiah, and the
attempts to make the 70 weeks end with Antiochus Epiphanes. General
character of the prophecy; why the date, although fixed within a limited
time, may not have been fixed precisely; only four possible dates, from
which the 70 weeks could be counted, ending in four exact years; ground
for selecting the 7th of Artaxerxes: his date: agreement of the whole period
of 7 and 62 weeks, and of the 7 weeks by itself, with history; "strait of
times;
the three years and a half, our Lord's ministry; indications of a
fourth passover in His ministry; main subjects of the prophecy, the gifts of
pardon and righteousness and of grace at the end of the 490 years; "holy
of holies," not "the holy of holies; ""anointing," in Daniel's time, spiritual
only; the title "Messiah," current in and before our Lord's time, derived
from this place, since here only it is used absolutely; extent of prophecy
combined as to the Messiah, before our Lord came; "cut off" always used
of death, inflicted by God or man; two-fold aspect of cessation of sacrifice;
the general scope of the prophecy not varied by various renderings;
connection of the destruction of the city and the temple with the cutting
off of the Christ; fulness of the prophecy, as fulfilled exactly in the Gospel.
Unnatural explanations, to get rid of the prophecy. Supposed non-fulfilment
of Jeremiah's prophecy, which all knew to have been fulfilled, and its eking
out by Daniel's; impossible construction of the words, "72 weeks, the
street shall be built;" absurdity of making the 4th year of Jehoiakim the
starting-point. Impossible problems which unbelief had to solve in regard
to the prophecy of the 70 weeks. Corrodi's theory and admissions. Shifts
of Marsham. Eichhorn's capricious amendment of Marsham's theory,
dishonest criticisms, unnatural expedients. Paulus' arbitrary amendment of
Eichhorn's arbitrariness. Bertholdt's theory, that 62 is a 'round number' and
xcviii
CONTENTS.
unnatural expositions. Re-casting of old theories in opposition to Hengsten-
berg. Wieseler's unnatural expedients and admissions. Lengerke's fantastic
theory incontrovertible in his own eyes. Ewald's two attempts to take
the numbers in their natural order; arbitrary dates assumed by him, and
arbitrary expedients to get rid of the superfluous years. Mutual exchange
of theories. Assumption that the fault as to the chronology was Daniel's, not
their's, contrary to their own assumption that the writer knew the history;
the charge recoils, since the years are too many for their theory, not too
few. Naturalness of the interpretation, that Jesus was the Messiah said
to be" cut off," owned by Hitzig. Rationalist agreement, in pulling down
only; their disagreement in constructing. Table of their variations as to
the 70 weeks. Their failure as to the last week, the supposed agreement
of which was to be the basis of the whole. Dates in the reign of Epiphanes.
Events at its close; his death no relief to the Jews. The 2300 days pro-
bably had a double fulfilment. Events of the last 7 years agree with no 7
years of Epiphanes; aggravations of the failure; unmeaningness of the
meanings imported by rationalists into the prophecy. Contrast of the
whole prophecy with the rationalist expositions of it. The Messiah was not
expected, when, according to Daniel, He was not to come; when, accord-
ing to Daniel, He was to come, He was expected.
•
p. 164-233.
LECTURE V.
The minuteness of a portion of Daniel's prophecies is in harmony with the
whole system of Old Testament prophecy, in that, throughout, God gave a
nearer foreground of prophecy, whose completion should, to each age, accrc-
dit the more distant and as yet unfulfilled prophecy.
Argument of rationalists and the Essays against the prophecies of Daniel in-
volves the denial of all supernatural prophecy. Prophecy, and prediction,
which the Rationalists distinguish from it, are alike human, according to them.
Indications of minute prophecy, throughout the Old Testament. 1) Test
given to distinguish the true prophet from the false, Deut. xviii. 21, 22.
2) Struggle between the false prophets and the true. 3) Urim and Thum-
mim. 4) “Enquiring of God." 5) "The Seer." Old Testament prophecy
related to a nearer or a more distant future of temporal judgment and mercy,
and the Redeemer. Predictions to the Patriarchs. Continuous fulfilment
of the blessings of Jacob and Moses, a continuous witness of God's foreknow-
ledge and Providence. "Until Shiloh come;" no temporal fulfilment can be
made out. Series of individual prophecies. Prophecies to the ten tribes.
Minute temporal prophecies to Israel end in larger. Succession of prophets
in Judah. Prophecies of the Christ, connected with Jerusalem, imply that
it would continue in being; prophecies against Sennacherib and Babylon ;
prophecies of exact dates; ends of cities foretold, minute but varied; Jere-
miah's distinct unvarying prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, and les-
ser intervening prophecies. Jeremiah and Ezekiel foretell details of the
cap.
CONTENTS.
xcix
ture of Jerusalem; the event improbable to the Jews beforehand; prophecies
on individuals. Isaiah's and Jeremiah's detailed prophecies of the capture
of Babylon; genuineness of Isaiah xiii, xiv. and of Jeremiah 1, li. Ezekiel's
prophecy of the duration of the two kingdoms and as to Egypt; its 40 years'
desolation and permanent abasement; decay in Egypt before its temporary
recovery under Amasis; the 70 years of the captivity; Zechariah's prediction
of Alexander's victories in Palestine and of the subsequent victories of Jews
over Greeks, utterly improbable, but very definite and accurate. Rationa-
list expedients to get rid of them, and their failure. Daniel's predictions
suited to a transition-state. Daniel a teacher for the times before our Lord.
In the Gospel also, and in the prophecies of our Lord, there is a foreground
of minuter prediction and a larger future. Rationalist misstatements as to
prophecy. Capture of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar; gradual concessions of ra-
tionalism. Fulfilment of God's judgments slow through His mercy. Pro-
phecy independent of time, unless time is expressed. Daniel has all the va-
rieties of prophecy.
p. 234-293.
LECTURE VI.
On the proof of the genuineness of the book of Daniel, furnished by the date
of the closing of the Canon of the Old Testament, and by the direct reference
to it in the Canonical Scriptures, and in other books before or of the Macca-
bee period.
Josephus' statement of the closing of the Canon, and of the ground, why it
was closed about 400 B. C. The intervening period before our Lord, one of
much mental activity. Date of the Wisdom of the son of Sirach fixed by the
mention of Simon son of Onias and Euergetes in his grandson's preface, early
in the 3rd cent. B. C. His grandson attests that the Canon was closed when
his grandfather wrote. The lowest date of the son of Sirach, and the exis-
tence of his book out of the Jewish Canon, prove the early date of Daniel.
The son of Sirach alludes to the Canon. Tradition, insisted upon by ra-
tionalists, as to Nehemiah's collecting the scattered books of the Canon, re-
lates, not to an original collection, but to the gathering of books already in
the Canon, which had been dispersed. Gradual formation of the Canon.
The Pentateuch laid up from the first; gradual accessions implied in Scrip-
ture itself. The Pentateuch an authority before Jeroboam's schism. Each
later prophet presupposes the earlier prophets. Gradual accessions of the
historical books. Probable date of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Ruth. The Books
of Kings before the close of the Captivity. Prophetic documents probably
embodied in the books of Kings. Gradual formation of the Psalter; the
first book wholly David's; the 5th book alone implies times after the Cap-
tivity; no one Psalm contains any indication of the Maccabee period;
those selected as such belong to the Captivity. The Psalter probably trans-
lated by the LXX before the Maccabee times. The accession of Proverbs
of Solomon, in Hezekiah's time, to the collection already existing, shews
g 2
с
CONTENTS.
that ch. xxx, xxxi. alone can be later than Hezekiah. Job quoted from early
times. The age of the Canticles and Lamentations unquestioned. Extent of
Hagiographȧ exstant before the captivity. Invalidity of the arguments
from language or history, that Ecclesiastes was not written by Solomon.
Book of Esther written by a contemporary; the Chronicles prior to the book
of Ezra and by its author; they allude to nothing later than Ezra; the one
genealogy, alleged to prove a later date of the book, does not prove it, even
if it is part of the book. The book of Ezra is one whole; the Chaldee
portion, written by a contemporary, inserted by Ezra. Invalid arguments
against authorship of Ezra. Nehemiah wrote the book which bears his
name. Thoughtless objection founded on the use of the different names of
God. Use of those names in Nehemiah. The name of Jaddua did not ori-
ginally stand in Nehemiah. Careless objections to the book. Coincidence
of Nehemiah and Malachi. Principle of the Jewish arrangement of the
Canon; hagiographa, sacred books by men in secular office. Jewish distinc-
tion between writing through the spirit of prophecy and by the Holy Ghost.
David and Daniel, both being prophets, were placed on the same principle
among the hagiographa. The "silence of the son of Sirach" would have
been remarkable, only if Daniel had been placed among the prophets. Direct
evidence of the existence of the book of Daniel before Antiochus Epiphanes.
i. Use of language of Daniel's prayer by Nehemiah. ii. Two of Zechariah's
visions presuppose Daniel's prophecy of the 4 empires; one, very obscure,
unless explained by aid of Daniel's prophecy. iii. Book of Baruch, written
probably soon after the close of the Canon, incorporates much of his prayer.
iv. Testimony to Daniel in LXX version of Pentateuch. V. The Jewish
writer of the 3rd Sibylline book, about 170 B.C., quoted book of Daniel,
found nothing in it to support his temporal hopes. vi. Extreme accuracy
of the first book of Maccabees. Internal evidence of exactness of Matta-
thias' speech. Exact, but simple reference to book of Daniel in it. First
book of Maccabees, probably before B. C. 125, certainly before B.C. 105.
History in the 1st book of Maccabees contradicts unbelieving theories as to
the book of Daniel. vii. Evidence from the Greek additions to the book of
Daniel, the historical mistakes of the translator and his falsifying of the
prophecy of the 70 weeks, to make it bear on the times of Epiphanes. Long
interval between the book of Daniel and its translation owned by oppo-
nents. viii. Book of Enoch. The doctrine of the Messiah as the Judge of
the world in it taken from Daniel; that of the angels altered from the doc-
trine in Daniel. Date of the book probably not later than Judas Macca-
bæus or Simon, any how not later than John Hyrcanus. Testimony of our
Lord stands alone, as infallible.
p. 294-395
•
LECTURE VII.
On the "historical inaccuracies" falsely imputed to the book of Daniel, and
the "improbabilities" alleged. i. Agreement of dates in Daniel together, and
CONTENTS.
ci
with other Scripture and Berosus. Dates of Jehoiakim's reign. ii. Name of
Belshazzar as eldest son and co-regent on the monuments. Nebuchadnez-
zar is called his father, Belshazzar Nebuchadnezzar's son, because no name
in Chaldee for “grandfather” “grandson." Wide use of “father” “son”
in Hebrew. iii. Rationalist credulity as to date of "Susa." Susa, probably
capital of Cyrus before the capture of Babylon. iv. "Satraps," an office es-
sential to large Asiatic empires, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Median, Ma-
cedonian under Alexander and his successors. Cyrus only substituted Per-
sian for native Satraps. Number and distribution of Satrapies varied. The
monuments furnish more Satrapies than Herodotus. Lesser divisions un-
noticed. v. Den of lions, rationalist fable about it. The Chaldee term for
it implies no confined space. vi. Classes of Magi. Porphyry speaks of three
distinct degrees in the highest, the priestly order of the Magi. Daniel,
like Strabo, speaks of different kinds of Magi, according to their employ-
ments. Error of Eubulus, from whom Porphyry took his account. No old
account of threefold division of Magi. Egyptian priesthood divided into
four, five or more classes. Parsee priesthood, Desturs, Mobeds, Herbads,
modern and ritualistic. Three of Daniel's four classes of Magi, very distinct-
ly marked. vii. Education by Magi not against conscience, nor supervision
of them; large unsuperstitious learning of Chaldees. II. Alleged improba-
bilities. i. Insanity of Nebuchadnezzar, probably a very rare form of mono-
mania. Yet, humanly too, admitting of recovery. Correspondence of his
physical condition with other cases of insanity. Insanity does not hinder
consciousness or memory. Wonderful self-analysis of the Père Surin, when
outwardly like one insane. Dr Browne on the praying of the insane.
Force of evidence in true un-understood facts. ii. Alleged silence of histo-
rians as to Nebuchadnezzar's insanity. All believe facts on insulated testi-
mony. Tradition of Abydenus probably relates to facts recorded by Daniel.
Interruption of Nebuchadnezzar's great works mentioned on his monuments.
iii. His imperfect conversion. iv. His edict true to our deepest nature. v. His
golden image had a political end. Extent of king-worship. vi. His image
probably, on purpose, disproportionate. vii. Edict of Darius in harmony
with the known Persian belief, probably political. viii. "Intolerance" not
unknown to Babylonians or Persians. Evidence of religious character
of wars from the Inscriptions. Persian oppression of Egyptian religion.
ix. Daniel did not court danger, only did not deny God. x, xi. Idle objections
as to decree of Darius and history of Belshazzar. xii. Alleged lavishing
of miracles," three miracles, when heathen sought to destroy the faith
and insulted God. False statements, in order to make out the miracles
to have been objectless. God had not cast away His people. Cyrus had
no human motive for releasing the Jews. Daniel probably made known to
him Isaiah's prophecy. No proof, that the miracles were wasted on the
heathen; they have been instructive to believers at all times since. Force
of evidence from uniform correctness in varied and minute details of his-
tory, customs, &c. many of which would be known only to a contem-
porary.
396-464.
CC
cii
CONTENTS.
LECTURES VIII. AND IX.
The points of doctrine and practice mentioned in the book of Daniel, which
are alleged to indicate a date later than that of the prophet, are identical
or in harmony with the teaching of the other Scriptures of the Old and
New Testament; nor was any doctrine or practice, mentioned in the Book
of Daniel, borrowed from Parsism.
Summary of doctrines and practices alleged to be "later." There is no à pri-
ori ground, why God should not have revealed through one inspired writer,
what He did not through another.
+
i. Divinity of the Messiah. No trace of the doctrine in the 3rd Sibylline
book. a.) The king addressed in Ps. cx. superhuman. Inapplicability of the
Psalm to David, fulfilment in our Lord. "Sit Thou on My Right Hand,"
said to Jesus as Man, because He is God. b.) In Ps. xlv. rationalists own,
among them, that 1) "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever," is address-
ed to the Object of the Psalm, 2) that He is God, and 3) that the words should
so be rendered. Non-natural, contradictory, and ungrammatical construc-
tions of the words, grammatically most simple. c.) Evidence of the Divinity
of the Christ from Psalm ii. Close union of the Messiah with God in it own-
ed by the Jews also. Emphasis on the words "kiss the Son." The words
have no other meaning. d.) The king in Psalm lxxii. has Divine attributes.
His empire is in all time and clime, while He is out of sight, Himself a per-
petual Personal source of blessing and a perpetual Intercessor. e. f.) Isaiah's
prophecy of the Child to be born, Who should be called "Mighty God;"
g.) that, from David's line, when in low estate, should issue One, using
Divine power. h.) Micah's, i. k. l.) Zechariah's, m.) Malachi's prophecies of
the Divinity of the Messiah. Daniel's prophecy of Him, as Man yet more
than man. All prophesy the same truth with the same clearness; arbitrari-
ness of rationalists, in assuming that Daniel did prophesy the Divinity of
Christ, and that the rest did not, and in their inference.
ii. Daniel foretold the Second Coming of Christ apart from time.
lief of man's immortality lay in the history of his creation and of his fall;
evidences of that belief in the history of the Patriarchs, in God's declaring
Himself their God after their death, belief in reunion contained in the "be-
ing gathered to his people;" belief in man's immortality cherished by the
expression "God took him" of Enoch and Elijah; the term, appropriated
by Psalmists, Ps. xlix. lxxiii. David knew of the Beatific Vision of God,
Ps. xvii. Ps. xvi. prophesies of the Resurrection of Christ. Other indica-
tions of the expectation of eternal life in the Psalms, of general judgment,
and of the second death. Distinct prophecy of the resurrection of the flesh
in Job;
of our Lord's and our's in Him in Hosea; of our's in Hosea and Isaiah.
Isaiah's prophecy of the resurrection of the good and bad, of the punishment
of evil spirits and evil men; Ezekiel's knowledge of the resurrection of the
body. False notions of the amount of truth in the Zend books; doctrine of
the resurrection unknown to the earlier books; "perpetuation of life" distinct
from Resurrection. The Bundehesh, in which are the most approximations
p. 465-494.
iii. The be-
CONTENTS,
ciii
to the truth, probably of the 7th century after Christ; its illustrations of
the resurrection borrowed from Christians.
•
p. 517-529.
p. 494-517.
iv. The doctrine of Angels, their numbers, nature, interest in us, as revealed
before Daniel. "The Angel of the Lord," throughout the O. T. probably a
created Angel, with special Divine Presence. The "Angel-interpreter "
of Job. The Seraphim, the Cherubim. "The Angel of the Lord" proba-
bly Michael. The doctrine of Angels in Daniel the same as in other Scrip-
tures. The revelation in Daniel, that other nations, besides the Jews, were
under the care of Angels, in harmony with Daniel's relation to the Heathen
world. Daniel does not associate the creature with the Creator; "gods of
counsel," in Heathenism, astrological only.
Doctrine of Angels earlier than Magism. Imperfection of the supreme god
of the Aryans; time, light, space, co-existent with him. Zoroastrism only a
modification of Vedism; dualism in its earliest writings. The six Amesha-
cpentas, too near to the supreme god of Parsism, yet mere genii of the same
sort as other genii of Parsism; supreme god of Parsism prays to them; ex-
tensive devotedness to Mithra, Anahita, the Haoma, probably coeval with
Parsism. Parsee genii, or gods, dependent upon man. Prophets warned Is-
rael against idolatries of Babylon and Persia. Men borrow idolatries or trick
out their own false systems, do not refine the errors of others. Parsee tra-
ditions against the antiquity of their books; their present books, unauthen-
tic traditions. No developement or corruption in the Zend books before
Christ. No one likeness between Amesha-cpentas and Archangels. p.529-550.
v. 1. Fasting prescribed throughout the O.T. Fasting of the day of Atone-
ment; that of women regulated; public and private; abuses of it attest its
use; Daniel's fasts such as are prescribed by Joel; all self-affliction forbidden
by principles of Parsism. v. 2. Objections to Daniel's prayer. v. 3. "Prayer
three times a day," the natural filling-up of prayer morning and evening;
David mentions it in Ps. lv. Parsee worship of the five times of the day,
wholly unconnected with prayer to God thrice a day. Traces of Parsee
prayer to the sun three times a day, subsequent to our Lord, but immaterial.
p. 550-562.
v. 4. Daniel's advice to Nebuchadnezzar about alms ascribes to them no ma-
gical effect," but agrees with the N. T. Summary. To answer objections
can only prepare for faith, which God gives. The temptation of this day
truth-sacrificing compromise. The objects of our faith as certain to us as
our being.
p. 562-568.
NOTES.
Note A. The Aryan words in Daniel explained by Max Müller. p. 569-575.
Note B. Alleged indications of the "lateness" of the Hebrew of Daniel. Ec-
centric character of the alleged proof. Words and idioms of Daniel, i) pe-
culiar to himself; ii) common to the middle as well as the later age of He-
brew; iii.) those in common with the later age; iv.) those revived from the
Pentateuch, or v.) adopted from Ezekiel
p. 575-598.
civ
CONTENTS.
Note C. Rare words in Daniel, retained or lost in the Syriac, later Chaldee, or
at the date of the LXX.
•
p. 598-602.
Note D. Aramaic words in Daniel, lost or rare in the Targums or Gemara.
p. 602-624.
Note E. Variations in the LXX of Daniel, indicative of a long period having
elapsed between the writing of the book and its translation. p. 624-637.
Note F. Temporal prophecies, alleged by Dr Stanley, as being equally defi-
nite with those of the O. T.
Note G. Hebrew and Greek words indicating early commerce.
p. 637-646.
p. 646.651.
DANIEL THE PROPHET.
LECTURE I.
THE book of Daniel is especially fitted to be a battle-
field between faith and unbelief. It admits of no half-
measures. It is either Divine or an imposture. To write
any book under the name of another, and to give it out
to be his, is, in any case, a forgery, dishonest in itself,
and destructive of all trustworthiness. But the case as
to the book of Daniel, if it were not his, would go far be-
yond even this. The writer, were he not Daniel, must
have lied, on a most frightful scale, ascribing to God pro-
phecies which were never uttered, and miracles which are
assumed never to have been wrought. In a word, the
whole book would be one lie in the Name of God. The
more God, as we shall see, is the centre of the whole, the
more directly would the falsehood come into relation to
God. The book truly ascribes to God, that He gave wis-
dom to Daniel to interpret the visions of Nebuchadnezzar
and Belshazzar; that He delivered the children from the
burning fiery furnace and Daniel from the den of lions;
that He revealed to Daniel things to come, the largest
and the least, comprising successions of empires and
Christ's Kingdom, with some exact dates and minute de-
tails. The miracles it implies, the prophecies it avers, to
have been recorded by Daniel a contemporary. Either
then we have true miracles and true prophecy, or we
B
2
Introduction.
should have nothing but untruth. An apology for the
supposed forger, such as those put out by some Germans¹,
and lately in England, is utterly untenable and immo-
ral. “The truth seems," says one 2, "that starting, like
many a patriot bard of our own, from a name tradition-
ally sacred, the writer used it with no deceptive intention,
as a dramatic form which dignified his encouragement of
his countrymen in their great struggle against Antio-
chus." Doubtless the book of Daniel was, and was meant
to be, an encouragement in all that desolate period after
prophecy had ceased, to mitigate their trials, and especi-
ally that one, which wrecked the faith of so many, the
persecution of Antiochus. For it shewed them visibly
before their eyes, that God, in Whose Hands all things
are, knew the whole course of events and overruled them.
But it was no encouragement at all, except on the belief of
its truth. Yet a writer could not more distinctly claim,
that the prophecies which he delivers were revealed to
himself. It is idle to deny a "deceptive intention," when
the writer, had he not been Daniel, would have deceived
first his own people, and then the whole Christian world,
until now. Strange, that some who deny the "deceptive
intention" of the writer, adduce the declarations made
to or by Daniel, that the prophecies were true, as a proof
that they were false. Yet wherein do they differ from our
Blessed Lord's own assertion that His words were true³,
that He is the Truth ? St. John avers his own truth 5,
St. Paul also, and Jeremiah 7. The assertion in Daniel
is not more frequeut than in St. Paul. Once only it is
made in Daniel's own person: else it is made to assure
the first recipient of the revelation. Daniel impresses
6
De Wette speaks of it as "the intelligent act of a patriot," Einl. § 257.
Zunz, an enlightened' Jew, (Gottesdienstl. Vortr. d. Juden, p. 318 sqq. 405
sqq.,) and Lengerke, (§ 15.) excuse it from habits of the times. Bleek does
not seem to think such fraud needs excuse. (Schleiermacher, &c. Zeitschrift,
iii. 250 sqq. § 23.) It was "necessary for his end, prophecy having ceased in
the time of the Maccabees." (1 Macc. ix. 27, iv. 46, xiv. 41.) Einl. p. 593.
2 Essays and Rev. p. 76. 3 S. John v. 31, 2, vii. 18, viii. 14, 17, 18, 40,
5 Ib. xix. 35, xxi. 24. 6 Acts xxvi. 25,
2 Cor. vi. 8, 1 Tim. i. 12, 15, iv. 9, 2 Tim. ii. 11, Tit. iii. 8.
45, xviii. 37.
4 Ib. xiv. 6.
7 xxvi. 15.
Introduction.
3
on Nebuchadnezzar, the dream is certain and the interpre-
tation thereof sure; Gabriel gives the like assurance to
Daniel; Daniel repeats it 10. In some way, this is to be-
tray in the writer's mind an uncomfortable feeling that
on good grounds he would not be believed¹¹; although the
like assurance implies no such fear in St. John, St. Paul,
and Jeremiah : and yet while thus accrediting himself, as
being what he is not to be admitted to be, a prophet of the
future, he is to have no "deceptive intention." The as-
sertions of the truth of his prohecy or interpretation se-
verally are to be intended to guarantee their truth, being
(as these say) false; and yet he is to have had no "intent
to deceive." More consistent is Hitzig's 12 undisguised
statement; "when the books Coheleth and Wisdom claim
to be Solomon's, we see in this disguise simply that the
author has chosen a certain vehicle: the case of the book
of Daniel, if it is assigned to any other, is different. Then
it becomes a forged writing, and the intention was to de-
ceive his immeditate readers, though for their good." A
deceit which would fall under the sentence of God against
those who say, 13 Let us do evil, that good may come
whose damnation is just.
The moral law, written in the hearts of the heathen,
strongly condemmed forgery¹ even when not ungodly. It
66
8 ii. 45.
9 viii. 26, x. 21, xi. 2.
10 x. 1.
11 "On the other side, the author betrays his mask through the repeated
assurances that his prophecies contained truth." Lengerke, Einl. § 13. n. 11.
p. lxxiii.
With the words, and the dream is certain, &c. Daniel is to be desig-
nated as a true genuine prophet and interpreter of visions: for the later Jews
called the older prophets, πιστοὶ δράσεως οι πιστοὶ ἐν δράσει and the later pro-
phets often appeal to their faithfulness and reliableness." Id. on Dan. ii. 45. P.
87.
It is true. True, even Jeremiah remarks with emphasis (xxvi. 15. comp. 12,
xxviii. 9.) that he speaks truth, as also the Apostles (1 Tim. i. 15, iv. 9.)—but
here (as in x. 1. comp. xi. 2.) the addition is made, to guarantee the age of the
book." Id. Ib. viii. 26. p. 404.
22 Vorbemerkungen z. Daniel, § 6.
Rosenmüller speaks out, imputing the direction to seal the book (as he thinks,
viii. 26, x. 4. 9.) and the change of language from Hebrew to Chaldee, to fraud,
in order to give to the work the appearance of having been written in the cap-
tivity. Proœm. p. 28, 30, 1.
13 Rom. iii. 8.
14 Hävernick (neue Untersuch. üb. d. B. Daniel, p. 10.) instances the ba-
nishment of Onomacritus by Hipparchus to whom he had rendered great ser-
B 2
4
Introduction.
was reserved for persons within Christianity to apologise
for it¹.
It is well to have so clear an issue before us. Porphyry,
in the well-known attack upon Daniel in his work "against
the Christians," saw how direct the issue was between him.
and Christians, "Daniel," says S. Jerome 2, "not only,
as do the other prophets, writes that Christ should come,
but also teaches at what time He should come, and ar-
ranges the kings in order, and numbers the years, and
announces the most evident signs. Porphyry then, see-
ing all these things to have been fulfilled, and unable to
deny that they had taken place, had recourse to this ca-
lumny. On the ground of a partial resemblance, he con-
tended that those things which Daniel foretold as to An-
ti-Christ at the end of the world had been fulfilled under
Antiochus Epiphanes: whose assault is a testimony to the
truth. For such was the accuracy of the Prophet's words,
that to unbelieving men he seemed not to have foretold
the future, but to relate the past." A modern school, which
has disbelieved with Porphyry, has echoed Porphyry.
Out of some remaining respect for Holy Scripture or
for Christian belief, it evaded the question of the truth or
falsehood of Scripture where it could, consistently with
the maintenance of its unbelief. If it could generalise a
prophecy, so that it should not seem to be a prophecy,
it did so. It adopted non-natural interpretations of pro-
phecy, and so admitted the books which contained it. It
objected not to admit the author, if it need not admit the
prophet. Hence arose all those modern interpretations
of prophecy, as relating to Hezekiah, Zerubbabel and the
vices, for falsifying Musæus (Herod. vii. 6.); the blame attached, not only to
Cynæthus, (Scholl. on Pindar Isthm. iii. 55. Eustath. Scholl. on Hom. i. 1.)
but to Solon for forging a verse of Homer on Salamis. (Plutarch, Solon, c. 15.
Diog. Laert. i. 48) [This, however, if true, had political consequences.] “He-
rodotus scruples not to lay bare dishonesty which stained the sanctuary, and
to disgrace the memory of a bribed Pythia, whom he mentions by name."
vi. 66. Dahlmann, Forschungen, ii. 103. ¹ Lengerke apologises for Hea-
then forgeries and the book of Daniel with them. (§ 15.) He could see no moral
wrong in untruth, unless it had a malicious intent.
2 Præf. in Daniel.
¡
.
Introduction.
5
like. If a prophecy, like those more definite prophecies
of Daniel, admitted of no wresting, there was no choice
left, except to acknowledge prophecy, or to deny the ge-
nuiness of the book. Of course, other grounds must be
found to veil the nakedness of unbelief; but it is manifest
from the writers themselves, that the central argument is
this; "Almighty God does not or cannot work miracles, or
reveal the future to His creatures. Therefore, since mi-
racles or prophecy are impossible, a book which contains
an account of miracles must be written long after the al-
leged miracles are related to have been worked; a book
containing predictions beyond the unaided sagacity of man
must have been written after the events which are pre-
dicted." This is laid down broadly by that class of wri-
ters; it underlies every so-called critical argument used
by them; it crops out continually where it does not, as
with avowed unbelievers, stand in the forefront. Four or
five idioms are found, a poetical form, which happens
also to be Aramaic, and then follows some such statement
as, "Besides, had Isaiah written this, it would imply a
knowledge of the future." And it is obvious, all the while,
that the real ground lies, not in those half dozen idioms,
to which no one who has any idiomatic knowledge of He-
brew would attach any weight, but in the fact that the
chapter of the prophet contains, if his, undeniable pro-
phecy. It has even been laid down as a test of the date
of the books of Holy Scripture 3; "Wherever, in the He-
brew Scriptures, there are numerous myths and legends,
[miracles]as in the history of the patriarchs, of Moses,
Balaam, Samson, Elijah, there we have uniformly rela-
tions, not committed to writing until long after the events.
Where, contrariwise, the facts appear natural, as in the
books of Ezra, Nehemiah and the Maccabees, there the
relation, although not always, is contemporaneous with,
or shortly subsequent to, the events. This is an historical
canon of unquestionable validity. Hence it follows that
3 Knobel, Prophetismus d. Hebräer, ii. 401. quoted by De Wette, Einl.
§ 255º. ed. 7.
6
Introduction.
not Daniel, but only a writer long subsequent, can be
the author of our relation, and so of our book."
The same writer says¹, "To maintain the genuineness
of Isaiah ch. xxiii. and yet to refer it to a siege of Tyre by
Nebuchadnezzar more than a century later, as Jerome,
&c. do, is impossible, in that, in Isaiah's time, there could
be no anticipation of it, much less a confident aud definite
announcement of it. If any would refer the prophecy to
that event, he must at least, with Eichhorn, Rosenmül-
ler, Hitzig, hold it to be spurious.”
More broadly yet 2, " The main argument for the later
date of our Gospels is, after all, this; that they, one by one
and still more collectively, exhibit so much out of the life
of Jesus in a way which is impossible," [i. c. miraculous.]
A recent unbelieving writer, speaking of a late Ger-
man answer to the objections against the book of Daniel,
says 3, "As to the visions and prophecies of the later part
of the book, the Author describes the clearness with which
the events are described in viii, x, xi. up to the time of
Antiochus Epiphanes, which is, in fact, to give up the
whole argument for the book concerning prophecies pro-
perly so called."
Such statements, however often they occur in books of
unbelieving criticism, plainly have nothing to do with
criticism or historical enquiry. They assume, in each
case, the whole question about which criticism can be en-
gaged. If any of us, on our side, say; "our Lord, being
God and having a Divine knowledge, pronounced Daniel
to be a prophet and quoted words of his as prophetic and
as still to be fulfilled," we do thereby mean to close up the
question of criticism. We, on grounds extrinsic to the
book of Daniel, believe critical enquiry to be superseded
by Divine authority. We feel satisfied, of course, that
1 on Is. p. 160 sqq.
1847. p. 530.
2 Baur, Crit, Untersuchung. üb. d. Evang.
3 Westminster Review, N. 40. p. 544. A German
reviewer puts the issue more nakedly; Unless, with Auberlen and others,
one will abide by the pure miracle of supernatural inspiration, the book Da-
niel is incomprehensible, except as the expression of the first Macabee rising,
embodied in writing." The same is implied in Essays and Rev. p. 76.
Introduction.
7
there can be no real grounds of criticism, contradictory to
that Divine authority; and, in fact, the deeper any critical
knowledge is, the more subservient it is to that authority.
But we do not pretend that this antecedent certainty of
our's belongs to the province of criticism. As little,
plainly, does the opposite denial of the abstract possibi-
lity of prophecy. Those who use the argument call them-
selves "unprejudiced," simply because they are free from
what they call our prejudices. But of course one who
lays down, that such a book cannot have been written at
a given time, because, in that case, it would contain defi-
nite predictions of the future, as much prejudges the
question on the ground of his antecedent anti-doctrinal
prejudices, as he can allege of us, that we decide it on
our doctrinal prejudices, i. e. on our previous belief. His
major premiss is, "Since there cannot be either prophecy
or miracle, a book claiming to contain definite prophecies
or a contemporary account of unmistakeable miracles
cannot belong to the period to which it is ascribed:" his
minor is, "The book of Daniel does make such claims."
Our major is, "Whatever Jesus has said, is true;" our
minor is, "He has said that Daniel is a prophet." This
whole ground, on either side, is antecedent to criticism.
Their denial of the possibility of miracles and prophecy
denies, in fact, to our Creator powers which we possess
ourselves, of regulating our own work, or communicating
to others beforehand our own designs. It has its source
in an utter ignorance of God, and is to be remedied by
a knowledge of Him and of ourselves, our Creator and
His creatures.
But, although the belief as to the prophecies of Daniel
must be part of my religious being, since it is inseparable
from my belief that Jesus is God, this in no way interferes
with the examination of these prophecies in themselves.
I cannot indeed examine them, as one who doubts.
No one who believes in Christ, can or ought to assume
that to be doubtful, upon which Christ has set His seal.
So it is as to the whole substance of the faith and each
8
Introduction.
detail of it. Our own knowledge is certain, and we shall
never win others to our certainty of faith and knowledge
by assuming the character of persons who have them-
selves to arrive at faith. Even in matters of certain human
knowledge, men do not ignore their own knowledge, in
order to impart it to others or to remove their objections
to it. Nor can I make-believe, as to what I do not be-
lieve, that these objections to the book of Daniel have
any special plausibility. I select them out of the flood
of pseudo-criticism with which we have been inundated,
because the school which propagates them has given out
its achievements here to be "1 one of the greatest triumphs
of modern criticism." "Crimine ab uno disce omnes."
Since none of those petty questions, which people set in
the foreground, are their real central grounds of objec-
tion, but rather the fact that the book of Daniel does con-
tain unmistakeable prophecies, I will apply myself to
these points; 1) to shew that even if, per impossibile,
the book of Daniel had been written at the latest date at
which these men venture to place it, there would still
remain clear and unquestionable prophecies; 2) That those
definite prophecies which were earlier fulfilled are not out
of, but in harmony with, the rest of the Old Testament; 3)
That even apart from the authority of our Lord, the his-
tory of the closing of the Canon, as also the citation of
Daniel in books prior to, or contemporary with Antio-
chus, establish the fact that the book was anterior to the
date of Antiochus Epiphanes, and so, that those definite
prophecies are, according to this external authority, not
history related in the form of prophecy, but actual pre-
dictions of things then future. And then, I will answer
every objection alleged against the book, whether as to
matters of doctrine or history, which shall not have re-
ceived its answer in the course of the other enquiries.
But first, it may be best to mention some points, which
were questioned in the last decennia of the last century,
but which are conceded on all hands now.
1 Bunsen, Gott in d. Geschichte, i. 302.
Unity of the Book of Daniel.
9
1. No one doubts now that the book of Daniel is one
whole. That hacking school of criticism, which hewed
out the books of Holy Scripture into as many fragments
as it willed, survives only in a few expiring representatives.
It reigned with an Oriental despotism in Germany for a
time, but is now deposed even there. Bertholdt, (follow-
ed by Augusti,) who so dissected the book of Daniel and
ascribed it to nine different authors of somewhat different
dates, was constrained to admit that the authors of each
accession to the book were acquainted with the fore-ex-
isting portions; that they were, in fact, successively con-
tinuators of the portions which previously existed, each of
the later writers imitating the style and language of those
who preceded him. A tacit admission, of course, of the
unity of style and language which pervades the whole,
while the assumption of such a close imitation betrayed
the arbitrariness of the theory. It admitted identity of
style and manner, and denied the identity of the author.
But no less is that other theory of Eichhorn now re-
jected by all, that the Chaldee and Hebrew portions of the
book are by different authors. Besides the general proofs
of the unity of the whole, the division of the languages
does not coincide with any obvious division of the book.
There are in the book two chronological series; the one
containing the six first chapters; the second, the six
last. The first is chiefly historical, in which the chief
persons acting are the kings reigning in Babylon, Nebu-
chadnezzar, Belshazzar, or Darius; while Daniel or his
companions are instruments in the hand of God, passive
or subordinate. The revelation is conveyed to Nebu-
chadnezzar in his dreams, or to Belshazzar by the hand-
writing; Daniel is but the interpreter of what has been
conveyed to the king. In the last six chapters, the reve-
lations are made directly to Daniel alone. In one chap-
ter (the ixth) there is some personal history of Daniel, his
study of Jeremiah's prophecy, his self-humiliation and
2 De Wette, Bleek, Von Lengerke, Gesenius, even Hitzig, Ewald and Stä-
helin, admit the unity of the book just as fully as those who believe its divinity.
10
Unity of the
prayer, upon which God unfolded to him that brief much-
containing series of prophecy from the restoration of Je-
rusalem to the Death of the Messiah and its destruction.
But here he himself is the recipient of revelation. Yet
both in the order of time and in the language, the two
divisions (so to speak) overlap one another. Both series
are chronological in themselves; but the first extends be-
yond the date when the second begins. The first series
consists of six narratives, selected with one object, four
of the six from the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, the fifth
from that of Belshazzar; the last from that of Darius the
Mede. The second series, the visions or revelations to
Daniel, are also dated, like the ancient prophecies, and
that, at four successive times; in the first and third years
of Belshazzar, in the first year of Darius son of Ahasu-
erus, and in the 3rd year of Cyrus. So that after having,
in the histories, gone on to the reign of Darius, we go
back again, at the beginning of the second series, to a
date a little earlier, the first year of Belshazzar.
But these two series are not distinguished by language,
nor can the Chaldee portion of Daniel make a whole.
Daniel, after having related in Hebrew the early history
of himself and his companions, passes naturally into Chal-
dee in the answer which the Magi made to the king,
when he required them to tell him his forgotten dream.
But the Chaldee does not cease with that portion of the
book which is connected with the history or the public.
events of the empire. The first of Daniel's visions is also
in Chaldee. This is not what we should have expected;
perhaps it has at some time puzzled some of us, its rea-
son not being obvious. The connection is in the subject.
The vision of the viith chapter is a supplement to the
revelation in Nebuchadnezzar's dream. It too relates to
the four great empires of the world. It expands that first
disclosure to Nebuchadnezzar, fills it up, continues it.
The prophecies which follow relate more especially to Is-
rael. Those events, then, or prophecies, which belonged
to the revelation of God to the heathen, were written in
Book of Daniel.
11
the language of the then great heathen empire. They
were for the world, and were written in the language
common to the people of God and to the world, a lan-
guage understood through all that then populous tract
from the Persian Gulf to Damascus, the seat, in early
times, of so many Christian Churches. The prophecies
which bore especially upon Israel or the time of our Lord's
first Coming, were written in the language of the ancient
Prophets. As a slight instance of the same ground of
varying languages, Jeremiah wrote in Chaldee a single
verse which he gave to the Jews as an answer to the Hea-
then among whom they were¹, Thus shall ye say unto them,
The gods who heaven and earth made not,
Perish from earth and from under heaven shall they.
These intersecting lines of arrangement and this hid-
den ground of order in the book of Daniel, in themselves,
imply the oneness of the author's hand. The book is ar-
ranged upon a real plan; its languages are chosen upon a
distinct principle. Yet neither the ground of its arrange-
ment nor the principle of the variation of the languages
are explained in the book itself; nor are they obvious at
first sight. Amid apparent want of unity on the surface.
of the book, there is a real unity in the whole, resting on
the unity of the plan of the writer.
Besides this, it has been noticed how the first part of
the book prepares for what follows; how the subsequent
parts look back to the first. The account of Daniel's three
years' education in the wisdom of the Chaldees accounts
for his falling under the king's decree, that all the wise
men should be slain; the mention of his three companions
and their qualifications in ch. i. is introductory to their
elevation in ch. ii. ; and both, to their accusation in ch. iii ².
The mention of the carrying away of the sacred vessels ch.
i. is preparatory to the account of the desecration of them
by Belshazzar. ch. v. The narrative of Belshazzar's im-
1 Jer. x. 11. 2 ii. 49, is alluded to in iii. 12. as an aggravation of the alleged
disobedience. Their accusers represent it as the greater ingratitude, that cer-
tain Jews, (i. 3.) elevated so high by the king, yet refused obedience to him.
12
Unity of the
pious feast alludes throughout to points scattered over
the whole previous history; Daniel's having been brought
captive by Nebuchadnezzar from Judæa; his wisdom, as
acknowledged by Nebuchadnezzar, and as ascribed to the
spirit of the gods in¹ him; his being placed at the head
of the Magi; Nebuchadnezzar's exceeding greatness, his
subsequent insanity as the punishment of his pride, and
his restoration, upon his acknowledgment of the supre-
macy of God. The emphasis on the titles, "Belshazzar
the king of the Chaldeans was slain and Darius the Mede
received the kingdom 2," alludes to the vision of the suc-
cession of empires, earlier and later in the book³. The
chapter closes with the statement of the succession of
Darius the Mede, which prepares for the independent
history in ch. vi. The vision in ch. vii. is an expansion of
Nebuchadnezzar's dream. In the short authentication
of the vision of the kings of Media and Persia and the
king of Greece in ch. viii. Daniel expressly refers to the
former vision 4. The revelation as to the 70 weeks is re-
lated to have been communicated to him by Gabriel,
whom, Daniel says, I have seen in the vision at the begin-
ning 5, i. e. in ch. viii. as related.
The contents of the prophecies are also progressive
The revelation in ch. vii. (as before said) is expansive of
that of ch. ii. Ch. viii. developes still more fully one part
of that revelation, viz. the relation of the 2nd and 3rd of
those kingdoms, and most especially that point of deep-
est interest, warning, instruction of the Jews, the way in
which the third kingdom, that of Greece, would, in Anti-
ochus Epiphanes, try their faith for a time, and be brought
to nought. Ch. ix. in the prophecy of the 70 weeks,
gives a summary of the trial-time before the Coming of
the Messiah, fixed their expectations so that they should
not look for it as near nor yet at an undefined distance,
describes it as a time of mingled mercy and judgment, of
mercy to the many with whom the covenant should be
1 v. 11, 14, comp. iv. 8, 9, 18. [5, 6, 15. Ch.]
3 ii. 39, vii. 5.
4 viii. 1.
2
5 ix. 21.
v.
30, 1. [v. 31, vi. 1. Ch.]
6 viii. 9-12. 23-26.
Book of Daniel.
13
confirmed; of judgment, on Jerusalem. The xith chapter
developes with great fulness certain prominent events in
the relations of two kingdoms of Alexander's successors,
selecting those which most affected the Jewish people.
The histories are also in like way selected with one
object, the way in which the true God was glorified amid
the captivity of His people in a heathen Empire. The
relations in the first six chapters, differing as they do in
kind, have this one end. God it is, Who gives knowledge
and skill to the four youths above all the magicians and
astrologers in the realm 7. God, from Whom Daniel ob-
tains knowledge of Nebuchadnezzar's dream 8. He it is
Who giveth wisdom to the wise and knowledge to them that
know understanding". Before Nebuchadnezzar Daniel de-
preciates himself; this secret is not revealed to me for any
wisdom that I have, more than any living 10; he ascribes it
wholly to the God in heaven that revealeth secrets¹¹. Nebu-
chadnezzar, at the end, acknowledges the God of Daniel,
as¹2 God of gods and Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets.
The delation of Shadrach Meshach and Abednego, as far
as relates to themselves, ends simply in their restoration¹³;
its main issue is the decree, that none in the whole em-
pire should speak any thing amiss against their God, be
cause no other god can deliver after this sort¹ In Nebu-
chadnezzar's edict upon his restoration to reason, men-
tion is made incidentally only of Daniel, and that, in the
king's appeal to him to explain the dream, not for any
wisdom of his own, but because the spirit of the holy gods
is in thee 15. With this the king begins and ends. The
end of the relation is, that the king praises and honors
the King of heaven and owns the justice of His ways 16.
The whole history of Belshazzar is God's vindication of
His honour against the insolence of the sensual prince.
God it is, in sum, Who changes times and seasons, Who
removeth kings and setteth up kings, Whose are wisdom and
might; He it is Who giveth either to any who have either,
↑ i 17-20. s ii. 17-23.
13 iii. 30. 14 Ib. 28, 29.
9 Ib. 21. 10 Ib. 30. 11 22, 28, 45.
12 47.
15 iv. 9, 18. 16 Ib. 2, 3, 37. 17 ii. 20-22.
14
Unity of the Book;
1
whether it be His own servants or the Heathen king ¹.
He delivereth those who trust in Him2; His dominion is
for ever; His kingdom on earth, not like the kingdoms
of men, indissoluble 3. The same is the manifest object
of all the temporal revelations in the following chapters.
In all those histories, moreover, the human agent is
brought in without his will; he speaks, but it is not by
his own wisdom; or he is delivered, but it is not by his own
strength; and then he retires from sight. Daniel's ex-
position of Nebuchadnezzar's first dream is occasioned
by his being involved in the decree, which doomed all
those, educated as he was, to die¹; in the second, he comes.
in obedience to the king's edict"; in the third, he is called
for through the intervention of the Queen-mother. To
Daniel the historian it is all one, through whom God was
glorified. Every thoughtful child has probably, on hear-
ing the history of Shadrach Meshach and Abednego,
asked, "where was Daniel?" The history suggests but
does not state the answer. Those only were punished,
who where accused. Daniel's three companions had been
promoted at the request of Daniel, not for any services
of their own. With these the accusers began7; they did
not venture upon Daniel yet. It is no uncommon art of
human policy to begin by attacking the inferior, in order
to prepare the way for the real object, the destruction of
one who stands in higher favour. The first attack is a test
of the probable success of the later, and may be made
with less risk. So then the glory came to God through
the three youths, and Daniel, in noble self-forgetfulness,
left unstated the grounds of his non-participation in their
steadfastness. In the time of of Darius, the attack upon
¹ ii. 37, 8, iv. 25, 35, 36, v. 21, 26, 28.
8 ii. 44, iv. 3, 34, vi. 26.
7 iii. 8, 12. It is probable that the command was purposely not extended
to those in the position of Daniel. For in iii. 27. mention is again made of
the three first classes named in iii. 3. "the satraps, sagans, pechahs ;" but be-
sides these, we hear there, for the first time, of ministers of a higher rank
than the satraps, and who stood in direct relation to the king, the "haddabere
malca," "the king's councillors." Daniel was one of these (ii. 49.) and, as
2 ii. 28, 9, vi. 16, 20, 22, 3, 27.
4 ii. 14 sqq.
5 iv. 8.
6 v. 10-12,
Character of Daniel.
15
Daniel seemed to be the safer, because his services had
been to another dynasty. With this withdrawal of self
coincides the character of the great revelations, of which
he became the channel. The first most comprehensive
revelation is given not to himself, but to the Heathen
king. Of this, he is but the expositor; of the rest, he
is only the receiver; these too he does not understand,
until they are explained to him. As to what is not ex-
plained to him, he is a vehicle to others of revelations,
which are hidden from himself. He returns from his
revelations, in which God had shewn him somewhat of
the fate of empires, to do the king's business in the king's
palace; but he mentions even this, only because he had
intermitted it, when sick by reason of the awefulness of
the revelations 9.
The character of Daniel himself runs one and the same
through the book, majestic in its noble simplicity. As
a revealer of God in a Heathen Court, and as raised to
high dignity in God's Providence for the sake of his
brethren, he occupies, in this temporary dissolution of the
political existence of his people, a place somewhat corres-
ponding to that of Moses at the beginning. Like Moses,
he was educated in the highest wisdom of a people famed
for its wisdom. Even this likeness has its unlikeness.
In Moses God manifested not His wisdom but His power.
Yet, as the wise of the Egyptians were put to shame by
the power of God wherewith He clothed Moses the shep-
herd, so He paled the reputation of the wisdom of the Baby-
lonian Magi by His Spirit which He placed in the captive
boy Daniel. But the resemblance lies only in the common
principles of God's Providence, whereby He, at extraor-
dinary times, raises up, singly for the most part, extraor-
dinary instruments of His own, to effect His Will. Man
has but two great gifts of God to direct against Himself,
wisdom and power. The conflict must ever lie in these.
In Joseph the slave, and Daniel the captive, God put to
such, certainly he was not included in the letter of the edict. Probably the
“councillors” were intentionally excepted.
8 xii. 8, 9.
9 viii. 27.
16
Unity of the Book;
shame Egyptian and Babylonian wisdom, in that through
them He taught their monarchs what their own wise men
could not teach them. But therewith the likeness ended.
Neither Joseph nor Moses are originals from which Da-
niel could (as men have said,) be a copy¹.
The book of Daniel gives but a slight hint, that Da-
niel was formed amid suffering and privation, in that, in
his person, the prophecy of Isaiah to Hezekiah was ful-
filled 2, of thy sons which shall come from thee shall they
take away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the
king of Babylon. Thither, with several other Jewish
youths, he, himself of royal blood, was taken while yet a
boy, and placed in the care of the chief of the eunuchs.
His name was changed as well as those of his three chief
companions; a badge of servitude³, destined to obliterate
the memory of their early home, and, in the case of these
Jewish children, of their God. All of them had, before,
borne names commemorative of their God.
"God is my
Judge." "The Lord gave graciously." "Who is like
God?" "The Lord helpeth." Two of these, were
changed into idol-names; "Servant of Nego," and, per-
haps "Beltis preserve the prince," any how, some com-
pound of Bel. Nebuchadnezzar himself alludes to the
signification and object of Daniel's new name, Daniel,
whose name is Belteshazzar, after the name of my god. He
was probably now about 14. For Plato relates of the Per-
sians, " 10 After twice 7 years have passed, those whom they
call royal instructors receive the boy" to educate. The
1 As Lengerke imagined. 2 Is. xxxix. 7. It appears from their being
put in charge of the master of the king's eunuchs. (Dan. i. 3.) Josephus re-
lates it simply as a fact. Ant. x. 10. 1.
3 i. 3. "This is deemed by some
8
8
a right of ownership; for, when they buy slaves, they change their names,
that, even in the change of name, they might recognise their servitude."
Theod. "The master, having bought a slave, then, wishing to show him
that he is master, changes his name."—"That the imposition of names is a
symbol of mastership, is plain from what we too do," &c. S. Chrys. Serm. 12.
in loc. N. T. Opp. iii. 121. See such changes among the Egyptians, (2 Kings
xxiii. 34.) Babylonians, (Ib. xxiv. 17.) Persians, (Ezr. v. 14. Esth. ii. 7.)
8 iv. 5. Ch. 8. Eng.
דָּנִיאֵל 4
5
6197337
מִישָׁאֵל 6 עֲזַרְיָה 7
9 The conjectures of my young friend, W. H. Coxe. the promising decy-
pherer of cuneiform Inscriptions.
10 Alcib. i. 37. Häv.p. 21.
Character of Daniel.
11
و
17
three years, during which he was to be taught the learning
and tongue of the Chaldæans 10, would bring him to 17; but
according to Xenophon ¹¹, 16 or 17 was the age of the
adults, at which they entered upon the king's service. As
he was taken captive in the third year of Jehoiakim,
when Nebuchadnezzar was at the head of his father
Nabopolassar's army and was not as yet king, some time
in the second year of Nebuchadnezzar coincided with
the time when he was to stand before the king, entering
upon his service. It was then in boyish faithfulness to
the law of his God, that he, about 14, refused the king's
meats 12, which, (as being connected with idol-sacrifices,
and the animal food thereof being killed with the blood,)
were forbidden to him by the law 13. Hosea's prophecy 14,
they shall eat unclean things in Assyria, shews how diffi-
cult it was to avoid them. God says by Ezekiel 15, the
children of Israel shall eat their defiled bread among the
Gentiles whither I will drive them; and Ezekiel protests
to God, Ah! Lord God; my soul hath not been polluted.
It was part of that simplicity of boyish faith, which is
the herald of future greatness, that, in uncompromising
obedience to the law of his God, he, the soul of the action
of his three companions, trusted that God would uphold
his health and strength, as well through the pulse as
through the forbidden food. He tells us that it was so, as
a simple fact. Even now too God protects religious
abstinence. "I have remarked," Chardin relates 16, "that
10 Not what we call Chaldee, which is Aramaic, n, in Daniel i. 4, Ezr.
iv. 7. but the Medo-Persian which the Magi brought with them.
12
פַּחְפָּן
11 Cyrop. i. 2. 8.
from the Persian. See further note A. at the end.
It is clear from Dan. v. 2-4. that the royal banquets were liable to be mixed up
with idolatry. Libations of wine and offerings of a first portion (comp. àraρx",
àлáρxeσ0α) to the gods were held far and wide to consecrate the meal, and so,
being idolatrous, did to the Jews desecrate them. Häv. quotes Strabo (xvi. 3,
26.) alleging that the Nabatæans [Babylonians by origin, see on Obad. p. 242, 3.]
offered libations of wine to the sun. The on, cakes offered to the " Queen
of heaven" in Jer. vii. 18, xliv. 19. were probably Babylonian. Judging it to
be a defilement to partake of such things, since they, serving their idols, re-
ceived for good cheer the portion set apart thence for them." Polychr.
13 Idol-sacrifices, Ex. xxxiv. 15. eating with the blood, Lev. xix. 26, &c.
14 ix. 3.
16 MS. Notes in Harmer, Obs. 59. ii. 110.
15 iv. 13, 14.
C
18
Unity of the Book;
the countenances of the Kechicks (kashishin, monks)
are in fact more rosy and smooth than those of others,
and that those who fast much, I mean the Armenians and
Greeks, are notwithstanding very beautiful, sparkling with
health, with a clear and lively countenance."
But whether God did unusually bless that meagre sus-
tenance or no, boys do not foresce, that, amid abstinence
from the vices which surround them, God gives powers of
mind and body, which others, through sinful self-indul-
gence¹, destroy in themselves. The faith was the same,
in whatever way God answered it. In that same strong
faith, he, with his companions, obtained from God that
knowledge of Nebuchadnezzar's dream and its meaning,
which saved him from death. In that same simple faith,
in his advanced age, he continued, like the Psalmist 2, to
pray three times in the day, openly, when the penalty was
the den of lions.
Yet with this uncompromising duty to his God, he
shews, where he may, a subject's deference. What re-
spectful tenderness there is in that explanation of the
dream, whereby Nebuchadnezzar's impending insanity
was foreshewn to the king 3. He sat astonied for one hour,
and his thoughts troubled him. The king had to encourage
him to speak; so amazed was he at such a reverse to such
greatness. We almost hear the accents of tenderness and
sympathy with which he spake. With what gentle words
does he exhort him to those acts of mercy and righteous-
ness, whereby the chastisement might yet be averted ¹, Let
my counsel be acceptable unto thee if it may be a lengthen-
ing of thy tranquillity. He longs that God may yet re-
verse the doom, which he had to announce, The dream be
to them that hate thee, if, by mercy to man, the king would
but place himself within reach of the Merey of God! To
the impious Belshazzar he had to announce the imminent
judgment of God; yet then too with what longing re-
membrance does he look back to the days of Nebuchad-
1 Rycaut gives a horrible account of the pages at the Ottoman court.
3 iv. 19.
4 Ib. 27.
2 Ps. lv. 17.
3
6
Character of Daniel.
19
nezzar, his greatness, glory, honour, humiliation, repent-
ance. Human greatness is, when unabused, a majestic
sight; for the powers that be, are ordained of God. They
are reflections of His Supremacy. The greatness of Ne-
buchadnezzar was probably the more elevated, as being
the first who changed the robber-tyrant-domination of
Assyrian or Babylonian might into organised rule. Da-
niel's admiration of that greatness, (uniformly as the gift
of God,) shews itself alike in the explanation of his dream
of that majestic statue which depicted his glory; in that
of the hewn tree which betokened his extreme humili-
ation; and in the description of it to Belshazzar, when
Nebuchadnezzar was with the dead, and his empire was
within a few hours of its dissolution. The memory dwells
in the mind of the aged seer, as of a glorious sight which
had faded. Even of the weak king, who had let himself
be entrapped into a law which constrained the condem-
nation of Daniel, he dwells on all the good side, his re-
luctance to execute the decree, (which perhaps with safety
to his throne he could not recall,) his sorrow at it, his in-
effectual desire to evade it, his one night's repentance.
They are few words of his own which he has preserved ;
but they are in the same gentle respectful tone ;7 Before
thee also, O king, have I done no hurt. Yet the love of his
home and of the country which God had chosen for His
people, lived through all those years of a lifelong absence
and greatness. We see it in the aged man of fourscore
and three years, streaming back on that life of 69 years
of exile. It is told us incidentally. But for the decree of
Darius we should not have known it. "When Daniel
knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house,
and his window being open in his chamber towards Jeru-
salem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day and
prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he did afore-
time." What a yearning for the dust of the city of his God
does there lie in those two words, towards Jerusalem; what
a life of longing prayer in those closing words, as he did
6 v. 18-21.
6 Rom. xiii. 1.
7 vi. 22.
8 lb. 10.
c 2
20
Unity of the Book;
aforetime. Yet he prayed toward Jerusalem, not simply
as his native land, but in memory of the prayer at the dedi-
cation of the temple; " If they shall bethink themselves
in the land whither they have been carried captives, and re-
pent and return unto Thee with all their heart-and pray
unto Thee toward their land which Thou gavest unto their
fathers, the city which Thou hast chosen and the house which
I have built for Thy name, then hear Thou their prayer,
and forgive Thy people.
That same earnest longing we see developed in that
full and deep outpouring of his soul 2, when, in the first
year of Darius, the 70 years of the captivity were all but
accomplished; we see the intensity of his love for the
city of his God, which with his bodily eyes he was no
more to see. We hear it in words, which now too ex-
press the yearnings of the soul, longing for the resto-
ration of one's country or of the Church. One who
could doubt their truth, knows nothing of prayer or of
the voice of the soul. It were a psychological contra-
diction. We see that same longing again a little later,
in the third year of Cyrus, in those unexplained words,
In those days I Daniel was mourning three weeks of days.
The cause of the mourning is hinted in the subsequent
vision, where Gabriel says,* The prince of the kingdom of
Persia withstood me one and twenty days. It is related by
Ezra 5; The people of the land hired counsellors against
them to frustrate their purpose all the days of Cyrus king
of Persia.
This love survived an unbroken political greatness of
70 years. The stripling of 17 sat in the king's gate, (“in
the Porte," as we say, retaining the Oriental term,) Presi-
dent over all the Colleges of the wise men, and of the
whole province of Babylon. Daniel continued even unto
the first year of king Cyrus, are the simple words; but
2 ix. 4-19.
3 x. 2.
4
x. 13.
11 Kgs. viii. 47-50.
5 iv. 4,5
• Dan. ii. 48. p'an-ba by rup-7 lit. "chief of the sagans [prefects] over
all the wise men of Babylon." Each college or division of the Magi had its own
head, and Daniel had the supervision of all.
7 i. 21.
Character of Daniel.
21
what a volume of tried faithfulness is unrolled by them!
Amid all the intrigues, indigenous, at all times, in dynas-
ties of Oriental despotism, where intrigue too rolls round
so surely and so suddenly on its author's head; amid all
the envy towards a foreign captive in high office as a
king's councillor; amid all the trouble, incidental to the
insanity of the king or to the murder of two of his succes-
sors, in that whole critical period for his people Daniel
continued. We should not have had any statement of his
faithfulness, but for the conspiracy against his life under
the new Median dynasty which knew not those past years.
8 The president and Satraps sought in vain to find any oc-
casion against him concerning the kingdom; forasmuch as
he was faithful, neither was any error or fault found in
him. The picture is the greater, because the lines which
mark it are so few. They are a few simple touches of
truth. It is the fact, which is so eloquent. It is not
the language of panegyric to say, Daniel continued, even
unto the first year of king Cyrus; Daniel was in the gate
of the king; this Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius
and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian'. The force of the
words is not drawn out; but, as perseverance is the one
final touchstone of man, so these scattered notices com-
bine in a grand outline of one, an alien, a captive, of that
misused class who are proverbially the intriguers, favor-
ites, pests of Oriental courts, who revenge on man their
illtreatment at the hand of man 10; yet, himself, in uni-
s vi. 4.
9 i. 21, ii. 49, vi. 28.
10 Ctesias gives most fully the lists of Eunuchs, who had "influence with" the
different Persian kings, from Cyrus (“with whom the Eunuch Petisakas had
great influence," Pers. n. 5.) downwards. Ib. n. 11. 13. 20. 27. 29. 30. 39. 45.
49. 53. He mentions also some of their intrigues and assassinations. Of their
character in Christian times, Gibbon does not speak more strongly than S. Atha-
nasius, who calls them "a pleasure-loving race, that has no serious concern ;"
"scarcely entrusted with household service." The law forbade them to be
admitted into any Ecclesiastical Council." Yet they were always causing evil
by their intrigues. In the Arian persecutions under Constantius, “it was the
Eunuchs who instigated the proceedings against all." (S. Ath. Arian Hist.
§ 38. Hist. Tracts p. 251, 2. Oxf. Tr. see also Ib. p. 287.) So Chrysaphius the
Eunuch, the friend of Eutyches, was the author of the Eutychian troubles,
22
Unity of the Book;
1
form integrity, outliving envy, jealousy, dynasties; surviv-
ing in untarnished uncorrupting greatness the 70 years
of the Captivity; honoured during the 43 years of Nebu-
chadnezzar's reign; doing the king's business ¹ under the
insolent and sensual boy Belshazzar; owned by the con-
quering Medo-Persians; the stay doubtless and human
protector of his people during those long years of exile;
probably commissioned to write the decree of Cyrus which
gave leave for that long-longed-for restoration of his peo-
ple, whose re-entrance into their land, like Moses of old,
he was not to share. Deeds are more eloquent than words.
Such undeviating integrity, beyond the ordinary life of
man, in a worshipper of the One God, in the most disso-
lute and degraded of the merchant-cities of old, first mi-
nister in the first of the world-monarchies, was in itself a
great fulfilment of the purpose of God in converting the
chastisement of His people into the riches of the Gentiles.
A self-laudatory school has spoken much of the lauda-
tion, as they call it, of Daniel, as being unnatural, on our
belief that he was the author of the book. To me cer-
tainly much more striking is his reserve about himself.
A chief statesman in the first Empire of the world, he has
not recorded a single voluntary act of his own. Conceive
any mere human writer, occupying such a position as
Daniel had, a chief adviser of a great monarch, and a great
protector doubtless of his people, saying not one word
of all the toils, plans, counsels of those seventy years,
nothing of the good which he furthered, or the evil which
he hindered! And, amid this self-abnegating silence, what
is the self-laudation? Literally this, that God gave him
through his influence with Theodosius, and of the horrors of the latrocinium of
Ephesus. (see Petav. de Incarn. i. 13.) The heathen Lampridius speaks of
them, as the "sole destroyers of princes." (Vit. Sev. c. 66.) Gibbon sums up, "If
we examine the general history of Persia, India, and China, we shall find that
the power of the Eunuchs has uniformly marked the decline and fall of every dy-
nasty." (c. 19. n. 7.) Gibbon speaks of the pernicious influence of the Eunuchs
"under the third Gordian," (c. 7.) their evil ascendency over Constantius
(c. 19. beg.), Honorius (c. 31.), Arcadius (c. 32. at length), and Theodosius
1 viii. 27.
the younger. (c. 34.)
Hebrew and Chaldee from one hand.
23
and his companions wisdom above the rest of the youths;
that this was proved on their examination; that Daniel
relates, in all simplicity, the Queen-mother's account
of the skill given to him by God in interpreting difficul-
ties, which moved Belshazzar to send for him; that the
envious Presidents could find no crime whereof to accuse
him; that the angel Gabriel thrice spake to him, as
greatly beloved. If not fact, this were blasphemy; other-
wise, how differs it from that touching title by which St.
John loves to call himself, the disciple whom Jesus loved?
Whatever mention, however, Daniel makes of himself,
(although not self-praise,) it is one and the same through
the book; and so, even opponents have acknowledged
herein an evidence of its oneness. It is, in fact, unity
amid diversity.
There is another characteristic of true history, visible
throughout the book, statements which need but can re-
ceive explanation. Daniel was not writing continuous
history, but recording facts in which God's glory was
manifested. As a contemporary writer, he presupposes
that things would be understood, which then were no-
torious. He does not guard his relations; he does not
explain more than is needed for his immediate end.
Those for whom he immediately wrote understood him.
To those of a later age those allusions, even if not under-
stood, presented no difficulties; for the truth of the pro-
phecies guaranteed their truth. These I will consider
hereafter. Now, I will only say, that that free unembar-
rassed style which troubles not itself about making clear
its own truth, is visible throughout Daniel.
It is equally conceded, that the language and style both
in the Chaldee and Hebrew portions of the book are such
as belong to one writer. Even De Wette ranks this uni-
formity among the proofs of its unity. "The similarity
of style binds together the Chaldee and Hebrew por-
tions, not only in themselves but with each other."
ii. It is now conceded, that there are neither Greek
2 ix. 23, x. 11, 19.
3 Einl. n. 256.
24
7
“Greek words" given up by all,
6
ㅠ
​3
words, nor Græcisms ¹, beyond the names of two or three
musical instruments. In the ignorance of general philo-
logy at the close of the last century, words whose Semitic
origin was not obvious, or which belonged to the Indo-
European family, nay, some whose Aramaic origin is ob-
vious, were assumed to be Greek. Kerads 2, an indige-
nous Aramaic root, common to Syriac Chaldee Samaritan,
was assumed not only to be from a common root with
kηρúσow, but to be the very word; kerods was to be the
κηρύσσω,
same as kýρʊ§; partemim* was to be πрóτμo (which is,
of course, not even Greek 5,) pattish to be Téтaσos; ne-
bidsbah to be vóμioμa; pithgam³ to be p¤éyµa (none of
which last Greek words would suit the meaning of the
passages.) Then, among the names of musical instru-
ments employed in Nebuchadnezzar's solemn dedication,
mashrokhitha was to be aúpty; sabka was not to be, (what
it was,) the original Semitic name which the Greeks,
adopting the instrument, pronounced σaµßúÊŋ, but was,
despite of the Greeks themselves, to be the Greek word;
soomphonia was more naturally thought to be συμφωνία;
khitharos was probably kilapis, our "guitar;" and pesan-
terin, yaλτýpiov. Of these 9 or 10 alleged Greek words,
(two are from the same root) improved philology swept
away at once all which are not names of musical instru-
ments; three roots belonging to the Aryan family, two
probably being genuine Chaldee. Of the four musical in-
struments, mashrokitha has probably a common Sanskrit
root with σúpty, but is a genuine Aramaic word; sabka
is the Aramaic name of the instrument which the Greeks
9
¹ This was an imagination of Bertholdt, e. g. p. 248, 752,3. wherein he neg-
lected Greek idiom as well as Chaldee.
2 mp v. 29. also Syriac and Sam.;
in Sanser. krus, (whence Gr. înρúσσw, kρiłw, крáłw;) Germ. kreischen. Ges.
The Arabic use is borrowed probably from the Aramaic, yet is not exclusively
Christian.
3 17 iii. 4. also in Syr. and Arm.
4
D'
Dan. i. 3. also of Persian nobles, Esth. i. 3, vi. 10. see Note A. at the
end. 5 It should be ἔντιμοι.
πέτασος is «ε a broad brimmed hat."
6
wktib or vyp kri iii. 21. also in Syriac.
7 ¬‡‡‡ probably from 1917, see Ges.
8 Dang iii. 16, iv. 14, Ezr. iv. 17, v. 7, 14. see Note A.
9 a “harp," from Semitic 779, 77. comp. Shabaka Ar. Melit. Zab. “in-
סַבְּכָא
tertwined;", "net;" shabaka Ar. Shibke Melit. Id.
except two or three musical instruments.
25
called σaµßúêŋ, inserting the m, as the Zabians and Mal-
tese 10 did in the Syriac aboobo, "reed pipe," an insertion
familiar to us in Horace's "ambubaia ¹¹," "female flute-
player." But the Greeks themselves say that the capßúkn
was "12 a Syriac invention," as indeed it has a Syriac, but
no Greek, etymology. Now, whether there remain two
or three musical instruments, this would be nothing more
remarkable, than the corresponding fact, that Greeks im-
ported Syriac or Hebrew names of instruments, together
with the instruments themselves, as κivúρa, váẞλa 13. We
know that the Babylonians loved foreign music also, and
that they saddened their Hebrew captives by bidding
them, 14sing to their harps some of the songs of Zion. Isa-
iah, foretelling the destruction of Babylon, says,
15 Thy
pomp is brought down to the grave, the noise of thy viols.
(nebaleica.) Babylon was a city of merchants 16; she ex-
ulted in her ships 17. Her manufactures found their way
to Palestine in the days of Joshua 18. The Euphrates
connected Babylon downwards with India, and above
even with Armenia 19 and the line of Tyrian commerce,
and, through Tyre, with Greece. Nebuchaduezzar had,
himself, at enormous expense, connected it with the Per-
sian Gulf, by a gigantic navigable canal 20. We know
the rival lines of commerce, that from Sardis by land
across to Armenia 21 and, beyond, to Susa; and that from
Petra to Babylon 22, a transit both from Egypt 22 and Tyre.
Tyre again had its own Northern line, through Tadmor
(Palmyra) to Tiphsach (Thapsacus) and thence South-
ward to Babylon 23, 24 Thapsacus was the North-Eastern
10 amboob, Zabian; lenboob for el enboob, Melit. Ges. v. 238.
11 Hor. Sat. i. 2. 1. 12 Juba, Hist. Theatr. iv. in Athenæus, iv. 77. p. 391.
Dind. 13 from 3, 7. “Sopater says that the váßλa too was a Phœnician
invention.” (Ib. p. 390.) Strabo says, some musical instruments have Bar-
barian names, Nablas and Sambuke and Barbitos and Magadis and many
others." x. 3. 17. avλós is probably from 7, "perforated," "pipe or flute."
Ezek. xvii. 4.
17 Is. xliii. 14.
20 Rawl. Herod. Ess. 8. i. 512.
14 Ps. cxxxvii. 2.
18 vii. 21.
15 xiv. 11.
19 Herod. i. 194.
The canal is shewn on Spruner's map.
4, 2. see on Joel iv. 10. P. 144.
24 1 Kgs. iv. 24. [v. 4. Heb.]
16
21 Herod. v. 52.
2 Strab. xiv.
23 See Heeren, Ideen, ii. 127. iii. 402, 3.
26
Names of things travel with them.
3
extremity of the kingdom of Solomon; and the line of
commerce, for which doubtless he built or rebuilt Tad-
mor¹, was, at least, more than four centuries anterior to
this date. The intercourse of Greece with Tyre, in Ante-
Homeric times, is evidenced by the use of a Phoenician
or Hebrew word to designate "gold." Asia, from the
Tigris Westward, was systematically intersected with
lines of commerce. Sardis and Babylon were proverbi-
ally luxurious. It were rather a marvel, if the golden
music-loving city had not gathered to itself foreign mu-
sical instruments of all sorts, or if, in a religious inaugu-
ration at Babylon, all the variety of music which it could
command had not been united, to grace the festival and
bear along the minds and imaginations of the people.
The Greek names are but another instance of the old re-
cognised fact, that the name of an import travels with
the thing. When we speak of tea, sugar, coffee, choco-
late, cocoa, cassia, cinnamon, tobacco, myrrh, citrons,
rice, potatoes, cotton, chintz, shawls, we do not stop to
think that we are using Chinese, Malay, Arabic, Mexi-
can, Hebrew, Malabar, S. American, Bengalee, Persian
words, and we shall continue to use them, even though
they were originally misapplied, and we know that the
word tobacco was the name, not of the plant but of the
vessel out of which the natives smoked it. When Solo-
mon's ships brought him the peacocks, apes, ivory, almug
or algum-wood, they brought with them also the Sanskrit
and Malabar names of the ape, (which passed thence into
Greek and our European languages) and of the Algum-
wood; the Tamul name of the peacock, and the Sanskrit
of the elephant. There is nothing stranger in our find-
1 Ib. ix. 18.
מָנֶה from
2 xpuoós from pŋ; add äpπn, scymetar, from ; µvâ
3 Is. xiv. 4.
The authority, except for the Hebrew
Arabic and Persian words, is Adelung.
5 See in Ges. v. ŋip, 'an, D'any. Prof. Max Müller approves of these etymolo-
gies and adds for the algum wood (which had hitherto baffled Philologists) the
Malabar and Sanskrit "valgu-ka." Science of Language, p. 203. The pronun-
ciation in the Chronicles, (2 Chr. ü. 8, ix. 13, 11.) "algum," is then nearer
the original than that in the Kings, "almug," 1 Kgs. x. 11, 12.
Musical instruments in Daniel not Macedonian. 27
ing Greek instruments of music in Nebuchadnezzar's
time at Babylon, than in the Indian names of Indian ani-
mals and of an Indian tree having reached Jerusalem
under Solomon. Perhaps there is a trace of the trade in
female slaves, for which Phoenicia was early infamous,
900 years before Nebuchadnezzar, in the Pentateuch,
there being no etymology for the Hebrew word "concu-
bine," "pilegesh," or "pillegesh," in any Semitic or other
Eastern language, while it is identical with the Greek
Táλλağ, "maiden."
The
The Greek names of musical instruments being then
only evidence of indirect commerce between Babylon and
Greece, the evidence was to be eked out by calling them
❝6 Macedonian instruments." In regard to "pesanterin,"
this was to be proved, in that the Alexandrians, like the
Dorians of old, are supposed to have changed the λ into v;
and so "pesanterin" might be a Doric or Alexandrian pro-
nunciation of aλτýρtov. Only, in fact, 1) although the
word aλτýρiov occurs in the LXX. and other Greek
translations of Holy Scripture, and sometimes in classic
authors, the form avτýptov never does occur.
Greek translators of Daniel render "pesanterin" by
Vaλτýρiov. 2) If it had occurred, being a Doric form, it
would have been obviously the Doric name for the instru-
ment, Doric music being ancient and celebrated, whereas
any special Macedonian music is unheard of. Nor is it
likely that there ever was such, since we are here on
later historic times, and we know, in detail, of Eolic,
Doric, Ionian, Lydian, Phrygian music, and have no hint
of Macedonian. The Dorians were, of old, established
in Crete, with which both Assyria and Tyre were in
proximate intercourse. A change of consonants which
the Macedonians, (if it had been so,) would have retained
from the Doric, could have been no proof that a word,
had it existed, was not Doric but Macedonian. We
might as well say, that any word which we retain in use
6 Essays and Rev. p. 76. from Ges. v. 1.
7 See Tromm or Schleusner, sub v.
s See Scott and Liddell, sub v.
28
Macedonian Greek words in Daniel
from old French or Saxon, "oyez" or "yclept," was a
proof that any older writing in which it may occur be-
longs to the 19th century, not to the period from which
it is retained. In truth, the n being pronounced against
the palate like 1, only somewhat harder and lower, I and
n are notoriously interchanged, not in Greek dialects only,
but in all languages. It is one of the acknowledged
changes in the Semitic dialects, both in themselves and
with each other ¹, as it is between ourselves and the Ger-
mans 2. But 3) there is no proof whatever, that the
Macedonians ever did subsititute the n for the 13. So then,
as relates to "pesanterin," we have an imaginary dia-
lectic variation to account for an imaginary Greek word,
whereas the change is according to the recognised prin-
ciples of all languages.
1
¹ Gesenius, who v. p accounts for the word in that "I was changed into
n after the manner of the Macedonian dialect, which (dialect) was from the
time of Alexander received among the Syrians and Alexandrians," accounts
for it rightly under ; " is not seldom hardened into n, as by Ar. zanam,
I
and in popular Arab. zanzala for zalzala, earthquake; sansala for salsala, a
chain: frequently in foreign words, as app from Yaλrhplov; margonitho
(Syr.) margelitha (Ch.) from µapyapíīns ; Isrâin and Isrâil; Michâin and Mi-
châil. Zab. Enshebeth, for Elizabeth." In Heb. we have vn, vn; rn, ps;
maya, magh, wing, win; and also 173, (whence Dan. 773,) Targ. 17; Bochart adds,
(Phaleg p. 520.) 2p, Ar. lakaba; lympha, vúμon; lutra, ěvvdpis; pulmo, πvεúμwv.
Ges. refers to Scheid in Diss. Lugd. p. 953. for instances within the Arabic itself.
2 ermel, ermine; kummel, cummin; himmel, heaven; orgel, organ.
ע
3 "There seems to be no trace of any such word as yavτýptov. The change
of λ into is not exemplified in any of the words known to be, or by Gram-
marians said to be, Macedonian. Of the words in which it is exemplified in
profane writers, pívτaraι is pure Doric; (Epicharmus fr.) yévro is Homeric;
¿vleîv, Bévtiσtos are Theocritean; pívτis (which Ahrens questions) is in Pin-
dar ;dévra is said to be Doric by Grammarians. There remains, possibly to
countenance the Macedonian theory, expevá; mhphy in LXX. 1 Chr. xv. 16.
But this, as you say, could only indicate a Doric or Æolic affinity in the Ma-
cedonian dialect." Letter of Rev. J. Riddell, Fellow of Balliol. The reading
éλeipevά is an accidental variation of the Vatican MS. of the LXX. The
Alexandrian MS. has 'Expaλά; 15. others and the Compl. have λ ; in v. 21.
conversely the Vat. MS. has alone 'Evpavaías, 4. MSS. have, 'Exipavaías,; the
Alex. Ald. xi. and 3 others have 'Eλıpaλalas ; 10 others have also the two λ. Con-
trariwise, for the Hebrew Mikneahu the Vat. has Makeλλela; another, Keλλía,
v. 18. but all have the Hebrew n in v. 21. Such changes probably arose in
copying from dictation and indistinct hearing.
a fiction.
29
In the "Macedonian word, symphonia," we have, fur-
ther, an imaginary meaning attached to an ordinary
Greek word, and, because Antiochus Epiphanes is relat-
ed to have danced in a wild way under the stirring of the
symphony, "concert," of music, it is assumed that the
"symphonia" was some one instrument, and that, Ma-
4 Gesenius alleges two places of Polybius, as authority for a Greek instru-
ment ovμowvía. In the one, it is manifestly "concert" (quoted by Athenæus
x. 52. p. 439. Cas.) "The concert stimulating him, the king [Antiochus Epi-
phanes] jumping up danced and jested with the actors, so that all were
ashamed." The other is equally clear, with Athenæus' reading; "If he heard
of any young men feasting any where, he came in with a jar [of wine] and
music, so that most, for the strangeness, rose and fled." There is no other
place where ovμpwvía even seems to be a single instrument; and indeed the
name contradicts that idea. In Latin S. Jerome corrects those who so misin-
terpreted the word in S. Luke xv. "Some Latins think wrongly that the
symphonia is a sort of organ, whereas the concordant harmony in the praises
of God is signified by this word. For ovuqwvía is expressed in Latin by con-
sonantia.” (Ep. 21. ad Dam. n. 29) S. Augustine in Ps. 41. ed. Bened. has
symphoniaci," a band of music," not, as was of old read faultily, symphoniam.
(Du Cange s. v.) Others explain the word of some one instrument, shewing
by their contradictions that they had no certain knowledge. Isidore (Orig. ii.
21.) and Ugutio (Du C.) describe it as a drum; Glosses on Prudentius (A. D.
405,) sistrum or trumpet; Mamotrectus, "lyre;" others, "pipe." Ven. Fortu-
natus (A. D. 530,) uses it in poetry for a powerful wind-instrument. Later,
sweet" is its epithet. (Nic. de Braya and Joh. Molinet in Du Cange.) Du
Cange supposes the "chifonia" of old French poetry to be derived from it, (an
instrument hung on the neck of itinerant minstrels.) Ib. Others identify the
Italian sambogna. Menage (whom Gesenius quotes for this) says, "It is be-
yond question that sambogna is derived from Sambucina, diminutive of Sam-
buca; sambucina, sambucna, sampogna." (le orig. deila ling. Ital.) In what-
ever way later writers may have understood the word, there is no evidence of
any actual instrument called "symphonia," until times when it would be alto-
gether a new instrument. Many repeat from Ges. as a fact, that "in Syria
and Asia Minor it is called sambogna." This could only be true of itinerant
musicians; but it is without authority and probably a mistake. In the passage
of Polybius, I have supplied the only meaning which kepaμíov can have, and
which, in the Greek of Polybius, it may perhaps have. There is, however, no
instance in which κεράμιον, without the addition of οἰνηρόν, οἴνου, is used of a
jar of wine. It may, however, have been intelligible from the context, that
the king brought it as his contribution to the feast. The repάτior however of
Diodorus (Exc. ii. 577.) is still more unintelligible. Kepáтior is used of the
hornlets of a prickly crab; of a slight projection of the uterus; but not as a
diminutive of képаs, either as a drinking horn or as a wind-instrument. Hem-
sterhuis (on Lucian D. Dial. xii. p. 233, 4.) referred to by Wess. on Diod.
does not even name it.
30
Retreat of unbelieving criticism.
cedonian. In the absence of all evidence that the Greek
word symphonia was ever used of any single instrument,
German critics of the most opposite schools have found
for the Chaldee instrument a not improbable etymology
in Aramaic¹.
Criticism then, as it became more accurate, retreated,
point by point, from all which, in its rashness, it had as-
serted. First, it gave up the so-called Græcisms; then
that there were any Greek words in Daniel except three
of the musical instruments; then, that there was any
thing incredible in some Greek musical instruments be-
ing used at Nebuchadnezzar's solemn religious festival:
lastly, this crotchet, that two of the musical instruments
were Macedonian words, must give way likewise. Yet
at each stage these pseudo-criticisms did their work.
Those who disbelieved Daniel believed the authority of
the crities. "To fix the time in which this chapter (i)
was written we have a date in the Greek [not Greek
but Aryan] word 'partemin,' according to which we can
hardly go further back than the time of Artaxerxes Lon-
gimanus." "The use of the Greek [Aramaic] word 'ne-
bidsba' leaves no doubt that this chapter (ii) must have
been composed in the times after Xerxes." And so on.
I have treated this question of the mention of Greek in-
struments, on what I believe to be the only philosophical
1 Meyer and Hävernick prefer the etymology from a reed;" "thence,"
says Meyer, “jo (like ji from ɲ) and then an adj. stat. emphat. p (the
form of the word in Dan. iii. 10. Keth.) This is confirmed by the Copt. onßi
arundo, [perhaps the original of σlowv, siphon, tube, which has no satisfactory
Greek etymology,] tibia; and tibia itself is perhaps Semitic, as rohr (reed), rohr-
bein (thigh-bone), röhrpfeife, a reed-pipe, also used of some organ-pipes.
so would be formed from this by the insertion of the D. See above p. 25.
Fürst, in like way, says of boo, "since the Greeks themselves did not so
name the instrument, it is perhaps Semitic." He mentions the same etymo-
logy, as also another given by Meier, pp cover (coll. Ar. tsofno or tsofono, a
leathern vessel for washing or drawing water: tsafno, tsofono, tsafna, a scrip
or leathern tablecloth; tsafano, scrip ;) then a Hebrew intensive adj. form 90
resolved into bp. stat. emph. sp. Meier himself rightly regards this as im-
probable, although the Arabic meanings, being unconnected with the others
of the root, are probably derived from some other dialect.
2 Bertholdt, Dan. § 6. p. 98.
3 Ib. § 7. p. 61.
Intercourse between Greece and the East.
31
ground, the fact of an old and extensive commerce be-
tween Babylon and the West. "The name travelled
with the thing," is an acknowledged principle of phi-
lology. It needed not that a single Greek should have
been at Babylon. Tyrian merchants took with them the
names of the wares which they sold, just as our English
merchants transmitted the names of our East Indian im-
ports with them into Germany, or the Spaniards brought
us back the American names of the products of the new
world, or at this day, I am told, some of our Manchester
goods are known by the name of their eminent manufac-
turer in Tartary, where the face of an Englishman has
probably been scarcely seen. Yet the actual intercourse
of the Greeks with the East is now known to have been
far greater than was formerly imagined. Brandis thus
opens his book "on the historical gain from the decy-
phering of the Assyrian inscriptions ;'
دو
5
"Long before the Greeks began to write history, they
had, as friends and foes, come into manifold contact with
the empire of the Assyrians. That Assyria took part in
the Trojan war, as Ctesias and others related, no one
would give out for an historical fact; but the battle and
victory of Sennacherib in the 8th century B.C. over a
Greek army which had penetrated into Cilicia is fully
attested by a relation out of the Babylonian history of
Berosus. On the other hand, the extensive commerce
of Greek colonies must not unfrequently have led Greek
merchants into Assyrian territory. Did they not pene-
trate even to the inhospitable steppes of Russia on the
Dnieper and the Don? The most important however
must have been the intercourse with the Assyrian pro-
vinces of Asia Minor, especially with the countries bor-
dering on the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, and cer-
tainly with Lydia also; which, as appears, for above 500
years until near the end of the 8th century B.C., was de-
Histor. Gewinn aus d. Entziff. d. Ass. Inschrift. p. 1, 2. 5 Diod. ii. 22.
6 Fragm. Hist. Gr. ed. Müller. ii. 534.
7 Heeren's Ideen. i. 920 sqq.
[from Herod. iv. 24.(see Rawl. on Her. iv.17.T.iii.p.14,16.) coll. Strab.xi.21.6.]
32
Intercourse between Greece and Assyria.
3
*"
pendant upon Assyria¹. In Cyprus too, where the Greeks
traded and the Assyrians had established themselves even
in earlier times, these nations must have come into ma-
nifold contact. That Greeks came to Assyria itself as
merchants, must remain conjecture only; but certainly
Esarhaddon who, first of the Assyrian rulers, had a paid
army, was accompanied by Greek soldiers also on his
marches through Asia2. Be this as it may, Anaximan-
der's map of the world [he was born about 610, B.C.]
implies an accurate acquaintance with the East. That
the Westerns generally took more part in the revolutions
of the East than we should have thought, appears from
the fragment of a poetical address of Alcæus to his
brother Antimenides, who had won glory and reward
under the banner of Nebuchadnezzar " The name of
Javan or Greece occurs in the inscriptions of Sargon
among those from whom he received tribute 5. We know
that articles of luxury formed part of the tribute to As-
syria 6. Sargon's statue found at Idalium commemorates
his expedition against Cyprus7. More recently, Labyne-
tus I. of Babylon had been present at the great invasion
of the Lydians by Cyaxares. It was no great matter for
monarchs who transported a monolith obelisk from Ar-
menia, and moved those colossal bulls, and brought
cedars from Lebanon 10, to import a few Greek musical in-
struments. Either way then, whether as spoils of war or
articles of commerce, Greek instruments of music might
easily have found their way to Babylon. In the monu-
ments even of Sennacherib, "the Assyrian Generals,"
1 Niebuhr, Vorlesung. üb. alt. Gesch. i. 405.
2 Abydenus in Euseb. Chron. Arm. i. 53. 3 i. e. the fact that he could
construct a map of the world. "Anaximander the Milesian, hearer of Thales,
first ventured to depict the world in a map." Agathemerus, Compend. Geogr.
in Hudson's Geogr. V. Scriptt. T. ii. "He first described the circumference of
earth and sea." Diog. Laert. ii. 1. 4 Strabo, xiii. 3. 2. 5 Rawl. Herod.
Essay vii. T. i. 474.
6 Ib. 465. Fox Talbot's annals of Esarhaddon in
7 Her. i. 74.
Journal of Sacr. Lit. N. 17. p. 72, 3. Layard, N. and Bab. p. 356.
8 Diod. ii. 11. 9 See the description from the bas-re-
lief in Layard, N. and Bab. c. 5. p. 104-114. or the bas-relief itself in the Bri-
tish Museum.
10 Ib. p. 118. 357. 644. Rawl. Her. i. 475.
The Pesanterin of Daniel, on Assyrian monuments. 33
says Layard ¹¹, are represented as "welcomed by bands of
men and women, dancing, singing and playing upon in-
struments of music.-We find from various passages in
the Scriptures, that the instruments of music chiefly used
on such triumphant occasions were the harp, one with
ten strings, (rendered viol or lyre in some versions, but
probably a kind of dulcimer) the tabor and the pipe; pre-
cisely those represented in the bas-reliefs. First came
five men; three carried harps of many strings, which they
struck with both hands;-a fourth played on the double
pipes, such as are seen on the monuments of Egypt, and
were used by the Greeks and Romans. They were blown
at the end like the flutes of the modern Yezidis, which
they probably resembled in tone and form. The fifth
musician carried an instrument not unlike the modern
Santour of the East, consisting of a number of strings
stretched over a hollow case or sounding-board." "The
Santour of the East" was recognised by Gesenius as the
Pesanterin 12 of Daniel. Even the two ways of spelling 13
which occur in Daniel, recur in the modern Arabic instru-
ment 14. The Psaltery, as described by S. Augustine 15,
corresponds with the " Santour", as recognised by Layard
on the bas-relief of Bablylon.
>
Bertholdt, who invented Græcisms for the book of Da-
niel, discovered also Rabbinisms, as he thought, but none
which he could allege. It had been nothing surprising,
if the Hebrew which Daniel spoke or wrote had been
less pure than belonged to his age. First minister at a
foreign court, using probably Aramaic as his ordinary
language, diligently instructed in the Aryan language of
the Magi, he knew Hebrew probably only from the remi-
11 Nin. and Bab. c. 20. p. 454.
12"the p being cast aside at the
beginning (as talma for Ptolemy,) and in or i from the end." v. pipe.
13 with the iii. 7. and the n Ib. 5. 10. 15. (varying in the MSS.)
פְּסַנְטֵרִין
.צנתר סנתר צנתור (סנתירסנטר ,It is written in Arabic with slight variations 14
15 in Ps. 32. n. 5.
>
"That hollow-wood, like a tabor, on which the strings
rest in such wise that when they are touched, being from it set in a tremulous
motion and from that cavity gathering sound, they are made more sonorous;
this wood the cithara has in the lower part, the psaltery in the upper."
D
34
Allegations of the late date of the Hebrew
niscences of boyhood, and from the study of the law and
of the prophets who had been before him. The use of
Syriac or Median words belongs to his situation; they
fit in with it. Bertholdt conceded thus much. "An
acute enquirer of our time¹," he says, "thinks it very
conceivable that the language of Daniel, taught as he
was in the language and learning of the Chaldæans,
living under several Babylonian kings, under Cyaxares
the Mede and under Cyrus the Persian, at court and in
high office, might take precisely such a colour, as to be-
come unlike all other remains of Hebrew antiquity, and
sink below the Hebrew of Ezra, Nehemiah and the book
of Esther, although far older than it. But if Daniel's in-
tercourse with Chaldæans, Medians, Persians in succession
occasioned certain peculiarities in his diction, then the
Hebrew style which we should expect would be one con-
forming to the language of the Chaldees, Medes and Per-
sians. Chaldaisms, Medisms, Persisms could, according-
ly, be nothing strange in the Hebrew portion of his book;
the approximations of his expressions to Rabbinism must
remain the mark whereby the later date of this book is
quite clearly to be recognized." A definite issue! But
where is the proof? Bertholdt offered none. In his ful-
ler introduction, he rejected the obvious remark of Staüd-
lin which he had before admitted, dropped the imputation
of Rabbinisms, but appealed to his own critical tact, that
the Hebrew of Daniel must be two centuries later than
Ezekiel, Jeremiah, or such Psalms as were written during
or soon after the captivity. He himself, he says, "could
not support this by proof in that place, without taking
up the room required for other more necessary investi-
gations." An "accurate critical history of Hebrew and
of its developement would," he thought, "supersede the
necessity of appealing to his own philological feeling, and
would make it plain to sight, that the author of the last
five chapters of Daniel must have lived a considerable time
1 Staüdlin, Neue Beyträge, p. 115.
2 Bertholdt, Dan. Einl. pp. 28, 9. 3 Einl. ins. A. u. N. T. § 388. iv. 1537.
of Daniel given up by all now.
4
35
""
after Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi." A commence-
ment of such a history of Hebrew appeared two years later
from one who shared all Bertholdt's doctrinal prejudices;
but Gesenius simply classed Daniel in the "silver age
of Hebrew, with Ezra, Nehemiah, the Chronicles, Esther,
and some older books. The words, which he selects as
characteristic of that age, occur chiefly in those histo-
rical books and in Ecclesiastes, some in Job; and but
few in Daniel. Bleek, and De Wette, after a careful ex-
amination of the Hebrew portion of Daniel with a view
to the question 5, for the time distinctly renounced Ber-
tholdt's notion of the lateness of the style of Daniel; and
Bleek seemed to think it a gain if any how the style should
prove nothing one way or the other. Even Ewald has
no thought except of three marked periods of Hebrew wri-
ters7; that before David; that before the Captivity; and
the decline, upon and through the Captivity. He classes
together the language of Ecclesiastes, the Chronicles,
Daniel.
It were an easy, but unsatisfactory, way, simply to
shew that the words alleged by Von Lengerke, and
transferred thence to the Introduction of De Wette, as far
as they prove any thing, coincide with the age and circum-
stances of Daniel. This however would only have been
an answer to the individual. I have therefore examined
4 Gesch. d. Hebr. Sprache u. Schrift. Leipz. 1815.
5 "Bertholdt and others maintained that the Hebrew of Daniel fell far below
that of the very latest book of the O. T.; but Bleek has given up the ground,
since we have no standard for the gradual decay of the language after the
Captivity. I confess that a fresh comparison of the Hebrew style of the book,
with a view to the present work, yielded few or rather no results. The style
is sometimes careless and unclear (as ix. 26. i xi. 6. i) and has harsh-
nesses (as xi. 7. p for a y); the idiom is also sometimes strange (as op
for peace' xi. 6); else there is but little deviation; especially if one takes into
account that the style is prophetic, to which belongs the use of the apoc. fu-
ture, as [] xi. 10." Hall. Encyc. 1813. Daniel, p. 10.)
T
• Schleiermacher, &c. Theol. Zeitschr. iii. p. 596. 212, 3. In his posthumous
Einleitung, he insists on the Greek musical instruments, but drops the subject
of the style. 7 Ausf. Lehrb. d. Hebr. Sprache 1855. pp. 22, 3. 8 s D. Buch
Daniel, 1835. pp. lx, lxi. 9 They do not occur in his Einleitung ins. A. T.
ed. iv. 1833. and are in the posthumous edition, 1852., probably in that of 1844.
D 2
36
The Hebrew of Daniel agrees with his
expressly for this object every notable word and idiom
used in the Hebrew of Daniel, and have set down under
four heads, 1) what is peculiar to Daniel; 2) what he has
in common with the middle period of language, i. e. words
or idioms, not occurring in the Pentateuch, but received
in books free from the influence of Aramaic; 3) what
Daniel has in common with the later writers, i. e. words
or idioms which, in our remaining Hebrew, do not occur
before the times bordering on the Captivity, as Jere-
miah; 4) what, like other of the sacred writers of the same
date, he has revived out of the Hebrew of the Pentateuch.
The enquiry was simply historical, where any words or
idioms employed by Daniel occurred in previous or con-
temporary Hebrew ¹. There is, for the most part, little
characteristic in any of this language. In very many
words or idioms, which do not occur at an earlier date,
there is no reason from the nature of the language, why
they should not. The unchanging East has not our
variations of language. The inhabitants of Mecca still
speak, in its purity, precisely that same Arabic in which
the Coran was written 12 centuries ago. What is cha-
racteristic, however, falls in with the time of Daniel.
1. It is manifest from that number of words or idioms
peculiar to the book of Daniel, that, like every other He-
brew writer, he moulded the language in which he wrote,
freely for himself. It is not the language of one, who
writes after received models in a dead language. Like
all the other sacred writers, he uses the language of
those who went before him ³. When describing a vision
like one of Ezekiel, he uses language of Ezekiel. But
he does not, in the least, copy the style of Ezekiel, and,
in fact, his Hebrew is freer from unusual grammatical
¹ See Note B at the end. I have not noticed idioms which, occurring through-
out all periods of Hebrew, belonged to the unchanging store of the language.
2 The late Professor Freytag (author of the Arabic Lexicon) told me this on
the authority of an Arab, who, being too late for the solemnities of the Haj, re-
mained at Mecca till the following year.
3 See Introduction to Hosea,
p. 6. Joel, p. 94. Obadiah, pp. 228,230, 1. Jonah, p. 252. and on iv. 2. p. 284. In-
trod. to Micah, p. 289.
time and circumstances.
37
forms than that of Ezekiel. It could not have been
formed upon it.
2. It should be observed, how the style of Daniel varies
with his subjects. One may say that there are four dis-
tinct styles in Daniel. a) The simple narrative, (as of c. i.
and elsewhere.) b) The impassioned language of his pray-
er (c. ix.) with which his short thanksgiving in the Chaldee
portion remarkably corresponds. Of the 4 verses of that
thanksgiving, two are, for cadence and language, as re-
markable as any in Hebrew. c) The purely prophetic
style of the prophecy of the 70 weeks. d) The condensed
descriptive prophecy of c. xi., in which every phrase cha-
racterises an event or a course of events, yet so that while
we can now, with the light of history, identify the events,
no one could, beforehand, make a history from them.
The simplicity of the narrative, the pathos of the prayer,
the solemn stateliness of the prophetic style, and the vi-
vid condensation of this historical prophecy, combined in
one, are no slight evidence of the grasp which the writer
had of the language wherein he wrote in styles so varied³.
3. The Aryan or other foreign words occur almost ex-
clusively in the Chaldee of Daniel, and, with one excep-
tion, they occur solely in his narrative. That one excep-
tion is, that the technical word for the "royal meats,"
"pathbag," to which Daniel had been accustomed, is once
repeated in the same exact sense in the prophetic portion
of the book; but it is a word altogether naturalised in
Syriac, and so probably in the Aramaic of Daniel's time,
although unknown to the later Chaldee. Of all these
foreign words it may be said, that they do not enter into
* Dan. ii. 21, 22. vehoo měhashnë 'iddēnayyā vēzimnayyā, mēha’dēh malkeen
ūměhakeem malkeen; yāhēb chochměthā lěchakkeemeen, ūmande'ā lēƑādē’ei
beenah. hoo gālē 'ămeekāthā ūměsattērāthā, yāda' māh băchăshōkā, oonehirā
imméh shērā.
5 Hitzig, with his wonted arrogance towards the pro-
phets, says,
"The bare fact that the author meant to write Hebrew, throws off
this garb on the first occasion, and writes Aramaic for 6 chapters together, with-
out any ground, beyond the historical portion, proves that the Aramaic style
suited him best, the Hebrew was burdensome to him." Heidelb. Jahrb. 1832.
p. 119. followed by Leng. p. xxxi. On the grounds of the variation of the lan-
guages, see ab. pp. 9, 10.
6 xi. 26.
38
3
Use of foreign words in Daniel
the prophet's ordinary style, nor do they in any way in-
fluence it. All of them are technical names ¹, relating to
foreign offices, dress, food, musical instruments, which
Daniel had occasion to speak of, and without which he
could not describe what he had to describe. He uses fo-
reign names of foreign offices, just as we have received
into English the Arabic names, Caliph, Sultan, Vizier,
Emir, Cadhi, &c or the Persian Pasha. Up to the time of
the captivity there were in Hebrew two foreign names
of offices only, one as old as Solomon, the etymology
of which is lost, (Pechah 2) the other from the time of Isa-
iah ³. To these, Daniel, from his situation in the Baby-
lonian Court, adds eight more, two of which only are men-
tioned elsewhere in Holy Scripture; "Satrap" in Ezra and
Esther; "treasurer" in Ezra only, and with a different.
pronunciation. Daniel's word, gedabar, could not have.
been taken, (as some theorised) from Ezra; for in Ezra,
as in Syriac, it is gidsbar. They are probably dialectic
differences. Another Aryan word of the same class,
partemim, nobles, occurs in directions given by Nebu-
chadnezzar, and is probably employed as having been so
used *. It is twice used in the book of Esther of Persian
nobles, but was unknown in Syriac, and occurs once only
in Chaldee, being retained out of the Hebrew in one of
Names of dress are more
the two passages of Esther.
¹ Officers, Hammelzar, (Dan. i. 11, 16.) achashdarpenin, (Dan. iii. 2, 3, 27. vi.
2, 3, 4, 7, 8; in Heb. Ezr. viii. 36. Esth. iii. 12. viii. 9. ix. 3.) gedabar, (Dan. iii.
2,3; gidsbar, Ezr. i. 8. Heb. vii. 21. Ch.) dethabar, (Dan. Ib.) sarca, (Dan. vi. 3,
4, 5, 7, 8.) Aryan. Tiphtayya, prob. from a root now only in Arab. (Dan. iii. 2.)
haddaberin, (Dan. iii. 24, 25. iv. 33. vi. 8.) adargadserin, (Dan. iii. 2,3.) Aramaic.
Dress, Sarbal, (Dan. iii. 21, 27.) pattish, (Dan. iii. 21.) hamnuk, (Dan. v. 7, 16,
29.) Aryan: carbal, (Dan. iii. 21.) probably Aramaic. Food, pathbag, Aryan.
(Dan. i. 5, 8, 13, 15. xi. 26.) Musical instruments, karna, mashrokitha, sabka
(iii. 5,7, 10, 15.) and probably sifonia (iii. 10.) or soomfonia, (Dan. iii. 5, 15.)
Aramaic ; kitharōs and pesanterin, (iii. 5, 7, 10, 15.) Greek. I have not counted
the word pithgam, "word," in the Chaldee of Daniel, because, although Aryan
originally, it was naturalised in all Aramaic, and is one of its most common
words. It occurs in the Chaldee of Daniel, not in his Hebrew, as it does in that
even of Ecclesiastes (viii. 11.) and Esther (i. 20.)
3 Is. xli. 25. prophesying of Cyrus.
it is used of Persian nobles.
2 See Note A at the end.
4 Dan. i. 3. In Esther i. 3, vi. 9,
suited to his time and circumstances.
5
39
likely to survive; and so two out of the three Aryan terms
in Daniel lived on in ordinary Syriac ; the 3rd is re-
tained out of the Chaldee in the Syriac translation of
Daniel, but disappeared out of the language; a fourth
name of dress, probably Aramaic, was lost. The Chaldee
as well as the Syriac retained the name of the Greek in-
strument kathros; else the Chaldee retains even fewer
of these terms than the Syriac. It has been noticed how
this use of Aryan words exactly corresponds with the si-
tuation of Daniel. Those who invent a later date for
the book of Daniel can attempt no real explanation how
a Jew who, according to their hypothesis, lived in Pales-
tine about 163 B.C., should be acquainted with Aryan
words, which related to offices which had long ceased to
exist, or to dress which no one wore, words which were
mostly obliterated from Aramaic, which (as far as they sur-
vived) were inherited only from Daniel's text; and several
of them were misunderstood or not understood by Ara-
maic translators, or by Jews who, on the unbelieving the-
ory, were almost his contemporaries, and yet these words
have been verified to us by the opening acquaintance with
the Aryan languages.
I will add here, how four Syriac words which have been
singled out by the opponents of Daniel as being, in some
way, marks against his Hebrew, fall in with his situa-
tion. 1) Aphadno, "his palace." The word survived in
heathen' and Christian Syriac as well as in the transla-
tion of the Scripture, and was also, in a slightly varied
form 10, probably introduced into Arabic from the Syriac.
It must have been known in Mesopotamia, since it be-
came the name of a place, Apadnas ¹¹, near Amida on the
Tigris. But it was wholly lost in Chaldee¹², was unintelli-
5 see Note C.
11
6 Delitzsch in Herzog's Real-Encyclop. v. Daniel, p. 274.
7 Chron. Edess. in Ass. B. O. i. 390, 1. Ges. See note of Ass.
10
p.
392.
8 Assem. Acta Mart. i. 166. S. Ephr. ii. 393. iii. 220, in a quotation as if
from Holy Scr. (Bernstein Coll.) 9 In 1 Chr. xv. 1. Eccl. xxi. 5. for olkos
ὑπερηφάνου, Ges.
phadano," a palace built aloft,” phaddana,“ built such a
palace." (a denom.) 11 Procop. de ædif. Justinian. ii. 4. Reland p. 571.
remains only in one proverb, and a doubtful reading, Jer. xliii. 10. Buxt, p. 181,
12 It
40
Remarkable Syriac words in Daniel.
1
gible to all the Greek translators ¹, and, was rendered in
the Syriac translation not according to the meaning of
the actual Syriac word, but according to the common
meaning of padan 2, which forms part of the name Padan-
aram. 2) Ashaph, which occurs in the Chaldee³, as well
as the Hebrew of Daniel, occurs in no other Hebrew or
Chaldee. Many as are the Hebrew names of those who, in
different ways, used divination, this name occurs no where
in Holy Scripture, except in Daniel. It is a common
Syriac term, and probably represents some character of
Aramaic divination,with which Daniel became acquainted
in Babylon. 3) Rasham, (we know from the Chaldee
of Daniel) was the official term used of the king's signa-
ture 5, which, when it was affixed, was, according to the
Medo-Persian law, unchangeable. Daniel uses it alike in
his Chaldee and Hebrew of that which was written irre-
versibly. 4) Palmoni, "a certain one" is remarkable as,
apart from one passage of Daniel, only occurring as a very
rare Syriac word. It was formed out of two Hebrew
words which survive only in conversations recorded in
the Old Testament'. In Syriac also, as Theodoret attests,
it still, in the 4th century, survived in the spoken lan-
guages. Else, except in one passage, it was lost from the
written language and disappeared from the native Dic-
tionaries. It was then doubtless part of the Aramaic, as
spoken in the time of Daniel.
The modern opponents of the book of Daniel have been
constrained to admit that the Chaldee of Daniel is nearly
1 The LXX. omit it altogether; Theod. has Apadano or Ephadano; Aq. Apha-
dano; Symm. iππоσтаσíov aŮTOû, “his stable;" S. Jer. (in Greek) “his
ἱπποστασίου αὐτοῦ,
throne." 2 "a smooth place." Pesh. Dan. xi. 45.
3 Dan. ii. 10, 27,
iv. 4. v. 7, 11, 15. 4 i. 20. ii. 2. 5 Dan. vi. 9, 10, 11, 13, 14. 6 Of the
writing on the wall, Dan. v. 24, 25. Ch. ; of that "written in the Scripture of
truth," Dan. x. 21. Heb.
7 Ruth iv. 1. 1 Sam. xxi. 3. 2 Kgs. vi. 8.
8 Theodoret, explaining the word peλμwví, as retained by Theod". (as also
by the LXX. and Aq.) Tóv Tiva, "such an one,” adds, "The Syrian language,
which is akin to the Hebrew, attests this." Barhebræus too (about A. D.
1270) still used the word which he wrote as in Daniel, (in his Scholia on
2 Kgs. vi. 8.) for the common Syriac word "phelon." (Bernstein from Vat.
MS.) But the Peshito does not use it for the Hebrew phrase, and in Daniel the
Aramaic of Daniel and Ezra.
41
identical with that of Ezra, and is as distinct as his from
that of the earliest Targums. The Aramaic of Ezra con-
sists chiefly of documents from 536 B.C. the 1st year of
Cyrus to the 7th year of Artaxerxes Longimanus B. C.
458. The documents are, a decree of Cyrus embodied
in one of Darius Hystaspes; two letters of Persian Offi-
cials to the kings 10; rescripts of Pseudo-Smerdis¹¹, Darius
Hystaspes¹², and Artaxerxes 13. The first series is knit to-
gether by a short historical account in Aramaic by a con-
temporary 14. Of the documents, the rescripts were pro-
bably written in Aramaic, it being the custom of the Per-
sian kings to have the letters written to each people in
his own language 15. If,moreover, they were translations
at all, they would probably have been translated into
Hebrew, the language of the rest of the book of Ezra.
This Aramaic then is any how the Aramaic of the first half
of the 5th century before our Lord; most of it probably
is original Aramaic of persons not Jews. Some of Da-
niel's Aramaic is stated in his book to have been written
in the first year of Belshazzar 16, about 542 B.C., 6 years
before the earliest of the documents in Ezra, and some 64
years before the latest. The great similarity between the
Aramaic of these writings is such as one should expect.
from their nearness; at the same time there is variation
enough utterly to exclude any theory that the Chaldee
of Daniel could have been copied from that of Ezra.
On the other hand doubtless the practice of delivering
orally translations of the Scriptures read in the Syna-
gogues, began in the time of Ezra 17. It is certain, more-
over, that these were not left to the arbitrary or extempore
efforts of each officer in each synagogue. The Turgeman
was not to be under 50 18; his was one of the most honour-
able offices in the Synagogue 19. The paraphrase was learn-
orthography is corrupted into “phelumene," (transposing the u) as would hap-
pen in a word not belonging to the written language. The Arabic has folo,
folano (span. fulano,) folaniyyo. Freyt. Lex. iii. 372. 9 Ezr. vi. 3-5. 10 iv. 11-
16, v. 7-17.
11 iv. 17-22. 12 vi. 6-12. 13 vii. 12-26.
iii. 12. viii. 9. 16 vii. 1. 17 Neh. viii. 8. Buxt. Tiber. c. vii. p. 34.
18 Juchasin,
f. 44. 2. Buxt. Lex. p. 2644.
19 Zunz gottesd. Vortr. d. Juden p. 332.
14
v. 4.
15 Esth.
42
Early date of the basis of the Targums.
6
ed by heart¹. The instances of the paraphrast's expand-
ing the text, while he translated it, are obviously exception-
al. The Talmud speaks of the Targum as an authority,
without which this or that passage could not be under-
stood³; which, of course, implies an old and, in their
opinion, certain tradition from times nearer the living lan-
guage. In reference to the Paraphrases of Onkelos and
Jonathan, they explicitly say, that they received them
from those before them. Jonathan lived a little before
our Lord 5; Onkelos was a pupil of Gamaliel ", and so lived
about the same time. The Chaldee which they represent
was certainly anterior, probably long anterior, to them-
selves. For the Chaldee Paraphrases had doubtless taken
a definite form, before the Greek translation was ven-
tured upon. Any how, it is probably prior to the time
of Antiochus Epiphanes, who died 163 B.C., certainly not
much later than his date. The question then, which any
opponent of Daniel has to solve, is this, "whence this
marked agreement between the Aramaic of Daniel and
Ezra, and this marked difference of the Aramaic of both
from that of the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan?" Men
are dishonest to themselves and to others, when they try
to escape from this broad question under cover of the dust
of other counter-questions. Such questions as, "7 why was
not the Aramaic of Daniel more pure, if his, seeing that
1 Zunz p. 8. quoting Mishna Megilla c. 4. § 5. 10. Tosefta ib. c. 3. j. Megilla
4. 1. Megilla f. 24. a. Sota. f. 39. b.
667
2 "The Targumist, or interpreter, sometimes used a license of expatiating: in-
stances of this are Hier. Bicc. f. 65. 4. Sanlı. f. 20.3. Bab. Berach. f. 28.1.” Light-
foot Hora Hebr. ad Matt. iv. 23. Add ad Luc. iv. 16. s Hott. Thes. phil. p. 256.
4 “R. Jeremiah, or, as others, R. Chaiiah B. Abba, says, 'The Targum of the
Law Onkelos the proselyte spake it from the mouth of R. Elieser and R. Joshua ;
the Targum of the Prophets Jonathan B. Uziel spake it [ultimately] from the
mouth of Haggai, Zachariah and Malachi."
et orig. Targ. B. H. ii. 1138.
Megilla c. 1. f. 3.1. Wolf de nom.
5 "Our Rabbins taught; 'Hillel the elder
had 80 disciples, of whom 30 were meet that the Shechinah should rest upon
them, as on Moses.-The greatest of all of them was Jonathan B. Uziel.”
Bava Bathra c. viii. p. 134. Succa f. 28. in Wolf ii. 1159. Hillel taught about
32 B.C. Id.
6 Wolf ii. 1148.
7 Bleek in Schleierm. ZS. Th. iii.
p. 214. In his (posthumous) Einleitung, Bleek had ignored the whole argu-
ment from language. pp. 557 sqq.
Evasions of the real point at issue.
43
he was taught it in a king's court?" "Why does not the
Aramaic of Daniel and Ezra vary more, seeing that it is a
Jewish patois which was formed at Babylon, and that it is
the character of all patois to vary?" "Why does the Ara-
maic of Daniel and Ezra vary at all?" ought to receive and
can receive their answer; but they do not touch the real
question. The answers in brief are, 1) Daniel was taught
the learning and tongue of the Chaldæans10, i. e. an Aryan
dialect and an Aryan literature, which the Chaldees
brought with them, not Aramaic, which Daniel himself
distinguishes from it 11. 2) The assertion, that the Bibli-
cal Aramaic is a patois, is simply an assertion. It does
not follow that the Hebrew of Daniel and Ezra is less
pure than that of Onkelos and Jonathan, because it is dif-
ferent. The Aramaic of Daniel and Ezra is the Aramaic
of Babylonia; that of Jonathan and Onkelos, the Ara-
maic which developed itself in Palestine. A certain num-
ber of definite Hebrew inflections (if such) would not
make a patois. 3) The slight variations between the Ara-
maic of Daniel and Ezra are in conformity with their
slight difference of age. But these are petty surface-
questions. The question as to the book of Daniel, (it
must always be borne in mind,) lies only between the
real date of the old age of Daniel, about the middle of the
6th century, B.C., and the death of Antiochus Epiphanes,
164, B. C.; a distance of 370 years. No one pretends that
any intermediate date is possible. His prophecies are as
detailed in the latter as in the earlier part. Either all
must be prophecy, or all must be fiction, the relation of
the past in the form of prophecy. All petty questions
then, how long the language, as we find it in Ezra,
& De Wette, Einl. 1833. p. 322. In his Einl., 1852 ed. 7. De Wette condensed
his statement into the two words, "grounds of spuriousness lie in the corrupt
Hebrew and Chaldee," without alleging an instance of the corruptness of the
Chaldee. p. 346.
9 Hitzig Heidelb. Jahrb. 1832. ii. p. 119. Lengerke (p. xxxi, ii.) sets, side by
side, the two contradictory arguments of Hitzig and De Wette.
10 Dan. i.
4. What we call Chaldee, the Jews in Hezekiah's time, (Is. xxxvi. 11.) Daniel,
Ezra, (iv. 7.) call Aramæan.
12 Bertholdt, Einl. p. 1527.
11 ii. 4.
44
Peculiarities of Biblical Aramaic;
lasted," are but dust in people's eyes; for no one imagines
that it lasted to the 2nd century, B.C. If the Aramaic of
Daniel had been an imitation of Ezra, it must have been
like Ezra; whereas the resemblance is in principles, not
in details; the variations are such as never could have
occurred, if the one had imitated the other. It is absurd
e. g. to suppose that one, meaning to copy the style of ano-
ther in order to make his work seem to belong to the age
of the writer whom he copied, half-copied an idiom of that
other, which lay before him. The slight variations in a
phrase, when both are correct according to the princi-
ples of the language, imply that each writer had an in-
dependent knowledge of the language, and wrote inde-
pendently.
.
1
In the earlier stage of the controversy, it was assumed,
on both sides, that those nice shades in certain forms of
speech, which separate Biblical Aramaic from the Ara-
maic of the Targums, were Hebraisms. All which was
said about "impure," "corrupt," Chaldee, "patois," &c.
presupposed this. Some of those forms might be He-
braisms. It has been recently pointed out, in a very
careful analysis ¹, that this was a superficial solution, since
some of the principal variations are forms which do not,
or scarcely, occur in Hebrew. There must then be some
wider solution, which shall take in the non-Hebrew vari-
ations. The diligent and accurate author of that Essay
pointed out that they could be accounted for on no other
ground than that such was the Aramaic of the period.
He noticed also, that some of these variations are to be
found in West Aramaic or Syriac, indicating that, in
the time of Daniel and Ezra, the Western and Eastern
Aramaic were not so much separated, as they were sub-
sequently. With this it agrees, that many of these
peculiarities of Biblical Chaldee occur in Samaritan also,
which, although the extant memorials are not earlier
1
¹ In a condensed essay on "The Chaldee of Daniel and Ezra" in the Journal
for sacred Literature, Jan. 1861. pp. 373-91. by J. Mc. G. (I am permitted to say,
the Rev. J. Mc. Gill,) who has kindly supplied me with some additions, marked
"Mc. G. MS." ed. 2.
differences from Aramaic of the Targums.
45
than the Targums, still, on account of the severance of
the Samaritans from the Jews, must be pretty nearly the
Chaldee which they brought with them from Eastern
Mesopotamia, some dialect of Aramaic.
I can here but give (as I am permitted to give) an epi-
tome of those condensed observations, referring to the
treatise itself for details, as also for the proof that these
variations are not Hebraisms; adding only, which of
these variations are found also in Samaritan.
The differences of the Biblical from the later Aramaic
belong, in the main, to an earlier stage of language.
1) In the Chaldee of Daniel and Ezra, the stronger as-
pirate h is used, where, in the Chaldee of the Targums,
it is nearly effaced. This occurs so manifoldly, as evi-
dently to involve a principle of language. It is found in
the characteristic letter of three conjugations 2; in verbs,
21) Hafel, Afel; "in 97 cases, (80 in Daniel, 17 in Ezra,) whereas there are,
of Afel, only 2 cases in Daniel, 1 in Ezra." "In 35 other cases, this is re-
tained after the preformants of the future and participle, while in 23 it is drop-
ped." "In Hebrew, there are but 7 cases in which the n of Hifil is retained
after the preformative; and of these, 6 are in 5,” kal being lost, “yyjin 1 Sam.
xvii. 47, Ps. cxvi. 6 ; min; Ps. xlv. 1-8; Neh. xi. 17; ng Ps. xxviii. 7, Is.
lii. 5,” comp. pin, Joseph, Ps. lxxxi. 6. niyy??? Ez. xlvi. 22, stands alone. “In
the Targums, the ♬ is in no case retained in the regular verb," although "in
verbs it is very frequently employed in the present, and retained in the fu-
ture and participles. This is occasionally the case also in verbs ɔ, and with some
verbs 89." Ib. 382, 3. “It occurs also in verbs yy, espec. in by Af. fut. Syn.”
Mc. G. MS. In Samaritan, Hafel is frequent. "In no conjugation did the Sa-
maritans come nearer to the Hebrew forms, than in this (Afel;) and first, the
instances of the ♬ are most frequent ; not only in words beginning with y, where
the weakness of the letter might seem to occasion the change, but in many others
also." Uhlemann, Gram. Samar. § 23. The word ¡n is adopted as a whole in
Syr. and Arab. The Samaritans have both Uhl. Gr. § 27. and p Id. Lex.
p. 5.
"It occurs also in the proper name ja Esth. i. 10, and in by Gen.
xxxvi. 39." Mc. G. MS. This last instance shews how old it is in the language.
It is there an Edomite name, which does not recur until Neh. vi. 10. The case
is different as to na, because although, in reality, the Hifil from л, the 7 was
early treated as a radical. Hence, in Jud. xvi. 10, 13, 15, as well as, in
later times, bņa; Jer. ix. 4, and a Piel Sany in 1 Kings xviii. 27. On the varia-
tions of orthography in MSS, see Röd. in Ges. v. n.
"In the verbs P, 'Ð, VV,
the late Targum of Jonathan on the Pent. retains ♬ much more frequently than
Onkelos, and more regularly than even the Samaritan; e. g. Gen. i. 24, Onk.
pan, Ps. Jon. pazon, Sam. pɔn. And so in Haf. for Af. Gen. xxxviii. 24, Onk.
sypes, Jon. sapajo, Sam.aspɔs; Ex. xxix. 46, Onk. nagy, Jon.npai, Sam, npes.
、
46
Characteristic differences of
1
4
whose last letter it is ¹; in infinitives of derived conjuga-
tions; "in the feminine of participles always in Daniel,
in adjectives usually 3", in the emphatic form, which in
Chaldee represents the Article *; in the pronoun I5; and
Yet Jon. has sometimes (though rarely and exceptionally) &, where Onk. has
; Gen. xli. 39, Onk. yin, Jon. y77; Ex. xxxiii. 12, Onk. Tin, Jon. "Ayin;
and v. 13, Onk., Jon. ix, &c." Mc. G. MS. [On Sam. see Uhl. p. 59.]
2) “ Hithpeal and” 3)“ Hithpaal occur 18 times in Daniel, 4 times in Ezra.
On the other hand, eth is used 6 times in Daniel; ii. 45. iii. 19. iv. 16. vi. 8. vii.
8, 15.
In 4 of the 6 cases in Daniel, the punctuation is ny as in Syriac." "The
same word occurs with ny ii. 45. ii. 34. In iii. 19, both the forms occur in
ņ
different verbs and any." Ib. pp. 384, 5. In Samaritan, both forms are
"Since the Samaritans often interchange & and л, forms result like
the Hebrew Hithpael. But although in some words these forms are to be ac-
counted as Ethpael, yet in others, where there is no trace of Pael in Samaritan
or of the corresponding Hebrew form, they must rather be considered as be-
longing to Ethpeel, as, yonwn swear. Gen. xxv. 33.” Uhl. § 20.
1 see pp. 48, 9.
2 "In Daniel 20 times, in Ezra 4 times; with & once only in Daniel, ii. 24.
in a word written with л, Ib. 12. vii. 16. twice in Ezra." Ib. 386. In Samari-
tan, the infinitives of all the derived conjugations end in .
common.
הִתְמְלִי
3 Id. ib. "In the Targums is only used after &; in Biblical Chald. there are,
in substantives, adjectives, participles, 62 instances in Daniel, 8 in Ezra. Three
nouns are written both ways in Dan. ; (vii. 12, and iv. 24; vii. 5, 7, and iv. 13;
ii. 40, and 42.), one in Ezra (iv. 10, 15.). Other variations are, adv. Dan. 6
times, & adj. Dan. v. 12, and the numerals adv. Dan. 3 times, Ezra twice;
adj. Dan. twice, Ezr. once; Dan. 5 times, Ezr. vi. 15 ; sņa Ezr. vi. 4.”
Ib. 386. In Samaritan, "the feminine ending, in far the most cases, is, es-
pecially such feminines as are formed from masculines; not a few end in or`.
[for m, n'.]" Uhl. § 41. & is not a Samaritan feminine ending at all.
"In the
Palest. Targg., and especially in that on Proverbs, the fem. of participles is often
formed by (not x); e. g. Prov. i. 21, viii. 2, py; v. 16, ix. 13, пy; ix. 14,
aan; &c" Mc. G. MS.
4 " is the most usual ending, but ♬ occurs 11 times in Daniel, 19 times also
in Ezra." Ib. 385. "The two forms occur even in different words in the same
verse, and in the same word in the same writer. In fact, only 4 words have
л only, and three of these occur but once each, Ezr. vi. 2, vii. 17, Dan. ii. 38;
the fourth twice only, Dan. vii. 7, 19." Ib. 385, where the several variations
are given. In Samaritan the Status Emphaticus always ends in 7.
"In the
singular Masc. 7, pronounced with the vowel a, is added, so that it does not
differ from the Fem. sing. abs. ; so also in adjectives, which stand in the sta-
tus Emph., when the substantive does. So also nouns ending in ' end in ;
the ending becomes 8. In the Plur. Masc. p or become ' (Ch. ) In
the Fem. sing. л becomes лл, which is added to feminines ending in ' or `; in
the Fem. Plur. } and 18 are changed into лn and л (Ch. ∞ṛ,) this last is far the
most frequent." Uhl. pp. 113-15.
occurs frequently [13 times] in Dan. and in Ezr. vii. 21; 3 Dan.
ii. 8, Ezr. vi. 12; the plur. is ŋ Ezr. iv. 16, in Ezr. v. 11. Dan. iii. 16, 17."
Ib. p. 388. In Sam. also 8 is more frequent than N.
Biblical Aramaic and that of the Targums.
47
three particles. All these peculiarities occur in Ezra as
well as Daniel, and with the remarkable agreement in
both, that, although in a lesser degree, they do use the la-
ter forms also. The language, then, was apparently still
in an unfixed state. They are not Hebraisms, because
many of the forms do not belong to Hebrew; all occur
in Samaritan. It is a law of all language, that gutturals
weaken, as time goes on.
2) Two conjugations, which still existed in the time of
Daniel and Ezra, were, the one mostly 7, the other whol-
ly effaced; and a conjugation was formed, unknown
to Biblical Chaldee.
8
9
3) A fuller orthography, implying a more prolonged
pronunciation of vowels, (Daveed for David,) has long
been recognized as belonging to the later Hebrew of the
O.T. The same difference, though more extensive, is ob-
served between the Biblical Chaldee and the Targums ¹º.
6 i), "what," Dan. ii. 22, Ezr. vi. 9; "what?" Dan. iv. 32; p by "why?"
ii. 15; “how!" iii. 33; 7, "what," Dan. ii. 28, 9, 45, Ezr. vii. 18;
"why?" Ezr. iv. 22; "lest," Ezr. vii. 23; but
במה מה
די
vi. 8. Sam. 75, 73, noɔ, moh, mod. Uhl. Lex. p. 40. “
10
as to what," Ezr.
however occurs very
frequently in the Palestine Targg. and frequently in all the others also, as well
as .” Mc. G. MS. In Daniel and in Samaritan D is used exclusively; in Ez-
ra with one exception.
ii)
"together," lit. "as one," Dan. ii. 35; Sam. (Uhl. Lex. p. 32); with
×, Syr., Targg.
does also once in
"
as well as 7,
iii) for x, “not," occurs once in Daniel, iv. 32. as
Hebrew. Deut. iii. 11. The Masoretes corrected both.
'so that not,' is common in Samaritan." Mc. G. MS.
7 Hofal.
"It occurs in Dan. 11 times; ii. 10, iii. 13, iv. 33, (twice) v. 13, 15,
16, 20, vi. 24, 18, vii. 11, Ezr. iv. 15." Ib. See Winer, Gr. Chald. § 12. 5. p. 41.
napi (Dan. vii. 4.) seems to be an anomalous Hofal form; na is still more
anomalous, but must be a sort of Hofal. Dan. vi. 18.
8 The inflection of the passive participle by the afformatives of the preter-
ite, Dan. v. 27, 8, vii. 4, (twice) 11, (twice) 12, 27, Ezr. v. 14. The participle
is used for the 3rd person masc. without inflection. Dan. v. 30, vi. 4, vii. 4, 6,
[and defective 27; Dan. vii. 14, 22. Mc. G. MS.] Winer, § 13. 2. p. 42. Mc. G.
p. 384.
9 Ittafal, instead of Hofal.
10" Yod is inserted in the Afel forms without suffixes in the Targums," (p.
377.) whereas, in Daniel,it nowhere occurs except in verbs 'y (as a Dan. ii. 14.
forms of op 13 times, Dan. vii. 2.) and in the Shafely Dan. iii. 17, 28,
vi. 28. but Dan. vi. 28. “It is used also generally in such forms as py, pho
in the Targums;" (Ib.) whereas Daniel nowhere inserts the vowel-letter, and
48
Characteristic differences of
4) There are forms in Biblical Chaldee, common with
Syriac, which shew that, at the time when it was written,
the dialects of Assyria and Syria, East and West Aramaic,
were not so much separated as in the time of the Targums.
It is like the fusion of dialects in Homer. Here too the
Eastern Aramaic became softer in the time of the Tar-
gums 1
uses the form 16 times without it. (The cases are, php Dan. ii. 29, Ezr. iv. 12; 7
Dan. ii. 46; 7 Dan. iii. 8, vi. 13; ♫♬ Dan. iv. 8, 17; py? Dan. vi. 21 ; why Dan.
vi. 25; an; Dan. vii. 9, 10. Even the pass. part. is so written in 7 Dan. vii. 14,
22; Dan. vii. 26. Also the form pan Dan. ii. 44, Dan. iii. 28, Dan.
iv. 13. In Targg. mostly happy or upps) "The same difference is seen in nouns,
e. g. n Dan. iii. 2, 3, Ezr. vi. 16, 17; but in Targg. 1, even though followed by
Dagesh forte. In Bibl. Ch. 7, fem. 77; but in Targg. 7', fem. 787. Very fre-
quently such words as л Dan. v. 11, Ezr. vii. 25, 1 Dan. vii. 14, Ezr.
vii. 19, occur in the Targg. with after the first radical." Ib. So, for 7 Dan.
ii. 11. you have in the Targg.
א
"There are 19 such
Daniel has the con-
verse with 7, he has
1 The &, however slight its pronunciation, could not have been so soft as
the'. 1)" In Syriac, as in Biblical Chaldee, the & of words & is mostly retained
after preformants in the inf. and fut. peal; even if dropped, 'is not substituted;
in the Targums it is always substituted." Inf. with & Dan. ii. 9; fut. Dan.
ii. 7, 36, iii. 29, iv. 30, 32, vii. 23, Jer. x. 11; & twice dropped, inf. Dan. iii.
2, 19, Ezr. v. 11. (noun) Dan. iv. 14, Ezr. vi. 9; p Targg.
2) "In verbs *, & remains throughout the future. Afel fut. does not in-
sert (as the Heb.) but agrees with the Syriac." p. 378.
cases in all; fut. Dan. 6, Ezr. 6; partic. Dan. 5, Ezr. 2.
tracted form 2, and 4 ending in 7; and, in the same
once'. v. 12. (Ib. 381.) The older Targums have always." (Ib.) "The derived
conjugations, in the 3rd sing. present, end in ', as in Syriac, not as in Hebrew,
and so are not Hebraisms." (p. 378.) "In Daniel, there are 5 such forms; in
Ezra, 3." (p. 381.) "The 3rd present Peal has 11 times in Dan., twice in Ezr. ;
* 7 times in Dan., once in Ezra; in Targg.' is a very frequent ending even of the
present Peal.” [In Samaritan, "the 3rd sing. pres. Peal ends in & or î; the de-
rived conjug. only in ', but there are exceptions with ; very rare with ».”
Uhl. pp. 71, 2.] "Even in the words written in the present and fut. Peal,
& remains in the other conjugations." "The act. part. Peal ends 41 times in 7;
22; and 6 other cases, 3 of which end in & also: xp 3 times." No
"Ezra has a passive part. 3 v. 11.; Dan. has 3 times; x, v. 25,
26; 'twice." "Some of these occur in the Targg." (Ib. pp. 378, 9.)
"In all the
Targg. is much more common than ; in Talm. Chald. is most usual.
In the futures, imperatives, and participles, the Palestinian Targums have even
♫ pretty frequently; e. g. Prov. iv. 5, twice ; in iv. 7, both 73 and 7;
xxix. 24, min; v. 16, лng and many other examples. In ii. 2. and by; in
xxxi. 5. both and . This Targum affords the greatest variety herein."
Mc. G. MS. “In the Inf. and Part. Peal, & and ' are equally [?] frequent.”
[in the Targg.] Winer, Ch. Gr. § 23, 1. "In the Inf. construct, & always re-
עָנָה ; 13 חָזֶה
case of '.
Biblical Aramaic and that of the Targums.
49
5. This correspondence of the Biblical Chaldee with the
Syriac best explains a form of the substantive verb, found
only in Biblical Chaldee, alike in Daniel and Ezra, yet in-
sulated from all other Semitic forms, and one of the most
remarkable phænomena of Biblical Chaldee 2.
6. Daniel and Ezra use unabridged, and so, older forms³.
7x-
mains; (Dan. 7 times, Ezra 8 times.) the Targums always have '.” (p. 380.)
The Sam. Inf. is “In the fut. Peal, Bibl. Ch. and Syr. have x [Dan. 17
times, Ezr. 3.] Daniel has 7 times 7.. (with &, however, elsewhere in the same
3 words). The older Targg. have always with very rare exceptions."
3) In verbs y, the participle plur. masc. has (77&c.) when the Targg.
have. The form with & occurs 9 times in Dan., in Ezra once; (as in the Syr.
masc. abs.) (Ib. 382.) In 9 out of the 10 cases, the Kri would conform it to the
Targum orthography with', so strange was it to those accustomed to the
later Chaldee.
4) The form 72 (the emphatic plur. of nouns in
Syriac) is in like way corrected by the Kri into
sounded fuller.
R.
- in the Bibl. Chald. and
The old form must have
The punctuation 3 Dan. v. 2. is Syriac. (C. B. Mich. lum. Syr. § 13. Ges.
Thes. s. v.) "The Targg. have uniformly 8, "the father," for "my father."
(Ib. 389.)
2 The use of ↳ instead of the ' in the future, an (Dan. 7 times, Ezra 6 times,)
m² (Dan. iv. 22.) ja 3 m. pl. (Dan. 4 times, Ezr. 2,) 17 3 f. pl. (Dan. v. 17.)
In these three forms, 3 m. sing. 3. m. and f. pl., the West-Aramaic or Syriac has
as a preformant, (which was itself questioned as anomalous. See Hofmann,
Gr. Syr. § 56. p. 175.) But the↳ and › continually interchanged. See on the
form at length Beer, Inscrr. Sem. in Æg. repert. i. 18. inserted by Maurer in
his Commentary, ii. 84-7. Early examples of this form, as also good evi-
.11
dence, that it is a future with a sort of dependent sense, occur in the Talmud
e. g. Pesachim f. 113.
in sharp and [* a hundred gourds in a city
for 5º, they must be neath thy skirts',] quoted in Fürst Perlenschnüre Ara-
maischer Gnomen p. 13. v. 7. Dukes Blumenlese p. 203. n. 465. IN NATENT NIR
[the reader of a letter should be its carrier.'] Baba Metsia f. 83.
Sanh. f. 96. 1. quoted in Fürst p. 18. c. 18. Dukes p. 232. n. 601. This is ex-
pressly stated to be an old (Aramæan) proverb. It occurs often elsewhere.
Other instances of the form occur in Fürst 1. c. p. 26. v. 3, [written in
Vulg. Aram. F.] p. 43. v. 26, p. 44. v. 39, [both from Jerus. Targ. on Esth.
F.] p. 62. v. 4, from late hymn. Winer &c quote only very late Jer. Targ. on
Ex. x. 28. Jon. on Ex. xxii. 24." Mc. G. MS. Fürst also gives instances of its
use in other verbs in Talmudic, w, ah, ah, Daph Lex. on Aram. p. 650, fol-
lowing Beer p. 20. n. 73, who first discovered this meaning in the inscription
on the Carpentras stone. 1. c. On its use in Cuneiform Assyrian and Babylonian,
as also on other of their affinities with Biblical Chaldee, see below at the end
of Note D, from Hincks, Oppert, and Rawlinson.
31), as the sign of the genitive, a relative, and conjunction. It occurs 254
E
50
Characteristic differences of
7. The Biblical Chaldee has pronominal forms nearer
the original Semitic pronoun, and Daniel the older form
of the two¹.
8. Other pronouns or particles are used in a form which
ceased to be used in the Targums 2.
9. "In regard to the use of n, in the Biblical Chaldee
לָא אִיתַי ; there is אִיתַי (2
Dan. ii. 9.
"of gold,”
לָא אִיתִי ,occurs אִיתַי
times in Daniel, 89 times in Ezra (see Fürst, Conc.). i. q. □
The antiquity of the form is evidenced by the proper name 271 7
i. e. a place abounding in it. Deut. i. 1. "In the Targg. 7 is only used as a
relative, and it denotes the genitive, only when follows it and there is em-
phasis," [Mc. G. MS.], so corresponding to the Syr. which, although occur-
ring only with pronominal affixes, presupposes the separate existence of 7.
"there is not.” occurs 7 times in Daniel, 'n s
6 times, besides the form in &, "it is not," Dan. ii. 11. which presupposes
'n'ș. In Ezra each occurs once. (Fürst Conc.) There are traces of a regular
inflection with the pronouns (as in 8 in Hebrew), 4 such instances occurring
in Daniel. (Sce Fürst, Conc. p. 58.) In Samaritan and Syriac this inflection with
the pronoun is complete. In both, the absolute form is ne, n'. In Samaritan
this form remains, even when the words are so inflected. (Uhl. § 36. pp. 90,1.)
In Syriac, when so inflected, the occurs before the pronouns. (Hofmann,
§ 146.p.377.) The is wanting also in the Arabic g, h, although, in Arabic, the
vy only remains in one idiom, as the counterpart of . In Hebrew, the form
occurs in the proper name, byny, “ God is.” Pr. xxx. 1. "The Targums have
always the shorter form n'y and n'h,” or m².
לית
11) Dan. 3 times; and 7 Ezra 9 times; for pay or pn of the Targums.
"It should be observed, that ji, i, are used as accusatives, except in Ezr.
v. 11, the verbal suffixes of the 3rd person plural not being used in the Biblical
Chaldee. As nominatives, px, fem. pas, occur in Dan. ii. 44, vi. 25, vii. 17,
Ezr. v. 4, with demonstrative force. In Ezr. v. 11, is used as a demonstra-
tive in apposition, and represents the substantive verb." Mc. G. MS.
2) Daniel has always (13 times) the primitive form л i. e. the primitive
Sanser.-Semitic, A i. q. tu, and the demonstrative 18. This is contracted even
in Hebrew into ; corrected always in Daniel by the Kri into the ns of the
Targg.
21), "they" Dan. iii. 12, 13, 21, 22, 23, 27, vi. 6, 12, 16, 25, Ezr. iv. 21,
v. 9, vi. 8, (twice); not in Targg. 2) emph. demonstr. Jer. x. 11, Dan. 16
times, Ezr. 14 times: as part of compound a nejpo, Ezr. v. 23; adverb, N
77, Dan. twice; 77787, Dan. twice; by, Dan. iii. 16, Ezr. 6 times; 77 Sap Sa,
Dan. 6 times, Ezr. vii. 17 ; nga ne 12, Dan. vi. 11; 7379 Jer. x. 11, Dan. twice,
Ezr. v. 7. (See Fürst, v. 17.) The Maltese has dan, dana, (masc.) din, dina,
fem. (Vassalli, Gr. Melit. p. 147. Ges.) The Sam. has . The Targg. have
mostly the lengthened form 17, (j? Eccl. xi. 6.) 1'77, ('7'7, 1'7'8, 1'77, 1'78, 179, 117,
179, Buxt. p. 556, i. e. they have forms which the Biblical Chald. never has,
and none have the form of the Bibl. Chaldee. 3) 7.
3) 87. 4) 127.
4) 127.5) 7. See be-
low, p. 56. 6),, (see below, Note D.)
Biblical and Aramaic Chaldee.
51
the older uncontracted forms prevail; in the older 3 Tar-
gums, the later contracted forms; but there is consider-
able variety." In part, the Biblical agrees with the Sa-
maritan Chaldee.
10. In one word, haddabar, "councillor," there is pro-
bably a trace of the Article in its Hebrew form. For the
word has no Aryan, but has an obvious Semitic etymolo-
gy. In Sam. Chaldee also, the same Article is prefixed
as a demonstrative to pronouns, nouns, participles ³.
11. The Hebrew plural ending, im for in,
words in Daniel, and in a third in Ezra 7. The two ter-
minations are used in Samar. Chaldee, and that indiffer-
ently, even when two words are closely united together,
as two nouns joined by the copula, or the substantive
and adjective ε.
occurs in two
12. According to the punctuation, there was a dual at
the time of the Bibl. Chaldee, which existed also in the
3 "i. e. Onk. and Jon. B. Uzz. In the Palestinian Targums, especially in
Jonathan on the Pent., is generally retained in the Hafel or Afel of p≥3, as in
Gen. i. 24, xix. 8, 12, xxiv. 53, xxxviii. 24, &c. while in p the Samar. ge-
nerally does not retain it. The is also retained by this Jon. in ja, inf. of p3,
Lev. vii. 36.”
4 Ib. p. 390. On the same principle that Daniel writes ay not 78, “¡ is re-
tained in Hofal, n Dan. v. 20, [omitted in Ezr. v. 15, vi. 1, 5. and Targg. in
Afel] in the inf. Ilafel of pp Dan. vi. 24, [omitted in Hafel present, iii. 22,] in Ha-
fel present, Dan. v. 2, 3, Ezr. v. 14, vi. 5, (not in Targg.); in ¡n Peal after pre-
form. (fut. Dan. ii. 16, Ezr. iv. 13. inf. Ezr. vii. 20;) never in older Targg." “In
Samaritan, in the future, the instances are not rare, in which the ¡ is retained.”
Uhl. Sam. Gr. 26. 3. Ann.
ya, 3 fut. Peal, for y, occurs 6 times in Dan., once in Ezra, and is the only
form used by either. “It does not occur in Onk. or Jon. on the prophets.” Bux-
torf noticed one instance only in Targg. (Ps. ix. 21,) among many of y,
as also
VIN, T. Hengst. has noticed another, Ruth iv. 4. The noun va is frequent
in the Targg. (see Buxt.), probably taken from Daniel. “yag occurs also in
Ps. lix. 14. There are six examples fut. of y7 without in the Targum on
the Psalms, Ps. xxxix. 5, ci. 4, cix. 27, exix. 125. and Ps. lxxviii. 6, lxxxiii. 19,
in the Antw. text which is right. The form with was probably the older form,
revived in later Targums." Mc. G. MS.
5 Uhlem. pp. 116-8.
9 There are four
6 iv. 14, vii. 10. 7 Ezr. iv. 13. s Uhlem. p. 104.
duals in Daniel, ¡7. ii. 34, 45, ph‡? vii. 4, jaw and papa Ib. 7 ; one in Ezr. vi. 17.
There was no temptation, any how, to make paa dual, (when Daniel speaks of
"ten horns,") except a traditional knowledge that it was so.
E 2
52 Shallow German criticism on Chaldee of Daniel
Samaritan Chaldee¹, but was lost in the time of the Tar-
gums.
13. There is a correspondence in other vowels between
the Biblical Chaldee and the Hebrew 2, as distinct from
the Targums, inexplicable except on the ground of a real,
accurate tradition ³.
3
14. A letter seems to have, at least, become less used,
between the times of Biblical Chaldee and the Tar-
gums 4.
It may be added, that even in the space of these six
chapters of Daniel, there are a certain number of words,
which do not occur in the Targums or Gemara; quite as
many or more, probably, than would be found in any six
chapters of any of the Hebrew historical Scriptures.
They are not technical words, which there might not be
occasion to use elsewhere, (as offices or dress or instru-
ments, the names of which were disused with the things ;)
but ordinary words of the language. Some of these, which
are lost in the later Jewish Aramaic, survive in Syriac 5.
And now you will be able to see, how utterly superfi-
1 Uhlem. § 42. iii. pp. 108, 9.
2 “There are only 6 Heb. segolates, 178, bn, on, 17, ove, by, of which 18
frequently, 17 occasionally occurs in the Targg.; Dyo is written by 8 times in
Dan. [not ŋy at all], 17 times in Ezra; and ob×, 3 times in Dan. Dhy (oby 5
times, by emph. 8 times]. On the other hand, 20 Chaldee nouns are pointed
as segolates in Dan., some pretty frequently; and 11 such nouns in Ezra, some
also pretty frequently." Mc. G. p. 377. note. Besides this, is the correspond-
ing feminine ending
****
.45 .Ib אִתְנְזֶרֶת,34 .Dan. ii הִתְנְיָרָת in
3 The whole system of Hebrew and Chaldee punctuation implies a minute
knowledge of the spoken language, whose pronunciation is fixed so carefully.
An artificial system, invented subsequently, would not have had its anomalies
or its minuteness. The punctuations, which seem anomalous at first sight,
are still found to proceed on a principle. The old tradition, which ascribed
them in the main to times, when the language was ceasing to be spoken, those
of Ezra and the great Synagogue, seems to me the most probable.
.סבִּיאִין .pl סָנִי have
4 The w. For 8, "increase," Dan. iii. 31, vi. 26, Ezr. iv. 22, the Targg. have
always sp; for y, “great, greatly,” (Dan. 12 times, Ezr. once) the Targg.
In like way as for me, witness," Gen. xxxi. 47, the
Targg. have 8p. Sanya, "wise," Dan. vii. 8; by Dan. v. 11, 12, 14. In
»
Targg. mostly. Buxt. x, hate, Dan. iv. 19. Targg. mostly xp, rarely with
v. Buxt. Dan. iii. 27, vii. 9. Targg. mostly yo. 5 See Note B at the end.
breaks down both in principle and in fact. 53
6
D
cial it was, when an unbelieving German critic picked
out two plural pronouns, in the form in which they are
united with other words, as a proof that the Aramaic of
Daniel was later than that of Ezra, or what is the cha-
racter of such a sentence as this. "Not only Macedo-
nian words, such as symphonia and psanterion" [which are
not Macedonian] "but the texture of the Chaldee, with
such late forms as, and, the pronominal 。 and ¬
having passed into ¡, and not only minute description of
Antiochus's reign, but the stoppage of such description
at the precise date 169, B. C., remove all philological and
critical doubt as to the age of the book." The history is
as bad as the philology; but of this, hereafter. Why
these three forms should have been selected, it is difficult
to say. They ought to be three wondrously characteris-
tic forms, to determine the age of a book; whereas they
are three of the most ordinary. But the assertion in-
volved must be this. "It can be proved that, in the time
of Daniel, the plural pronoun of the 2nd person in Chal-
dee was written with the m, and not with the n ; and
that the ending n was not at that time added to other
pronouns which, in Hebrew, end in eh." The supposed
proof must be that the forms in Daniel are not found in
Ezra. For there is no other Aramaic to serve as a stan-
dard, in comparison with which these are to be pronounced
to be "late forms." Both statements are plainly false. Of
course, it was on one principle of pronunciation, that the
pronominal forms, hom "them," com “you,” were written
with the m, as in Hebrew or Arabic, or the n, as in Sy-
riac and Samaritan. The two forms always go together.
The Hebrews and Arabians used the m exclusively; the
Syrians and Samaritans used the exclusively. But there
N
6 Hitzig, Heidelb. Jahrb. 1832. pp. 119, 20. “We observe on our side, for the
time and only as an example, that in Ezra the form nearest to the original
o, always stands, Ezr. v. 3, 4, 8, 9, vi. 9. Contrariwise in Daniel always
the jin, which originated in the effacing of the ; notwithstanding this, Dr.
Hengstenberg will have it, that the book of Daniel is genuine, on the ground
of the character of its language also, i. e. that it was composed before the book
of Ezra."
7 Ess. and Rev. p. 76.
54 Shallow German criticism on Chaldee of Daniel
is no language in which m was used for the one pronoun,
n for the other. Of both pronouns, Daniel has only
the form of the Western and the Samaritan Aramaic.
Ezra has both forms; as, indeed, the more Hebrew form
lingered on in the Chaldee of the Targums. Of the third
person, Ezra uses most frequently the same form as Da-
niel; the more Hebrew form occurs almost exclusively in
the context of one conversation which was reported to
the King. The 2nd person occurs only 6 times altogether
in Ezra; 5 times in the more Hebrew form, once in that
used by Daniel¹. The criticism breaks down, then, both
in principle and in fact. In principle, because 1) the form
in Daniel is the most usual Aramaic form; 2) the cor-
responding form, hon, is the most common in Ezra; 3)
both these forms hom, com, which are to be characteristic
of the earlier Aramaic, occur in the Targums also. In
fact, because the actual form, con, the existence of which
in Daniel is to prove the late date of Daniel, occurs in
Ezra also, and so can, on the hypothesis, be no "late form."
The second case is more marvellous. Den, in Chaldee
and Samaritan as also in Maltese, corresponds to the He-
brew demonstrative, tseh. Daniel and Ezra alike use, not
den, but the emphatic form, denah, while the Targums do
not use the denah of Biblical Aramaic, nor den, but dein,
according to the principle of the later language, to employ
the more lengthened form. So then in later Aramaic a
form is used, which is not found in Biblical Aramaic;
and the Biblical Aramaic uses a form, not found in later
Aramaic. The Biblical form became obsolete in the time
of the Targums; the age of the Targumists revived a form
not used by Daniel and Ezra.
But the broader allegation of the Essayist is, that, in
the Aramaic of Daniel, "the h had passed into the " in
1 Ezra uses the form jin, 15 times; c, 10 times; he uses Db, 5 times; jo once,
(the only time that it is joined with a verb.) He uses in with three preposi-
tions, with two of them. "Their God" is twice expressed with the D;
your God” twice with the ; "their companions" is expressed 6 times with
the . Else the on is used with three,jin with 4 ordinary words. Both forms
breaks down both in principle and in fact. 55
both den, this, and illeen, these, and that this change is an
evidence of later language. The major premiss must be,
that "it is known that, in Daniel's time, they had not so
passed." The h does not "pass into the n" at all: n is not
one of the letters into which h ever passes. The facts are
these. The primitive forms of the two words are da², this,
as found in Daniel; el, these. Da, as a demonstrative,
is, in fact, a different pronunciation of the Hebrew dseh,
and is connected with a large range of demonstrative
pronouns in the Semitic dialects. This shorter form is
lengthened in various ways in Semitic languages by ad-
ditions at the beginning and the end 5. One of the ad-
ditions, made probably in the infancy of the language, was
that of the 2nd person, which occurs in Biblical Aramaic
and in Arabic, not in Syriac or Samaritan, nor, in this
pure form, in the Aramaic of the Targums. It strength-
ened the demonstrative in a way which we can scarcely
express, "hoc tibi." In this way, we have the illec of
Daniel and Ezra, and the deec, and dac of Ezra 7.
are used in the same verse, as v. 3. So that I see no explanation of the varia-
tion, except that both forms were alike in use in Ezra's time. The several in-
stances are;
4
on v. 3, 4. repeated v. 9, 10. pvby vii. 24.
Dab v. 5, vii. 16. on v. 9.
Dhnnby v. 10.
.10 .v בְּרָאשֵׁהם
o v. 3. repeated v. 9, vii. 24.
on vii. 17, 18.
jinh iv. 20, v. 3. jinby, v. 1, 2. jingy v. 2.
jimņup iv. 9, 17, 23, v. 3, vi. 6, 13. jinnaga vi. 18.
.17 .vii מִנְחָתְהוֹן וְנִסְכֵּיהוֹן .10 בְּמַחְלְקָתְהוֹן
.21 .vii יִשְׁאֲלָנְבּוֹן
"The suffixes in, jo are very common in the Targum of Jon. on the Pent.
and also occasionally in Job, Prov. &c." Mc. G. MS.
2 87 four times. Dan. iv. 27, vii. 8, and in the phrases "the one against
בָּא
the other," v. 6, 87 1 7 “one from the other.” vii. 3.
3 dsu, Arab. dsa, Æth. da Malt. Nasor.
only in lengthened forms.
Heb.; hâdsâ, hadsâ. Arab.
6 Dan. 10 times: Ezra, 4 times.
In Syriac and Samaritan it occurs
Syr. probably corresponding to the
4
5
77, for Heb. na Sam. Uhlem. § 14. p. 31.
See above, p. 50.
masc. fem., each 6 times. They correspond with the Arab, dsaca
56 These "later forms" in Daniel belong to all Aramaic.
Another Aramaic ending, applied more manifoldly, and in
more dialects of Aramaic, is en. It is used in the ordinary
pronoun, they; in the demonstrative, these; and, by Daniel
and Ezra, in the particle of time, then. Thence we have
in Daniel alone, a form lengthened from the deec in Ezra,
dicceen¹. From it, we have, in Daniel and Ezra only, the
particle of time, edain 2; from it the form den was made,
which, in Daniel and Ezra, exists only in the emphatic
form, denah; from it we have the holein or ailein of
Syriac¹; the illein of Samaritan Aramaic 5, used in five
places in Daniel.
We cannot suppose an ending, so widely spread and
so rooted in the language, to be a "later form." It is an
integral part of the language, as much as ov or um in
Greek and Latin. As far as the evidence goes, it would
shew in this case also, that the language, in the time of
Daniel and Ezra, was in the same unfixed state, as other
idioms imply it to have been. There was then no one
word, appropriated to signify "these." Jeremiah has
once eeleh; Ezra has it once also 7. These are instances
of the Hebrew form of the pronouns occurring in Aramaic.
But it was not the prevailing form in Ezra's time. Ezra
four times used another form, illeec, which occurs yet of-
tener in Daniel, a form obsolete in the time of the Tar-
gums. Daniel employs this which, not occurring in Sy-
riac or Samaritan, was probably the more antique form,
ten times, whereas he uses five times only the form
illein, which is the Samaritan form, and the Syriac ending.
9
In sum, then, these endings, which are to be so cha-
racteristic as to establish the later date of the Aramaic of
Daniel, are endings belonging to all Aramaic. The other
dsaleca, and the Malt. daka.
¹ Dan. ii. 31, vii. 20, 1.
2
אֱדַיִן
(i. q. Heb. ' with added) Dan. 20 times; Ezra 8 times. 78 Dan. 23
times; Ezr. 3 times. (Fürst, pp. 106, 11.)
3 See above, p. 50.
4 holein is the common Syriac form; ailein is rarer, perhaps older. See Hof-
mann, Syr. Gr. § 45. p. 161.
5 They use ', '87, as the Heb. 77, Uhl. p. 31.
6 Jer. x. 11. 7 Ezra v. 15.
• ii, 40, 44, vi. 3, 7, vü. 17.
The Kri corrects . 8 See above, p. 50.
Cumulative evidence from Hebrew and Chaldee of Daniel. 57
forms are exceptional archaisms apparently in the lan-
guage both of Daniel and Ezra. The variations as to the
use of two of the three words supply a part of the larger
evidence, (if it were needed) of the independence of Da-
niel and Ezra; the third furnishes part of the proof of the
difference of their language from that of the Targums.
Criticism, which should have made endings, which are an
integral part of the language, which occur not in one
dialect of it only but in three, not in one case, but in se-
veral, characteristic of a later date of a book in which they
occur, could not have been even imagined in any well-
known language. It would have carried on its face its
own refutation.
In fine, then, the Hebrew of Daniel is exactly that
which you would expect in a writer of his age and under
his circumstances. It has not one single idiom, unsuited
to that time. The few Aryan or Syriac words remark-
ably belong to it. The Chaldee marks itself out as such,
as could not have been written at the time when, if it had
not been a Divine and prophetic book, it must have been
written.
.
No opponent has ever ventured to look steadily at the
facts of the correspondence of the language of Daniel
and Ezra, and their difference from the language of the
earliest Targums.
It is, plainly, cumulative evidence, when both portions
so written are united in one book. Over and above, the
fact, that the book is written in both languages, suits the
times of Daniel, and is inexplicable by those, who would
have it written in the time of the Maccabees. No other
book, or portion of a book, of the Canon, approximates
to that date. The last book, Nehemiah, was finished 2
centuries before, viz. about B.C. 410.
The theory of Maccabee Psalms lived too long, but is
now numbered with the dead 10. Only one or two, here and
10 “The existence of Maccabee Psalms, to which Bertholdt appealed, as one
of the surest proofs of the later closing of the Canon, is contested not only by
Bleek (Schleierm. ZS. p. 203.) and Hassler (de Ps. Maccab. Ulm 1827.) but
58 The use of Chaldee and Hebrew in Daniel
there, who believe little besides, believe in this phantom
of a past century. But, even if such Hebrew, and (which
is utterly inconceivable) such Aramaic, could have been
written in the times of the Maccabees, it would still have
been inexplicable that both should be written.
If the object of the writer be supposed to have been,
to write as should be mostly readily understood, this
would account for the Aramaic; but then one, who wrote
with that object, would not have written in Hebrew
what was of most interest to the people, what was most
especially written for those times. If his object had been,
(as was that of Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi) to write in
the language of the ancient prophets, then he would not
have written in Aramaic at all. The prophecies in the
Chaldee portion of Daniel are even more comprehensive
for the most part than those of the Hebrew. Had such
been the object, one should have rather expected that,
with the exception of the prophecy of the 70 weeks, the
languages should have been reversed. For the Aramaic
even by De Wette, (Comm. z. d. Ps. ed. 2, 3.) and Gesenius (Vorr. zu Gram-
berg's Religion's-id. p. xii.) and it is granted that, in the whole Psalter, there
is no Psalm later than the times of Ezra and Nehemiah." (Hengst. Auth. d.
Dan. p. 238. note.) Even Ewald and Dillmann have since granted the same.
“All the later Psalms, whose contents admit of or require a historical expla-
nation, can be fully explained out of the circumstances of Israel down to Nehe-
miah, and are explained out of them alone. To refer them to later relations
does not hold, as matter of interpretation." Dillmann (üb. d. Bildung d. A. T. in
Dorner, Jahrb.iii. 460.). Ewald even contends, 1) that the Psalms were collected
into one whole, before the writing of the Chronicles; and that 2) a consider-
able interval must have elapsed between the completion of the titles, the latest
part of the whole, and the LXX. ; in that it misunderstands or alters arbitrarily
much contained in them, while it agrees in the main with the Masorethic text
of the Psalms themselves. (Poet. Büch. i. 205, 6. add his Jahrbücher, vi. 20-32.)
It was one of the paradoxes of Hitzig to place Ps. i. ii. and the last three books
(Ps. Ixxiii—cl.) in Maccabee times, and even as low as 85, B.C. “through
very rash exegesis and precarious combinations ; me, at least, his grounds only
convinced as to Ps. 74, 79, 80, and 83." says even Grimm. (Kurzg. Exeg. Hdb.
Einl. z. 1 Macc. § 9. p. xxvii.) No one could find in these, Maccabee Psalms,
who did not wish to find them; Ps. 79 is quoted as Scripture in 1 Macc. vii.
17. Dillmann considers these Psalms in detail. Ib. 460-8. Hüpfeld, too, with
whom it is a ruling passion to contradict Hengstenberg, assents that there are
no Maccabee Psalms.
inexplicable on any unbelieving theory.
59
portions confessedly speak most of the kingdom of the
Messiah.
The use then of the two languages, and the mode in
which the prophet writes in both, correspond perfectly
with his real date; they are, severally and together, utter-
ly inexplicable according to the theory which would make
the book a product of Maccabee times. The language
then is one mark of genuineness, set by God on the book.
Rationalism must rebel, as it has rebelled; but it dare not
now, with any moderate honesty, abuse philology to cover
its rebellion.
ง
LECTURE II.
The Prophecies of the Four Empires, Babylonian, Me-
do-Persian, Greek, Roman, and of the establishment
of the Kingdom of Christ during the Fourth Empire.
Two great subjects of prophecy in Daniel, plainly and
on their surface, extend into a future beyond the sight of
one who lived even in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes;
1) the prophecies of the fourth Empire; 2) that of the 70
weeks and the Death of the Redeemer.
1
Before entering on the first, let us advert to the ancient
prophecy of Balaam, in which the conquest of the East
by the West, and the subsequent perishing of the Western
Empire in its turn, are predicted in the plainest terms.
They are the words with which Balaam's prophecy closes.
They are without a figure, and relate to things (he him-
self says) far distant. He beheld the Kenite, and took
up his parable and said, Strong is thy dwelling place and
place in the rock thy nest; for the Kenite shall be for a prey,
until Asshur shall carry thee, (Israel,) away captive. And
he took up his parable and said, Alas! who shall live when
God doeth this? And ships shall come from the side of
Chittim², i. e. (as is well known) Cyprus, and shall afflict
Asshur and shall afflict Eber, (i. e. the country beyond
the river,) and he too (who should so afflict them) shall
perish for ever. Balaam foretold the quarter whence
they should come, not the people who should come.
For as yet they were no people. But Cyprus was a
1 Num xxiv. 21-24.
2 D'A? 702
Balaam's prophecy as to Eastern and Western Empires. 61
great link of East and West by sea. Tyre early subdued it,
and held it subdued, as a station for its commerce³. It
would contrariwise be the last station, when the West
should invade the East. Unbelieving criticism avers
that Balaam's words "4 refer to an incursion of Greeks
into Cilicia in the time of Sennacherib, and are a pro-
phecy derived from the event." In plain words, these
writers assert that this prophecy, which stands in the
Pentateuch as contemporary with Moses, was in fact, the
relation of an event, 750 years subsequent to Moses, by
some writer who falsely alleged it to have been foretold.
The explanation, upon which they have ventured, may
serve for a foil to the truth. They from the West, both
Alexander and the Romans, did afflict the great Em-
pires beyond the river; we know how Alexander and his
empire in turn perished; how the Roman empire was bro-
ken, although it still lives on, because it was not to be
destroyed until the end. That inroad on Cilicia, related
by Polyhistor 5, was in itself of no account, no joint or
systematic effort. For Grecce did nothing in common be-
tween the Trojan and Persian wars. There was no com-
mencement of centralisation or common endeavour, un-
til B.C. 560, 140 years after the time of Sennacherib.
The Greek marauders did not march against Sennache-
rib, but Sennacherib against them; he defeated them, al-
though with considerable loss, "and set up his own image
in the place as a monument of his victory, and had his
prowess and valour engraven in Chaldee, as a memorial
for the time to come." Can any one seriously assert that
he honestly thinks that this description of the afflicting
of Asshur and Eber, and the utter perishing of him who
so afflicted them, relates to one battle, far from Assyria,
in which a marauding party was defeated?
i. Such an outline of prophecy as to the world's Em-
3 Hengst. de reb. Tyrior. pp. 55, 6.
4 Von Lengerke, p. lxxx. from Hitzig, Begr. d. Kritik, p. 55. v. Bohlen, Einl.
z. Gen. § 17. 5 in Eus. Chron. Arm. T. i. p. 43.
6 Thue. i. 12, 17,
Grote, Greece, c. 28.
62 Circumstances and characteristics of revelation
pires probably lingered on in Mesopotamia, Balaam's
home, when this new flood of light burst upon the Hea-
then world. Nebuchadnezzar, now in the second year of
his reign, was already a conqueror. He had succeeded to
a parent who was a conqueror. According to Berosus,
“¹his father Nabopolassar, hearing that the Satrap, ap-
pointed in Egypt and the parts about Cœle-Syria and
Phoenicia, had revolted, and being himself no longer equal
to fatigue, committed to his son Nebuchadnezzar, who was
yet in the prime of life, some parts of the army, and sent
him against the rebels. Nebuchadnezzar defeated him
in pitched battle and brought the country again under his
rule. At this time his father fell sick at Babylon and died.
Nebuchadnezzar, hearing of his death not long afterwards,
set in order the affairs in Egypt and the rest of the country,
and, having commissioned some of his friends to transport
to Babylonia the prisoners of the Jews, Phoenicians, Sy-
rians, and the nations in Egypt, together with the heavi-
est part of the army, himself with few attendants went
across the desert to Babylon." There "he received the
government which had been administered by the Chal-
dæans, and the kingdom which had been kept for him by
the chief of them, and ruled over all his father's empire."
The young monarch, who had already shown himself
so energetic and victorious, had in his mind, not only his
subsequent career of conquest, but, (which, in any mind
of large grasp, ever follows close upon those thoughts,)
what would be the end of all. It is a striking picture of
the young conqueror, that, not content with the vista of
future greatness before him, he was looking on beyond
our little span of life, which in youth so fills the mind,
to a future, when his own earthly life should be closed.
O king, says Daniel2, thy thoughts came up upon thy
bed, what should come to pass hereafter. To him God re-
vealed, how empire should succeed empire, each great in
its day, each misusing its greatness, until, at last, a king-
in Jos. c. Ap. i. 19. more correctly in some things than in his Ant. x. 11. 1.
2 ii. 29.
of the four world-empires to Nebuchadnezzar.
63
dom should come, not founded by human means, and so
not by human means destructible, which should absorb !
all empires into itself, and should itself endure for ever.
It is remarkable that this vicissitude of human things,
this marked outline of the succession of Empires till our
Lord should come, is laid open, not to the believing He-
brew, but to the Heathen monarch. The king is the organ
and first depository of the revelation; Daniel is but its ex-
positor. This change in the organ of prophecy is in re-
markable harmony with those former revelations through
the Prophets. To them the foreground is the kingdom of
God, as already existing among them. Apart from their
office of moral and religious teachers, the developement
of that kingdom was the subject of their prophecies.
From this foreground they looked out on the powers of
the world, as they bore upon His people, and as they
should hereafter be absorbed into it or be punished for
their misdeeds against it and against God in it. To Ne-
buchadnezzar, at the then centre of earthly greatness,
God exhibits, as his foreground, the Empire of the world.
as it should develope in its different stages, until it should
be confronted at last by the Kingdom of God, and uni-
versal obedience should be claimed, not by any one Em-
pire of this world, but by God in His Kingdom. The form
exhibited to Nebuchadnezzar is one ideal form, man in
colossal majesty. The separate world-monarchies are but
successive parts of one whole. The human commanding
figure stands, its brightness excellent and the form thereof
terrible, until the end. Human power, consolidated by
human wisdom, has a majesty, lent to it by God, even
while it abuses the God-entrusted gift. Three of these
world-monarchies were to be displaced by the succeed-
ing; the fourth by one, wholly unlike the four, not made
with hands.
3
Of the last of these Empires, (strange enough) no one
has been found to doubt that it is the Kingdom of Christ.
3 ii. 31.
64 Greatness of the admitted prophecy of the kingdom of God;
The greatest of all miracles is conceded; the less is ques-
tioned. It is owned by those who set these prophecies at
the very latest, that, nearly two centuries before our
Lord's ministry began, it was foreshewn that the kingdom
of God should be established without human aid, to re-
place all other kingdoms and to be replaced by none; to
stand for ever, and to fill the earth. Above 18 centuries
have verified the prediction of the permanency of that
kingdom, founded, as it was, by no human means, en-
dowed with unextinguishable life, ever conquering and
to conquer in the four quarters of the world; a kingdom
one and alone, since the world has been; embracing all
times and climes, and still expanding; unworn by that
destroyer of all things human, time; strong amid the de-
cay of empires; the freshness and elasticity of youth writ-
ten on the brow which has outlived eighteen centuries.
This truth, so gigantic, so inconceivable beforehand, so
inexplicable now except by the grace of God, was, (it
is granted,) foreseen, foreshewn. Nay more, it is granted,
that, the Prophet believed that He, the King of this new
kingdom, was to be more than man! The question then
is; "Did the soul which grasped this truth, err (for
it comes to this) as to some 150 years?" Porphyry was
consistent; for he denied both. Having apparently re-
jected Christianity, as too hard for him, he wrote against.
Daniel as a part of a whole. In his times men had
witnessed, for 2 centuries only, the inherent vitality of
the Gospel. They predicted the date of its expiry¹. But
in men who call themselves Christians, and who believe
in some sense that the Gospel is the power of God, it is
strange to grant or maintain so much, and yet to dis-
pute what, if they believe what they say, is comparatively
so little. When Infinity has been granted, the endless
Kingdom of the Infinite God; it seems strange to dispute
about an atom, some 150 years of our narrow time. Yet
1 S. Aug. de Civ. D. xviii. 53, 4. in Ps. 40. § 1. Ps. 70. § 4. Baronius, A.
304. viii. gives two inscriptions of Diocletian in Spain, "nomine Christianorum
deleto:" "superstitione Christi ubique deleta, cultu Deorum propagato."
inconsistency of rationalist objections.
65
so it is. The question is this, "Granted that the author
of our book was right in predicting the founding of a
kingdom of God, which should not pass away, was the
fourth kingdom in which he foretold that it should arise,
that of Alexander's successors, and did he himself, living
(according to different rationalist hypotheses) during or
shortly after the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, wrongly
look that the kingdom of God should be founded soon after
the death of that Old Testament Anti-Christ, B.C. 164?
or did he expect that kingdom to come, when it did come,
in the time of the Roman Empire, as almost all have
believed from our Lord's time until now?" For if the
4th Empire was the Roman Empire, then we have a tem-
poral prediction too, beyond the sight of one who lived
even in the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes.
It is allowed on all hands, that the four beasts in Da-
niel's vision in the first year of Belshazzar correspond
exactly to the four empires represented in the image ex-
hibited to Nebuchadnezzar. To the king God chiefly
revealed that which most concerned him to know, the
beginning and the end, the greatness of the power given
and to be given to him by the King of heaven, and the
nothingness of the mightiest human power, compared
and in collision with the Kingdom of God. To this end,
after briefly saying, that the second kingdom should be
inferior to his own power, and that the third should rule
over the whole earth, he dwells at length on the fourth
kingdom, as symbolised by the strong, all-subduing, all-
crushing iron, yet itself, with all which went before it, the
whole fabric of human power, as being, before the King-
dom of God, like the chaff of the summer-threshing-floor
which the wind carrieth away, and there is no place found
for them. The intense nothingness and transitoriness of
man's might in its highest estate, and so of his own also,
and the might of God's kingdom, apart from all human
strength, are the chief subjects of this vision as explained
to Nebuchadnezzar.
F
66 Both the metals and parts of human form significant,
Yet although thus much only was explained to the king,
the symbol represented much more. The image, as one,
represented the one principle of human Empire; in its ma-
nifold parts, it pourtrayed not only a manifoldness, but a
variety in the successive Empires. The symbols which
are explained shew that there is a meaning in the corres-
ponding symbols, which are not explained. In regard to
the first and the fourth empires, those represented by the
head and the legs, both the parts of the human figure and
the metal of which, in the statue, they consist, are ex-
plained in their symbolic meaning. Then, doubtless, the
parts of the human figure and the metals have, both of
them, their symbolical significance, in regard to the second
and third empires also. The head of gold has an unity, a
magnificence, an insight of its own. It is not only the
first empire in time; the conception of the whole idea of
world-empire lay in it, and in him whom chiefly it repre-
sented¹. And so again, at the other extremity, in the
fourth Empire, not only is the iron substance of the legs
alluded to, as symbolical of heavy iron might, but the hu-
man form too, in that he speaks of its subduing all things,
trampling them under foot, (as is said more fully in the
next vision.) The inferiority of the 2nd empire to the
first, then, doubtless is symbolised by the pale silver, as
compared with the gold, inferior not in value only but in
solidity and power of resistance, more liable to impression
from without. The form moreover in the human figure
is two-fold; nor only so, but the right is stronger than
the left. The kingdom then, which was to succeed Ne-
buchadnezzar's, was not only to be inferior to it, but was
to be compounded of two parts, the one stronger than the
other 2. The symbol already suggests the Medo-Persian
¹ Hofmann, Weissag. u. i. Erfüll. i. 278, 9.
2 Ib. 279. "The chest is twofold and unequal; the heart, the centre of the
circulation of the blood, belongs to one side only. Then the arms hang on
both sides of the chest: they especially have activity; the chest, firmness. Medes
and Persians are the two sides of the chest, the arms stretch out from the chest,
yet are not severed from it; so Phoenicia and Egypt stretched out on the
in regard to the four Empires.
67
Empire. The third Empire, in its dark lowering colour,
is to us even at first sight remarkably combined, "the
belly and thighs." Yet the lower part of the human figure
singularly combines the greatest activity and strength
with the dullest, most inactive, proverbial sluggishness.
Just so were the two parts of Alexander's empire con-
trasted. The old fierce energy of Egypt and the Mesopo-
tamian powers was gone. "The loins of Greece held to-
gether the belly of Asia, yet could not impart to it its own
activity. As the most active part of the body, the centre
of its strength, motion, power of turning, is in closest near-
ness with that, which will simply be carried, so, in the
kingdom of Alexander, was the then most stirring and
self-adapting people with the mere passive East.”
It re-
minds us involuntarily of the contrast, which impressed
itself on Aristotle, of "the thoughtful and contriving but
spiritless character" of the Asiatics, and "the spirited and
thoughtful" genius of the Greeks, which would enable
them to "rule the world, if" concentrated by "one go-
vernment." The third Empire, one at first, is then repre-
sented in the thighs, as two great portions; not closely
united together as the two sides of the chest, but one
only by their common connection with the upper part,
or in them continued. Nothing could more exactly re-
present those two subdivisions of Alexander's empire, the
account of which is expanded to Daniel in Ch. xi, those
by which his people were most affected.
The kingdoms of the Seleucidæ and the Ptolemies, ever
one side, the territory of the Lydian empire with the Greeks of Asia Minor on
the other, controlled from the centre of the empire, yet ever inclined to make
themselves independent, and often successful. Alexander, before he attacked
the centre of the kingdom, mastered the two arms which the Persian king had
once stretched out, so full of perii to Greece."
3 Ib. 280.
4 In his well known passage (Pol. vii. 7.) speaking of his own (Alexander's)
time, "The nations in the cold countries and those around Europe are full of
spirit, but are rather wanting in thought and contrivance; wherefore they
retain their freedom, but have no fixed polity and cannot govern their neigh-
bours. Those of Asia are thoughtful and contriving, but spiritless, wherefore
they abide in subjection and servitude. But the Greek race, as it occupies the
mid-space between them, so it partakes of both; for it is both spirited and
F 2
68
Characteristics of
at variance with one another, had no unity, they were in
no sense a kingdom, except as they were connected with
the great Empire-plan of Alexander. They were continu-
ations of Greek predominance over the nations of Orien-
tal character in Asia Minor, Egypt, Syria, Assyria. They
carried out that interpenetration of the Greek and Ori-
ental nations, which Alexander must have contemplated;
they Hellenised Egypt and Western Asia, and unknow-
ingly prepared the way for the Gospel by diffusing,
through means of their Greek cities, the language in
which it was to be given.
In the fourth Empire we have again strength, ending
in division; strength yet greater than in the third Empire,
ending in greater division; yet, even in its division, re-
taining to the end, in its several portions, its original
iron might. Its chief characteristic is its strength. It
is likened to the metal proverbially strong; it is strong as
iron¹; and it crushes all successively. Forasmuch as
iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things; and as
iron that breaketh all these, it shall crush and break.
is an annihilating power, which leaves to that which it
conquers, no trace of its existence, but itself replaces it.
Twofold in its form, as the Roman power, itself one, came
to be divided into East and West, it ends in yet further
division into ten kingdoms; and the iron commingles
itself with a material as plastic, as itself is unyielding,
potter's clay. This, as Daniel interprets it, expresses
partly the mingled strength and weakness of the later
condition of the empire, strong, as before, in some parts,
yet side by side with weakness, partly the union of this
fourth empire with that which was foreign from itself,
through intermarriages, the seed of men², whereby how-
ever the two powers do not cohere. History down to An-
tiochus Epiphanes exhibits nothing of this sort. There
was no such subdivision into ten; no three which were
thoughtful; whence it abides free and with excellent polities, and is able to
rule the world, if it should come to have one government."
¹ ii. 40.
2 Ib. 43.
the fourth Empire.
69
uprooted. An union moreover between the Seleucidæ
and Ptolemies by intermarriages would have been an
union of like, not of unlike, materials. It would have
been a cementing of the kingdom within itself, iron with
iron, not iron with clay. There were also (as we shall
see) only two such alliances between the two houses, and
even those on no one policy. The ancient explanation
corresponds best with the symbol, that the Eastern and
Western Empire subdivided still further. "When Ger-
mans and Slaves advanced partly into Roman ground,
anyhow into the historical position of the Roman Em-
pire, their princes intermarried with Roman families.
Charlemagne was descended from a Roman house; al-
most at the same time the German Emperor Otho II.4
and the Russian Grand-Prince Vladimir 5 intermarried
with daughters of the East-Roman Emperor. This was
characteristic for the relation of the immigrating nations
to Rome; they did not found a new kingdom, but con-
tinued the Roman. And so it continues to the end of all
earthly power, until its final ramification into ten king-
doms. To attempt now to mark out these would be as
misplaced, as to fix the Coming of Christ, [with which
they stand connected] tomorrow or the next day.”
Even an opponent has said; "6 It is in favour of this
interpretation [of the 4th empire as the Roman] that the
two feet of iron can be referred to the Eastern and Wes-
tern Empire."
ii. This dream of Nebuchadnezzar is confessed on all
hands to be expanded in the first vision of Daniel. Nebu-
chadnezzar's dream had represented human empire in its
intelligent, well-proportioned might. It was man's power
as formed, in some measure, in the image of God. The
substance, the strength, the character, of the several em-
pires were different; the form was one. Daniel's vision
exhibits them on another side. The four winds of hea-
3 Hofmann, p. 281.
4 See l'Art de vérifier les Dates, ii. 2. p. 103.
5 A. D. 989. Ib. 250.
6 De Wette, Hall. Encycl. art. Daniel. He adds that, in his opinion, the
70
Duration of events expressed in the vision.
ven are driving at once upon the great sea, that repre-
sentative, throughout Holy Scripture, of our troubled
world¹, and out of it there arise four forms of more than
human strength. The terrific and wasting power of the
world-empires is exhibited under the image of brute force,
four great beasts, diverse one from the other. A sort of
unity is given to them, in that they are all exhibited at
first to the prophet's eye at once. God shews them to
him first, as He Himself sees all things, at once; then, as
they arose in fact, succeeding one another. Nor did they
arise of their own power. "Not without being acted on
by the winds of heaven, does the sea send forth those
beasts; not without being set in motion by the powers
above, does the heathen world form itself into those great
empires."
5
The intervals in the vision are marked very distinctly
by the words, I continued gazing, till-After this I
gazed on, and lo,—After this, I gazed on in the night vi-
sions and lo,—I continued considering the horns and lo,
I went on gazing till the thrones were set-I went on gaz-
ing because of the great words-I gazed on, till the beast
was slain ;-I gazed on in the night visions, and behold,
one like the Son of man came in the clouds of heaven. The
European kingdoms can only in a very figurative way be looked upon as a
continuation of the Roman Monarchy, and that the number ten cannot be ve-
rified in them; yet it has its difficulty to make out the ten kings according to
the other explanations." See further in Lect. 3. I only cite himn, as an instance
how that interpretation, so far, commended itself to one on the extreme op-
posite side.
1 See Is. xvii. 12. Babylon is "the dragon by the sea."
Ib. xxvii. 1. Pharaoh, Ezek. xxix. 3. add xxxii. 2. comp. Rev. xiii. 1, xvii. 1, 5.
xxi. 1. "The sea is the world." S. Ephr.
2 as Ps. Ixviii. 30. lxxiv. 13, 14. Is. and Ez. n. 1. Jer. li. 34. 3 vii. 3. As in
Rev. viii. 2. the "seven trumpets" are given at once, sounded successively.
4 Hofm. 283.
5 ng mŋ vii. 4, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13. ng any vii. 8. lit. "I was
(one) considering,” much as people say in idiomatic English, “I was a' con-
sidering." The substantive verb with the participle never means in Hebrew or
Chaldee mere relative time, but always marks an abiding and continued condi-
tion. See Ew. krit. Gramm. § 282. p. 537. Winer, Gr. Chald. § 47. The idiom
occurs in Daniel ii. 31, 34, iv. 7, 10. and in this ch. vii. 2, 21. and in his Heb.
viii. 5. 17. On the like use of the participle as a Hebraism in the N. T.
see Buttmann, Gramm. d. N. T. Particip. n. 26. pp. 266, 7.
Rapid overthrow of Babylonian Empire.
71
idiom in all these cases expresses an abiding condition,
a period during which the objects displayed to Daniel re-
mained before his sight, and he gazed upon each, until
the next came. The continuance of the sight before him
in the vision implies a duration of that which is exhi-
bited. Once only, in the course of the vision, is the idiom
omitted; and that, in remarkable correspondence with
the circumstances. Daniel saw this vision in the first
year of Belshazzar; just at the close, then, of the Baby-
lonian Empire, and just before the beginning of the Medo-
Persian. As to the Medo-Persian Empire alone, which
was to come at furthest in a very few years, he does not
use the idiom. After closing the account of the Babylo-
nian, a man's heart was given to it, he proceeds, and be-
hold another beast; as describing an event which was
immediately to follow.
In the first year of Belshazzar, when Daniel saw this
vision, the sun of the Babylonian Empire was now setting.
It was setting, (as it seems,) in its grandeur, like the tro-
pic sun, with no twilight. It continued in its integrity,
until, through the weakness of its rulers, it sank at once.
Daniel sees it in its former nobility. As it had been ex-
hibited to Nebuchadnezzar under the symbol of the rich-
est metal, gold, so now to Daniel, as combining qualities
ordinarily incompatible, a lion with eagle's wings. It had
the solid strength of the king of beasts of prey, with the
swiftness of the royal bird, the eagle. Jeremiah had lik-
ened Nebuchadnezzar both to the lion and the eagle 7.
Ezekiel had compared the king, Habakkuk and Jere-
miah 10, his armies, for the rapidity of his conquests, to
the eagle. So he beheld it for some time ¹¹, as it had
long been. Then he saw its decay. Its eagle-wings were
plucked; its rapidity of conquest was stopped; itself was
raised from the earth and set erect; its wild savage strength
was taken away; it was made to stand on the feet of a man.
12 In lieu of quickness of motion, like eagle's wings, is
6 iv. 7, xlix. 19, 1. 17, 44.
10 iv. 13, Lam. iv. 19. 11
6
9
y
7 xlix. 22.
8 xvii. 3, 12.
vii. 4. see n. 5.
9 i. 8.
12 Ibn Yech.
72
Bear, symbol of Medo-Persian Empire.
the slowness of human feet." And the heart of mortal
man 1 was given to it. It was weakened and humanised.
It looks as if the history of its great founder was alluded
to in the history of his empire. As he was chastened,
weakened, subdued to know his inherent weakness, so
should they. The beast's heart was given to him, then
withdrawn, and he ended with praising God. His em-
pire, from having the attributes of the noblest of beasts
yet still of a wild beast, is humanised. "The last em-
pire ends in God-opposed blasphemy and perishes by the
direct judgment of God."
The second beast, the bear, corresponds with the solid,
heavy chest of Nebuchadnezzar's statue. The two-fold
division and the relative strength of the two sides, the
one stronger than the other, recur in this symbol also, in
that the bear is raised up on one side³, ready to use the arm
in which its chief strength lies. It lifts itself up hea-
vily, in contrast with the winged rapidity of the Chaldæan
or Babylonian conquests. The three ribs in its mouth
correspond accurately to the three kingdoms which the
Medo-Persian empire swallowed up, the Lydian, Babylo-
nian, Egyptian 5. It is bidden, Arise, devour much flesh,
in conformity with the greedy, "all-eating"," character of
the animal. Waste of human life was a characteristic
of the Persian Empire in its heavy aggressiveness. Hea-
viness was, after Cyrus, the characteristic of its wars.
It never moved, except in ponderous masses, avalan-
ches, precipitated upon its enemy, sufficient to overwhelm
him, if they could have been discharged at once, or had
there been any one commanding mind to direct them.
אֱנוֹשׁ with the idea of weakness, as in אֲנָשׁ 1
2 Hofmann, 284.
up one side."
3 According to the pointing, 'pp; or, if n'pq, "lifts
4 See Rev. xiii. 2. Oppian singles out “the right hand,”
Cyneg. iv. near the end, quoted Boch. Hieroz. iii. 9. ii. 132. Leipz.
5 Cyrus, the first king of Persia, subdued the whole East to the Helles-
pont; Cambyses his son, Egypt and Æthiopia; Darius Hystaspes, the Scythi-
an Nomads in the North." Theod. Rather, "Thrace." But it is questionable
whether he permanently subdued more than the sea-coast. comp. Her. v. 2.
and 10,
6 πáμpayov. Aristot. H. A. viii. 5. see others in Boch. 1. c. p. 143.
Heaviness, characteristic of Medo-Persian Empire. 73
Like Attila or Timour, they wielded vast masses of hu-
man strength on their enemies; their armies varied from
300,000 on slighter expeditions to a million. Darius'
army, with which he marched through the desolate re-
gions of Scythia, was counted at 700,000, exclusive of his
fleet of 600 ships", which would add a naval force of
120,000 men. Xerxes' expedition against Greece resem-
bled more the emigration of vast hordes, than an army;
they were calculated at above two million and a half of
fighting men'. Artaxerxes Longimanus, his successor,
gathered two armies, each, it is said, exceeding 300,000
men, to subdue the single province of Egypt 10. The first
was defeated chiefly through 200 Athenian ships 10. It is
noticed how Artaxerxes gathered his army from all
quarters to resist his brother Cyrus the younger ¹¹. Xe-
nophon tells us that deserters and prisoners counted it
1,200,000, and that it was actually 900,000, a contingent
of 300,000 not having arrived in time12. Even its last un-
warlike king brought an army of 500,000¹³, or 600,000¹¹ to
the battle of Issus; and, two years after its defeat, he
gathered 1,000,000¹5, in splendid array 15, to cover the plain
of Gaugamela, a multitudinous host from all the nations
yet left under his sway, to be mostly but the spectators of
his disgrace.
11
"When the Persians first became a conquering people,"
7 Her. iv. 87.
8 At 200 to each trireme. vii. 184.
9 Her. vii. 185. The Greeks believed that 3 millions were gathered against
them at Thermopyla. Her. vii. 228. Xenophon calls it "a countless army."
Anab. iii. 2. 13.
10 Diod. xi. 74, 75.
11 Diod. xiv. 22. Their gathering place was Egbatana.
"But when those
from India and some other nations, were behindhand on account of the dis-
tance," &c. He gives its numbers from Ephorus at "not less than 400,000.”
13 Diod. xvii. 31. Arrian says, on the authority of
14 Arrian, ii. 8. 12.
12 Anab. i. 7. 10.
Ptolemy Lagi, that 110,000 were slain. ii. 11.
15 “1,000,000 foot, 40,000 horse, 200 scythed chariots." Arr. iii. 8. 8. Arrian
mentions Indians near Bactria, Bactrians, Sogdians, Sacian allies, Arachoti,
and the mountaineer Indians, Arians, Parthians, Hyrcanians, Tapyrians,
Medes, Cardusians, Albanians, Tacesinæ, those on the Red Sea, Uxii, Susians,
Babylonians, with transplanted Carians, and Sitaceni, Armenians, Cappado-
cians, Cœle-Syrians, Mesopotamians. Diodorus states the foot at 800,000, the
horse at 200,000, the chariots at 200. xvii. 53.
74
Heeren, "Heaviness, characteristic of
says Heeren¹, "it was their uniform practice to streng-
then their armies by means of the conquered nations,
who were forced to accompany them on their further
advances. But when they had founded and organised
their Empire, and were lords of all Asia from the Indus
to the Mediterranean, it would have involved endless dif-
ficulties to collect troops out of lands so distant. To do
this on all little occasions, such as internal disturbances
or easy wars, would have been as unmeaning as impos-
sible. Still it continued to be their practice, that, on all
great national undertakings, whether directed to the en-
largement of the empire in distant lands or to meet
mighty aggressions from without, such musters were
made of all the subject nations, as is shewn by the great
arrays under Darius Hystaspes, Xerxes, and even under
the last Darius.
"Even the preliminary preparations were of immense
extent. The king's command issued to all nations of the
empire, directing what each was to contribute, in men,
horses, ships or provisions 2. The commotion occasioned
thereby throughout Asia lasted, before the expedition of
Xerxes, for four full years 3. Time was required, before
the contingents out of the distant countries could be
brought together.
"For all in common there was one rendezvous; in Xer-
xcs' expedition, this was in Cappadocia. Here all those
contingents out of all provinces of the empire met to-
gether, each led by its Satrap. In the war itself these re-
tained no command, the officers were taken from the Per-
sians. This was a privilege of the conquering nation,
just as it was among the Moguls and Tatars. The sub-
ject nations were treated as property, and were called
slaves, in contrast with the Persians who on their side
were called Freemen. Such was the relation of the na-
tions to each other; towards the king the Persians were
as little free as the others.
4
"The order of march in their own territories was mar-
¹ Ideen, i. 513-18. 2 Her. iv. 83. vii. 21. 3 Her. vii. 29. 4 Her. vii. 9.
aggressions of Medo-Persian Empire."
75
vellous; rather there was scarce any order. The men
were not even separated according to nations 5, but form-
ed an immense chaos. In the midst was the king with
the Persians; the baggage went before. As they advan-
ced, the inhabitants of the countries through which they
passed were driven on and had to swell the multitude 6.
So the mass grew continually ;-the baggage must have
become incalculable 7. The most inconceivable thing is
the provisioning. In the countries through which they
passed, corn had to be laid up long before; other was
brought by ships. Else the hordes had to provide for
themselves. Meals were ordered for the king and his at-
tendants; but were given at such an expenditure, that
this alone exhausted the cities 8. The king and his gran-
dees had their tents, the rest encamped under the open
heaven", which must have unavoidably entailed a number
of diseases.
"On approaching the enemy's country, the army was
divided according to nations. This was connected with
a muster which the king commonly made. Hence the
document in which Herodotus has preserved to us an ac-
curate list of the nations in Xerxes' army 10. The muster
took place in Europe. Little instructive as the scene may
be for military men, there could scarce be one more in-
teresting to the observer of nations. The history of the
world gives no instance, of which such a multitude and
variety of nations was compressed into one spot of the
earth, as appeared, each in his peculiar costume and arms,
on the plain of Doriscus. Herodotus counts and de-
scribes 56 nations, which served by land, horse and foot,
or part in the fleet. There were Indians in their cotton
6 As, e. g. the Thracians. Her. vii. 110.
5 Her. vii. 40.
9 Ib. 119.
7 "The number of women-bakers, concubines, eunuchs, baggage-horses and
other beasts of burthen, and of dogs," Herodotus says, "was countless." vii. 187.
8 Her. vii. 118.
10 vii. 59-100.
11 "Herodotus says that all the nations were horsemen, but that the Persians
employed some only as such. (vii. 84.) They were limited by the means of sub-
sistence. The whole number of fighting men he fixes at rather more than 2}
76 Perfect agreement of the bear with the Medo-Persian,
dress, and Æthiopians from beyond Egypt, clad in skins
of lions; the black Walruchs from Gedrosia and the No-
mad tribes from the steppes of Mongolia and the great
Buchary; wild hunting tribes, like the Sagartians, who,
without weapon of bronze or steel, caught their enemies,
like the animals they hunted, in leathern lassoes, and
Medes and Bactrians in rich array; Libyans with 4 horse
chariots ¹, and Arabs upon camels; Phoenician mariners
with numerous squadrons, and Asiatic Greeks compelled
to fight against their countrymen. Never did despotism
exhibit a spectacle, which began so splendidly, to end so
pitiably."
1
Every lineament then of the description agrees with the
Medo-Persian empire; the heavy fierceness and the de-
structiveness of the animal; the prominence given to the
one side; the three ribs, which can receive no explanation
as to any other empire.
Of the third empire, the characteristics are swiftness
and insatiableness of conquest, and four-fold division.
The panther, an animal, insatiable above every other
beast of prey, gifted with a swiftness which scarce any
millions. We, in our days, have seen France alone, by a like conscription,
send towards a million of fighting men into the field. In itself then, it is
nothing strange, if out of the vast Asia and no small portion of Europe and
Africa one and a half as many again could be brought together. (Her. vii.
185.) The counting by 10,000s was a Persian custom in such expeditions.
Witness Darius in his Scythian expedition; the sum told was engraven on
columns. (Her. iv. 87.) This counting then is certainly no fable, nor the sum
any exaggeration of Herodotus. Whether it was misstated in the Persian
documents, we have now no means of judging."
1 Her. iv. 170. 189.
2 "Most naturalists have arrived at the conclusion that the Leopard and
Panther are one and the same animal." Museum of Nat. Hist. p. 113. "It is
about a third less than the tiger." "The size varies, and independently of
this, there occur varieties from dark brown to black. The size of the spots and
the arrangement of the rows vary without any variation in the essential cha-
racters." Giebel die Sauge-Thiere, p. 875. Dr. Rolleston. I have substituted
the word "Panther," for the "Leopard" of the E. V., because at present the
name "leopard" is popularly used of a smaller animal; of old, it was used to
designate the larger animal, which was supposed, on account of its size, to be
a cross between the lion and the pard. (Bochart.) The Panther is next in size
to the Tiger, whose habitat is more Eastward. Dr. Rolleston tells me, "The
extreme point of the Tiger's westward distribution seems to be the Southern
and of the panther with the Macedonian Empire. 77
prey can escape 3, is represented yet further with four
wings. The subdivision of the Empire is indicated by
its four heads. Its colour in the animal corresponds to
the brass of the image; its swiftness to the activity of
the loins and thighs in the image. Probably moreover,
the multiplication of the heads means more than the sub-
division of rule. The human head was, in the dream of
Nebuchadnezzar, a symbol of human intelligence. Pro-
bably these heads, like the four-headed creatures in Eze-
kiel's vision, looked all ways, E. W. N. S. Their so
looking was in itself a symbol of circumspection, of mani-
fold versatile intelligence. This remains further to be
developed in the next vision.
But, again, the chief object of interest in the vision, as
in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, is the 4th Empire. For the
living creature which represents this, there is no name.
No one creature can express its terribleness, not even if the
attributes of different creatures, (as in the symbol of the
lion with eagle's wings) were combined to picture it. Only,
words expressive of terror and might are heaped, the one
slopes of the Caucasus, which was the Eastern boundary of the Leopard's dis-
tribution, its western boundary being the Atlantic, as the Tiger's Eastern is
the Pacific ocean."
3 "It is borne," says S. Cyril, "with swiftest course against what it wills,
and runs with feet so swift, that no track is seen nor any imprint left on the
ground." on Hos. xiii. 7. The Abbé Poiret (in his Voyage en Barbarie, 1789.
i. 224.) gives this account of the Panther; "The Arabs have assured me that
they fear the Panther more than the lion, both for themselves and for their
flocks. It is of the nature of the tiger. Its rage is to drink its fill of blood,
and, when satisfied with it, to see it flow and, as it were, to bathe in it. Its
fury is never slaked; but seems even to gain fresh nourishment, the more
victims it destroys. If it precipitate itself in the midst of a large flock, unless
chased away, it leaves nothing alive. It breathes only blood, carnage, death.
It attacks all animals except the lion, and conquers all. Extremely light in
its course, it is fleeter than any; its motions are so subtle, so prompt, that it is
difficult to escape it. Thickets, ditches, even small rivers cannot arrest it in
its course. It lightly clears them all, and if the creature which it pursues,
escape into a tree, the Panther, notwithstanding the bulk of its body, is there
as soon. Thus it declares war against the inhabitants of earth and air. The
bird, too young to leave its nest, although placed at the summit of the tallest
tree, becomes its prey. The thirst for blood is seen in its look: its eye is always
sparkling with anger and rage.”
Ezek. i. 10.
78Exceeding terribleness again characterises the 4th Empire.
ខ
upon the other, to characterise it. We have the terrible-
ness which was ascribed to the aspect of the image, as a
whole; and the strong might, which was the property of
the fourth kingdom in it, and that, exceedingly; and
Daniel framed apparently a new word to enforce the con-
ception of its strength. He calls it ¹terrible and mightful 2
and strong exceedingly, diverse from all the beasts before it,
with great iron teeth and nails of brass, which should not
only devour, like the bear, but should stamp the residue
with its feet. "In the former beasts," says S. Jerome,
"there are single tokens of terribleness; in this there are
all." The beast of the Revelations, which was framed
after this description of Daniel, is combined of the first
three of Daniel. 3 The beast which I saw was like unto a
leopard, and his feet as the feet of a bear, and his mouth
as the mouth of a lion.
Of the last Empire, like the first, Daniel sees not only
certain characteristics, but a history. Intervals of its his-
tory are marked. It embraces a long period. The beast
appears at first with the ten horns at once, as the third
beast with its four heads. Its characteristic is stupen-
dous strength, as that of the third is manifold intelligence.
But although, in order to manifest its unity, it appears as
one whole, the explanation shews that the ten horns belong
to a subsequent stage of its existence. For first its cha-
racteristic crushing power and its use of that power are
dwelt upon; "The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom
upon the earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms,
and shall devour the whole earth and shall tread it down
and break it in pieces. Then, after this, the ten horns are
explained to be kings or kingdoms which should issue out
of it. And the ten horns out of (i. e. going forth from)
this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise. Throughout
1 vii. 7.
in Heb.
6
2. The root exists only in Arabic in this sense, whence
n, "loins," as the seat of human strength. In the extant Aramaic,
the root has only the meaning "wished for, lingered." No other was found
3 Rev. xiii. 2.
either by Quatremère or Bernstein.
6 24.
4 See ab. pp. 70, 1.
5 vii. 23.
The ten horns or kingdoms later but simultaneous. 79
these prophecies the king represents the kingdom, and the
kingdom is concentrated in its king. The kings then or
kingdoms which should arise out of this kingdom, must,
from the force of the term as well as from the context, be
kings or kingdoms which should arise at some later stage
of its existence, not those first kings without which it
could not be a kingdom at all. For these do not arise
out of it, but are a part of it. We could speak of the
United States, or (should we erect these into independent
states hereafter) of India, the Canadas, the Australasian
Colonies, as arising, springing out of the kingdom of Bri-
tain. We could not speak of our own line of sovereigns,
as kings who came forth from the kingdom of Britain ;
for they were all along an integral part of it. The king-
dom never existed without them.
These ten horns or kingdoms are also to be contem-
poraneous. They are all prior in time to the little horn
which is to arise out of them. Another, he says, shall
arise after them, and it diverse from the rest; as the whole
kingdom should be diverse from those kingdoms which
were before it. Yet the ten horns or kingdoms are to
continue on together, until after the eleventh shall have
risen up; for it is to rise up among them and to destroy
three of them. The description, in itself, implies, that the
ten horns symbolise ten kingdoms, not ten kings only.
For in this way only could the two traits be compatible,
that the eleventh was to come up among them and yet
after them. One could say of the new kingdom of Italy,
that it came up after the other kingdoms of Europe, and
yet among them. But one could not say of the king of
Sardinia, that he arose up among the kings his predecess
ors, who were of necessity dead before he arose. To arise
up after, and yet among, are incompatible, except when
those former things abide.
So then, within the period of the fourth empire, there
are these distinct periods, 1) the time until it is divided
into the ten portions symbolized by the ten horns, as,
before, it was represented as ending in the ten toes;
80 Periods distinguished in the fourth Empire.
1
2) the period of those ten horns. 3) That in which the
eleventh, diverse from the rest, held its sway. This also
is marked to be no brief time, both from the events in
it, and from the wondering lengthened contemplation of
the Prophet: ¹ I continued narrowly observing these horns;
and, behold, there came up among them another little horn,
before whom three of the first horns were uprooted; and
behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a
mouth speaking great things-2I continued gazing then be-
cause of the voice of the great words which the horn spake ;
I gazed on even till the beast was slain,- I gazed on, and
the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed
against them. 4) The period after the destruction of that
power and of the whole fourth kingdom which is to perish
with him, indicated by the words; And the rest of the
beasts, the other kingdoms, their dominion was taken
away, yet their lives were prolonged on to a season and
time, ¹ i. e. on to the time appointed by God. The sen-
tence seems most naturally to relate to a time after the
destruction of the 4th empire; for it continues the de-
scription. It does not seem to be simply an account of
what God had done afore-time to those former empires,
viz. that when He took away their world-rule, He left them
in being as nations, but of something which should be
after the destruction of the fourth. This however will be
made clear when the time comes.
5
The latter part of this, being still future, we cannot
explain certainly. Prophecy is not given to enable us to
prophesy, but as a witness to God when the time comes.
This prophecy reaches on to the end of time. Much of
it is confessedly expanded in the Revelations, as still to
It would then be as inconsistent in us to attempt
come.
1 vii. 8.
3 11.
3 21.
4
.iii בָּהּ זִמְנָא is a definite time, as in the phrase (מוֹעֵד .i. q. IHeb) זְמַן עַד זְמַן וְעַבֶּן
28, iv. 33, Ezr. v. 3. See also vii. 25. and in Heb. Eccl. iii. 1, Neh. ii. 6. and in
the N. T. & kaιpòs, S. Luke xxi. 8. xpóvovs Kaιроùs, Acts i. 7, 1 Thess. v. 1.
12. depends apparently on v. 11. "I gazed on until the beast was killed
and his body destroyed-and the rest of the beasts, their dominion," &c.
5
V.
Permanent subdual, characteristic of it.
81
to explain it, as it would be in the school of Porphyry, not
to explain it. For, according to them, it relates to past
facts. They assume the book to have been written in the
times of Antiochus Epiphanes, to relate to his times,
and to be intended to influence his times. Then, they
are bound by their own hypothesis to explain it, if
they can, with reference to those times. For, according
to them, it represents past facts. The impossibility of
pointing out these has, since Porphyry's time, been one
chief rock, on which those theories have been wrecked.
Christians can point out the correspondence of the
fourth Empire, as far is incumbent on them, viz. in its
beginning. Crushing power was the characteristic of
the fourth beast. Permanent subdual distinguished the
Roman Empire. Other Empires swept over like a tor-
nado. They ravaged, extorted submission, received tri-
bute. But their connection with the states whom they
subdued, was loose and disjointed. The title "king of
kings," which Assyrian, Babylonian7, Persian, assumed
in succession, was a boast which confessed weakness.
They had not the power of consolidating into one the dis-
jointed materials of their greatness. The plans of Nebu-
chadnezzar, Cyrus, Alexander, the previous founders of
world-Empires, failed in the hands of unworthy succes-
sors. Rome kept in dependence on itself all which it ac-
quired, inferior yet still integral members of its polity.
Dionysius, comparing it to the empires before it, especial-
ly the Assyrian, Persian, Alexander's, says, "If any one,
considering the governments of which we have any ac-
count in the past, apart and as compared with one ano-
ther, would judge which had the largest rule, and wrought
the brightest deeds in peace and war, he will find the Ro-
man far to surpass all before it, not only in the greatness
6 Hos. viii. 10, Is. x. S. and Merodach-baladan's title, Is. xxxix. 1.
7 Ezek. xxvi. 7, Dan. ii. 37. comp. Is. xlvii. 5.
8 Ezr. vii. 12. Strab. xv. 3. 7. Amm. Mar. xix. 2. 16. Persepol. Cuneif.
Inscr. in Grotefend; Pehlevi coins in De Sac. Mem. s. diverses Antiq. de Perse,
pp. 87, 8. Ges. on Is. x. 8.
Antiq. Rom. i. 2-4. See Newton on the Prophecies.
G
82 Dionysius, contrast of Roman with former Empires.
of its empire and the splendour of its deeds but in its du-
ration until now. For the Assyrian Empire, of fabulous
antiquity, held but a small part of Asia. The Median,
which destroyed the Assyrian and gained a wider rule, last-
ed no long time, but was overthrown in its 4th generation.
The Persians, who subdued the Medes, mastered at last
wellnigh all Asia; but, invading Europe also, they brought
over to them not many nations, and their empire conti-
nued not much more than two centuries. The Macedo-
nian Dynasty, which destroyed the Persian Empire, sur-
passed in extent of empire all before it: yet neither did
it flourish long, but on Alexander's death began to de-
cline. For being rent asunder straightway by his suc-
cessors (Diadochi) into many governments, and having
strength to last out to the second or third generation after
them, it was internally weak, and at last was effaced by
the Romans. Nor did it either subdue all land and sea.
For it did not conquer that wide Africa except about
Egypt, nor all Europe, but advanced only Northwards as
far as Thrace and westward to the Adriatic.
"Such was the acmé and might which the most illus-
trious Empires, recorded in history, attained, and they
decayed. But the city of Rome rules over the whole ha-
bitable and inhabited earth, and the sea, not only within
the columns of Hercules, but the ocean too, as far as ships
may venture. It, first and alone of all in all recorded
time, made East and West bounds of its sway; and the
period of its might is not brief, but such as no other city
or kingdom ever had.-Since it subdued Macedonia,
which at that time seemed the most mighty on earth, it
has now, for seven generations, ruled without rival, bar-
barian or Greek. No nation, so to speak, disputes her su-
premacy or declines to obey her."
Abating what is the language of panegyric, Rome had
consolidated a dominion different in character from any
before her and wider in extent.
Such was the aspect of the successive kingdoms, such
their outline. But the chief object of interest, that
The last strife-Heaven and earth.
3
83
chiefly expanded, as in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, is that
in which they should end, the kingdom of God victorious
over the evil of the world. One verse is assigned to each
of the first three kingdoms; one verse contains the ex-
planation of them all; the rest of the vision and the ex-
planation is occupied with that great conflict. We see,
on earth,¹ the little horn with eyes like the eyes of a man,
man's intellectual acuteness, and the mouth speaking great
things, setting himself over against God, destroying the
saints of the most High, essaying to change worship and
law; and all is, for the allotted time, given into his hand.
On the other side heaven is opened to us; we see the
Throne of God, and the Eternal God, and the judgment
set, and the books opened, the records of man's deeds and
misdeeds; and one like a Son of Man in Heaven; like man,
but not a mere man; Man, but more than man; in the
clouds of heaven, to Whom, as man, is given power and glo-
ry and kingdom; all peoples should serve Him, and His do-
minion should last for ever. It is a sublime picture; man,
with his keen intellect, a look more stout than his fellows,
overthrowing kings, doing his own will, speaking against
God, placing himself over against Him as His antagonist,
having, for a set time, all things in his hand; and above,
out of his sight, God, enthroned in the serenity of His
Majesty, surrounded by the 1000s of 1000s of heavenly
beings who serve Him; and, near Him, One in human
form, born of a human birth, yet, like God, above in the
clouds of heaven, the darkness shrouding Him from hu-
man eye, but reigning and to reign for ever, His king-
dom neither to pass away by decay nor to be destroyed by
1 vii. 8.
2 by 78 vii. 25. 78. λey. lit. ad latus, is probably i. q. "over against,"
opposed to," like Dan. x. 13. comp. adversus.
3
“set times,” i. e. probably “the times" of the set
of sacred "seasons,") and so the worship of those times.
Gen. i. 14. and Jon. puts for Zeph. iii.
i. 4. Pseud. Jon. paraphrases my feasts" by
feasts, (as we speak
In Onk. it stands for
18. and Lam.
Lev. xxiii. 2. 37.
by Ib. 4. 44. Else is used of the place of sacred assembly, Num. i. 1. Is.
xxxiii. 20. but is retained of the festival, Lev. 1. c. Lam. i. 4. Hos. ix. 5.
G 2
C
84 The title Kingdom of God, taken from Daniel.
violence. "God is patient because He is eternal." Be-
low, all is tumult; above, all is tranquillity; the heavenly
King over against the earthly potentate, until the last
blasphemy draws down the lightning upon him; the voice
of his great words ascends, the judgment of God descends.
Because of the voice of the great words which the horn
spake, I beheld till the beast was slain, and his body de-
stroyed and given to the burning flame.
The vision, in all its parts, corresponds to Nebuchad-
nezzar's dream; only, whereas that mentions the beginning
of this kingdom of God, as well as the annihilation of all
human power by it, this exhibits mainly the last rebellion
of man and its subdual. Its fulfilment we cannot, of
course, point out, because the end is not yet 2, but we can,
at least, own its harmony and oneness with the Gospel.
At the same time we shall see the impression which the
prophecies of Daniel made on those to whom they were
given.
9
4
1) No one hesitated about S. John Baptist's meanings,
Repent ye, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand. All
men mused whether he were the Christ or no.
It was a
known class among the Jews, who waited for the king-
dom of God; the same, of whom it is said, that they
6 waited for the consolation of Israel, 7 looked for redemp-
tion in Jerusalem. The Pharisees demanded of Jesus,
when the kingdom of God should come? They understood
His answer, The kingdom of God cometh not with obser-
vation. The kingdom of God is within you.
The king-
dom of God, the kingdom of heaven, occur in the Gospels,
as names, as well known to the whole people of the Jews
as faith, hope, charity, worship, or any other religious
term. They are not explained, but are assumed to be
understood. Our Lord embodied the title in His prayer
which He gave us, Thy kingdom come. The kingdom of
Heaven occurs exclusively, the kingdom, almost exclu-
1 "Patiens quia æternus."
S. Luke xxi. 9.
S. Luke xxiii. 51.
3 S. Matt. iii. 2.
S. Luke ii. 25.
2 S. Matt. xxiv. 6, S. Mark xiii. 7,
4 S. Luke iii. 15. 5 S. Mark xv. 43,
7 Ib. 38. 8 Ib. xvii. 20. 9 Ib. 20, 1.
Its king, Man, but more than man.
85
sively, in S. Matthew's Gospel, as being written especially
for Jewish converts; but he has also that other term more
frequent in S. Luke, the kingdom of God¹0. Of these equi-
valent terms, the kingdom of heaven is especially suggested
by Daniel's words 11, the God of heaven shall set up a king-
dom which shall never be destroyed, as also by the con-
trast with those kingdoms of man, which should arise
from the earth 12. The kingdom is the word of Daniel 13.
2) The King of this kingdom was to be of human birth ¹¹,
like a son of mortal man, and therefore not a mere man;
accompanied by angels to the Throne of God, in that Ma-
jesty which had, before Daniel in this place, been spoken
of God only, coming with the clouds of Heaven.
17
14
As God manifested Himself in the cloud in the Exo-
dus 15, the wilderness 16, the tabernacle ¹7, or the temple 18,
as the clouds hide from us what is beyond them, so they
are spoken of as the visible hiding-place of the Invisible
Presence of God. To ascribe then to any created being a
place there, was to associate him with the prerogative of
God. Holy Scripture says of God, 19 He maketh the clouds
His chariot; 20 clouds and darkness are round about Him ;
21 His pavilion round about Him were dark waters and thick
clouds of the sky; 22 the clouds are the dust of His Feet: 23 be-
hold the Lord rideth upon a swift cloud, and shall come into
10 The kingdom of Heaven, occurs 32 times in S. Matt. (see Schmid, Conc.
v. oupavós ;) the kingdom, 6 times; S. Matt. iv. 23, viii. 12, ix. 35, xiii. 19,
38, xxiv. 14. the kingdom of God, 5 times. In S. Luke the kingdom of God
occurs 33 times; in S. Mark 15 times; S. John iii. 3, 5; Acts, 7 times; S. Paul,
11 times; Rev. once. (Schmid, v. Baoiλela) the kingdom, S. Luke xii. 32.
11 Dan. ii. 44.
12 Ib. vii. 17.
13 vii. 18, 22.
14
7. Ib. 13. The “son " expresses descent, as ¡a in 7 in Heb. When
in Syriac, a compound word, barnosho, had been formed, the etymology was
forgotten, and the compound word came to signify "man," so that it could be
used even of Adam; not so, while they remained two words, (as in Ch.) The
book of Enoch speaks of the Messiah, not only, in reference to Daniel, as the
Son of Man, but (from Gen. iii. 15.) as the Son of woman, sitting upon the
throne of His glory;" lxi. 9. Oxon. lxii. 5. Dillm.
15 Ex. xiii. 21, 22, xiv. 24.
xxxiv. 5, Deut. iv. 11, Judg. v. 4.
x. 34, xi. 25.
20 Ib. xcvii. 2.
16 Ex. xvi. 10, xix. 9, xxiv. 15, 16, 18,
17 Ex. xl. 34, Lev. xvi. 2, Num. ix. 19,
18 1 Kgs. viii. 10, 2 Chr. v. 13, Ezek. x. 4.
2 Nah. i. 3.
21 Ib. xviii. 11.
19 Ps. civ. 3.
23 Is. xix. 1.
86 Belief in the Messiah, as more than man, before our Lord
Egypt. It says,¹one like a Son of man came with the clouds
of heaven. It says the like of no other, save in prophecy
of that evil being who said, I will ascend above the heights
of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
11
2
2
Even before our Lord came, the description was recog-
nised as relating to the Messiah. The passage was cited
in the book of Enoch 3, when affirming the pre-existence
of the Messiah "before the creation of the world and for
ever 4" that He was the Revealer to man³, the Object of
prayer, and would be, to all nations, the stay, the light
of nations; the hope of the troubled; the righteous
Judge, with Whom the saints should dwell for ever 10.
'Anani,' He of the clouds', continued to be a name of the
Messiah ¹¹; and the Jews, unable to distinguish beforehand
His first and His second Coming, reconciled the account
of His humiliation and His glory by the well-known solu-
tion; " It is written of king Messiah, and see, with the
clouds of heaven One like a son of man came; and it is writ-
ten, meck and riding upon an ass. Be they [Israel] wor-
thy, with the clouds of heaven; be they not worthy, meek
and riding upon an ass." Caiaphas understood it and all
which it claimed for Him, his Judge, Who was arraigned
before him, and Whom he had adjured by the living God, to
say whether He were the Christ, the Son of God. 13 Thou
1 Dan. vii. 13.
2 Is. xiv. 14.
3 ch. xlvi. 1-3. "Then I beheld the Ancient of days, Whose head was like white
wool, and with Him Another, Whose countenance resembled that of man. His
countenance was full of grace, like one of the holy Angels. Then I enquired of
one of the angels who went with me, and who shewed me every secret thing,
concerning this Son of man; who He was; whence He was ; and why He accom-
panied the Ancient of days. He answered and said to me; This is the Son of
man to Whom righteousness belongs; with Whom righteousness has dwelt,
[dwelleth, Dillm.] and Who will reveal [revealeth D.] all the treasures of that
4 xlviii. 3, 5, Ixi. 10.
which is concealed," &c. Abp. Laur. transl.
5 "In
that hour was this Son of man invoked before the Lord of spirits, and His name
in the presence of the Ancient of days." xlviii. 2. Dillmann renders" was named.”
8 Ib. 4. 9 Ixi. 5, lxviii. 39.
6 xlviii. 4. 7 xlviii. 3.
10 Ixi. 17.
11 Tanchuma, 13. 2. Ver. quoted by Beck, Targ. Chron.
pp. 54, 5. Bereshith, R. on Gen. xxviii. 10. in the time of Mart. Pug. Fid. P. iii.
iii. 9. 6. p. 769. ed. Carpz.
Schöttg. i. 1151,
12 Sanhedr. Chelek, f. 98. 1. Mart. p. 344.
13 S. Matt. xxvi. 63, 4.
came, founded on this prophecy of Daniel. 87
hast said; Nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall
see the Son of Man sitting on the Right Hand of Power
and coming in the clouds of Heaven. Caiaphas under-
stood, and thereon condemned Him for blasphemy. Once
more our Lord applied the words of Daniel to Himself,
14 All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth. The
title, the Son of Man 15, as employed by our Lord, is the
more remarkable, in that He always uses it of Himself
as to His work for us on earth; no one ventures to use it
of Him, except that S. Stephen points to the commenced
fulfilment of His prophecy to Caiaphas, 16 I see the heavens
opened and the Son of man standing at the Right Hand of
God. Our Lord called Himself "the Son of Man,” i. e.
He Who was foretold under that Name in Daniel.
3) Daniel foretold, not a kingdom in Israel only, not a
conversion of the Heathen only, but that He Who sat
above, in a form like a son of man, should be worshipped 17
by all peoples nations and languages, and that this His
kingdom should not pass away. And to Whom have peo-
ples nations and languages throughout the world, millions
on millions, and hundred millions on hundred millions
in successive generations, looked to and worshipped as
their King, hereafter to come to be their Judge; Whom
have they confessed in their Creeds all these centuries.
since any questioned it, as Him "Whose kingdom shall
have no end," save Him Who came in the form of a ser-
vant, like a Son of man, in Judæa?
iii. These two visions of the four empires both ended
with the end of time, with the destruction of all human
14 Ib. xxviii. 18. from Dan. vii. 13, 14.
15 It occurs 32 times in S. Matth. ; 14 times in S. Mark; 26 times in S. Luke;
10 times in S. John. (See Schmid, Conc. v. viós.) It is not used after the
Resurrection, except when the Angels repeat our Lord's words before His
Death, (S. Luke xxiv. 7.) and by S. Stephen in reference to His prophecy.
16 Acts vii. 56. 17 vii. 14, 27. It is the same word, under which the
three youths had refused the worship to Nebuchadnezzar's image; (Dan. iii.
12, 14, 17, 18, 28.) it is used of Daniel's worship of God; (Dan. vi. 17, 21.
Ch. 16, 20. Eng.) Artaxerxes uses the verb of those who serve God in His
temple, (Ezr. vii. 24.) and the noun, of Divine Service. (Ib. 19.) [all.]
88 Symbols of the two Empires, which are explained
power, the everlasting kingdom of Christ. The next
vision, which developes a part of Daniel's former vision,
stands in remarkable contrast with it, in its limited extent.
It developes the account of two of the four kingdoms, just
those two which had been touched on most slightly be-
fore; but has nothing of the kingdom of God, of the Com-
ing of Christ, or of the end of the world. It is one de-
tailed picture of an intermediate portion of the history;
of events which meantime much affected God's people, but
which were comprised in their history. The vision is of
the more moment in the interpretation of the rest, be-
cause its symbols are authoritatively interpreted in the
Prophet himself.
The two empires represented to Daniel are, that of
Persia under the symbol of the ram, that of Greece, in
the person of its first monarch, under that of the he-goat.
Daniel, in his vision, is himself in Susa in Elam, the seat
of the future Persian Empire. He sees the Medo-Persian
world-empire forming itself, (as then, in the 3rd year of
Belshazzar, it actually was) and the higher, he says, was
shooting up (lit. ascending ¹) at the last. The empire
united in itself the strength of two kingdoms, the later
of which was the mightiest; as, in fact, Persia, which be-
fore was the chief dependency on Media, by a revolution
rather than by a conquest, absorbed Media into itself.
The ram, its symbol, butted West and North and South;
for itself came from the East. Westward, it conquered
Babylonia, Syria, Asia Minor; Northward, Colchis, Ar-
menia; Southward, part of Arabia, Egypt, Æthiopia. It
did according to its will, great, proud, mighty things ³.
No beasts (i. e. no power,) could stand before it, neither
1 i.e. as he was gazing. The Part. hy is of relative time.
2 See Her. iiì. 31.
3 viii. 4. see on Joel ii. 20. p. 124. There is no
special allusion to Persian pride, of which Greeks (Herod. i. 89. 134.) and La-
tins (Amm. M. xxiii. 6. 80.) speak. Daniel says, just afterwards, of Alexander,
that he waxed very great, or did exceeding greatly, i wy, viii. 8. Pride is,
of course, inseparable from the greatness and success of unregenerate man.
Alexander was as much intoxicated with it as the Persians. Both did great
things, and acted as great, i. e. proudly.
in Daniel to be Persia and Greece.
89
Scripture joins toge-
The power arose, as-
could any deliver out of its hand.
ther the meridian and the sunset.
cended to its zenith, fell. The fall is the issue of all hu-
man greatness, which man, whether exercising it or suf-
fering under it, loses out of sight; and so God brings it
home to him. The he-goat, as described in an image.
which has been admired in classic poetry, speeds from
the West over the whole earth without touching the
ground, slays the ram and tramples upon it. In its turn,
the Persian Empire has no internal power to resist, and
none to deliver it. The he-goat is represented (accord-
ing to the well-known symbol of Persepolis,) with its one
beautiful horn between its eyes; wonderful symbol of
strength and intelligence. As it became strong, its horn
was broken. In the midst of designs, the vastest and
most multiform probably, which intelligent ambition ever
conceived, when not yet 33, Alexander perished. But for
the marsh-fever of Babylon, aggravated by intemperance,
they might have been fulfilled. Then grew up the four
beautiful horns in its stead towards the four winds of hea-
ven, i. e. as it is explained, four kingdoms from that same
nation, but not in its power. No one has been found to
doubt that by these are intended Alexander's four suc-
cessors, the Diadochi, who collectively held whatever
survived of his Asiatic conquests and his own dominions,
subject to the rule of Greece. The network of Greek in-
telligence still lay spread over the whole compass of terri-
tory, which Alexander had laid open. The power of mind
continued, although the might of strength was broken.
The vision again, as to this empire too, hastens to the
end, the latter time of this kingdom. Then all the evils,
which the people of God had had to endure, were concen-
trated and intensified. The office of Alexander's empire
was to prepare the way for the Gospel, by spreading
Greek intelligence and the Greek language over Asia
West of the Indus. We are familiar with the language,
'to Hellenise Asia." Antiochus Epiphanes mistook his
4 En. vii. 806-10.
5 viii. 7.
6 viii. 23.
90 Symbols of Persia & Greece correspond with those of 2nd &
office, directed against God what was to be subservient
to God, and, in his mad self-will, profaned the temple,
stopped the daily sacrifice, and would have trampled out
the worship of God. The vision closes with the extinc-
tion of this Anti-Christ of the Old Testament; he shall
be broken without [human] hand; the sanctuary shall be
cleansed.
1
To which empires, then, of the four do these two corre-
spond? The Persian Empire is symbolised by a strong but
heavy animal, the ram, corresponding to the bear of the
preceding vision; the threefold direction of its conquests
answer to the three ribs in the bear's mouth; the pre-emi-
nence of the one of the two horns, to the greater power
of striking attributed to the one side. So also as to the
Greek Empire. The characteristics of the Grecian Em-
pire, as given here, are exceeding swiftness and four-fold
division. But these are precisely the characteristics of
the 3rd Empire in the dream and the vision. Only in
this later symbol it is explained in addition, that this
four-fold division should not exist from the first. No
one symbol could represent the whole without being un-
natural. The oneness was represented in the four-head-
ed, four-winged panther, fierce and destructive, as all hu-
man conquests are, yet sagacious and beautiful, as the
panther is above other beasts of prey, carrying in its four-
headed empire, acute intelligence. The successiveness
was symbolised by the horns. The one horn could be re-
presented as replaced by the four horns. Such a change
did not destroy the oneness of the living symbol. The
one head could not have been exhibited as replaced by
four, without interruption of its oneness by death.
Either of these identifications, the he-goat with four
horns with the four-headed panther, or the ram with
the bear, involves the other. For the symbol relates to
two consecutive empires. It is cumulative evidence,
whence each has a visible agreement with the correspond-
ing symbol in the previous vision. Conversely, it is an
¹ viii. 25, 14.
3rd Empire, disagree with those of 3rd & 4th respectively. 91
aggravated disagreement with the previous symbols,
when, in order to make out the fourth empire to be the
Greek, the two symbols of the 8th chapter are fitted to
two in the 7th, with which they severally disagree. The
four-horned he-goat, i. e. an empire, as it is explained,
divided into four kingdoms, cannot agree with the 4th
Empire, whose division into ten is marked by the ten
horns of the terrible beast, and the ten toes of the image.
Nor can the heavy ram, with its two horns, be identified
with the superhuman swiftness of the four-headed leo-
pard. The correspondence of the two symbols, each to
each, in the one case, and their disagreement each from
each, in the other, leave no question but that the third
empire is the Grecian. But the third Empire being the
Macedonian, there remains for the fourth empire, only
the Roman.
Nor is it any objection to this, that, in this way, oppo-
sition to God and anti-religious persecution occur both
in the 3rd and 4th empire under the symbol of a little
horn, yet with a visible difference even in this symbol.
For in the Grecian empire the little horn issues, not from
the empire itself, but from one of its fourfold divisions.
Out of one of them [the four beautiful horns] came forth
a little horn. Antiochus Epiphanes came out of one of
the four kingdoms of Alexander's successors, and that
kingdom existed in him, as the fourth horn issued in the
little horn. But in the fourth empire, the horn proceeds,
not out of any one horn but, out of the body of the em-
pire itself. It came up among them, [the horns,] wholly
distinct from them, and destroyed three of them. Such
a marked difference in a symbol, otherwise so like, must
be intended to involve a difference in the fact represented.
And why should there not be, under the fourth empire,
an antagonism to the true God, concentrated in and di-
rected by one individual, as it was in and by Antiochus
in the third? Human nature repeats itself. What man
has done, man will do. We, Christians, look for an Anti-
Christ yet to come.
Our Lord forewarned of him and his
92 Antiochus Epiphanes does not correspond to the
deceivableness¹. St. Paul describes such an one as Daniel
speaks of2. Isaiah had before foretold of him and his
destruction. This is now, thus far, a question of inter-
pretation only. Why should we not suppose Daniel to
have meant what our Lord and His Apostles meant?
Certainly Daniel himself makes a difference between the
God-opposed power symbolised in the little horn of the
8th chapter and that in the 7th. For the opposition to
God in the eighth is manifestly the persecution by Anti-
ochus Epiphanes, and ends simply in the death of the
individual and the cleansing of the visible sanctuary.
In speaking of the great God-opposed power, in which
the Fourth Empire should centre, he speaks of a shaking
of the world's powers, such as the world has not yet seen.
What he speaks of in plain reference to Antiochus Epi-
phanes, had its exact fulfilment in him. Had he meant
that other description for him, it would have accorded
also. The opponents of Daniel can find no escape from
this, through assertions that the prophecy did not corres-
pond with the event. For their hypothesis is, that Daniel
is describing past events. Their other assumption, then,
that the writer described the same event, in the one
case, so exactly, in the other case, in a way so radically
different, they leave unexplained and inexplicable.
But it is said, that Antiochus Epiphanes is again spo-
ken of in Ch. xi. and, that, after his destruction, the resur-
rection of the dead is foretold. This, if so, would prove
nothing. It would only be that same foreshortening,
which we find throughout Holy Scripture, and in our
Lord's own prediction, first of the destruction of Jerusa-
lem, and then of His 2nd Coming to judge the world.
But although Antiochus Epiphanes, the great sifter of
the faith before our Lord came, is again in part described
in the xith chapter, there are traits, which have nothing
to correspond to them in Antiochus, which are even the
exact contradictory of the character of Antiochus, but
which do reappear in St. Paul's account of the Anti-
1 S. Matt. xxiv. 24.
2 2 Thess. ii. 3, 4.
3 Isaiah xiv. 13, 14.
Anti-Christ either of the 7th or 11th chapter of Daniel. 93
Christ to come. The image of the Anti-Christ of the Old
Testament melts into the lineaments of the Anti-Christ
himself. Antiochus was a propagator of false religions, a
would-be-destroyer of the true. He opposed God, but he
worshipped and was zealous for his false gods. "In two
great and right things," say two heathen historians¹, "his
was a truly royal mind, in gifts to cities and worship of
the gods." "In the sacrifices [sent] to the cities and in
the honour to the gods, he surpassed all who had reign-
ed before him. This one may judge from the temple of
Jupiter Olympius at Athens and the statues around the
altar at Delos." In his great show at Antioch, in which
he wished to outdo the Roman games, "7 The number of
statues was past telling. For the images of all gods or
dæmons, yea and of heroes also, which are named or ac-
counted of among men, were borne in procession, some
gilded, some arrayed with cloth of gold, and to all there
were appended the corresponding myths, according to
the transmitted stories, in costly array." And this cul-
ture of Heathen worship continued to his death. "8 At
Antioch too, having promised a magnificent temple of the
Capitoline Jupiter, not with a gilded ceiling only, but its
whole walls covered with gold-plating, and many other
things in other places, he did not complete them, because
his reign was very short." One trait only of the anti-reli-
gious character of Anti-Christ was true of Antiochus also;
he shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods.
Blasphemy against God is an essential feature of any God-
opposed power or individual. It belongs to Voltaire as
much as to Antiochus. All besides has no place in him.
He shall exalt himself and magnify himself above every
god; and he shall not regard the God of his fathers, nor re-
gard the desire of women nor any god; for he shall mag-
nify himself above all. But in his estate he shall honour
the god of forces, and a god whom his fathers knew not shall
4 Liv. xli. 20. from Polybius.
5 Polyb. in Ath. v. 21. p. 94.a. Cas.
with Livy.
7 Pol. Ib. 23. p. 195. a.
668
6 θυσίαις. Gron. corrects δωρεαῖς
s Liv. Ib.
9 xi. 36-39.
94
Contrast of the character of Epiphanes
he honour with gold and silver and with precious stones
and pleasant things. Thus shall he do in the most strong
holds with a strange god whom he shall acknowledge and
increase with glory. Not only is all this alien from the
character of Antiochus, but, in its essential traits, it be-
longs to an apostate from the truth, not to one who, like
a heathen, should exchange one error for another. It
would be no blame to a heathen, not to regard the gods of
his fathers, nor to honour gods whom his fathers knew not.
The characteristics of this infidel king are (1) self-exalt-
ation above every god; he shall magnify himself above
every god; (2) contempt of all religion; (3) blasphemy
against the true God; (4) apostacy from the God of his fa-
thers; (5) disregarding "the desire of women;" (6) the ho-
nouring of a god whom his fathers knew not. Of all these
six marks, one only, in the least, agrees with Antiochus.
Even if we translate the words, the gods of his fathers¹ shall
he not regard, this, as is attested by Polybius and Livy,
was the very opposite of his character. For he was more
zealous in their worship, than any of the kings before him.
He was even a propagator of it. Like the Imperial perse-
cutors of the Gospel afterwards, he thought, we are told
by the author of the first book of Maccabees, to hold
his kingdom in one by oneness of worship. " King Anti-
ochus wrote to his whole kingdom, that all should be one
people, and every one should leave his own laws; so all
the heathen agreed according to the commandment of
the king." What Antiochus forbade, was exclusiveness.
People might worship what they liked, so that they did
not refuse worship to the state-gods. Non-Greek Hea-
then could fulfil the king's commandment by the worship
of the Greek gods, without abandoning their own. To
the Jews such worship involved the abandonment of
God, who had forbidden it. On the same principle as
662
1 Bertholdt, Lengerke, &c. interpret "Syrian gods." But the Syrians were
one, and one only of the nations, held in subjection by the Greek kingdom.
They were in no sense the fathers of the Seleucida.
2 1 Macc. i. 41, 42. Josephus alludes to this decree in his summary of the
speech of Mattathias which alludes to it. Antt. xii. 6. 2. from 1 Macc. ii. 19.
with that of the Anti-Christ in Daniel, ch. xi. 95
Hadrian afterwards, Antiochus called the temple at Je-
rusalem "the temple of Zeus Olympius," the Pan-Hel-
lenic god; and that on Gerizim, "of Zeus Xenios ³," or, as
Josephus says 4, at the request of the Samaritans also,
of Zeus Hellenios.
5
The spoiling of temples which is related of Antiochus
was an irreligious act, according to their light, yet it was
not so uncommon as to form the groundwork and occa-
sion of the picture of anti-Theism. Daniel relates the
capture of even the sacred vessels of the temple of God,
as one of the ordinary events of captivity. Nebuchad-
nezzar is, notwithstanding, described as the "Servant of
God," as having his kingdom and his glory given to him
by God. No punishment came upon him for this. It
was the direct and purposed insult to God, in the licen-
tious and sensual desecration of those vessels, the idola-
trous triumph over God, which brought down the judg-
ment on Belshazzar. Seleucus Philopator had attempt-
ed, through Heliodorus, to plunder the temple at Jerusa-
lem. The act, in itself, is no more than has been done
by the Catholic sovereigns of Spain and Portugal, and
lately in Italy, in employing to secular purposes what had
been given to God.
Since it was suggested that the desire of women might
be the Syrian goddess, Mylitta, the Germans have com-
monly adopted the explanation. Yet there is nothing
in the revolting and also unnatural worship of Mylitta,
4 Jos. Ant. xii. 5. 5. gives the letter of the Sa-
3 2 Macc. vi. 2.
maritans and the rescript of Antiochus to Nicanor.
5 Xerxes attempted to plunder Delphi; (Her. viii. 35-9.) the sacred war was
occasioned by its actual plunder. The Etolians destroyed the temple of Do-
dona ; (Polyb. iv.67.) Antiochus the Great had lost his life in attempting to plun-
der a temple of Bel in Elymais. (Strabo xvi. 1. 18. p. 744. Cas.) A Parthian
king succeeded in spoiling temples of Athene and Artemis there. (Ib.) Valerius
Max. justifies the Roman Senate for a decree to "melt the golden and silver
ornaments of the temples to pay the soldiers," in the civil wars of Marius and
Sylla. (vii. 6. 4.) Sylla, to the same end, spoiled three temples, Delphi, that
of Esculapius at Epidaurus, and of Jupiter at Olympia. (Diod. Exc. ii. 614.
Diodorus remarks on the wealth of that of Olympia, as having been unspoiled.
That of Delphi, the Amphictyons gave up to Sylla. Dio Fragm. 122, 3.
• This was devised by I. D. Mich. ; then adopted by Ges. v. 7ado.
96 Rationalists miss special character of this Anti-Christ ;
which should entitle that degrading worship to be called
the desire of women. Nor can I bring myself to think that
Daniel, in a picture of the sin of Antiochus, would men-
tion the abstinence from such a worship as a portion of
that sin. And that the more, when Antiochus, in a de-
gree frightful in his shamelessness even to Heathen, wal-
lowed in the degradations which desecrated that worship.
Nanæa¹, whose temple Antiochus attempted to plunder,
was very probably worshipped with Heathen abominations.
But there was nothing characteristic in this attempt, that
it should be singled out as exhausting the three descrip-
tions, 2 Neither shall he regard the gods of his fathers ; nor
the desire of women, nor any god shall he regard.
But, further, these insulated attempts at explanations
miss entirely the fact, that the whole of the character cen-
tres in the one point, that intensity of pride and competi-
tion with God, which we know of only in Satan and in
the Anti-Christ to come. This is the recurring trait; 3 he
shall exalt and magnify himself above every god; he shall
not regard the God of his fathers; nor the desire of women
nor any God shall he regard; for he shall magnify him-
self above all." The character is a blank denial of God,
not a forgetfulness, nor a practical impiety, nor insolent
spoliation; but a self-idolatry, a self-deifying, which shall
compete with the true God, and look down on all besides,
as being himself greater than they. Even his god is of
his own creation; a strange god whom he shall acknow-
ledge and increase with glory. It is not strange gods, but
one strange, unknown-of, god whom he shall recognise,
and, by recognising, shall magnify. The prophecy re-
markably corresponds with that which, in the Revela-
tions, is still future, where 5 the second beast causeth the
earth and all that dwell therein to worship the first beast,
giving to them a god whom they should adore.
4
And yet, according to the school of Porphyry, he who
1 Navaîa 2 Macc. i. 13, 14. " Nani," according to Sergius in Bar Bahlul, is
"the planet Venus." Ges. on Is. ii. 23.
2 xi. 37.
3 36, 7.
4 Ib. 39.
5 Rev. xiii. 11, 12.
pervert the account of his death.
97
so described Antiochus, knew him and his history per-
fectly, and truly pictured his deceits, flatteries, treacheries,
successes, disgraces, anger, corruptions of God's people.
Whence then this utter deviation in describing acts which
must have been still more public and notorious? In the
8th chapter, where Daniel did pourtray Antiochus, every
trait corresponds; we are at a loss for nothing; not a word
is without meaning. What then is the inference as to
this description, of which only one line is in common with
Antiochus, and that one line, belonging to every sort of
blasphemer? What can be the inference, but that Anti-
ochus is not intended? If you have two portraits by one
hand, the one resembling its original, the other wholly
unlike, you doubt not that it represents some other man.
Again as to his end. The end of Antiochus was briefly and
strikingly characterised in the Sth chapter, a sudden yet
not violent death, amid a life of war and plunder. The
end of this Anti-Christ is also clearly marked. He shall
place the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the
glorious holy mountain, yet he shall come to his end and none
shall help him. Like Sennacherib of old, he is in the Holy
Land, between its two boundaries, the Dead Sea and the
Western Sea, (the Mediterranean,) shaking his hand
against the holy Mountain, mount Zion; and he perishes.
The writer of the book, on the unbelieving hypothesis,
knew of the end of Antiochus. He died of grief at Tabes,
a town of Persia. "In what glorious holy mountain
he encamped," S. Jerome justly says, "he [Porphyry]
cannot say, nor can he prove that he encamped between
two seas, and it is absurd [as Porphyry did] to interpret
the two seas to be two rivers of Mesopotamia."
There is, then, no place for this Anti-Christ in the
times of Antiochus Epiphanes. Yet the supposed identity
of this Anti-Christ with him who is spoken of in the for-
mer vision, is the only plea for confounding the 3rd and 4th
Empires. Even the Jews in S. Jerome's time looked
upon this prophecy as having still to receive its fulfil-
6 See on Joel ii. 20. p. 123.
H
7 In Dan. xi. 44, 5.
98 Types of Anti-Christ, in conformity with nature.
ment. "From this place onwards, the Jews think that
Anti-Christ is spoken of, that, after the little help of Ju-
lian, a king shall arise who shall do according to his own
will, and lift himself up against all which is called god,
and speak great things against the God of gods, so that
he shall sit in the temple of God, and make himself god,
and his will be performed, until the wrath of God be fulfill-
ed; for in him shall the end be. Which we too understand
of Anti-Christ." The shadow was projected before. "As
the Saviour," says S. Jerome, "had Solomon and the
other saints as types of His Coming, so we may rightly
believe that Anti-Christ had as a type of himself that most
evil king Antiochus, who persecuted the saints and pro-
faned the temple." Good and evil have grown together
all through this world's history: all good foreshadowing
and concentrating in Him Who alone was good; all evil
having its diverse counterparts in those more signal mani-
testations of evil, and culminating at last in the highest
antagonism to good and God. Even apart from revela-
tion, it is, in itself, in conformity with human nature, that
as good is intensified, so is evil.
Such is the natural meaning of these great series of
prophecy, as developed from themselves. It is an inter-
pretation older than the Gospel. For Josephus shews,
beyond all question, that he believed the fourth Empire
to be the Roman ³. The belief still lingers on, but slightly
3
1 S. Jer. on Dan. xi. 36.
2 on Dan. xi. 21, 2.
8 "These things (Dan. viii. 9-14.) it befel our nation to suffer under Anti-
ochus Epiphanes, as Daniel saw, and, many years before, wrote down what
should come to pass. In like manner Daniel wrote also concerning the em-
pire of the Romans and that it shall be made desolate by them." Ant. x. 11.
fin. The well-known reserve in speaking of the stone which should break in
pieces the 4th empire had no ground but his fear of his Roman masters. He
speaks of it, as yet to come. He paraphrases Daniel's explanation to Nebu-
chadnezzar. "The golden head designates thee [Neb.] and the Babylonian
kings before thee; but the two hands and shoulders shew that your rule will
be destroyed by two kings [Medo-Persian] : and their's another will destroy,
clothed with brass [Macedonian] and this another will cause to cease, being like
iron in might, and will subdue altogether, on account of the nature of iron;
this being stronger than that of gold and silver and brass. Daniel also ex-
plained to the king about the stone. But I do not think good to relate this, my
Eastern tradition of the 4 Empires, and of the Messiah. 99
disguised in the East. The Parsees still have a tradition
which speaks of the four Empires from one root, after
which the Saviour is to come. "4 As is evident from
the Ctûtgar, Zertusht requested of Ormusd immortality.
Then shewed Ormusd, the all-knowing Wisdom, to Zer-
tusht; he saw a tree with such a root that four trees
sprang from it, a golden, a silver, a steel, and an iron.
Then said Zertusht, Ruler, Greatest of all in heaven
and earth, I have seen the roots of a tree, from which four
trees have sprung.' Ormusd spake to the holy Zertusht;
Of this one the root which thou seest (is the world) and
these four trees are the four times which are coming:
this golden, when I and thou are speaking, and Kotaçp-
shah receives the law, and the body of the Dews is broken
and they hide themselves; this silver is the rule of the
royal Artashir; the steel is the rule of Anoshêrevân-
khosru, son of Kobat; that formed of iron is the evil
reign of the Dews," &c. "5After this kingdom of the
Dews, [the fourth kingdom] comes, according to the Per-
sian doctrine, Sosiosh the Saviour." These are broken
fragments, petrified remains, as it were, of an ancient be-
lief, which, in its day, when living, prepared doubtless for
the Gospel. We have the result attested in the times of
the Gospel, in the well-known passages of Suetonius and
Tacitus. Suetonius mentions the extent of the belief; Ta-
citus,its source. Suetonius says, "an ancient and settled
opinion had become very prevalent in the whole East, that
it was in the fates, that, at that time, persons going forth
from Judæa should obtain the empire of the world. This,
which, (as the event subsequently showed) was predicted
of the Roman Emperor, the Jews, drawing to themselves,
rebelled." Tacitus"; "most [of the Jews] had an im-
planted conviction, that it was contained in the ancient
task being to write the past and present, not the future. But if any one, ea-
ger
for the truth, does not shrink from curious search, wishing to learn, (if it
may be) about things uncertain, let him be at pains to read the book of Da-
niel; he will find it in the sacred writings." Ant. x. 10:43
Yesht. MS. of Prof. Spiegel, imparted by him to Delitsch.
Daniel, p. 276. note. Delitsch, ib. * Vespas. c. 4.
Hall.
4 Bahman
Enc. Art.
7 Hist. v. 13.
H 2
100
Eastern tradition in Roman historians
writings of the priests, that at that very time the East
should prevail, and persons going forth out of Judæa
should obtain the empire of the world, which ambiguities
had predicted Vespasian and Titus. But the common
people, according to the wont of human cupidity, inter-
preting in their own favour this exceeding fated greatness,
were not turned to the truth even by adversity."
Whether or no they believed their own interpretations,
the two Roman historians are witnesses to the fact, that
this new kingdom was to be founded then. It was not
a vague expectation, that the East should prevail, but
that it should prevail then. Both agree, that the new
king was not to come forth from the East any where or
any how, but from the despised Judæa. Both agree that
this persuasion was of old; "it was an ancient and set-
tled opinion," says Suetonius; "it was in the ancient
writings of the priests," says Tacitus. The kingdom of
Christ had been foretold by Solomon 2 and Isaiah 3. The
time had been defined only by Daniel. Yet, according
to the Porphyry-school, these writings, which Tacitus
thought so ancient, were not older than their own Terence.
But we have yet nearer witness. We have seen that
Daniel's prophecy was handed down in a disguised form
among the Persians. The firstfruits of the Heathen were
from that very order, of which Daniel was made the
head. Over and above the natural meaning of those gifts
which the Magi brought in their hands, they came with
the certain conviction, that one was there born king
of the Jews, and that the Child so born was the Object
of Divine worship. They knew Whom they sought, why
they sought Him. The star fixed the immediate time,
which seemingly they had long looked for. They ask only
the precise spot where He was to be found. Unbelievers
may deny the being of Daniel or the Gospel of S. Mat-
thew. The agreement of the two histories they cannot
deny. It is not: brought out on the surface; it lives in
Perrebrucrat Oriente toto vetus et constans opinio.
2 Ps. Ixxii.
3 ix. 6, 7, xxxii.
and journey of yº Magi, derived from ye date in Daniel. 101
6
the facts. Nebuchadnezzar, it was recorded, on the in-
terpretation of his dream, made Daniel chief of the go-
vernors over all the wise men, or magi of Babylon *. It is
foretold in the book of Daniel, (no one disputes this,)
that a kingdom should be founded in the 4th empire, the
King of which should be like a Son of man, Whom all peo-
ple, nations and languages should worship". The first
worshippers of Him, Whom now many millions out of all
peoples, nations, and languages worship, were from that
same school, over which Daniel is related to have been
set. Behold, there came wise men, (magoi,) from the East
to Jerusalem, saying, Where is He that is born King of the
Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and are come
to worship Him. When they came to the house, they saw
the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and
worshipped Him. Truth brings out the hidden harmony,
when unbelief can only, with a dull dogmatism, deny.
While we give account of the lesser points, they are
these larger agreements, on which one who wishes to
know the truth should dwell. "Granted," sums up S. Je-
rome, "that these things are said of Antiochus, how in-
jureth it our faith? was anything said of Antichrist in
the former vision [the 8th chapter] when the prophecy
was completed in Antiochus? Let him [Porphyry] dis-
miss doubtful points, and hold fast to what is plain. Let
him say, Who that stone is, which was cut out of the
mountain without hands, grew into a great mountain,
filled the world, and brake in pieces the four-formed
image; Who is that Son of man, Who should come in the
clouds, and stand before the Ancient of days, and to
Whom a kingdom should be given, which should have
no end, and all people and nations and languages should
serve Him."
Lesser questions easily receive their light, or, without
injury to the faith, remain for the time obscure, when the
eye has once seen the central truth.
4 Dan. ii. 48.
5 Ib. vii. 13, 14.
6 S. Matt. ii. 1, 2. 7 Ib. 11.
LECTURE III.
Modern attempts to make out four Empires, which
should end with Antiochus Epiphanes.
It is assumed in rationalist interpretation, that the
Fourth Empire is no empire later than the Macedonian,
to which Antiochus Epiphanes belonged. For else there
would be prophecy. And since it is an axiom or postu-
late of the school of Porphyry, that there should be no
prophecy, facts must in some way be made to square
with this first principle. There is to be no allusion to
the Roman Empire; for, in the time of Antiochus, hu-
man foresight could not yet discern that it would become
an Empire of the world.
But if the Greek Empire is to be the fourth Empire,
which are the other three? The sum must be made up,
though one of the items is withdrawn. 1, 1, 1, and 0 have
somehow to be made 4. The result is accounted to be
infallibly certain: else God must be admitted to have re-
vealed to His creatures a future which they could not
foresee; which, it is assumed, is impossible. Yet no one
can dispute that there are four empires. How then is the
subtracted fourth to be replaced? The process has been
tried upon all the remaining three. Two halves are some-
how to become two wholes. Only, agreed as this school
is as to the result, they have been nothing less than
agreed as to the process whereby it is to be arrived at.
Every possible combination has been tried.
Attempts to invent a 4th Empire earlier than ye Roman. 103
1) Nebuchadnezzar alone was made the first Empire ;
the weak descendants of his house, the second.
2) The Medo-Persian Empire was divided, so that the
Median should become the second Empire, the Persian
should be the third.
3) Leaving both these in their integrity, the Macedo-
nian Empire was divided, Alexander alone being made to
constitute the third Empire; his successors, amid the
weakness of their perpetual divisions, the fourth. This
was Porphyry's expedient¹.
4) Lastly, all three Empires were left entire, and the
Empire, which was subtracted at the end, was replaced
by one added at the beginning. Ewald was rightly dis-
satisfied with all those former solutions; yet, with the
contempt for the necessity of any evidence, which so often
characterises German theory, he assumed, that Daniel
lived, not at Babylon but at Nineveh; that "the winged
lion traditionally meant the Assyrian Empire." "The
bear" then became "the Babylonian symbol; the leopard
that of the Medes and Persians, while the 4th beast re-
presented, as is not uncommonly held," says Dr. Wil-
liams, "the sway of Alexander.”
Out
Now of these theories, (as happens so often) each con-
cedes by turns so much of the truth as it can afford.
of the four theories, the adherents of three concede or
contend that the Babylonian Empire in its integrity is
one entire Empire; three maintain the same as to the
Medo-Persian; three, as to Alexander and his successors.
So that the traditional interpretation of, I may say, both
the Jewish and the Christian Church, nay, of the Hea-
then world before Christ, has, in each case, the support of
three out of the four parties, which oppose it. No one
for a moment hesitates to admit whatever, in order to
make out his case, he is not constrained to deny. Each
in turn opposes the other, just as much as the old esta-
blished explanation. Then, in regard to their disagree-
ment among themselves, the one makes that rapid re-
'Essays and Rev. p. 76.
› S. Jer. on Dan. vi. 7.
104 Ewald's groundless ground. Ezekiel speaks
sistless conqueror, Nebuchadnezzar, to be the sluggish
bear; two make the Medes and Persians the swift leo-
pard; one makes Alexander's successors, who fell, one by
one, an easy prey, into the Roman empire, the all-crush-
ing iron, or that beast, which was more terrible, mightful,
world-trampling, than all which preceded it.
But apart from this, each is, on the first view, untenable
and baseless. I will take them in order.
i. The grounds alleged for assuming an Assyrian empire
to have been the first of the four, are these; that the Da-
niel, mentioned by Ezekiel, must have been older than the
Babylonian captivity; that the lion may have been a sym-
bol of the Assyrian empire; that, in the last vision re-
corded in the book of Daniel, the vision in the third year
of Cyrus, Daniel is spoken of, as being by the river Hid-
dekel or Tigris, on which Nineveh lay, whereas Babylon
lay on the Euphrates. The first of these arguments
implies the falsehood of the book of Daniel; the last as-
sumes its minute accuracy, and traditional knowledge of
slight facts as to Daniel's person.
i. 1. In regard to the first, it has been remarked long ago,
that Ezekiel names, as characteristics of Daniel, qualities
which appear in him in early life. In the eleventh year¹,
(i. e. as Ezekiel dates, of Jehoiachin's captivity 2, B. C.
588,) Ezekiel, in his prophecies to the prince of Tyre,
says in irony;3 Behold thou art wiser than Daniel; there
is no secret that they can hide from thee. Of the mani-
fold varieties of human wisdom, Ezekiel selected that
form, for which Daniel was celebrated in the 2nd year
of Nebuchadnezzar, i. e. the 5th of Jehoiakim, B.C. 606,
eighteen years before this date. It is that for which the
king praises the God of Daniel, that He is a revealer of
secrets, seeing thou couldest reveal this secret". In asking
1 Ezek. xxvi. 1.
2 Ib. i. 2.
3 lb. xxviii. 3.
4 Dan. i. 17, 20. As for these four youths, God gave them knowledge
and skill in all learning and wisdom : and Daniel had understanding in all
visions and dreams. In all matters of wisdom of understanding, that the
king enquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians
and astrologers that were in his realm.
5 lb. ii. 47.
of Daniel, such as he had been already long known. 105
him to explain his own later dream as to himself, the king
says to him, no secret troubleth thee. The Queen-mother
spake of him to Belshazzar, 7shewing of hard sentences and
One
dissolving of doubts were found in the same Daniel.
who had his wisdom from God, but was placed by a hea-
then king as head over those far-famed wise-men, the
Magi, might well stand as an eminent pattern of Divine
wisdom in man. Tyre and its prince boasted themselves
against the people of God in its overthrow, and plumed
themselves on their human wisdom and sagacity. It is
an anti-Theistic boast. Human wisdom would be wiser
than Divine. The prince of Tyre claimed, by his wisdom
to have created all this wealth for himself. He despised
Hebrew wisdom and the wisdom of God in it, because it
was oppressed. The event, Ezekiel says, should shew.
Plainly, unless Ezekiel had meant to speak of a contem-
porary, over against the contemporary prince of Tyre,
the wisdom of Solomon had been the more obvious in-
stance to select.
In the other place in Ezekiel, God says, that, when
the time of His judgment upon the land was come, whe-
ther it were famine, or noisome beasts, or the sword, or the
pestilence, no righteousness of any individuals in it should
avert His then irrevocable sentence; and, as pre-eminent
instances of righteousness, He gives Noah, Daniel and
Job. It is objected, “How came Ezekiel to mention Da-
niel his contemporary? and, if he did, how came he to
place him between those two ancient patriarchs, Noah
and Job?"
The objection tacitly assumes the thing to be proved,
the non-Divinity of prophecy. It assumes that Ezekiel
spoke with a mere human judgment. Human judgment
dares not pronounce even as to the holiness of those of
greatest promise, until perseverance unto the end shall
have sealed up their life. Ezekiel says in the name of God,
that God so pronounced. Then there is nothing more re-
markable in this, than in other cases in which God pro-
$ Ez. xxviii. 4, 5.
6 iv. 9.
7 v. 12.
9 lb. xiv. 13-21.
106
Grounds of selection of Daniel with Noah
8
Any how,
No one can
nounced as to men, yet living and not as yet fully tried.
Such was Noah himself¹, and Job 2, and Abraham 3, and
David¹, Jeremiah and S. Paul. Saul was but just convert-
ed, when, in answer to the demurring of Ananias, God said
of him, he is a chosen vessel unto Me5. Jeremiah was yet a
youth, when God said to him; Before I formed thee in the
belly, I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the
womb, I sanctified thee, I ordained thee a prophet unto the
nations. The same was said of S.John Baptist;'He shall
be great in the sight of the Lord; he shall be filled with the
Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb.
then, Holy Scripture is in keeping with itself.
consistently deny that Ezekiel's words could relate to a
living contemporary, unless he deny also that Samuel
could have spoken those words of David, nay and deny
every other judgment pronounced in Holy Scripture as to
the living. Daniel now, in the 6th year of the captivity
of Jehoiachin, had, according to his book, passed through
some twelve years of greatness, trying above others to
men, for its novelty and his youth. There is then, at least,
nothing inharmonious in the selection of Daniel, to be
united with Noah and Job. Rather it has a special force,
that God joined with those two great departed patriarchs,
a living saint. The Jews, as they trusted afterwards be-
cause Abraham was their father, so now they hoped that,
amid their own unholiness, they should be spared for the
righteousness or intercession of others. To cut at the
root of this hope, God singles out the great living ex-
ample of righteous life, and pronounces him, in this early
life, one of His chief saints, and says, that, though not
he only, but two also of the greatest before him, were
among them, their holiness should be unavailing except
for themselves. The eyes of all the Jews must have been
the more fixed upon Daniel, the more marvellous his rise,
1 Gen. vii. 1.
4 1 Sam. xiii. 14.
2 Job i. 8, ii. 3.
5 Acts ix. 15.
3 Gen. xviii. 17-22.
7 S. Luke i. 15.
6 Jer. i. 5.
• Ezekiel so dates ch. viii. 1. in the sixth year, in the sixth month. He dates
ch. xx. in the seventh year, in the fifth month. 9 S. Matt. iii. 9, S. Luke
iii. 8, S. John viii. 33, 39.
and Job, as examples of righteousness.
107
at that early age, from being a captive boy, though of
royal blood, to be ruler over the whole province of Baby-
lon, and chief over the governers of all the Magi of Baby-
lon. The more depressed their lot, the more they must
have looked to him, whom God, in His Providence, had
so raised up to be a bright star in the night of their cap-
tivity, a protection to themselves, declaring the glory of
their God.
In this case, also, had not the selection of a contem-
porary had an especial force, we should have looked rather
for one of the names of the righteous men of old, who in-
terceded with God, as Abraham. But Noah, Daniel, and
Job, do all agree in these things; 1) that all had had espe-
cial praise of God, over against the world. Noah was the
unlistened-to preacher of righteousness during those 120
years in which the flood was delayed. God singles out
Job, in answer to Satan who had been 10going to and fro in
the earth and walking up and down in it, as his domain and
his kingdom. 11 How greatly Daniel's piety and prayer
weighed in that scale, wherein Belshazzar was too light,
the fact may attest, that he, like David and Abraham, and
afterwards, the Virgin at Nazareth 12, was marked out as
one greatly beloved 13, whereas the word of God comes to
the contemporary prophet, son of man."
All the three stood too, as representatives of a dis-
tinct relation of God to the world; Noah at the head" of
the newly cleansed and as it were reborn world; " Job, as
a worshipper of God in purity among the heathen world;
Daniel, as the revealer, to the heathen world, of that king-
dom, which was hereafter to supersede and absorb the
kingdoms of the world¹.
The order in which the three saints stand is explained
by the application which Ezekiel makes of their history.
All were holy, all interceded; but Job was heard, for the
time, least of all. It is a climax of seeming failure 15. To
Noah, his wife and his three sons and their wives were
11 Ib. pp. 266, 7. 12 S. Luke i. 27, 8.
15 Hävern. on Ezek. xiv. 14. p. 207.
10 Job ii. 2. See Zündel, Daniel, p. 264.
13 Dan. ix. 23, x. 11. 14 Zündel, p. 267.
108 Agreement of Daniel in Ezekiel with the Prophet;
given ;
Daniel delivered his three friends by his prayer to
God; Job was for the time bared of all. He¹ sanctified
[his sons and daughters] and rose up early in the morning,
and offered burnt offerings, according to the number of
them all, for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned ;
and he saved neither son nor daughter. In Job especially
was that fulfilled, which Ezekiel gives as the result of the
whole, "2
though these three men were in it, they shall
deliver neither sons nor daughters, they only shall be
delivered."
The mention of Daniel, then, by Ezekiel, in both cases,
has the more force from the fact that he was a contem-
porary; both correspond with his actual character, as
stated in his book. Granted the historical truth of Daniel,
no one would doubt that Ezekiel did refer to Daniel, as
described in his book. But then the objection is only the
usual begging of the question. "Ezekiel is not likely to
have referred to Daniel, a contemporary, unless he was
distinguished by extraordinary gifts or graces." "But his
book not being genuine, there is no proof that he was so
distinguished." "Therefore," &c.
Scripture is in harmony with itself. Ezekiel is the first
witness to the book of Daniel. The book of Daniel ex-
plains the allusions of Ezekiel. No other explanation
can be given of Ezekiel's words. Ezekiel manifestly re-
fers to one, well known to those to whom he spoke; one,
as well known as the great Patriarchs, Noah and Job.
Such was Daniel, under whose shadow they of the capti-
vity lived. But, apart from him, where is this man, re-
nowned for his wisdom, holy as the holiest whose memo-
ry had survived from the foundation of the world; whom
the Jews would recognise at once, as they would Noah
and Job? "He does but name him," says an opponent
rightly³, "because he could presuppose that he was al-
ready sufficiently known by all as a pattern of righteous-
ness and wisdom." Three answers have been attempted.
1) The usual resource of perplexity; "The verse of
2 xiv. 16, 18. 3 Bleck, Schleicrm. ZS. iii. p. 284.
1 Job i. 5.
failure to find any other solution.
دو
109
Ezekiel was interpolated 4" No one holds this now 5.
2) Ezekiel was supposed to have referred to some well-
known person of remote antiquity. But where was such
an one? It is a paradox to pass by the historical person,
and to assume that there was one, who for antiquity could
be placed with Noah and Job, of whom the memory was
familiar to the contemporaries of Ezekiel, preserved by
tradition through all those centuries, yet of whom not a
trace survives. This school is fond of the argument "ex
silentio." They all (though, as we shall see, wrongly,) use
it as a palmary proof of the non-existence of the book of
Daniel in the time of the son of Sirach, that he does not
name Daniel among the prophets. Yet, in the same
breath, they assume the existence of one, whom no one
but themselves ever thought of, in order to disprove the
existence of him who is known to history. They assume
that Ezekiel and his people knew of one like Daniel for
wisdom and holiness, whom in all those centuries no one
mentions, in order to deny or question the existence of
Daniel himself, whom Ezekiel's words pourtray, just as
he stands in his book. Truly they give us a shadow for
the substance. This theory too has probably died with
its author, having lived its 36 years.
3) Ewald so far modified the theory, that he invented
a Daniel, who was to have lived at Nineveh shortly be-
fore its destruction, prophesied there, and was in a man-
ner the type of Daniel himself. Ewald allows that it is
4 Bernstein in Tzschirner's Analekten, i. 3. p. 11.
Interpolation in the above passages of Ezekiel cannot be assumed with-
out the greatest arbitrariness." Bleek, Ib. 285.
6 Bleek, Ib. 284, 5." In both places, one should much rather conjecture, that
he thought of a celebrated man in antiquity, than of a contemporary who lived
with him in exile," &c. "a person of antiquity well known of yore," repeated,
Einl. p. 607-9. De Wette followed him for a time, e. g. Einl. § 253. ed. 4.
Lengerke, § 18. p. xciv. Knobel, Prophet. ii. 397.
7 Bleek said,
Einl. 607. (1860) “Most of those scholars, who set the composition of the
book at a later date, and do not receive its details as historical, accept this, viz.
that Daniel and his 3 companions were historical persons, Jewish exiles, dis-
tinguished in Babylon for piety and wisdom, who attained to favour and good
repute, even with the rulers of the land." Even Eichhorn held this as certain,
110 Ewald does not solve the difficulty which he urges.
clear from Ezekiel, "that, at least in the beginning of the
6th century (B.C.,) Daniel was the historical type of that
rare union of the same two virtues, in which he shines
in the present, much later, book, viz. moral purity and
wisdom." He infers that, because Ezekiel "2 speaks of
Noah and Job after the well-known books [Genesis and
Job] so he did of Daniel; this book, which Ezekiel pre-
supposes his readers long to have known, must be differ-
ent from the present; Ezekiel contemplates Daniel, as a
hero of antiquity who was perfected and long since had
disappeared from sight, as much as Noah and Job; ac-
cording to the historical horizon of Ezekiel's contempo-
raries Daniel must at latest have lived in the Assyrian ex-
ile more than a century before: there, as an Israelite, per-
haps at the court of Nineveh, he became distinguished
for those great virtues; there, perhaps he became the sub-
ject of a book, which may have been early known to
Ezekiel's contemporaries in that same country."
.
It is no uncommon resource of unbelieving criticism,
to raise a difficulty, which itself cannot solve, and, having
employed it against the belief, which it wishes to uproot,
to assume that all was proved, which had to be proved,
ignoring the fact that it has itself no explanation to give
of the supposed difficulty which it has urged against the
truth. Ewald's "perhaps's" leave the fact of the men-
tion of Daniel between Noah and Job, just where it was.
The series, Noah, Daniel, Job, is plainly not chronolo-
gical. No theories as to the date of the book of Job
could make it so; for Ezekiel speaks, not of the book,
but of the blameless man. The disparity of above 1700
years between Noah and Daniel is not materially lessened
by the subtraction of one or two centuries. Take any
cular instance. Were one to join the name of Wellington
with Alfred and Cœur de Lion it would not mend the dispa-
rity of date, to substitute Marlborough for Wellington;
Einl. § 612, 13. and Rosenm. in Dan. § 1. De Wette, Einl. 1852, floated be-
tween Bleek, Ewald, and history. § 325.
¹ Propheten, ii. 560.
2 abridged from Ewald, Propheten, ii. 560.
se-
"Credulity of the incredulous."
111
or if one were to join Bp. Wilson with St. Augustine and
St. Cyprian, the substitution of Andrewes would not bring
the modern Divine perceptibly nearer to the early Father.
We should feel equally that time did not enter into the
grounds of their being brought together. There is a
meaning in associating a contemporary with the great
departed. Saints of all ages are one glorious company
before God. Time is no element in estimating those who
shine for ever in the glory of God. We classify stars ac-
cording to their several magnitudes, wherever in our ma-
terial heavens they may shed their lustre. This unity
of glory formed the oneness of those whom Ezekiel exhi-
bits in one constellation, Noah, Daniel, Job: Job he men-
tioned last, since his outward lot was most akin to that
which he had to predict. Both the blending of them in
one, and the outward order used by Ezekiel, correspond
with the actual facts in Scripture. The invention of that
phantom-Daniel at Nineveh explains nothing; but con-
cedes the point, that the disparity of time is of no ac-
count, since it admits that disparity into its own theory.
It was strikingly said, "a good book might be written
on the credulity of the incredulous." If Scripture had
required us to disbelieve the existence of one in historical
times, and to believe the existence of an ideal person cor-
responding to him, with a whole history about him which
no one recorded; that God, e. g. had raised up a prophet
in Nineveh to foretell its impending overthrow, and he
had prophesied it truly; that the memory of this prophecy
and the outlines of the prophet's marked combination of
excellencies lived on for centuries, although not the faint-
est trace of his existence appears in history, it would
have been thought a hard requirement. Yet this is but
what the critical school announces to us as a certain fact,
and would have us receive it thankfully in exchange for
our Divine belief. "Ewald is right," said Bunsen "that
Daniel was led captive in the first Assyrian invasion, and
lived and prophesied in Nineveh, not in Babylon.”—“ If
3 Sur la crédulité des Incrédules. 4 Gott in d. Gesch. i. 515, 6.
112 Visions on the banks of rivers, probably as places
we assume that the old real Daniel was carried captive by
the Pul of Scripture, and so, probably, by the Sardana-
palus of the Assyrian monuments, some 21 years before
the overthrow of the old Dynasty and the conquest of
Nineveh by the founder of the new, many points are ex-
plained, in regard to which the critical school has not as
yet been in condition to give an answer. It is intelligible,
that the holy and gifted man, who prophesied in Nineveh
and announced its destruction, appears two centuries af-
terwards as the seer and prophet in and of Babylon, &c."
and, in his summary, Bunsen relates, as facts,
"Daniel was a noble pious man, a saint and a seer
from the middle of the 8th century (B. C.) reverenced by
his fellow captives, the Jews in Nineveh. Traditions and
popular songs were early full of his sayings and prophe-
cies, as also of his wonderful distresses, sufferings, de-
liverances. In all is an unity of the personality unmis-
takeable; the personality of a man who united exalted
wisdom and righteousness with the eye of a seer."
For all this confident statement, there is not one shred
of evidence.
i. 2. “2 We still see Daniel on the Hiddekel, or Tigris,
the river of Assyria, but which is here called the great
river, Babylon's river, the Euphrates." "If the scene," it
is subjoined, "had been Babylon under Darius, the river
must have been the Euphrates."
Daniel, just at the close of his life, when his secular
offices, apparently, were ended, received his last vision,
when on the bank of the Tigris 3.
were often the places of devotion.
S. Luke says, 66
we went out of the
where prayer was wont to be made."
Halicarnassians gives leave, "5 that those of the Jews
2 Ib. and Essays, p. 76.
1 Gott in d. G. 536.
Rivers, in later times,
"On the Sabbath,"
city by a river's side,
A decree of the
3 Dan. x. 2-4.
4 Acts xvi. 13.
5 in Gronov. Decret. Rom. et Asiat. pro Judæis, p. 22. Wolf Curæ in Aett.
1. c. p. 1236. Vitringa (Synag. Vet. i. 2. p. 218) quotes two more instances.
Wolf also quotes Aristeas, Hist. Ixx. Intt. p. 33. and refers to Zorn, Diss. de
Scholis quas ant. Judæi prope a lac. et fluv. ripis, &c. exstruxisse perhibentur.
of prayer. "Winged lions."
113
who willed, men and women, should keep the sabbaths,
and perform their rites according to the Jewish laws, and
make oratories by the sea, according to their country's
wont." It is commonly thought that they resorted there
for the facility of making their customary ablutions
before prayer. A time of prayer is, any how, a time in
which God is likely to vouchsafe visions to those to whom
He does give them. Daniel was come to the close of
three weeks in fasting and prayer. In like way, Ezekiel
received his first vision 6, as he was among the captives by
the river of Chebar; and in a former vision, Daniel was
in his vision by the river of Ulai. What led Daniel,
in that third year of Cyrus, to the banks of the Tigris, he
has not told us; but since Babylon on the Euphrates was
only forty Roman miles from the Tigris, it was not so
far removed from it as Gloucester on the Severn from
Oxford on the Isis. Strange ground of questioning a
person's identity, that, in the course of a book, he men-
tions his having been in two places, forty miles apart!
7
But 3) we are reminded that winged lions have been.
disinterred from the mounds which cover the temples and
palaces of Nineveh. It is argued then, that the winged
lion was the emblem of the Assyrian Empire, and, it is
quietly assumed, "not of the Babylonian ;" and so, since
in the book of Daniel it is the symbol of the Babylonian,
this could only have arisen in the misapplication of the
ancient Symbol. The lion with eagle-wings in Daniel is
then itself to be a proof of the existence of some ancient
tradition of four empires, of which the Assyrian was
the first.
Now, 1) considering the close connection of Assyria and
Babylonia, in worship, in language, in writing, in art,
nothing could be less certain than that Babylon and
Nineveh would not have had the same symbol of their em-
pire, if either had had any known symbol at all. Both the
lion and the eagle, as the kings of birds and beasts of prey,
were too obvious symbols to be characteristic of any one
6 Ezek. i. 1.
7 Dan. viii. 2.
8 Bunsen, Gott in d. G. i. 540.
I
114 Human-headed Assyrian lion, an essentially
power. Twelve lions supported the arms of the throne of
Solomon on its six steps¹. Both eagle and lion are used
by Ezekiel as symbols of Babylon. The eagle was the
standard of the Parthians, and Persians; it was adopted by
Alexander on his coins, and inherited by the Ptolemies;
was used by the Romans after Marius 3; the two-headed
eagle became the symbol of the Roman Empire of the
East; it was assumed by the German Empire; the black
eagle is the standard of Prussia; the lion is emblazoned
on the arms of England.
4
2) The human-headed lion of the Assyrian monuments is
not the eagle-winged lion of Daniel. For just that which
is most characteristic of the Assyrian figure, the human
head, is designedly omitted from the symbol in Daniel.
The symbols of the beasts, in Daniel, in themselves, ex-
press brute might, the fierceness of conquering empire.
If intelligence is intended to be expressed, the idea is
conveyed by a separate symbol. The eagle-winged lion
of Daniel received no symbol characteristic of humanity,
until it ceased to be eagle-winged. I beheld, Daniel says,
till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up
from the earth, and made to stand upon the feet as a man,
and a man's heart was given it. A man's heart is also a
different symbol from a man's head. The symbol in
Daniel expresses superhuman strength, which was lost
when it was humanised. In the Assyrian symbols, on
the other hand, the animating characteristic is the human
countenance, serene, majestic, intelligent, penetrating,
benevolent 5. Superhuman strength, is there, but in en-
tire repose. The majestic form, as beheld in front, is re-
presented as motionless, its broad chest resting on its
solid legs, side by side. The wings are pourtrayed as
closely folded on its back, traced slightly upon it. All is
11 Kgs. x. 19, 20.
2 See above p. 70.
3 See e. g. in Hofmann, Lex. v. Aquila, and coins of the Ptolemics in
Smith's Biogr. Dict.
4 Dan. vii. 4.
5 "The expression was calm yet majestic." Layard, Nin. i. 65. Those now
in the British Museum seem to me unmistakeably to express those other attri-
butes also.
different symbol from eagle-winged lion of Daniel. 115
subordinated to the human head; it seems almost to
speak. The eye, by a bold design, stands forth from the
head, as if even the cold stone could gaze; the benevolence
of the rounded cheeks is heightened by the almost smile
of the lips, the chin enveloped in the grave solid beard.
The rest of the massive figure gives one idea, strength
in perfect repose; the countenance, in its varied expres-
sion, is the soul of the whole. This is the more evident,
because the expression in the human-headed lions and
bulls is precisely the same. The animal-symbol must
have been altogether subordinate, because it varies, with-
out varying in the least that expression of mind which
arrests the gazer. When brute force is meant to be re-
presented, it is figured in all its fierceness, as in the colos-
sal lion with vast wide-open jaws, found in one of the
temples at Nimrud 6. It expresses devouring fierceness
and rage, and these alone. Instead of that calm human
head, are the vast jaws outstretched, as if ready to devour,
and purposely disproportioned for magnitude to the rest
of the colossal figure, because the object was to express
terrible fierceness.
6 British Museum Catalogue of Antiq. p. 81. Bunsen overlooked all this in his
statement; "It was a lion with eagle's wings, and a human heart, vii. 4. [not
together] and so doubtless with a human countenance [this is in no way im-
plied.] Certainly it is also said, 'it stood on feet like a man,' which is to be
interpreted doubtless of the king of that empire, emblematically, not in the vi-
sible figure." Gott, &c. i. 540. Thus, to produce the resemblance, two symbols
are omitted, the stripping off of the eagle's wings and the standing erect; one
is added, the human head. The Assyrian symbols were yet further varied.
"I ascertained," says Layard, "the existence of a 2nd pair of winged human-
headed lions, differing from those previously discovered in form, the human
shape being continued to the waist and furnished with arms. In one hand each
figure carried a goat or stag, and in the other, which hung down by the side,
a branch with three flowers." Layard i. 68.
7 The length of the whole figure, (12 feet 3 inches,) is twice that of the
average length of the animal (6 feet ;) whereas the upper lip (from the centre
to the angle of junction) is of the whole, 2 feet 1 inch; the lower lip, 1 foot
5 inches; in the living animal it is 5 inches; not of the whole length. The
gape from the lower lip to the upper immediately below the nose, in the Nim-
rud lion, is 15 inches; in the living it would be about 5. The measurements
of the Nimrud lion were kindly supplied me by W. H. Coxe Esq. British Mu-
seum; those of the actual animal by Dr. Rolleston.
12
116 Human-headed lion certainly not a symbol of Assyrian
3) It is clear, then, that the human-headed lion was
not the symbol of Assyrian Empire. For the lion-
element of the symbol was wholly subordinate, and
identical in meaning with that of the bull. No one can
study those wondrous forms, the human-headed lion and
bulls of Nineveh, and fail to see that they are both one
symbol. oth are simply symbolic of strength; not of
victorious strength, like a conquering empire's; not of
strength put forth, but simply of strength possessed.
Both figures stood indiscriminately or together at the
entrance of the Assyrian temples or palaces¹. We have
no right to select the one of two figures, which suits us,
as the symbol of Assyrian power; and we have no state-
ment whatever, that either of them was so accounted. It
was plainly no symbol at all of Assyrian power; for the
lion as well as the bull is represented as defeated. "The
winged human-headed lions and bulls, those magnificent
forms which guarded the portals of the Assyrian temples-
are not only found as separate sculptures, but, like the
eagle-headed figures, are constantly introduced into the
groups embroidered on the robes. It is worthy of obser-
vation, that, whenever they are represented, either in con-
test with the man, or with the eagle-headed figure, they
appear to be vanquished. Such is also the case on cylin-
ders. Frequently a human figure is seen suspending them
in the air by the hind legs, or striking them with a mace.
I have already ventured to suggest the idea which these
¹ Layard found both together at Arban on the Khabur in Northern Mesopo-
tamia, Layard, Nin. and B. 275-8. So also at Kouyunjik, (Nin. and B. 229, 30.) at
Nimrud, (Nin. T. i. 47 App. p. 374. i k 376. 10. a b c 378. 381. 383. 384. 386.
390.) "I saw at once that the head must belong to a winged lion or bull, simi-
lar to those of Khorsabad and Persepolis." Ib. i. 65. See Porter's Travels,
Plate xxxi. T. i. 585. xxxii. p. 591. xxxv. p. 598. Lassen in the Allg. Encycl. art.
Persepolis, pp. 361, 2. "Chairs, tables, and couches, are adorned with the heads
and feet of the bull, the lion and the ram, all sacred animals." Ib. 474. add 300.
302. see also n. 4.
2 Layard, Nineveh, ii. 460. add 458. At Bavian, "the Assyrian Hercules" is
represented, “strangling the lion between two winged human-headed bulls
back to back, as at the giant entrances of the palaces of Kouyunjik and Khor-
sabad." Nin. and B. 214.
empire; probably, a religious symbol.
117
singular forms were intended to convey, the union of the
highest intellectual and physical powers; but certainly
their position with reference to other symbolical figures
would point to an inferiority in the heavenly hierarchy.
Although the Andro-sphinx of the Egyptians was the type
of the monarch, we can scarcely believe it to have been
so amongst the Assyrians; for, in the sculptures, we find
even the eagle-headed figure, the vanquisher of the hu-
man-headed lion and bull, ministering to the king."
4) Very probably both the human-headed lions and
bulls, and perhaps conversely, the lion-headed men³ were
religious¹, not political symbols at all. Lions, bulls and
cherubim were on the bases in the court of Solomon's
temple 5. Ezekiel saw, in his vision by the river Chebar,
four-faced creatures, each with the face of the lion, the
bull, the eagle, the man, fulfilling God's bidding, going
whither the spirit was to go, turning not when they went.
It seems most probable, that the symbols of the powers.
of nature, including man's intelligence, which he saw
around him, as entering into the heathen worship, he saw
in his vision, subordinated to and fulfilling the will of God.
I have dwelt longer on this theory, than it deserved,
because it has been emphatically recommended to you.
Strange that such a superstructure could be built on the
three facts, that Ezekiel mentions Job after Daniel, that
Daniel saw a vision on the Tigris, that there were eagle-
winged human-headed lions at Nineveh. A compeer of the
author's dismissed it more summarily. "Ewald's conjec-
tures have something very improbable and unfounded—
By such assumptions the explanation of the origin of the
book is no way facilitated; rather it is embarrassed." It is
a strange phænomenon of the human mind, that men could
3 Nin. ii. 461.“lion-headed, eagle-footed, human figure." N. and B. 462.
4 So Layard conjectures, i. 70. "The winged bull with the human head is
evidently a pure Assyrian type. Its position in the religious system seems to
be identical with that of the Androsphynx; and, in the mythic groups as in
the architecture, they both occupy the same place. Power was probably typi-
fied indiscriminately by the body of the lion and the bull." Ib. ii. 461.
5 1 Kgs. vii. 29.
6 i. 10-12.
7 Bleek,
Einl.
P. 610.
118 Babylonian Empire under Nebuchadnezzar alone
so lose their perception of the nature of evidence. Yet
unbelief cannot altogether part with a theory which it ac-
knowledges to be baseless. It serves at least, like clay to
the American savages, to stop craving after truth. It af
fords something to say, something to bribe the conscience
with, even amid the consciousness that it is base metal.
"Anyhow," says a recent writer¹, "this assumption makes
it conceivable up to a certain point, how this sphere of
working was assigned to Daniel; only one must wish
their hypothesis a securer historical basis !”
ii. The 2nd theory, that Nebuchadnezzar personally was
the first empire, his successors the second, was rested on
Daniel's words to the king, thou art this head of gold,
and on his statement, that the second kingdom should be
inferior to him; which, it is assumed, the Medo-Persian
Empire was not. But, plainly, this cannot be the mean-
ing of the text, since, nine times in the context, the sym-
bols are said to represent, not mere kings but kingdoms;
the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom; after thee
shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another
kingdom of brass, and the fourth kingdom shall be strong
as iron; the kingdom shall be divided; the kingdom shall be
partly strong; and over against all these, it is said, the
God of heaven shall set up a kingdom; and the kingdom
shall not be left to other people, but it shall consume those
kingdoms.
The words then shall be inferior to thee, must signify
"inferior to thee in thy kingdom; " in other words,
"infe-
rior to thy kingdom as it exists in thee."
In Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian monarchy reached
its meridian. It had risen in the 20+ years of his father
Nabopolassar; its greatness culminated in his own 43
¹ Stähelin, Einl. p. 357.
2 Hitzig (Jahrb. 1832. 2. p. 131.)
Redepenning (Theol. Stud. u. Krit. 1833. p. 863.) who follows him, says only,
"It hath every thing for it, according to the words, Thou art this head of
gold, to consider Nebuchadnezzar and his Dynasty as separate, and so to find
in this chapter four rulers not four Empires, as was the wont according to the
old interpretation.”
3 ii. 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44.
4 Berosus in
Jos. c. Ap. i. 19. Alex. Pol. in Eus. Chr. Arm. i. 44., or 21 years, in Jos. Ant. x. 6.
not the 1st Empire; Medo-Persian inferior to it. 119
6
years. God recognised him by Jeremiah as, My servan
Nebuchadnezzar. Of him He foretold to those who were
concerting with Zedekiah to rebel against him, 7 Edom,
Moab, Ammon, Tyre, Zidon, that it was in vain. He had
given all their lands into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar king
of Babylon, My servant, and all nations shall serve him,
and his son, and his son's son. Jeremiah speaks directly
of those nations to which Judah could specially look for
help, including Egypt; but the recesses of Arabia, Kedar,
and Hazor', would not lie too deep to be reached by his
armies. Two writers on Indian history 10 and "Dio-
cles in the 2nd book of his Persian history 11," Josephus
says, "make mention of him." "Megasthenes," he says,
"through the 4th book of his Indian history, tries to
shew that he surpassed Hercules in valour and in the
greatness of his deeds. For he says that he subdued the
greater part of Libya and Iberia," "12 and settled colonies
of them on the right of the Pontus." The mention of Ne-
buchadnezzar in Persian and Indian histories implies
some vast extent of conquest; the more so, since Megas-
thenes, whose history, as such, is highly spoken of¹³, wrote
of Nebuchadnezzar throughout one book 14. And when
Ezekiel pronounces the destruction of Egypt by Nebu-
chadnezzar, and foretells 15 that Pharaoh shall meet in the
grave Asshur and all her company; Elam and all her
multitude; Meshech, Tubal and all her multitude; Edom,
her kings and all her princes; the princes of the north,
all of them; and all the Zidonians, fallen by the sword;
certainly the most natural interpretation is, that they
5 Beros. in Jos. c. Ap. i. 20. Alex. Pol. 1. c. Can. Ptol.
6 Jer. xxv. 9, xxvii. 6, xliii. 10. 7 Jer. xxvii. 3, 6, 7. 8 xliii. 8-10, xlvi.
9 xlix. 28-33. 10 Philostratus and Megasthenes in Jos. Ant. x. 11. 1.
11 Ib. 2 Id. in Eus. Præp. ix. 41. 13 "Megasthenes, and Eratosthenes,
approved men." Arr. Alex. v. 5. 14 Josephus, both in his Ant. and c. Ap.,
uses the expression, "Megasthenes, in the fourth book of his Indica, through
which (diĥs) he tries to shew that this king surpassed," &c. Cocc. would, in the
Ant., correct, di' &v. Megasthenes denied that any made any conquest in India,
except Dionysus, Hercules and Alexander. Accordingly he denied that Nebu-
chadnezzar did. Strabo, xv. 1. 6. p. 687. Cas. 15 Ezek. xxxii. 31, 32, 18, 22,
24, 26, 29, 30.
120
Greatness of Nebuchadnezzar's conquests;
too were conquered by Nebuchadnezzar. We know this
of the first and the last, Asshur, Edom, Zidon; and so
doubtless it was true of the intermediate, Elymais, the
Tibaren and Moschi, and whomsoever besides he includes
among the princes of the north, such as Gomer and To-
garmah¹. Ezekiel speaks of these defeats and slaughters
as having actually taken place; and he speaks of them in
connection with the victories of Nebuchadnezzar.
The colonies of Tyre in Africa and Spain are likely to
have submitted to him, after the subdual of the mother-
country. There is then no ground to charge Philostra-
tus with exaggeration, when he says that Nebuchadnez-
zar "2 advanced to the columns of Hercules."
"Berosus
related much besides of the great king;" and Josephus
adds that much was contained in the Archives of the
Phoenicians, agreeing with what was said by Berosus.
concerning the king of Babylon, that he subdued Syria
too and the whole of Phoenicia." Megasthenes added *,
that he subdued Egypt also. It has been thought, not
improbably, that the Egyptians disguised their defeat by
Nebuchadnezzar in their account of the dethronement of
Apries by Amasis, and that Amasis was, in truth, a tribu-
tary king, placed on the throne, according to the policy
of those times, by Nebuchadnezzar 5. Josephus relates 6,
that Nebuchadnezzar "invaded Egypt with the view of
subduing it, slew the then king and set up another." The
1 The house of Togarmah, of the north quarters and all his bands. Ezek.
xxxviii. 6. 2 In Strabo, 1. c. This combination is suggested by Tholuck,
Die Propheten, p. 130. c. Ap. i. 20.
4 in Syncellus, p. 221. D. Fragm.
Hist. Gr. ii. 416. 5 Sir G. Wilkinson, in Rawl. Herod. ii. 386, 7. Tholuck
suggests the same, referring to the statement of Herodotus, (iii. 16.) that the
Egyptians put a good appearance (σeuvovv) on the indignities offered to the corpse
of Amasis; in fact, falsified the history. Die Proph. p. 128.
3
6 Ant. x. 9. 7. Josephus places the commencement of the expedition in the
5th year after the destruction of Jerusalem, and so in the course of 584, B.C.
and in Nebuchadnezzar's 23rd year, but says that it was directed against Cole-
Syria (first) and that, after he had got possession of it, he warred against the
Ammonites and Moabites, and so marched against Egypt. This would natu-
rally presuppose that the siege of Tyre took place then; only, it must have be-
gun earlier.
greater greatness of his internal policy.
121
death of Apries or Pharaoh Hophra, (571, 570, or 569 7,)
was a few years after the fall of Tyre, upon which fol-
lowed an expedition of Nebuchadnezzar against Egypt 9.
But conquest was the least part of the glory of Nebu-
chadnezzar. He must have had the command of well-
nigh unlimited human strength to accomplish his works,
and this doubtless he gained by conquest. The works
themselves were partly of magnificence and luxury; but
they also indicate a mind, religious 10, as a polytheist, and
concerned about the internal prosperity of his Empire.
His capital was guarded by those stupendous walls, whose
giant height, enclosing a space of above 130 square miles¹¹,
secured the provisioning, as well as the defence of the
city; embankments on the Persian gulf against the irrup-
tion of the sea12; a reservoir for irrigation, 40 farsangs
(about 138 miles) in circumference and about 20 fathom
deep; navigable canals, one of which, the Nahr Malka
[king's river,] still retains its name¹3; (others are attributed
to him ¹¹;) enormous embankments along the Euphrates, of
14
7 Brugsch (Hist. d' Eg. p. 256.) places the death of Apries, 571, B.C. Sir
G. Wilkinson, 569, B.C. (Rawl. Herod. ii. 387.) Movers says "The reign of
Apries is fixed on all sides, on the mean, for the years 588 or 89-570, as are
few dates in ancient history." ii. 1. 457. (Tholuck, D. Proph. p. 130. note.)
9 According to the number of years, assigned by Phoenician historians (in Jos.
c. Ap. i. 21.) to the rulers of Tyre after Nebuchadnezzar's 13 years' siege, the
end of that siege fell in B.C. 574. For the whole sum to Cyrus' capture of Ba-
bylon B.C. 538, was about 36 years, thus; “Baal reigned 10 years; Ecnibal,
Judge, (i. e. Sufet,) 2 m.; Cheleb, Judge, 10 m.; Abbar, high-priest, 3 m. ;
Muthgon and Gerastrat, Judges, 6 years, Balator reigning 1 year between ;
Merbal, from Babylon, 4 y. ; Hirom, his brother, also from Babylon, was in the
14th year of his reign, when Cyrus took Babylon," in all, 35 years + 3 months,
+x months of Hirom's 14th year. But 538 +36=574. The beginning of the
siege would be 587, B.C., the year after the capture of Jerusalem.
9 The last prophecy of Ezekiel against Pharaoh Hophra (xxix. 17-20) is dated
in the 27th year of Jehoiachin's Captivity, i. e. 572.
10 See the account of his rebuilding of the temple of Borsippa in the Inser. of
Borsippa translated by Sir H. Rawl. Journ. As. Soc. T. xvii.
11 Rawl.
Herod. Essay viii. n. 13. p. 511. from Strabo, xvi. 1. 5.
Eus. Præp. Ev. ix. 41.
12 Abydenus in
13 The Armakalis in Euseb. from Abydenus.
.Abydenus also mentions the Acracanos as his work נְהַר מַלְכָּא for הר-מכלא
14 "One portion of the extensive Nahrawán, eastward of the Tigris." (Ches-
ney, Exped. ii. 160.) “It is believed that the Pallacopas was cut by him." (lb.)
122 Fainéant character of Nebuchadnezzar's successors.
which that at Bagdad exists to this day¹; besides the re-
building of almost all the cities of Upper Babylonia,
662 upon the bricks of which scarcely any other name is
found," attest the practical concern of the great conquer-
or for the well-being of his realm. Deep as is the reve-
rence in the East for those afflicted by insanity, and well-
ordered as may have been the provisions, at least in the
case of the decease of a monarch 3, yet it indicates an af-
fecting respect for the great monarch, that his nobles
waited patiently those seven years in which he was af-
flicted, and then returned to him, and his glory was
greater than before.
After his decease, the Babylonian empire only awaited
its fall. His son, Evilmerodach, was slain after a vicious
reign of two years 5. Nebuchadnezzar's line was still
continued in his son-in-law and his son's murderer Nerig-
lissar, who, if he was the Nergalshareser, one of Nebu-
chadnezzar's princes present at the capture of Jerusa-
lem 6, B.C. 578, must have been in advanced age. Yet
his son, on his decease, about three years afterwards, was
but a lad. Things, then, must have been very disorgan-
ised, that he," shewing many signs of a bad disposition,
was beaten to death by his friends," after a reign of nine
months. Then succeeded Nabonid, or Nabunahit, the La-
bynetus of Herodotus, whose son Belshazzar was entrust-
ed with the government of Babylon, his father having as-
sociated him in his throne. Of Nergalshareser nothing
1 Rawl. p. 513. The embankment of Bagdad was identified by Sir H. Rawl.
Ass. Comm. p. 77. note. Ib.
2 Rawl. p. 512.
3 Upon his father's death, the kingdom was held for him by "the chief of
the Chaldæans" (Magi) until he could return. Berosus. See ab. p. 62.
4 Dan. iv. 36.
66
5 Berosus in Jos. c. Ap. i. 20. Berosus says, that he
governed carelessly and dissolutely."
6 Jer. xxxix. 3, 13. Rab-mag, "chief of the Magi.” (ib.) might be added
as a title to distinguish the one Nergalshareser from the other; and this would
agree with the title "Rubu-emga" given to Nergalshareser in the Inscrip-
tions. (Sir H. Rawl. in Rawl. p. 518.) But Rab-saris (chief Eunuch) is not an
appellative; (ib.) for it follows on the name Sarsechim, v. 3. and on Nabushas-
ban, v. 13. This makes it doubtful, whether Rab-mag either is an appellative.
7 μειράκιον, about 14.
8 Beros. ib.
9 See Lect. vii.
Division of Medo-Persian Empire owned to be untrue. 123
is recorded, and no memorials remain, except some traces
of a palace¹º. Of Labynetus, in a reign of 17 years, his-
tory only records an unfulfilled alliance with Croesus, in
union with Egypt, against the rising power of Cyrus¹¹,
some defensive works of baked brick on the Euphrates,
and the defeat, after which he shut himself in Borsippa,
and was sent into honourable exile in Carmania 12. With
such successors, the glory of the Babylonian Empire could
only be spoken of, as now concentrated in Nebuchadnez-
zar. Only as the Empire was seen in him, not in his de-
generate successors, could it be said that the following
world-empire should "be inferior." The dynasty lived
on, as that of the Bourbons was prolonged after Louis
XIV. but its glory expired before itself.
I have given this lengthened explanation of the words,
Thou art this head of gold, because it illustrates Holy
Scripture. It was not needed to point out the weakness
of the theory, which would erect the fainéant successors
of Nebuchadnezzar into a distinct world-empire; and
which would represent these kings, who murdered their
predecessors only to sink into inactivity or passiveness,
to be the much-devouring bear, with the three kingdoms
between its teeth. This theory is as marked by its dul-
ness as the first by its wild contempt of evidence.
iii. The third theory, which divides the Medo-Persian
Empire into two, a Median and a Persian, is admitted by
its supporters to be contrary to the fact. They assert it
truly to be an error; they could not but see, that some
places at least in Daniel were distinctly opposed to it.
Yet they scrupled not to impute the error to Daniel, sim-
ply on the ground of that one statement, that, on the
death of Belshazzar, king of the Chaldæans, 15 Darius the
Median received the kingdom, being about threescore and
two years old. Now if there is one theory, in which this
critical school is agreed, it is the acquaintance of the Au-
thor of the book of Daniel with the previous books of
10 Rawl. p. 518.
12 Megasth. in Arm. Chr. pp. 60, 1.
11 Her. i. 77.
13
13 Dan. v. 31. Eng. vi. 1. Ch.
124
Self-contradictory allegations of rationalists.
Holy Scripture. They urge against it, that he uses lan-
guage of Ezekiel, (as he does adopt a few expressions ¹,)
that he speaks of the sacred writings which he studied,
as "Scriptures," and implies thereby that there was, when
he wrote, a collection of sacred books; they allege, even
untruly, that he copied the prayer of Nehemiah, and form-
ed his Chaldee on the study of that of Ezra. This theory
of copying does not solve the fact of their resemblance,
but it is essential to the unbelieving hypothesis. Then
it is absurd to suppose, that one so acquainted with the
book of Ezra and with the prophets before him should not
have known, that Ezra records that the prophecy of
Jeremiah, which he relates that he studied, was fulfilled
through Cyrus, or that Ezra inserts in his book the pro-
clamation of Cyrus, the Lord God of heaven hath given
me all the kingdoms of the earth, or that Cyrus was foretold
by name, as the deliverer of Israel from Babylon, in the
prophecies of Isaiah. It is absurd to suppose, even on
the unbelieving theory, that the writer of the book of
Daniel would frame a history contradictory to what he
knew to be the statements of the books which he studied.
But the theory directly contradicts the book of Daniel
itself. For Daniel speaks of Darius himself, as having a
delegated royalty; and in this same chapter, as well as
every where else, he speaks of the kingdoms of Media and
Persia, as one.
His two statements as to the authority of Darius are,
1) that he received the kingdom, 2) that he was made
kings. Both statements imply a delegated authority.
To be "made king" implies that he had the authority,
not of his own right, but, from some other authority which
made him king. God, the people 5, a superior power 6,
1 See note B at the end.
2 vi. 1. Ch. v. 31. Eng.
3 ix. 1.
Samuel
4 1 Sam. xv. 11, 35, 1 Kgs. iii. 7, 1 Chr. xxviii. 4, 2 Chr. i. 8, 9, 11.
in God's name, 1 Sam. viii. 22, xii. 1. 5 Judg. ix. 6, 16, 18, 1 Sam. xi. 15,
1 Kgs. xii. 1, 20, xvi. 16, 21, 2 Kgs. viii. 20. (the great men, x. 5.) xi. 12, xiv. 21,
xvii. 21, xxi. 24, xxiii. 30. (mighty men, 1 Chr. xi. 10.) 1 Chr. xii. 31,38. (ii.)
xxix. 22, 2 Chr. x. 1, xxi. 8, xxii. 1, xxiii. 11, xxvi. 1, xxxiii. 25, xxxvi. 1.
6 Abner, Ishbosheth ; 2 Sam. ii. 9. David, Solomon; 1 Kgs. i. 43, 1 Chr.
Daniel states that Darius had a derived authority.125
are, in different places of Holy Scripture, said to "make"
a person, “king." The corresponding expression, “made
a person king," was used of the acts of Pharaoh Necho
and Nebuchadnezzar in setting kings over Israel 6, and of
the purpose of Syria and Ephraim towards Judah. It is
even remarkable that the idiom is so little used in regard
to God. It is never used of God's ordinary providence,
but only of the first appointment of a king in Israel, or
by David and Solomon when speaking to God, and in
God's answer to Solomon. It is then contrary to the
idiom, when men, to avoid the inference, say, that the
words, was made king over the land of the Chaldæans, mean,
that he was so made by God. 2) So again the word, “re-
ceived,” in Chaldee as well as in Hebrew⁹, always means
"received from another, giving or offering." It never
means "took" as a right, at his own will; (this would
have been expressed by another word10;) it always means,
"received what came to him from another."
8
Who Darius the Mede was, is a matter for secular his-
tory. The name Daryawesh is confessedly an appella-
xxiii. 1. Rehoboam, Abijah; 2 Chr. xi. 22. Pharaoh Necho, Jehoiakim ; 2 Kgs.
xxiii. 34, 2 Chr. xxxvi. 4. Nebuchadnezzar, Zedekiah; 2 Kgs. xxiv. 17, 2 Chr.
xxxvi. 10, Jer. xxxvii. 1, Ezek. xvii. 16. Syria, Ephraim and the son of Rema-
liah, in Judah if conquered, the son of Tabeal; Is. vii. 6. Ahasuerus, Vashti,
queen; Esth. ii. 17. [all the cases in which he is used, viz. 48.]
7 Lengerke's expedient. De Wette and Bertholdt render ungrammatically,
"was become king;" Maurer avoids it; Rosenmüller, " was made king by the
Medes and Persians ;" but a conqueror is not said to be made king of the people
whom he conquers, by his army. He conquers with them. Hitzig; "The choice
of the passive is to indicate that he did not become king according to the ordi-
nary course of things. He did not become king of Babylon, as a matter of course
in his own time by succession, but had first to be made king by human agency,
viz. through the army led by Cyrus. It is scarcely the writer's meaning, that
he was so made by God." (iv. 14.) " Darius the Mede was set as king over the
Chaldæan kingdom, (probably by Cyrus,") says even Paullus, üb. d. 3. erst. Ev.
iii. 418.
8 Gifts from the king, Dan. ii. 6; the kingdom (from God,) Ib. vii. 18.
9 Persons offering themselves, 1 Chr. xii. 18; offerings, Ez. viii. 30; a gift,
Esth. iv. 4; a choice offered, 1 Chr. xxi. 11; God's appointments, Job. ii. 10;
[ii.] instruction, Prov. xix. 20; an observance, Esth. ix. 23, 27; the things
brought by the priests out of God's house, 2 Chr. xxix. 16; the blood of the ani-
mals sacrificed, Ib. 22.
נָשָׂא or לָקַח 10
126 Traces of a king Darius before Hystaspes.
tive¹, and so, it is consistent with his being known in se-
cular history by some other name. There is a probability,
that there was a king of Babylon at this date, known in se-
cular history too by the name of Darius. It is possible that
the Darius, who, (as Megasthenes relates 2,) expelled for a
time from Carmania Nabonedoch, the last king of Baby-
lon, to whom Cyrus had committed the government of that
province, may have been Darius Hystaspes. But as Na-
bonedus was probably not young at the time of his ac-
cession, being selected by his fellow-conspirators for the
thrones, and he reigned 17 years in Babylon, and was again
restored by this Darius who removed him, it is probable
that this Darius was a contemporary of Cyrus, not one
who came to the throne 15 years later. For if this Na-
bonedus was 40 at his accession to the throne of Babylon,
he would have been 72 in the first year of Darius Hystas-
pes, and of a very advanced age to be restored to the go-
vernment of a province subsequently.
4
The Daric is said also to have been named not from
Darius Hystaspes, but "5 from an older king."
Be this as it may, it is a question of secular not of Bi-
blical history, whether Cyrus placed on the throne the
Cyaxares II. of Xenophon, or Astyages, or neither, but a
Median, a descendant of their celebrated sovereign A-
chashwerosh, (Cyaxares.) Xenophon, although writing
a historical novel, may very possibly, (like great modern
writers of "the historical novel,") have, in great points,
1 From dara Pers. (the end esh being a Persian termination [see Ges. s. v.
p. 350.] as in.) Dhari Sanscr. signifies' hold, 'rule,' which falls in with
the interpretation of Herodotus, épelns. (vi. 98.) This agrees with the
cuneiform inscriptions, Darheus or Darieush, (Grotefend in Heeren. T. xi.
p. 347.) Dareioush, Dareiouoush (S. Martin, Journ. As. Fev. 1823. Ges.) or
DARaYaWUS. (Ib. App. 83.)
2 Chron. Arm. i. pp. 60, 1.
depulit aliquantulum," Lat. transl. of
5 Harpocration, sub v.
3 Berosus in Jos. 1. c.
4.66
Arm. Chron. which, I am told, is accurate.
Schol. ad Aristoph. Eccl. 545.
6 In like way, Frawartish, in Media, claimed the Median throne, and Sitran-
tachmes, a Sagartian, that of Sagartia, as descended from Cyaxares. "I am
Xathrites, of the race of Cyaxares." "I am king of Sagartia, of the race of Cy-
axares." Behist. Inscr. col. ii. par. 5. 14. in Rawl. Her. ii. 598. 602.
Xenophon's account likely; Isaiah's prophecy. 127
known the historical truth and adhered to it. Certainly
as to the fact that Cyrus himself was of royal birth, he
is borne out by the inscriptions against Herodotus. Xe-
nophon also, in another case, speaks of the family of Cy-
rus, as one who meant to write history. He sets his own,
as an historical statement, against their's. But when al-
most all Herodotus' account of Cyrus is embellishment,
and the evident object of Xenophon is to adorn his hero,
they have no authoritative weight for any statement, un-
less they are supported from without. Probably those
who quote Herodotus so freely against Holy Scripture
would be surprised, if they made clear to themselves, what
an almost nothing they themselves believe of the account
which they so employ. He needs to be confirmed by
Holy Scripture, not Holy Scripture by him. But, in fact,
there is not the shadow of contradiction. There would
have been contradiction, had Daniel said, that Darius the
Mede reigned in his own right; but he says exactly the
contrary. Daniel tells us more than Herodotus; but that
"more" is in conformity both with other Scripture and
external authority.
Isaiah, in that wonderful prophecy of the destruction
of Babylon, ch. xxi, a prophecy acknowledged even by un-
believers10 to have been prior to the event, assigns to Per-
sia the first place, but to Media, the second ¹¹; Go up, O
Elam ; besiege, O Media. In another prophecy, he speaks
of the Medes alone as fierce instruments of its destruc-
11
7 Cyrop. i. 2. 1. 8 “the son of Cambyses, the powerful king." "Brick at
Senkeereh in Lower Chaldæa." Sir H. Rawl. in Rawl. Herod. i. 250. note.
264. note. 9" When he came to Media, he, with the good will of his father
and mother, marries the daughter of Cyaxares, whose exceeding beauty is still
spoken of. But some of the historians say, that he married his mother's sister.
That maiden would have been altogether an old woman." Cyrop. viii. 5. end.
Cyaxares' daughter was his first cousin, granddaughter of Astyages; but if, as
Herodotus said, (i. 109.) Astyages had had no son, she would have been, not
the granddaughter, but the daughter of Astyages and his mother's sister.
10 "Is. xxi. a prophecy which, as is now recognized, is to be placed before
the actual fall of Babylon." Lengerke, p. 209. So also Ges. Is. pp. 648-50.
Ewald (Proph. ii. 394.) supposes it, in his way, to have been spoken during the
approach of Cyrus.
11 xxi. 2.
Medes and Persians united before Babylon.
3
128
tion¹. Jeremiah foretells, that God would bring against
Babylon an assembly of great nations, from the North
country; a people, a great nation, and many kings from
the coasts of the earth; and then he specifies by name¹,
the Lord hath raised up the spirit of the kings of the
Medes. Neology is constrained by its hypothesis to sup-
pose the prophecy to have been spoken close on the event;
but then, in consistency with itself, it is constrained to
grant that it is accurate. The Medes then, under Cyrus,
had a prominent place in the siege and destruction of
Babylon; and that, according to the custom of the East,
under their own subordinate kings. Just this same sub-
ordinate relation is contained in the well-known Chal-
dæan tradition, preserved by Megasthenes. "It is said
by the Chaldæans, that, going up upon the palace, he
[Nebuchadnezzar] was overmastered by some god and
thus spake, 'I, that Nebucodrosor, foretell to you, O Ba-
bylonians, the calamity which will overtake you, which
Bel, my forefather, and the queen Beltis are alike unable
to persuade the fates to turn aside. A Persian mule will
come, aided by your gods, and will bring slavery upon you.
Whose accomplice shall be a Mede, the boast of Assyria.""
Josephus uses the same language, saying that "the city
was taken, Cyrus, king of the Persians, having brought
an army against it ;" and then, speaking of" Darius who,
with Cyrus his kinsman, destroyed the Babylonian Em-
pire." What marvel then, that, bound up as Media was
with Persia, a large portion of its power, Cyrus, in whose
career of victory Babylon was but a part, should commit
its government to one in whom he could confide, while he
himself was engaged in foreign conquests? The policy
of placing a Vice-king at Babylon is in accordance with
the previous history of Babylon for a long time under the
Assyrian Empire, and with the actual relation of the Medes
to the Persians. The Median Empire had been destroyed
more, probably, through the personal defects of its sove-
2 1. 9.
3 1. 41.
5 in Eus. Præp. Ev. ix. 41. pp. 456, 7.
¹ xiii. 17.
4 li. 11, 28.
6 Ant. x. 11. 41.
Medes and Babylonians still unbroken.
129
reign, than through any decay in the nation. Their for-
midable rebellion against Darius Hystaspes, in conjunc-
tion probably with the neighbouring Armenians, in which
the whole army quartered in Media joined, and which was
finally repressed by Darius in person, shews that they
were still unbroken 7. They had energy for a new revolt
against Darius Nothus, some 116 years later, B. C. 409.
The Babylonians, in like way, by their repeated rebellions,
(the first of which was carefully arranged, as soon as the
confusion from the usurpation of Pseudo-Smerdis made
room for it',) shewed that, though betrayed by their secu-
rity and by the weakness of their kings, they were more
easily conquered than retained. Their resistance, in the
first revolt against Darius, was more courageous than that
against Cyrus. Only after two pitched battles they shut
themselves up within their walls 10; and the traditions of
their desperate expedient to prolong the siege¹¹, and of the
7 In the Behistun Inscription translated by Sir H. Rawlinson, (As. Soc. T. x.
pp. 195 sqq. revised in Rawl. Herod. ii. 590 sqq.) Darius mentions nine countries
which revolted from him, " Persia, Susiana, Media, Assyria, Armenia, Parthia,
Margiana, Sattagydia, Sacia." col. ii. 2. Media and Armenia alone offered a deter-
mined resistance. Darius first sent Hydarnes, one of the seven, against Media ;
then Dadarses, an Armenian, against Armenia, who thrice defeated them; then
Vomises a Persian, who twice defeated them; then, all three armies having
waited for Darius, he moved from Babylon and defeated Phraortes, who met
him in Media. (Beh. Inscr. col. ii. Par. 6-13.) There is nothing to connect their
revolt with the Median, except the neighbourhood and the fact, that their
five defeats fell between the first and last of Fravartaish. But Parthia and
Hyrcania are said to have “declared for Fravartaish ;” (Ib. 16. and col. iii. 1.)
so he may very possibly have been the centre of the whole, and all may have
been one movement (as Sir H. Rawlinson conjectures,) under a representative
of the old Median monarchy to throw off the Persian yoke. Monarchs do not
record their reverses, so we have only an account of one side. Prof. Rawlinson
conjectures not improbably, that the successes against the Persians, attributed
by Herodotus to Phraortes, father of Cyaxares, (i. 102.) really belonged to
this Fravartaish. i. p. 409.
8 Xen. Cyrop. i. 2. end.
9 "During all the time that the Magian ruled, and the seven conspired, in
all this time and the confusion they prepared for the siege; and somehow they
escaped notice." Her. iii. 150. Darius places this first revolt early in his reign,
soon after he had gained the sceptre, the Susianians rebelling at the same time.
(Behist. Inser. col. 1. par. 16.)
10 Beh. Inscr. col. i. 18-ii. 1. They first disputed the passage of the Tigris;
then fought near Babylon.
11 Her. iii. 150.
K
130 Policy of placing Median Vice-king at Babylon.
stratagem of Zopyrus¹, involving self-sacrifice especially
abhorrent to Persians and the sacrifice of 7000 Persians,
imply the memory of no easy conquest. Two revolts against
one king, and a third against his successor, were evidences
of a strong surviving energy. Babylon then, probably,
could not be safely left to itself; and it was a wise policy
to attach the Medes by placing over it, out of their royal
line, as Vice-king, one who, by reason of his age and ap-
parent softness of character, would have no temptation
to revolt, and who would find, in Babylon, no old associa-
tions or support. To transplant the Babylonian king to
Carmania, and to place a Median over Babylon, was a
policy correlative to that of removing disaffected popula-
tions. An account, as credible as any, mentions a con-
tinuance of this policy, that Cyrus placed his second son
as Satrap of the Medes, Armenians, and Cadusia 3.
That same distinction of the Medes continued. Medes,
it has been remarked, alone of all conquered nations,
were employed in offices of confidence in the Persian Em-
pire. Cyrus employed Mazares, a Mede, to quell the re-
volt of Sardis ; on his death, he appointed another Mede,
Harpagus, to continue the war, and subdue Ionia, Caria,
Caunus, Lycia, the government of which last appears to
have remained in his family7. A Mede, Intaphres, sub-
dued Babylon on its first revolt 8. In Darius' account of
¹ Ib. 153. sqq. It was part of the alleged stratagem, that 7000 Persians should
be given up to be slain. Herodotus does not mention the battles, nor Darius
the stratagem, but he only relates the results, and what was to his glory.
2 The 2nd revolt was, when Darius was "absent in Persia and Media." Beh.
Inscr. Col. iii. P. 13, 14. Ctesias relates the revolt against Xerxes, when engaged
in his Greek expedition, and says that they slew his general. (Pers. § 22. p. 69. ed.
Bähr.) Plutarch alludes to a revolt against Xerxes; (Apoph. Regg.p.688. Wytt.)
Herodotus speaks of his spoiling the temple of Bel; (i. 183.) Arrian (vii. 17.)and
Strabo (xvi. 1. 5.) of his destroying the temple, Arrian says, after his return
from Greece.
3 Xen. Cyrop. viii. 7. 11. Ctesias makes Cyrus assign
to him three Eastern Provinces, Bactria, Parthia, Carmania. Pers. § 8. Herodo-
tus (iii. 30.) is contradicted by the Behist. Inscr., in that he places Cambyses'
murder of his brother when in Egypt.
4 Rawl. Herod. T. i. Essay iii. on the Median Empire, p. 402. n. 7.
5 Herod. i. 356, 7. 6 Ib. 162-176.
7 Rawl. on Herod. i. p. 312. n. 2.
8 Behist. Inscr. col. iii. par. 14. Ib. Prof. Rawlinson also instances Datis at
Close connection of Media with Persia.
131
his quelling the great revolts against him, Persians and
Medes are, in various ways, named as especially united 9.
11
14
Media was allied to Persia by its common Aryan de-
scent 10 and by nearness of language ¹¹. Media “capta fe-
rum victorem cepit." Persia had then too that pliancy
and plastic character¹2, which distinguishes it now. Com-
posed of separate tribes 13 up to the time of the revolt of
Cyrus, (if the account of Herodotus be true¹4,) or of his war
with Media, Persia adopted apparently the institutions
of its more civilised conquest. It appears to have joined
on its history to that of Media15, to have adopted its laws,
as it did, subsequently, its religion. Even such an ex-
ternal change as that of the adoption of its dress 16 is sig-
nificant. It was the adoption of the more elegant and
luxurious attire for its own simple hardy dress. Persia
continued to rank Media next to itself.
But, on whatever ground Cyrus placed Darius the Mede
as Vice-king over Babylon, there is not a plea for think-
ing that Daniel speaks of a Median Empire distinct from
Persia. The account of Daniel, throughout, expresses
the contrary. The first mention of Darius the Mede oc-
curs, as the fulfilment of the writing on the wall, explain-
Marathon, (Her. vi. 94.) his sons, commanders of Xerxes' cavalry, (Ib. vii. 88.)
Tachamaspates, employed to bring Sagartia into subjection. (Behist. Inscr.
col. ii. par. 14.) Ib. 9 "Persia, Media, and the other provinces," col. i.
§ 11, 12, 14; "the army of Persians and Medians that was with me,” ii. 6. iii. 6 ;
"I sent an army of Persians and Medes," ii. 14; "no man, neither Persian nor
Mede, who would dispossess him.” i. 13. 10 See Rawl. Essay iii. p. 401.
13 Ib. 125.
n Ib. n. 8.
12 Herod. i. 135.
14 If Prof. Rawlinson's conjecture (p. 128. n. 9.) be right, we have no ac-
count of any conquest of the Persians by the Medes.
15 In the book of Esther, mention is made of the book of the chronicles of
the kings of Media and Persia, (x. 2.) Media being placed first, as the history
of the kings of Media necessarily preceded that of the kings of Persia; whereas,
speaking of the present time, the writer places the Persians first, the power of
Persia and Media, (i. 3.) the seven princes of Persia and Media, (i. 14.) the
ladies of Persia and Media, (i. 18.) the laws of the Persians and the Medes.
(i. 19.) The state documents, which were originally deposited in the Record-
office at Babylon, were afterwards transferred to Egbatana in Media, (Ezr. vi.
1,2.) probably as the ancient depository of documents.
16 Her. i. 135.
vii. 63. See the woodcuts in Rawl. Herod. i. p. 276.
.
K 2
132
Evidence from Daniel that he spoke
6
4
ed to Belshazzar by Daniel. In that writing, Mene, Mene,
Tekel, Upharsin, the Persians are referred to, and that
prominently. All the words of that writing contain, not
an ambiguous but a twofold and so a fuller and more
pregnant meaning¹, as explained by the Prophet himself.
2 Mene signifies at once, "numbered" and "ended;"
3 Tekel, "weighed" and "light" on the weights; Peres,
“divided" and "Persian." A word, subsequently, at
least, rare, is purposely chosen to bring out the "Per-
sians" prominently. The two nations conjointly were to
have the world-empire, which was now in the hands of
the Chaldees; but the pre-eminence of the Persians is
expressed in the word foretelling it. The word "and
they are parting," also means "and Persians." There
is also the direct explanation, and is given to the Medes and
Persians. He does not say, "is given first to the Medes
and then to the Persians," given, as these would say, first
to Darius, then to Cyrus. A thing is not divided, which
is given to two persons successively. It is given whole
to each. He says, "is given." It was the last doomed
night of Belshazzar and of the Chaldæan empire. It was
already night. For the hand-writing had been seen some
time before, written where the light of the chandelier fell
on it. The Medes and Persians must have been already
in motion. The city, buried in its revelry, was virtually
1 So far Lengerke too agrees. 2 Discounted" and "counted to the
end,” whence in Arabic it signifies “defined,” and the noun, “the term defined,
death."
3 Sp with allusion to p, “light," "is weighed."
“and (they are) dividing," 2) "and Persians.”
5 Buxtorf, (whom Gesenius follows,) noticed only one instance in which
the verb on is used in this sense in the Targums, 1 Sam. ix. 13.
"breaking and distributing food.” Caspari (Zeitschr. f. Luth. Theod. 1841.4.
130) adds another, 2 Kgs. iv. 39. where it is for the Heb. пh “shred,” (orig.
"split.") Its common meaning both in Syr. and the Targg.is, “spread,”i. q. Heb.
פָּרַס .Here it is the same as the IHeb .פָּרַשׂ
p.
6 Lengerke says, "the ground is, that there was no suitable word where-
with to allude to the name, Mede." p. 265. 1) This is not true. The root
75, “measure,” existed in Chaldee then, as appears from Ezr. iv. 20. ma
Ezr. iv. 13. vii. 24. This would have furnished a verbal allusion. 2) The
verbal allusion is chosen to give greater emphasis to the meaning, to impress
it. Of course, the meaning would not be sacrificed to the emphasis. 7 v.5.
of the Medo-Persian Empire as one.
133
already in their hands. They were all-but-marching along
the half-dried bed of the Euphrates, to take possession of
what God had given into their hands. It was given.
Two sentences relate the fulfilment of the words in the
close of the first empire and the commencement of the
second. In that night was Belshazzar, king of the
Chaldeans, slain. And Darius, the Median, (in contrast
to the Chaldæan,) received the kingdom. The word, re-
ceived, in itself, implies one from whom it was received.
But, apart from this, it would have been no fulfilment
of the words, had Darius succeeded independently. Half
of the prophecy would have failed, which the statement is
made to prove. The law also, which was in force, (it is
thrice said) was the law of the Medes and Persians, i. e.
a law which had been originally the law of the more
cultivated Medes; but which, since its adoption by the
Persians, was become the law of the Medes and Persians.
The term belongs to the recent times of Persian conquest,
when the memory of the Median origin of the law was
fresh; and much of law could not have been added by the
Persians. Perhaps it was used by the councillors of the
Median Vice-king out of national feeling. Yet the term
was the most accurate which could have been used. Had
it been a mere Median empire, the law must have been
"the law of the Medes only.
وو
The titles, "Mede," "Persian," are strictly personal.
The empire was Medo-Persian: (as under the name Bri-
tain, we think chiefly of the three or four nations first
combined in its kingdom, not of the dominions which
have accrued to it.) Cyrus, strictly speaking, was Perso-
Median, his mother having been a Mede. Darius was a
Mede. Their personal nationalities, Darius the Mede,
Cyrus the Persian, do not imply that the empire was Me-
dian or Persian, and not rather Medo-Persian.
The fact, that there was only one Medo-Persian empire,
is stated in the precisest terms in the vision which fore-
tells its destruction. A living symbol cannot, without be-
8 v. 30, 31. Eng. vi. 1. Ch. 9 vi. 9, 13, 16. Ch. 8, 12, 15. Eng.
134
Medo-Persian Empire in Daniel one.
1
coming unnatural, correspond in all details to the thing
symbolised. Change had to be represented in such wise
that the symbol itself should not be destroyed. The sym
bol of the ram having been chosen for the Medo-Persian
empire, the shifting relation of its two parts could not be
pictured, without offensiveness and untruth, in the body
of the animal. It is represented in the horns. As in the
dream as to himself, Nebuchadnezzar saw the tree, which
represented his fortunes, growing and cut down, so Da-
nielsees the Medo-Persian empire from its first formation.
The body of the ram represents the aggregate of tribes,
Median and Persian, which were united throughout its
existence. Each was an aggregate of tribes in itself, the
Median, of six, the Persian, of ten, tribes. Both were
joined together, as England and Scotland. The body re-
mained numerically the same, neither increased nor di-
minished, whichever was dominant. This could not have
been more vividly represented than by the oneness of the
animal, while the horns, the symbol of power, varied.
The vision gives briefly its rise, its prosperity, its fall.
The angel explains it to represent the kings of Media and
Persia, not of Media and Persia successively, but toge-
ther; for it remained to the end what it was at the begin-
ning; it was the ram with two horns, the king or kingdom
of Medo-Persia, when its horns were broken, and it was
trampled under foot.
In regard to the other objection, that the second Em-
pire is said to be inferior to Nebuchadnezzar in his great-
ness, it is not improbable that the Persian was inferior,
even in extent, to the empire under Nebuchadnezzar.
But neither extent nor numbers constitute the superiority
of an empire. Else the Chinese would be, for its numbers,
far the first of modern empires; and, in extent, Russia.
The Turkish empire would be far superior to any Euro-
pean; and the British empire, as nothing but for its East-
Indian dominions. But, in every thing which does consti-
tute the greatness of an empire, the Persian was very far
¹ iv. 8. Ch. 11. Eng.
Persian Empire inferior to Nebuchadnezzar's. 135
3
inferior to Nebuchadnezzar's. Cyrus himself was a great
instrument of God, not only, like all great conquerors, as
the scourge of sin, but towards His own people. The
edict in behalf of the Jews is one of the most remarkable
events in the history of the world; one, fullest of conse-
quences. Personal character too, as a heathen, he must
have had, since Isaiah describes him as one, whom right-
eousness called to her foot, as its disciple. God gave the
nations before him and made him rule over kings. He in-
verted the relations of the Medes and Persians; two great
empires, the Lydian and the Babylonian, fell before him.
But his plan of universal empire left him no time to con-
solidate his work, and, while his plans were stretching
out to India and to Egypt, perhaps even to Europe ³, he
fell, in conflict with some wild nation, (it is not known
which,) who defeated and slew one, who was lord of na-
tions from the confines of India to the encircling sea which
bounded Asia, the Mediterranean, Ægean, Black Sea.
But, of all his imperial greatness, his tomb at Pasargadæ
is his only memorial. The conqueror had seemingly nei-
ther the special genius nor leisure for internal organiza
tion. He left none of the works for the good of his people,
which distinguished the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. Even
in his own reign, we have that sure token of bad govern-
ment, public measures undone through corrupt influences
around the sovereign. Cyrus allowed his own edict to be
in great measure neutralised, and his policy towards the
Jews changed, because his councillors were bribed. The
people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Ju-
dah and troubled them in building, and hired counsellors
against them to frustrate their purpose all the days of Cy-
rus king of Persia even until the reign of Darius king of
2 Is. xli. 2.
3 Cambyses in Egypt, and Darius Northwards, seem to
have been carrying out his plans. According to Ctesias, (c. 6.) the Indians
supported the Derbices against him, doubtless as holding themselves to be
menaced. * The Massagetæ according to Herodotus (i. 214 ;) the Derbices,
according to Ctesias. (Exc. 6-8.) Xenophon's account, that he died in his bed,
seems only devised to give room for a philosophic discourse. (Cyrop. viii. 7.)
In Herodotus' time, there were many accounts" of his death. (i. 214.)
136 Immediate degeneracy of successors of Cyrus.
Persia¹. An epitome of Persian misrule! It was, in a
prince who had felt the power of God, the self-same prin-
ciple of mis-government, which led the sensual Xerxes to
sell to Haman for 10,000 talents of silver the lives of all
the Jews in his dominions, as an alien, uncongenial, race,
scattered through all his provinces, and then to squander
on his favorite the price of their blood 2. The successors
of Cyrus the Great degenerated at once.
The mad Cam-
byses, whom even the Persians are said to have desig-
nated as "despotic," the "tradesman" Darius, were suc-
ceeded by Xerxes, who, uniting the vices of both to a sen-
sualising voluptuousness, prepared for the downfall of
Persia by his stupendous but impotent aggression on
Greece. The expedition of Alexander was (as it stands
so pointedly in Daniel 5) the natural and legitimate result
of the exhibition of inherent weakness in the multitudi-
nous force of Persia. That vast wave, in which the accu-
mulated hosts of Asia seemed ready to submerge the tiny
republics of Greece, dashed itself upon them, was broken,
and recoiled. The failure of Darius at Marathon was
but the mistake of one who, after the tide of victory over
the Ionian Greeks, superciliously despised his foe'. Xer-
1 Ezr. iv. 4, 5.
2 Esth. iii. 8-15. 3 δεσπότης Her. iii. 99. 4 κάπηλος Ib. iii. 89. 117.
5 xi. 2. 3. Bertholdt and Lengerke, acknowledging this connection, think it
above "the Jewish writer," and accuse their Pseudo-Daniel of supposing that
there were only four kings of Persia, whereas Ezra mentions Artaxerxes.
S. Jerome says well; "Idly does one write, 'Darius, who was conquered by Alex-
ander, was the 4th king,' who was not the 4th, but the 14th after Cyrus. Ob-
serve that, having enumerated four after Cyrus, he passed over 9, and passed
on to Alexander. For the prophetic spirit cared not to follow the order of his-
tory, but to touch on the marked points." The Epistle, however, of Alexander
to Darius after the battle of Issus, so often quoted, has no bearing on this, since
he is referring to wrongs in his father's time and his own. (in Arr. Exp. ii. 14.
7-9.) The whole of the Persian history was future in the time of Daniel, the
omission was the usual prophetic fore-shortening, of which St. Jerome speaks.
6 Only 6400 men fell on the side of the Persians; (Her. vi. 117.) and the
10,000 heavy-armed Greeks formed a front as long as the Medo-Persian,
weakening their centre only; "both the wings were deep." (Ib. 111.) The
triremes, in which the Persians were embarked, 600 according to Herodotus,
(vi. 95.) 300 according to Plato, (Menex. p. 190. Tanchn.) would (according
to Herodotus' calculation, vii. 181.) convey 138,000, or 69,000 men. They had
Miserableness of Persian Empire.
137
xes evidently meant to overawe, gathered for four years
the varied hordes of his vast empire, and failed. The vast
bulk of the Persian empire was ever crumbling through
intestine disorganisation. The internal arrangements
which were made, had a view rather to the better col-
lecting of tribute in preparation for those expensive wars,
than to the good government of the people.
The defeat of Xerxes closed the 60 years of its seeming
prosperity: for 150 years more 7 it held together, because
Greece was divided. But it did nothing for mankind; it
left no memorial of itself. There is not a trait in its his-
tory upon which the human mind can dwell with interest,
save the one scene of the kindness of Artaxerxes to Ne-
hemiah; scarce any, from which human nature does not
turn away. Its heterogeneous elements were not more
assimilated after two centuries, than at the first. Its con-
nection with its provinces consisted in the appointments of
satraps with the state of kings, military governors, and
governors of the garrisons which kept them in check; and
the contribution, on the part of the provinces, of fixed tri-
bute, of contingents of troops when required, or, in times
also pressed Greeks on their way, (Her. vi. 99.) and had cavalry, but these not
numerous ; (10,000. Nepos Milt. c. 4.) "The aggregate crews of all their ships
must have been between 150,000 and 200,000 men; but what proportion of
these were fighting men, or how many actually did fight at Marathon, we have
no means of determining." (Grote, Greece, T. iv. 468.) Darius is said to have
led against Thrace 700,000 men, apart from the fleet of 600 ships. (Her. iv. 87.)
7 Platæa, 480. B.C. Arbela. Sept. 331.
8 66 Through those unhappy undertakings against Greece in the last six
years
of his reign, Darius saw the splendours of all his former glorious undertakings
darkened. From that moment Persian history exhibits to us only the mono-
tonous account of cabals, internal disturbances and expeditions against the
Greeks, which occasioned on their part and justified maraudings and wars
against the great king. The Greeks [in Xerxes' time] could use their vic-
tories unhindered, in that Xerxes was involved in most distressing relations in
his own family, and left war-concerns wholly to his satraps. Under Darius,
the Empire sank wholly; for the Satraps became almost independent princes;
the king was governed by a woman, Parysatis, and 3 Eunuchs; and Greek mer-
cenaries formed the core of the royal army, as well as those in the several sa-
trapies. The horrible savageness, treacheries, murders, maimings, we cannot
relate in a general history of mankind, since the Persian courtiers are only of
account to those like them: for mankind they are an abhorrence." Schlösser,
Weltgesch. p. 269.
138 Disagreement of the symbol of the Persian Empire
of peace, of eunuchs and replenishers of the Persian ha-
rems. Government by favorite, often revengeful, Queens,
or by eunuchs, was the order of its policy; fratricide, a
path to the throne, or a condition of its tenure. The jea-
lousies or even mutual wars of its satraps, in that they
kept each other in check, were thought to be the safety
of its government. Its external history, in every instance,
shewed its internal weakness. Its provinces rebelled and
re-rebelled; some succeeded in detaching themselves.
Even in its more prosperous times, the petty prince of
Salamis in Cyprus held the Persian power at bay for ten
years¹, and was at last acknowleged by them as a tribu-
tary king. Egypt had three brief dynasties of native
princes2, during the period of Persian rule. Its employ-
ment of Greek mercenaries, and its intrigues with the
Greeks of Europe, attest its sense of its inherent weak-
ness. Its chief wars were to quell the revolts of its own
satraps. Like a volcanic country, the internal, unsubdued
force, which periodically shook it, was felt in the earth-
quake, now here, now there, but underlay the whole em-
pire. At the battle of Arbela, in which the Empire fell,
its million of men were drawn out of twenty only of the
46 provinces, which had supplied the armament of Xerxes.
This inferiority then of the 2nd Empire to the first un-
der Nebuchadnezzar is no ground why the second should
not be the Medo-Persian. For it was inferior in every-
thing which constitutes an Empire. Nor could the sym-
bol be adapted to the Median empire alone. A world-
empire, which lasted two years, would in itself be an
absurdity, which it would be insolent to fasten on the
book of Daniel. But no explanation whatever could be
given of the three ribs in his mouth, or of the command to
devour much flesh. Again it would be a strange incon-
gruity, that the third Empire should be represented by
symbols implying activity, in the 2nd and 7th chapter,
and, if it was to be the Persian, by the heavy animal in
1 See Grote, Hist. of Greece, c. 76. T. x. pp. 27-32.
2 Dyn. xxviii. xxix. xxx. Brugsch, Hist. d' Eg. c. 17. pp. 279-285.
in ch. 8. from that of the third Empire in ch.7. 139
3
the 8th; or that the four heads in the 7th chapter should
not symbolise the same as the four horns in the 8th, but
should relate to a different empire. But, over and above
this, the four heads have no possible explanation as to the
Persian Empire. They exist simultaneously. Even ra-
tionalist interpreters explain the four horns in the 8th
chapter as representing four contemporary kingdoms,
those of the four successors of Alexander. Much more
must the four heads be powers existing together. And
not only so, but, even waiving this, not even in succession
can four kings of Persia be pointed out, to answer to the
four heads. For in the xith chapter to which these writers
appeal, five are probably spoken of ³, and prophecy breaks
off with Xerxes, because his invasion and failure were the
far distant causes of the expedition of Alexander,the earn-
est of its success. The explanation of the four heads by
those four kings is inconsistent alike with the believing
or unbelieving hypothesis. With the believing, because,
although prophecy foretells the truth in part only, it does
not foretell what is untrue, and it is untrue that the Per-
sian Empire was four-headed. On the unbelieving, be-
cause it is absurd to make mere silence an argument of
ignorance, when yet a 6th king, Artaxerxes Longimanus,
is mentioned in the book of Ezra, with which, on the ra-
tionalist hypothesis, the writer of the book of Daniel was
well acquainted *.
iv. There remains yet the paradox, that, seeing that
the first empire must be the Babylonian and the 2nd the
Medo-Persian, (for so far the maintainers of this paradox
see clearly,) the number is to be filled up by making Alex-
er himself the 3rd empire, his successors the fourth.
3 “There are yet three kings," (xi. 2.) naturally means, three after Cyrus,
viz. Cambyses, Pseudo-Smerdis, Darius Hystaspes; and then "and the
fourth," means the fourth who was yet to be, viz. Xerxes.
4 The argument was dishonest in those writers, because they well knew that,
in the xith chapter, kings both of the Ptolemies and the Seleucidæ are not
alluded to, whom the writer, had he lived after the event, must have known
of. But what was no argument of ignorance in the one case, could not, of
course, have been so in the other.
140
Incompatibility of symbols and prophecies as to
To this it would seem to be answer enough," then the
empire of the successors of Alexander was to be stronger
than that of Alexander itself." Terribleness, crushing
might and deed, permanent dominion, are the charac-
teristics of the 4th empire. But in the vision, which is
expressly explained of the Greek Empire, it is said, "four,
kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his
power," [the power of the first king;] and again,
❝ 2 when
he [Alexander] shall stand up, his kingdom shall be bro-
ken and shall be divided toward the four winds; and not
to his posterity, nor according to his dominion which he
ruled." There could not be two pictures more opposite
to one another. In both visions, those in the 2nd and the
7th chapter, the exceeding strength of the fourth empire,
in contrast with those before it, is dwelt upon; the fourth
kingdom shall be strong as iron, forasmuch as iron break-
eth in pieces and subdueth all things; as iron that breaketh
all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise: a fourth beast
dreadful and forceful and strong exceedingly, and it had
great iron teeth; it devoured and brake in pieces and
stamped the residue with the feet of it, and it was diverse
from all beasts that were before it ³.
3
An empire, stronger than all before it, cannot be meant
to be the same as that, of which it is emphatically said,
that it should be weaker than that before it.
Again as to the facts, cast your eyes on the picture of
the two chief of Alexander's successors, the Seleucidæ
and the Ptolemies, in Daniel himself. Two dynasties.
equally balanced against each other; at one time the king
of the South superior, at another, the king of the North;
multitudes given into his hands; casting down ten thou-
sands but not strengthened by it; unable to stand! See
the tide of war reeling, ebbing, flowing, from North to
South, and from South to North. One king of the South
(Ptolemy Euergetes) prevailing and carrying away cap-
tives; the king of the North [Seleucus Callinicus] fail-
3 ii. 40, vii. 7.
¹ viii. 22.
2 xi. 4.
4 xi. 8.
Alexander's successors with those of 4th Empire. 141
9
8
ing in his invasion of Egypt 5; Antiochus the Great invad-
ing Egypt, and defeated by the wretched Ptolemy Philo-
pator, yet he too, casting down many ten thousands, but
not strengthened by it; then Antiochus victorious and
Egypt powerless, but the victor checked by the Romans
and perishing; then a raiser of taxes (Seleucus Philo-
pator); then a vile person (Antiochus Epiphanes) work-
ing deceitfully, strong with a small people, his fraudulent
victories checked at last by Roman power. Where, in all
this division, is the surpassing, iron-strength of the 4th
kingdom or the terribleness of the 4th creature for which
no name could be found? If this, as is said, was the de-
cay of the fourth kingdom, that decay began from the
very existence of those separate kingdoms as described by
Daniel. Its strength was no where but in Alexander
himself. Two intermarriages alone are alluded to in Da-
niel 10, or took place between the Seleucidæ and the Ptole-
mies; and these two, on no common principle. The mar-
riage of Antiochus Theos with Berenice, daughter of
Ptolemy Philadelphus, was not, like those in Teutonic
empires, to cement two nations against others whose
strength was dreaded. It was simply a way of ending a
war, of which Ptolemy was weary 11. It was the policy of
Antiochus the Great alone, to unite Egypt with him
against Rome. One intermarriage is not characteristic
of the policy of an empire. Again, it is said that 'the at-
tempt to cement their strength by intermarriages' is a
characteristic of Alexander's successors. These inter-
marriages belong to the decay of the fourth empire in Da-
niel, when the iron strength, symbolised in the iron legs.
of the image, was gone, and there had succeeded to it the
5 Ib. 9. It should be rendered; And he [i. e. the king of the North] shall
come against the kingdom of the king of the South, and shall return to his
own land.
6 10-12.
7 13-19.
s 20.
9 21-23.
10 Dan. xi. 5, 17.
Ptolemy Philadelphus, wishing, after many
years, to end a troublesome struggle, gave his daughter Berenice to Antiochus
to wife, and conducted her as far as Pelusium, and gave countless thousands
of gold and silver under the name of dowry. Whence she was called pepvópopos,
dowry-bringer." S. Jer. on Dan. xi. 6.
11
1
142 Alexander's successors one kingdom, only as one with
mixed strength and weakness in the toes, the iron min-
gled with the miry clay. But of those two marriages, the
one took place in the 2nd generation of the Seleucidæ;
the other, in that of Antiochus the Great, who broke the
strength of the Syrian kingdom against the Romans.
When then was the time of strength, if this was its decay?
The successors of Alexander were not, in any sense,
one kingdom, except as the fragments of his empire; as
the parts are equal to a whole. They had no unity. They
themselves claimed to hold their kingdoms as his success-
ors. Four kingdoms could not be one, except as repre-
senting that one from whom they descended. Daniel too
leaves the two out of sight altogether, and speaks of those
only whose history touched the people of God. But these
were throughout their history in perpetual conflict.
They were one, doubtless, in the Providence of God.
It matters little, how much lay in the mind of Alexander,
whether his Greek cities were to be links of commerce,
or means of blending East and West into one, or bands
of his dominions, or centres of civilisation, any or all of
these. Certainly his enquiry of Aristotle, as to the best
mode of colonising¹, shews how deep the plan lay in his
mind. His instantaneous perception of the value of the
site of Alexandria, and his choice of a situation whose
value the circumnavigation of Africa has not lessened,
and the experience of 2000 years has confirmed, imply no
ordinary scheme. "He founded," Plutarch says, "above
¹ Aristotle's work was entitled "Alexander, or concerning colonies." Diog.
Laert. v. 22. Ammonius says, or what, being asked by Alexander the Mace-
donian, he wrote concerning the kingdom, and how colonies should be made.”
Stahr, Arist. ii. 63. Droysen, Hellenism. ii. 589.
2 Plutarch de fort. Alex. i. 5. Wytt. He relates as facts; "He taught the
Hyrcanians to marry, and the Arachosii to till the ground, the Sogdiani to che-
rish, not to slay their fathers; the Persians to reverence, not to marry their
mothers. The Indians (Bactrians and Caucasians) worship Greek gods; the
Scythians bury, and do not eat, their dead.” "Asia being civilised, Homer was
their study, and the sons of Persians, Susians and Gedrosii sang the tragedies
of Euripides and Sophocles. Myriads received and receive the laws of Alexan-
der. They would not have been civilised, had they not been subdued,―Egypt
would not have had Alexandria, nor Mesopotamia Seleucia, nor the Sogdians
him; to Hellenise Asia, Alexander's central plan. 143
70 cities among the barbarous people, and sowed Asia
with Greek troops." Apart from garrisons, towards 70
cities, founded by him or by his generals at his command*,
have been traced in Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Mesopo-
tamia, Media, Hyrcania, Parthia, Aria, Margiana, Dran-
giana, Arachosia, Paropamisus, Bactria, Sogdiana, India
on the Hydaspes, Acesines, Indus; in modern terms, in the
whole of Turkey in Asia, Egypt, all habitable Persia,
North, East, and South, and beyond it, in Beloochistan,
the Deccan, Cabool, Afghanistan, the Punjaub, and yet
Northward, in Khorassan and Khondooz to Bokhara and
Turkestan. The main characteristic of this colonization
is the evident purpose to establish Greek cities along all the
lines of communication by land or water. Itis marvellous
to follow the march of that wonderful genius, and to ob-
serve him seizing each important spot, alike in Egypt, in
the long civilised countries of the Euphrates and the Ti-
gris, and in lands but lately known to European energy
or curiosity; conquering, not to desolate but to settle with
fixed populations. "Media was girt round by Greek
cities." At the pass of the Caspian Gates, in the rich
valley of the Herat, at the confluence of the Indus and
the Chenab, or in the valley of the Jelum, or the mouth
of the Indus, or on the Persian gulf, Alexander, with in-
tuitive intelligence, seized the points which became bands
of the intercourse of nations. " Merv, Herat, Kandahar,
Prophthasia, nor India Bucephalia, nor would Caucasus have been encircled by
Greek cities, whereby savageness was checked and extinguished."
3 TÉλEσ. The troops unfit for active service, (Arr. iv. 3. fin. 22, 6. Ell.) or
the Greek mercenaries who so wished. Diod. xvii. 83. (Droysen, Hellen. ii. 614,
616, 622.) He purposed so to settle in Persia "the Greek mercenaries who
had served Darius and Satraps." Paus. i. 25. 5.
* Droysen, ii. Anhang. Die Gründungen Alexanders.587-651. 5 Polyb.x.27.
6 Droysen, ü. 649. "The colonies were thickest, when it was the question
of occupying the road, which leads out of India to the narrow pass of the Cabool,
and of protecting it, Southward around the Paropamisos, and Northward over
the height of the Caucasus down to the Oxus. Three lowlands with their dou-
ble streams lay beneath the towering mountains of Iran. On colonising these
especially Alexander employed the utmost diligence. The country of the Eu-
phrates and the Tigris, being so much nearer to Europe, was more accessible
144 Alexander's plan of blending Greece and Asia
attest to this day, how surely Alexander chose the most
important points, while Propthasia [it is thought, Furrah]
protected the connection with the S. W. towards the Ker-
manian Alexandria [Kerman.] They are the knots in the
great net of this natural line of intercourse, which inter-
sect Iran, and, at the same time, in a military aspect,
the most important points."
But it would have been little in comparison, to have
guarded that intercourse by Greek stations. Over and
above, Greek and Barbarian were blended¹, and the Greek
element, from its greater force of character, would have
ultimately prevailed, and outwardly leavened the whole.
This union of Greek and Barbarian in the colonies on
equal terms, cemented by his celebrated intermarriages,
when above ten thousand Macedonians, urged by him,
followed his example in taking Persian wives, prepared
the way for the predominance of Greek mind, far other-
wise than a military occupation could have done. The
same purpose shewed itself in his different blendings.
of choice native and Macedonian troops, both in the pha-
lanx and in the cavalry³, in his proposed education of the
children of Macedonian soldiers from Persian mothers,
and in that large plan, found in his papers, " of the joint
colonisation of cities, and removal of persons from Asia
to Europe and conversely, in order to bring those greatest
continents into mutual harmony and the love of kindred
to colonisation: the king bestowed double pains on the country of the Oxus and
Jaxartes, the Indus and Hesydrius. [the Sutlej.]
1 See ab. p. 143. n. 3.
3 The different measures were; 1) Training 30,000 youths from the newly
founded cities, with Macedonian arms and tactics. Diod. xvii. 108. Arr. vii. 6.
2) The admission of Sogdian, Arachosian, Drangian, Aryan, Parthian, Sacian,
horsemen, in the ranks of the Companions, and that, so as to form of the
whole, a 5th squadron being added on their accession, not of the Asiatics apart,
but Macedonians and Asiatics being blended in each squadron. Arr. ib. 3) In
the remodelled phalanx, the posts of honour and the Macedonian arms were
reserved to Macedonians, but, in number, the Persians were 3 to 1; the three
first soldiers, in the file 16 deep, and the last, being Macedonians, the twelve
intermediate being Persians. Arr. vii. 23.
2 Arr. vii. 4, 5-end. 6. 3. in Phot. cod. 91.
4 Arr. vii. 12, 3, being 10,000. Diod. xvii. 110.
6 Diod. xviii. 4.
followed by his successors.
145
by intermarriages and intimacies." A grand conception
of union, to be realised only by Christianity.
Yet this extension and infusion of Greek intelligence
and energy is just the one token of unity between his
kingdom and those of his successors. Seleucus Nicator
is related to have founded above sixty cities, "along the
length of his whole empire," "whence," Appian says,
"many Greek and Macedonian names of cities still exist
in Syria and among the Barbarians above it." He speci-
fies five in Parthia, one in India, Scythia, and Armenia.
This was in our 2nd century. (140, A.D.) The cities
founded by Alexander's successors have been traced' in
each well-known province of Asia Minor, Bithynia, Pon-
tus, Paphlagonia, Cappadocia, Phrygia, Lycaonia, Lydia,
Pergamus, Troas, Caria, Lycia, Pisidia, Pamphylia, Cili-
cia; in Syria, Mesopotamia, Babylonia, Susiana; on the
Tigris; in Armenia, Persia, Media, Parthia; on the Jax-
artes, the Indus, and even East of the Indus, near the
Ganges; in Arabia also, on the Red Sea, in Egypt and
Cyrene.
Nor did the followers of Alexander imitate him only
in colonising. The blending of races was continued; and
very remarkably in part, through the position given to
the Jews on the ground of their faithfulness to their so-
vereigns. The early Ptolemies and Seleucidæ multiplied,
as they thought, faithful subjects, and prepared a seed-
plot for the Gospel. We are told expressly that the two
founders of the two lines, Ptolemy Lagi in Alexandria,
Seleucus Nicator in the then third city of the known
world, Antioch, and in the other cities of his vast portion
6 Syr. 57.
9
7 Droysen, Hellen. ii. 651-747.
8 Ptolemy Lagi, "understanding that those from Jerusalem were most reli-
able as to their oaths and fealty, (from the answer which they gave to the em-
bassy of Alexander after he had conquered Darius,) having located many of
them in the garrisons and given them equal rights of citizenship with the Ma-
cedonians in Alexandria, took an oath of them that they would keep fealty to
the descendants of him who gave them this charge. And no few of the other
Jews came of their own accord into Egypt, invited both by the goodness of the
soil and the liberality of Ptolemy." Jos. Ant. xii. 1. 9 Jos. B. J. üi. 3, 4.
L
146 Union of the Jews and Greeks in Egypt,
of the Empire of Alexander¹, gave to the Jews equal
rights with Macedonians. In religion only they were
Jews; as members of a polity they had sometimes special
privileges bearing on their law and religion, else they
were Alexandrians, Antiochenes, Ephesians 2. It is stat-
ed, on the authority of extant documents, that this union
of races, too (as well as that between the Persian and
Macedonian,) was begun by Alexander, carried on by
his successors. This moreover took place to such extent
1 66 They [the Jews] obtained the honor from the kings of Asia also, having
served in the army with them. For Seleucus Nicator, in the cities which he
founded in Asia and in lower Syria, and in the Metropolis itself, Antioch, con-
ferred on them citizenship, and made them rank with the Macedonians and
Greeks who were settled therein, so that this citizenship remains even now
also." Ant. xii. 3.
2 "His [Apion's] marvelling, how, being Jews, they were called Alexandri-
ans, betrays the same ignorance. For all who are invited into a given colony,
much as they may differ in race, take their name from its founders. Those of
us, who dwell at Antioch, are called Antiochenes. For Seleucus, the founder,
gave them citizenship. And so too in Ephesus, and the rest of Ionia, they bear
the same name with the natives, the Successors [of Alexander] having given
it to them." Jos. c. Ap. ii. 4.
3 "Alexander gave them [the Jews] a place to dwell in, and they obtained
equal rank with the Macedonians. I know not what Apion would have said,
had they been settled near the Necropolis and not near the Palace, and were
not their race now too called 'Macedonians.' If then he [Apion] has read the
Epistles of Alexander the king, and has met with the rescripts of Ptolemy Lag!
and the kings after him, and has lighted on the column which stands in Alex-
andria and contains the rights, given by the great Cæsar to the Jews; if, I say,
he knows these things, and, knowing them, has dared to write the contrary, he
is unprincipled; if he knew nothing of them, he is ill-instructed."
"Alexan-
der collected some of our people there, not for want of such as should colonise
the city which he founded with great earnestness. But carefully proving all
as to good faith and probity, he gave this distinction to our people. For he
honoured our nation, as Hecatæus too says of us, that, for the probity and good
faith which the Jews evinced towards him, he gave them in addition the terri-
tory of Samaria to hold free from tribute. And Ptolemy Lagi too was like-
minded with Alexander as to those who dwell in Alexandria." Jos. Ib. This
early equalising of the Jews with Alexandrians is recognised in the edict of
Claudius; "Having learnt that the Jews in Alexandria were from the first
called Alexandrians, having been settled there together with the Alexan-
drians straightway at the earliest period, and having received from the kings
equal citizenship, as appeared plain both from their letters and from the or-
dinances," &c. (in Jos. Ant. xix. 5, 2.)
Cyrene and Asia Minor.
147
that of the population of Egypt consisted of Jews.
"5Ptolemy Lagi-when he wished to have strong hold of
Cyrene and of the other cities in Libya sent Jews to set-
tle there." "This people," says Strabo, "hath now
found its way into every city, and it is not easy to find a
spot in the world, which hath not received this race, and
which is not overpowered by them. Many other places
have imitated Egypt and Cyrene- in this too, that they
support especially bodies of Jews, and are enlarged to-
gether, using the hereditary laws of the Jews. In Egypt
at least a settlement has been assigned them apart, and
great part of Alexandria has been set aside for this nation.
And they have an Ethnarch of their own, who administers
the affairs of this nation, hears causes, takes charge of
contracts and ordinances, as if he were the ruler of an in-
dependent polity. In Egypt then the nation gained great
power." Nor was this intermingling only in large places.
Josephus mentions decrees in favour of Jews, not only at
Ephesus, Laodicea, Miletus, Pergamus, Philadelphia, but
in Delos ⁹ also.
In this case Greece was the recipient. Actively, it
concentrated its energy of colonisation chiefly on the
10lands around or within the Tigris and Euphrates;"
"forty new cities can still be counted in Upper Syria be-
tween Mount Taurus, Lebanon, and the Euphrates." And
these were undoubtedly only a portion¹¹. The Ptolemies
"12 colonised southward on the coast of Abyssinia, and that
4 "The Governor, [Flaccus,] knowing that the city and all Egypt have two
sorts of inhabitants, us and these, and that there are not fewer than 1,000,000
Jews dwelling in Alexandria and the country from the steep slope towards
Libya to the confines of Ethiopia," &c. Philo, cont. Flacc. ii. 533. Mang. Dio-
dorus sets the whole population at 3,000,000 only. See on Joel iii. 19. p. 143.
5 Jos. c. Ap. ii. 4.
6 "In the city of the Cyrenians there were four
[classes ;] the citizens; the agriculturists; the resident aliens ; and fourthly the
Jews." Strabo in Jos. Ant. xiv. 7. 2.
8 Ant. xiv. 10.
10 Droys. Hell. ii. 748.
9 Ib. § 8. and 14.
7 1. C.
11 "The traditions still extant in no way inform us of the whole extent of
Greek colonies, founded in the first century especially of Hellenism. How
many cities do we find only named once; of how many is the notice only ac-
cidental!" Id. ib.
12 Ib. 748-51.
L2
148 Lasting influence of Alexander and his successors.
so solidly, that, far into Christian times, the Greek main-
tained itself together with the native element, rivalling
too the advancing Arab."
In both Asia and Egypt, Alexander laid the founda-
tions; in both his successors built on, towards an end in
God's Providence which they knew not. But even man's
"rough-hewing his ends," which God so "shaped," was
no chance work. Letters were the hereditary province
of even degenerate Ptolemies. The Septuagint, the dia-
lect which, uniting the depth of Hebrew with the intel-
lectual precision of the Greek language, was to be the
vehicle of the revelation of the Gospel, the Greek of
Alexandria modified by the Old Testament, were produc-
tions of the peculiar character of the third Empire in
Alexander and his successors. Alexandria and Antioch,
early conquests of Christianity, chief sees and schools
of thought, were their joint production. Nisibis and
Edessa, where Eastern tone of thought prevailed, the
great schools of the Christian East¹, had felt the intel-
lectual influence of the Greek mind. This and much
more, which was in the purpose of God, was first deve-
loped in distant centuries; but it illustrates the oneness.
of the empire of Alexander and his successors, that
these worked out, in an inferior degree, yet remark-
ably, the characteristic conception of the great intel-
lectual conqueror, the largest-minded probably, whom the
earth ever saw.
These colonisations were the great and lasting influ-
ence of the Greek empire. They involved, of necessity,
a mixture of races, in which the energy of Greek charac-
ter and mind must needs predominate over the weaker
Persian. Its influence continued. "It was no new
idea in Alexander, to complete the military occupation
of the subject-countries through colonies; but the cha-
racter of his foundations shews, that military objects were
by no means his sole motives. His immediate and more
¹ See Assem. de Scriptt. Syr. in Bibl. Or. T. i. prol. and 270, 204, 351. n. 2.
2 Droysen, Gesch. d. Hell. ii. 589.
353.
Tenfold division in 4th Empire, not in Alexander's. 149
4
distant successors³ carried on his work more or less in his
spirit; the result, in most countries, was the lasting foun-
dation of Hellenism. Even the barbarian occupations
of the Parthians or Sacæ could not at once extinguish it.
The Arsacidæ, to the latest times, call themselves on their
coins, friends of Greece:' the Parthians despised king
Vonones, because he had estranged himself from Persian
ways, and was encircled by Greeks. Seneca still says,
'What mean Greek cities in the midst of barbarian coun-
tries? what means the language of Macedonians among
Indians and Persians? Even the Barbarians, who pe-
netrated to India, had, as it seems, for above a century,
Greek letters and words on their coins. In truth, the
language in which the Apostles preached was a language
of the world.”
و
There is no tenable way, then, in which the Empires of
Alexander and his successors, either together or apart,
can be made into the fourth Empire. Not together; for,
counted together, they make the 3rd not the 4th Empire;
not Alexander's successors alone, both because they are,
in no sense, by themselves one empire; and the theory
patently contradicts the symbol in both visions, which it
ought to explain. There is no possible explanation more-
over, either way, of the tenfold division of the fourth em-
pire, expressed alike in the toes of the image and the horns
of the fourth beast, nor any solution, how, if the little
horn (the 11th) were Antiochus Epiphanes, he overthrew
three of those ten. The theory fails doubly in that which
is to be its mainstay. The little horn of the 7th chapter
is to be Antiochus Epiphanes ; in truth, lest there should
be prophecy; ostensibly, because it is so in the 8th. But
granted to these interpreters, for the time, all which they
ask; that the ten horns are individual kings, not kingdoms;
supposing too, for the time, (what contradicts the text,)
that 7 out of the ten kings need not be contemporaneous
with the 11th who is to overthrow three of them; sti!!
3 Diadochoi and Epigonoi. See Diod. i. 3. Strabo xv. end. 4 Philhellenes.
5 Tac. Ann. ii. 2.
6 Consol. ad Helvid. 6. T. iii. 363. ed. Frisk.
150
Attempts to make out ten kings
the interpreters cannot make out either the ten kings or
the three, specified in the vision. Porphyry's expedient
of making up ten kings out of those in any kingdom "who
were most cruel¹" [i. e. to Israel] failed both in princi-
ple and in fact. In principle, because there is no indica-
tion of this limitation in Daniel; in fact, because no such
ten kings could be found. It is doubtful whether Por-
phyry specified any. Later writers have enumerated the
ten any how ²; some kings, with whom Israel was in no
way concerned; some who were its benefactors; three,
1 "From Alexander to Antiochus he [Porphyry] enumerates ten kings who
were most cruel; and these kings he sets down, not of one kingdom, e. g. of
Macedonia, Syria, Asia, Egypt, but he makes a succession of kings out of dif-
ferent kingdoms, in order that what is written of a mouth speaking great
things may be understood, not of Antichrist but of Antiochus." S. Jerome on
Dan. vii. 7.
2 Junius, Piscator, Polanus, Grotius and Collins (following Grotius) did not
trouble themselves to make out more than 10, counting Antiochus Epiphanes
twice, as the last of the ten horns, and as the "other little horn," which " came
up among them: " (contrary to language and sense.) Junius, Piscator, Po-
lanus, count them, Seleucus Nicator, Antiochus Soter, Ant. Theos, Sel. Cal-
linicus, Ptolemy Euergetes, Sel. Ceraunus, Ant. Magnus, Ptol. Philopator,
Seleucus Philopator, Ant. Epiphanes. Grotius, out of 14 or 15 kings alluded
to in ch. xi, selected 9, adding an apocryphal king, Ptolemy Eupator. The real
kings were, Ptolemy Lagi, Sel. Nicator, Ptol. Euergetes, Sel. Callinicus, Anti-
ochus M., Ptol. Philopator, Ptol. Epiphanes, Sel. Philopator, Ant. Epiphanes.
Collins adopted this. (Scheme of Lit. Proph. p. 162.) Rosenmüller (or whomever
he followed) adopted a third enumeration, adding Antigonus and Demetrius
Poliorcetes before the division of the four kingdoms, taking 6 Ptolemies, Lagi,
Philadelphus, Euergetes I., Philopator, Epiphanes, Philometor, and the two last
of the Syrian line before Epiphanes, viz. his father and brother. Since there
were eight Seleucidæ, (including Ant. Epiph.) and seven Ptolemies down to
this date, 1365 different combinations of 11 might be made out of these 15,
each as good as the other, i. e. all equally bad, since there is no ground for
selecting one rather than another. There would be a fixed principle in select-
ing either house, the Ptolemies or the Seleucidæ ; but either house furnishes
less than ten, both together more than ten. If any begin earlier with Rosen-
müller, the possible changes would be still more absurdly manifold. Yet Hit-
zig begins with Alexander, and is followed by Hilgenfeld, 1. c.
31) Seleucus Nicator, the author of privileges to the Jews which lasted till
the times of Josephus. (Jos. Ant. xii. 3.) 2) Ptolemy Lagi, who took Jerusa-
lem indeed by fraud, yet bestowed afterwards such privileges on the Jews,
ranking them with Macedonians, that many Jews migrated into Egypt. (Ib.
c. 1.) 3) Ptolemy Philadelphus. (Ib. c. 2.) 4) Ptolemy Euergetes. (Jos. c. Ap.
ii. 5.) 5) Ptolemy Philometor and Cleopatra. 6) Antiochus the Great. (Ant.
of Alexander's successors, and failure.
151
who began with harshness and repented. But if the ten
horns were to represent kings at all, there must plainly
be some unity, some common ground, for which they were
to be selected out of the many successors of Alexander
who were called kings; some one relation to the fourth
empire as a whole. Of late, then, they have been sought
in the Syrian kingdom, to which Antiochus Epiphanes be-
longed. These however were not 10, but 75. Nor were
there any three of them, nor indeed any three at all, whom
Antiochus Epiphanes overthrew. And yet there have
been no lack of guesses, who might be meant by those
three, who, on the unbelieving hypothesis, were contem-
porary with the writer, and whose signal fall he is to have
witnessed. Three kings of Syria have been chosen, three
of Egypt, the assassin of Seleucus Philopator, and a king
of Armenia 6. Of these, the Ptolemies would be excluded
by the fact, that the three kings are of the number of the
ten, and that it is senseless to bring the Ptolemies into
xii. 3.) And, generally, Josephus appeals to, as exstant and accessible in his time,
"rescripts of the kings of Egypt after Ptolemy Lagi." (c. Ap. i. 4.) 7) Even
Seleucus Philopator, for a time at least, bore the expenses of the sacrifices at
Jerusalem. (2 Macc. iii. 3.)
4 Ptolemy Lagi, (Ant. xii. 1.) Antiochus M., and even Ptolemy Philopator,
(3 Macc.) or Physcon, according to the Latin of Jos. c. Ap. ii. 5.
51) Seleucus Nicator, 2) Antiochus Soter, 3) Ant. Theos, 4) Seleucus Cal-
linicus, 5) Sel. Ceraunus, 6) Antiochus the Great, (whom Appian calls "6th
from Seleucus, who, after Alexander, reigned over Asia about the Euphrates,"
Syr. init.) 7) Seleucus Philopator.
6 Artaxias was chosen by Porphyry, Harenberg, Rosenmüller, Herzfeld.
(Gesch. d. V. Isr. i. 424.)
Antiochus the Great, by Junius, Polanus, Piscator.
Seleucus Philopator, by Junius, Polanus, Piscator, Broughton, (Works
p. 190.) Calmet, l'Empereur, Grotius, (Collins) Hitzig.
Heliodorus, by Calmet, Harenb., Bertholdt, Maurer, Hitzig, Leng. Hilgen-
feld ; (Apok. p. 26.) “ will do at a pinch,”(“passt auch noch zur noth.”) Herzf.
Demetrius, by Brought. l'Emp. Calm. Grot. Berth. Maur. Hitz. Leng.
Hilg.; "will not do in any case.” Herzf.
Ptolemy Philopator, by Junius, Polanus, Piscator, l'Emp. Grot.
Ptolemy Philometor, by Porph. Brought. Harenb. Berth. Ros. Maur.
Leng. Hilg.; “will do, but is one of the 'former horns,' only if Ptolemies be-
longed to them." Herzf.
Ptolemy Physcon, by Porphyry, Rosenmüller.
152
Failure to make out 3 kings
the line of Syrian kings¹. One wonders too, what place
1) Artaxias, the first of his line, could have here, who in
no way belonged to the successors of Alexander. Once a
general, then a Satrap under Antiochus, then, by aid of
the Romans, an independent king, he was defeated and
perhaps taken by Antiochus, and had to fulfil certain
3
1 In order to connect Ptolemy Philometor with Syria, Bertholdt, Lengerke,
Davidson (Horne, Introd. ii. 909.) have a fable, that "his mother and guardian
Cleopatra wished to place him on the throne of Syria." Of this there is not
a vestige in history. On the contrary, Cleopatra maintained friendly rela-
tions with her brother Ant. Epiphanes until her death. Even then his guar-
dians, Eulæus an eunuch, and Lenæus a Cole-Syrian slave, declared war, not
for Syria, but for the old cause of strife, Cœle-Syria. (Diodorus in Mai Scriptt.
Vett. ii. 75. S. Jerome on Dan. xi. 22. Polyb. xxviii. 19.) A Syrian, perhaps
a Cœle-Syrian, party held aloof from Epiphanes at first, but even they took no
active measures. They were Syrians, whom Antiochus won by pretending to
pardon. S. Jerome says, “Antiochus Epiphanes, to whom the dignity of king
was not at first given by those who in Syria favoured Ptolemy; but afterwards,
by simulating clemency, he obtained the kingdom of Syria." Bertholdt argues
that "since Philometor obtained the kingdom of Syria at the end, (1 Mace.
xi. 13. Polyb. xl. 12.) there is no doubt that his mother destined him for it at
the beginning." In 1 Macc. it is only said, "at Antioch, he set two crowns
upon his head, the crown of Asia and of Egypt." Josephus supplies the fact,
that he did this unwillingly, and proceeded, both out of natural moderation
and for fear of the Romans, to decline the kingdom of Syria, and persuaded
them to accept Demetrius Nicator, the great nephew of Epiphanes. (Ant. 13.
4. 7.) This account of his unambitious mild temperament coincides with all
his conduct to his brother, and the judgment of Polybius. (Hist. fin.) Diodorus
moreover, says that he "did not desire the kingdom, but wished to acquire
Cœle-Syria, and agreed with Demetrius upon common action, that Ptolemy
should have Cole-Syria as his own, and Demetrius his paternal kingdom.”
in Müller, Fragm. Hist. ii. P. xvi.
2 Strabo's account is, "The Persians and Macedonians gained possession of
Armenia; then those who held Syria and Media; lastly Orontes, descended
from Hydarnes, one of the 7 Persians, was its viceroy; then it was divided in
two by the generals of Antiochus the Great, who warred with the Romans,
Artaxias and Zariadris; and these ruled it, the king entrusting them: when
he was defeated, they, joining themselves to the Romans, were made inde-
pendent, and were entitled kings." (xi. 14. 15. p. 532. Cas.)
3 App. Syr. 45,6. 66. Diodorus says nothing of his capture. C. Müller doubts
Appian's accuracy in this. S. Jerome says, We know that Antiochus, fought
against Artaxias, but that he [Artaxias] continued in his ancient kingdom.”
Appian's statement, as a proof of the prowess of Antiochus, that he took Ar-
taxias, even if true, implies that Artaxias was not slain, and, if so, his restora-
tion, on the sudden death of Antiochus and the confusion consequent on it,
would have followed as a matter of course.
who should be uprooted.
153
conditions imposed upon him. This, of course, implies
that he was set at liberty, else he could not have exe-
cuted them; he was not uprooted, for he transmitted his
throne to his own descendants 5. Not less marvellous are
the rest, whether Ptolemies or Seleucidæ. 2) Antiochus
the Great, father of Epiphanes, perished in the attempt
to plunder a Persian temple, while Epiphanes was a hos-
tage at Rome. 3) Seleucus Philopator was poisoned by
Heliodorus his treasurer, who wished to seize the crown
for himself, while Antiochus was returning from Rome,
yet not further than Athens. 4) Heliodorus, while "forc-
ing his way to the throne," (not as yet reigning) was
"cast out," not by Epiphanes, but by Attalus and Eumenes,
who set Epiphanes on the throne, "courting his favor
against the Romans. 5) Demetrius was sent as a hostage
to Rome by Seleucus Philopator, his father, to replace Epi-
phanes; he was not dethroned by Epiphanes, but lived
to succeed him, murdering his son Antiochus Eupator⁹.
6) Ptolemy Philopator defeated the father of Epiphanes,
and died while Epiphanes was yet a boy 10. 7) Ptolemy
Philometor. His guardians were defeated by his uncle.
"
* [Antiochus] "having conquered him, compelled him to do what was enjoin-
ed." Diod. Fragm. in Müller, Fragm. Hist. Gr. ii. p. x. The fragment comes
in order, after the mention of the joint reign of the two Ptolemies, Philometor
and Physcon, B.C. 170-165, and so at the end, not (as Herzfeld) at the be-
ginning of his reign.
5 Tigranes, (the son-in-law of Mithridates,) was his descendant. (Strabo
Ib.) His line continued until about A. D. 20-30.
6 App. Syr. 45. Bertholdt and Lengerke say that Porphyry ascribed the
murder of his brother to Epiphanes; Porphyry says nothing of Antiochus Ep.
but that "Ptolemy Epiphanes was plotting [war, not assassination] against
Seleucus, (quod Seleuco sit molitus insidias) and therefore was himself poisoned
by his captains ;" on occasion of a speech, implying that they were his " walk-
ing treasure," to defray the expenses of the war. Diod. in Mai. Scriptt. Vett.
ii. 71. S. Jerome.
7 ἐς τὴν ἀρχὴν βιαζόμενον. App. Ib.
8 "Seleucus freed his brother Antiochus from being hostage to the Romans,
giving in exchange his own son Demetrius." App. Ib. The change of host-
ages, after a time, was part of the treaty with Rome.
9 App. Syr. 47.
10 Ptolemy died B.C. 205. But the eldest son of Antiochus was born B.C.
221. (See Clinton, Fasti H. ii. 316. n. s.) Epiphanes, who was his 5th son,
could not have been born before B.C. 217. or have been above 12 at the death
of Ptolemy.
154 Completeness of failure to make out the 3 kings.
Epiphanes; but it was the policy of Epiphanes to reign,
if he could, over Egypt through his nephew, Philometor.
He kept him therefore prisoner for a short time, “under
the guise of friendship 1," "pretending to provide for the
boy's interests 2." The Alexandrians, however, at once
made his brother king, and expelled Antiochus.
663 Epi-
phanes profited nothing, for he could not hold the king-
dom, being rejected by the soldiers of Ptolemy, who re-
stored Philometor to liberty." A boy-king, who falls into
an uncle's hands, is treated by him with show of friendship,
and is restored at once, within the year, by his own peo-
ple, is neither subdued nor uprooted. All know how Po-
pilius protected Egypt against Epiphanes. Philometor
survived Antiochus 18 years; his brother and successor,
8) Euergetes II. or Physcon, survived him 47 years. In-
stead of being uprooted by him, even Philometor lived to
see the line of Epiphanes extinct and his brother's grand-
son dependent upon him for restoration to the throne of
Syria, and to restore him.
The words of the vision are, before whom three of the
first horns were plucked up by the roots. In the explana-
tion it is said, he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall
subdue three kings. Antiochus, degraded as he was by
his sensuality, had no ordinary talents. He was a tho-
rough dissembler, able to hide his purpose and skilful to
1 Parcens puero et amicitiam simulans. S. Jer. on Dan. xi. 21.
2 Pueri rebus se providere simulans. Ib." He, [Antiochus] cutting short the
[Rhodian] embassador while yet speaking, said, 'there was no need of many
words; for the kingdom did belong to the elder Ptolemy; that he had more-
over long been reconciled with him; that they were friends; and now, if those
in the city [Alexandria] wished to bring him back, he, Antiochus, was no ob-
stacle.' And so he did." Polyb. xxviii. end. 3 S. Jer. xi. 27. from Porph.
"When Antiochus had warred against Egypt and taken his crown, the Alex-
andrians committed affairs to the younger, and, having chased Antiochus, they
rescued Philometor, and it was called the 12th year of Philometor, the first of
Euergetes." Porph. in Eus. Ann. i. 239. see further Polyb. xxvii. 17. xxviii.
1. 16. 17. esp. 19. xxix. 8-11. Jos. Ant. xii. 5. 2. Diod. 1. c. Prideaux, Conn.
B. 3. A. 173. 171. 169, 8. and Clinton, Fasti Hell. iii. 318-21. 386-8.
He was both energetic (πрактikós) and worthy of the name of king, save
the stratagems as to Pelusium." (Polyb. xxvii. end.) “Antiochus, who held
New theory and its failure.
155
execute it; he was engaged, throughout his reign, in war
and was successful; and yet, as a note against these mis-
interpretations, he uprooted no one king.
Schemes, so various and so contradictory, could not
leave an easy conscience. So Rationalism, like a restless
sleeper, turned round on the other side, and took, so far,
the true interpretation, that the ten horns were, not kings
but kingdoms, and that three of those ten were over-
thrown. "I agree," Bleek said", "with Auberlen, that the
ten horns of the fourth Empire cannot be meant of ten
successive Syrian kings, (as Bertholdt, v. Lengerke, Mau-
rer, Hitzig, Delitzsch, think,) nor of kings, some Syrian
some Egyptian, (as Rosenmüller, &c. and Porphyry of old)
but rather of the single portions into which the kingdom
was divided. The mention of the little horn, as arising
amidst the ten horns, constrains us to conceive of ten
kings, or rather kingdoms, existing contemporaneously,
arising out of the fourth kingdom. I will not deny that
this occasions a degree of difficulty as to the reference to
the successors of Alexander, in that Ch. 8. speaks of four
monarchies as arising out of that of Alexander after his
death. However, the portions of his kingdom, which were
formed into independent kingdoms, may have been count-
ed in different ways, and so, as ten, according to the ge-
nerals, who, in the partition 323, B.C., obtained the chief
that acquisition by war was the strongest and noblest title." (Id. xxxvii. 1.)
“He governed Syria and the neighbouring nations with vigour, having Ti-
marchus as Satrap in Babylon-he warred against Artaxias, king of Armenia,
and, having taken him, died, leaving a nine-years-old boy, Antiochus, to whom
the Syrians gave the name Eupator, on account of his father's valour. The
senate was pleased, that Antiochus shewed himself brave in a little space, and
speedily died." (App, Syr. 45. 6.) Of his dissimulation Polybius gives a vivid
picture, after the decisive act of Popilius. "The games just over, Tiberius
[Gracchus] came as embassador, in truth to see how things lay. Him Antio-
chus received so dextrously and friendlily, that Tiberius could not suspect any
designs, or any appearance of soreness on account of what had happened at
Alexandria, but even condemned those who said aught of the kind: and this,
on the ground of the exceeding courtesy of his reception. For besides other
acts, he gave up his palace, nay almost his crown, to the embassadors, whereas
inwardly he was most hostilely disposed to the Romans." xxxi. 5.
5 Jahrb. f. Deutsch. Theol. v. pp. 60, 1.
156
Assumed division of Alexander's
provinces." So then he selected ten out of the Satrapies
allotted to Alexander's officers.
This abandonment of ground, taken up by former im-
pugners of the prophecy, is a confession of its untena-
bleness. But the new position is as patently untenable
as the old. For 1) the division B. C. 323, modified B. C.
321, was not of kingdoms at all, but of satrapies in and
under a nominal kingdom. The memory of Alexander
was still respected. His weak brother Aridæus was made
king, " on condition that the Alexander, whom Roxana
was about to bear of Alexander, should, when born, reign
with him, which also took place as soon as the boy saw
the light." Perdiccas was made guardian; the Satraps
were appointed by him, under the crown, just as there had
been Satraps under Alexander himself. The object of
the appointments was, not to increase but to lessen the
power of those appointed, removing them to a safe dis-
tance³, and separating them. Some of the more distant
satrapies were continued to the self-same persons. "No
one at this moment talked of dividing the empire. Per-
diccas, profiting by the weakness of Aridæus, had deter
mined to leave to him nothing more than the imperial
name, and to engross for himself the real authority. Still,
however, in his disputes with the other chiefs, he repre-
sented the imperial family and the integrity of the empire,
contending against severalty and local independence."
So again at the re-arrangement, B.C. 321, at Triparadisus
in Syria. It was still done in the names of the kings.
"5Antipator made a second distribution of the Satrapies
of the empire, somewhat modified, but coinciding in the
main with that which had been drawn up shortly after the
death of Alexander." Perdiccas, Antipater, Polysper-
chon, were successively guardians of the weak or infant
representatives of Alexander. They held nominally the
¹ Arrian, in Phot. cod. 92. p. 69.
2 See Grote, Greece, xii. 321-3.
he suspected." Arr. 1. c.
4
Bek. Dexippus, in Phot. cod. 82. p. 64.
3 "He proclaimed as Satraps those whom
Grote, xii. 431.
5 lb. pp. 451, 5.
kingdom into ten, patently untrue.
157
one empire, until the murder of Alexander Ægus, B.C.310.
The remaining years until the battle of Issus, B. C. 301,
were spent in a struggle, whether any general of Alexan-
der should succeed to his universal empire. The strug-
gle was not between satrapies but between talented ge-
nerals.
2) Even of these satrapies there was no division into ten.
Justin, representing præ-Christian authority 6, mentions
twenty eight7; all, who speak of that division, agree in the
great outlines.
6 Trogus Pompeius was about 20, B.C. (see Smith, Biogr. Dict. v. Justinus.)
Diodorus probably soon after B. C. 8. (see Ib. v. Diodorus.)
7 The distribution of the Satrapies, according to Justin, (xiii. 4.) Diodorus,
(xviii. 3, 4.) Arrian, (in Phot. Cod. 92. p. 69. Bek.) Q. Curtius, (x. 30. end of
his work,) Dexippus, (in Phot. cod. 82. p. 64, who, Photius says, here as else-
where mostly agrees with Arrian,) was, as follows,
1 Macedonia and Greece, Antipater. (Justin.) The parts beyond Thrace, to
the Illyrians, Triballi and Agriani, Macedonia, Epirus, and all the Greeks.
Craterus and Antipater. (Arrian.)
2 Egypt, part of Africa and of Arabia; (J. Diod.) Egypt and Libya and
parts of Arabia,bordering on Egypt; (Arr.) Egypt and the nations of Africa
in its domain; (Curt.) Egypt and Libya and the parts beyond, bordering on
Egypt; (Dex.) Ptolemy Lagi. all.
3 Syria, Laomedon. J. Di. A. De. with Phoenicia, C.
4 Cilicia, Philotas. all.
4 lyrii, Philo. J.
5 Media greater, Atropatus. J. Di.
6 Media lesser, father in law of Perdiccas. J.
7 Susiana, Scynus. J.
Media, Python. Di. A. C. De.
8 Phrygia greater, Antigonus. J.; with 9, Di. A. C. De.
9 Syria and Pamphylia, Nearchus. J.
10 Caria, Cassander, J. A. C. Asandros. Di. De.
11 Lydia, Menander, J. A. C. De. Meleager. Di.
12 Phrygia lesser (on the Hellespont, Di. A. C. De.) Leonatus. all.
13 Thrace and countries on Euxine, Lysimachus. J. Di. A.
14 Cappadocia, Paphlagonia, (J.) and all the adjoining countries (Di.)
and all bordering on the Euxine to Trapezus, (A. De.) and to subdue all to
Trapezus, (C) Eumenes. all.
15, 16, 17. Bactria the farther, and countries of India, their former prefects
retained. J.
15 Paropamisii and borders of Mount Caucasus, [Indian,] Oxyartes (king of
Bactria Di.) J. Di. De.
16 Lands between Hydaspes and Indus, Taxiles. J. Porus. De.
17 The rest of India, his own kingdom, Taxiles. De. Porus. Di.
18 Colonies founded among Indi, Pithon. J. De.
158
Assumed division of Alexander's empire
3) In the arbitrary selection of ten, not the " chief pro-
vinces" but chief individuals of Alexander's generals have
been chosen. Of the countries which Alexander ruled,
and which were held by Satraps in that first distribution,
this selection of ten includes Macedonia, Greece, Thrace,
Lesser Phrygia on the Hellespont, Greater Phrygia (and
as some say, Pamphylia and Syria) Caria, Lydia, Cappa-
docia, Paphlagonia, Syria, Palestine, Media, Egypt. It
omits, any how, the Eastern portion of the Empire, Meso-
potamia, Babylonia, Persia, Susiana, Parthia, Sogdiana,
Carmania, Hyrcania, Aria, Drangiana, Arachosia, Ged-
rosia, Bactria, Paropamisus, and the countries under
the Caucasus, India; and even Cilicia, perhaps Illyria;
held, as these were, under fifteen or sixteen Satraps. Yet
of these, Babylonia was the centre, whence the kingdom
of the Seleucidæ took its rise.
In utter hopelessness then, one of the last of these cri-
tics declares "ten" to be a "round number" "for the
many larger and lesser kingdoms which were formed out
of what Alexander left behind him." Only, no such king-
doms were formed; and ten kingdoms would be a strange
"round number" for twenty eight satrapies. On this
theory Daniel, when he speaks of "four kingdoms" into
which Alexander's empire was to be divided, is to mean
what he says, the "four kingdoms" of his successors; but
19 Arachosii and Gedrosi, Sibyrtius. J. Di. De.
20 Drance and Arians, Stasanor. J. Di. De.
21 Bactrians, Amyntas. J.
22 Sogdiani, Philip. J. De. with 23 Di. Dexippus, (in Photius' text,) assigns
them a 2nd time, to Scopas.
23 Parthians, Stagnor. J.
24 Hyrcanians, Phrataphernes, J. together with 26, Di. Radaphernes. De.
25 Carmanians, Tleptolemus, J. Tlepolemus, Di. Neoptolemus. De.
26 Persians, Peucestes. J. Di. De.
27 Babylonia, Archon, J. Di. Seleucus. De.
28 Mesopotamia, Arcesilaus, J. Di. Archelaus. De.
"Many also remained undistributed [i. e. to Greek Generals] under their
native rulers, as they were appointed by Alexander." A. "Those who were
over India, the Bactri, and Sogdiani, and the other inhabitants either of the
Ocean or Red Sea, were to retain the right of rule in the bounds which eacli
had." C.
¹ Herzfeld, Gesch. Isr. i. 425.
into ten kingdoms contradicts Daniel and history. 159
when he speaks of the "ten kingdoms" of the 4th empire,
he is to mean, not "ten kingdoms " but 28 Satrapies; and
when he says, that three of the ten kingdoms are to be up-
rooted, he is to mean, not kingdoms or satrapies, but three
kings. As to these three kings, who are to have been
uprooted by Antiochus, the later rationalist criticism has
concentrated itself upon four, out of which to select them,
although not more than three persons are found to agree
as to the same three. They are, Seleucus Philopator,
poisoned while Antiochus was returning from Rome;
Heliodorus, who never reigned; Demetrius, who was ne-
ver dispossessed, but who did reign afterwards; and Pto-
lemy Philometor, who never ceased to reign and who
survived Antiochus and his house. And this is to be
consistent harmonious literal interpretation of Holy
Scripture! Such interpreters can hardly believe them-
selves.
The negative evidence then, that no scheme can be
made out, whereby the four Empires, pourtrayed to Da-
niel, can be brought within the limits of the times before
Antiochus Epiphanes, coincides with the previous direct
evidence that the fourth empire is the Roman. For the
2 Herzfeld, i. 424. Bleek, (p. 68. note) yet more marvellously, makes the "lit-
the horn" to be at once Seleucus Nicator, the most powerful of Alexander's ge-
nerals and the founder of the kingdom of the Seleucidæ ; "and also Antiochus
Epiphanes who, according to the horizon of the vision and of the book gene-
rally, appears as the last ruler of the Seleucida." And yet, since Bleek's Da-
niel was to have survived Epiph., he would have lived under his son Eupator at
least. The "horizon of prophecy" might, of course, be at any distance, with-
out implying that such was the end of the Empire, any more than the visible ho-
rizon is of the world. It is the utmost point of vision, given supernaturally to
the prophet. But it is absurd to represent a contemporary as speaking of one
as the last of his line, of whom he knew, that he was not the last of his line.
Bleek also maintained, that the little horn of ch. 8. and ch. 7. was to be the
same, and yet he was to be two individuals, separated by 105 years, one of whom
was to overthrow three kingdoms (which he did not,) and the rest of the cha-
racter was to be filled up by the other. And the three horns, which the "little
horn" uprooted at the last, are to be Antigonus, (whom Nicator defeated, not
alone, but in alliance with Ptolemy Lagi and Lysimachus,) and then Ptolemy
and Lysimachus, the Diadochi, with whom he united in parting Alexander's
empire. Ptolemy restored Seleucus to his satrapy, but was never even at war
with him, and survived him.
160 Roman Empire could not be foreseen even so
Roman was the next world-empire which succeeded the
Greek in Alexander and his successors.
Men will hardly turn round and say, that, in the times
of Antiochus Epiphanes, it could have been foreseen that
the Roman commonwealth, with its annually changing
Consuls, would become a kingdom, and that, a kingdom
of the world. Men's consciences will surely hardly allow
them. All these various strivings by Porphyry and his
recent followers, to make the four empires end with Alex-
ander's successors, bear witness to their conviction, that
it was beyond human sagacity, within any time which
could be assigned to the book of Daniel, to predict the
Roman Empire. Else they would not have invented so
many farfetched and contradictory ways of excluding it.
But look at its state, 164, B.C. the year when Antio-
chus Epiphanes died. A generation only (37 years) had
passed since the close of the 2nd Punic war, when the
war had been carried to its own gates; Carthage, its ri-
val, still stood over against it. It was felt by Romans to
be a formidable foe. Witness the "delenda est Carthago,"
and the unscrupulous policy adopted in encouraging the
aggressions of Masinissa. Enriched by the commerce
of the West, Carthage was recovering its resources,
and fell through its intestine divisions. Egypt and Antio-
chus had lately mustered powerful armies: Perseus, king
of Macedonia, had been but recently defeated, and might
have repelled the Romans, but for his timidity and avarice.
They had defeated Antiochus the Great, and, by their
enormous fine for the expenses of the war, had crippled
him. But, true to their policy of dividing and conquer-
ing, supporting the weak whom they feared not against
the strong whom they feared, they had diminished the
empires, which were their rivals, by giving a portion of
their possessions to the weaker, to be taken at their own
will hereafter. Who should foresee that all these nations
should remain blinded by their avarice; that common
fear should never bind them in one; that they should never
see, until their own turn came, that Rome used her in-
late as the date of people's Pseudo-Daniel, 174, B. C. 161
struments successively, and flung each aside, and found
some excuse of quarrel against each, as soon as she had
gained her end? The absence of any such fear on any
side shews how little human wisdom could then foresee
the world-empire, which as yet existed only in the embryo;
and which the nations, whom Rome in the end subdued,
were, in God's Providence, the unwilling, unconscious,
blinded, instruments of forming. To us it seems incon-
ceivable that no experience should have opened men's
eyes, until it was too late. Each helped in turn to roll
round the wheel, which crushed himself.
Rome had at that time (B. C. 164.) no territory East
or, except Sicily, South of Italy. Masinissa held the
throne of Numidia; Rome had not a foot of ground in
Africa. In Spain, she only held so much as had before
been in the power of Carthage, the Western and Southern
Provinces, now Catalonia, Valencia, Murcia, Andalusia,
Grenada: two centuries almost elapsed before it was
finally reduced. Gaul and Germany were almost un-
known countries. Even Cis-Alpine Gaul had not been
formally made a Roman Province; Venetia was friendly;
Carniola unsubdued; Istria recently subdued; (B. C. 177.)
Illyricum had been divided into three, yet left nominally
free. The Battle of Pydna had destroyed the kingdom
of Macedon four years before, (B. C. 168.) but it seemed
as if Rome knew not how to appropriate territory. It
took nothing which it could not at once consolidate. Ma-
cedonia was only divided into four independent Republics.
The territory which Rome required Antiochus to cede, it
gave to Eumenes: Lycia and Caria, which it took from
the Rhodians, it made independent.
Such was the impenetrable mask which it wore; every
where professing to uphold the weak and maintain jus-
tice; every where unjust, as soon as the time came; set-
ting free in order to enslave; aiding, in order to oppress.
But we have two Jewish documents, the one probably
a little after the death of Antiochus Epiphanes, the other
not later than the death of John Hyrcanus, (B. C. 105,)
Μ
162
Roman Empire unanticipated ;
which shew two very different aspects of the Jewish mind
toward the Romans, the one in Alexandria, the other in
Palestine. Yet in neither is there the slightest apprehen-
sion of Roman greatness.
The 3rd Sibylline book is now generally held to be the
work of a Jew in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes¹. It
threatens unhesitatingly, that all the evils which had been
done by the Romans to Asia should be requited with
usury upon them.
"2 What wealth soe'er Rome hath received from tribu-
tary Asia, Asia shall again receive thrice-told from Rome,
and shall requite to her her baleful insolence. And how
many soe'er from Asia have waited in the houses of Ita-
lians, twenty-fold as many Italians shall be serfs in Asia,
and shall incur payment ten thousand fold.
"O delicate, o'er-wealthy, virgin daughter of Latin
Rome, often intoxicated by thy much-wooed bridals, a
servant thou, thou shall not be espoused in the world. Oft
shall thy mistress shear thy delicate locks, and, executing
vengeance, shall cast things from heaven to earth, and
from earth again shall lift them up to heaven, because
mortals were entangled in a wicked and unjust life.
And Rome shall be rume, (a street.)"
The first book of the Maccabees, on the other hand, re-
lates the simple unsuspecting trust, which Judas Macca-
bæus had in the Romans in the reign of Demetrius, son
of Antiochus Epiphanes, as if they were wholly unambi-
tious, conquering only, when assailed. "Now Judas had
heard of the fame of the Romans, that they were mighty
and valiant men and such as would lovingly accept all
that joined themselves unto them, and made a league of
amity with all that came to them; and that they were
men of great valour.-Besides, how they destroyed and
brought under their dominion all other kingdoms and
isles that at any time resisted them; but with their friends
and such as relied upon them they kept amity, and that
¹ See Lect. vi. 2 Orac. Sibyll. iii. § 3. vv.350-64. T. 1. pp. 123,4. ed. Alex.
3 1 Macc. viii. 1, 2, 11, 12, 14-16.
Jewish Sibylline book and first book of Maccabees. 163
they had conquered kingdoms both far and nigh, insomuch
as all who heard of their name were afraid of them ;-yet
for all this none of them wore a crown or was clothed
with purple to be magnified thereby; moreover, how they
had made for themselves a senate-house, wherein 320 men
sat in council daily consulting alway for the people, to the
end they might be well-ordered, and that they committed
their government to one man every year, who ruled over
all their country, and that all were obedient to that one,
and that there was neither envy nor emulation among
them."
4
The immediate result of Judas' application to the Ro-
mans was a mere defensive alliance between the Romans
and their confederates on the one side, and the Jews on
the other, couched in terms of studied equality *; and a
message to the Jews, that the Romans had written to
Demetrius; "Why hast thou made thy yoke heavy upon
our friends and confederates the Jews? If therefore they
complain any more against thee, we will do them justice,
and fight with thee by sea and by land."
The writer of the book of Maccabees had as yet had no
reason to think this simple kind-hearted judgment of Ju-
das wrong. Rome, although powerful, had, as yet, given
no grounds to apprehend its ambition. The facts coin-
cide with the instinct of Porphyry and his followers, that
no one could have anticipated, in the days of Antiochus,
that Rome would become the empress of the world. He
then who foretold it must have had, on this ground also,
a Divine foreknowledge.
4 Ib. 22-30.
5 Ib. 31, 2.
M 2
LECTURE IV.
The prophecy of the 70 weeks and of the Death of the
Messiah, and the attempts to make the 70 weeks end
with Antiochus Epiphanes.
In the first year of Darius, the term of the Captivity was,
according to the prophecy of Jeremiah, all but come. Ba-
bylon was conquered; the captors of God's people were
captives; but their own bonds were not broken. For the
term, although all but come, was not ended. It was one
of those seasons of breathless expectation, by which God
teaches to man intense dependence upon Himself. De-
liverance was at the door; the deliverer was come, but
there was no token of deliverance. God had revealed the
future through, or to, Daniel. But what was within the
reach of man's powers, He left to the exercise of those
powers. So Daniel sought to learn the term of the Cap-
tivity, where God had revealed it, in the prophecy of Jere-
miah. I understood, he says¹, by the Scriptures the num-
ber of the years, which the word of the Lord was to Jeremiah
the Prophet to fulfil as to the desolations of Jerusalem, se-
venty years. And he set himself to do that which Jeremiah
foretold that they should then do. After seventy years
shall be accomplished ut Babylon, I will visit you, and per-
form My good word toward you, in causing you to return
to this place. Then shall ye call upon Me and shall go and
pray unto Me, and I will hearken unto you. On that deep
2
¹ ix. 2. in reference, in the words too, to Jer. xxv. 11, 12.
2 Jer. xxix. 10, 12.
General character of the prophecy.
165
fervid prayer, in which Daniel, adoring God's judgment
and mercy, confessing his own sins and the sins of his peo-
ple, besieged God, as it were, to have mercy upon His holy
city, His people, His sanctuary which was desolate, God
anew uplifted the veil which lay upon futurity.
The prophecy of the 70 weeks defined much more close-
ly the period of the Coming of the Messiah, of which the
two visions of the four empires had already given an out-
line. Daniel had himself survived the first Empire, and
seen the dawn of the second. In the fourth, He, like a
Son of man, was promised. But would those 2nd and
3rd Empires be as brief as the first? Would two succes-
sive lives, long as his own, see the rising of that fourth
empire, in which He was to come? Would He, a Prince
of peace, as Isaiah had prophesied, come to be a shelter
amid the terrific power of the fourth Empire, which, in
the end, He was to break in pieces? Such thoughts
could not but occupy the mind of Daniel at that crisis of
the fortunes of his people, and the passing away of the
first of the three world-empires interposed before the es-
tablishment of that, in which the Redeemer was to come.
The answer embraces those thoughts, but goes beyond
them. Daniel had prayed for his people and his holy city.
In harmony with that revelation of a world-embracing
kingdom, but not of this world, contained in the visions
of the four empires, Daniel's mind is carried beyond his
own people, his holy city and the visible sanctuary. The
temporary restoration of the city is promised, but in strait
of times; the restoration of the temple and of sacrifice
are implied, since they were anew to cease and to be de-
stroyed. But the prophecy went beyond all things visi-
ble, both in what it promised and in what it took away.
It promised forgiveness of sins, everlasting righteousness,
a Messiah, Who was to be cut off and yet to confirm a
covenant. It took away all things visible, on which, as
images of that which was to come, they had hitherto rest-
ed. It took away all which was local and visible; for He,
the Messiah, was to make all sacrifice to cease and city
166 Probable reason, why the date was not fixed precisely,
and temple were to be an abiding desolation. A definite
period, counted by sevens of years, is assigned, within
which this purpose of God was to be accomplished.
The period, which should elapse before the Coming of
Christ, is fixed as nearly, we suppose, as it could be, with-
out destroying man's free-agency. Man was still to be
on his trial, whether he would reject God. God, in reveal-
ing the future, still preserves unimpaired His own great
law of His creatures' free-agency. Our redemption was
to be wrought by the Death of our Redeemer at His crea-
tures' hands. He was ¹ the Lamb slain from the founda-
tion of the world. All sacrifice foreshewed His Death;
David 2 and Isaiah 3 had foretold it ; and now it was again
to be foretold through Daniel. Perhaps it would have
been impossible for man to have fulfilled this, which lay
in the counsels of God, had he known what he was doing;
or, if he had, the sin would have been irremediable. Je-
sus pleads it, as a ground of forgiveness, that His execu-
tioners knew not what they did. We are told of those
who stirred up their passions, had they known it, they
would not have crucified the Lord of glory. It may be,
that, on these grounds, He did not declare, so that it
should be certainly known beforehand, the precise year
when the Messiah should come and should be cut off.
But He intimated that time with sufficient nearness, to
create the expectation which did arise, to awaken men's
minds, to predispose them to listen and to obey. What
He does, He does not unprepared.
The interval, which God assigned, had an evident refe-
rence to the 70 years of the captivity. That number had
a bearing on the broken sabbaths, in punishment of which
Moses had foretold that the land should enjoy her sab-
baths in the captivity of his people. Seventy years were
the term of their captivity; seven times seventy years
was to be the main sum of their new period of probation,
in the possession of their land and of their restored city.
6
3 Is. liii.
1 Rev. xiii. 8.
4 S. Luke xxiii. 34.
2 Ps. xl.
5 1 Cor. ii. 8.
6 Lev. xxvi. 34.
yet was fixed within a limited time.
167
The date, whence those 490 years began, is described,
not absolutely laid down. But it is described in words
which leave no large or uncertain margin, from the go-
ing forth of a commandment to restore and rebuild Jerusa-
lem unto Messiah the prince. Above three thousand years
had flowed by before; above two thousand years have
flowed away since. The event, which was to change and
regenerate millions upon millions, was fixed beforehand,
within some surplus upon 490 years. The choice of the
form of prophecy was itself prophetic. Greek and Latin
philosophers too, (probably from some real mysterious
connection of the number with the developement of man's
frame,) have known of "weeks of years." To the He-
brew, the 7 times 7 spoke of that recurring Jubilee year,
when all debts were released, slavery was ended, every one
was restored to all the inheritance which had, during th
half-century, been forfeited; slight, joyous, ever-recurring
picture of the restoration, for which all creation yearned
and groaned. There could not be any ambiguity to the
people's mind. The period could not be "70 weeks of
days," i. e. a year and about 4 months. The events are
7 Dan. ix. 25.
8 "Which some of the poets have said, who measure age raîs éßdoµáσi, by
the sevenfolds." Aristotle (quoted Liddell and Scott. v. éßd.). "Heraclitus and
the Stoics say, that man's perfection begins about the second 7th." Plut. de
plac. Phil. v. 23. (ib.) Censorinus mentions the opinions of many who so count-
ed; "Solon makes ten parts of human life, so that each age should have seven
years. To these 10 hebdomades of Solon, Staseas the Peripatetic added two,
and said that the space of a full life was 84 years. Varro mentions that in the
Etruscan books of the Fates the age of man is described by 12 hebdomades, in
that it could be protracted to 12 times 7 years, by deprecating the fated pe-
riod through sacred rites.—Of all these, they seem to have come nearest to na-
ture, who have measured human life by hebdomades. For that, almost after
every seventh year, there is some new developement. As you may see in So-
lon's elegy. For he says that in the first seven the teeth are shed; in the
second, &c. In the 2nd hebdomas however, or at the beginning of the 3rd,
the voice becomes thicker and unequal.—Physicians too, and philosophers have
written much as to these hebdomades.-Some say that those years are most to
be observed which are made up of 3 hebdomades, i. e. the 21st, 42nd, and 63rd.
The 63rd is made of 9 hebdomades, or 7 enneads." de Die Nat. c. 4. Varro
adds, that he too had entered the 12th hebdomas of life, and, up to that
day, had written 70 hebdomades of books." Gell. Noct. Att. iii. 10.
168 The decree spoken of, a decree of God through man.
too full for it. Seven weeks, (to go no further,) was no
period in which to rebuild the city. It remained then to
understand it, according to a key which God had given ¹,
of a sevenfold period of years.
1
The decree spoken of was doubtless meant of a decree
of God, but to be made known through His instrument,
man, who was to effectuate it. The commandment went
forth from God, like that, at which, Gabriel had just said,
using the same idiom, he himself came forth to Daniel.
But as the one was fulfilled through Gabriel, so the other
remained to be fulfilled through the Persian monarch, in
whose hands God had left, for the time, the outward dispo-
sal of His people. In themselves, the will and decrees of
God are in all eternity; but His immutable decree seems
then to go forth, when He, in Whose hands are all things,
so disposes men's wills, that it comes into effect. But,
since there was no decree at all in favour of the Jews before
Cyrus B.C. 536, it might be startling enough to one who
does not yet believe in prophecy, that, even from Cyrus,
the 490 years come within forty-six years of our Lord's
Birth; and that, although there were four different edicts,
from which the 490 years might begin, these too admit of
no vague coincidence. They do but yield four definite
dates. There is a distance of 90 years from the 1st of Cy-
rus to the 20th of Artaxerxes Longimanus, but the dates
within those 90 years, from which the prophecy could seem
to be fulfilled, are only four. Those dates are, 1) The first
year of Cyrus³, B.C.536; 2) The third year of Darius Hys-
taspes, B.C. 518, when he removed the hindrances to the
rebuilding of the temple, interposed by Pseudo-Smerdis";
1 Ezek. iv. 5, 6. 2 ix. 23. 777 my; 25. 177 x¥b 19. 3 Ezr. i. 1-4. vi. 3-5.
4 Ezr. vi. 1-12. Zerubbabel and Shealtiel, encouraged by Haggai and Zecha-
riah, resumed the building of the temple in the second year of Darius; (Ezr. iv.
24, v. 1, 2.) they were accused to Darius, (v. 3-end) and thereon they received
the decree, which would be in the next year.
5 The grounds for identifying Artaxerxes (Ezra iv. 7, 11, 23.) with Pseudo-
Smerdis are; 1) the enemies of the Jews seem to have sent to each successive
king of Persia. They hired counsellors in the days of Cyrus. (iv. 5.) They ac-
cused the Jews in the days of Ahasuerus. (iv. 6.) They wrote to Artaxerxes,
(iv. 7, &c.) and subsequently to Darius. (v. 6 sqq.) But Darius being Da-
Four such only; date of Artaxerxes' accession. 169
3) The commission to Ezra in the 7th year of Artaxerxes
Longimanus, B.C. 4576; 4) That of Nehemiah, in the 20th
rius Hystaspes, the two intervening names can be no other than Cambyses
and Pseudo-Smerdis. Ezra, who mentions them, says that the temple was
finished in the 6th year of Darius, (vi. 15.) and so, before Artaxerxes Longi-
manus. 2) Pseudo-Smerdis was a religious persecutor, destroying temples and
worship. (Behistun Inscr. c. i. par. 14. in Rawl. Herod. ii. 595.) 3) We know
that Darius undid acts of the usurper, (Ib.) and this is more likely than that
kings of Persia should reverse their own formal acts, (which were held sacro-
sanct, from the relation in which they were supposed to stand to Ormuzd,) or
those of their predecessors. Both names, Ahasuerus (i. q. Xerxes, see Ges.
Thes. v. p. 75.) and Artaxerxes, were names of honor.
6 I have adhered to the authoritative Chronology of the reigns of Xerxes and
Artaxerxes. Diodorus (xi. 69.) says that Xerxes was murdered by Artabanus,
after reigning more than 20 years, when Lysitheus was Archon at Athens.
01.78. 4. B.C. 465. 'According to the Canon, he died N. E. 283, i. e. after Dec.
17. B. C. 466, and before Dec. 17. B.C. 465, which coincides with the year of Ly-
sitheus." Clinton. (Fast. Hell. B. C. 465.) Eusebius agrees with this. Ma-
netho also assigns the same length to the reign of Xerxes, 21 years, (quoted
by Africanus ap. Syncell. p. 75. D. Clinton, F. H. c. 18. ii. 380. note.) This
length of reign corresponds with the dates assigned to his father Darius, and
to Artaxerxes, to whom 41 years are given by Manetho, (Ib.) 40 by Diodorus,
(Ib. and xi. 69.) which agrees with Thucydides, (iv. 50.) who mentions his
death in the Archonship of Stratocles B. C. 423. (Clinton, p. 380.) The acces-
sion of Artaxerxes after the seven months of the assassin Artabanus would fall
in the middle of 464, B.C. For, (as Dean Goode has kindly pointed out to me)
it is clear, from the sequel of the months in Neh. i. ii. Ezr. vii. 7-9, that Chisleu
fell earlier in the year of his reign than Nisan, and Nisan than Ab. (July, Aug.)
Then the reign of Artaxerxes must have begun between Ab and Chisleu (Nov
Dec.) 464 B. C., and the Edict, in his 7th year, in accordance with which Ezra
and his colony set out in Nisan, must have been at the end of 458 or the begin-
ning of 457. See Goode's Warb. Lect. pp. 287, 8.
The difficulties, raised by Krüger and insisted on by Hengstenberg, (Christol.
iii. 167-179.) relate to Greek Chronology chiefly, in that Themistocles arrived
at the court of Persia when Artaxerxes had recently come to the throne, (Thuc.
i. 137.) and addressed his letter to him. (Ib.) But it is said that there are too
few events to fill up the time from Platea B. C. 479, to B. C. 465, and, specifi-
cally, that Themistocles, whose flight followed immediately on the death of Pau-
sanias, passed by the Athenian fleet, while besieging Naxos. (Thuc. i. 137.)
But, it is alleged, that Pausanias was so precipitate, that the discovery of his
treasonable correspondence is not likely to have been delayed until B. C. 466,
and that Diodorus places the victories of the Eurymedon, which were later than
that of Naxos, B. C. 470. (xi. 60, 1.) But, first, as to Pausanias, although in the
first instance, his conceit, at the prospect of Persian greatness, absurdly betray-
ed him, (Thuc. i. 130.) there is no reason that he should not have learned expe-
rience, after he had been twice sent for to Sparta for trial. (Thuc. i. 131, 133.)
He must have had prolonged communications with Artabanus, since the suspi-
170 Date of Artaxerxes' reign; ground for selecting
year of the same Artaxerxes, B.C. 444. These would give,
as the close of the 490 years, respectively, the end of 46,
B.C. 28, B.C. 33, A.D. 46, A.D.
cions of the bearer of the last letter were aroused by the fact, that "no one of the
messengers before him had returned," they having, in fact, been put to death
at the request of Pausanias. At Sparta, moreover, where he was of course
watched, greater precautions were absolutely necessary. He had betrayed
himself, when at a distance, in Thrace, at Byzantium and Colonæ of Troy.
(Thuc. i. 130, 1.) Diodorus also (xi. 54, 5.) placed the ostracism of Themisto-
cles, at the earliest, in the Archonship of Praxiergus; (Ol. 77. 2. B.C. 473) but
Pausanias did not open his plans to Themistocles until after this time, when The-
mistocles was in exile at Argos. (Plutarch, Them. c. 23.) The sojourn also of
Themistocles at Argos was of long duration, since it is said, that "he had his
abode there, but visited repeatedly (πipoiтŵv) the rest of Peloponnesus." (Thuc.
i. 135.) This agrees with the time ordinarily assigned to his flight, after that
the Lacedæmonians, upon the conviction and death of Pausanias, had demanded
that he should be brought to public trial, viz. 466, two years before the accession
of Artaxerxes B.C. 464.
The date of the siege of Naxos is proximately determined by the expedition
against Thasos which followed after the battle of Eurymedon, which itself
was subsequent to that of Naxos. For the expedition against Thasos was si-
multaneous with the attempt to settle 10,000 Athenians and their allies at what
became Amphipolis; (Thuc. i. 100.) but this attempt was 32 years after the
like destruction of those led by Aristagoras of Miletus. (Ib. iv. 102.) But his
attempt was in the 3rd year of the Ionian war, B. C. 497. (See Clinton, F. H. A.
497.465. and T. ii. p. 317. c. 9. Amphipolis.) The revolt of Thasos then was
in 465, and the siege of Naxos may very probably have been in the preceding
year. It is by an evident oversight, that Diodorus, having put together the
victories of Cimon, from Eion which was reduced at last by famine (Her. vii.
107.) to the victories at Eurymedon (as he had, just before, the history of The-
mistocles,) stated that they took place in one year. (xi. 63.) Probably it was
the date only of the reduction of Scyros. (Grote, v. 410. note.) The hints of
Thucydides and Herodotus suggest, (as Grote first pointed out,) a large series of
events between B. C. 477, the beginning of Athenian ascendency, and B. C.
465, ample to fill up the period; viz. the reduction of fortresses held by the Per-
sians; the gradual change of the Athenian "headship" (hegemony) to “rule;”
the decline of the Delian synod; the change made, at the wish of the allies,
when tired of active service, from personal service to contributions in money
and, ultimately, to tribute; implying also a period of naval and military ser-
vice on the part of the Athenians, which obtained to them that ascendency.
Eion, Scyros, Carystos, Naxos were the scenes of events, which were but
specimens only of a large whole. (See Grote, Greece, c. 45 pp. 390-415.) Doris-
cus, when Herodotus wrote, had repeatedly been besieged, and as yet in vain.
(Her. vii. 106. Rawl. iv. 93. note 1.)
Further, Justin (iii. 1.) represents Artabanus, as unapprehensive about Arta-
xerxes, being "quite a boy" (puer admodum) and, on that ground, feigning that
Xerxes had been murdered by his other son Darius, who was a youth. It is
his 7th year, as the starting-point.
171
But further, of these four, two only are principal and
leading decrees; that of Cyrus, and that in the seventh
year of Artaxerxes Longimanus. For that of the 20th
year of Artaxerxes is but an enlargement and renewal of
his first decree; as the decree of Darius confirmed that
of Cyrus. The decrees of Cyrus and Darius relate to the
rebuilding of the temple; those of Artaxerxes to the con-
dition of Judah and Jerusalem.
But the decree of Darius was no characteristic decree.
It did but support them in doing, what they were already
doing without it.
4
The decree of Artaxerxes was of a different character.
The temple was now built. So the decree contains no
grant for its building, like those of Cyrus¹ and Darius².
Ezra thanks God that " He had put it into the king's
heart, to beautify (not, to build) the house of the Lord in
Jerusalem." On the other hand, the special commission
of Ezra, was to enquire concerning Judah and Jerusalem,
according to the law of thy God, which is in thy heart, and
to set magistrates and judges, which may judge all the people
that are beyond the river. These magistrates had power
of life and death, banishment, confiscation, imprisonment,
conferred upon them 5. It looks as if the people were in
said to be improbable, that Artaxerxes should be thus young, if his father had
reigned 21 years. But Justin contradicts himself. For, in the same place
he speaks of Artaxerxes as "a youth," (adolescens) and ascribes to him the ra-
pid counsel and the strength of one matured. Artaxerxes, he says, on learning
the treason of Artabanus, ordered a review of the army the next day, in which
the skill which each had in arms should be tried; and when Artabanus came
armed to it, he proposed to him to change his breastplate with him, (his own,
he pretended, being too short,) and then, when he had taken it off, thrust him
through with his sword, and had his sons apprehended.
These are the only weighty objections alleged. They have not made any
impression on our English writers who have treated of Grecian history. I have
considered them, out of respect to Hengstenberg, who attaches much weight
to them, and so assumes as the terminus a quo B. C. 455, being, as he thinks,
the 20th year of Artaxerxes, but, according to the usual Chronology, his 9th
year. His era differs then only by 2 years from that which I have adopted, af-
ter Prideaux. (Connection, ii. 14 sqq.) It is also preferred by a Lap. ad loc.
and, of older writers, by Aquinas in Dan. Opp. T. xviii. p. 37.
The decree of Cyrus, as relates to the grant, is embodied in that of Darius.
vi. 3-5.
4 Ib. 14, 25. 5 Ib. 26.
2 vi. 3-12.
3 vii. 27.
172 Agreement of the whole period of 7 and 62 weeks,
a state of disorganisation. Ezra had full powers to settle
it according to the law of his God, having absolute autho-
rity in ecclesiastical and civil matters. The little colony
which he took with him, of 1683 males (with women and
children, some 8400 souls) was itself a considerable ad-
dition to those who had before returned, and involved a
rebuilding of Jerusalem. This rebuilding of the city and
reorganisation of the polity, begun by Ezra and carried on
and perfected by Nehemiah, corresponds with the words
in Daniel, From the going forth of a commandment to re-
store and to build Jerusalem.
The term also corresponds. Unto Messiah the Prince,
shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks, i. e. the
first 483 years of the period, the last 7 being parted off.
But 483 years from the beginning of B. C. 457 were com-
pleted at the beginning of¹ 27 A.D. which (since the Nati-
vity was 4 years earlier than our era) would coincide with
His Baptism, "being about 30 years of age," when the
descent of the Holy Ghost upon Him manifested Him to
be the Anointed with the Holy Ghost, the Christ.
Further still, the whole period of 70 weeks is divided
into three successive periods, 7, 62, 1, and the last week
is subdivided into two halves. It is self-evident that,
since these parts 7, 62, 1, are equal to the whole, viz. 70,
it was intended that they should be. Every writer wishes
to be understood; the vision is announced at the beginning,
as one which is, on thought, to be understood. 3 I am
come to give thee skill and understanding; therefore un-
derstand the matter and consider the vision. Yet, on this
self-evident fact that the sum of the parts is intended to
be the same as the whole, every attempt to explain the
prophecy, so that it should end in Antiochus Epiphanes,
or in any other than our Lord, (as we shall see,) shivers.
1 See Clinton Fasti Romani ii. 227. sqq. Goode, Warb. Lect. pp. 304-7, also
quotes the remarkable Jewish tradition that "for 40 years before the destruction
of Jerusalem," A. D. 70, i. e. from the day of Atonement after the Crucifixion,
what they held to be a sign of acceptance, never took place. See Rosh hashanah
p. 31. in Lightfoot min. templ. c. 15. Opp. i. 746. [ed. 2.]
2 Acts x. 38.
3 ix. 22, 23.
and of the 7 weeks by itself, with history.
173
On the other hand, the subordinate periods, as well as
the whole, fit in with the Christian interpretation. It
were not of any account, if we could not interpret these
minor details. "De minimis non curat lex." When the
whole distance is spanned over, it matters not, whether
we can make out some lesser details. Men believe that
Mount Athos was severed, because they can trace here
and there a portion of the canal. Science assumes, as
certain, whatever is presupposed by what it knows al-
ready. But, in the prophecy of the 70 weeks, the portions
also can be traced. The words are; From the going forth
of a commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto
Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks and threescore and
two weeks; street and wall 5 shall be restored and builded;
4 The Jews put the main stop of the verse under nyy, meaning to separate
the two numbers, 7 and 62. This they must have done dishonestly, on prob
(as Rashi says in rejecting literal expositions which favoured the Christians)
on account of the heretics," i. e. Christians. For the latter clause, so divided
off, could only mean, "and during threescore and two weeks street and wall
shall be being restored and builded," i. e. that Jerusalem should be 434 years
in rebuilding, which would be senseless. Yet critics, who correct the text ad
libitum, have all at once discovered in this case the value of the tradition of
the Hebrew accents. Leng. p. 446. Hitz. p. 161.
5 The construction of the E. V., street and wall, is the most natural, both in
itself and in the context, since pairs of words are used in this prophecy; on
thy people and on thy holy city "" to seal vision and prophet; "“to restore
and to build;""the city and the sanctuary; ""sacrifice and oblation." The
Verss. also have so understood it. οἰκοδομηθήσεται εἰς πλάτος καὶ εἰς μῆκος, LXX.
TEρíTEIXOS, Theod. Ald.; reîxos, Theod. Vat.; muri, Vulg.; "street," Syr.; σкáµµа,
Gr. Ven. They may have had a traditional knowledge, that , orig. "fosse,”
may have been used of any "fence." Else a "fosse" was not a "fence" ac-
tually used for Jerusalem; for the circuit of Jerusalem then lay along the brows
of hills, so that there was no occasion for a fosse, the declivity of the hill being
more than any fosse. Nor is there any trace of a fosse around any part of the
then Jerusalem. Nor is there any extant instance, in which or pis
used even of a fosse." in Targ. Job xxxviii. 25, corresponds to
"watercourse ;" and in the Baba kama c. 5. is said to be used of a ditch, broad
below, narrow above. (Buxt. Lex. col. 833.) In other instances, in Abulvalid
and Kimchi, it is used of a narrow incision. But the word etymologically
signifies, a thing cut,” and may, in the living language, have been used by
a metaphor, analogous to 77, “cut, cut off, inaccessible." The meaning, “wa-
tercourse,” would itself also have a good sense, "street and watercourse,'
since the supplies of water so provided were so essential to the well-being of
174
The first period of 7 weeks or 49 years.
and in strait of times. And after threescore and two weeks
shall Messiah be cut off.
Obviously, unless there had been a meaning in this di-
vision, it would have stood, "shall be threescore and nine
weeks," "not, shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two
weeks." For every word in this condensed prophecy has
its place and meaning, and the division would be unmean-
ing, unless something were assigned to this first portion.
The text does assign it. It says, the street shall be restor-
ed and be builded; and that, in troublous times.
3
The books of Ezra and Nehemiah give the explanation.
Ezra came to Jerusalem, B.C. 457; he laboured in restor-
ing the Jewish polity, within and without, for 13 years
before Nehemiah was sent by Artaxerxes, B.C.444¹. Ne-
hemiah, as governor, laboured together with Ezra for 12
years, from the twentieth year even unto the two and thir-
tieth year of Artaxerxes the king, twelve years 2. Then
he returned to the king, and after an undefined time, at
the end of days ³, he says, obtained I leave of the king, and
came to Jerusalem. The interval probably was not short;
for there had been time for corruptions to creep in, nor
is the king likely to have sent him back soon; else why
should he have returned at all? The mention of Elia-
shib's son, Joiada, being high priest then, in place of
his deceased father, fixes this second visit probably in
the reign of Darius Nothus, in whose 11th year Eliashib
is said to have died 5. The expulsion of one of his sons
who had become son-in law to Sanballat, and regulation
of the wards of the priests and Levites, are among the last
acts of reform which Nehemiah mentions in his second vi-
the city and to its defence against an enemy. Still this would involve the use
of an uncommon word in the place and meaning of a common word.
In support of another rendering, and the street shall be built, yea, it is
determined; und in straitness of times, is the use of my 27. лy 26. and of
Is. x. 22. explained y Ib. 23. Probably Nah. ii. 8. is used with a like
parenthesis; see Ib. But, against it, is the unlikelihood, that words, so natu-
rally conjoined, should be altogether severed.
1 Neh. ii. 1.
4 Neh. xiii. 28. comp. xii. 10, 22.
2 Ib. v. 14.
3 Ib. xiii. 6.
5 Chron. Alex. Olymp. 78. pp. 162, 3.
"Strait of times."
175
sit;
with them he closes his book. Now from the seventh
year of Artaxerxes to the eleventh of Darius Nothus are
45 years. But it was in the period of the high priesthood
of Joiada, not precisely in the very first year, that this re-
form took place. We have any how for the period of the
two great restorers of the Jewish polity, Ezra and Nehe-
miah conjointly, a time somewhat exceeding 45 years;
so that we know that the restoration was completed in
the latter part of the 7th week of years, and it is probable
that it was not closed until the end of it. In regard to
the strait of times, amid which this restoration was to take
place, the books of Ezra and Nehemiah are the commen-
tary. Up to the completion of the walls, there was one
succession of vexations on the part of the enemies of the
Jews. Their abiding condition they confess in both pe-
riods to God;7 for our iniquities we have been delivered
into the hands of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to cap-
tivity, to a spoil, and to confusion of face, as at this day.
And now for a little space grace hath been shewed from the
Lord, to leave us a remnant to escape—to give us a little
reviving in our bondage. For bondsmen are we, and in
our bondage our God hath not forsaken us. In Nehemi-
ah's time, the great public confession of sin closes with
the same statement; & Behold we are bondsmen this day, and
the land which Thou gavest to our fathers, to eat the fruit
thereof and the good thereof, behold, we are bondsmen in it
and it yieldeth much increase unto the kings which Thou
hast set over us, because of our sins; and over our bodies
they have dominion, and over our caitle at their pleasure,
and in great distress are we.
8
;
The next division, 62 weeks, completes the period up
to the time of the Messiah. Its two extreme points were
marked, its beginning by the close of the 7 weeks or 49
years, its end by the Coming of the long-longed for, the
6 This explanation of the 7 weeks is brought out by Prideaux, Connection,
P. 1. B. 5. pp. 47-50, and 17 sqq. Even Winer, Real-Lex. v. Nehemiah, admits
that he is probably right as to the date of Darius Ochus, the 45 years.
8 Neh. ix. 36, 7.
7 Ezr. ix. 7-9.
176 Three years and a half; our Lord's ministry.
Christ. It is in harmony with the other prophecies of
Daniel, that what is filled up in one place, is bridged
over in another. In the vision of the 4 Empires, the 2nd
and 3rd are but slightly touched on; the brief notice is
expanded in the viith and xith chapters. Other prophe-
cies had, as their foreground, the events of world-em-
pires. The subject of this was the people of God and the
Messiah.
The ever-recurring character of prophecy is thus ap-
parent here also, that those two points, which concerned
them most, are the most prominent ;- the restoration of
the polity in the nearer future, and, in the distant future,
the crowning acts of God's mercy and judgment, the
blessings in Christ and the close of the temporal relation
of God to His people. The intervening period would
have occupied a disproportioned place here, and so is
omitted.
Not in, but after those threescore and two weeks, it is
said, Messiah shall be cut off; and there shall not be to
Him, i. e. as the context implies, the city and the sanc-
tuary shall be His no more. Then follows the subdivision
of the last week, or seven years, wherein He was to be cut
off, since He was to be cut off, and yet not in the 69 weeks.
He shall make firm a covenant with many during one week ;
and in the midst of the week He shall make sacrifice and
oblation to cease. He speaks not of a temporary suspen-
sion of sacrifices, but of the entire abolition of all which
had been offered hitherto, the sacrifice¹, with the shedding
of blood, and the oblation, the unbloody sacrifice which
was its complement. These the Messiah was to make to
cease three years and a half after that new covenant be-
gan, whether this was at first through the ministry of the
Baptist or His own. It seems to me absolutely certain,
that our Lord's ministry lasted for some period above three
years.
For S.John mentions by name three Passovers 3;
and S. Matthew's mention of the disciples rubbing the
ears of corn¹ relates to a time near upon a Passover, later
4 S. Matt. xii. 1 sqq.
זָבַח 1
2
מִנְחָה
3 ii. 13. vi. 4. and the last.
A fourth Passover implied.
177
than the first, (for John had been cast into prison",) yet
earlier than the last but one, for it preceded the feeding
of the 5000, which itself preceded that Passover 6. This
bears out the opinion, which is in itself nearly certain,
that the intermediate feast, mentioned by S. John, is the
Passover. Our Lord's parable of the fig-tree virtually
asserts, that a period of some three years of special culture
of God's people had preceded. Behold, these three years I
come seeking fruit on this figtree and find none; and that
one year remained, let it alone this year also. The curs-
ing of the barren fig-tree and its instant withering 9, just
before His Passion and the final pronunciation of its sen-
tence¹º, seems to be the symbolical declaration, that that
year of respite was over, and its doom was fixed.
10
8
The city was devoted, the punishment irreversible; the
5 Ib. xi. 2.
6 Ib. xiv. 15, S. John vi. 4-10. Süsskind brought out
the argument, (in Bengel's Archiv. i. 186-194.) and observed that, even if the
corn were ripe before the Passover, it would not have been ripe some weeks
before it, yet the history in S. Matt. xii. must have been, at least, some weeks
before that in S. Matt. xiv. which was itself before the Passover.
7 The feast, S. John v. 1., must have been one of the three great feasts, 1) be-
cause of the addition, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, i. e. He went up in
consequence of that feast. 2) No other feast is called "a feast of the Jews,"
i. e. one binding upon all. The dedication-feast and the feast of Purim were
not of obligation, and the feast of Purim was kept any where. (Jos. Ant. xi. 6.
end.) 3) The first Passover had been spoken of, a few verses before, as the feast.
(iv. 45. twice.) Had a different feast been intended, it would have been speci-
fied. 4) The Passover alone is spoken of in the Gospels as the feast. (S. Matt.
xxvi. 5, xxvii. 15, S. Mark xv. 6, S. Luke ii. 42, xxiii. 17. S. John above.)
The feast of Tabernacles is named, S. John vii. 2. "Since the Jews held the
Pascha to be the special and first feast, the Evang. at times defines it further,
the Pascha, the feast of the Jews, was nigh; at times not, there was Pascha,
feast of the Jews." Chron. P. p. 406. S. Irenæus adds the Pascha ii. 22. 3. Cod.
Sinait. has the art. 5) The events in S. John ii. 23-iv. 54. require more space
than from Pascha to the feast of Tabernacles. 6) The words, there are yet 4
months and then cometh harvest, (S. John iv. 35.) imply that the next feast was
Pascha. The assumption, that the feast, S. John v. 1., was the feast of Purim,
has nothing in its favour, and is excluded by Süsskind's argument (n. 6.) and
by grounds 1, 2, 3, 5. Hengst. notices in addition, (from Reland, Antiq. iv. 9.
and Schickard, De Festo Purim, Crit. Sacr. iii. p. 1185.) that the feast of Purim
was celebrated in such sort, that our Lord would not have been present at it,
and that it was not held on the Sabbath, whereas the festival, S. John v., in-
cluded the Sabbath.
8 S. Luke xiii. 7.
9 S. Matt. xxi. 19.
10 Ib. xxiii. 34-39.
N
178
Main subject of the prediction,
Messiah's office would be, not with the people as a whole,
but with the many who would be saved out of it, with
whom the new covenant would be confirmed. The re-
maining 34 years probably mark the time, during which
the Gospel was preached to the Jews, before the preach-
ing to the Samaritans shewed that the special privileges
of the Jews were at an end, and that the Gospel embrac-
ed the world. We have not the chronological data to
fix it.
But the fact of these several periods being prophesied,
and the last, above six hundred years before, is the body
not the soul of the prophecy; it is not that which bears
chief evidence of its divinity.
Human history recurs in cycles. The thing that hath
been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that
which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun.
Empires fall or rise gradually; so the prediction of the
fall or rise of an empire within such latitude might have
left the fulfilment uncertain. The main subject of Da-
niel's prediction is single and alone in time, and reaches
on through eternity. From eternity to eternity there
hath not been nor shall be its like. Men may dispute
whether it hath been; they cannot dispute that, for 1800
years, what Daniel predicted has been believed to have
been. The conception remains the same, even antece-
dent to our conviction of its truth. That then, which was
foretold to Daniel, in answer to his confession of his own
sins and of the sins of his people, of their iniquities and
transgressions, and to his prayer for pardon, was a promise
of absolute forgiveness of sins. Seventy seven-times are
determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to close 2
the transgression, and to seal up sins, and to make³ reconci-
2 The meaning of x is clear from the context, whether
it be derived from xh? (i. q. кλelw and kwλów) “shut, hinder," then, “close;"
or i. q. 1) "complete ;" 2) "finish," bring to an end. * does not indeed
occur elsewhere in Piel, but that is no reason why it should not.
1 Eccl. i. 9.
3 , when God is the subject, signifies "forgive;" when man, it is the
atoning for," "making the typical propitiation for sin;" covering it by mak-
the gifts of pardon and grace at close of 490 years. 179
liation for iniquity. Sin was to be done away, hid out of
sight, forgiven. The words, which Daniel had so often
repeated in his deep intercessory prayer, sins, iniquity,
transgression, the thought of which lay so heavy upon him,
are now repeated to him in mercy, to assure him the more
emphatically through that threefold repetition, that God
would put them away as if they had not been. But the
mere removal of sin is imperfect. The threefold comple-
ment is added; to bring in everlasting righteousness, and
to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint a Holy of
holies. These were to be gifts of God at the close of that
70th week; to be given, as they had never been given be-
fore, and the righteousness, so given, to last on to eter-
nity. The very delay is a token of its greatness. God's
gifts are with usury. It was no common forgiveness of
sins, the publication of which was to be delayed, accord-
ing to the letter of the prophecy, at least half a thousand
years. They were not the past sins of his people, such as
had brought upon them the captivity. The words are
quite in the abstract, transgression, sins, iniquity. The
fulfilment would have fallen short of the prophecy, unless,
not their sins only but, sin in the abstract had been re-
mitted. They were not only to be remitted; they were
to be replaced. Hitherto there had been continual sacri-
fice for sin, a symbolical remission of all sins on the Day
of Atonement, wonderful for its completeness as a picture,
but incomplete; even because that wonderful picture was,
year by year, renewed. Hitherto, there had been many
atonements for man's several sins. God here speaks of
one act, atoning not for particular sins, but for sin. Once,
in the future, at the end of the 70 weeks, there should be
an atoning for all iniquity, i. e. for all of it, past, present,
or to come. Then, all sin was to be atoned for, and He
Who ended and forgave it, was to bring in everlasting
righteousness. Bring in! Then, it was to dwell, to make
its abode, to have its home, there. Everlasting! Then it
ing that offering, for the sake of which it is covered, or put out of God's sight.
The context implies, that it would be one act, which should so atone.
N 2
180 Gift of righteousness: sealing up all prophecy.
2
was never to be removed, never worn out, never to cease,
not to pass with this passing world, but to abide thence-
forth, coeternal with God, its Author and Giver. Right-
eousness had been promised before, as the gift of the
times of the Messiah. It is what man, being made for
God, yearned and yearns for. I bring near My righteous-
ness, it shall not be far off; and My salvation shall not
tarry ; and I will place salvation in Zion for Israel My
glory. My righteousness is near. Lift up your eyes to the
heavens and look upon the earth beneath; for the heavens
shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old
like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like
manner; but My salvation shall be for ever, and My right-
eousness shall not be abolished. My righteousness shall be
for ever, and My salvation from generation to generation.
It was the close of that great prophecy of our Lord's aton-
ing Death; My righteous servant shall make many right-
Jeremiah had foretold, that God would raise unto
David a Righteous Branch, and that the name whereby He
shall be called should be, The Lord our Righteousness. Da-
niel foretells the same; his prophecy joins on with theirs
in substance; but he, first, adds the time of its fulfilment.
eous.
3
And in that fulfilment, all prophecy was to be fulfilled.
All hitherto had been a longing for that hour. That hour
come, God set His seal upon vision and prophet. Their
first office was fulfilled. To seal up vision and prophet, is
not, to seal up any one vision or prophet. The words are
purposely placed undefined, in order to mark that they
are to be understood without any limitation, not of any
one vision or prophet, but of vision and prophet gene-
rally. As our Lord said, 5All the prophets and the law
prophesied until John. It is all one, whether by the word,
seal, we understand, set His seal to, "accredited," as our
Lord speaks, "Him hath God the Father sealed; or "com-
1 Is. xlvi. 13. 2 Ib. li. 5, 6, 8. add xlv. 17.
4
,צַדִּיק עַבְתִּי לְרַבִּים יַצְרִיק .11 .Is. 1iii 3
נְבוּאָה and חָזוֹת So both
4
is used collectively Is. i. 1, 2 Chr. xxxii. 32.
2 Chr. ix. 29. Kleinert, Aechtheit les. P. 11.
5 S. Matt. xi. 13.
6 S. John vi. 27. So of man's corresponding act in believing, Ib. iii. 33, he
"Holy of holies," not "the holy of holies."
وو.9
8
181
pleted 7." Daniel says before, what S. Peter said near 600
years after, when the events came to pass; those things
which God before had shewed by the mouth of all His pro-
phets, that Christ should suffer, He hath so fulfilled. The
remaining clause, and to anoint an All-holy, must be spi-
ritual, since all else is spiritual. It cannot be spoken of
the natural "holy of holies," which, in contrast to the holy
place, is always "the holy of holies ";" never "holy of
holies." Still less is it the material temple, as a whole,
since the temple, as a whole, is never called by the name
of a part of it. "Holy of holies," lit. "holiness of holi-
nesses,” i. e. All-holiness, is a ritual term, used to express
the exceeding holiness, which things acquire by being con-
secrated to God. It is never used to describe a place, but
is always an attribute of the thing, and, in one place, of
that hath received His testimony, has set to his seal, (ẻoppάyıσev) that God
is true.
7,"sealed," receives its nearer defi-
nitions from the object with which a thing is sealed. It is determined by the
context. A thing was sealed in a purse, to be retained, Job xiv. 17; a deed,
covenant, letter was sealed, to be authenticated, Jer. xxxii. 10, 11, 44, Neh.
x. 1, 2, 1 Kings xxi. 8. So in its metaph. use, God is said to seal the stars, c.
, as it were, “sealed them up," withholding them from shining, Job ix. 7 ;
to seal the hand of man, c. a, hindering him from using it, Job xxxvii. 7; He
sealeth up their (man's) instruction, c., i. e. impresseth it on him, Ib. xxxiii. 16.
So here sin is “sealed up” to be put out of sight, seen no more; vision and
prophecy are sealed, i. e. authenticated. The use of the word, although dif-
ferent in the two clauses, is not ambiguous, being, in each case, ruled by the
context. See further Pineda on Job xxxvii. 7.
,בְּעַר
8 Acts iii. 18. What is this which he says, to seal up vision and prophecy?
That all prophets announced of Him, that He was to come, and had to suffer.
Since then prophecy was fulfilled by His Coming, therefore he said, that vision
and prophecy were sealed, because He is the seal of all the prophets, filling up
all things which the prophets heretofore announced of Him. For after the
Coming of Christ and His Passion, there is no more vision or prophet to an-
nounce that Christ should come." Tert. adv. Jud. c. 8. p. 215. Rig.
9p is used 13 times of “the holy of holies," (Ex. xxvi. 33, 34. Num. iv.
4, 19, 1 Kings vi. 16, vii. 50, viii. 6, 1 Chr. vi. 34. (49. Eng.) 2. Chr. iii. 8, 10, iv. 22,
v. 7, Ezek. xli. 4.) and these with one exception (1 Chr. vi. 34.) occurring in the
first directions about it, in the law or the building of the temple or Ezekiel's
symbolical temple. It is used also in one place of "the holy place," as being re-
latively the holiest place for that purpose, the consuming of the sacrifice. Num.
xviii. 10. “The holy of holies" is even oftener spoken of under another name,
777 (16 times.)
182 “Anointing," a term now wholly spiritual. Title "Mes-
1
the person, who is spoken of. It is most holy. 2 Aaron
was separated, to hallow him all-holy. The destruction of
the temple, as having been previously profaned, is the close
of this prophecy ³. The prophecy promised an All-holy,
which should be anointed, for the holy place which should
be destroyed; as our Lord speaks of the temple of His
Body. At His Birth He was announced as, 5 the Holy
Thing which shall be born of thee. The Holy One became
His title, Who Alone was without sin. The devils knew
Him, as the Holy One of God".
8
9
4
Б
Anointing was the well-known symbol of sanctity
through the Spirit of God. The Lord hath anointed thee,
Samuel said to Saul, captain over His inheritance; and
then, the Spirit of the Lord will come upon thee, and thou
shalt prophesy and shalt be turned into another man.
When Saul had forfeited the gift, Samuel, at God's com-
mand, anointed David, and the Spirit of the Lord came
upon David from that day forward. The "holy oil" had
probably long been lost. Any how, it was among the
things which the Jews missed in the 2nd temple. Mate-
rial anointing had ceased. But anointing had entered
into the symbolic language of prophecy in respect to the
Christ. 10 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me; be-
cause the Lord hath anointed Me, to preach good tidings
unto the meek. He hath sent Me to bind up the broken-
hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and to those
that are bound, a great deliverance ¹¹, to proclaim the ac-
ceptable year of the Lord: and,12 Thou lovest righteousness
and hatest iniquity; therefore God, thy God, hath anointed
thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.
11
This symbolical meaning of the anointing is fixed by
the next words of the prophecy; unto Messiah the Prince.
1 Ex. xxx. 10, 29, 36, Lev. ii. 3, 10, vi. 10, 18, 22. [17, 25, 29. Eng.] vii.
1, 6, x. 12, 17, xiv. 13, xxiv. 9, xxvii. 28, Ezek. xliii. 12. It is used in appo-
sition to the thing spoken of, Ex. xxix. 37, xl. 10, Ezek. xlv. 3.
2 1 Chr. xxiii. 13.
5 S. Luke i. 35. Td äyιov.
3 ix. 26, 27.
4 S. John ii. 19, 21.
6 Acts iii. 14, iv. 27, 30, 1 S. John ii. 20. add
S. John x. 36, xvii. 19. 7 S. Mark i. 24, S. Luke iv. 34.
9 Ib. xvi. 13. 10 Is. Ixi. 1, 2.
11, intensive.
8 1 Sam. x. 1, 6.
12 Ps. xlv. 7.
siah" current in & before our Lord's time, from this place. 183
The word is repeated. The last of the six blessings was,
to anoint an All-holy; "limshoach kodesh kodashim."
He resumes at once, "unto one Anointed, a Prince;" "ad
Mashiach nagid." No one, wishing to be understood,
would unite so closely words, relating to the same pe-
riod of time, the end of the 70 weeks, had they not related
to the same object; "to anoint an All-holy;" "unto one
Anointed." The words probably fixed the use of the name
Messiah or the Messiah, Christ or the Christ, as that of
the long-expected Redeemer. In the time of our Lord,
the Name was in the mouth of all, Samaritans as well as
Jews, the Messiah; Messiah. When Messiah cometh¹³, said
the Samaritan woman. We have found the Messias¹4 was
S. Andrew's announcement to his brother Simon. Where
Christ should be born 15, was Herod's enquiry of the Chief
Priests and Scribes. The revelation to Simeon was, that
he should not see death, until he had seen the Lord's Christ¹6.
The angels so announced His birth to the shepherds,
17 Unto you is born in the city of David a Saviour, which
is Christ the Lord. 18 All men mused of John, whether he
were the Christ or not. In answer to the formal deputa-
tion of priests and Levites, 19 he confessed and denied not,
but confessed, I am not the Christ. Unbelieving Jews said
to our Lord, 20 how long holdest Thou us in suspense? If
Thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. Caiaphas adjured Him
to say 21, whether He were the Christ, the Son of God. The
people, impressed by Him, ask 22, Do the rulers indeed
know that this is the very Christ? The name was not taught
them by our Lord; they knew it already. It is the Chris-
tianity of prophecy, existing, so far, in the minds of the
people, before it was revealed in act. Although, moreover
the name Messiah occurs absolutely here only in Holy
Scripture—not (as it is every where else 25) "the Anointed
13 S. John iv. 25. Merolas as a proper name, without the Article, represented
by the Greek Χριστός.
Η Ib. i. 41. τὸν Μεσσίαν i. q. τὸν Χριστόν.
17 lb. 11.
15 S. Matt. ii. 4. 16 S. Luke ii. 26.
19 S. John i. 20, iii. 28.
is Ib. iii. 15.
21 S. Matt. xxvi. 63, S. Mark xiv. 61, S. Luke xxii. 67.
20 Ib. x. 24.
22 S. John vii. 26.
מְשִׁיחַ אֱלֹהֵי יַעֲקֹב ;times 6 מְשִׁיחָךְ ;times 10 מְשִׁיחוֹ ;occus 11 times מְשִׁיחַ יהוה 23
184 Extentof prophecy,combined as tothe Messiah,before Xt.
“His
of the Lord," "Thy Anointed, ""His Anointed," "the
Anointed of the God of Jacob," or "the anointed priest,"-
but, as a proper name, Messiah, "Anointed," they knew
that He, so spoken of, was the same Whom other Scrip-
tures taught them to look for. They knew, (we learn it
from their own mouths in the Gospel,) where He was to be
born¹, that He was to be of the seed of David², that He was
to work miracles³, that He was to abide for ever; that
He was so to come from God, that no one should know
whence He cometh 5, that He was to be the Saviour of the
world. The contemporary paraphrase of Jonathan used
the name Messiah in explaining 26 passages of the pro-
phets of Him"; 17 of them, signal prophecies, such as all
Christians have been wont so to interpret, and 9 less obvi-
ous. His paraphrase having been, in some measure, tra-
ditionary, the learned Jews before him must have so in-
terpreted Daniel: for from him alone could they have
had the name. Onkelos, a little later, adds two more from
the Pentateuch 10.
Of this Messiah the prophecy goes on to say, And after
the sixty and two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, and there
shall not be to Him. What this shall be, which shall be
no more His, is to be supplied from the context, "what
hitherto was His," viz. His people ¹¹, whose Prince He
11
2 Sam. xxiii. 1. In all, 28 times; by four times, in Leviticus only, Lev.
1 S. Matt. i. 4-6,
iv. 3, 5, 16, vi. 22. These are all, except in Daniel.
2 S. John vii. 42, S. Matt. xxii. 42, &c.
5 Ib. vii. 27.
6 iv. 42.
8 Is. iv. 2, ix. 6,
S. John vii. 41, 2.
3 S. John vii. 31.
4 Ib. xii. 34.
7 They are in Buxtorf, Lex. Chald. col. 1270-2.
xi. 1-6, xvi. 5, xlii. 1, xliii. 10, lii. 13, liii. 10, Jer. xxiii. 5, xxx. 21, xxxiii. 15,
Hos. iii. 5, Mic. iv. 8, v. 2, Zech. iii. 8, vi. 12. besides 2 Sam. xxiii. 3.
9 Is. x. 27, xiv. 29, xvi. 1, xxviii. 5, Jer. xxxiii. 13, Hos. xiv. 8, [7 Eng.] Mic.
v. 1, Zech. iv. 7, x. 4. besides 1 Sam. ii. 10. 10 Gen. xlix. 10, Num. xxiv. 17.
11 Vulg. "et non erit ejus populus, qui eum negaturus est.” Aq. Symm. Syr.
leave it unexplained. (“and there is not to Him," Syr. Aq. oùк ÚTÁPĘEL AVTĘ.
Symm.) Theod. adds кρîµa ovê ĔOTIV ÉV AUTÊ, "matter for judgment is not in
Him." LXX. kаl ойк čσтαι, "and shall not be." I always includes the substan-
tive verb, "there is not," "there was not," and is the opposite to ; and equiva-
lent to "; " (Arab. laisa, Aram. laith) not to alone. This excludes the Eng.
Vers. and not for himself, which must have been. Other renderings, ex-
cluded by the meaning of ps, are; 1) he is not, (which must have been upg)
7
"Cut off" always of death inflicted by God or man. 185
14
heretofore was. The Jews, as a nation, cut themselves off,
when they crucified Him. But, whatever be the precise
explanation of that clause, there is no question as to the
declaration, Messiah shall be cut off. The word, shall be
cut off, never means anything but excision; death direct-
ly inflicted by God, or violent death at the hands of man.
It is never used of mere death, nor to express sudden but
natural death. In the Pentateuch, the word is used of
God's covenant, he, they, shall be cut off from his, their
people ¹², from the congregation 13, of Israel ¹4, which God
explains by His words 15, I will cut him off from among
his people. After the Pentateuch, it is more frequently
used absolutely, as in Daniel, shall be cut off; and, when
used of national inflictions, it is employed of destruction
of which man was the instrument 16. Here it obviously
expresses precisely the same which Isaiah had said by an
equivalent word, 17 He was cut off out of the land of the
living. Neologist interpreters do not hesitate to admit.
2) he hath nought, (py is not "nought” but “is not;") 3) he hath none, (px is
not "none.") But the object to be supplied must be gathered from the context.
Hence it cannot be, 4)“He (Alexander) “shall not have a successor.” Ber-
tholdt. 5) "He (Seleucus Philopator) shall not have a son and heir.” Rösch,
Ewald. (Seleucus had moreover a son, Demetrius, who succeeded Antiochus Epi-
phanes.) Nor 6) “an anointed (Sel. Ph.) shall be cut off, and he shall have no
anointed to succeed him ;" in which way" the anointed" is to be both the sub-
ject of the original sentence and the person spoken of in relation to that first per-
son. (Maurer.) Such interpretations would soon cease, if people would "inter-
pret Scripture like any other book." (Ess. and Rev. p. 77.) No one, in any
other book, could explain the words, "a king shall be cut off, and to him there
shall not be"-"a king to succeed him." There remains, only, to supply, "and
it (the people) shall have no Messiah more," (Steudel) which, though true, can-
not be the meaning here; for the people had nowhere been a subject or ob-
ject of any previous sentence, and so many substantives had intervened between
this verse and the mention of "thy people and thy holy city," v. 24. One
would even correct 28, owning thereby, that is jy cannot have its meaning.
Gen. xvii. 14, Ex. xxx. 33, 38, xxxi. 14, Lev. vii. 20, 21, 25, 27, xvii. 4,
9, xviii. 29, xix. 8, xx. 18, xxiii. 29, Num. ix. 13, xv. 30.
13 Num. xix. 20.
14 Ex. xii. 19. "from Israel," Ex. xii. 15, Num. xix. 13; "from My presence,"
Lev. xxii. 3.
15 Lev. xvii. 10, xx. 3, 5, 6.
16 In the Pentateuch three times (Lev. xvii. 14, xx. 17, Num. xv. 31.) else,
Ps. xxxvii. 9, 22, 34, Prov. ii. 22, Is. xxix. 20, Hos. viii. 4, Ob. 10, Mic. v. 8.
[9. Eng.] Nah. ii. 1. [i. 15. Eng.] Zeph. i. 11, Zech. xiii. 8. by the flood, Gen.
ix. 11.
17 123 Is. liii. S.
186
Twofold aspect of cessation of sacrifice.
this¹, if they can but find out any personage for their the-
ory, who did die a violent death.
The entire cessation of the bloody sacrifices of the law
has a twofold aspect, of mercy and of judgment. To those
who have believed in Jesus, He caused the sacrifice and
oblation of the law to cease, by re-placing the shadows,
which pourtrayed His Atoning Sacrifice, by Himself the
Substance, offering Himself once for all, to put away sin
by the sacrifice of Himself. To the Jews who rejected
Him, He caused sacrifice and oblation to cease, by the de-
struction of the temple and city, and the dispersion of
the people.
3
On this, the Death of the Messiah, follows the sentence.
of that utter destruction of the city and temple. The
meaning of the prophecy is not, in the least, affected by
any variation in rendering or interpreting single words.
It is far too broad and explicit.
And the city and the sanctuary the people of a prince
who shall come, shall destroy; and the end thereof shall be
with that flood; and unto the end, war¹, and desolatenesses5
decreed. And after the prophecy of the cessation of sa-
¹ So Bleek, Maurer, Lengerke, Ewald, who would have "the Anointed” to
be Seleucus IV. Philopator, whose reign was marked by no one event; Eich-
horn, Wieseler, Hitzig, who would make it the aged deposed high-priest
Onias III. whose murder had no other public effect than the punishment of the
governor who murdered him. (2 Macc. iv. 34-38.) Even Rosenmüller, who
would have the Anointed to be Alexander, rendered rightly "exscindetur."
Only Bertholdt, with his wonted carelessness, says "Here, as in countless
other places, (!) it stands only as a poetic word for die,' and indicates a ra-
pid and unexpected death." Gesenius followed him in rendering ambiguously
"shall perish,” contrary to the meaning which he assigns to the word in every
other place.
2 Heb. vii. 27.
3 Ib. ix. 26, 28.
C
4 It can hardly be, unto the end of the war, desolations are determined, as
in the E. V. For the end of the war was the beginning, not the end, of the
desolations. It would also be a tautology. ? also (Dan. xi. 27.) pp ny (viii.
17, xi. 35, 40, xii. 4.) pp. ¬yin (viii. 19.) are terms used by Daniel to designate
the close of a period appointed by God.php has also no article, as a has,
referring to "the flood" of war just spoken of, and as it, too, probably would
have had, had Daniel meant, the war.
5 nipp is not an abstract, desolationes, but a passive, loca desolata, as just
before, v. 18. and Is. xlix. 19, Ixi. 4. [all.]
Scope of prophecy not varied by varied renderings. 187
crifice; and upon the pinnacle of abominations a desolater,
and that, until decreed desolation be outpoured upon the de-
solated. The rendering, "upon the pinnacle are the abo-
minations which desolate," comes to the same meaning.
In both ways, the temple is the place intended; in both
ways, the cause of the desolation is the same; in both, the
desolation is certain, either described as actually come,
or as involved in the purpose of the Divine retribution, in
that the abominations which should cause the desolation
are there. Wheresoever the carcase is, thither will the ea-
6 Gesenius allows (Thes. p. 698.) that the words "ought to be so rendered
according to the masorethic points and the lawful syntax," but corrects, bun
(.20 .Is. xxx מַיִם לַחַץ citing) שְׁקוּצִי מְשׁוֹמֵם as if it were ,שְׁקוּצִים מְשׁוֹמֵם and translates
He
and renders," and on the pinnacle are the abominations of the desolater."
agrees then in the meaning of all the several words, and alters the construc-
tion only. He adopts the construction of the LXX. and Theod. kaì ènì Tò
¡epòv Вdéλvyμa τns èpnμwσews. The analogy of S. Matt. iv. 5, S. Luke iv. 9.
TÓ πTEρÚYLOV TOû lepoû, goes far to shew that 9 (orig. "wing") might have
the same meaning as the Greek, i. e. pinnacle. The temple being, in part, the
subject of the prophecy, the word "pinnacle" might the more readily mean
"its pinnacle." Still, if app are united, they must stand in a sort of ap-
position," abominations (which are) a desolater," as pop are "waters" (which
are, involve,) "affliction." They cannot stand in the relation of the thing caused
and its cause,
“abominations of (brought by) a desolater." In the phrase DO
pr an abstract noun is added as a sort of adjective, "waters, affliction;" the
phrase pyp would, according to this analogy, signify as above, "abo-
minations, a desolate-maker;" i. e. which make desolate. As to the renderings,
"wings:"i. e. army, "wing of the temple," D alone means "wings." The
substitution of the meaning, "surface of the altar," (Rösch) only illustrates the
abuse of so-called Hebrew criticism to rationalist prejudice. might, with
equal truth, be said to mean anything else under the sun. Lengerke adopts the
construction given above, "and upon the pinnacle of abominations a desolater,"
but he would have it mean, "a desolater shall come upon a pinnacle, which shall
not, when he comes, be a pinnacle of abominations, but which he shall make
so," (contrary to all language.) In the words, "upon a pinnacle of abominations
a desolater," the "pinnacle of abominations" must, according to all language,
express the previous condition. The word, "abomination," must express the
moral ground, why, in God's Providence, he came. We should so interpret
the like words in any language, "Against the accursed race The Avenger
came," "
upon the degraded crew came a destroyer." It would simply not
be true, that he “came upon a pinnacle of abominations," if it were not such
when he came. The temple was, by God's appointment, "His holy house
men "made it a den of thieves." Only desecration from within could make it
"a pinnacle of abominations."
7 S. Matt. xxiv. 28.
188
Connection of destruction of city and temple
gles be gathered together. If, again, the last words be
rendered, as in the English margin, "even until decreed
desolation shall be poured upon the desolater," (although
I think it less probable¹,) it would but carry on the pro-
phecy like those words of our Lord, Jerusalem shall be
trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles
shall be fulfilled.
2
Apart from these lesser details of prophecy, the central
unmistakeable prophecy lies in the connection of the de-
struction of the temple and city with their great sin, the
cutting off of the Christ. The connection is, not of time,
but of cause and effect. Some forty years were allowed,
in which individuals might saves themselves from that un-
toward generation. But the doom of the whole was fixed.
They had pronounced upon themselves their sentence;
We have no king but Cæsar. Our Lord, in that tender
mourning over Jerusalem, pronounced that its day was
past. 5 If thou hadst known, at least in this thy day, the
things which belong unto thy peace, but now they are hid
from thine eyes. For the days come upon thee, that thine
enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee
round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee
even with the ground and thy children within thee, and
they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because
thou knewest not the time of thy visitation. Our Lord en-
larges what Daniel had said in sum. Both prophecies
stand in the same relation. The death of the Messiah en-
tails the destruction of city and temple. The people of a
prince that shall come, is, by the force of the term, a foreign
people with their prince. Before, it was said, unto Mes-
1, as being a different form from □, is probably used in a different sense.
It had been used intransitively in the preceding verse, nipņi, (v. 26.) as also,
(equally in the fem.) v. 18. and in 11 other places (□p Lam. iii. 11; Epiʊ Lam.
i. 4 ; oppiv Ib. 16; ʊņņivi 2 Sam. xiii. 20, Is. liv. 1, Lam. i. 13; rip Is. xlix. 8,
19, lxi. 4. (ii.) Ez. xxxvi. 4.) On the other hand, piv is used twice in Da-
niel actively, yet not absolutely, (as it stands here,) but as an adj.; and in both
places its active meaning is determined by the context, op van viii. 13. and
2 S. Luke xxi. 24.
3 Acts ii. 40.
5 S. Luke xix. 41-44.
Do papy xii. 11.
4 S. John xix. 15.
with the cutting off of the Christ.
189
siah prince; now he speaks not of the Messiah at all, but
only of a prince; not even the prince, as he would have
said, had he been speaking of the same. The Coming.
Daniel habitually used the word come, of an invading
power which comes into a land, to conquer it. It is re-
markable that, contrary to the facts in the time of Antio-
chus and conformably to the facts under Titus, the de-
struction is attributed to the people of this prince, not to
himself. Antiochus himself was the soul of his persecu-
tion: Titus wished to save the temple; his soldiery de-
stroyed it. Then too the destruction was to be final, at
least for a long-appointed period. The end thereof shall
be with the flood, and unto the end is war, desolations de-
creed. The end thereof is plainly, "the end of the invad-
ed," not "of the invader." For 1) it stands in the mid-
dle of the description of the desolation. The account is
progressive. First he says, the city and sanctuary, the
people of a prince who shall come, shall waste: then he
speaks of the violence, the irresistible, all-sweeping flood,
with which the desolation shall be; the end thereof shall
be with that flood. 2) That flood is evidently that over-
flowing tide of war, just spoken of, the overspreading ar-
mies, the people of the invading Prince. He had said that
that prince should come; now he speaks of his over-flow-
ing power. Daniel never uses the word in any other
sense 8. It is used in Scripture of overflowing for evil, or,
twice only, for good'. The Psalmist speaks of the flood
of mighty waters 10, as all languages speak of " a mightier
wave," or "sea of troubles."
sea of troubles." But no where is the word
used of the mere sudden death of an individual¹¹.
end thereof must then be the end of that which has just
preceded, the wasting of the city and temple: and this,
to the end.
6 xi. 13, 16, 21, 40, 41.
7 Jos. B. J. vi. 4, 5-7.
The
8 "He so uses it xi. 10, 22, 26, 40. from Is. viii. 8." Hengst. In Nah. i. S.
the allusion is probably to the mode of the destruction. See Ib.
9 Is. x. 22, lxvi. 12.
10 Ps. xxxii. 6.
"The root is used of a large flow of water, Ps. lxxviii. 20; overflowing, 2 Chr.
xxxii. 4; washing away, Job xiv. 19; of rains, Job xxxviii. 25, Ezek. xiii. 11, 13,
190
Complicated fulness of the prophecy,
Look then at this harmonising prophecy as a whole, the
completeness of its symmetry, its complicated harmony.
Look at the elements which are combined together.
There is a whole of time, 490 years, distributed into pe-
riods of 49, 434, and 3 years twice repeated, and these
four periods not to be taken any how, but following in
this exact order. Then, in this series of years, as in every
other part of prophecy, there is a nearer prophetic fore-
ground of events, whose fulfilment was to guarantee the
more distant, the restoration of the city and polity in a
period of 49 years from a decree to be issued. 434 years,
from the end of those 49, were to reach to the Coming of
Messiah the Prince. At a time within the 490 years, but
after the first 483, i. e. in the last 7, Messiah was to be
cut off; in the midst of those 7, he was to make sacrifice
to cease, but to confirm a covenant, not with all, but with
the many; transgression, sin, iniquity were to be effaced:
everlasting righteousness was to be brought in; but city
and sanctuary were to be destroyed by the overwhelm-
ing tide of the armies of a foreign prince; coming down
upon the pinnacle of abominations, and the desolation
was to endure.
Marvellous blending of mercy and judgment, harmo-
nising with all God's other ways, and with the prophe-
cies that a remnant¹ only would accept His mercies: yet
inexplicable beforehand, and to be effected only by Di-
vine power. The destruction and lasting desolation of
city, temple, sacrifice, are closing traits of that vision
which was to be the consolation of Daniel amid their pre-
sent desolation, which was coming to an end. Sin is to
be brought to an end and everlasting righteousness
brought in; and yet the desolation is to come, because
xxxviii. 22; of a vessel flooded (i. e. throughly rinsed,) Lev. vi. 28, xv. 12; hands,
Ib. 11; blood from the person, Ezek. xvi. 9; a chariot, 1 Kings xxii. 38; metaph.
swept away, Ps. Ixix. 3, 16, [Heb.] cxxiv. 4, Is. xxviii. 18, Prov. xxvii. 4
sweeping by (rapid rushing) of horse to the battle, Jer. viii. 6; inundating with
righteousness, Is. x. 22; of a stream sweeping away, Is. xxx. 28, xliii. 2, Jer.
xlvii. 2, Cant. viii. 7; inpouring, Is. Ixvi. 12.
1 See on Joel ii. 32. p. 131.
fulfilled exactly in the Gospel.
191
sin is at its height, and in possession of the holy place
itself. The Messiah is to be cut off, and the people no
more to be His (as a whole;) and yet He is to confirm
the covenant with many; and this covenant must be
plainly a new covenant, since the typical atonements for
sin were to be abolished.
All this meets in one in the Gospel. He, the so long
looked-for, came; He was owned as the Messiah; He did
cause the sacrifices of the law to cease; He was cut off;
yet He did make the covenant with the many; a foreign
army did desolate city and temple; the temple for these
1800 years has lain desolate; the typical sacrifices have
ceased, not through disbelief in their efficacy on the part
of those to whom they were once given. The city rose
from its ashes, but not for them; long, not for them even
to look upon, and, even now, to be strangers in it, not
having a house of their own in the Holy City 2.
Now what does the school of Porphyry give us in ex-
change? The failure in accounting for the periods of
time in the prophecy is the least portion of their failure.
The heterogeneousness of the events which they bring
together, the unmeaningness of the whole, the impossi-
bility of bringing the parts into any one connection, or
so as to bear at all on the situation of Daniel or the people,
evince yet more, that the unmeaningnesses, which they
have brought into the prophecy, cannot be its meaning.
First, as to time. Since the close of the 490 years, if
counted even from the edict of Cyrus, falls 118 years after
Antiochus, and within 42 years of our Lord's Birth, the
118 years have to be removed. This is, for the most part,
effected thus; they assume that the ground of Daniel's
2 This was stated to the Rev. G. Williams, author of "the Holy City," by
Signor Pierotti, (Architect under France to the Holy Land and Architect Engi-
neer to Surraya Pasha of Jerusalem) the author of the excellent chart of Jeru-
salem, who had been for some time employed by the Turkish Government as
Chief Surveyor of the public works. I mention this as a fact only, an illustra-
tion of its lasting desolation, a superabundance of fulfilment. That desolation
of 1800 years would not be less signal, if, at any time, the Jews should anew
acquire property in Jerusalem, preparing the way probably for Anti-Christ.
192 Unnatural theory of nonfulfilment of Jeremiah's
prayer was the nonfulfilment of Jeremiah's prophecy of
the restoration of the people and of the city. They say,
"the 69th year was now come, and yet there was no ap-
pearance that the prophecy would be completed, for city
and temple were still desolate. Gabriel is sent to an-
nounce to him, that the 70 years of Jeremiah are not to
be counted as common years, but as 70 weeks of years."
Thus the commencement of the 490 years is to be thrown
back to some period of the captivity, and the first 49 years
are to be disposed of before the date of the prophecy and
the time of Cyrus. Then, because the years would still
be too long, the 62 sevens of years are to begin again at
the same date. Cyrus is to be the Messiah of v. 25. The
Messiah in v. 26. is to be a different person. Those cho-
sen have been, Nebuchadnezzar, or Alexander, both of
whom died by a natural death; (Alexander B.C. 323.) or
Seleucus Philopator, who was poisoned by his treasurer
Heliodorus, 175, B.C.; or Onias III. a deposed high priest,
who was murdered by one Andronicus, a Syrian governor,
at Daphne near Antioch, about 171, B.C., the murderer
being put to death by Antiochus Epiphanes. The prince
who was to come is to be Antiochus, whose profanation
of the temple was in December or January 16, B.C.
The objectors, in this, strangely confuse the actual si-
tuation of Daniel in that 69th year of the captivity, and
that of their own Pseudo-Daniel 3 centuries and a half
afterwards. To Daniel that 69th year was a year of
longing expectation. The 70th year brought the fulfil-
ment of the prophecy in Cyrus' decree. In the time of
the supposed Pseudo-Daniel, every instructed Jew knew
that prophecy to have been fulfilled. The assumed non-
fulfilment of the 70 years is in direct contradiction to the
admitted testimony of those times. Zechariah alludes
to it¹; Ezra asserts that the proclamation of Cyrus in the
first year of his reign was in order to its fulfilment. In
the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of
1 v. Lengerke, pp. 407, 8. See ab. Lect. 3. p. 153. 32 Mace. iv. 31-38.
• i. 12 sqq.
5 Ezr. i. 1.
prophecy, and its eking-out by Daniel's.
193
the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the
Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, that
he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, per-
mitting the Jews to return, and aiding them to rebuild
their temple. But, with this fact, the whole plea for dat-
ing back the 490 years is gone. It was a strange theory,
that, on account of the non-fulfilment of a prophecy, at a
time before that assigned for its fulfilment, another was
commissioned to declare, that the 70 years, which the for-
mer prophet had predicted, were not to be 70 years, but
7 times 70 years. It would have been a mockery, declar-
ing what Jeremiah had said in God's Name to be false.
For the words of Jeremiah admitted of no such extension.
It was a definite prophecy, which, if not fulfilled, would
have failed; which admitted of no eking out, (for 70 years
could in no way have meant 490 years,) but which was
believed at the time to be fulfilled, and which was fulfil-
led to the letter. The theory supposes the prophecy of
the 70 weeks to have been written to explain the non-ful-
filment of that, which they, to whom this amended pro-
phecy is supposed to have been given, believed and knew
to have been fulfilled.
Then too, the words, from the commandment to restore
and to build Jerusalem unto Messiah the prince, is 7 weeks
and 62 weeks, cannot be disjoined. And this, on account
both of the language and substance of the prophecy.
In regard to its substance, the gifts which had just be-
fore, in the summary of the prophecy, been promised at
the end of the 70 weeks, are those which all other pro-
phets prophesied as gifts through the Messiah. No cri-
tic doubts of this, whether any one believes that those pro-
mises were ever fulfilled or no. No rationalist interpreter
questions that those promises were made, and were ex-
pected to be fulfilled in that "golden age," the Coming of
the Messiah. No one doubts of this, as to this prophecy.
But then, since the times of the Messiah were, according
to the admitted meaning of the words of the prophecy, to
begin at the close of the 70 weeks, or 490 years, it could
O
194 Construction, "72weeks, the street shall be built," absurd.
1
not be meant that the Messiah should come, when only
of the period had elapsed, at the end of the first 49.
In regard to language; if the words, and threescore and
two weeks, were joined on to what follows, (as is required
by this theory¹,) and threescore and two weeks, the street shall
be built again, and that in troublous times, then the mean-
ing would be, that the street, i. e. the city, should be in
building through that whole period of 434 years¹, which
is absurd in itself, and contrary to the theory, in that the
first portion of the period, during which it is to be in build-
ing, would coincide with that in which it was to lie deso-
late, in the past Captivity 2. Further, a decree to restore
and build Jerusalem is, according to these theories, not to
be any decree or commandment of God, but a prophetic
promise. This is contrary to the idiom, both in itself and
1
¹ Lengerke acknowledges that Hengstenberg has shewn this. Ewald had
laid down as a general rule, “In assigning dates, the accusative is used, if the
action belongs to the whole period. But if you would express, that the action
falls at a definite moment within a larger period, must be used, as the Abla-
tive is in Latin." The only apparent exception is, where the larger space is
itself very limited, and is used as a sort of adverb; as in German you might
say, "diesen Tag, diese Stunde, diese Woche," and we could say colloquially,
"this month, this year," for "within this month or this year;" but,
"these
seventy years," diese siebenzig Jahre," we or they could not say, except in
the sense,
"all though these seventy years." "this year," for, "in the
course of this year,' (Jer. xxviii. 16,) is so completely an adverb, that you can-
not say
with the demonstr. Pron., but must say 'n we, as it is in
Jer. xxviii. 17. So also D' Is. xxvii. 6." On the same principle, it would be
en
contrary to the idiom, to construe with Lengerke, as a nominative absolute,
and sixty and two weeks-the street shall be built again. Without the ad-
dition of 7, “in them," the words would express what was either in doing
throughout the time, or what was done at the end of it, whereas the rebuild-
ing of Jerusalem began, on the rationalist hypotheses, after the first ten, or seven
of the 62 weeks; in our belief, during the course of the seven.
See Hengst.
Christol, iii. 72,3. Ewald, consistently, rendered, "throughout 62 weeks.”
(D. Proph. ii. 568.) Maurer theorised that Seleucus might have contributed
to the improvement of the city; Rösch asserted that the city was then com-
pleted. "He [Sel. Phil.] seems to have amplified the city which, beyond
question, had been long ago restored." Maur. "The completion of the
building of the city under Seleucus IV." Rösch, Stud. u. Krit. 1834. p. 288.
2 "They (Lengerke, &c.) maintain consistently, that the building of the city
Jerusalem was carried on during the captivity, or the time when it lay
waste." Wies. p. 103.
To make ye 4th of Jehoiakim ye starting point, absurd. 195
in the context also, in that, the identical words having just
been used of a direct command of God, those same words
are now to signify, not a command, but a single prophecy.
The words are, "from the going forth of a word," (or
"command," "to restore," &c. It is word, not, "the
word." But" word," simply and indefinitely, is not used
to designate the word of God, or prophecy, apart from any
mention that it is "the word of God," any more than our
“word” would be. But now, in the immediate context,
the going forth of the word had been used of the issuing
of a command from God to Gabriel, which command he
obeyed. In no language would the same idiom be used in
different senses in two places so closely adjacent. The
prophecy of Jeremiah also, B.C. 606, was a prophecy of
the desolation of Jerusalem and of the 70 years of the du-
ration of that desolation. It was, as Daniel speaks of it in
this chapter, the word of the Lord to accomplish 70 years in
the desolations of Jerusalem. A prophecy, in God's Name,
of a desolation of the city for a limited period, involves that
such desolation should last only for that period; yet it
would be unheard-of language to call the prophecy of that
temporary desolation a word or promise to restore and
rebuild it. Yet this is the only prophecy of Jeremiah 3,
to which Daniel refers. Hosea, Amos, Micah, Isaiah had
prophesied the restoration of Judah from captivity; Mi-
cah and Isaiah had specifically promised a restoration
from Babylon. There is then no more ground to select
a prophecy of Jeremiah that God would, after the 70 years,
cause them to return to that place, than one of Micah and
Isaiah. No one would think of representing those other
prophecies as decrees to restore and build Jerusalem.
Why? Because, when those prophecies were delivered,
Jerusalem was not yet besieged, much less destroyed.
There is no more reason to select a prophecy of Jeremiah,
B.C. 606, than that of Micah, B.C. 758-26; i. e. there is no
reason to take either.
But, further, let people (which they will not allow to
8 Jer. xxv. 9-11.
o 2
196
Problems as to the seventy weeks,
1
believers) place the beginning of the period where they
will, they cannot make either the whole sum, or its seve-
ral portions, agree with any event in history before Anti-
ochus, if only they adhere to the obvious principle, that
the parts are equal to the whole, and so, that 7+62+1 are
the same as the 70 mentioned just before. This was, of
course, in any honest way impossible. It was a postu-
late of "pure intellect" that the prophecy should close in
the life-time of the imagined author, accordingly not later
than 16 B. C., the date of the death of Antiochus Epi-
phanes, which, since, on the hypothesis, the Man of God
could not prophesy, he must be supposed to have outlived.
But 16+490 would carry us back to 65, B. C. in the
reign of Manasseh ¹, before the birth of Jeremiah, whose
prophecy was thus to be explained. Yet the axiom, that
there could be no definite prediction, was more self-evi-
dent than what to our childhood seemed self-evident, that
2 and 2 make 4. Any how, man willed that the axiom
should remain unquestioned, and the science of numbers
had to give way before it. Granted, for the time, that
Jeremiah's prophecy of the desolation of Jerusalem could,
by any human being, be seriously called, "the going forth
of a word to restore and to build it;" still, from 606 B. C.
there was an overplus of 48 years on the whole. Or,
granted that the actual destruction of Jerusalem by Ne-
buchadnezzar, when there was no contemporary prophecy
of its restoration2, was that "word to restore and rebuild
it," this, absurd as it was, while it obtained an approxi-
mate number of years for the first 7 weeks, (52 for 49), if
Cyrus was to be the Messiah, increased the discrepancy by
18 years. But the difficulty as to the whole period was but
the first item. Two other problems had to be worked out
in harmony with the solution adopted for this. It was be-
lieved by most of the school, with a certainty equal to that
¹ I see that Böhmer consistently adopted this, as the beginning. See below,
p. 212.
2 There is nothing to place the prophecy, Jer. xxx. 18, in that year.
Hitzig assumes this as to "its genuine portions," [i. e. what he, Hitzig, allows
to be so,] on the ground that, as he thinks, Jer. xxxi. 15. relates to that event.
which unbelief had to solve.
197
claimed for revelation, that Messiah the prince (v. 26,) was
Cyrus. Another Messias had to be found, who was to be
cut off after the 62 weeks, or 434 years; also some one
(since he was not to be the Messiah) who should "make a
covenant with the many " for the last 7 years, in the midst
of which 7 years he was to make sacrifice and oblation
to cease, and at the end of which he was himself, (so the
school agreed,) to come to an end.
These were the impossible problems for unbelief to
solve; it had to solve them for itself, which was, so far,
easier; for nothing is impossible for unbelief to believe,
except what God reveals.
The impossible numbers were to be reduced somehow;
men tried their hands all ways.
One³ only was found to declare the three last verses
at least a Rabbinical gloss; one or two only (it is almost
strange that no more were found to support the scheme)
declared that all the weeks were literal weeks. An essay
of an English deist, who took this line, was almost un-
noticed in England 5; was translated twice into German,
"received with much applause," but, in 7 years, "it was
almost forgotten." It was remoulded 7; but this we are
told, “ found least reception of any."
"Not until the light, which rose upon the theological
world in the last century, had reached its full lustre,” the
Germans tell us 9, "could Corrodi and Eichhorn succeed
in winning their age to the right understanding of the
passage." Only, Corrodi was still so far benighted, that
he thought that, take the numbers how men would, they
3 Lowenheim. 4 A Free Enquiry into Daniel's Vision and Prophecy of
70 weeks. London 1776. It was translated into German twice, in 1783 by
Preiss, and in 1785.
5 No trace of the book can now be found. It is
not in the British Museum, nor in the University Libraries of Oxford or Cam-
bridge. There is no notice of it in any English Bibliographical book, nor can
one of our ablest booksellers discover it. It is just alluded to by Wintle on Da-
niel ix. 24. 6 Eichhorn, Allgem. Biblioth. iii. 781-790. The English writer
“referred” the prophecy to “ Cyrus and the fate of the Jews in his time.” Ib.
7 Eckermann, Theol. Beitr. i. 1. pp. 133 sqq. 8 Wieseler, Die 70 Wo-
chen, p. 69.
9 Bertholdt, Daniel, p. 601.
198
Corrodi's theory and admissions.
must be real numbers. He saw too that the whole pe-
riod must end with the Messiah. Since then the num-
bers, like water, did not admit of compression, and could
not be condensed before the time of Epiphanes, and since
there was no Messiah then, he detached the unreducible
49 years from the beginning and added them on to the
end, so that, in lieu of Daniel's divisions, 49, 434, 7, it
was to be 434, 7, 49¹. The 434 years were to run from
the prophecy of Jeremiah, B.C. 606, to Antiochus Epi-
phanes' Ist invasion of Judæa, B. C. 170; the 7 years were
to extend to B.C. 164, the death of Antiochus; and the
49 years, which, in Daniel, stand at the beginning, were
to represent a period after the death of Antiochus, when
the Messias is to have been expected to come, but did not.
Corrodi's plan conceded too much of the natural mean-
ing, and was itself too obviously unnatural. It was, so
far, the testimony of an opponent, that the natural inter-
pretation was, that the prophecy should close with the
coming of the Messiah, and that the numbers of years
were to be real bonâ fide years. So Eichhorn tried
another way 2. He revived a theory, which in Harduin 3
had been reverential, (for he acknowledged a fuller ful-
2
1 Corrodi, Krit. Gesch. d. Chil. iii. 253. Wieseler, having first declared his
solution "self-evidently arbitrary and at variance with the text," afterwards
adopted it. Allg. Bibliothek d. Bibl. Litt. B. 3. p. 793. Hebr. Proph. iii. 47.
3 Chronologia Vet. Test. Opera Selecta, pp. 592 sqq. defended in his Diss. de
LXX hebdom. Daniel. Ib. pp. 880 sqq. Collins (Scheme of Literal Prophecy, pp.
175 sqq.) in the main followed Harduin. The discrepancy of the first period, in
this way, he gets over thus ; "All which, Chronology proves to have happened.
For, from the 4th year of Jehoiakim, wherein the prophecy of the 70 years' cap-
tivity, or of the deliverance from thence at the end of 70 years in the first of
Cyrus, was made to Jeremiah, there are seven weeks or 49 years.” i. e. 49 are
the same as 70. The supernumerary years, even from this date, he gets rid of,
by supposing that two persons are prophesied in the words, "unto Messias the
Prince,” in v. 25, so that the words should mean, “unto Messias the prince, Cy-
rus, there shall be seven weeks, and unto another Messias prince there shall be
62 weeks." Cyrus was the first; and "No one can doubt," (he says, p. 182,)
"that the name Messias belongs still better to Judas Maccabæus, since he is call-
ed 'the valiant man that delivered Israel,' (1 Macc.ix. 21.) and 'your captain and
fighting the battles of the people.'” (ii. 66.) The difficulty as to the 62 weeks
and the one week he gets over summarily, by counting them together, so that
Shifts of Marsham.
4
199
filment in Christ,) in Marsham was sceptical; and which,
having found no soil in England to root in, had been
transplanted to Germany, where it met a want, the want
to be rid of the prophecy of Daniel. The principle adop-
ted from Marsham was, not to take the 70 weeks or 490
years, as one entire sum, but to divide them into two, so
that the first period of 7 weeks or 49 years should some-
how run parallel with the first portion of the 63 weeks,
and so should not be counted. The selfsame years of
time were to serve, as portions both of the 49 and of the
441 years; so that, in fact, the sum total was to be, not
490, but 441; a process like that of the steward, wise in
his generation but unjust, who bade his Lord's debtors
write "fifty" or "fourscore" instead of a "hundred 5."
Yet, even thus, the numbers 49 and 441 would not fit in
to the periods assigned to them. They could not be be-
gun from any common date.
There are 441 years from the 4th year of Jehoiakim,
B. C. 606, to B. C. 165, the year when the temple was
cleansed after the profanation by Antiochus; but from
B. C. 606, to Cyrus, B. C. 536, (if he was to be made the
Messiah of v. 25,) there were not 49 years only, but 70.
How then was the number 49 to be accounted for at all?
Harduin accounted for it in his way, by selecting, for the
close of the 49 years, a date of his own, with which the
Jews were not directly concerned, B. C. 557, which he as-
signed as the date of Cyrus' conquest of Media 6. Mar-
sham, in ignorance of Hebrew, took Daniel's 3 weeks
fasting and prayer, in the third year of Cyrus, to be weeks
of years, whereas they are expressly called weeks of days7;
and these 21 invented years were, in some not very in-
telligible way, to be deducted from the 70 years of the
Captivity. The 49 years then were to represent the re-
maining years of the Captivity, and to be dated from the
they should contain the time from the 4th of Jehoiakim to A. S. 148, when the
sanctuary was cleansed. The death of Antiochus, according to him, lay beyond
the 63 weeks. 4 Canon Chron. pp. 610 sqq. He closed with the words, meant
to hint what he did not care to avow; "An ultra Epiphanem prospexerit Daniel,
viderint alii."
7 Dan. x. 2. See E. Marg.
5 S. Luke xvi. 6, 7.
6
p. 596.
200
Eichhorn's capricious amendment of
1
expiration of the 21, which were somehow to be its first
21 years; while the 441 years, or, (as Marsham, again in
ignorance of Hebrew ¹, made them,) 444 years, were to
commence from the original date 606 B. C. The 63
weeks, 444 years, were to last from 4107 of the Julian
Period to 4551 (i. e. from B. C. 607 to B. C. 163); the 62
weeks were to reach to the beginning of the reign of Epi-
phanes 2; the one week was to be the time in which he
had not profaned the temple 3; the half week, the time
from the capture of the city ³; the Messias to be cut off,
were to be the high priests generally 4.
3.
Marsham's hypothesis, however, of the 21 years, which
were to explain the 49, was obviously absurd, and in fla-
grant contradiction to the text. So Eichhorn tried to
mend it in his way. He began, (as others after him,)
at the end, as being the easiest. He paraphrased, rather
than translated, but as no one else would; "5 During a
week of years, religion will shew its power with many ";"
from A.S. 143, to the re-consecration of the temple at the
beginning of A.S. 148, he counted 6 years, [of course, since
he did not claim to count both extremities inclusively,
from 143 to 148 are 5 years not 6; the actual persecution
up to that time had lasted 3 years only:] "6 years might
very well in poetry count for 7; the suspension of the
daily sacrifice was to be 3 [really 3] years." Then he
left the early part of Epiphanes' reign a vacuum, and cal-
culated that 62 weeks or 434 years would go back from
the beginning of the reign of Epiphanes, when Onias was
deposed, B. C. 175, to B. C. 609, 3 years only before Jere-
miah's prophecy : but “2 years" he said", "cannot come
into account in a reckoning by septennia, since a round
¹ Rendering "half of a week,” instead of "the half, or midst of the week,”
i. e. of the one week just mentioned, as the use of the article requires, gan yo.
5 Allgem. Biblioth. f. Bibl. Lit. iii. p. 787.
2
p. 615.
3
p. 617.
4
p. 616.
6 Literally, "the covenant will infuse might into many." He recognised the
right meaning of the word ", God's covenant with man; but 1) if the pro-
phet had meant to change the subject, and make ♫ the subject, he would have
placed it before the verb. 2) '77, often as it occurs as the object of a verb, never
occurs as an agent.
7 p. 791.
Marsham's theory, and dishonest criticisms.
201
reckoning never troubles itself about a trifle." Then, as
to the 7 weeks, he took so far the plain meaning, that the
decree to restore Jerusalem must be some actual com-
mand to rebuild it, and chose as his starting-point the
first year of Cyrus. From 536 B.C. then, he said, the
years, if counted forward, would come to no year of mark-
ed importance to the Jews: Messiah the prince must be
an oppressor: and Xerxes, although very nearly one, was
not. Counted backwards, 49 years would be, he says,
only 2 years short of the destruction of Jerusalem by Ne-
buchadnezzar, [really 3; he himself calls them 52 years.]
All then, he says, was plain. It was to be a new inter-
pretation of Jeremiah's prophecy. "Jeremiah, when
speaking of the 70 years of misfortune, [Jeremiah spake
not of misfortune but of captivity,] did not mean 70 years
in their most especial sense, but 70 seven-years. To the
end of the captivity, were not 70 years, only 7 weeks or
49 years. But if you take 7 seven-years, and count in
addition the 62 seven-years, which elapsed from the time
when Jeremiah spoke, to Antiochus Epiphanes, and add
the 7 years of his persecution, you have then the exact
point of time when the new good-fortune of the Jews was
to take its beginning." In other words, because 70 years
elapsed from the prophecy of Jeremiah to the end of the
Captivity, but only 49 of these after the destruction of
Jerusalem, therefore, on the one hand, you were to count
70 weeks of years, viz. 490 years, but, on the other, to de-
duct from them 49 years. Why? He says, "the word 'af-
ter' is used to mark succession of time; since then it is
not used here, it is implied that the time is coincident."
In this way, by counting at one time backwards, at ano-
ther forwards, and by dishonest criticism, Eichhorn, as
p. 792.
9 According to Eichhorn, the use of g was to mark the succession of time,
אַחֲרֵי הַשָּׁבוּעִים שִׁשִׁים וּשְׁנַיִם הִנְבִּיר בְּרִית לָרַבִּים שָׁבוּעַ אֶחָד,and for this he quoted v. 26, 7. thus
paraphrasing, "after the 62 weeks of years, is a week of years to be sought, in
which religion, &c," but he well knew that he had falsified the text, in which
the order depends, not on the "s, but on the continuity of the narrative; "Mes-
sias shall be cut off, and he shall have nought, and city and sanctuary," &e. (737?
not 747) "and he shall confirm," &c. So, contrariwise, he knew well that the
וְהִגְבִּיר)
202
Unnatural expedients of Eichhorn,
1
far as he could, veiled the fact, that the simple words,
"from the going forth of the command to restore and re-
build Jerusalem unto Messiah, (or, as he rendered, an
Anointed Prince,) are 7 weeks and 62 weeks, street and
wall shall be built," were, according to him, to mean,
"from Cyrus' command to restore and build Jerusalem
unto the anointed prince Nebuchadnezzar who destroyed
it, are 7 weeks, and during threescore and two weeks shall
street and wall be rebuilt." Threescore and two weeks
from when? Not from the command to rebuild it which
he had selected; not from the destruction which he had
specified; but from Jeremiah's prophecy, before it was
destroyed; so that the point of time prefixed to the whole,
"from the going forth of the command, &c." was, in re-
gard to the first two words ¹, "seven years," to mean the
decree of Cyrus, and for the next three words, "three-
score and two weeks," to mean the prophecy of Jeremiah,
70 years before it. Eichhorn owned the unnaturalness of
all this, and called it "cabbalistic;" but the fault was to
be with the prophet, not with his own non-natural inter-
pretation. Eichhorn in this way veiled also the fact, that,
even from Jeremiah's prophecy, the 62 weeks or 434 years
brought him to an unmarked period, the 5th year of Epi-
phanes³; and that so the last week, (really 8 years) had
no marked beginning, and that the deposition of Onias III.
which, according to him, was to be the cutting-off of the
Messias, at the beginning of the reign of Antiochus, took
place during, not, as the text says, after the 434 years".
Eichhorn, however, was an oracle in those times, and the
result was what was wished for; so it was ruled that all
this was an adequate representation of the prophet's
meaning. It was received by those who were them-
6
words na nagyany should be rendered, "the half of the week,” as he had
rendered it, p. 786, not " a half week," as, contrary to the Hebrew, he rendered,
p. 796. But then the words themselves, “half of the week,” mark that the half-
week belongs to the week preceding, not the absence of ".
שָׁבוּעִים שְׁשִׁים וּשְׁנַיִם 2
4 2 Macc. iv. 7-10.
שָׁבוּעִים שִׁבְעָה 1
3 606-434172. Antiochus succeeded A. S. 137.
(1 Macc. i. 10.) B.C. 176.
5 Dan. ix. 26.
6 "It deserved the applause with which it was received by two of the most
and of Paulus.
203
10
selves received as Theologians. Only, for Nebuchadnez-
zar, Paulus substituted, as the Messiah, the weak Zede-
kiah, who imprisoned God's prophet, gave him over to
death, when overborne by his princes", did evil in the
sight of God, rebelled against God and man, trusting in
man', destroyed his country, and died a natural death ¹º,
as a perjured rebel¹¹, in the prisons of Babylon. Paulus
tried to cover Eichhorn's arbitrariness by other render-
ings, as arbitrary. Having reached to Zedekiah from Cy-
rus, he re-bounded from Zedekiah's captivity, B. C. 588,
to the murder of Onias, according to Ussher, B. C. 171. so
far, at least, in conformity with the text. This, however,
being only 417 years, was 17 years before the close of the
434 which he had to fit in. So, by aid of a meaning of
his own, the words were to run, "and during the flow-
ing-by of the times, and after the threescore and two
weeks, shall Messias be cut off, and the people of the
prince which shall come shall destroy the city and sanc-
tuary;" i. e. Onias III. was to be murdered 17 years before
the lapse of the 434 years, and Antiochus was to destroy
city and sanctuary after them. Only, every one but him-
self, and probably himself too, knew, that the words must
mean, “in straitness of the times," not, "in the flowing-
by of the times12; " so the new explanation was only ano-
ther confession of the difficulty, which it owned by trying
so to solve it and failing.
Yet it was patently unnatural. So then yet another,
who was long the recognised interpreter¹³ of Daniel, vir-
tually avowed their incompetency to explain the num-
celebrated and renowned Theologians of our times, (Ammon Bibl. Theol. ii.
207 sqq. ed. 2. Paulus Comm. üb. d. N. T. iii. 415 sqq. ed. 2. note) and other
unknown Scholars in literary journals." Bertholdt, Dan. pp. 605, 6.
7 Jer. xxxviii. 5.
10 Jer. lii. 11.
8 2 Kgs. xxiv. 19, Jer. xxxvii. 2. 9 Ezek. xvii. 15.
11 Ezek. xvii. 13, 16, 18-20, 2 Chr. xxxvi. 13.
12 pts twice, in kal, is i. q. py, "poured," Job xxix. 6, Is. xxvi. 16. once intr.
was poured out," Job xxviii. 2. The noun pas?, column," 1 Sam. ii. 8,
xiv. 5, is connected with p i. q. 7 "set up." To "flow by" is quite foreign
from the root. 13 Bertholdt, Daniel. Rosenmüller abridged Bertholdt's
statements, and (as was his wont) gave them out unacknowledged as his own;
"nostra sententia," i. e. by adoption, in Daniel, p. 322.
204
Bertholdt's theory of "round numbers,"
bers; only, of course, since the application to Antiochus
was infallible, the fault was to rest with the prophet, not
with his expositors. It was owned that the 70 years
could not so be counted, it was alleged that they were not
meant to be counted. They were to be an indefinite pro-
phetical number. The word "weeks" was only to stand,
because in sound it resembled "seventy¹
•
,
دو
a comment
or rather "a parody on the 70 years of Jeremiah.”
It being assumed, that the 70 years of Jeremiah were
not to be taken precisely, so neither, it was assumed, were
the 70 weeks of years; and so, neither were the divisions
of those years, selected prominently by the prophet, 7,
62, 1; and the number to be compressed was apparently
that which had least the character of a round number, 62.
Had it but been 60, or 63! These would, at least, have
been multiples of other numbers, 10 or 7; but 62 is so so-
lid, angular, unreducible, matter of fact, sort of number,
as unlike a "round number" as could be. No
No process of
dividing, subtracting, combining, could make its elements,
sacred numbers or "round numbers." There it stood, as
if to set at nought the theory of "round numbers," and to
require an unevasive matter-of-fact explanation. Sothen
the knot, which could not be solved, was to be cut. The
other parts, 7 and 1, were held to be accounted for; and
whereas, the more precise these numbers were, the more
one should expect the remaining solid number to be so,
this was, contrariwise, to be the very reason why it should
For the first 49 years a very definite period was to
be found, that from the destruction of Jerusalem to Cyrus;
the last 7 years were to be made seemingly to correspond
(which they did not) with the period of the persecution
of Antiochus. And then, two periods having been ex-
plained, the middle and largest was to be allowed to be
false. It was said, that the writer, having once fixed up-
on the number 70, had to fill it up; and so was obliged
to falsify the time from Cyrus to Antiochus Epiphanes,
not.
¹ Bertholdt, pp. 610, 11.
2 Ib. p. 612.
and unnatural expositions.
205
making it 62 weeks, or 434 years, instead of 361 years,
because otherwise the number 70 could not be made out.
One ground for introducing Epiphanes at all into the
prophecy of the 70 weeks was, that he was prophesied of
in the 8th and 11th chapters. Bertholdt extended the
argument, and, since Alexander was also prophesied of in
those chapters, inferred that he must be spoken of here al-
so³; and, since there was no other place for him, he was to
be the Messias to be cut off. Since, however, Alexander
died a natural death, B. C. 323, and the alleged commence-
ment of Antiochus' persecution was in December, 168
B. C., a century and a half later, therefore the words, "after
the 62 weeks,” were (contrary, of course, to all language,)
to mean “4 in their latter half,” (in fact when 3 of the pe-
riod had not expired;) nay, yet more, ("through 5prolepsis
and sullepsis,") it was to be used of events both before
and after. According to the new enlightened criticism
then, the words were to mean, "And towards the end of
the threescore and two weeks shall an Anointed [Alexan-
der] be cut off and have no [successor out of his own
relations]; and the city and sanctuary shall the army of a
subsequent prince destroy;" although the death of Alex-
ander was 150 years before the expiry of the 62 weeks,
and the alleged destruction of the city and temple after
their close, not to mention the fact, that neither city nor
temple were destroyed by or under Antiochus. Such
was the new historical and grammatical interpretation, of
whose new light Bertholdt boasted 7.
6
So for 26 years Daniel had rest. The three main plans
of getting rid of the superfluous years had been tried.
Corrodi had disposed of them beyond the time of Epi-
phanes; Eichhorn had made them run parallel, and so
had thrown them out of the calculation; Bertholdt had
declared, that the largest was not to be taken precisely,
i. e. no more of it than was convenient. 66 O ye sons of
men, how long will ye love vanity, and seek after leas-
3 Bertholdt, pp. 619-23. 4 "Towards the end," pp. 619, 659-61.
5 Ib. 616.
6
.הַבָּא
7 See above, p. 197.
206
Second stage of rationalist exposition.
ing?" One who should so keep accounts would meet the
penalty of dishonesty; one who should so make an astro-
nomical calculation, would be counted a fool. But any-
thing would do for "scientific theology." For, God says,
"My people love to have it so." They who will to be
deceived, are deceived. No one then had any interest in
offering any new solution; for no one doubted that some
one of the three solutions would do; and no one heeded,
which. So that the reference to our Lord was buried, the
rationalists, like the Jews, were hushed, for fear they should
awake it. The less said about it the better. Bleek dis-
posed of the whole discussion in two pages¹; following
the same division as Bertholdt, except that he made the
62 weeks end with Seleucus Nicator, (he meant, he said
afterwards 2, Philopator;) and he first, (though in cour-
teous terms,) assuming the infallibility of their theory, laid
the blame of its incompatibility with facts upon the as-
sumed ignorance of the writer. "The space really meant
in the prophecies [of Jeremiah] was defined in [Daniel]
to be 70 seven-years, as to which we must needs assume,
that the Author, according to his calculation of the time
elapsed since Jeremiah, believed, that such was about its
length." Else he did not question Bertholdt.
It was otherwise, after Hengstenberg revived from the
dust the old belief, that Jesus and His Atoning Death were
the end and object of the prophecy, and that we have here
a real definite prediction. Thenceforth, all was commo-
tion to tread out the spark ere the fire should be kindled.
Yet the ways already tried had exhausted all practicable
methods of making away with the obnoxious years; so
the new schemes were only the old ones re-cast, mostly
with some fresh monstrousness.
One maintained that the 70 weeks, v. 24, after which
those great blessings were to be given, were wecks of
days; but the 7, 62, 1, (vv. 25-27,) were to be weeks of
years; only that the writer did not mean the 7 years to
2 Jahrbücher f. Deutsch. Theol.
8 Wieseler, Die 70 Wochen, pp. 91-4.
1 Schleierm. ZS. iii. 291, 2.
1860. v. 87.
Wieseler, unwilling witness to the truth. 207
be counted at all 4. He then asks himself the naif ques-
tion; "If the writer did not mean them to be counted,
why did he name them at all?" The answer is scarcely
credible. "In part, in order to harmonise with an as-
sumed omission of 7 years of the 70 of Jeremiah's pro-
phecy of the Captivity; in part, lest the 70 weeks of v. 24.
should be counted as weeks of years, and so, since there
was no room for these seven weeks before Antiochus Epi-
phanes, any might be tempted to count them afterwards,
as Corrodi did." In other words, the writer, having men-
tioned 70 weeks, is subsequently to have counted 7, 62,
1, weeks, which make up 70, in order to shew that the
weeks in both are not to be taken in the same sense, as
weeks of years. The framer of this scheme was amazed
at the blindness of all critics, Messianic and anti-Messi-
anic. All, he thought, were biassed, not to see what was
so evident, yet what he himself afterwards abandoned 7,
in order to take up that which he here condemned, as
being "self-evidently arbitrary and at variance with the
text." The ground of both his theories, in part, was, that
he felt how incongruous were the two descriptions; that
of the close of the 70 weeks as described in v. 24, and that
of the 7+62+1 weeks, in v. 27, if the subject in these
last was Antiochus Epiphanes. Then also he saw clearly
that the Messiah spoken of must be one and the same ¹º.
So does error again bear witness to the truth.
9
Yet another¹¹ (I take only persons who have been or are
held in repute) placed the 7 weeks at the beginning, run-
ning parallel with the 62, i. e. not counted at all, and then
again at the end, equally not to be counted. This is a
wantonness of contradiction to the text, which can only
be explained by the necessity of saying something, when
there was nothing to be said. "The author," he says 12,
4 Ib. pp. 101-5.
7 Gött. gel. Anz. 1846. pp. 43. sqq.
5
p. 105.
6
8 p. 71.
p. 106.
P. 93.
10
p. 103.
11 Von Lengerke, Daniel, p. 429. A good deal of his shew of learning was
transferred tacitly to his pages from the writer whom he makes it an object
to contradict, Hävernick.
12
p. 429.
208
Lengerke's fantastic theory,
"divides the period from the going forth of the word of
Jeremiah to the end, seemingly into 7+62 +1 weeks. It
would, however, be an error, if one were to sum up the
three numbers, as they follow upon each other. Rather,
the number is to be a mystery, and the seeming natural-
ness, with which it could be summed up, is precisely in-
tended to intensify the mysterious obscurity. The wri-
ter divides the period from the terminus a quo (i. e. 588,
B. C.) into two, of 62 and 8 weeks. In the first, he marks
out a lesser period of 7 weeks to Cyrus, and then again
counts from the same terminus a quo [i. e. still 588, B.C.].
So then the numbers 7 and 62 run parallel; both start
from the same point, but the 7 comes to its close within
the 62. This lesser period he names for two reasons;
1) on account of the great importance of Cyrus to the
Jews; 2) in this way the sacred number of 3 becomes
prominent; and even apart from this, he had no other
choice. For since, in order to mark off more precisely
the time of Antiochus and so to point him out more dis-
tinctly, 1 week (v. 27,) had to stand alone, and the number
of 62 weeks was fixed, in that he was compelled, going
upwards from the end, to distinguish an unnamed period
of 8 weeks, because the time of Antiochus the Great,
since which the Jews again stood under Syrian rule, had
1 Lengerke apparently derived his "8 weeks" from Rösch, (Stud. u. Kritik.
1834.pp.276sqq.) whom he refutes pp. 472,3. Rösch, by a chronology of his own,
placed the destruction of Jerusalem at B. C. 609; whence 49 years reached to
560 B.C. when Cyrus was to have ascended the throne. (Harduin had taken
557 B. C. as the first year of Cyrus in Media. See ab. p. 199.) From the same year
609, 62 weeks, or 434 years, were to come down to the death of Seleucus Phi-
lopator, B. C. 175; then 8 more weeks (56 years) would reach down to 120
B.C. [119,] "when John Hyrcanus had raised the condition of the Jews to
their best estate." The time of Antiochus Epiphanes was to be marked by the
week and the half week taken together. Lengerke answered, 1) that 609 was
22 years before Jerusalem was destroyed; 2) that there is no authority for such
a date as to Cyrus; 3) that the death of Philopator was on this theory both to
end the 62 weeks, and, (on the hypothesis that he was the Messiah,) to follow
after them; 4) that, in the text of Daniel the half-week was plainly a part of
the week, as expressed by the article gain, "in the half," or "the midst of,
the week;" 5) that there was no occasion for this extension to Hyrcanus.
The strange conception of the 8 weeks Lengerke adopted.
in his own eyes, incontrovertible.
209
to be specially marked, he had no other number but 7
left. The 70 weeks had then a two-fold fulfilment. But
the true way of counting is a veiled one. The numbers
7+62+1 divide the sacred number 70 outwardly only.
The true division is partly a hidden one; since only the
period of 62 weeks is named, the other of 8 weeks is
passed over in silence."
In plain language, in order to mark out an event, (the
transfer of Palestine to Antiochus the Great through the
defeat of Ptolemy Epiphanes, B. C. 203,) to which event
there is no allusion in this prophecy, which event took
place neither at the interval of 62 weeks (434 years) down-
wards from the one term assumed, 588, (for this would go
down to 154, 10 years after the death of Antiochus Epi-
phanes) nor at the interval of 8 weeks (56 years) upwards
from the other term assumed, the death of Epiphanes, 164,
B. C. (for this would reach up to 220, B. C. which is no
epoch at all, being 4 years after the accession of Antio-
chus, and 18 years before the defeat of Ptolemy)-in or-
der, in short, to mark an event to which Lengerke owned
that there was no allusion in Daniel, he assumed that
the writer mentally divided the 70 weeks into 62 and 8,
although neither of the numbers, 62 weeks which are
named, or 8 which are not named, could be made to coin-
cide with this unnamed event. And to arrive at this, the
writer, dividing 7, 62, 1, is to have placed the 7 where it
was not to be counted, and to have interposed the 62 be-
tween it and the 1, with which he assumes that it was to
be counted, and yet not even thus to be counted with the
62 with which it stands connected. And this is given us,
as "incontrovertible 2," as the literal unprejudiced expo-
sition of the sacred text!
2 Lengerke says (p. 445.) “That the counting [of the 62 weeks] is to Antio-
chus the Great, becomes incontrovertibly certain on this ground, that the Mes-
siah who is to be cut off, can be no other than Seleucus Philopator who ac-
tually succeeded him, and 'the prince' who follows him is Antiochus Epi-
phanes, who in xi. 21. also (comp. 20,) is named as the immediate successor
of Seleucus Philopator," i. e. from an assumption transparently absurd, that the
weak Seleucus Philopator, who attempted to plunder the temple, in order to
P
210 Ewald's two attempts to take numbers in natural order.
1
So Ewald went back to one of the earlier ways of taking
the numbers in their natural order, but making them in-
accurate. First ¹, he took as his starting point the 4th
year of Jehoiakim, 607, B. C., made Cyrus the Messiah in
v. 25, then stretched on to Seleucus Philopator and made
him the Messiah of v. 26, and his death, B. C. 176, the
end of the 62 weeks or 434 years, and the time of Antio-
chus, (according to him, the prince, who should come,) the
7 years. But the result was that, for 49 years he had 71;
for 434, 360; for 7, 10; and, the excess in two items not
counterbalancing the deficiency of the 3rd, for the whole
490, he had 441. This being unsatisfactory even to Ewald,
he took 2 from Hitzig another date, that of the actual de-
struction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, B. C. 588, from
which there were 49 years to B. C. 539, when, they sup-
posed, that "the Jews may first have heard of Cyrus.”
The last 7 years were to be from the death of Seleucus
Philopator, B. C. 176, or 175, to 168, which was the date of
the profanation of the temple by Antiochus. Every date
assumed is alike arbitrary. At the destruction of Jerusa-
lem by Nebuchadnezzar, no decree from God or man went
forth to restore it. The approach of Cyrus was no mark-
ed epoch either at the time or afterwards. Not at the
time, upon the unbelieving hypothesis. It had no inter-
est for the Jews then, except on the ground of their be-
lief in Isaiah's prophecy that God would restore them.
through Cyrus. Conquerors are not wont to give up a
portion of their conquest, or to release the slaves of the
vanquished, who, by right of conquest, have become their
own. They do not trouble themselves about the details
of the component parts of the dissolved empire, which
they incorporate into their own. It passes, as a whole,
into the empire which subdues and absorbs it. Nineveh
pay his Roman tribute, but, in the 12 years of his reign, did nothing to be re-
corded, was spoken of as a Messiah cut off; it is to follow "incontrovertibly,"
that the 62 weeks, after which the Messiah was to be cut off, were to end early
in the reign of his father, 45 years before his death.
¹ Die Propheten, ii. pp. 569, 70.
2 Jahrbücher d. Bibl. Wiss. vi. p. 194.
The dates, assumed by him, arbitrary.
211
had been conquered by the Medo-Persians and Babylo-
nians, but the 10 tribes remained where their conquerors
had placed them. The change of masters does not alter
the condition of slaves. Men were the strength of the
country, the riches of their masters. The Jews were a
peaceful, industrious, faithful population, inured, for the
most part, (as the event shewed) to their condition. No
human policy suggested their restoration; past memories
and present interests forbad it.
As they had no ground to expect release beforehand,
except from Divine prophecy, so, when the release came,
the release itself became the memorable date, not the
first anticipation of it. Even to a contemporary, the first
twilight of dawning hope disappears in the full brightness
of the reality when risen and effulgent. This is true of all
history. The birth, not the travail-pangs the first fore-
runners of that birth, is the date of the new existence
which is called into being. It is according to a law of
our nature, that the date, when the Jews or Babylonians
first heard of the approach of Cyrus, left no trace in his-
tory. Immediately after their deliverance, the first year
of Cyrus, the date of that deliverance, became the marked
era in their history. It is even absurd to suppose, that a
date, at which no marked event, no change of relations or
of outward circumstances, took place, from which nothing
dated, should, (as this theory requires,) have become a
date nearly three centuries and a half afterwards.
The death of Seleucus Philopator, the supposed com-
mencement of the last period, had no interest whatever for
the Jewish people. At the beginning of his reign, he too³
had sought to secure the good-will of the Jews by bearing
the expense of their sacrifices out of his own resources.
After his attempt to plunder the temple, no mention is
made of him in Jewish history. Secular history speaks
of him, as reigning inactively and weakly on account of
3 "Insomuch that Seleucus too (kai Zéλevкov) the king of Asia," &c. i. e. he,
as well as his ancestors; or, even he who afterward sought to plunder the
temple." 2 Macc. iii. 3.
P2
212
Arbitrary rationalist solutions.
his father's misfortune¹. His death absolutely changed
nothing, since the first years of Epiphanes were peaceable.
The selection of the date of Antiochus' desecration of
the temple for the close of this last period is in direct
contradiction to the prophecy to be explained. For the
cessation of the sacrifice was to be in the midst of the
week, i. e. after 3 years, not at the close of the 7 years.
Such is the accurate agreement at the beginning and the
end of the period, which, Ewald thought, determined the
Pseudo-Daniel to place the 62 weeks, or 434 years, in the
middle, although the actual years were not 434, but 361,
i. e. 73 less. Yet even thus conscience seems to require
that some explanation, whether good coin or bad, should
at least be tendered. So Ewald gave the solution, that
seventy of the superfluous years may not have been count-
ed, as being Sabbatical years, and the 3 other superfluous
years might be employed to make up the period of Anti-
ochus from 7 into 10. This is, of course, in the one case,
much as if we were to say that there were only 313 days
in our solar year because 52 days are Sundays; or as if
two inaccurate sums became accurate, because the excess
of the one was the same as the deficiency of the other.
These solutions are so many idiosyncrasies; every one
sees their arbitrariness except their parents.
Rationalists have pleased themselves in exaggerating
the variety of ways in which they say that Christians have
counted the 70 weeks. Let them look at home. I have
recounted twelve variations of the anti-Messianic school,
and I will add one more as a rare specimen of "scientific
exposition." One following Hitzig, yet owning that the
7 weeks must precede the 62, counts them back from
B.C. 605, the date of Jeremiah's prophecy, to B.C. 654,
which he assumes to have been the date of Manasseh's
conversion 3.
2
And so, the weary changes were rung, each refuting
¹ App. Syr. 66.
2 Böhmer, (Deutsch. Zeitschr. f. Christl. Wissen-
schaft u. Christl. Leben. Jan. 1857. pp. 39 sqq.) quoted by Auberl. p. 169.
9 2 Chr. xxxiii. 16.
Men throw the blame of their own error on Daniel. 213
4
his predecessor, the last awaiting his refutation from his
successor, or ofttimes taking up that which he had before
condemned. Lengerke refuted Rösch, and Wieseler re-
futed Lengerke, and Hitzig, Wieseler; or they mutually
exchanged with each other. Wieseler took up with Cor-
rodi; and Hofmann exchanged his theory for Ewald's;
and Ewald gave up what Hofmann took, for Hitzig's *;
and, at last, since the assumption, that the prophecy is no
prophecy but a description of Antiochus, was to be in-
fallible, and yet the periods given by Daniel were hope-
lessly irreconcileable with that assumption, the fault is to
be thrown, not on the infallible theory, but on what, (whe-
ther men will it or no,) abides what it was, the word of
God. Hitzig, in his arrogant way, says, "If, in this way,
the reckoning does not agree, then Daniel has erred, and
the only question is to explain the error." "The 7 weeks
form the πрTov eûdos in the calculation." "The He-
brews had no Chronology and no connected history of the
Persian period." Those who are more courteous to the
aged Prophet say the same more courteously. "The as-
sumption of such an artificial and unnatural calculation is
in reality contrary to the text. For it is said, 'throughout
62 weeks shall Jerusalem be rebuilt.' The beginning of
this period then cannot be the year of the prophecy; it can
only be that of the return under Cyrus. Why should not
the author have found and adopted a calculation for the
time from Cyrus to Epiphanes, wrong by 70 years?"
"Any how, one must assume here a blending of different
calculations, if one will not content one's self with a mere
erroneousness of the hereditary chronology. But the
numbers are too important to allow of a mere accident,
4 This is noticed by Auberlen, Dan. p. 171.
5 On Dan. pp. 169, 70. See Bleek, Schl. ZS. iii. 292 & Jahrb. d. Deutsch. Theol.
v.84. "This space [from Cyrus to Epiph.] is really shorter, is some 9 weeks of
years [63 years] less, but this cannot make us doubt an interpretation, support-
ed by grounds so weighty, if we consider that there are in the Canon no chro-
nological data for this period, so that at least a later writer might easily fol
low an inaccurate calculation, especially if led by a special interest." [i.e. igno-
rance guided by fraud.]
6 Bunsen, Gott in d. Gesch. i. 527, 29.
214
Rationalists could not satisfy themselves;
and so one has, either, [with Hitzig] to assume that ar-
bitrary double starting-point of the calculation down-
wards, together with that strange twice-counting, or [with
Ewald] to include the 70 years as their number, whereas,
according to the literal meaning of the prophecy of Je-
remiah, these might seem to be independent of any inter-
pretation by weeks of years."
Such then is the result of this "scientific" criticism.
It fixes the interpretation beforehand, at its own will;
then it endeavours, in every way it can, to adjust with
its theory the clear and definite statements of the text as
to the seventy weeks of years, as divided into the periods
of 7,62, 1, and this one into its two halves. It adjusts the
numbers, adapts the descriptions of those spoken of, as it
wills; no one for the time interferes with it; it has free
scope; it adjusts, re-adjusts, turns, re-turns, in every way
it wills. It gives its explanations authoritatively; no fail-
ure damps its confidence; it has but to please itself; and
it cannot. After 80 years of twisting, untwisting, hew-
ing at the knot, the knot is to them as fast and indissolu-
ble as ever. "Except the Lord build the house, their la-
bour is but lost that build it." They form a rope of sand,
and wonder that it does not cohere; that, twist it how
they will, it is but sand. And so at last they throw up the
problem; and, like insolent scholars, accuse not their
own ignorance, but their Master's. "It is not we who
erred, but Daniel. The problem is insoluble in our way;
therefore it cannot be solved at all.”
And yet, in this very charge of error on the writer
of the book of Daniel, they forget their own previous
charges. This school objects to the book, that the wri-
ter had too minute a knowledge of the history of Alex-
ander's successors. "God does not," they say, "so mi-
nutely reveal the future." Good. So far then it is con-
ceded that the account is accurate. Again, it
Again, it says, that
the writer was ignorant of the Persian history; that he
believed that there were only 4 Persian kings in all, and
that the Persian empire lasted but 54 years; that the em-
their charge of inaccurate Chronology recoils. 215
pire of Alexander was divided immediately after his death¹.
Good, again. It concerns not us, whether God revealed
to Daniel more of the future, than he has actually set
down. But how this is to help the adaptation of the 70
weeks to the period from Jehoiakim or Cyrus to Antio-
chus Epiphanes, these theorists have to explain. Accord-
ing to them, the writer knew accurately the period from
the battle of Ipsus, B.C. 301, to B.C. 164. This gives
137 years. Add the 54 years, during which these assume
the writer to have believed the Persian Empire to have
lasted, and the 10 of Alexander's Asiatic wars. This gives
us 201 years, which the writer is supposed to have believed
to have elapsed from Cyrus to the death of Antiochus
Epiphanes. And yet they would have us to accept this
as an explanation, why the writer of the book of Daniel
should have supposed 63 weeks of years or 441 years to
have elapsed from the 4th year of Jehoiakim or, if they
would be but decently honest, from Cyrus, when a decree
did go forth to restore and to build Jerusalem, to Epi-
phanes. They assume that the writer of the book of
Daniel supposed the period from Cyrus to Antiochus Epi-
phanes, to have been little more than half of what it was,
viz. 201 years, instead of 3742; and then, retaining the
general term, " inaccuracy of Chronology," they urge this
as an argument why the writer may have fixed a pe-
riod³, more than twice the length of the time which they
themselves suppose him to have imagined the actual time
to be. Their charge of " inaccuracy of chronology" tells
against themselves.
And yet what one, the more bold because the least be-
lieving, speaks out, must have been in the consciences of
many. After the death of Jesus, the Son of man, it
was inevitable that they, to whom He was the Messiah,
should refer to Him the words, 5 Messiah shall be cut off.”
"One might easily be tempted to interpret Messiah, v. 26,
¹ Lengerke, p. 514. quoting also Bertholdt. 2 Date of prophecy, B. C.
538-164–374. 3 Even if the 7 weeks, 49 years, are got rid of, there re-
main 63 weeks = 411 years. 4 Hitzig, Dan. p. 170. 5 ix. 26. 6 Ib. p. 160.
=
216 Rationalist agreement only in pulling down ;
who was to die by a violent death, of Jesus and His Death;
and if one thought of this Messias, notwithstanding the
absence of the Article, as the Messias, (as Christ stands
in Greek for the Christ,) they with whom the Name had
weight, naturally understood Messias, v. 25, also to be
Jesus Christ." Yet with a strange inconsistency, any
chronological difficulty was a solid ground not to believe
that Jesus was foretold; no chronological difficulty was
any ground against believing any one else to be spoken of.
The harmony of unbelieving criticism has been con-
trasted with the disagreements among believers¹. It were
no harm, were these disagreements as great as they al-
lege; for the exposition of particular texts, closely or in-
cidentally as it may at times bear upon the faith, is not
in itself, matter of faith. Not the meaning of texts in
detail, but the truths, on which they bear, are mostly 2 mat-
ters of faith. But the alleged unanimity of this unbeliev-
ing criticism has been in pulling down, not in building
up. It has been agreed in rejecting Christ. It would,
if it could, blot the mention of Him out of the Old Testa-
ment. But when the question is, how to replace it, quot
homines, tot sententiæ. All agree in bearing witness.
against Him. But it is still, as of old, their witness
agreed not together. If they waited, until they found
those whose witness would agree together, the old faith
would not have been parted with till now.
3
In regard to the 70 weeks, agreement on certain points
was a necessity of the case. It was essential to any ex-
position which should exclude our Lord, that the Messiah
of v. 25, should be Cyrus; it was their axiom that the last
week should be part of the reign of Epiphanes; they had
then next to no choice as to the Messias who was to be cut
off. Without religious indifference they could not have
1 "Among German commentators there is, for the first time in the history
of the world, an approach to agreement and certainty." Prof. Jowett, Essays
and Rev. p. 340.
2 I say, "mostly," because our Lord's words, and so
And
His expositions of the Old Testament also, are of course matters of faith.
so too whatever any inspired writer asserts, apart from translations of words,
3 S. Mark xiv. 56.
which, as not affecting the sense, he leaves unaltered.
disagreement in constructing.
217
lighted upon more than one. The following table will shew
their unanimity as to the rest.
70 WEEKS FIRST 7 MESSIAH
BEGIN
B.C.
END
V. 25.
62
62 MESSIAH
WEEKS WEEKS V. 26.
BEGIN END
LAST
WEEK WEEK
LAST
BEGINS ENDS
Harduin 606.
606.
Marsham 607.
538.
Ecker-
Collins followed Harduin.
537.
537.
mann
Corrodi 588. none. The
557.4 Cyrus,
typically.
Cyrus. 607.
Cyrus and, better, Judas Maccabæus.
Zerub- 536. 536. Jewish
babel.
172. Onias
171.
165.
(type of Christ.)
175.
175.
168.
174.
165.
high priest suspended by Antiochus.
588.
170. Onias'
170. 164.5
Christ.
death, 172.
175. Onias de-
170.
165.
606.
none. The
Eich-
horn
Ammon
Paulus
536. 588.
536. 588.
Ber-
tholdt
588.
Rosen-
müller
Bleek
Nebu- 606.
chadnezzar.
Zedekiah. 588.
priesthood between Onias and Jonathan. 175-157.
posed, 175. hiatus 5 years.
154. Jewish high 175. 165,6
536. Cyrus. 536. 170. Alexander.7 170. 164.
536. Cyrus. 536. 175. Seleucus
175. 164.
Philopator (at first Nicator.)
588.
or Je-
remiah's time of prophesying generally.
Maurer 588. Cyrus. Cyrus. Cyrus. 176. Sel. Phil.
Hitzig, 1st 588.
539. Cyrus. 5SS. 175. Sel. Phil.
Rösch
Hitzig, 2nd 606, 536. Cyrus.
but the 7 at 588.
609. 560. Cyrus. 609.
Lengerke 588. 538. Cyrus. 588.
Wieseler, 606. none. Onias iii. 606.
1st
Wieseler, 606.
170.
165.
164.
hiatus 5 years.
172. Onias.
172.
165.
175. Sel. Phil.
175.
164.8
220. Sel. Phil.
178.
164.
172. Onias.
172.
164, Feb.
606. 175. Onias.
172. 165, Dec.
2nd
Ewald, 1st
607.
Christ.
Cyrus. Cyrus.
hiatus 3 years.
Cyrus. 176. Sel. Phil. Philop. 167.10
Ewald, 2nd 588.
539. Cyrus.
539. 176. 11
Böhmer 654.
605.
605.
171.
Herzfeld
587. 538. Joshua. 53S.
Hilgenfeld as Harduin but dropping the types.
5 But 7 weeks
6" Whether 8 weeks,=56 years,
* Really 559; see in Clinton, F. H. ii. 2. Conquest of Media.
49 years, i. e. undefined time, to be added.
to be added at the end, the Pseudo-Daniel left to the future to explain."
7 So also Gesenius, v. and Hupfeld on Ps. ii. T. i. p. 17.
weeks from 175, B. C. to 120, B. C. John Hyrcanus.
8 8 more
9 7 more weeks, ≈ 49
years (a definite for an indefinite time) when the Christ was to come lying beyond
164, B. C.
10 The last 3 lying beyond.
11 Sabbath years not counted.
170. priesthood 170.
after Jason.
218
Rationalist failure to fit in the last week.
But beyond this their utter inability to account for the
whole period of four hundred years, in any way plausible
enough to command the assent even of their own school,
they cannot make a theory, to satisfy one another even as to
the last week. Here the harmony was to be so perfect, that
we were to be ready, on the ground of such signal coinci-
dence, to surrender at discretion, and accept the rest as an
insoluble problem, with that same faith which Christians
have, that all difficulties in God's word must needs be solu-
ble, even though they know not the solution. Rationalists
required of us implicit unreasoning faith as to the rest of
their theory, on account of the self-evidence of this portion
of it. But is it then so? Do these seven years so exactly
correspond to the persecution of Antiochus? Here, on the
rationalist hypothesis, we are in the writer's own time. He
is to be speaking, not of what he saw, as we know, enlight-
ened by God, but of what he is, by the hypothesis, to have
seen with his bodily eyes and heard with his bodily ears.
69
The facts are not disputed. There is no question of re-
search or intricate chronology. In his first years, Antio-
chus was otherwise engaged. A portion of the Jews were
apostatising, rationalising probably. They were adopting
Greek ways, and Greek unbelief¹. They sought the king2,
not the king them. The date of Antiochus' first attack on
Jerusalem is given very precisely. "After that Antiochus
had smitten Egypt, he returned again in the hundred forty
and third year [of the Seleucidæ, B. C. 139] and went up
against Israel and Jerusalem with a great multitude."
1 1 Macc. i. 11-15.
2 "They went unto the king, who gave them
licence to do after the ordinances of the heathen, whereupon they built a gymnasium
at Jerusalem according to the customs of the heathen, and made themselves uncir-
cumcised, and forsook the holy covenant, and joined themselves to the heathen, and
were sold to do mischief." Ib. 13-15. The gymnasium, adorned with emblems of
Greek idolatry, and containing schools of Greek philosophy, was meant to Grecise
the Jewish youth. The key to the unbelief was the "becoming uncircumcised,"
an effacing of the outward mark of the covenant with God, (see Lightfoot on
1 Cor. vii. 18.) resorted to subsequently in time of persecution, now undertaken vo-
luntarily, to assimilate themselves to the heathen. "Let us make a covenant with
the heathen," was their resolve; "to do after the ordinances of the heathen," was
31 Macc. i. 20.
the permission of Antiochus. Jos. Ant. xii. 5.
Dates in the reign of Epiphanes.
219
Then he plundered the temple, (as had been done by other
conquerors before him,) to supply his reckless expendi-
ture¹; but it was a passing storm. It is said expressly 5,
"when he had taken all away, he went into his own land."
The real lasting persecution began two years later, when
he returned in great anger at the discomfiture of his plan
by the decisiveness of Popilius, at some time in the early
autumn of B.C. 168. It is again said expressly, "After
two full years the king sent his chief collector of tribute
unto the cities of Judah, who came unto Jerusalem with
a great multitude." Jerusalem and Judæa had been
meantime unmolested from without. The collector of
tribute came to the cities of Judah, when "two years
were fully expired." Jerusalem lay secure within its
strong walls, which held out so many sieges. It is again
expressly recorded that "he [Apollonius] spake peace-
able words unto them, but it was all deceit; for when
they had given him credence, he fell suddenly upon the
city and smote it very sore, and set it on fire and pulled
down the houses and walls thereof on every side, and
built the city of David [Mount Zion] with a great and
strong wall, and with mighty towers, and made a strong
hold for them and put a garrison of apostates in it." It
is clear then from the whole account, that, up to this
time, autumn 8 168, B. C., there had been no permanent
4 "He committed sacrilege on very many temples." Polyb. xxxi. 4.
5 1 Macc. i. 24.
7 Ib. 30-34.
8 "Both Livy
(xlv. 10.) and Polybius (xxix. 11. Legat. 92.) shew that Popilius did not pro-
ceed to Egypt till after the battle of Pydna; and as that battle was on the 22nd
of June, his interview with Antiochus must be placed in July or August; and
Antiochus would reach Palestine in the Autumn." Clinton, Fasti Hell. iii. 323.
The date of the battle of Pydna is fixed by an eclipse. "The eclipse, which pre-
ceded the battle of Pydna, fell upon June 21, which would fix the battle to
June 22, and the preceding notes of time agree with this date.-Porphyry
in Euseb. Chron. i. 38. p. 177. rightly places the battle within Olymp. 152. 4.
i. e. before July, B.C. 168." Id. on B.C. 168. Tables, iii. p. 84. Popilius did not
leave Delos, until the news of the the battle of Pydna reached him at Delos;
they sailed by Rhodes, where they spent 5 days. (Liv. xlv. 10.) There had been
time for Alexandria to be "reduced to extremities." (Polyb. xxix. 11. Leg.
92.) Polybius too thinks that "Antiochus would not have obeyed, unless the
overthrow of Perseus had taken place and been credited" (TLσTEV@értos). Ib.
6 Ib. 29.
220 Events at the close of the reign of Epiphanes.
possession of Judæa by Antiochus. The persecution
then commenced; on the 15th of Chisleu¹ (December,
168, or January, 167, B.C.) the temple was desecrated by
the idol-altar built upon the altar of God; on the 25th,
the first sacrifice was offered upon it. Three years af-
terwards, on that same day in that month, the temple
was cleansed.
This was, of course, December, 165, or January, 164,
B.C. Judas proceeded to fortify the sanctuary, as before,
and Bethsur. Antiochus was at this time engaged in war
with "the Satraps of the upper provinces," probably with
Artaxias2. The tidings must have been dispatched soon
after the defensive preparations of Judas, for no later tid-
ings reached him. But the subsequent campaign of Ju-
das Maccabæus against the petty nations who harassed
Israel had come to a close, while Epiphanes was still in
Persia, attempting to plunder the temple in Elymais ³.
On his retreat after its failure, he heard how the Jews had
defeated Lysias, undone his desecration of the temple,
"4fortified the sanctuary and his city Bethsur," and he
died, while yet in Persia5, of a wasting diseaseº, 149, A.S.7
16, B.C. The exact month it is impossible to determine³.
Popilius then probably proceeded leisurely, in order to give full time for the
news, on which the success of his embassy depended, to be fully accredited.
4
11 Macc. i. 54. There is no reason to change the date against all authority,
in order to identify it with v. 59. The sacrifices to God were renewed on the
day, on which the first idol-sacrifices were offered. (1 Macc. iv. 52.) This is
the point of contrast between i. 59. and iv. 52. The fact in i. 54. is additional.
2 See ab. pp. 152, 3. 31 Macc. vi. 1.
Ib. 7.
5 lb. 5. so too Polyb.
Fragm. xxxi. 11. Porph. in S. Jer. on Dan. xi. 44. 6 φθίνων. App. Syr. 66.
"He laid him down upon his bed, and fell sick for grief, and there he conti-
nued many days, for his grief was ever more and more, and he made account
that he should die." 1 Macc. vi. 8, 9.
7 Ib. 16. Jos. Ant. xii. 9. 2.
8 Demetrius probably escaped from Rome so as to succeed at the very begin-
ning of A. S. 151, i. e. Oct. B. C. 162. For the death of Lysias and Eupator, and
the two expeditions against Judæa took place before the close of the Adar ensu-
ing. If then Eupator reigned 2 years, (as Josephus Ant. xii. 10. 1. and Eusebius,
Can. p. 356. say,) the death of Epiphanes must have fallen at the beginning
of 149, A. S. the autumn of 164, B. C. But Eusebius (in his Table, ii. 260.) and
his Chronographer (i. 194.) assign 1 year 6 months to the reign of Eupator.
And it may be, that Josephus took his period of 2 years from the more gene-
ral statements of the first book of Maccabees, that Epiphanes died A. S. 149,
His death no relief to the Jews; the "2300 days." 221
11
But his death was no relief; rather it was the signal for
renewed hostilities. Antiochus being far away, Lysias
had remained inactive in the interval, gathering a fresh
army at Antioch, perhaps awaiting the return of the
messenger and further instructions. After the death of
Epiphanes, Lysias, in the name of his youthful son 10An-
tiochus Eupator, renewed the war; it was carried on by
Demetrius, after he had murdered Lysias and Eupator;
and the first rest in the war was, when Nicanor, the se-
cond general sent against the Jews by Demetrius, had
been defeated and slain in Adar, 151, A. S. ¹¹ i. e. early in
161. B.C. It is then remarked for the first time, "Thus the
land of Judah had rest for a little while." The first stage
of the war then, and apparently that marked in Daniel
himself in the prophecy specially relating to the perse-
cution by Antiochus 12, was probably more than two years
after the death of Epiphanes. How then do the events
and that Demetrius escaped from Rome, A. S. 151. The uncertainty extends to
6 months.
9 1 Macc. iv. 35.
10 Eusebius (p. 187.) says that he was
12 years old; Appian, that he was 9. (Syr. i. 46, 66.) 11 1 Macc. vii. 1, 43-50.
12 The term assigned in Daniel viii. 14. (which belongs to this Old Testa-
ment Anti-Christ) is 2300 days, i. e. 6 years, 4 months, 2 days. This is any
thing but a "round number." The time between the dates specified in the
first book of Maccabees from Chisleu 15, A. S. 145, (the day when the idol-altar
was erected) to Adar 13, A. S. 151, is only a month of 29 days short of the whole
sum. The lunar year had 354 days; in 6 years, there would be two interca-
lary months of 30 days. The remainder of Chisleu adds 15 days; the two months
before Adar, 59 days; of Adar there were 13 days. The sum then stands thus ;
354 × 6=2124
2 intercalary months
60
2 intervening months
59
parts of Chisleu and Adar
28
2271
leaving a deficit of a month of 29 days. But the desecration of the altar was
not the beginning of the persecution. (1 Macc. i. 33-53.) A month then may
well have elapsed before, in which all public worship of God was suspended.
(Ib. 39.) This is the calculation of Hävernick, and, in the main, that of Dere-
ser and even Bertholdt; only that Bertholdt tries to make room at the end for
the month unaccounted for.
Another period, however, equally harmonises in point of time, that from the
first invasion, in 143, A. S. to the death of Antiochus, if the death of Antiochus
did not take place until the spring of A. S. 149, i. e. that of 163, B.C. For, since
222
The "2300 days" probably twice fulfilled.
of the last week or their dates agree with this history?
Those events are, the cutting off of Messiah, the confirm-
ing of a covenant with the many during the whole 7 years,
the causing of all sacrifice to cease at the end of the first
3 years. Anti-Messianic interpreters place in it, and
must place in it, the utter destruction of city and temple,
and (as they will have it) the destruction of the destroyer.
The prophecy says, that at the end of the 3 first years,
the 2nd invasion, that of 145, A. S., was "two full years" after the first, the
first also must have been in Autumn, the previous part of our year B.C. 170,
i. e. the close of A. S. 142, having been spent in the Egyptian expedition. For
this invasion was "after he had smitten Egypt." (1 Macc. i. 20.) If then we
suppose this first invasion to have been near the middle of the 2nd month of 143,
A. S. i. e. Nov. 15. B.C. 170, this would give the following result, the era of the
Seleucidæ beginning at Tisri 1, i. e. at the month in the lunar year answering
to our October;
10 months of 143, A. S. and 13 days 308 days
A. S. 144, 5, 6, 7, 8; 354 × 5.
1770
A. S. 149, 5 months of
(30 × 3
90
29 × 2 58
6th month, 14 days of
14
two intercalary months
60
2300
There is then good space, if the reign of Eupator was only 1 year; and the
events were marked in themselves, the first aggression of Antiochus against
the people of God, and the issue of his persecution in his death.
If this were
so, the number was twice remarkably fulfilled. This way was adopted by à
Lapide, although not entering into its proof.
The Anti-Messianic interpreters, who could not satisfy themselves with the
expedient of halving the days, have taken this plan ; only in order to make Dan.
xii. 11, 12. relate to events in the life of Antiochus, they re-modelled, in differ-
ent ways, the beginning of the era of the Seleucida and history. The shift of
halving the days is one of of those monsters, which have disgraced "scientific
expositions" of Hebrew. The simple words ning why, "evening-
morning two thousand and three hundred," (according to the analogy of
vvxonμepov, 2 Cor. xi. 25. and the summary of each day in Gen. i. 5, &c.
"And evening was, and morning was, the first, second, third, &c. day,") were
to mean 1500 mornings on account of the morning sacrifice, and 1500 even-
ings on account of the evening sacrifice, and yet 7 of course means “even-
ing,” and “morning." But could they, per impossibile, mean “morning and
evening sacrifices," the matter would not be mended. Standing as the words
do before the numeral, the numeral must, according to the principles of all lan-
guage, apply to the whole. Conceive any one rendering “noctes diesque
triginta," "15 nights and 15 days."
Events of last 7years agree with no7 years of Epiphanes. 223
all sacrifice was to cease; it implies that it was to cease
altogether; the temple, where alone it could be offered,
was to be utterly destroyed; no word is said of its resto-
ration. Ruin broods over its desolate places. Anti-Mes-
sianic interpreters have diverted attention from the first
31 years, at the expiration of which all sacrifice was to
cease, to the last 3 years, after which they supposed
it to be restored. Of this, there is nothing in the text;
and the desecration of the temple lasted for three years
precisely, not for 3 years. Again, counting back the 7
years from the only date, which these interpreters can
make out for themselves, the death of Antiochus (if it was
so) in the spring of 163, B.C., we arrive at the spring of
170, B.C. in the middle of 142, A.S. This was 2 years and
9 months before the desecration of the temple, but it was
itself absolutely no era at all. It was eight months be-
fore even that first passing storm, when Antiochus plun-
dered the temple of Jerusalem, as he did so many besides.
It was a happy eventless year for the Jews, when they
were living every man under his vine, and under his fig-tree,
with no signs even of that first hurricane; much less of
their long desolation. Onias too, the exiled high-priest,
having been deposed by Epiphanes on his accession¹ to-
wards the close of A. S. 1372, in the middle of B. C. 175,
had been murdered three years subsequently ³, B. C. 172;
consequently two years before this date. Lastly, the hea-
thenising party of the Jews also applied to Antiochus at
the very beginning of his reign. Even then on the An-
ti-Messianic theory, that "the confirming the covenant
for one week" was meant of the encouragement given by
Antiochus to the apostates who applied to him, this also
was prior by 4 years to the week or 7 years of which it
was to be a characteristic.
3
Not a fact then, nor a date coincides. Granting these
interpreters all which they ask for, allowing, which is ut-
terly unnatural, that it should be said of one and the same
2 Clinton, F. H. iii. 323. 3 2 Macc. iv. 23, 32-4.
4 2 Macc. iv. 7-10, 1 Macc. i. 10-15.
1 2 Macc. iv. 7-10.
224 Aggravations of the failure as to the last 7 years ;
earthly king, that he should destroy the city and sanctu-
ary, confirm a covenant with many for one week, and that,
after half of the week, he should make sacrifice and obla-
tion to cease; and this, in the sense that he shewed fa-
vour to apostates and deserters, and made war upon the
city and people-even supposing all this granted,they can
give no account of those very dates in which all these
things are supposed to have taken place, and which are
to be the key to all the rest. Antiochus did not confirm
any covenant for 7 years, nor did he make sacrifice to
cease for half of those 7 years, nor was any Messias, or
any one alleged to be a Messias, cut off during those 7
years; nor was the temple destroyed; nor were there any
7 years, in the period selected, of one uniform marked
character. Rather the 7 years selected were of a most
chequered character; first, nearly a year of entire peace;
then horrible and cruel treachery and bloodshed; then
nearly two years more of peace; then three years of in-
tense persecution; then a respite, at least from the gene-
ral of Epiphanes for a year and 5 months, and victory
over the petty heathen nations who assailed them.
And yet the writer, living, according to their hypothe-
sis, in Judæa, writing, as they say, to encourage their
countrymen "in their great struggle against Antio-
chus," could not be mistaken about what he is to have seen
with his own eyes.
The scheme then of connecting the prophecy of the 70
weeks with Antiochus Epiphanes fails, evidently, palpa-
bly, as to the very point upon which it is mainly brought
to bear, the end and object of it. The impossibility of
accounting for the whole period of 490 years or the two
periods of 49 and 434 years is not in the least relieved,
but is aggravated by the impossibility of explaining the
last 7. The writer is supposed to have had no object,
except to describe his own times and their issue, so far
as it lay before him; there was no call to mention time
at all; and, having a tabula rasa, on which, according to
1 Ess. and Rev. p. 76.
unmeaningness of the whole rationalist explanation. 225
the hypothesis, he had to describe, as future, events be-
fore his eyes, he is to have written them with marks, pa-
tently at variance with those events which he saw and
knew. In order, on the hypothesis, to explain Jeremiah's
prediction, in the fulfilment of which all of his time be-
lieved and of which they desired no explanation, he is to
have written, as relating to his own times, a prophecy,
which no one can adapt to them, explaining what was
clear by what was inexplicable, irradiating light by
darkness.
Yet this failure, as to time, although a mark against
these interpretations, is not so great a failure as the ob-
jectless character of the whole.
According to these dislocating interpretations, the
whole promise of the blessings to come is to lie in that
first verse of the prophecy; and yet, since, according to
them, to "anoint one all-holy" was to be the mere cleans-
ing of the visible sanctuary, these too were to be quite im-
personal. The promise does indeed contain what our spi-
ritual nature most longs for, forgiveness of sins and the
gift of righteousness, but, the personal Christ being blot-
ted out, they were to be connected only with that outward
purification of the profaned temple. All the rest of the
prophecy is to relate, either to their restoration through
Cyrus 370 years before, or to that chequered state in
which they were, or to events in which they were no way
concerned, or actual visitations of God upon them, in
which the picture is to close. What to them was the
death of Alexander, or Seleucus Philopator, or even of the
ejected high-priest Onias III, whom these have substi-
tuted for the Christ? Shocked they were doubtless at the
murder of the blameless old man; but it in no way af-
fected them, since he was far removed from them at Anti-
och, and his death was the result of mere private malice,
avenged even by Antiochus on the perpetrator. But, ac-
cording to these men, the central part of the prophecy
are the desolations and profanations of Antiochus, a long
abiding desolation decreed by God. Whether they in-
Q
226
Emptiness of the meanings
"
66
terpret "to the end or to the end of the war," it was
to an end, which they were not to see, a night of which
their eyes were not to behold the first faint streak of the
dawn.
Contrast together the text and the interpretation. On
the 24th verse, I will refer only to those who are consis-
tent. For of all anomalies, one of the strangest is, to as-
sume that v. 24, with all its fulness of spiritual promise,
had its fulfilment in Jesus, and yet to maintain that the
rest, which is a filling up of that outline, relates to per-
sons with whom the spiritual history of the world is in
no way concerned.
They then, who are consistent, paraphrase thus; (“not
seventy years but) seventy seven-years are determined on
thy people and on thy holy city, until iniquity is perfected,
and the mass of sins is full, and transgression is aton-
ed by the suffering of punishment, and the prosperity of
old times is brought back, and the prophet's (Jeremiah's)
saying is fulfilled, and the all-holy (the temple) is conse-
crated (by Judas Maccabæus.")
We are told in explanation, "1 the Jews in the Hasmo-
næan age, according to the moral-deterministic princi-
ples of their nation 2, looked upon the time from the de-
struction of the Jewish state until that when Judas Mac-
cabæus, after driving out the Syrians, could undertake
the consecration of the temple, as one, in which the peo-
ple of Israel was to make the measure of its sins full; and
on the same principles they believed, that henceforth the
anger of God would turn away from the people, and the
long-heaped guilt be looked upon by God as atoned." As
far as this has any truth, the point of departure is arbi-
trarily selected. A greater than Daniel said ³, Fill ye up
the measure of your fathers. Unrepented sin does accu-
mulate, whether upon the individual or the nation, until
1 Bertholdt, Daniel, pp. 616, 8.
2 Dan. viii. 23." This school con-
tinually draws its statements as to "the Hasmonæan age" from Daniel alone,
and is seemingly unconscious that it is "begging the question."
3 S. Matt. xxiii. 32.
imported by Rationalists into the prophecy. 227
it brings down God's chastisements. Persevering dis-
obedience to God's warnings by the former prophets
brought on the first captivity 5; disobedience, ending in
the heathenising under Antiochus Epiphanes, brought on
his fierce persecution; disobedience, culminating in the
rejection and murder of Christ, ended in their last de-
struction and dispersion. But on each occasion, they
were put on a new trial. The sins, of which Antiochus
became the scourge, were not those of their fathers before
the Captivity, but their own. The ground assigned then
for dating from the first destruction of Jerusalem is ar-
bitrary and false. It is either too early or too late. In
one way, a nation takes its character from all its previous
history, since it became a nation; in this sense the date
of the first destruction of Jerusalem is too late. In an-
other, Israel was put on a new trial, after the restoration
under Cyrus, and in this way the date from Jeremiah is
too early.
The exposition is also self-contradictory, in that it as-
signs the same date for the filling up the measure of sin,
and for its forgiveness. The filling up of the measure of
sin is the time, not of forgiveness but of punishment. If
the punishment is, in its nature or in God's purpose, tem-
porary, the restoration comes at its close. In that 69th
year of the captivity, in regard to which this prophecy is
supposed by all these expositors to have been given, that
punishment was coming to an end. Israel had not been,
for those 69 years, filling up iniquity, but had been bear-
ing its punishment.
Apart from this acknowledgement, that sin is, not in
itself but in the mind of the Hebrews, a cause of afflic-
tion, the rest is more heathen than heathenism; it is not
on a par with Virgil's description of the golden age to
come, as borrowed from the Jewish Sibyl.
To proceed with their exposition, I will take themost
+ See Butler's Analogy, i. 2.
5 Lev. xxvi. 14-39. (on the gradually accumulating punishment,) 2 Kings
xvii. 7-23, Jer. xxv. 3-11, xxix. 18, 19, Ezek. xx.
Q 2
228
Contrast of the whole prophecy
plausible, leaving out monsters, unless they have been
followed by many;
From the going forth of the commandment to restore and
to build Jerusalem, [i. e. from Jeremiah's prophecy of its
70 years' desolation,] unto Messiah the Prince [i. e. to Cy-
rus] shall be 7 weeks, [49 years, being a round number
for the round number 70,] and threescore and two weeks,
[i. e. during 434 years, yet not so, really, but during 360
years,] street and wall shall be built, and in strait of
times; [contrariwise, the greater part of the time, all that
with which the Pseudo-Daniel is to have been most fa-
miliar, the time after Alexander, was a prosperous time.]
After the 62 weeks [i. e. really before their close] Messiah
shall be cut off [i. e. a high priest shall be deposed, or,
having been deposed, shall be assassinated out of private
malice; or a foreign king shall die a natural death, or
shall be poisoned,] and there shall not be to him [a suc-
cessor or a legitimate successor, or one of his own kin;
although all had successors, and one might just as well
supply anything else whatever, which they had not,] and
the people of a prince that shall come shall destroy city and
temple [i. e. shall fire¹ some houses in the city, yet leav-
ing it, as a whole, unhurt and inhabited as before 2, and
displacing not one stone or ornament of the temple, nay
nor touching it; for the idol-altar was built on the brazen
altar outside ³;]and his end shall be in that flood, [not in
that, nor in any other flood of war ; but, rather more than
three years afterwards, after he had been victorious in his
own wars, he wasted away of a disease which Jew and
Gentile alike looked upon as a Divine infliction,] and
unto the end is war, [not to his end, nor to any one's end,
but to the end of the war, i. e. there shall be war, till there
is peace,] and desolations determined [i. e. upon Jerusa-
lem, which, after three years, and a year or 1½ year before
the death of Antiochus, was again reoccupied and forti-
fied by the Jews.]
11 Macc. i. 31.
• Ib. 38, 55. 3 Ib. 54, 59.
Polyb, xxxi. 11. T. iv. 513, Schw.
4
• Jos. xii. 9. 1.
with the rationalist expositions of it.
229
And he shall confirm the covenant with the many for one
week, [the prince had not been the subject of any former
sentence; the covenant is, in Daniel, the covenant with
God; the many were not apostates; but, apart from all
this, Antiochus made no covenant with any; to give li-
cence to forsake God's law is no covenant; there were no
seven years in which Antiochus was in any relation with
any Jews; he gave that licence at the beginning of his
reign; in the period of the war, i. e. during the 7 years, in
which it is supposed to have been made, it came to an end
of itself;] in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacri-
fice and oblation to cease, [there is no era from which those
3 years can be dated,] [and on the pinnacle of abomina-
tions a desolater, [the temple was not then a place of abo-
minations, (as the Jews in our Lord's time made it a den
of thieves; and afterwards, in their last war, more fear-
fully desecrated it ;) yet it is so called from what it was
before the desolation, not as what the desolation made it;]
and until decreed desolation shall be poured on the deso-
late; [even if this be rendered, on the desolater, the death
of Antiochus, although an awful judgment of God, formed
no era, made no change, was received as no relief by the
Jews. For their war, all this time, had been with his
generals, not with himself who was warring far away;
and with those same generals the war was renewed, when
he was dead.] If any one can believe this to be the mean-
ing of the prophecy, of a truth, unbelief imposes hard laws
upon the intellect of man.
Or look again at the prophecy, in the light of those
times for which the Anti-Messianic interpreters will have
it to be written after the event, and of those for which it
was really given.
The supposed object of this prophecy, according to the
rationalist interpretation, is to account for the prophe-
cies with regard to the Messiah not having been fulfilled
at the time of the return from the Captivity, by promis-
ing their fulfilment at the time of Antiochus Epiphanes.
Where is there a trace that the Jews ever looked for
230 The Messiah not expected, till He was to come ;
their fulfilment then, or were disappointed at His not
coming? This is no negative argument. We have, in
Ezra and Nehemiah, a graphic account of their condi-
tion at different dates during 126 years after their return.
We see them struggling with their present difficulties, but
no more looking for our Lord's first Coming in which they
believed, as somewhat immediate or near, than we look
for His second Coming, which we daily confess, as prox-
imate. We have also Prophets, whose early date no one
questions. Haggai promises that He should come in
that temple, which was then in building¹; Zechariah
speaks of His Coming, but of the events under Alexan-
der before it 2; Malachi, a century, probably, after their
return, foretells His coming suddenly to His temple³, and
the messenger who should come before Him. This was,
any how, two centuries and a half before Antiochus.
Then, as to the times in which the hypothetical writer of
Daniel is to have lived and written, we have authentic, de-
tailed histories of times, before, under, and after, Antio-
chus Epiphanes; we have books of edification written
then, the two books of Wisdom and Baruch. In none of
them is there any expectation of any deliverer. The
books of Maccabees speak calmly of the great tribula-
tion in Israel after Epiphanes, such as had not been since
there had not been a prophet among them; the Jews
laid aside the stones of the profaned altar, "in the moun-
tain of the temple in a convenient place, until there
should come a prophet to shew what should be done
with them." They laid them by carefully as for many
days. Twenty years afterwards, B.C. 141, the Jews,
"the great congregation of the priests and people and
rulers of the nation, and elders of the country," made
the priesthood hereditary in Simon's family "in perpe-
tuity, until a faithful prophet should arise." Israel is
still a people of the future. In their prosperity as in their
1 Hagg. ii. 6-9.
3 Mal. iii. 1, iv. 5.
2 Zech. ix. 1-8. See further Lect. v.
4 1 Macc. ix. 27.
6" 18 Elul, 172," Sel. 1 Macc. xiv. 27.
5 Ib. iv. 46.
7 Ib. 28. 8 εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα Ib. 41.
9
expected, when He was to come.
231
adversity, they look on calmly to the future. The time
came, and there was a general expectation. All men's
minds were stirred; the pious were waiting; men were
on the look-out; there was no doubt among them, that
He was coming; they were like men in a city, when some
great one of the earth is expected; as the time came
nearer, they watched each token that it might be He:
'Art thou He that should come, or do we look for ano-
ther? 10 If Thou be the Christ, tell us plainly." The poor
Samaritan woman said, "11 I know that Messias cometh,
which is called Christ; when He is come, He shall tell
us all things." Ambitious bad men availed themselves of
the general stir, and said 12, I am Christ, 13 and drew away
much people after them. In all their afflictions, amid all
that former pressure and noble struggle for their faith
and country, there arose men zealous for the law of their
God and for Israel, but no false Messias arose. False
Christs could not somehow come, until about the time of
the true. They were darkness cast, where the true Light14
was obstructed; fantastic, cold-engendered, fleeting, par-
helia around ¹the Sun of Righteousness, which owed their
existence to His Presence.
Whence then,-contrary to what those perverters of
the truth of history as well as of Holy Scripture say,-
whence that long-enduring patience after the Captivity,
in the troublous times in which the temple was rebuilt,
the city and polity restored, amid the partial oppressions
of some of Alexander's earlier successors or the concen-
trated deadly enmity of Antiochus Epiphanes, and Eupa-
tor, and Demetrius, amid all the hopes and fears of that
nearly 60 years' strife of the Maccabees 16, until about a
century before our Lord; whence all this tranquil look-
ing to a distant future, through more than five checquer-
ed centuries, when Christ did not come, and then, all
at once, all that out-bursting of those long pent-up hopes,
9 S. Matt. xi. 3.
13 Acts v. 36, 7.
10 S. John x. 24.
14 S. Johni. 9.
>
11 Ib. iv. 25. 12 S. Matt. xxiv. 5.
15 Mal. iv. 2.
16 167, B.C
Mattathias; 109, B.C. the close of the wars of John Hyrcanus.
232
The rest, and the expectation at last,
all that stirring expectation of Him, as at their doors, as
to come before that generation should be gathered to their
fathers?
The prophecies of Daniel explain both the previous
tranquillity in that long winter which lay upon them, and
that sudden burst and glow of spring-like hope, all na-
ture ready to expand and welcome Him, when the Sun
was indeed to come and put forth His power. Daniel
had pointed out a long time, lasting, at the least, five cen-
turies, during which the Messiah should not come. The
people believed him,'and, during all those centuries, looked
not for Him then to come. The latest edict in behalf of
Jerusalem having been given B. C. 444, there remained
only 92 years, at certain periods in which the propheey
of Daniel could be fulfilled¹. Of these, 42 only 2 had
elapsed, when the then tributary king, and all Jerusalem
with him, was troubled at the announcement, that stran-
gers from the East were enquiring for the new-born king
of the Jews, whom they had come to worship. Nearly
30 years more, and one appeared, arresting the thoughts
of all by the austere garb of Elijah, which preached that
he was living not for this world, while his herald-voice
proclaimed in Daniel's words, the kingdom of heaven is at
hand. A few months more, and He came, Who spake
not as man spake, Who did miracles which man could
not do, Who drew hearts, men knew not how. Expecta-
tion was created; men's souls were prepared; they who
were His listened to the Voice which man had so long
waited to hear. But the aweful freedom of the human
will was respected by its Maker. Messiah was cut off,
as Daniel foretold, legal sacrifices end, sin is forgiven,
everlasting righteousness is brought in, the new covenant
is confirmed.
Look steadily at the emptiness, irrelevancy, inharmo-
niousness, of those things, which men have fastened,-
not meanings but unmeaningnesses-on the book of Da-
1 See ab. pp. 168-71. * 536, B.C.—(490 + 42) = 4, B. C. the probable dato
of our Lord's Birth.
2
explained by Daniel's prophecy.
233
niel, and then look how that book lights up with its
true meaning, reflecting beforehand Him who had not
yet risen; and you cannot hesitate to choose between the
darkness and the light.
LECTURE V.
The minuteness of a portion of Daniel's prophecies is in
harmony with the whole system of Old Testament Pro-
phecy, in that God, throughout, gave a nearer foreground
of prophecy, whose completion should, to each age, accre-
dit the more distant and as yet unfulfilled prophecies.
PORPHYRY'S objection to the book of Daniel, that it con-
tained such definite prophecies of the reign of Antiochus
Epiphanes, was consistent in him, if he had become al-
together a heathen, and meant to deny all definite pre-
diction. To maintain it, he must have denied the truth
of most of the Old Testament, and contradicted the spi-
rit and character of the whole. For the Old Testament
is full of definite prophecies. Definite prediction, pre-
diction as definite as those in the Book of Daniel, is an
essential part of its system. Porphyry's German follow-
ers accepted this issue. They rejected the definite pre-
dictions of Daniel, but only in common with all other
definite prediction of the Old and New Testament. It
is the character of English minds to take things piece-
meal. They admit an objection in detail, without ob-
serving whither it tends, and become inconsistent alike
in their belief and their unbelief. When it is proposed
to you to disbelieve the book of Daniel, because there is
"not only minute description of Antiochus' reign, but
¹ Dr. Williams, Essays and Rev. p. 76. Again, "In the case of Daniel, he
may doubt whether all parts of the book are of the same age," [which now
not even a rationalist questions,] "or what is the starting point of the 70 weeks;
Breadth of the principle at issue.
2
235
a stoppage of such description at the precise date 169
B.C.," or to deny the genuineness of the later chapters
of Isaiah because Cyrus is there predicted by name ², you
are in fact asked to admit a principle, which involves the
disbelief of all definite prediction. For the objection is
one à priori, as to the character of all God's revelations
of the future. The prediction of a person by name can
be no proof,that it is a seeming prediction only, written by
one contemporary with that person, except on the prin-
ciple, that God did not, on any ground or under any
circumstances, vouchsafe to His creatures such definite
knowledge of the future; that the Bible, so far, stands
on the level of any human book. The argument against
the book of Daniel involves broadly, that there are no
true definite predictions in Holy Scripture, beyond the
reach of human sagacity; else it could be no objection to
the book of Daniel, that, if his, it has definite and minute
predictions.
The Germans, from whom the objections were taken,
saw this. They laid down broadly; "3 Most convincing
3
but two results are clear beyond fair doubt, that the period of weeks ended in
the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes," [i. e. what account can be given of the 70
weeks is to be a matter of doubt; only, no doubt is to be admitted that it does
not relate to our Lord,] and that those portions of the book, supposed to be
specially predictive, are a history of past events up to that reign." Ib. p. 69.
2 Prof. Jowett, Ib. p. 243.
Lengerke, pp. lxxv, lxxvii.
"Its ungenuineness is patent, in that the events of a distant future, and the
fates of kingdoms, not then existing, yet only as far as Antiochus Epiphanes, are
evidently predicted after they had occurred (post eventum) most definitely and
accurately, even with data as to time." De Wette, Einl. § 255. So also Ber-
tholdt, Dan. Einl. § 2. Eichhorn, Einl. § 615, 6. Rosenm. Procem. n. iii. Herz-
feld holds other alleged grounds unconvincing; Bleek alone held that this would
be unconvincing, but for those other alleged grounds. Herzfeld says, (Gesch.
Isr. Exc. 2. § 13.) "That the prophecies of this book, so detailed through-
out, must have been committed to writing after the events, [there being, it
is assumed, no prophecy,] is, as is well known, one of the very chiefest proofs,
that it is to be placed in the times of the Syrian persecutions. This proof is
not to be confined to the Hebrew portion, but is to be extended to the Chal-
dee also. For ch. vii. contains, in prophetic form, an equally detailed late his-
tory (see vv. 7, 8, 21, 24, 25,) and even ch. ii. cannot have been written earlier,
although it only mentions the intermarriages between the Macedonian [not
so, see ab. p. 141.] kingdoms, and not the Syrian persecutions. This [omission]
236
Statements of German rationalists,
against the genuineness (of Daniel) is the character of
the prophecy, and specially its definiteness. 1) The pro-
phets speak mostly of the future in indefinite images and
hints. Where they individualise, it is poetic language,
can be satisfactorily explained, in that the author conceived of the succession
and main relations of those empires, not the persecutions of the Jews, as of in-
terest to Nebuchadnezzar, whose he feigned this dream to be; whereas, in Da-
niel's own visions, these persecutions must needs be of chief moment. The
assumption (ii. 44.) that the kingdom of God would dawn in the days of the
Greek kings [Roman empire] cannot have arisen before their persecutions.
The intermediate chapters (iii-vi.) are closely connected with ch. ii. and each
other. Of other proofs of so late date, which people will have it they have
found in these chapters, I hold one only to be perfectly sound. The prayer
three times a day (vi. 11.) points to a time when religious ideas out of India [!]
penetrated into the neighbouring countries." [see Lect. viii. pp. 551–60.] Bleek
said contrariwise; “if Daniel is author of the six last chapters, we can only
look on them as containing actual visions, predictions of the future, which were
unfolded to Daniel in visions. But it has been remarked with justice, that
these are strikingly distinguished from the prophecies of other prophets by the
definiteness and clearness of the predictions. Most striking is this difference
in the accurate chronological fixing of future events, viii. 14, ix. 25-27, xii.
11, 12.-Not less surprising is the definiteness of the prophecy in regard to
the succession of the single events, especially ch. x-xii, where the several strug-
gles of the Ptolemies and the Seleucidæ are described so accurately, that one
seems to read history rather than prophecy. This too, it will be confessed, is
out of analogy with the other Hebrew prophets. At least, most of the pro-
phecies, preserved to us, are of this other sort; they are general threatenings
or consolations and promises, rather than intended to impart knowledge of sin-
gle events in the future, and what, in them, appears as prediction of such events,
is commonly only the poetical side of the prophecy, in that the prophet indivi-
dualises, like a poet, depicting in single traits the general truth which he
wishes to express; in which case we can neither shew, nor are we entitled to
look for, an accurate literal fulfilment of the single traits of the prophecy in the
events of subsequent times. This applies to the prophecies as to the Messiah
also. Yet it is not to be denied that, among the prophecies of the Hebrew
prophets, there are several, even though few in comparison, which relate to single
incidents of the future, and predict them. None of these indeed can be com-
pared to the predictions of the book of Daniel; in none of them e. g. do we
find described the single destinies of kingdoms, which, at the time of the an-
nouncement, did not exist. Yet we ought not, in this respect, to pass any
over-positive judgment, since we are not in a condition to draw defined and
sharp lines, how far and to what degree of definiteness the spirit of pro-
phecy opens the future or not. I do not then believe that, if the book of Da-
niel had all other marks of genuineness, the above-noticed character of the
prophecies contained in it could be alleged as any certain proof of their later
date." Schleierm. ZS. iii. 233-5.
on what principles they reject Daniel's prophecies. 237
and the predictions are really not such, or did not come
to pass in the way marked out. But if the prophets en-
ter upon events, which lie centuries beyond and really
happened, their prophecies are acknowledged to be spu-
rious, or a right interpretation guards from false as-
sumptions¹;—or, lastly, the prophet stands actually in the
time which he describes so accurately; it is his present.”
❝2) 2 The author further departs from the custom of other
prophets in the accurate chronological statements, in
which he enters even upon days." "3) 3 In no prophecy
of the Old Testament, except in Daniel, are detailed
events of kingdoms described, which kingdoms did not
exist in the time of the prophet."
.
These two last statements, although untrue, involve
seemingly, not the denial of all prediction as such, but
only two sorts of prediction, which, if true, are unmis-
takeable; that of precise dates, and that relating to Em-
pires unknown to the prophet except by revelation. If
these statements were true, they would have no force of
proof against the book of Daniel, so long as it is not al-
together disproved, that God ever vouchsafed predic-
tion. For if God has revealed the future in any defi-
nite way, beyond the reach of the most piercing human
intelligence, the whole principle is admitted. Mere va-
riety as to details, in the character of that superhuman
definiteness of prediction, is one of the properties of Old
1
¹ I regret to see this language adopted by Dr. Stanley, Jewish Church, p. 465.
"The secular events are (with a few possible exceptions) within the horizon of
the Prophet's age," and "They are either confessedly exceptional, or else admit,
(on quite independent grounds) of another interpretation.” (Ib. note.) Yet he
himself doubts not of the prophecy of Balaam; although, how he could think
that "the ships of Cyprus, of Greece and of Europe, were then [1450, B. C. half
a millennium before Homer and some 700 years before the foundation of Rome]
just seen in the horizon of human hopes and fears," (Ib. p. 192.) I cannot ima-
gine. The real question at issue between Christians and those whose language
Dr. Stanley partially adopts, is," whether prophecy is human sagacity or Divine
knowledge ?" Dr. Stanley, who believes the prophecy of Balaam to include
"Asshur and Babylon, Assyria, Chaldæa and Persia, no less than the wild hordes
of the desert," (Ib. 193) must believe it to be a prescience given supernaturally
by God. It is the more to be regretted, that he accepts the language of un-
believers.
2 Leng. lxxviii.
3 lb. lxxix.
238
Prophecy distinguished by these writers
1
Testament prophecy. It is the very summary of Old
Testament prophecy, that ¹ God in many portions and in
divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the
prophets.
The point, which is really at issue and which under-
lies all this denial of definite prophecies, is, whether pro-
phecy is human or Divine. Disguise it how men will,
what is really meant is, that God acted through the na-
tural powers of man 2. It is the old question of Pelagian-
ism, which, speak how it would about the help of God,
always meant, underneath, that succour which God sup-
plied to or through the natural powers of the mind, in-
tellect, reason, moral sense, as distinct from and exclud-
ing any operation of Divine grace. So all prediction is at
best to be some "inexplicable capacity of anticipating","
founded on the knowledge of human nature and of God's
Providence; prophecy, which these men limit to the fore-
announcing of our Lord's Coming, is to be "4 a striving
¹ Heb. i. 1.
2 "What the prophet can, with perfect right, announce as the word of his
God, is, in its contents, nothing but the application of some general Divine
truth to a given moral condition, or a clear contemplation as to the confusions
or unevennesses of moral life before him, springing out of the clear light of the
spirit. What belongs to it falls within the province of the purer, i. e. the Di-
vine spirit; and if a prophet knows any thing more, and can give answer as
to other questions, this is something accidental." Ewald, Die Proph. i. 12.
3 Schleiermacher distinguishes a "prediction, which is to be exclusively unit-
ed to a heightened and pious stirring of the soul, and that which can arise out
of an intelligent survey of human relations and a correct and deep sympathy,"
and adds, "that to no prediction, whatever its contents or however great its ac-
curacy, or however wonderfully the images of a stimulated power of anticipa-
tion may sometimes be confirmed, can a sacred character be attributed." (D.
Christl. Glaube, § 103. pp. 134, 5. referred to by Tholuck, Die Propheten, § 9. p.
76.) He sums up, "All predictions, both those which arise out of historical tact,
and those which spring from an inexplicable power of anticipating, are to be
"made over to the investigation of the nature of the soul." Ib.
4 "When belief in the Redeemer already exists, we can dwell with much
contentment on the expressions of a longing for redemption, awakened by ear-
lier revelations, in themselves inadequate. And this is the proper import of
the prophecies of the Messiah, (an import certainly both strengthening and con-
firming,) wherever they occur and in however dark anticipation they may be
shrouded, that they discover to us a striving of human nature towards Christi-
anity, and, at the same time, as the confession of the best and most ensouled out
from prediction; both, in their sense, human. 239
of human nature towards Christianity." Both purely
human. But, although the correspondence of the Gos-
pel with our spiritual needs is, in fact, one of the strong-
est bands by which God holds fast our faith, yet our need,
as sinners, to be reconciled with God, and to be made at
one with Him from Whom we feel, by nature, severed,
could not and did not lead human nature to expect be-
forehand that God would meet that need. Much less.
could heart of man imagine, that He would give His Only-
Begotten Son (of Whose Being human nature could, of
itself, know nothing,) to die for our sins, or that He would
give His regenerating Spirit to those who believe in Jesus.
Prophecy of the Supernatural must be itself supernatu-
of the earlier pious communities, express, that they were only to be looked upon
as preliminary and passing institutions." Schleierm. § 14. i. 105, 6. Schlei-
ermacher led others into the land which he did not enter, being in antagonism
with shallow rationalism, though short of Christian truth. Nitzsch, who re-
tains the distinction of prophecy and prediction, owns both as supernatural, i. e.
from God. Only he thinks, that "prediction must be rare, in order not to de-
stroy the whole relation of man to history, the more so, because, in the cases
to which it extends, it can only become altogether perfect through the most
definite statements of the special marks of the fact." System d. Christl. Lehre,
§ 35. It is not clear to me, what Nitzsch, and those who have adopted his
maxim, mean by it. God does not interfere with His creature's free-agency;
but the most definite prediction does not interfere with this. What bad men
do not like, they disbelieve, and accomplish, while disbelieving it. Of a truth
against Thy holy Child Jesus, Whom Thou hast anointed, both Herod and
Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and people of Israel were gathered together,
for to do whatsoever Thy hand and Thy counsel determined before to be done.
Acts iv. 27, 28. Even when any one received a prediction as to himself, his
way of acting upon that prediction rested with his free-agency. Hazael ful-
filled his through murder; (2 Kgs. viii. 13-15.) Jeroboam sought to establish
his through sin; (1 Kgs. xii. 26-33.) Jehu fulfilled his in the letter, not in the
spirit. (2 Kgs. x. 31.) All abused their free-agency; the prediction did not "de-
stroy the relation of man to history." The whole history of Jeroboam's house,
God says, and so of Israel, would have been different, had he been faithful to
God. (1 Kgs. xi. 38.) Tholuck points out an oversight in this whole distinction
between prediction and prophecy. The greatness of prophecy is proportioned
to the greatness of its subject. Prophecies then as to the Christ were greater
than any temporal prophecies. But, even as to our Lord Himself, prophecy
foretold, at times, the greatest things, at others what formed a subordinate part,
yet all were parts of one whole in the Mind of God. Prophecy," says Tho-
luck in reference to the distinction of Schleiermacher, "even if not without ex-
ception, became the concrete view of the future; prediction has every where
prophecy as its background." Die Propheten, § 9. end. p. 78.
240 No human knowledge of God's ways enables man
ral. His temporal judgments, when they fall, find more
response in the souls of us sinners. Yet, although God, in
His judgments of the world throughout the history of the
world¹, acts, of course, in His varied dealings with His
creatures, on one law of His All-wise Justice, man cannot
tell beforehand, either whom He will punish, or how.
Those predicted punishments mostly come upon one na-
tion by another. "God punishes the guilty." True;
but which? Man could not know beforehand, on any
ground of the Divine justice. The executioner was most-
ly as guilty as the criminal.
Good and evil are so variedly mingled in nations or in-
dividuals, that, even when we know that persevering in-
fringements of the Divine laws entail in the end, by God's
appointment, certain punishments, yet we cannot usurp
the prerogative of God, and, of our own minds, pronounce
His judgments. The forms too of God's judgments are
so manifold; the time, when they burst, is so hastened or
withheld upon grounds which we know not, that, although
we know enough to see the justice of those judgments
when they have come, we do not know enough to foresee
those judgments before they come, still less their time or
their ultimate issue 2.
But, in the time of Old Testament prophecy, mankind
had yet to learn, both that there was a judgment of the
world, and that there was One Judge, the One True God.
Theorists, here as elsewhere, abuse ungratefully the know-
ledge which, as matter of fact, they have gained from re-
velation, to trick out human nature in its fallen state, and
claim that, as their inherent endowment, which God gave
them as a mitigation of their ills.
All along the times before Christ came, prophecy was
no mere prediction, no mere strengthening of faith by the
fact of God's revealed foreknowledge. All along, its sub-
jects were those of the Psalmist's song³, mercy and judg-
"The world's-history is the world's-judgment," conciser in the original,
"Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht." quoted by Tholuck, Die Proph. p.
79.
2 Ewald rests his idea of temporal prophecy simply on the anticl-
8 Ps. ci. 1.
pation of Divine justice.
to predict His national judgments; still less His mercies.241
ment. All along, it withdrew the veil, not only from things
invisible as yet by reason of distance, but from that which
is to man more invisible still, because he would fain not
see it, God's minute, righteous Providence, to Whose se-
rene Omniscience nothing is too small to see, to Whose
Omnipresent Justice nothing is too mighty to control
or to punish. Even more perplexing yet, than the sepa-
rate announcement of mercy or judgment, is the blending
of both. Man cannot, of himself, anticipate mercy after
judgment; without direct revelation, it is clean contrary
to man's "anticipations." Presumption or despair are
alike natural to the heart of man, as conscience is awak-
ened or unawakened. To faith only it is revealed, that
whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth. Those detailed mi-
nute prophecies had their own especial office, to mark out,
that God's Judgments were not mere chance (as men, now
also, often think); nor again, (what lies nearer to the
depths of man's heart, who feels himself in the power of
the Invisible,) a mere fated thing; but the discriminating
sentence of the One Ruler of the world.
So far from those minute temporal prophecies, such as
we have in Daniel, being alien from Old Testament pro-
phecy, they are, in fact, a part of God's whole way of act-
ing under the old dispensation.
I would first point out the general indications of such
a system of minute prophecy running along the whole
course of the Old Testament history, presupposed by what
is related in that history, but extending beyond the spe-
cific instances which are recorded.
1) Such prophecies are presupposed by the test, through
which, at all times, the true prophet was to be distinguish-
ed from the false. The fulfilment or non-fulfilment of de-
finite prophecies is the God-given test of the truth or false-
hood of the prophet. And if thou shalt say in thine heart,
How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spo-
ken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord,
*
4 Deut. xviii. 21, 2. I am glad to see this recognised by Dr. Stanley, Jewish
Church, p. 462.
R
242
Struggle between false and true prophets
1
if the thing follow not nor come to pass, that is the thing
which the Lord hath not spoken; the prophet hath spoken
it presumptuously; thou shalt not be afraid of him. God
forewarned His people of the struggle which there should
be between the true prophets and the false, and gave them
a test of the true. But that test in itself implies a near
fulfilment of definite prophecy; else it would have been
no test at all, by which true prophecy could be tried.
Such definite prophecy is presupposed by all that long
actual struggle between the false prophets and the true ¹,
which closed only with the suspension of true prophecy,
and which shall yet be revived before the end of the world.
Sometimes it comes to a more solemn issue, as in that
grand appeal of the one true prophet of God, when stand-
ing against the 400 court-prophets of Ahab³. The re-
peated challenge of Isaiah, that the gods of the nations
had not uttered and could not utter predictions such as he
had given in the Name of God 4, and as had been fulfilled,
was a challenge of the same sort to the heathen world,
as Daniel's exposition of the dreams of Nebuchadnezzar
or of the hand-writing on the wall, when the wise men
of Babylon had failed, was in act. Accurate fulfilment,
of which men were cognizant, is implied by the simple
declaration, with which Amos winds up his series of like-
1 See Introd. to Micah, p. 289. False prophecy reappeared after the captivity.
Neh. vi. 12, 14. Zechariah prophesied its cessation under the Gospel, xiii. 4.
Dr. Stanley instances "the prophetess Noadiah and the rest of the prophets,'
(Neh. vi.) "as indications of the prophetic spirit," "among the Samaritans ;"
(Ib. p. 423.) as if there were any real connection between the false prophets
and the true, between those who prophesied out of their own hearts, and ut-
tered lies in the name of God, and those to whom the word of God came, and
who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Bitter and sweet are both
tastes, truth and falsehood are both in word, yet most opposite. It is no less
confusion to blend those, who stood in directest antagonism, the instruments
of God or the instruments of Satan, e. g. p. 429, “The prophets were to be
found in considerable numbers, fifty, or even 400, at a time." The 50 (2 Kgs.
ii. 16.) were prophets of God; the 400, false prophets of an idol. 1 Kgs. xxii. 6.
2 Rev. xvi. 13, xix. 20, xx. 10.
³ 1 Kgs. xxii. 6–28. Probably the
400 Ashtaroth-prophets which did eat at Jezebel's table. Ib. xviii. 19.
4 xli. 21-23, 26-28, xlii. 9, xliii. 9-12, xliv. 7, 8, 25-28, xlv. 11, 19, 21, xlvi. 9,
xlviii. 3-7, 14-16.
Б
implies a series of definite predictions.
243
nesses; 5 Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but He
revealeth His secret unto His servants the prophets.
2) Still further, there are, in the earliest provisions of
the law and in the history of Samuel, indications, that
God condescended to shew His individual care and super-
intendence of human things by a more minute personal
foretelling, than is recorded. It was a part of the office
of Eleazar the High Priest to ask counsel for Joshua, after
the judgment of Urim and Thummim. We see, in a few
instances in the history of David, how habitually he con-
sulted God thereby, and what minute answers as to the
proximate future were given him, when his own human
sagacity was utterly at fault. The defence of the high
priest, when accused by Doeg of having consulted God
for him against Saul, implies that he had so done for him
in times past. He consulted for him, as for one employed
by the king, and knew nothing of these changes. "Did
I now begin to enquire of God for him?-Thy servant
knew nothing of all this, less or more." And indeed on
that self-same occasion, we know the fact, that David
then so consulted Ahimelech, only through Doeg's accu-
sation and the High-Priest's admission. Even Saul, in
his short-lived better days, had so enquired of the Lord,
though with his characteristic fitfulness 10. Then, for a
long time, he disused it. It would lie in his character, to
have disused it from the day when God answered him
not ¹¹. As is the wont of faith without love, he recurred,
in the extremity of his fortunes, to all the means whereby
God would be consulted, and, when God would not answer,
had resort to evil powers.
12 When Saul enquired of the
8
5 See on Am. iii. 7.
6 Num. xxvii. 21.
7 1 Sam. xxiii. 2, 4, 6, 9-12, xxx. 7, 8, 2 Sam. ii. 1, v. 19, 23, xxi. 1. Proba-
bly it was in reference to Zadok's office, as priest, that David said to him, Art
thou not a Seer? 2 Sam. xv. 27. It is noticed that, in the 3 days' pestilence
inflicted for the pride in numbering the people, David could not go before it
(the tabernacle of the Lord, being at Gibeon) to enquire of God; for he was
afraid, because of the sword of the Angel of the Lord. 1 Chr. xxi. 30.
10 Ib. xiv. 18, 19.
.15 .Sam. xxii 1 הַיּוֹם תְּהִלָּתִי 8
9 Ib. 9, 10.
11 Ib. 37.
12 Ib. xxviii. 6.
R 2
244
Minute habitual prophecies to
Lord, the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor
by Urim, nor by prophets. 1 God is departed from me,
and answereth me no more, neither by prophets nor by
dreams.
The use of the Urim lasted, probably, until the Capti-
vity; since after the Captivity it is spoken of as something
which might perhaps still be restored 2, if God so willed.
3) But this was apparently reserved for persons in
eminent station, whose acts concerned the well-being of
the whole. The relation of Samuel to the people, at the
close of that disorganised period of the Judges, belongs
more to private life. It is expressly mentioned, at the
beginning of God's revelation to him³, The word of God
was rare in those days; there was no vision spread abroad.
This scarcity must stand in contrast with fulness, before,
or after, or both; for it is said, in those days. Samuel's
foretellings were frequent, and had that characteristic of
Divine truth, that they never failed. His prophetic office
was so authenticated. Samuel grew, it is said after
that first revelation, and the Lord was with him and did
let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel,
from Dun even to Beersheba, knew that Samuel was esta-
blished a prophet of the Lord. And the Lord appeared
again in Shiloh: for the Lord revealed Himself to Samuel
in Shiloh by the word of the Lord; not in vision only, but
by inward inspiration. The name of Seer implies a ha-
bitual "foreseeing" of things which others saw not. To
ask God through him was a common every-day thing.
Beforetime in Israel, when a man went to enquire of God,
thus he spake, Come, and let us go to the Seer. Saul's
servant was cognizant of the fact, that all that he saith
cometh surely to pass. His proposal to consult Samuel
about the lost asses causes no surprise, beforehand, in
the event, or when related to Saul's uncle. It is ac-
5
6
1 Ib. 15.
2 "And the Tirshatha said, that they should not eat of the
most holy things, till there stood up a priest with Urim and with Thummim.”
Ezr. ii. 63, Neh. vii. 65. 3 1 Sam. iii. 1.
4 Ib. 19-21. 5 lb. ix. 9.
• Ib. 6.
16.
7 Ib. 6-10, 20, x. 2,
individuals. "Seer," "Prophet."
245
cepted as the natural solution of the visit to Samuel
which had seemed remarkable. Yet this too had its pa-
rallel in the Gospel. Saul's heart was prepared for the
religious influence of the company of the prophets who,
Samuel had predicted, would meet him, by the fulfilment
of previous prophecy as to ordinary wayfarers. The
hearts of the disciples were prepared for the great mys-
teries of the Passion and of the Holy Eucharist 10 by the
minute prophecy as to the place where they should find the
ass and the colt tied, and the answer of the owner, when
they should loose them; and by that other of the man,
bearing a pitcher of water, who should shew them a large
upper room furnished and prepared 10. Those prophecies
of the Old Testament are not more minute, nor do they re-
late to circumstances more apparently incidental, than
these two of our Lord Himself.
4) It would seem, from the breadth of the expression
used, on occasion of Samuel, that this habit of enquiring
and obtaining answers from God did not begin in his time.
Beforetime in Israel, when a man went to enquire of God
thus he spake, &c.-he, that is now called a prophet, (Nabi)
was before called a Seer (Roch). This seems to go beyond
the case of Samuel's contemporaries. As, habitually, in
after times, people consulted the "prophet" (Nabi) in
their emergencies, so now the "Seer," (Roeh.) The two
offices were thenceforth united. In the early times, the
title "prophet” mostly described those who were recipients
of Divine revelation or inspiration, but did not them-
selves predict the future¹¹. Abraham was entitled a pro-
8 Ib. x. 2-10. 9 S. Matt. xxi. 1-3, S. Luke xix. 29-34.
10 S. Mark xiv. 13-16, S. Luke xxii. 10-13.
11 The title is given to Abraham ; (Gen. xx. 7. see Ps. cv. 15.) Aaron, as the
speaker for Moses (Ex. vii. 1.); Miriam (Ex. xv. 20.); the 70, on whom the
Spirit of God came, by implication; (the title Nebiim, would that all God's
people were (Nebiim) prophets, corresponding to the word, they prophesied,
i. e. praised God by inspiration of God. Num. xi. 25-9.) The prophet, sent by
God, Judg. vi. 8, exercised the pastoral office of the prophet only. He was (like
the man of God, sent to reprove Eli, 1 Sam. ii. 27,) sent on a specific message
of rebuke, but was no bearer of prophecy. In Judg. ii. 20-22, it is not said, who
was the organ of the prophecy. It is, in substance, the same as that at the be-
246
Continued office of Seer. “Enquiring”
phet, received great prophecies, but did not himself pro-
phesy. Jacob prophesied, but is not called a prophet.
Prophecies of Moses contained the whole future of Israel,
yet he is called a prophet by implication only.
3
2
5) The title also, Gad,¹ David's Seer, Heman, the king's
seer in the words of God, Jeduthun, the king's seer, implies
apparently some special relation of those prophets to Da-
vid, as "seeing" for him what he saw not. On one occa-
sion, Gad gave him prophetic advice as to his safety, which
he obeyed *.
5
6) To enquire of the Lord was as received an idiom be-
fore the return from the Captivity, as to "consult" a phy-
sician or a lawyer is among us. The language occurs
throughout the Old Testament. Not to repeat what has
been cited, Rebekkah, before Esau and Jacob were born,
went to enquire of the Lord, and received a prophecy as
to the future of the nations to be born of her unborn sons.
Immediately after the death of Joshua, the children of Is-
rael asked of the Lord, who shall go up for us against the
Canaanites first, to fight against them? And the Lord
said, Judah shall go up. Behold, I have delivered the land
into his hand. Again, they cried unto God, when oppres-
ginning of ch. ii. 1-4, which was delivered through an angel. Deborah the pro-
phetess (Judg. iv. 9,) uttered a signal prophecy, but there is no trace that she
The other cases, in which the word is used, are themselves pro-
phecies (Num. xii. 6, Deut. xiii. 1, 3, 5, xviii. 15, 18, 20, 22.) ; they foretell what
should be, they do not speak of what was then. Deut. xxxiv. 10, only says
what was not, not what was. There arose not a prophet since in Israel, like
unto Moses. The writer of the book of Samuel states, that in his time the
nabi, prophet of God, was the organ of answering those who "enquired of God,"
as, in Samuel's time, "the seer." He does not say, that this was the only office of
the prophet, nor that there had not been any prophets (Nebiim) before Samuel ;
only that those who exercised that one office, had not that name in his time.
Colenso's argument then against the Pentateuch drawn from it (n. 248.) is a
mistake of his own. Even after this, prophets are mentioned collectively,
whose only office apparently was that, corresponding to the use of the word
in Num. xi. 29, the inspired praise of God. 1 Sam. x. 5, 10-12, xix. 20. In both
was a seer.
cases, they are designated by ancient words; the one, company (nan)
of prophets," occurring there only, (xix. 20;) the other, (77) “band of pro-
phets," occurring probably in that sense in x. 5, 10. only.
21 Chron, xxv. 5.
1 2 Sam. xxiv. 11, 1 Chron. xxi. 9, 2 Chron. xxix. 25.
* 2 Chron. Xxxv. 15. 4 1 Sam. xxii. 5. 6 Gen. xxv. 22. 6 Judg. i. 1, 2.
of God, implying continual minute prediction. 247
12
sed by Philistines and Ammonites, and received an an-
swer, rejecting them for awhile, it is not said through
whom. After the defeat at Gibeah, in the time of the
Judges, the collected tribes thrice "enquired of" God 8
as to their punishment of Benjamin. Having previously
enquired by lot, as to the king to be given them, when
Saul was taken, they were told verbally, on enquiry,
where he was to be found. It is remarked, as something
unwonted, 10 we enquired not at it (the ark) in the days
of Saul, i. e. after his degeneracy. In David's days, it
was a proverb of the acute practical sagacity of Ahito-
phel, 11 The counsel of Ahitophel, which he counselled in
those days, was as if a man had enquired at the oracle of
God. So was all the counsel of Ahitophel both with Da-
vid and with Absalom. Jehoshaphat asks Ahab ¹², En-
quire, I pray thee, at the word of the Lord to-day, and
would not be put off with the 400 Ashtaroth prophets; Is
there not still here a prophet of the Lord, that we may
enquire of him? When the king of Israel desponded
in the war with Moab, Jehoshaphat's instant resource
was, as before 13, Is there not here a prophet of the Lord,
that we may enquire of the Lord by him? He says at
once of Elisha, The word of the Lord is with him. When
the neglected book of the law had been found in the tem-
ple, Josiah sent to Huldah the prophetess to enquire as
to the future of Judah, and was answered that God had
heard his prayers and that the evil should not be in his
days ¹. The godless Zedekiah still sent to enquire of the
Lord by Jeremiah 15. In the Captivity, people, estranged
from God, enquired of Him by Ezekiel 16, and were told that
it would be to their hurt 17. In the idolatrous kingdom
of Israel too, Jeroboam sent to the prophet Ahijah, to en-
quire as to the issue of his son's sickness 18. God also, by
Elijah, pronounced that Ahaziah should not recover, be-
14
7 Ib. x. 10-14.
8 Ib. xx. 18, 23, (with mention of the ark) 27, 8.
9 1 Sam. x. 22. 10 1 Chr. xiii. 3. 11 2 Sam. xvi. 23. 12 1 Kgs. xxii. 5, 7.
13 2 Kings iii. 11, 12. 14 Ib. xxii. 12-20. 15 Jer. xxi. 2, xxxvii. 17.
17 Ib. xiv. 4, 5, 7-10. 19 1 Kings xiv. 2-14.
16 Ezek. xiv. 1-3, xx. 3.
248 Three distances of Old Testament prophecy,
cause he had enquired of the god of Ekron, not of God¹.
Even Benhadad sent to Elisha, to enquire whether he
should recover of his disease 2; and a messenger from
Edom came to ask Isaiah as to the issue of the night of ca-
lamity which threatened them: they were bidden, if they
would indeed enquire, to enquire with earnestness, and
so to return, come ³.
3
Prophecies, on one principle yet so varied, declaring,
all along, what the natural heart of man is still so slow
to believe, that all human things are minutely ordered by
His Will, Who knows alike the number of the stars and
of the hairs of our heads which He alike created, the
fall of a sparrow or of a kingdom to the ground, are any
thing but "exceptional." Sometimes, through the im-
portance of the occasion and of the answer, they became
a part of those prophecies, which declared the nearer tem-
poral future of Israel.
The prophecies, which God has willed to preserve to
us as the main system of Old Testament prophecy, had
these three chief subjects; 1) God's purpose of love in the
promised Seed, the pure unlooked-for unanticipated efflu-
ence of the love of the Creator. 2) Temporal judgments,
the images, earnests, heralds, of the judgment to come.
3) Temporal mercies, in, amid, through, those temporal
judgments.
Of these three distinct distances of prophecy, prophecy
as to Him, Whose Coming was the main object of the
choice of the Jewish people, the Seed in Whom all the
nations of the earth should be blessed 5, was expanded or
defined the most slowly. Forgiveness, through the Sacri-
fice, was impressed by the rite of sacrifice. Else, the pro-
mise stood, like a beacon-light at the end of a long vista,
of which the whole was foreshortened, yet that first long
future shewed that it was a great way off. Time and cir-
cumstance as to His earthly Origin, Birth of a Virgin,
Birthplace, Character, Offices, Life, Death, Divinity,
1 2 Kings i. 3, 4-6, 16, 17.
4 Stähelin, p. 191.
2 Ib. viii. 8, 14.
5 Gen. xxii. 18.
3 Is. xxi. 11, 12.
temporal judgments and mercies, the Redeemer. 249
Atonement, Sufferings, rejection by His own, acceptance
by us Gentiles, Glory, everlasting Kingdom, were expand-
ed gradually, and most towards the time, when the gra-
dual setting-in and deepening of God's temporal judg-
ments might shake faith as to His yet distant purpose of
love.
Of the two nearer distances of temporal prophecy, the
furthest point was, to Abraham, the deliverance of his
descendants from Egypt after the 400 years of affliction,
and the judgments on the nation whom they should serve
and who should afflict them. The nearer events of pro-
phecy to the Patriarchs, as time went on, were, the de-
struction of Sodom and Gomorrha7; the preternatural
birth of Isaac ; the increase of Ishmael and the character
of his descendants 9; the beginning of the future of Esau
and his descendants 10; the temporal predictions to Ja-
cob; the elevation of Joseph 12, the seven years' plenty
and seven years' famine of Egypt 13.
8
9.
The prediction to Abraham, as to the deliverance from
Egypt, was the first of a series of prophecies of judgment
on the world, that first separation of the people of God
from those who would be His enemies, and of God's op-
posite dealings with each; faint, yet, as a separation, ex-
pressive shadow of the great separation at the End.
14 That nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge, and af-
terward they shall come out with great substance. It was
the first of the prophecies against the Heathen nations,
not as Heathen, (for as Heathen, or simply as enemies of
the Jews, no nation is threatened,) but as transgressors
of God's unwritten law, graven, as it is until obliterated
by man's will, on every human heart. And, if the people
of God should become not God's people 15, the like or se-
verer judgments were foretold to them; nay, judgment
was evermore prophesied as to 16 begin with the house of
6 Ib. xv. 13, 14.
7 Ib. xviii. 17-21, xix. 13.
9 Ib. xvi. 10-12, xvii.
11 Ib. xxviii.
12 Ib. xxxvii. 6-9.
8 Ib. xv. 4-6, xvii. 1-19. comp. Rom. iv. 3, 16-21.
20, xxi. 18. 10 Ib. xxv. 23, xxvii. 39, 40. (comp. xxxvi. 6,7.)
15, xxxi. 3 sqq., xxxii. 9, 28. (comp. Hos. xii. 4.)
14 lb. xv. 14.
13 Ib. xli.
15 Hos. i. 9.
16 1 Pet. iv. 17.
250
Temporal prophecies of judgment and mercy.
God, and to fall on the heathen instruments of its exe-
cution, only for exceeding or abusing their commission.
Those judgments on Israel were to have several stages;
they were to increase, Moses foretold¹, in severity; at
last, on impenitence, they were to end in a temporary
captivity; and that, on repentance, was to issue in re-
storation to their own land. Such, at the distance of
850 years, was the furthest horizon of their then future.
But, within this period, there were marked lesser pe-
riods, each with its own prophecies of weal or woe. Nor
were these any chance unsystematic predictions. Varied,
often minute, seldom repeated identically, they were one
in their end and purpose, to fix in men's minds, that
God held in His hands His creature's destiny, that good
and evil came from Him, and were apportioned by Him
Who foretold them ere they came,-good of His own free
goodness, evil as drawn upon His creatures by their own
evil.
One such period, the prophesied 40 years2, during which
they were to wander in the wilderness, until the former
generation should have died there, had already elapsed.
The next period, that of comparative obedience under
Joshua, was chiefly one of fulfilment of prophecy. Yet
here too prophecy accompanied even miracle, (as at the
passage of the Jordan, or the fall of the walls of Jericho,)
and the leading events of the conquest, as the capture of
Ai, the defeat of the five kings, and the crowning victory
by the waters of Merom. Over and above the fulfilment
of the larger prophecy, that they should inherit the laud
promised to their fathers, the blessings of Jacob and
Moses, so far as they related to temporal things, began
their course of fulfilment. The lot, directed by God, ful-
filled the specific promises to Asher, Zebulon, Issachar,
and as to the territorial portions of Ephraim and Judah³.
2 Num. xiv. 33, xxxii. 13, Deut. ii. 14.
1 Lev. xxvi.
3 The portions of Judah, Ephraim, and Manasseh, were assigned to them by
lot, only before the rest. (Josh. xv. 1, xvi. 1, xvii. 1, 2.) "By lot was their in-
heritance, as the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses, for the nine tribes
and the half tribe. Josh. xiv. 2.
Continuous fulfilment of blessings of Jacob and Moses. 251
The tribes, in the nature of their temporal blessings, had
a perpetual memory, not of the goodness only, but of the
Providence of God, Who brought about for each, what He
had promised to each. The vines of Judah*; the exceed-
ing fruitfulness of the portion of Ephraim and Manasseh5;
the olive-groves of Asher, its iron and brass from its near
Tyrian merchandise; the active commerce of Zebulon 8,
and the glass of its sands⁹; the resting enrichment of Is-
4 Gen. xlix. 11. Hebron, below which lay the valley of Eshcol, was given to
Caleb on condition of expelling its giant inhabitants. (Josh. xiv. 12, 13.) The
Vineyards of Engedi (Cant. i. 14,) also lay in Judah. Its vines and balsams
were still famed in the time of Origen (in Cant. Opp. iii. 67.). "Uzziah had
vine-dressers in the mountains and in Carmel," [of Judah.] 2 Chr. xxvi. 10.
The terraces, on the sides of the now barren mountains of Judah, were noticed
by Clarke (Travels, ii. 520,) and by General Straton as "vestiges of ancient
luxuriance." (in Keith on Prophecy, p. 109.)
5 Gen. xlix. 25, Deut. xxxiii. 13, 14, Jer. iii. 19. "All travellers bear testimony
to the 'general growing richness' and beauty of the country in going north-
wards from Jerusalem, the 'innumerable fountains' and streamlets, the villages
more thickly scattered than any where in the south, the continuous cornfields
and orchards, the moist vapoury atmosphere." (Martineau, 516, 521. V. d.
Velde, i. 386, 8. Stanley, 234, 5.) Grote, in Smith Bibl. Dict. v. Ephraim. Add
Von Schubert, iii. 127, Drew, Scripture Lands, p. 95.
6 Deut. xxxiii. 24. It included Carmel, (on its richness see on Am. i. 2,) the
Western end of the valley of Esdraelon, and a rich lowland on the shore from
Carmel to Zidon. (Jos. Ant. v. 1. 22.)
7 It is foretold, that the metals should be in abundant use in a manufactured
state, not, that they should be found in Asher. The language is different from
that in Deut. viii. 9, where Moses speaks of Palestine generally as "a land whose
stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass." Iron was sup-
plied in abundance by the basalt of Hauran, and is found in Lebanon. Volney,
i. 233. Russegger, i. 693,4. Palestine has not, however, been explored geologi-
cally, so as to show whether there are worked-out mines.
8 Gen. xlix. 13, Deut. xxxiii. 19. All have remarked on the difficulty of
tracing exactly the boundaries of each tribe, partly because many places are not
yet identified, partly because, the distribution being (as Keith observed) that
of towns with their districts, the line was probably very irregular, as in some
of our English counties. Josephus says, "They of Zabulon received the coun-
try, extending to the lake of Gennesareth, and around Carmel and the sea.”
Ant. v. 1. 22.
9 Deut. xxxiii. 19. "Two miles from Ptolemais a very little stream runs by,
called Beleus, where by the tomb of Memnon is a wondrous place of 100 cubits.
It is circular and hollow, and yields the sand for glass; after
many shiploads having been taken, it is filled up again."
"A tiny shore, but unexhausted." Tac. Hist. v. 7.
it has been emptied,
Jos. B. J. ii. 10. 2.
"A shore of not above
252 Blessings of the tribes a continuous witness to them
sachar, through which that commerce passed¹; the enrich-
ing neighbourhood of the sea of Galilee to Naphtali2;-
these were no mere natural gifts of God's Providence.
Their several blessings were, in a manner, the heraldic
mottoes of each tribe, and spoke of God's foreordaining
love. Still more, those portions of the prophecy which
pourtrayed the character of the tribes. They are the ban-
ner of God hanging over them, when faithful to Him. The
lion-might of Judah, of Gad, and of Dan³, Ephraim's
horns of power, the swift energy of Benjamin 4, could be
put forth, on each occasion, as strength which God had
pledged to them. In that reeling strife which Jacob fore-
half a mile, it has sufficed for yielding glass during so many centuries." Plin.
N. H. xxxvi. 26. Ps. Jon. on Deut. xxxiii. 19. has, "they produced mirrors
and vessels of glass from the shore."
1 Gen. xlix. 14, 15, Deut. xxxiii. 18, 9. "Rejoice, Zebulun, in thy going out,
and, Issachar, in thy tents." The rule of Hebrew parallelism, whereby each
hemistich may be supplied out of the other, hardly applies here, where the
main subject of each hemistich is a distinct tribe. For, if it were paraphrased,
"Rejoice, Zebulun and Issachar, in thy going out and in thy tents," there
would be nothing assigned as characteristic of either, contrary to the character
of the other prophecies. The mention of the tents, in contrast to the "going
out" of Issachar, corresponds with the image in Gen. xlix. Their joint enrich-
ment is expressed in Deut. xxxiii. 19. The rich "great plain" of Esdraelon
fell almost wholly to Issachar.
2 Naphtali stretched far Northward from the N. W. end of the sea of Gali-
lee to Anti-libanus, with which Mount Naphtali was connected. Josephus
says, “The Naphtalites received the parts turned towards the East unto Da-
mascus, and the upper parts of Galilee to Mount Lebanus and the sources of
Jordan." (Ant. v. 1. 22.) It would thus become the channel of the trade from
Damascus southwards. The description, "He giveth goodly words," (Gen.
xlix. 21.) has no known explanation in those times. Yet the Eng. Vers. “Naph-
tali is a hind let loose, he giveth goodly words," (which Dr. Stanley pronounces,
“mistranslated,” Pal. 363,) is right. The rendering, "is a spreading terebinth ;
he giveth forth goodly boughs;" Ib. (originally from Bochart, ii. 258. Leipz.)
from ,אֲמִירֵי for אֲמְרֵי אִמְרִי and in lieu of ,אַיְלָה for אֵילָה,is founded on an altered text
py, which occurs only in Is. xvii. 6, 9, has no known plural, and in its own
nature would not have one, since it means, not "bough," generally, but, as
we say,
"a leader." "Leaders" would, of course, be a defect. Onk. Vulg.
Syr. Saad. Sam.-Ar. agree so far against the LXX.
The title "lion's whelp," etymologically would signify the cub, not yet
separated from its mother, and (Ezek. xix. 2, 3, 5,) is used of the age before it
has grown to be the "young lion," pp, which catches prey. Yet there is appa-
rently no such emphasis here, since it is used of Judah. (Gen. xlix. 9.)
4 Gen. xlix. 27.
of God's foreknowledge and Providence.
253
told of Gad, and which, at the Eastern outskirts of the
land, he had ever to wage, now pressed in, but at the last
overcoming 5, he bore, a more than "charmed,” a God-
protected “life." So Dan, trampled upon in the dust by
the horse-hoofs of the enemy, was still, out of the dust, to
cast backward the horse and his rider, deadly as a ser-
pent's bite. And yet, although Dan was then little infe-
rior in numbers to Judah', and larger than either Ephra-
im or Manasseh separately, the brunt of the conflict was to
be borne by Judah and Ephraim. The blessing to Judah,
& Thou wilt bring him back to his people; his hands strive
for him; and help from his enemies Thou wilt be, was the
abiding hope of the wives and mothers of Judah, when its
armies went forth to the field.
Three tribes had, for the misdeeds of their first fathers,
lost, successively, the primogeniture; existence alone was
promised them; but Reuben was excluded from eminence,
Simeon and Levi were to be dispersed in Israel. In the
wilderness, Reuben, 7th in point of numbers, sought to
recover the primogeniture; Simeon appears to have been
prominentin the abominations of Baal-Peor¹º, and had lost
nearly two thirds of its numbers, since the first numbering
in the wilderness¹¹; Levi's fierceness had become a sanc-
tified zeal. Simeon then disappeared from the blessing of
Moses 12; Reuben's perilous pride was stayed by the pro-
phecy of the fewness of his numbers 18; the sentence on
6 Ib. 17.
13.
5 Ib. 19.
7 Dan, in the 2nd year, 62,700;
(Num. i. 38, 39.) Judah, 74,600. (Ib. 26, 7.) Dan, in the 39th year, 64,400;
(Ib. xxvi. 42, 3.) Judah 76,500. (Ib. 22.)
8 Deut. xxxiii. 7.
9 Such seems to have been the object of the rebellion of Dathan and Abiram,
claiming civil, as Korah and his company of Levites claimed ecclesiastical, dig-
nity. Num. xvi.
10 Num. XXv. 14.
11 It had 59,300,
Num. i. 23; but 22, 200, only, Ib. xxvi. 14.
12 The remarkableness of its omission gave rise to an incorrect correction in
the Alex. MS. of the LXX. which got over two seeming difficulties at once by
inserting it in the verse relating to Reuben ; “and let Simeon be many in num-
ber." Apollinaris observes that "the accurate copies do not mention Simeon."
13"Let Reuben live and not die; and let his men be few." The E. V., fol-
lowing Aben Ezra, has supplied the "not" from the preceding clause; but this,
although not infrequent, when the negative is in the main clause, is not ad-
254
"Until Shiloh come;
وو
Levi, although unreversed, was turned into a blessing and
an occasion of greater nearness to God. So was there
stamped on the history of the people the great law of the
justice and love of God, that irreversible chastisement
deepens on persevering impenitence, but, on repentance,
became, through the rich exuberance of His mercy, the
channel of His choicest favours. In the subsequent his-
tory, although Simeon and Reuben still lived, Reuben so
dwindled away, that we find his cities completely in the
possession of Moab and Ammon; Simeon had a scanty
settlement taken out of Judah, yet, if the tradition be
true, he too gained by the breaking of his fierce might,
and while some of his sons, in search of pastoral wealth,
broke out beyond the borders of the promised land 2,
2. and
probably became an Arab tribe ³, others became the teach-
ers of the little children of Israel. These prophecies had
their continuous fulfilment, and so, when, after nearly 3
centuries, Judah, from being an eminent, became the
royal tribe, the promise that it should not be dissolved
until Shiloh should come 5, gained the more impressive
3
missible when (as here) it is in a subordinate clause. The Verss. then rightly
omit the negative, although the Vulg. alone has the rendering, "et sit parvus
in numero."
1 Josh. xix. 9.
2 1 Chr. iv. 39-43.
3 Tebrizi, in his Comm. on the Hammasa, mentions three Jewish-Arab tribes
as existing up to the times of Mohammed.
4"Another exposition, there shall not be to thee poor scribes and teachers
of infants, save from Simeon.'" Rashi ad loc.
Rashi ad loc. The Jerus. Targ. has, “ I will
divide the tribe of Simeon, able teachers of the law in the congregation of Ja-
cob." That of Ps.Jon. "I will divide the possession of the sons of Simeon
into two parts; one part shall go forth to it out of the midst of the sons of
Judah, and part among the rest of the tribes of Jacob.”
5 (as it stands in the Hebrew text) would be an old form, which, be-
coming a proper name thus early, never entered into the ordinary language.
In this case Ezekiel's paraphrase, which any how attests that he recognised
the prophecy as relating to the Messias, would indicate also that the orignial
meaning of the name was not familiar to his hearers. Remove the diadem and
take off the crown—I will overturn, overturn, overturn it, and it shall be no
more, until He come Whose right it is; and I will give it. (xxi. 31, 2. Heb.)
Ezekiel's opp i eg by may have been chosen to bring out the personal sense
of the word n, (if written and pointed by for g, as, in the next verse, nho
nhy,) which was not expressed by the form of the word itself. Ezekiel's para-
phrase apparently determined Onkelos to render, "until Messias shall come,
לוֹ
no temporal fulfilment can be made out.
255
significance, was fixed by Ezekiel, and became the centre
of the temporal hopes of Israel's continuance, when it was
hemmed in to the two tribes whose permanence was pro-
mised or hinted at, Judah and Benjamin. So, largest and
least meet in these two great prophecies, the obedience of
Whose is the kingdom," (retained in the Targ. Hieros.) and the Greek trans-
lators, the Syriac, and Saadias, (тà àтокeíμeva autê, LXX. and Theod. in Eus.
Dem. Ev.p.370; & àñóкeiтai, Aq. Symm.; "he whose it is," Syr. Saad.) There
is nothing to be said against this, since, (apart from Gen. vi. 3,) = cer-
tainly occurs in the ancient song of Deborah, (Judg. v. 7.) and, being also Phœ-
nician, is an early, not a late form of the relative. (See Introd. to Jonah, p. 250.)
The reading, however, is attested by the paraphrase of Ps. Jon. "until
the time that the king Messiah shall come, the little one of his sons," from ↳…,
i. q.bby, “embryo,” or the Arab. Saleel, “the new-born male child taken from
its mother's womb." (So Abulw. & Kim.) The authority of the MSS is also
for it; 38 MSS only having the defective л, none the punctuation. The
exstant Samaritan text also omits the', but the Samaritan version retains the
word as a proper name; an Arab-Sam. Comm. on Genesis comments on the ';
one Arab-Sam. version substitutes Solomon, or peacemaker, while another ren-
ders, "he who is worthy of it." De Rossi Varr. Lect. iv. App. pp. 217, 219.
There are traces of a Kri and Kethiv, n Keth. b Kri in the Echa Rabbathi,
f. 586. Ven. 1545 (but ab Keth. in Mart. Pug. Fid. f. 531.) and of a Kri ›
in Mattan Chehun. in Norzi ap. de R. p. 218. An etymology n↳ ~, “to him
are gifts," occurs in the Beresh. Ketsara in Mart. f. 251. and in the Talmud
Horaioth in Yalkut Shimeoni, f. 49. 3 and in Rashi in de Rossi, p. 219. In
this case the form would be according to the analogy of hy from ny and nhạ
from &c, (see Hengst. Christ. i. 68. ed. 1.) This must any how be the ety-
mology of the name of the place Shiloh, "rest," a name given probably after
Israel rested there. The etymology remains the same, if n be regarded as
an abridged form for jib. (Hengst. i. 68. ed. 2.) Nothing turns on the ety-
mology; the only question raised grammatically, is, whether the proper name
Shiloh be the Nom. or the Acc.; until Shiloh come, or until he come to Shiloh.
The rendering, "until he come to Shiloh," is obviously the reverse of the fact,
since the eminence of Judah was, not before he came to Shiloh, but afterwards.
The words, "staff, sceptre," must relate either to the rule in Judah or of Ju-
dah; i. e. of the tribe within itself, or towards the other tribes. Of the tribe
within itself, it would be unmeaning, if limited to the entrance into the pro-
mised land; since it was equally true of every other tribe. Of rule towards
others, it would be untrue; since, although the most numerous tribe and first
in dignity, (the birthright, forfeited by the elder sons, Reuben, Simeon, Levi,
having descended to it,) it had absolutely no authority. The sole authority,
which was lodged any where, was that given directly by God to Moses of the tribe
of Levi, and subsequently to Joshua of the tribe of Ephraim. Caleb was faith-
ful as well as Joshua, but Joshua had entire authority given him; Caleb, the
chief prince of Judah, was as subordinate as any other. Rationalist interpre-
ters have no choice but to call the prophecy, one" framed after the event,”
256 Prophecy of Shiloh had no temporal fulfilment.
the heathen to Him our Peace, the calling of the Gen-
tiles by those Northern tribes, where Jesus lived and
whence Apostles came, and which were, above the rest,
the high-way of Palestine. Then Zebulon indeed rejoiced
in its going out, and, with Naphtali, ¹ called the people to
the mount, i. e. the Holy Mount of God.
1
(e. g. Davidson, i. 198.) i. e. falsehood. But then they are bound to shew that
it agrees with the event. They cannot deny that, on the Jewish and Christian
interpretation, it does. Judah did maintain its corporate existence until Jesus
came, and then was dissolved. On the Anti-Christian, it had no fulfilment.
The facts, that it was the most numerous tribe, that it marched first in the
wilderness, that it drew its lot first for its inheritance, involve no authority.
In numbers, it was little more than Joseph, (i. e. Ephraim and Manasseh collect-
tively,) 4th only larger than Dan. In the wilderness, it marched at the head
of two tribes, East of the Ark, as did Reuben on the South, Ephraim on the
West, Dan on the North. This was dignity, not authority. The camp of
Judah (Num. ii. 9.) had no other character than that of Reuben, (Ib. 10.) Eph-
raim, (24.) Dan. (31.) In the whole conquest of Canaan under Joshua, it
has not even any priority; although, if it had, a regiment or tribe, ordered
to march first, has dignity, not authority. It is under, not in command.
But, in a marked way, throughout that history, (except when, after the con-
quest, Caleb volunteered, and Ephraim asked for a larger lot,) the children
of Israel are spoken of as one whole. It is throughout, Israel, all Israel, the
children of Israel. The several tribes are merged in the whole. Twice in
the book of Judges, Judah is related to have gone first to battle, by command
of God. (Judg. i. 1, 2, xx. 18.) On the first occasion, he fought only as a tribe,
joining in mutual alliance with Simeon, whose lot was taken out of his. (Judg.
i. 3.) But both cases shew that it had no such prerogative; else, there had been
no occasion to enquire of God.
Still more unmeaning does the other clause become, "and to him [i. e. Ju-
dah] shall be the obedience of the nations," i. e. (as these writers explain it)
"Judah will be the leader of the other tribes till Canaan be subdued, and after
obtaining a quiet and sure abode in the country, shall still maintain its superi-
ority.” (Davids. i. 200.) But “superiority" is not receiving "obedience,” still
less, as the word meant doubtless, "loving obedience," comp. ON лp! reve-
rent obedience to a mother," Prov. xxx. 17. and the connected (prop. name)
and the Arabic wakeha, "obeyed;" wakai, conj. viii. " was reverent to God."
D'Dу also are" the peoples, nations," not "the Jewish people." Obedience also
is rendered to an individual, or a whole, not to a part. Obedience, when ren-
dered, was rendered to the kings, not to Judah. Judah was a large part and,
after the two first reigns, almost the whole of the people who obeyed. They
were the obeyers, not the obeyed.
העמים
a common
1 Deut. xxxiii. 19. The prophecy, like that as to the "goodly words" of
Naphtali, has no explanation at those times. The notion, that “
sanctuary was intended for them in Mount Tabor," was one of Herder's crot-
chets, which I regret to see in Stanley's Jewish Church, p. 662.
Series of individual prophecies.
257
The prophecy, (in the sense in which all understood
it, until, in the last century, it was in the interest of unbe-
lief not to understand it,) fixed, at the new era of the
people, the promise to Abraham. The promise, “in thy
seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed," was
expanded in both its parts. Judah was pointed out as
the line, in which that Seed should come; the blessing was,
that He should be "Peace;" that blessing was to reach
the Gentiles through obedience to Him. The name Shi-
loh was enlarged in the later prophecies of "the Prince
Peace."
The book of Judges almost opens with the prophecy,
that the nations whom they had left should be as thorns
in their sides, and their gods a snare. Its history contains
the fulfilment of this, and is the first stage of the comple-
tion of Moses' prophecy. The deliverances on repentance
are sometimes without, yet, in the cases of Barak and
Gideon and Sampson, with prophecy.
4
The chain of individual personal prophecy was conti-
nued on in the predicted judgments on Eli's sons, and
on his house; on Saul; even on David in the threefold
punishment on his great sin; on Solomon 10; as, to each
there had been preceding promises¹¹. Yet the predictions
are not scattered profusely. That upon Eli's house, as it
was fulfilled in successive generations, remained, one con-
tinued warning to the priesthood. One prophecy of woe
overshadowed all the later years of David. The prophecy
as to Jericho 12 brooded over its mighty ruins for some
six centuries. Else, prophecy comes as the harbinger
and forerunner of changes, not in tranquil times. Once
only 13, when preaching repentance to Israel, Samuel fore-
told to them their deliverance from the Philistines. Twice
God revealed himself to Solomon in dreams, at his first
choice ¹, and after the dedication of the temple 15: then,
* Judg. ii. 3. 3 Ib. iv. 6, 7, 9. + Ib. vi. 12-16, vii. 2-7. 5 Ib. xiii. 3-5.
6 1 Sam. ii. 34. 7 Ib. 31-3, 36. s Ib. xiii. 14, xv. 26, 28, 29, xxviii. 19.
10 1 Kgs. xi. 9-12. 11 To Saul, 1 Sam. x. 1-6; to
Sam. vii. 11-16, xii. 25 ; to Solomon, 1 Kgs. iii. 5-14, ix.
13 1 Sam. vii. 3. 141 Kgs. iii. 5-15.
15 Ib. ix. 2-20.
9 2 Sam.xii. 10-14.
David, Ib. xvi. 1-13, 2
2-9.
12 Josh. vi. 26.
258 Succession of prophecies to separated Israel.
having gifted him with wisdom, He once more only ¹ re-
vealed Himself outwardly to him 2, to pronounce the sen-
tence, mitigated for David's sake. On and after the divi-
sion of the ten tribes, prophecy and miracle were even
more bestowed on the schismatic kingdom of Israel than
upon Judah, which had the temple-worship and the teach-
ing priesthood³, until the conflict of unbelief had set in in
Judah too, and corruption was, although at the distance
of two centuries, preparing its destruction. The temporal
kingdom of Israel was inaugurated by the prophecy of
Ahijah to Jeroboam. On the morn of the consecration
1 "The Lord God was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned
from the Lord God of Israel, which had appeared to him twice.” Ib. xi. 9.
2 Ib. 11-13.
3 2 Chr. xv. 3. The prophet Ahaziah described the condition of Israel, in
contrast with Judah, for a long season Israel hath been without the true God,
and without a teaching priesthood, and without law. Dr Stanley says of this
period, "they [the prophets] maintained the true religion in the northern
tribes, at times when in Judah it was crushed to the ground, and when in
Israel it had to struggle against severe persecution or sluggish apathy." J.
Ch. 421. The prophets were God's instruments for maintaining what remain-
ed of religion in Israel against the state-corruption; but Dr Stanley's account
of Judah, and of the relative condition of Israel, is unhistorical. The bad reign
of Rehoboam lasted but 17 years; Abijah's (with an interval of good, 2 Chr.
xiii.) 3; Asa's declension lasted 5 years; (Ib. xvi.) Jehoram, under the influence
of Ahab's daughter Athaliah, reigned 8 evil years; Athaliah, 6; Joash after
Jehoiada's death, seemingly 1; in all, thus far, 39; whereas the good part of
Asa's reign was 36 years; that of Jehoshaphat, 25; of Joash, seemingly 39
years; in all, about a century. Most of Amaziah's reign was also good, as also
of Uzziah's. The increased corruption of Judah seems to have set in, some-
what before the reign of Jotham. (2 Chr. xxvii. 3.) Yet Hosea bears witness
to the relatively good state of Judah. (xi. 12, iv. 15.) In Israel, the idolatry,
which all its kings encouraged, must (according to St. Paul's statement, Rom.
i,) have been an intense source of immorality. All concurred in "making
Israel to sin," besides the yet worse corruptions of the house of Omri. (See
Introd. to Hosea, pp. 2, 3.
4 1 Kgs. xi. 29-38. Dr. Stanley says, "It was in the disorders at the close of
Solomon's reign, that the Prophetic Order assumed an importance in the state,
such as it had never acquired before. Samuel had transferred the crown from
Saul to David; Nathan, from Adonijah to Solomon; but Ahijah, in transfer-
ring it from Rehoboam to Jeroboam, created not merely a new dynasty but a
kingdom." (J. Ch. p. 420.) Scripture says, that Samuel anointed David at
God's command against his own judgment, for he would have chosen Eliab ;
(1 Sam. xvi. 6.) and against his own wishes, since he mourned for Saul. (Ib.
Prophecy in the idolatrous kingdom of Israel.
259
of the state-apostacy, its final desecration and the name of
its overthrower were foretold 34 centuries before 5. The
beginning of two of its four first dynasties, the close of all
the four, was foretold. In the reign of Ahab, miracle and
prophecy were put forth against the new corruption of
Baal. The great famine and its close; Ahab's twofold
victory over Benhadad; his death 10, and the specific re-
tribution of the innocent blood of Naboth upon himself¹¹
and upon Jezebel 12; the extirpation of Ahab's house13, and
its respite¹¹, are minutely foretold. Yet again no mere
foretelling. It is chastisement; mercy; then, at last, ex-
cision. This striving, on God's part, to win Ahab who
sold himself to work wickedness, is one of those marvellous
touches of the long-suffering of Divine love, which meet
us in the Old Testament. God even complains, that
Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, did not enquire of Him, in-
stead of the god of Ekron, as to the issue of his illness 15,
Even the last of the doomed house received promise of
victory from Elisha, when united with Jehoshaphat 16, de-
liverance from peril through Elisha's supernatural know-
ledge of the king of Syria's counsels 17, and in the siege
of Samaria 18. Then followed the guardian-promise to
the house of Jehu. Contrary to all experience as to the
xv. 35.) David says also that God appointed, that Solomon should succeed him.
(1 Chr. xxii. 9, 10, xxviii. 5, 6.) Nathan was very probably the organ of com-
municating that will of God; but, when Adonijah would have reversed God's
appointment which David had confirmed by oath to Bathsheba, (1 Kgs. i. 13.)
Nathan simply advised Bathsheba, how to save her own life and Solomon's by
informing David. (Ib. ii. 13.) Ahijah the prophet declared himself the organ
of God, Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel. 1 Kgs. xi. 31. It is mislead-
ing, to speak only of the human agents and their acts, and to ignore that they
acted at the express command of God. And this the more, since, although
Dr Stanley speaks of their “endeavours on both sides to keep up a sentiment of
humanity," (p. 421,) he says also," at times, they increased the bitterness of
the division,” (p. 457,) and “they were not without grievous shortcomings,"
(p. 450,) as if they had not acted and spoken under inspiration of the Spirit
of God.
5 Ib. xiii. 2.
6 Jeroboam's and Jehu's.
Baasha's by Jehu son of Hanani, Ib. xvi. 1-4.
9 Ib. xx. 13, 14, 28.
12 2 Kgs. ix. 36, 7. 13
16 Ib. iii. 17, 18.
7 Jeroboam's by Ahijah, Ib. xiv. 6-16 ;
8 Ib. xvi. 1, xviii. 1.
11 xxi. 19.
10 Ib. 42, xxii.
1 Kgs. xxi. 21-24.
17 Ib. vi. 8-23.
17-23, 28.
14 Ib. 29. 15 2 Kgs. i. 2-4, 16.
18 Ib. vii. 1.
$ 2
260 Minute temporal prophecies to Israel end in larger.
former kings of Israel and the history of those who came
after, the house of Jehu was to last till the 4th genera-
tion¹. The 3 promised victories of Jehoash2 were Eli-
sha's last bequest to his people; Jonah, amid the weak-
ness of the kingdom, predicted the great extension of
the kingdom of Jeroboam II.3; when this had been ful-
filled, Amos, at the moment of the separated kingdom's
greatest might, reversed the prediction and pronounced
the affliction of Israel in the scene of its recent victories 4.
Hosea foretold the breaking of its might in the valley of
Jezreel 5. The Syrians, who had smitten them, but by
whose aid, after this, they sought to gain Jerusalem for
themselves, (perhaps as a support against Assyria,)
should, Amos foretold, be carried captive to Kir 7, a coun-
try loosely connected with Assyria, and, at that time, in
rebellion against it 8. Contemporaneous are the two pro-
phets' predictions of the final extinction of its kingdom';
and, in regard to it and its kings, the close of all these
particular prophecies, of all this care which they had
wasted, follows in those vast comprehensive prophecies,
which above 2600 years have not yet exhausted, that they
should abidingly be wanderers among the nations 10, de-
spised among the nations ¹¹, sifted as in a sieve in the
four corners in the earth, yet every real grain under the
care of God 12.
11
The recorded prophecies in the early times of the king-
dom of Judah were also given on emergencies. But these
were the fewer, since God's promise to David secured the
calm succession in the kingdom 13, in strange contrast with
the broken dynasties of Israel and the anarchy in which
they expired. The sacred historians were of the kingdom
of Judah; yet they have only preserved four temporal pro-
phecies in its early history; that of Shemaiah to Reho-
1 2 Kgs. x. 30.
vi. 14, pp. 208, 9.
2 Ib. xiii. 14-19.
3 Ib. xiv. 25.
5 See on Hos. i. 5, p. 9 ; x. 14, pp. 69, 70.
4 See on Am.
6 Is. vii. 2-6.
9 See on Am.
7 See on Am. i. 5, pp. 160, 1. 8 Niebuhr, Gesch. Ass. p. 156.
ix. 8, p. 222. 10 See on Hos. ix. 17, pp. 61, 2. 11 See on Hos. viii. 8, p. 52.
12 See on Am. ix. 9, p. 222.
13 2 Sam. vii. 12-16, 1 Kgs. viii. 25,
xi. 13, 32, 36, 2 Chr. vi. 16, Ps. cxxxii. 11, 12.
Succession of prophets in Judah.
261
boam 14, during the invasion of Shishak; that of Hanani
the Seer to Asa 15, on his alliance with Syria; that of Ja-
haziel to Jehoshaphat 16, when Moab, Ammon, and Edom,
conspired to extirpate Judah; and the personal prophecy
of Elisha against Jehoram 17. Yet a fifth is referred to,
18the vision of Iddo the Seer against Jeroboam the son of
Nebat. But Judah had its prophets throughout. Na-
than the prophet probably even survived Solomon, since
18the acts of Solomon, first and last, were written in the
words of Nathan the prophet, and in the prophecy of Ahi-
jah the Shilonite, and in the vision of Iddo the seer against
Jeroboam. But the prophecies of Ahijah and Iddo being
apparently specific prophecies, it would follow that Na-
than lived to write the latter acts of Solomon also. Iddo
survived Rehoboam and Abijah, since he wrote their his-
tories in two distinct works 19. Azariah the prophet, son
of Oded 20, awakened Asa to a great reformation, which
drew back many of Israel too to the worship of God, a re-
formation deeper apparently than those of Hezekiah or
Josiah. Jehu, son of Hanani, who had prophesied against
Baasha21, appears as a prophet in the kingdom of Judah
under Jehoshaphat22, whose acts, first and last, he wrote,
in his old age. Both Jehu son of Hanani, and Eliezer
son of Dodavah of Mareshah, rebuked Jehoshaphat for
his alliance with Ahab, which, by the intermarriage of
his son Jehoram with Athaliah, so fatally corrupted Ju-
dah. Few as are the prophecies which are preserved at
this period, the title Seer, given to Iddo, Hanani, and
14 2 Chr. xii. 7, 8.
16 Ib. xx. 14-17.
17 Ib. xxi. 12-15.
19 2 Chr. xii. 15. It is said that he
wrote th, lit. "to genealogise," paraphrased by the Vulg. "diligenter ex-
posita." In xiii. 22, the title implies a diligent commentary, and it is
said to contain "the matters of Abijah and his ways and his words." It is
assumed that Ye'do or Ye'di, in; or, (2 Chr. ix. 29.) is the same as Iddo,
iny. (xii. 15, xiii. 22.)
15 Ib. xvi. 7-9.
18 Ib. ix. 29.
20 Ib. xv. 8-15. All suppose Oded, v. 8. to be the same as Azariah the son
of Oded, v. 1.
211 Kgs. xvi. 1-4, 12.
22 Chr. xix. 2.
Ib. xx. 34. From the middle of the reign of Baasha to the end of Je-
hoshaphat's, are about 50 years. There is then no reason to doubt the iden-
tity of the prophet.
24lb. xx. 37.
262 Prophecies of the Christ connected with Jerusalem.
Jehu son of Hanani, implies a habitual gift of Prophecy;
nor was the title Nabi, "prophet," ever given in those
times to any individual, who was not the organ of pro-
phecy, as well as the interpreter of the Divine will. Na-
than the prophet had conveyed to David the promise,
that his kingdom should be established for ever before
God, his throne should be for ever; a promise which, in it-
self, enlarged while it limited the prophecy of Jacob. This
prophecy had been expanded in the Psalms of David and
Solomon. The great mystery which lay in the original
promise of victory over the Evil one through the Suffer-
ing of the Seed of the woman, had been unfolded to Da-
vid in the Passion, Death, Continued Life, Session at
God's right Hand2, of Him to Whom alone God said, Thou
art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee, to Whom the
kingdoms of the world should be converted. Hence the
special religious interest in the continuance of David's
line, around which the prophecies of the Messiah in Ho-
sea and Amos³ among the ten tribes chiefly turned; hence
the great prophecy of Joel, the type of so many later pro-
phecies, predicted that wide outpouring of the Spirit of
God, beginning in Judah and Jerusalem.
ter.
In the network of prophecy, the definite predictions of
the earlier prophets became the all-but-present of the la-
Hosea and Amos had foretold the captivity of Syria
and Israel; Isaiah fixes the spoiling of both within one
year¹, the breaking up of Ephraim, as a people, in 65
years 5. As usual, the men of God do not point out the
detail of the fulfilment of their prophecies; yet by a com-
bination of scattered dates, out of which the number, 65,
could not have been put together, even as a marginal gloss,
we find that the 65 years were fulfilled to the exact year 6.
1 2 Sam. vii. 12-16.
2 Ps. ii. xvi. xxii. cx.
4 Is. viii. 4.
5 Ib. vii. 8.
3 Hos. iii. 5, Am. ix. 11, 12.
6 Two contradictory modes of escaping the definiteness of this prophecy were
adopted; 1) that it was a gloss; 2) that, since the captivity of Israel fell proba-
bly some 20 years after this date, it had no fulfilment. They are contradicto-
ry, because a gloss, as it would have been written after the event, would have
been adapted to the event, and 65 years could not have been adapted, in refer-
ence to a period manifestly not much exceeding 20. Isaiah however speaks,
Prophecies against Sennacherib and Babylon.
8
263
Isaiah and Nahum foretold the deliverance of Jerusalem
from Sennacherib, when he counted it an easy prey, and
his own death". Both foretell the suddenness, easiness,
utterness of the overthrow. At eventide, behold terror:
before morning, he is not. He shall shake his hand against
the mount of the daughter of Zion. God would accept
the challenge. The Lord, the Lord of hosts, shall lop the
bough with terror. Micah' and Isaiah 10 foretell the cap-
tivity at Babylon, when Assyria, not Babylon, was the
object of Judah's dread, and the tributary king of Ba-
bylon, under plea of congratulation on Hezekiah's reco-
very¹¹, was probably courting his alliance against Assyria.
Isaiah foretells the conquest of Babylon by Medes and
Persians 12, in the "night of its festivity," and its utter de-
solation ¹³; the recovery of Tyre, after 70 years as the years
11
13
not of a captivity of Ephraim, but of its entire dissolution, as a separate people ;
"shall be broken from being a people." This plainly was, when Esarhaddon
brought others in their stead, (Ezr. iv. 2, 10.) and since those by whom he re-
placed them came in part from Babylon, (Ib. & 2 Kings xvii. 24.) it took place
doubtless at a time when Esarhaddon had subdued some revolt at Babylon.
But, since the reign of Esarhaddon at Babylon was from about, B. C. 680, to
B.C. 667, 13 years, (see Rawl. Herod. i. p. 482.) Pekah's invasion of Judah,
not before his 17th year, B.C. 742, when the reign of Ahaz began, yet, (on ac-
count of the number of events in the remaining 3 years of Pekah's reign,) pro-
bably in that year, the close of the 65 years would fall in the third year of Esar-
haddon's reign at Babylon, B.C. 677. But Babylon did revolt in Esarhaddon's
reign, (Niebuhr, Assyrien, quoted by Tholuck, Proph. p. 120.) and Esarhaddon
was there when his generals brought Manasseh captive. (2 Chr. xxxiii. 11.)
This event, again, (according to the Seder Olam, p. 67,) took place in the 22nd
year of Manasseh; so that we have the fact of an Assyrian expedition to Ju-
dæa from the Assyrian king at Babylon in the 65th year from the first of Ahaz.
(Ahaz 14 years, + Hezekiah 29, + Manasseh 22,=65.) Manasseh is mentioned in
an inscription of Esarhaddon, as a tributary. (Rawl. Her. i. p. 483.) This was
the close of the existence of Ephraim, as a separate people, since the seat of
the separated kingdom was given to heathen. But then neither have the
words the character of a gloss. The Hebrew expression is too poetic. Even
Ewald, being able to persuade himself that 65 was a "round number,” being
"somewhat less than a human life," and that it meant "before a human life"
[just born] "shall have passed away," admits that "the words have a genu-
ine old Hebrew tint," and thinks that they were "derived from an older oracle
of some unknown prophet." d. Proph. i. 211. Thol. Ib.
7 Ib. xxxvii. 6, 7, 29, 33-5, x. 24-34, Nah. i. 11-15.
x. 32, 34. add Nah. i. 12.
9 iv. 10.
10 Is. xxxix. 6, 7.
12 See Lect. iii. pp. 127, 8.
8 Is. xvii. 14,
11 Ib. 1.
13 xiii. 19-22, xiv. 22, 3.
264
Prophecies of exact dates.
3
of one king¹, (i. e. as in Daniel, one kingdom,) when it was
yet flourishing and in security. In the prophecy of the
70 years, after which Tyre should resume her traffic, Isai-
ah anticipates the prophecy of the 70 years of the capti-
vity of Judah; the Chaldæans are foretold as the destroy-
ers of Tyre²; and the breaking of the Chaldee yoke was to
set it free; as, in fact, although under Persian rule, it
was still allowed to refuse to Cambyses the aid of its fleet
against its colonies and to baffle his plans ³. Isaiah fore-
told the destruction of Moab in three exact years, like the
years of an hireling 4, who counts his years to the very
day. Isaiah's prophecy of the capture of Ashdod within 3
years was in act also". He fixes it in the minds and ima-
ginations of his people, and stakes his truth, as a prophet,
on the fact that the strong city, memorable afterwards for
enduring the longest siege in human memory, 29 years 6,
against Psammetichus king of Egypt close by, should fall
within 3, before the general of a distant empire. He fixes,
within one precise year, the conquest of an Arabian tribe,
which ordinarily so easily eludes assault. And yet Sen-
nacherib had the title of king of Arabians 7. To Heze-
kiah himself Isaiah foretold the prolongation of his life
for 15 years 8.
It is said that we should remember that, when Nahum
prophesied, "the Babylonian power threw its shadow
3 See below p. 290.
1 xxiii. 15.
2 Ib. 13.
4 xvi. 14. "In vv. 13, 14, every syllable sounds like the majestic tone of Isai-
ah." Ewald d. Proph. i. 236. Stähelin follows him. Einl. p. 229. Even David-
son admits the principle, "The silence of history is no good argument against
the verification of the prophecy in some unknown Syrian expedition." iii. 13.
5 Is. XX.
6 Herod. ii. 157.
7 Herod. ii. 141. Even Ewald
"The fulfilment is self-evident from the pro-
observes, (Gesch. Isr. iii. 628.)
phecy; for such prophecies would not have been preserved in writing, had
they not been confirmed by the event." in Tholuck, d. Proph. p. 119.
8 xxxviii. 5. "Such definite prediction of future events as we find in xxxvii.
7, and the announcement of 15 years being added to the days of Hezekiah are
contrary to the nature of prophetic foresight. They are too exact and precise
to be predicted; and must therefore have been written after the things men-
tioned were known and past." Davids. iii. 32. i. e. it being settled à priori that
there can be no such exact prediction, it must be assumed that the writer of
these chapters put a prophecy into Isaiah's mouth falsely.
9 Dr Williams, Ess. and Rev. p. 68.
Varied minuteness as to the end of cities. 265
across Asia." The internal notes mark Nahum's pro-
phecy to belong to the time of Hezekiah 10. Even then,
human wisdom could not foresee the issue of the strife 10.
But Nahum also foretells its destruction by means of
the river which was its defence ¹¹, and that fire should de-
vour her
12
11
Babylon was tributary to Assyria until the end of the
Assyrian Empire. Not Babylonian power, but a revolted
Babylonian general¹³, spoiled Nineveh of the armies which
might have resisted in the field the Median invasion.
Equally minute are the characters of the desolation
foretold. Of Zion alone, of all the cities to be destroyed,
it was predicted, that it should be ploughed as a field¹¹;
strange blending of desolation and inhabiting, and it has
been so. Tyre was to be for the spreading of nets 15; Ni-
neveh 16 and Babylon 17 for the habitation of the wild ani-
mals of the desert; Rabbah of Ammon was to be a stable
for camels; and the Ammonites a couching place for flocks ;
Egypt, amidst its great and almost indomitable fertility,
was to be a desolation 19, and 20 a base kingdom.
21
18
For forty one years, from the 13th of Josiah to the last
of Zedekiah, Jeremiah declared one future for Israel, de-
struction from the North, captivity in Babylon. After
Josiah's death, his life was sought by those of his native
placeº¹, it continued to be plotted against22; he was defam-
ed 25, reproached, derided, all day long 24, cursed by the
people man by man, as they curse those who grind them
with usury 25, accused falsely 26, placed in the stocks 27, put
on trial for the truth 23, imprisoned 29, given over to death 30:
yet he had foretold from the first, that God would pre-
serve him to the end, and that he should be treated kindly
by the enemy at the latter end 31. He went about among
10 See Introd. to Nahum, pp. 356, 7.
13 Abyden. in Eus. Chron. Arm. i. 54. Rawl. on Herod. i. p. 487.
14 See on Mic. ii. 12. p. 318.
p. 318. 15 Ezek. xxvi. 14. 16 Zeph. ii. 13, 14.
19-22. 18 Ezek. xxv. 5.
XXV. 19 See on Joel iii. 19, pp. 142-4.
23
22 xviii. 18, 20, 22, 3. xx. 10.
21 xi. 19-23.
25
xv. 10. 26 xxxvii. 13-15.
14, 15.
xxiii. 33-40.
29 xxxii.
11 Nah. ii. 6.
27
XX. 2, 3.
30 xxxviii. 4, 5, xxxvii. 15-21, xxxviii. 6-20.
12 Ib. iii. 13, 15.
Is. xiii.
20 Ezek. xxix.
Ib. 7, S. add
28 xxvi. 8-24.
31
xv. 11.
266 Jeremiah's unwavering prophecies as to Jerusalem;
1
them, persecuted by all, but invulnerable. For God was
his invisible defence. I have made thee this day, were
the words of his inauguration, la defenced city and an
iron pillar and brasen walls against the whole land,against
the kings of Judah and the princes thereof, and against the
people of the land: and they shall fight against thee: but
they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee to
deliver thee. False prophets contradicted him; the peo-
ple loved this contradiction, and greedily swallowed every
delusion; the great men of the city were bent on defence;
the petty kings around leagued to resist the king of Ba-
bylon; Egypt, at the first and the last, had warlike and
able monarchs, Pharaoh Necho and Pharaoh Hophra.
One voice alone peremptorily from the first pronounc-
ed the distinct issue. Before Nineveh fell, while Babylon
was still dependent, while Judæa, amid the weakness of
the last Assyrian king, was in perfect repose, that voice
was first heard, which sounded on for those 41 years;
2 Out of the north evil shall break forth upon all the inha-
bitants of the land. For lo, I will call the families of
the kingdoms of the north, saith the Lord, and they shall
come and set every one his throne at the entering of the gates
of Jerusalem. That voice never wavered. During 18
years of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, it announced uniformly,
that he should be its destroyer. What if, like Alexan-
der or Cyrus, he had died prematurely? What, if in the
first 18 years of his reign? Jeremiah knew that he would
live, until God's word should be accomplished. And dur-
ing this interval, nothing moved him. At one time Ne-
buchadnezzar sent only bands of the Chaldæans against
Jerusalem ; at another, the approach of Pharaoh's army
compelled him to raise the siege 5. Jeremiah only pro-
phesied its destruction with the more emphatic energy.
1 i. 18, 19. add. xv. 20, 1, xx. 11.
2 i. 14, 15, iv. 6, vi. 1, 22, 23,
x. 22, xiii. 20. add v. 15, viii. 14-16, 19, xxxvi. 29. "king of Babylon."
3 Jer. xxiv. (4th of Jehoiakim,) xxvii. 1-11. (beginning of the reign of Je-
hoiakim,) xxii. 24, 25. (Jeconiah,) xxix. (beginning of Zedekiah's reign,)
xxviii. (4th of Zedekiah,) xxxiv. (9th of Zedekiah.) xxxii. (10th of Zedekiah.)
4 2 Kgs. xxiv. 2.
5 Jer. xxxvii. 5.
his predictions in the interval before the Captivity. 267
When it was most straitly besieged, he bought, at God's
command, a field in his native village, foretelling that, as
he had done, so should others do thereafter 6, for I will
cause their captivity to return, saith the Lord of hosts. It
was nothing less than " despair before the Chaldæans.”
It was knowledge from God. Isaiah knew from God that
Sennacherib would not prevail; Micah, Isaiah, Jeremiah,
alike knew of the captivity at Babylon; all alike knew of
the deliverance from it. The captivity, contrary to the
judgment of the nations around him and of his own peo-
ple, was to be but the travail-pangs of the restoration
which was to follow. The prophets foretold both with
equal confidence. The fulfilment of the prophecy of the
captivity was to be the earnest of the fulfilment of the
prophecy of the restoration. And during the long re-
spite, which men abused to discredit the truth of the pro-
phet, God manifoldly bore witness to His prophet's words.
The people looked for the restoration of Jehoahaz, the
prince of their own choice, from Egypt; Jeremiah fore-
told his death in his exile 10; he shall see this land no more.
And he died in Egypt. Jeremiah foretold that Jehoia-
chin and his mother 1 should lose their crown; they were
carried captive ¹2. To Jehoiakim he prophesied disgrace;
that after death, his corpse should be 13 dragged along,
like that of a malefactor, and cast forth beyond the gate
of Jerusalem. The capture of Jerusalem, ending the 3
months'¹ reign of his son, gave opportunity for this; and
the contumely to the rebellious vassal would be in con-
formity with what Jeremiah had prophesied more ge-
11
7 "Contrast Isaiah's confidence
6 Ib. xxxii. 44.
against Assyria with Jeremiah's despair before Chaldæa.” (Stanley, J. Church,
p. 457, in illustration of the "changing of the Prophetical teaching with the
events of their time.”)
8 Micah iv. 10, Is. xl. sqq. Jer. xii. 15, xvi. 15, xxiii. 1-8, xxiv. 5-7, xxvii. 22,
xxix. 10-14, xxx, xxxi, xxxiii.
92 Kgs. xxiii. 30, 2 Chr. xxxvi. 1. He is ranked the 4th of the sons of Josiah,
being also named Shallum, 1 Chr. ii. 15, Jer. xxii. 11. He was younger than
Jehoiakim, much older than Zedekiah. 2 Chr. xxxvi. 2, 5, 11. 10 xxii. 11, 12.
11 xiii. 18.
222 Kgs. xxiv. 12.
13
23. obwan, ‘zywib aşbap abgim in Jer. xxii. 19. add xxxvi. 30.
¹4 2 Kgs. xxiv. 8.
268 Jeremiah and Ezekiel foretell details of his capture.
nerally¹. He alone of the four last wretched kings of
Judah, rebel though he was, did not die in captivity. The
political circumstances of Nebuchadnezzar, which detain-
ed him elsewhere, so that he sent against Jehoiakim
bands of the Chaldeans2, with auxiliaries of Ammonites,
Tyrians, Moabites, were shaped so, as to leave room for
the fulfilment of the words of Jeremiah.
Then follow the signal prophecies, as to Zedekiah; first,
when the king enquired of God by him, defeat, capture
by Nebuchadnezzar 3; then, when the last siege set in, Je-
remiah promised him, that it should be well with him if
he should surrender; else, he foretold the mockery of his
harem; that he should speak to the king of Babylon
mouth to mouth, see him eye to eye, be led to Babylon 5.
Minuter still was the prophecy of Ezekiel in the capti-
vity, while the scoffers mocked him, the days are pro-
longed and every vision faileth. It is as if he saw in a vi-
sion the flight of Zedekiah, probably disguised, by the way
of the gate between the two walls by the king's garden, flec-
ing towards the plain, at the last, a solitary fugitive, his
army scattered from him, pursued and overtaken by the
Chaldees, brought before the king for judgment, his eyes
put out, and himself carried to Babylon. Probably he did
so see it. For when, by the symbolical act of digging
through the wall of his house, removing his goods through
it on his shoulders at twilight with his face covered, as they
that go forth into captivity, he had gained the attention of
his people, he thus explains his act; the prince that is
¹ viii. 1, 2. This seems to me more probable than that it was done by his
own subjects, stained though he was. with "innocent blood" and oppression
to supply his luxuries. Jer. xxii. 13-17.
2 2 Kgs. xxiv. 1, 2.
3 Jer. xxi. 4-7. add xxiv. 8.
6 Ezek. xii. 22.
4 xxxviii. 22. 5 xxxii. 4, 5, xxxiv. 3.
7 2 Kgs. xxv. 4-7.
8 Ezek. xii. 12-14. Ewald generalised the prophecy and accepted it. (Proph.
ii. 255, 213.) Stähelin (p. 306) says, "in truth, the blinding of Zedekiah is
not necessarily prophesied in xii. 13, but this passage can also be understood
only of his imprisonment; and as to xxiv. 1, the possibility of so clear an antici-
pation ought not to be denied." So he half-retracts his explanation, that
“Ezekiel recast his prophecies, and so, e. g. xii. 13, xxiv. 1., prophesied what is
so special; involuntarily in the later recasting he introduced the fact into the
Event improbable to Jews; prophecies on individuals. 269
among you shall bear upon his shoulder in the twilight, and
shall go forth; they shall dig through the wall to carry out
thereby he shall cover his face, that he see not the ground
with his eyes: My net also will I spread over him, and he
shall be taken in My snare: and I will bring him to Baby-
lon to the land of the Chaldeans; yet shall he not see it,
though he shall die there; and I will scatter toward every
wind all that are about him to help him, and all his bands.
And yet to the Jews nothing seemed less likely than
all this. Hananiah ventured to predict the restoration
of Jeconiah, (Jehoiachin,) and the vessels of God's house
within two years 9. Jeremiah predicted the false pro-
phet's death within that year, and he died in that year in
the seventh month 10. The judgment predicted on the indi-
vidual was itself not insulated. Such had been aforetime
that on the disobedient prophet 11; on Gehazi 12; on the
false counsellor Shebna 18; the false prophet Amaziah ¹¹.
Such were the predictions of Jeremiah himself to the
false priest Pashur 15; to the false prophets Ahab and Ze-
dekiah 16, and Shemaiah 17; such in the N. T. were those
of St. Peter to Sapphira 18, and of St. Paul to Elymas the
و
13
prophecy;" (p. 305.) in other words, said that he had prophesied what he had
not.
So then if the prophecy imply mere human knowledge, it is to stand;
if more, it is to be assumed to be recast. And this is to be criticism! David-
son follows Stähelin's first solution of subsequent revision and introduction
of "later knowledge.” (iii. 150.) "Ezek. xii. 13. must have been written after
the event," iii. 147. i. e. because it contains so distinct a prophecy. (In ii. 460,
Davidson had apparently given it as an instance of admissible definite pro-
phecy.) "In like manner ch. xxiv. could only have been written after the de-
struction of Jerusalem,” (iii. 147.) although Ezekiel distinctly says, that he was
directed to note that it was delivered on the very day that the king of Babylon
set himself against Jerusalem. (xxiv. 2.) On the like definite prophecy, (ch. xxi.)
Ewald writes, as if he had been there, "One day it came vividly into the Pro-
phet's mind, (who, although far removed from the scene of action, yet with his
spirit ever followed the march with stretched expectation,) as if the army must
be arrived before Jerusalem on that very day. His anticipation must very
nearly or altogether have hit right, since the statement xxiv. 1, agrees quite.
historically with 2 Kgs. xxv. 1."
9 Jer. xxviii. 1-4.
10 Ib. 15-17.
12 2 Kgs. v. 27.
13 Is. xxii. 15-19.
11 1 Kgs. xiii. 21, 22.
14 See Introd. to Amos, p. 153; on Am. vii. 16, 17, p. 214.
16 xxix. 21-23.
17 Ib. 24-32.
15
xx. 1-6.
18 Acts v. 9.
270
Detailed prophecies of capture of Babylon,
sorcerer¹. Contrariwise, the prediction to the Recha-
bites 2 has remained in force unto this day 3.
The prophecy of the capture of Babylon is so graphic,
that it takes its place in history, accrediting the accounts
of Herodotus and Xenophon. Its mighty men "forbear
to fight; they remain in their strong holds; they become
as women. Post shall run to meet post, and messenger
to meet messenger, to tell the king of Babylon that his
city is taken at the end thereof, and that the passages are
stopped, and the reeds they have burned with fire, and the
men of war are affrighted."
The title "vision" justifies us in conceiving, that vivid
pictures, such as those of the capture of Babylon in Jere-
miah and Isaiah, (and the like in other prophets,) were first
spread before the prophets' minds, and then described by
them in God-given words. The traits are characteristic
of this siege, not of sieges in general. The idolatrous
festival of Belshazzar; its night of revelry; its sudden in-
terruption; the fruitless cry "to arms;" the drying up of
the Euphrates as by fire; the possession of the passages;
the vast city taken, ere it was aware; the hurrying of the
posts to tell the king; we see it all vividly with our own
eyes, as much as in the historical relations of the capture.
Yet neither prophet supplies the whole history. Both see
the besieging armies; Jeremiah, the kings of the Medes
and of the North; Isaiah, the Persians also 5; both, the de-
struction of Babylon, the breaking in pieces of her gods.
Isaiah alone sees the festive night, the sudden surprise
amidst their revelry. The night of my pleasure He hath
turned to terror to me. They prepare the table; watch the
watch; eat, drink; ‘arise, ye princes; anoint the shield?
In another vision he sees the slaughter of the king, his
1 Acts xiii. 11.
2 Jer. XXXV.
3 The first notice of the Rechabites was given by Dr. Wolff in his Journal
from 1827 to 1838, Lond. 1839. pp. 388, 9. He gave a further account, Travels
and Adventures, T. ii. pp. 298-300. Lond. 1861. and p. 508. of an edit. in one
Vol., also 1861. R. Schwarz of Jerusalem speaks of them, Das Heilige Land, pp.
407-10. [Rev. G. Williams.] 4 Jer. li. 30-32. 5 See ab. pp. 127, 8.
7 xxi. 4, 5.
6 Is. xxi. 9, Jer. 1. 2, li. 44.
in Isaiah and Jeremiah.
271
10
burial not among the tombs of his fathers 8. Jeremiah
alone sees the mode of the capture, the completeness of
the slumber of repose in which they were wrapped. Da-
niel, Xenophon 9, Herodotus ¹º, relate the festival-revelry ;
Herodotus and Xenophon, state that Cyrus knew of it,
and entered by the Euphrates. Daniel and Xenophon ¹¹
relate the death of the king; Xenophon relates that the
assault was in the night 12, that the watch was surprised
drinking 13, the city captured through the death of the
king, in that same night 14, as Daniel relates that in the
night the king was slain; Herodotus adds, that the river-
gates were left open, those same passages which Jeremiah
beholds as seized. The complete security of Babylon is
related by both the Greek historians 15; its deliberated un-
warlikeness stands in strange contrast to its subsequent
energy in rebelling 16. Coarser rationalism assumed that
both predictions were "framed after the events ¹7," i.e.were
lies; more refined rationalism assumed that they were
delivered during the siege, yet on no other ground than the
assumption, that prophets did not predict events which
"lay beyond their political horizon 18." The assumption
وو 17
8 xiv. 15, 20. 9 Xen. Cyrop. vii. 5. 9.
10 i. 191. 11 Ib. § 11.
12 Ib. 9.
13 Ib. 10.
14 Ib. 11, 12. 15 Her. i. 190. Xen. 1. c. § 7.
16 See ab. p. 129. Berosus too mentions the single battle. c. Ap. i. 21.
17 Eichhorn, Paulus, Rosenm., Koppe, as to Is. xxi. in Ges. on Is. xxi. i. 649.
At that date, 1822, "no one," he said, "had pronounced the oracle of Jere-
miah (li.) to be spurious." (p. 650.) He maintains that both were written before
the event, because they contained nothing which might not be foreseen. "In
Jer. li. 32," he says, "the taking of the fords and shallow places of the Euphra-
tes is spoken of: if one would combine this with the account of Xenophon, that
the soldiers of Cyrus had to creep along shallow places in the bed of the Eu-
phrates, it would follow that it was written later and was spurious,” i. e. if it
contained undeniable prophecy.
19 This is Gesenius' primary argument, on Is. xiii. xiv. xxi. Ies. i. 448. Then
follows, 2) the allegation of embittered enmity and love of revenge; assuming
again that the Prophet was not pronouncing God's judgments: 3) an argument,
in like way, in a circle, from the similarity of the language with other parts of
Isaiah, assumed on the like grounds to be spurious. 4) Of actual indications of
a later style in the three chapters, Gesenius finds 3 only to allege, admitting
at the same time that the language is "pure." His instances are, 1)y “be-
gan to speak." Both cases, xiv. 10, xxi. 9., are implied answers. Besides, this
meaning "began to speak," lies nearest to the original meaning of the root,
272
Genuineness of Isaiah xiii. xiv.
was repeated by turns as to each case in which the pro-
phets do so predict the future, yet on each occasion, as if
in entire unconsciousness, that the critics were repeating
dogmatically the very point which they had to prove.
When Jeremiah had been removed to Egypt, the pro-
and occurs in Deuteronomy, Job, Canticles. 2) The "unemphatic use of the
pronoun xiii. 3, xiv. 13, 19.;" but, in all 3 places, (as is to be expected in a pro-
phecy so energetic,) it is very emphatic. 3) xiv. 4. The reading is itself
doubtful; any how, it is a word framed by the writer, and a poetic form. Kno-
bel's instances (out of which Davidson selected his, iii. 9.) have not the slight-
est force of proof. There is not one characteristic expression among them.
1 xiv. 3. occurs in Job, 17 Joel ii. 1, &c.; nagn, “look forth," in Cant. ii. 9,
Ps. xxxiii. 14. only; Deut. xxviii. 30., twice only besides, Jer. iii. 2, Zech.
xiv. 2, 5., in Zech. probably repeated from Isaiah; D," the likeness of a great
people,” xiii. 4. see Ps. lviii. 5. (David's.) "nn loose, set free,' xiv. 17. earlier,
n to "loose a person," Ps.
'open."" Knob. nn is to "open a thing," and
cii. 21, cv. 20.; "loosed" the camels from their load, Gen. xxiv. 32. The dif-
ference is not of date, but of idiom. yy xiii. 21. recurs in this sense once
xxxiv. 14. 7 ng an expression of Isaiah, xiv. 7, xliv. 23, xlix. 13, lv. 12.
It is the common Hebrew idiom, whereby a noun is added to a neuter verb,
in cases where we use a preposition. In Is. lii. 9. the two verbs are used,
as in Ps. xcviii. 4. It is the usual argument in a circle, to assume the spurious-
ness of Is. xl-lxvi. and then to argue that another prophecy of Isaiah is also
spurious, because the prophet used the same expressions in both.
With such proofs as these, it would be easy to prove any work in any lan-
guage, not to have been written by its author.
The positive evidence for the genuineness of ch. xiii. xiv. has been given well
by Hävernick, § 208. Only the heads need be stated here. 1. The title, which
ascribes it to Isaiah, is, like other titles in this portion of the book ch. xiii-xxiii.,
closely united with the prophecy. It is the only indication of the object of
the prophecy, until v. 19, where Babylon is first named in the body of the pro-
phecy. The titles in this portion are varied, historical, (xx. 1.) symbolical,
(xxi. 1, 11, xxii. 1.) as an author only would vary them, sometimes omitted as
xviii. xxii. 15., whereas a later hand would be uniform. 2) It stands connected
with the prophecies, before and after. 3) xiv. 24-27., which is its close, refers
to the prophecy against Asshur which preceded it, and is a summary of God's
judgments on the world. The prophecies then against Asshur and Babylon
must have formed one whole, as they stand in Isaiah now. Jeremiah, who
adopted the language of Isaiah, (ch. 1. li.) united them in the same way. 4) Isai-
ah, in these chapters, uses language of Joel alone, (see Introd. to Joel, p. 96.)
his language here is used by later prophets, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Jeremiah.
5) The language and thoughts recur in undisputed chapters of Isaiah.
The prophecies of Jeremiah (ch. 1. li.) bear, even to an English reader, so
evidently the impress of his style, that to attempt to convince one who did not
see it, would be to try to give sight to the blind. Here, however, another
antidogmatic prejudice came in. Jeremiah, in these chapters, as was especially
and of Jeremiah l. li.
273
phecy of the conquest of Pharaoh Hophra in Egypt is as
definite as that of Zedekiah ¹.
The first prophecy which Ezekiel receives, after the vi-
sions which contain his inauguration to his office 2 in the
5th year of king Jehoiachin's captivity, is conveyed in the
symbolical act which he was bidden to do³, lying 390 days
on the left side, according to the years of the iniquity of Is-
rael, and forty days on his right side for the iniquity of the
house of Judah. The days are explained to represent
his wont, embodies language of earlier prophets. But among these, he uses
that of the latter chapters of Isaiah. The whole boasted theory then, as to the
"Pseudo-Isaiah," was at stake, and, with it, the whole undeifying of prophecy.
Gesenius satisfied himself, that Jeremiah did not employ those chapters, and
that what he there foretold in ch. 1. li, he could have foreseen by human saga-
city; so he had no doubts as to the genuineness of ch. 1. li, (Ies. Einl. ii. 26,)
nor at that time had De Wette. (Einl. ed. 1822.) In 1839 De W. still said only,
"ch. 52, 50, 51. are from later hands, at least the false addition li. 59 sqq.."
(p. 277.) Those who, on antidoctrinal grounds, deny the chapters to be Jere-
miah's, are forced to concede the likeness of the style. This was shewn by Kü-
per, Jerem. libr. sacr. Int. pp. 106-32. They have had recourse to the expe-
dients; 1) that the chapters are "a learned imitation of Jeremiah, in order
to make them pass for his " (Ewald, Proph. ii. 491, after Gramberg, Rel. Id. ii.
400,); 2) that "they were written by Jeremiah but recast by the Pseudo-Isai-
ah"
(Movers, de utr. recens. Jer. indole 1837. De Wette, Einl. 1852. § 217. a.);
3) that a prophecy of Jeremiah was really taken by Seraiah to Babylon, (Jer.
li. 59.) and, when the fall of the Chaldee power was confidently expected, was
published, interpolated out of other prophets and out of Jeremiah himself to
gain it the more credit (Stähelin, Einl. p. 278.); 4) that the chapters were
written by some unknown prophet about B.C. 556, (Maurer, ad loc.) 550,
(Knobel, Proph. ii. 355.) perhaps Baruch, (Id. 353. Bunsen, Gott in d. Gesch.
i. 437.) while a defender of their genuineness maintains conversely that they
were imitated by the author of the latter chapters of Isaiah. (Graf, Jeremiah,
p. 584.) So do they shew, in attack or defence, where the real pressure is.
Yet the words of one of the extremest writers are virtually the confession of
all, as to these chapters of Jeremiah; "In truth, this section yields many
proofs of its genuineness. Language, (1. 16, li. 1, 3, 7, 14, 45, 55.) imagery,
(li. 7, 8, 34, 37.) style, (1. 2, 3, 7, 10.) especially in turns, (as li. 2,) the sub-
scription, (li. 57,) the unannounced dialogues, (li. 51,) indicate Jeremiah un-
mistakeably. And chronological data confirm this. Assyria is fallen, (1.18,)
&c." (Hitzig, Jeremiah, p. 391.) Of the rest it may suffice to add, that Nebu-
chadnezzar is spoken of as the reigning king of Babylon, (“ and last, this Ne-
buchadnezzar,” 1. 17.) and that, in contrast with an unnamed king of Babylon,
upon whom the punishment should fall. (1. 18.)
1 Jer. xliv. 30, xlvi. 26.
2 Ezek. i. 2. The next date is in ch. viii. 1.
"in the 6th year, in the 6th month, on the 5th of the month." 3 iv. 4-6.
T
274 Ezekiel's prophecies of the duration of the 2 kingdoms,
1
years; I have appointed thee each day for a year; the sym-
bolical act itself follows upon another, representing the
siege of Jerusalem ¹, its separation from God², and is a
prophecy against it. It is agreed on all hands, that
the 390 years begin with the division of the two king-
doms, B. C. 975; the 40 years, with the reformation of
Josiah, either that in his twelfth year, B.C. 630, or the
more complete reformation in his eighteenth year, B.C.
624. But 390 years after B.C. 975, end in the year of the
last deportation by Nebuzaradan in the 23rd year of Ne-
buchadnezzar B.C. 585; and 40 years, from B.C. 624, end
within a year of the same date.
In relation to his people, the prophecies of Ezekiel co-
incide with those in the later part of Jeremiah's ministry:
he foretells, in exile, the vanity of the resistance of the
kings of Judah. In regard to Egypt he has a remarkable
definite prophecy, that her land should be desolate forty
years, that at the end of forty years, the Egyptians should
be gathered, but that they shall be there, a base kingdom.
It shall be the basest of kingdoms, neither shall it exalt
itself any more above the nations; for I will diminish them,
that they shall rule no more over the nations º.
It has been a superabundance of fulfilment, that this
has been the history of Egypt, a prey successively to the
Persians, Macedonians, Romans, Arabs, Georgians, Otto-
man Turks.
With this amplitude of fulfilment, it is even absurd to
raise the question as to the fulfilment of the 40 years.
The larger prophecy, which 2500 years have not exhaust-
ed, that it shall be a base kingdom, neither shall it exalt
itself any more among the nations, is as definite, as un-
likely to be fulfilled. It was not, that the internal energy
of its people was exhausted. Even of this there was no
sign, when Ezekiel prophesied. Pharaoh Hophra had
disputed energetically, and to human sight hopefully,
3 as by Eichhorn, Rosenmüller, and
5 lb. 8, 2 Kgs. xxii. 3.
1 Ezek. iv. 1, 2, 8.
"others," ap. Maurer.
2 Ib. 7.
4 2 Chr. xxxiv. 3.
6 Ezek. xxix. 14, 15.
and as to Egypt.
275
with the hammer of the whole earth. They continued
their struggles with the Persian powers; Alexander re-
plenished their population with his Greeks and founded
Alexandria as the emporium of the world. The first Pto-
lemies developed its resources, and its commerce by land
and sea with Libya, India, Italy; its new masters gained
for themselves, for a time, territories wider than it had in
its most prosperous days, but Egyptians had no share
in the greatness, except to supply taxation; Ptolemy Eu-
ergetes, who shewed favor to his native subjects, was
the third and last of its great Ptolemies. Thenceforth
was decay. When Egypt became Roman, Roman Em-
perors dreaded its advantageous position for revolt, un-
der the rule of an ambitious governor, and kept it in close
dependence on themselves. Yet it never exalted itself any
more. The means which its governors adopted to recruit
it, or to strengthen themselves, turned to its permanent
weakness. Its population, native, Greek, Jewish, Arab,
was energetic, but divided 10. But the first step in this
division was long after the prophecy of Ezekiel.
The difficulty of fixing the particular period of forty
years arises from the fact, that the systematic accounts of
Egypt at that time, those in Herodotus, are from Egyptian
priests, who are known to have cast a veil over their dis-
graces. They tell us of Necho's fleets 11, his circumnavi-
gation of Africa 12, his victory over the Syrians at Megiddo
and his capture of Cadytis, but nothing of the first victory
of Nebuchadnezzar over Egypt in his father's life-time 15,
or of the defeat at Carchemish 14, after which apparently
Necho 15 came not again any more out of his land, for the
king of Babylon had taken from the river of Egypt unto
8 See ab. pp. 73, 138.
7 Jer. 1. 23.
>
9 Ptolemy Philad. held Egypt, with parts of Ethiopia, Arabia, Libya; Cy-
rene; Phoenicia, Cole-Syria, Cyprus, and parts of Asia Minor: his son, Ptol.
Euerg., had the coast of Asia Minor as far as the Hellespont, and even maritime
towns of Thrace.
Of every hundred mummies derived from
the Necropolite receptacles of Memphis, 70 have lost their Coptic peculiarities."
Smith, Geogr. Dict. v. Egyptus, p. 46. from Sharpe, Hist. of Eg. p. 133. ed. 2.
11 Her. ii. 159.
12 Ib. iv. 42.
13 See ab. p. 62.
152 Kings xxiv. 7.
14 Jer. xlvi. 2.
T 2
276
Decay in Egypt before
the river Euphrates all which pertained to the king of
Egypt. On this, and all of the rest of Necho's "six-
teen years," Egyptian history is silent; and in the six of
his son Psammis it names only an "attack" on Ethiopia
just before his death ¹. In the 25 years of Apries, they had
nothing to relate, but a march against Sidon, and a na-
val battle with the king of Tyre², (in neither of which did
they venture to say that he was victorious,) and the unsuc-
cessful expedition against Cyrene to which they attri-
buted his destruction. The Bible only adds the speedily
quelled march to relieve Jerusalem when besieged by the
Chaldeans³. The boast of pride related by Ezekiel, 4 My
river is my own, and I have made it for myself, as well
as the corresponding boast in Herodotus 5, both imply
strength in defence only, and that in Ezekiel a strength
against attack, derived from the situation of Egypt.
The employment of a foreign mercenary army, a sure sign
of decay, commenced with Psammetichus I. the great
grandfather of Hophra, it is said, in civil strife. The
ground of the desertion of the native troops stated by
Diodorus, that the post of honour, the right wing, was
assigned to the strangers, implies a very large enrolment
of foreign troops and chief dependence upon them. The
desertion of the native warrior-caste, which Herodotus
states at 240,0008, is substantiated by monuments. This,
(whatever was its real extent,) must have been a great
•
1 Her. ii. 161.
2 Ib. Diodorus makes him victorious against the Cypriotes too, and take Si-
don, so that the rest of Phoenicia surrendered out of fear. (i. 68.) Herodotus
(ii. 182.) says that Cyprus was first subdued by Amasis. Herodotus would hard-
ly have omitted to speak of such successful results of the expeditions which he
speaks of, had they been true. The Egyptian monuments add nothing of
greatness. It does not appear from them that Necho II. was son of Psamme-
tichus, whose daughter, (his half-sister, if he was son of Psammetichus,) he
married. (Brugsch, l'Egypte, p. 252.) “His few monumental memorials do not
deserve much attention." (Id. p. 254.) The monuments confirm the fact of the
one expedition of Psammis. (Ib. pp. 255, 6.) "The monumental traces, recal-
ling the name of Apries, are dispersed throughout Egypt." (Id. 257.) No one
contains any historical statement.
3 Jer. xxxvii. 5-8, 2 Kgs. xxv. 1-4.
xxix. 3, 9.
7 i. 67.
8 ii. 30.
• See Sir G. W. in Rawl. Her. T. ii. pp. 44, 5. u. 3. add note 2. p. 43.
5 ii. 169.
6 Her. ii. 152.
temporary restoration under Amasis.
277
source of weakness, breaking the military traditions of
Egypt, and throwing them more upon their foreign mer-
cenaries, of whom Hophra is said to have had 30,000¹º.
With these indications and occasions of weakness, before
the time of Necho, it is not improbable, that Berosus,
under the Satrap in those parts who had rebelled ¹¹, meant
the king of Egypt; that Egypt was already tributary, (as
the successor of Hophra, Amasis, was probably in reality
a Babylonian Vice-king,) and that the inaction of Necho,
after his two great defeats, was owing to his weakness.
There is, then, ample room for the 40 years of desolation
before the death of Hophra. The intense hatred of the
Egyptians towards Aprics, expressed by the title "the
hated 12" on the monuments, and which, according to He-
rodotus too, was slaked only by his blood, when Amasis
unwillingly gave him into their hands, being, as they com-
plained, 13 the bitterest of enemics to them and to him,"
implies any thing rather than a prosperous reign or a
prosperous condition of Egypt under him. The internal
prosperity in the reign of Amasis 14 stands in contrast
with the former distress. This represents exactly what
Ezekiel foretold, a restoration of internal prosperity, with-
out any restoration of external power. Whether or no
Egypt was engaged in the alliance with Cræsus against
Cyrus as a tributary to Babylon, and whether or no its
troops, in consequence of that alliance, fought against
Cyrus 15, it fell, an easy conquest, at the first appearance
of Cambyses.
10 Her. ii. 163. 11 See ab. p. 62, and below Lect. vii. p. 403. 12 In Rosellini,
Monum. storichi, i. 275. quoted Winer, Reallex. v. Hophra, see Thol. Proph.
p. 131.
13 Her. ii. 169. 14 Ib. 177. and Sir G. W. in Rawl. Her. ii. p. 387.
The traces of monumental memorials are dispersed over the whole country,
from Alexandria to Syene. Although of little value for the political history
of the times of Amasis, yet they serve notably to prove the assertion of He-
rodotus as to the developement of architecture and sculpture under Amasis.”
Brugsch, p. 262.
15 Herodotus (i. 77, 79,) distinctly says, that Cyrus' rapid march on Sardis
anticipated the reinforcements which Cræsus hoped for from Babylon, Egypt,
Sparta. Xenophon, on the other hand, circumstantially relates the Egyptian
way of fighting there, their valour, and the colonization of the survivors.
(Cyr. vi. 3. 9; vii. 1. 15-21.)
278
The 70 years of the Captivity.
I have dwelt upon this prophecy the rather, because
sceptics have made their boast of its assumed failure.
Knowing, as we do know, the divinity of the Old Testa-
ment as a whole, it cannot be essential to our faith, that
the truth of details too should be matter of demonstra-
tion. We believe as to the parts, because we believe the
whole. It is a poor, unintelligent, human faith, ignorant
of the real character or grounds of faith, which cannot
say, unconcerned, about details, "I do not know." Those
immediate prophecies were an evidence to those to whom
they were given. Our faith indeed must be independent
of minute points of obscure secular history. To us, (as
far as temporal prophecy is an auxiliary to faith,) those
long continuous prophecies are given. It is a wilfully
false issue which scepticism puts it upon, when, ignoring
that large tangible prophecy which it cannot deny, that
Egypt should, on its restoration, no more exalt itself above
the nations, and, unable to account for a patent fact of his-
tory, which, in Ezekiel's time, there was no human ground
to anticipate, it diverts the attention from an unmistake-
able prophecy, by alleging that another part of the pro-
phecy was not true prophecy, simply because we, for
whom that prophecy was not given as evidence, have not
the data fully to substantiate it.
The prophecies as to Egypt led far into the Captivity.
Then, there was a term of 70 years, which, counted from
that year, when captives were first taken to Babylon,
the first of a long series of such removals, viz. the 3rd year
of Jehoiakim, were fulfilled to the exact year¹. It is,
1 Sixty six years are furnished by the length of the reigns given in the Ca-
non of Ptolemy;
Nabocolassarus
Ilvarodamus
Nebuchadnezzar
43
Evil Merodach
2
Nericassolassarus Neriglissar
4
Nabonadius
Nabunahit
17
66
To these should be added probably a year or 18 months preceding that part
of the fourth year of Jehoiakim, with which Nebuchadnezzar's accession to his
father's throne coincides, (see Lect. vii. pp. 399-401.) and the two years during
which Darius the Mede was Viceroy; the permission to return not having been
Zechariah's prediction of Alexander in Palestine. 279
primâ facie, absurd to suppose that the author of the first
chapter of Ezra and Zechariah were mistaken about the
number of years in which they were so deeply interested 2.
After the Captivity, not to speak now of the prophecy
of the 4 Empires in Zechariah, as bearing on that of Da-
niel³, there is a distinct prediction of the conflict of the
Jews with the Greeks and of their victories over them.
And, before this war, there is a prophecy of a heavy ca-
lamity, which falls in succession upon Damascus, Ha-
math, Tyre, Zidon, and the maritime cities of Philistia,
Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, Ashdod, in which calamity the
temple of God was to be guarded, not by human power,
but by His unseen Presence. * I will encamp about Mine
house, because of the army, because of him that passeth by,
and because of him that returneth. And this, while God
should smite the power of Tyre in the sea. The selection
of the places and of the whole line of country corresponds
very exactly to the march of Alexander after the battle of
Issus, when the capture of Damascus, which Darius had
given until the 1st of Cyrus at Babylon B. C. 536. See Prideaux, Connection,
A. 538. B. ii. T. i. p. 179; Davison on Prophecy, Lect. 6; Clinton, F. H. T. 2. c.
18. pp. 367 sqq. Tholuck adopts what he calls "an approximative number;
(Die Proph. p. 103.) what in our ordinary idiom is called "a round number," not
what the rationalists mean by it. A “round number" idiomatically means
number, in which fractions are disregarded." It must then be the nearest
number above or below. We might say, for 2556, “in round numbers, 2600;'
or for 68 years, "in round numbers, 70," and so on. But the very idiom im-
plies that the number shall be the nearest number which is obtained, either
by filling up or dropping the fractions above or below it. 70 might be " “a
round number" for 68 or 72. It could not be for 62 or 78. The principle
then would introduce no vagueness into prophecy, although I see no occasion
for its introduction; and that the less, since Daniel understood the numbers
on consideration, as he says, ix. 2. Davidson's real objection lies, as usual, in
the definiteness of the prophecy. "We may go farther with Hitzig, and pro-
nounce 11b.-14a. supposititious, because the 70 years' captivity in Babylon is
too specific to be pronounced in the fourth year of Jehoiakim." iii. 98. His
plea, "Jeremiah would not have uttered what is not strictly correct, because
the captivity did not last 70 years,” (ii. 462.) stands in sad contrast with the
respectful words of Niebuhr, “Since the number 70 is a typical number, this
slight difference, [68 for 70 as he supposes,] should fill us with respect, instead
of raising doubts as to the truth of the prophecy, or leading us to doubt the
Babylonian chronology." Gesch. Assurs u. Babels, p. 90. in Tholuck, Die Proph.
pp. 112, 13. See above, p. 192. 3 See below, Lect. vi. pp. 359-61. Zech. ix. S.
a
280 Prediction of Alexander and of victory of Jews over
1
chosen as the strong depository of his wealth, of Persian
women of rank, confidential officers and envoys ¹, opened
Cole-Syria; Zidon surrendered; Tyre, specially marked
out by Zechariah 2, was taken with great effort after a 7
months' siege³; Gaza too resisted for 5 months, was taken,
and, it is said, plucked up ; but Alexander passed by with
4;
his victorious army and returned, and Jerusalem remain-
ed uninjured. History gives no other explanation of
Zechariah's prophecy than this conquest by Alexander;
that conquest agrees minutely with the prophecy. No
other event in history does. But, apart from this, the
victory of the Jews over Greeks was, of all events of his-
tory, then the most improbable. There was not the most
distant likelihood of collision between them; they had
no point of contact. The name of Greece was known to
the Jews, only as that of one of the many countries which
traded with Tyre; a distant nation, to whom Tyre and
Zidon had, in their slave-trade, sold Jewish youths, that
they might remove them far from their border; but the
guilt and the punishment belonged to Tyre and Zidon, not
to them. Joel had, for this sin, prophesied the punish-
ment of Tyre, not of Greece. Eichhorn, whose form of
unbelief exempted him from any necessity to explain pro-
phecy of any other than its true object, avowed that this
prophecy of Zechariah did relate to the march of Alexan-
der and the victories of Jews over Greeks at the later cri-
tical period of their history. He said plainly, "The con-
quests of Alexander are described so clearly, that they
4
1 Grote, Greece, xii. 173, 4.
2 ix. 3, 4.
3 Diod. Sic. xvii. 40-45.
Arr. ii. 16-24. Curt. iv. 2.
κατεσπασμένη Strabo, xvi. 2. 30.
5 Einl. T. iv. § 605. He persuaded himself, as his way was, that it was a
description of past events, and so invented a prophet, not earlier than Alexan-
der. He supposed the name of the Greeks, in the subsequent prophecy, to stand
for that "of the most powerful enemies of the Jews." But Alexander had
been their friend. On any human aspect of prophecy, it were absurd to sup-
pose that, in the time of Alexander, Jews should anticipate conquering the con-
querors of the world. The prophecy of Zech. xiii. 7-xiv. 21. he explained of
Judas Maccabæus (p. 450.) and so put it in the time of the Maccabees. Cor-
rodi, (according to Köster in Zech. p. 25,) followed him, (Bibelcanon, i. 107.)
and found Antiochus Epiphanes in c. 14. (I do not find the passage.)
Greeks, improbable, but accurate. Rationalist shifts. 281
cannot be mistaken."
"In what is said of Tyre, who can
mistake Alexander's wonderful conquest?" "All the
chief places, which Alexander, after the battle of Issus,
either took possession of or conquered, are named one by
one, the land of Hadrach, Damascus and Hamath, Tyre
and Zidon, Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron and Ashdod." Unbe-
lieving interpretation vacillated according to the require-
ments of the theory of each. If any would own that the
prophecy related to the march of Alexander and to real
victories of Jews over Greeks, they placed it in those
times. If any felt constrained to place it earlier, they
would not see, what to others, who believed prophecy as
little, was so plain, and took up with any thing7 which
6 Rosenm. said generally, “ Jahn refers the prophecy to the wars, which the
Jews, after Alexander, waged with the Greeks who held Syria. Other inter-
preters who, in like way, think that the victories, gained by the Maccabee
leaders over Antiochus Epiphanes, are meant here, infer that this was written
after the Maccabee times.” on Zech, ix. 13.
7 Paulus said, that the prophecy expressed what might be the hopes of the
Jews after Hyrcanus had subdued Edom, and so placed it at that time, about
129, B.C. (üb. d. N. T. iii. 131-5.) Rosenmüller said, "the uncertain hopes
of the future, expressed here by the prophet, are not to be referred to certain
events." Bertholdt ruled that, if it related to Alexander's victories, "it must
have been written by a prophet who flourished after Zechariah at the end of
the Persian period." (Einl. T. iv. § 430. p. 1714.) But he thought it was writ-
ten in the time of Ahaz, before the Syro-Samaritan war (2 Kgs. xvi. 5, 6.); and
so "that it was probable that the Assyrians gave the unknown prophet some oc-
casion for his strong threatenings against Hamath, Tyre and Zidon; but that
it could not be proved, for want of historical data." In plain words, the ob-
ject of the prophecy could not be Alexander, in whom it was exactly fulfilled,
because then there would be prophecy. But no other account could be given
of it, therefore we must imagine one. Gramberg would have it, that the
Prophet, in the first prophecy as to Damascus, &c, used the language of the for-
mer prophets without any special meaning, and in that of the victory over the
Greeks meant only, "that so mighty and warlike a people could only be con-
quered by Jehovah with His Israelites." (Rel. Id. i. 529, 30.) De Wette (ed.
iv. when he acknowledged its genuineness) would have the prophecy to be a
concealed denunciation against Persia, “against which Zech. did not wish to
prophesy openly." (p. 311.) "ix. 13. [against Greece] x. 6. sqq. are archaisms,
resting at the same time on the hoped-for restoration of the people” (Ib.); or
later, a prophetic antiquarian style whereby the Prophet cast a veil of mys-
tery over his prophecies." (p. 337. ed. 7.) Knobel, supposing it to date before
740, B.C., says, “It was expected, that the Assyrians, to try their strength
against Egypt, would march through Syria, Phœnicia, and Philistia, as they
282
Definiteness of Zechariah's prophecies.
would fit in with any part of the prophecy or (if need
were) with nothing. Greece was, until Alexander, a co-
lonising, not a conquering nation; the Hebrews had no
human knowledge of the site of Greece. There was not
a little cloud, like a man's hand, when Zechariah thus
absolutely foretold the conflict and its issue. Yet here
we have a definite prophecy, given later than Daniel, fit-
ting in with his temporal prophecy, expanding a part of
it, reaching beyond the time of Antiochus, and forean-
nouncing the help of God in two definite ways of protec-
tion; 1) without war, against the army of Alexander; 2) in
did once later, (Is. xx.) and that the kingdom of Israel too, (Zech. x. 9-12.) and
in a lesser degree that of Judah, (ix. 8, 9.) would be affected by it. That plan
of the Assyrians was probably not carried out then; for the history of that
time does not mention it." (Proph. ii. 169, 70.) Hitzig would have the first
prophecy to be a mere imitation of the beginning of Amos, and that against the
Greeks to be a prophecy, that the Jewish slaves, scattered among the Greeks,
should rebel against them and conquer them. He admits, “peculiar is the ex-
pectation, that his people should fight against the Greeks" (174.);—contrary
to the whole character of prophecy, which bade the Jews in captivity to be still,
seeking the good of those under whom they lived; and absurd in itself, as if some
scattered slaves could be called Judah and Ephraim! Ewald (D. Proph. ii.314,
5,) would make it an encouragement to the Jews to make war on the Greeks
for detaining their banished," [those sold as slaves.] Herzfeld (Gesch. Isr. Exc.
2. § 3. i. 283.) wouid make the first prophecy relate to the expedition of Shal-
maneser, and, substituting p's for ɲ', would make the latter relate to a civil war,
to be encouraged by God. Stähelin, for the first part, followed De Wette; but
called ix. 13. a prophecy against Greece (p. 327.); how, he does not explain.
Bleek, in his strange compromising way, in which he admitted right principles
but excepted to their application, owned that there are such definite distant
prophecies in Holy Scripture, but, on à priori grounds, preferred to suppose that
the words related to something unknown, rather than own that they related to
that in which he confessed that they were fulfilled. 'Certainly one may find
in these glorious battles of the Jews, in a certain sense, a fulfilment of what is
here foretold by the Prophet. But if we are not to deny to this utterance all
moral character, and to consider it purely as the production of a mantic predic-
tiveness—a gift which I do not deny to be possible and actual, but which, in the
Bible prophets, appears, if at all, yet very seldom, then, I believe, we may con-
sider ourselves justified in assuming, that the prophet here named the Greeks
individually, instead of the enemies of the Covenant-people generally, not be-
cause he saw in spirit before him the later battles of the Jews with the Seleu-
cidae, but because he had, in the historical relations of the past or present, a spe-
cial occasion to give them prominence in this respect." Theol. Stud. u. Krit.
1852. H. 2. pp. 266, 7.
66
Daniel's prophecies suited to a transition state. 283
the war of the Maccabees; and those, two of the most cri-
tical periods in their history after the captivity. Yet,
being expansions of part of the prophecy of Daniel, the
period to which they belong became clearer in the event
by aid of the more comprehensive prophecies. They
were two points in the larger prediction of the 3rd empire.
The partial minuteness of Daniel's prophecies belongs
to the transition-state of the period for which those pro-
phecies were given. They are in one sense a link between
the Old and New Testament. God was preparing His peo-
ple to depend more on His invisible presence. In the cap-
tivity itself, the three great bodies of His people dispers-
ed among the heathen, those in Assyria, in Egypt, and in
Babylon, had still each their own great prophet, Ezekiel
among the captives by the river of Chebar, Jeremiah in
Egypt, Daniel in Babylon. After the captivity, there
were but three prophets more. Of these, the prophecies
of Haggai, preserved to us, fall in the space of four months
in the 2nd year of Darius Hystaspes¹, 16 years after their
return; Zechariah began two months later than Haggai,
and has no known date beyond the 4th year of Darius ³.
The prophecy of Malachi is probably contemporaneous
with the second visit of Nehemiah, about 400, B.C. Then
prophecy ceased in act. It was exceptional, while it
lasted. For those five centuries, in the first instance, the
book of Daniel was written. God no longer willed to in-
terfere visibly. Israel, a petty nation, hated, envied, on
account of its magnificent claims, that its God was the God
of the whole world, was placed in the high-way of the
world, to be trampled upon by each in turn. Forerunner
of the Christian Church, and itself shortly, the whole
true Israel, to pass into it, it lay for the time, resting on
the unseen Providence of God, and awaiting, with keener
expectation, the Deliverer of itself and of the world. It
was no longer to have single Prophets raised up, to ex-
plain to it or to point out God's dealings with it, to preach
submission, or to promise mitigation of suffering or de-
¹ Hag. i. 1, ii. 1-10, 20.
2
* Zech. i. 1.
3 vii. 1.
3
284 Daniel, a teacher for the times before our Lord.
liverance upon its repentance. But God left Himself
not without witness. Details of prophecy, such as afore-
time had been given by different prophets, in succession,
were spread out before them at once, culminating in that
great trial of faith, the last before our Lord's first Com-
ing, when Antiochus Epiphanes used all artifice and force
to extirpate the worship of the One God. Daniel fore-
shewed to them his power, his artifices, his partial suc-
cess in abolishing the public worship of God, his sudden
destruction without human hand. They should need no
human might; they had but to endure, and the victory
was God's.
These more detailed prophecies of Daniel, then, so far
from being exceptional in God's dealings with His people,
were in conformity with all His ways, as recorded for us,
before the captivity; so far from being retrogressive, in
introducing a more limited character of, so to speak,
civil prophecy, his prophecy was adapted to a state of
progress, a condition more like our own, in which, instead
of the living, revealing prophet, they were cast upon the
written book. But in that book God taught them that,
however the world might rage, it was in His hands. He
Who beforehand told the course which ambitious, selfish,
crafty, oppressive, sensual monarchs would take, and how
it would fare with them, shewed that He Himself ruled
and overruled the affairs of men which He foreknew. The
book of Daniel said in fact, at each stage of its fulfilment,
what God said in words by Isaiah, Behold, the former
things are come to pass, and new things do I declare unto
you; before they spring forth, I tell you of them¹.
The same relation of a large future and a minute forc-
ground of prophecy, which should be an assurance to men,
until those large prophecies had time for their fulfilment,
recurs in the Gospel. What is now to us a primary evi-
dence, the conversion of the nations, was to the Apostles
matter of faith. To us it is a marvellous evidence, which
our own eyes see, that, as it was foretold, "the Holy
1 Is. xlii. 9
Large distant, and minute prophecy in Gospel too, 285
Church throughout the world," millions upon millions,
yea, a hundred millions thrice-told, worship Him Who,
when it was foretold, was worshipped only by a small
handful of men in a space not so large as one of our Eng-
lish counties; that they worship Him, as it was foretold,
Who came, was rejected, was crucified by them as a ma-
lefactor, and so atoned for them who crucified Him, and
for the whole world. The shame of the Cross is the tri-
umph of prophecy. Jesus suffered, as was written of
Him; He reigns and is worshipped, as was also written
of Him. He endured, what mere man could not endure;
He reigns, as man could not reign. He has won the world
to the Cross, as He foretold, and as man could not win it.
The Church of all times and climes is large enough to be
its own witness. It was foretold of, and, after eighteen
centuries endowed with the perpetuity of its Author and
Founder, it IS. But while it was struggling into being,
and man yet hoped to trample out its life, there was all
that nearer minuter foreground around the Person of our
Lord. His acts and history were the fulfilment of minute
prophecy. Even those things which man could have ful-
filled, had he willed, as that entrance into Jerusalem 2,
belonged to a character which none, save He Whose it
was, could sustain, greatness in lowliness. Such too
were, the preaching of the Gospel to the meck'; the bind-
ing up the broken-hearted; the liberty to the captives;
the glorious light to the despised land of Galilee. Such
and much more was all that sorrowful history of His Pas-
sion, the 30 pieces of silver, the shame, the spitting, the
smiting on the cheek, the gall and the vinegar, the pierc-
ing, and that, of the hands and the feet 10, the violent
Death 11 by His people for whom He died. These would
have been the end of all human pretensions. They were
the beginning of His Divine kingdom, Who said by His
3 The Jews themselves saw that lowliness was the
See ab. p. 86. * Is. lxi. 1, S. Luke iv. 18.
2 Zech. ix. 9.
characteristic of the prophecy.
5 Is. ix. 1.
6 Zech. xi. 13.
S Ps. Ixix. 21, S. John xix. 29.
10 Ps. xxii. 16.
7 Is. 1. 6.
9 Zech. xii. 10, S. John xix. 31, 37.
11 Is. liii. 8, Dan. ix. 26.
286
Minute prophecies of our Lord.
1
prophet, They shall look on Me Whom they have pierced ;
of Whom it was said, Him Whom man despiseth, Him
Whom the nation abhorreth, a servant of rulers, kings
shall see and arise, princes also shall worship. Human
wisdom could not conceive, human power could not ac-
complish, that such a death should be the regeneration of
the world. Salvation through the Crucified was the
stamp of foolishness which the Gospel bore in the eyes
of the followers of Socrates.
That same characteristic of prophecy, the larger dis-
tance and the nearer earnest, occurs too in our Lord's
prophecies. We know His prophecies, that He shall come
to be our Judge. He told it often and most distinctly.
But, this being unseen, His judgment on the devoted city
was the first earnest of that Judgment to come, with
which accordingly He in His prophecy closely connected
it, as closely and upon the same principle, as Daniel, un-
der inspiration of the Holy Ghost, connected the Resur-
rection with Anti-Christ, and Anti-Christ with his Jew-
ish type, Antiochus Epiphanes. Our Lord also used the
same minuteness of prophecy, in that He directed His
disciples to flee from Jerusalem after it had been encom-
passed by armies, a command which only became possible
through the un-Roman retreat of Cestius Gallus. It is
noticed also that, out of 10 sieges which Jerusalem sus-
tained, once only, in consequence of its rocky site, was it
encircled with a wall; and that once was foretold by Je-
sus². Minuter yet were His predictions of the details of
the contumelies heaped upon Him, the mode of His death,
the threefold denial of S. Peter, the treason of Judas.
In this long array of prophecy, which I have exhibited
to you, it has been impossible to vindicate each against.
the cavils brought against it. This was not our problem.
It was alleged, in prejudice against the book of Daniel,
that its prophecies, if really such, were out of harmony
with the other prophecies of the Old Testament, that
other prophecy was not so minute or definite. I under-
1 Is. xlix. 7.
2 Tholuck, Proph. p. 194.
Concessions involved in rationalist answers. 287
took to point out to you, that the truth was the exact
contrary to this; that the prophecies in Daniel, so far
from being out of harmony with those in the rest of the
Old Testament, were altogether in conformity with them.
Impugners of the book of Daniel alleged an unlikeness on
the surface; I undertook to point out to you the real har-
mony. If any one deny all Divine prophecy, a single lec-
ture cannot suffice to assure him. But the argument, if
honest, assumed the truth of prophecy generally. Peo-
ple, who so argue, act the believers in prophecy. For the
alleged difference between the prophecies of Daniel and
other prophecy could have no weight in disproving that
they are Divine prophecy, unless it could be shewn, that
they were so different in character from Divine prophecy,
that it would be a contradiction to think that both came
from the same Author.
But opponents have, for the most part, granted the
agreement of other prophecy with the event. The as-
sumption, that definite prophecies are "prophecies after
the event,” would, if true, make the Bible the most dis-
honest book which ever was written, with one all-perva-
ding dishonesty, coextensive with its actual Divinity.
But it concedes the fact of the agreement. It cuts the
knot, which it cannot untie.
Of the vast range of definite prophecy, it is even strange
that men should venture to attack any, when on their
own shewing they can attack so little. Thus, the most
laborious impugner of Daniel, in denying all definite pro-
phecy, attacked definitely but very few, and even in these
he mostly falsified prophecies, in order to accuse them of
failure. When Isaiah prophesied the invasion of Judah
by Assyria which was fulfilled, Lengerke substituted “de-
struction" which Isaiah did not prophesy; when Isaiah
prophesied the spoiling of Samaria and Damascus within
the year, he substituted, "the destruction of both within
the year." When Isaiah foretold the fruitless invasion of
Sennacherib and his sudden overthrow, Lengerke ignored
the fulfilment of this prediction, which he tacitly admit-
288
Rationalist misstatements of prophecy.
ted, in order to allege, that Isaiah in error predicted details
of a siege which he did not predict. Hosea foretold that
Israelites should return to Egypt, and cat unclean things
in Assyria¹. Lengerke said, "According to Hosea, the
ten tribes were to be carried back to Egypt, which was
never fulfilled." But clearly, since Hosea prophesied in
the same verse, that Israel should eat unclean things in
Assyria, he could not mean that the "ten tribes" should
return to Egypt. He could have meant it only of indivi-
duals of them. Hosea, moreover, said distinctly, "he
shall not return into the land of Egypt, and the Assyrian
shall be his kings;" marking the former statement to be
partial or metaphorical. To Assyria also was to be car-
ried the calf of Bethel, the centre of their idolatry and of
their national existence. Humanly too, it is a poor and
petty criticism, which fixes itself on this subordinate ex-
pression, limited, as it is, by the context, and ignores those
vast prophecies, which describe the condition of Israel
for 2600 years, as a nation, that they should be despised
"wanderers among the nations."
A miscellaneous group has been exhibited to you, in
proof of an alleged fault among us, that "5 the failure of a
prophecy is never admitted, in spite of Scripture and of
history." Yet of the prophecies alleged to have failed,
that of Amos, that the house of Jeroboam should fall by
the sword, came true in the next generation. Not the pro-
phet's saying, but the false priest Amaziah's perversion of
it, failed. The sentence, pronounced by Jeremiah on Je-
hoiakim, points to a dragging of his corpse in contumely,
which history does not contradict, but, in itself, leaves
as probable.
In regard to the capture of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar,
stress has been laid on the silence of the Tyrian historian
Menander, and the statement in Ezekiel, that Nebuchad-
nezzar and his army should find in Egypt the reward for
He quotes, pp. lxxvi, vii, “ix. 3, xi. 5." after Gesenius (Ies. ii.
827.). xi. 5. should probably be viii. 13, since in xi. 5, Hosea says the contrary.
3 xi. 5. 4 x. 0.
6. 5 Prof. Jowett, Essays and Rev. p. 343. 6 See ab. pp. 267,8.
1 ix. 3.
3
+
Capture of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar.
289
his services against Tyre, which he had not found from
Tyre. Both imply the capture of Tyre. Menander, who
makes a boast of its resistance to Salmanassar, would
doubtless have related the issue of the siege of Nebuchad-
nezzar, had it been honourable for Tyres. He himself lets
out the facts, that the reign of the king, who resisted Ne-
buchadnezzar, ended with the close of the war 9; that after
the next, probably tributary, king, Baal, (to whom he at-
tributes no relation to the deceased king, as he does to
others,) judges were appointed 10; that the line of kings was
broken; that, just before the close of the Babylonian mo-
narchy, they had to send to Babylon for two brothers of
their royal family in succession 11. All this points to the
ordinary treatment of conquered provinces, that, first, a
native tributary king was appointed; then, if need were, se-
verer measures were taken. Ezekiel speaks of Nebuchad-
nezzar as an instrument of God against Tyre. I have
given him the land of Egypt for the labour which he served
against her, because they wrought for Me. The service,
which he executed for God against Tyre, was the accom-
plishment of God's purpose to bring down its pride. Eze-
kiel says that he did that service 13. Further, he only says
that Nebuchadnezzar and his army had no adequate re-
turn for a 13 years' laborious siege. S. Jerome, who had
access to histories now lost, relates as a fact, that when
Tyre was all but taken, "they put all their valuables, gold,
silver, vestments, and other goods, on board their vessels,
and transported them to the Islands, so that, when he took
the city, Nebuchadnezzar found nothing worthy of his
toil." The expedient is so obvious ¹, that even a scepti-
8 Hengstenberg's argument, de rebb. Tyr.
7 in Jos. Ant. ix. 14. 2.
14
9 c. Ap. i. 21. He is giving the chronology, and says, "In the time of Itto-
baal Nebuchadnezzar besieged Tyre 13 years." But whether or no Ittobaal
began his reign before, he could not have reigned after the siege; for Menan-
der is counting the years from Ittobaal to Cyrus, and if the 13 years of Itto-
baal had not been any how his last 13 years, they would have furnished no date.
10 KATEσTÁÐNσAv. This does not express that it was their own act.
12 Ezek. xxix. 20.
13 Häv. on Ezek. p. 428.
11 See ab. p. 121.
14 Diodorus relates that, in the siege of Alexander, the Tyrians purposed to
remove, and in part removed, to Carthage their wives, children, and aged.
U
?
290 Rationalist retreat as to prophecy against Tyre.
2
cal critic finds in it nothing to question¹. Isaiah foretold
that it should be so. Pass ye over to Tarshish; howl, ye
inhabitants of the isle. The state of Tyre also was changed
by that capture. Although its fleet was still so powerful,
that their refusal to take part in the expedition against
Carthage frustrated the plan of Cambyses 3, it had submit-
ted of its own free-will to the Persians, and ranked after
Sidon. The assertion of Josephus 5, that it was recorded
in the Tyrian archives, that Nebuchadnezzar subdued the
whole of Phoenicia, would, in itself, far out-weigh the si-
lence of Menander. Rationalism retreated then in pre-
sence of the facts, and admitted a capitulation of Tyre",
with which even Petavius had been satisfied; but, there-
with, it resigned its sole argument, the silence of Menan-
der, who says no more of a capitulation than of a surren-
der. It has no support of its assertion but its own will.
Baffled in the attempt to find direct failure of prophecy,
rationalism assumed that prophecy always related to the
immediate future, and so, when the prophet, beholding
that future in a long perspective, spoke of the future of a
city or nation without reference to time, it assumed that
Diod. xvii. 41. Curt. iv. 1-5. Häv. p. 429. Herodotus (i. 164.) relates the same
of the Phocæans, and attributes to Harpagus, the general of Cyrus, the know-
ledge of their intentions.
¹ Ewald on Ezek. d. Proph. ii. 324. "Although we do not know the histo-
rical source, out of which he [St. Jerome] drew, yet it agrees perfectly with
the brief words which Ezekiel held to suffice. True, that the prophet does not
say in so many words that Neb. entered island-Tyre; but the converse, that
the Tyrians at last vanquished him, lies still less in the words; and, whether,
or no, he entered upon the empty houses, is, in regard to the sequel, which is
the only question in Ezekiel, indifferent. All which Ezekiel has to say here is,
that Egypt will, through the ordering of Jahve [God], be the more certainly
abandoned to be plundered by the Chaldæans, the less he found his hard toil,
employed at Tyre for higher ends, rewarded.”
2 Is. xxiii. 6.
3 Herod. iii. 19.
4 Ezr. iii. 7. Herod. vii. 38, viii. 67. “In the first seat
sat the king of Sidon ; after him the king of Tyre." Häv. pp. 433, 4.
5"Nay, even in the archives of the Phoenicians are written things, agreeing
with what is said by Berosus about the king of Babylon, that he subdued Sy-
ria too and the whole of Phoenicia." c. Ap. i. 20.
6
• Movers, d. Phœn. ii. 1. pp. 428, 448 sqq. who however admits the complete
subjugation of Phoenicia, including Tyre. "We allow that the Syrians capi-
tulated." Davidson, ii. 467.
7 De Doctr. Temp. ix. c. 69.
Prophecy apart from time, unless expressed.
291
But it
the prophecy failed, if it was not fulfilled at once.
was a simple falsifying of the prophet's words, when men
said e. g., "the complete destruction of Babylon by the
669 Ezekiel pre-
Medo-Persians is prophesied by Isaiah."
dicts its [Tyre's] utter destruction by Nebuchadnezzar,
so that it should be like the top of a rock, and never re-
built."
12
It is strange that they who insist so much, that pro-
phecy is not definite, who assert, even untruly, that dates
are no matter of prophecy, will yet have it that these pro-
phecies were not fulfilled, nay, that the prophets were de-
ceived, because the whole of each prophecy was not ful-
filled at once. No one denies that Babylon has long been
in the condition which Isaiah 10 and Jeremiah 11 foretold;
and that Idumæa is in that predicted by Obadiah ¹², Isai-
ah 13, Jeremiah 14, Ezekiel 15; and that Tyre and Rabbah of
Ammon are what Ezekiel foretold they should become 16.
All these prophets say, what punishments should come
upon those nations; no prophet says, as to the completed
desolations, when they should be. They described appa-
rently, in God-given words, the vision which God spread
before their souls. We know that, as to our Lord's first
Coming, they, for the most part, knew not the time. Only
they knew, St. Peter tells us also, that it was not to be in
their own; and this, by revelation of God. They knew
by revelation the things themselves; the Spirit of Christ in
them testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the
glory which should follow. Very different from the fana-
tical expectations of later times, which have ever been
outrunning prophecy, it was revealed to them, St. Peter
continues 18, that not unto themselves, but unto us, they did
minister the things which are now reported unto you. Fur-
ther, as to what was not revealed to them, they were left,
St. Peter says, to their own pious search into the meaning
9 Lengerke, Dan, lxxvi,
10 Is. xiii. 19-22, xiv. 23.
? Davidson, ii. 468.
11 Jer. 1. 12, 13, 39, 40, li. 26, 37-43.
13 Is. xxxiv. 11-15.
12 Obad. 9, 18. See my Comm. pp. 242,3.
15 Ezek. xxxv. 7, 9.
14 Jer. xlix. 17, 18.
17 1 S. Pet. i. 11.
16 Ib. xxvi. 14; xxv. 5.
18 Ib. 12.
U 2
292 Fulfilment of God's judgments slow, in His mercy.
of what was revealed through them. Of which salva-
tion the prophets enquired and searched diligently, who pro-
phesied of the grace that should come unto you. Vision is
independent of time. When then the prophets say no-
thing of time, we have no right to assume, that they fixed
any definite time for that future, which God spread out
before them as what should be, irrespective of the time
when it should be. At times the succession is marked in
the prophecy itself: as, when Obadiah, after foretelling
the destruction of Edom by Nebuchadnezzar, foretells a
second chastisement through the Jews, which came upon
them through John Hyrcanus, accordingly four centuries
after Nebuchadnezzar. The assumption, that the omis-
sion of any mark of duration implies a disbelief that there
would be any long interval, would be contrary to the au-
thority of our Lord Himself, Who spake of the destruction
of the world in connection with that of Jerusalem, with-
out any note of time. Yet even apart from our know-
ledge of His Divinity and Infallibility, we know that else-
where His words presuppose a long interval. The ques-
tion is too, not how much the Prophets knew, but what
God the Holy Ghost, Who spake by them, meant by the
words which He gave them.
It belongs to the character of prophecy, to 2 declare the
end from the beginning. It belongs to God's mercy that
His judgments break in gradually, at intervals, leaving
space for repentance. "Therefore chastenest Thou them
by little and little that offend, and warnest them by put-
ting them in remembrance wherein they have offended,
that leaving their wickedness they may believe in Thee, O
Lord." Executing Thy judgments upon them by little
and little, Thou gavest them place of repentance." What
God's word declared has come.
The attempt then to disjoin the prophecies of Daniel,
as something unlike in kind from those of the rest of the
Old Testament, fails in both ways of stating it. Rather,
we have that characteristic of unity, which is stamped
1 1 S. Pet. i. 10.
2 Is. xlvi. 10.
3 Wisdom xii. 2, 10.
Daniel has, in one, all the varieties of prophecy. 293
upon all God's works of nature and of grace, likeness
amid variety. Daniel, as being for that dreary time, when
the living prophets ceased, a microcosm of prophecy, has
in one all the character of prophecy. Largest and least,
the remote future and the near, the conflict of the evil
and the good, and its final issue, man's free-agency and
God's overruling Providence, Judgment and Mercy, the
Death of the Redeemer and His everlasting Kingdom, His
Presence, as Man yet more than man, at the Right Hand
of God, the passing away of the old Covenant and its
sacrifices and the bringing in of the New, forgiveness of
sins and the gift of righteousness, are all concentred in
him. The form in part varies, the centre is the same.
The minute is not severed from the vast, nor the near
from the remote, nor predictions as to time from the eter-
nal issues of this fleeting world, nor the glories of Christ
from His humiliation and Death: but in Daniel, as in all
the prophets, and in God's other prophets as in him, we
see God, working through man's free-agency, knowing,
in His ever-present Eternity, the events of His creatures'
varying and conflicting wills, beholding things which
are not as those which are, present with His creatures
in all the intricacies of this eddying life, Himself, in all,
the ever-present God, the pitying Father, the all-just
Judge. Prophecy, like God's physical creation, bears
witness to the Oneness of its Author, by that marvellous
oneness which underlies its beautiful variety, reappear-
ing without repetition; varying without deviation of prin-
ciple; one without identity: manifold, yet never departing
from its one type.
LECTURE VI.
On the proof of the genuineness of the Book of Daniel,
furnished by the date of the closing of the Canon of the
Old Testament, and by the direct reference to it in the
Canonical Scriptures, and in other books before or of the
Maccabee period.
THE account of the close of the Canon of the Old Tes-
tament, as given by those to whom the books themselves
were entrusted, is very definite, and proceeds on a defi-
nite principle. Josephus, in a controversial work, in
answer to an impugner of Judaism, states, in the name
of his countrymen, when it was closed, and why no later
writings were admitted into it. It was closed, he says,
in the reign of Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes, and that, be-
cause the succession of prophets closed then. "With
us," he says¹, in contrast to the contradictions of Greek
history, "there are, not myriads of books inharmonious
and conflicting, but two and twenty books only, contain-
ing the records of the whole time, and rightly believed
to be Divine. Of these, five are those of Moses, which
comprise as well the matters of law as the account of
the generations of man, to the time of his death. This
period is little short of 3000 years. But from the death
of Moses to the reign of Artaxerxes, the king of Persia
1 c. Ap. i. 8. Eus. H. E. iii. 10.
2 Ib. 3. "I should be a busy body,
if I would teach those who know better than I, how Hellanicus differed about
genealogies from Acusilaus, or how Acusilaus corrects Hesiod, or how Ephorus
points out that Hellanicus in most things lied, and Timæus as to Ephorus, and
subsequent writers as to Timæus; and as to Herodotus, all, &c."
Josephus' statement of the closing of the Canon. 295
after Xerxes, the prophets after Moses wrote what was
done in their times, in 13 books. The 4 remaining books
contain hymns to God, and suggestions to men as to their
lives. From Artaxerxes down to our own times, events
have been recorded, but they have not been accounted
worthy of the same credit as those before them, because
the exact succession of Prophets existed no longer. And
it is evident in deed, how we stand affected to our own
writings. For, so long a period having now elapsed, no
one has dared either to add or to take away from them,
or to change any thing; it being a thing implanted in all
the Jews from their first birth, that they should account
them as oracles of God, and abide by them, and, if need
were, gladly die for them."
The unchangeable adherence of the Jews to the Old
Testament, that wonderful faith, which has for 1800 years
since, in the main, characterised their nation, even while
forced, if they would remain Jews, to explain away the
prophecies which they believed and attested, is stated at
the same time by one of the mystical school. Philo, of a
character the most opposite to that of Josephus, says,
"They change not even a word of the things written by
him, [Moses,] but would rather endure 10,000 deaths than
be persuaded to what is contrary to his laws and cus-
toms.❞
Josephus somewhat varied the distribution of the
books, within the three divisions in which the Jews class-
ed the books of Holy Scripture. For the question at
issue with Apion was the historical faithfulness of the
Old Testament. "Since I see many attending to the
blasphemies uttered by some out of hostility, and disbe-
lieving what I have written about our antiquities, and
making it a token of the modernness of our race, that
the celebrated Grecian historians have not accounted it
worthy of mention, I thought it needful to write briefly
of all these things, &c." On this ground Josephus classes
in one all which we call the historical books with Job and
3 in Euseb. Præp. Ev. viii. 6. p. 357.
4 c. Ap. i. init.
296 Josephus' ground, why Canon closed about 400,B.C.
the Prophets. His 13 books are, 1) Joshua; 2) Judges
and Ruth; 3) Samuel i. ii; 4) Kings i. ii; 5) Job; 6) Isai-
ah; 7) Jeremiah and Lamentations; 8) Ezekiel; 9) The
Twelve (minor prophets); 10) Daniel; 11) Ezra i. ii; (i. e.
Ezra, Nehemiah;) 12) Chronicles i. ii; 13) Esther. His
four books of hymns and ethics are owned to be, 1)
Psalms; 2) Proverbs; 3) Ecclesiastes; 4) Canticles. No
one now disputes that such were the 22 books intended
by Josephus, so numbered by a sort of memoria technica,
in conformity to the 22 Hebrew letters¹. No one now
ever questions that he meant to include all the books of
the Hebrew Scriptures, and those only. It has only been
alleged, in transparent contradiction to his own words,
that it is "
a private account" of his own. He speaks of
it as "an implanted belief of all the Jews, for which they
would gladly die."
The date at which the Jews, in the time of Josephus,
believed the Canon of their Scriptures to have been clos-
ed, was about four centuries before the birth of our Lord.
Josephus probably fixed on the reign of Artaxerxes, as
being the period of Nehemiah's great work of restora-
tion 2, although the actual closing of the Canon probably
took place during the second visit to his country, the pro-
bable date of the prophet Malachi, under the son and suc-
cessor of Artaxerxes, Darius Nothus. The period which
lay between was a long one; the time of Antiochus Epi-
phanes lay some 250 years nearer. Yet it was a period
of the most active human intelligence. It reached back
into no ages, really or hypothetically "dark." Socrates
was a contemporary of Malachi; the source of the two
philosophies, which have influenced the world, was of the
same date as the last of the Hebrew Prophets. Better
might we suppose the Greeks ignorant as to the dates of
their philosophers, than imagine the Jews, to whom the
word of God was dearer than life, ignorant as to the date
¹ S. Jerome in Prolog. galeato. Opp. ix. 454. "The books of the Old law
are in like way 22; Moses, 5; the Prophets, 8; the Hagiographa, 9.”
2 Neh. i. 1, xiii. 6.
Intervening period one of mental activity.
297
of their prophets. The term, moreover, was measured
by something besides years. Josephus speaks of it as a
period of mental activity in Judæa. "From that time
down to our own, events were recorded; but they have
not been accounted worthy of the same credit as those
before them." This describes a portion of the deutero-
canonical books of the Old Testament; books held in es-
timation among the Jews as well as by Christians, but not
received by the Jews into their Canon, because Israel had
no more prophets, who had authority to receive them.
The Canon of the New Testament closed with the Re-
velation of St. John, and his death was, it is supposed,
about A. D. 101. Now, conceive the parallel case, that
a Christian writer, early in our 6th Century, e.g. Proco-
pius, had stated in an Apology, that the history of Christ
and His Apostles had been written in five books, and that
there were 22 other books written by Apostles between
the Resurrection of Christ and the reign of Trajan; that,
after the reign of Trajan, down to his own times, other
books had been written; yet that these were not esteem-
ed worthy of the like credit, since there had been no Apos-
tle later than the reign of Trajan; and that so, since the
time of Trajan, no one had taken from or added to the
number of the sacred books;-what would be thought
of a writer, who should assert that the Epistle to the
Hebrews was not written until 25 years after the Council
of Nice, and so, about A. D. 350? Apart from all other
evidence, it would be thought inconceivable, that Proco-
pius could assert, that the Christian Canon had been un-
alterable since the death of the last Apostle, if a book
had been added to the Canon two centuries and a half
after his decease.
One of the earliest of the books, written during that
period of reflection and expectation, after the close of the
Canon, the Wisdom of the son of Sirach, furnishes a
probable date as to itself. The preface, written by the
grandson of the author, who translated it into Greek,
defines that date more closely. The author, after devot-
298 Mention of Simon son of Onias and Euergetes
1
ing six chapters to the praise of great men, whom God
had raised up in Israel during the period of the sacred
books, winds up with the praise of the earliest progenitors
or renewers of the human race, Shem and Seth, and closes
at the beginning, with Adam. Then follows abruptly the
praise of Simon, the high priest, the son of Onias, whom
he describes as one still fresh in men's memory, men-
tioning even his personal stature rising above that of
the other priests, like a young cedar among the palm-
trees ¹, and his personal beauty. Now, although there
were two high-priests, Simon son of Onias, and Simon II.
son of Onias II., it is in itself the most probable, that the
writer is describing the first Simon, both on the ground
of his own greater eminence, and because the writer calls
him simply, "Simon the high Priest, the son of Onias."
The first is the Simon who, Josephus says, "was sur-
named 'the Just,' on account both of his piety to God
and his benevolence towards his countrymen." He is
the Simon singled out in an early tract of the Mishnah 3,
as one of the last remnants of the great Synagogue.
>
The grandson relates that he himself "* came into
Egypt, Euergetes being king." The date of the well-
known Ptolemy Euergetes agrees with the date of Simon
the Just. For, Simon having been contemporary with
Ptolemy son of Lagus, the grandson of his contemporary,
the son of Sirach, might well come into Egypt in the
reign of Ptolemy Euergetes, the grandson of Ptolemy I.,
himself also a great patron of letters. The title of ho-
nour naturally belongs to the eminent person who bore
it. A writer, wishing to designate his own date, would
not use an ambiguous title. The name Euergetes would
recall to the Alexandrian, Jew or Heathen, the real "be-
nefactor" to his country, not that later king, who, how-
ever he usurped both name and kingdom, was, from his
bloated person, called Physcon, "big-bellied," from his
deeds, Kakergetes, "malefactor;" retaining, says the
4 Prologue.
1 Ecclus. 1. 12. 2 Aut. xii. 2.4. 3 Pirke Aboth, c. 2.
fix date of son of Sirach early in 3rd Cent. B. C. 299
historian 5, "through his daily excess," neither the form
nor the feelings of a man. A pious Jew would not have
named Euergetes, one who, for incest, aggravated, cold-
blooded murder of his own offspring, promiscuous mas-
sacre, hideous, inconceivable, diabolical, revenge, was a
disgrace to human nature. Nor would Euergetes have
been a correct title. Those, who called him at all by the
name, entitled him "Euergetes the second," or "Euer-
getes Physcon," to distinguish him from the Ptolemy to
whom the title belonged".
Simon the Just having been high-priest at the time of
Ptolemy Lagi, the son of Sirach probably lived and wrote
early in the 3rd century B. C.; his grandson went into
· Egypt somewhere in the reign of Ptolemy Euergetes 247-
221, aged 38, and translated the book after some little
interval.
The grandson's account is most distinct. He says, that
his grandfather studied the Old Testament as a whole,
and proceeded to write further, drawing his thoughts
from it. "Whereas many and great things have been
delivered to us by the law and the prophets and by the rest
who followed their steps,-whereof not only the readers.
must needs become skilful themselves, but also they that
desire to learn be able to profit them which are without,
both by speaking and writing, my grandfather Jesus,
when he had given himself to the study of the law and
the prophets and the other books of our fathers, and had
gotten therein good judgment, was drawn on himself also
to write something pertaining to learning and wisdom,
to the intent that those who are desirous to learn and
are addicted to these things, might profit much more in
living according to the law." The book, (according to
5 quotidiana luxuria ita marcenti, ut—sensu hominis nimia sagina careret.
Just. 34, 2. sagina ventris non homini sed belluæ similis. Id. 38, 8.
6"His (Ptol. Epiphanes') two sons succeeded him, the eldest surnamed
Philometor, the younger, Euergetes the second." Porphyry. (in Eus. Chron.
Arm. i. 238.) "Ptolemy, the 2nd Euergetes." (Id. p. 241.) "Philometor his
brother succeeded, the second Euergetes, whom they call Physcon." (Strabo,
17, 1, 11.) “ Euergetes Physcon." (Ib. 12.) Justin gives him no surname.
300
Canon closed before son of Sirach.
the grandson's impression or knowledge,) was intended
chiefly as a sort of epitome of practical teaching drawn
and recast from Holy Scripture, to win those without to
live according to the law. Three times, in this short
preface, the grandson speaks of the Old Testament, as
one completed whole; 1) in his own person, as the body
of teaching which had been delivered to Israel; 2) as the
source whence his grandfather derived his knowledge;
3) in reference to his own work of translation.
"The
same things uttered in Hebrew, and translated into ano-
ther tongue, have not the same force in them; and not
only these things [his grandfather's book which he had
translated] but the law and the prophets and the rest of
the books, have no small difference when they are spoken
in their own language." He could not more explicitly
have contrasted this book, on which he had been engaged,
with those of the three classes before it. They, then
fore-existing; this, derived from them; they, of primary
authority; this, applying them; they, such as might be
expected to retain, to a greater degree, their native force
in a translation; this, as what might (obviously, from its
less Divine power) lose more in translation.
The grandson is a good witness as to the religious ha-
bits of his thoughtful and pious grandfather. He could not
fail to know them. The son of Sirach then had before
him, as the authoritative source of instruction, the Scrip-
tures of the Old Testament, in that same threefold divi-
sion in which they existed in our Lord's time. The last
class, although more miscellaneous, was as complete and
as authoritative as the others. He does not say, "others
who followed them," but "the others;" not, "other
books of our fathers," but, "the other books 2," "3 the rest
of the books." They were a complete whole, as authori-
tative as the rest; for the son of Sirach drew from all
without distinction, as authorities to and above himself.
1 διὰ τοῦ νόμου καὶ τῶν προφητῶν καὶ τῶν ἄλλων τῶν κατ' αὐτοὺς ἠκολου-
θηκότων. Praef. 2 τήν τε τοῦ νόμου καὶ τῶν προφητῶν καὶ τῶν ἄλλων πατρίων
βιβλίων ἀνάγνωσιν. 3 αὐτὸς ὁ νόμος καὶ αἱ προφητεῖαι καὶ τὰ λοιπὰ τῶν βιβλίων.
This decisive as to Daniel, whichever be the Simon. 301
The Wisdom of Sirach then (in whichever way the date
given by his grandson is explained) really decides the
date of the book of Daniel. For the question lies only
between the real date at which the book of Daniel was
closed, B.C. 534, and the date of the death of Antiochus
Epiphanes, B.C. 164. The prophecies in the book exclude
any other. All must be true or all imposture. The pro-
phecies as to Antiochus Epiphanes himself are too minute
to be human, if written before the event at all. No hu-
man sagacity could have foreseen them. If we take "Si-
mon the son of Onias" in the book itself to be the great
"Simon the Just," and the "Euergetes" in the grandson's
prologue to be the well-known Ptolemy Euergetes, then
the grandson must have come into Egypt between B. C.
247-2214. Supposing him to have come thither, as he
says, at 38, at the close of the reign of Ptolemy Euergetes,
his father must have been born at the least some 60 years
before, and the date of his grandfather must have fallen,
any how, 280, B.C.; the Canon must have been then
closed; and the book of Daniel had its place there. But
taking him who is spoken of as Simon, the great Simon,
him who would be known by readers as Simon son of
Onias," not to be the high-priest who was celebrated by
Jewish writers subsequently, but a later Simon, compa-
ratively unknown; taking also him who is called Euer-
getes to be one whom all Egypt justly execrated as Ka-
kergetes; assuming also that people dated, (as there is
no proof that any one but himself ever dated,) from the
time of his first accession, before he was driven out for
his repeated and wanton aggression on his forbearing
brother; that "the 38th year in the time of Euergetes"
meant what it does not naturally mean 5, "the 38th year
4 Ptolemy Euergetes came to the throne, B.C. 247, died B.C. 22. Clinton,
F. H. iii. 386.
66
5 No one would doubt, in any ordinary Greek, that the sentence, èv yàp Tậ
ὀγδόῳ καὶ τριακοστῷ ἔτει, ἐπὶ τοῦ Ευεργέτου βασιλέως παραγενηθεὶς εἰς Αἴγυπ
Tov kal ovyxpovíoas, meant, “for having, in the 38th year, in the time of king
Euergetes, arrived in Egypt and continued some time with them." The con-
text relates to his own work of translation, its difficulties, and the way in which
302 Lowest date of son of Sirach, and the existence of
of Euergetes," just 2 years before Egypt rose up, unable
to endure the monster any longer, and expelled him from
them; supposing this to be the date of the grandson's com-
ing to Egypt, still the opponents of Daniel would gain
nothing. The 38th year of Ptolemy Physcon, counted
even thus, would fall 13 B.C.¹ The grandfather's book
was a well-known book: it was then in repute; his grand-
father himself must have been somewhile dead, and yet,
during those long years of thought and study, which
must have prepared for such a book as the Wisdom of Si-
rach, the complete Canon of the Old Testament was (his
grandson says,) the subject of that study. Let the date
of the son of Sirach, when he so studied the Holy Scrip-
ture and laboured, as he says, for all time to come, have
been as low as 180, B.C.2, the case of the opponents of the
book of Daniel is still as hopeless as ever, since the book
of Daniel must have been earlier than this; and, being
earlier, must have been prophetic.
he qualified himself for it. "I found," he says, a copy of no small learning,
and held it most necessary to apply some labour and study to translate this
book." The date," the 38th year," is, in the natural construction of the Greek,
distinct from the date by the reign of Euergetes. In Greek, no more than in
English, would "in the 38th year in the time of Euergetes" mean "in the 38th
year of Euergetes." It would rather signify a concurrent date, as, in the Mac-
cabees, the phrase, “in the first year in the time of Simon the high priest,”
means, "in the first year of their freedom." (1 Macc. xiii. 42. add xiv. 27.) It is
then most natural to understand “the 38th year" of his own life, and the be-
ginning of his Hellenistic studies of which he is speaking. The language of
this preface does not contain a single Hebrew idiom. And it is, moreover, no
Hebrew idiom, that the single translator of Haggai and Zechariah has render-
ed, wh Day nya, év tô deutépų ěteι èπì Aapelov. It is no natural translation,
not the way in which a Hebrew would think in Greek, and so, not a Helle-
nistic idiom, but a mere rendering of one man. It is no authority then for ren-
dering the words of the preface, which we have in their original Greek, other-
wise than they would be rendered in any other Greek.
1 Ptolemy Physcon dated back to the 12th year of his brother Philometor,
when the Alexandrians made him king, his brother being for the time a pup-
pet in the hands of Epiphanes. But his brother having succeeded his father,
181, B.C., his 12th year and Physcon's 1st was 138 B.C.; his 38th, 13 B. C.
See Porphyry in Clinton, F. H. ii. 390, 1. and Table of kings of Egypt, ii. 408.
2 Even Fritzsche supposes the work to have been completed 40 or 60 years
before B.C. 132, and so between B.C. 192-172. Weish. Jesus Sirach's. Einl.
p. xvi.
his book out of Canon, prove early date of Daniel. 303
3
The existence of the Wisdom of Sirach, out of the He-
brew Canon, in itself implies that the Canon was closed,
when it was written. His grandson avers that it was writ-
ten in Hebrew; weighty Jewish authorities attest its
existence in Hebrew for a long period. "Its high re-
putation appears from the way in which it is mentioned
and its contents are applied. Very weighty authorities,
chiefly of Palestine 5, appeal to Sirach, and sometimes in
a way, used only of passages of Scripture. Even in the
beginning of the 4th century, the book is counted among
the Kethubim 6" ❝7 Sirach's proverbs passed into me ral
writings, were recommended by the wise, and spread
abroad in public addresses. Including the anonymous
citations, some 40 sentences, mostly in an abridged form,
are given us in these writings, some of which are missing
both in the Greek and Syriac text. All but three are in
Hebrew, and, if the quotations are literal, they yield not
unimportant contributions to the Hebrew of that time."
No ground can be alleged, why a Hebrew work written
in Palestine, of such character as the Wisdom of Sirach,
3 Zunz (a Jewish Sceptic) quotes the Tosefta, (Yadaim, c. 3. "the book
Ben Sira and all the books written since,") the Jerusalem Talmud, (j. Bera-
choth c. 7. j. Chagiga 2. 1. j. Nasir 5. 3. R. Akiba cites the books of Ben Sira
j. Sanhedr. 10. 1.) Babylonian Talmud, (Chagiga 13. a. Yebamoth 63. b. [al-
so R. Nissim relations f. 16. a.] Kethuboth 110. b. Baba Bathra 98 b. 146. a.
Sanhedrin 100. b. Nidda 16. b.) S. Jerome, [as representing his Jewish in-
structors,] Bereshith Rabba, (c. 8. f. 10. a, 10 f. 12. a, 73. f. 82. c, 91. f. 101. c.
Faiikra Rabba, (c. 33. f. 203. b.) Midrash Coheleth, (f. 102. c, 116, a.) Tan-
chuma, (f. 13. a, 15. d, 69. a.) and some later writers besides." Rapoport
has already proved that R. Nissim quotes out of Sirach, in his life, p. 81." Got-
tesdienstl. Vorträge d. Juden, p. 101.
+ Id. pp. 101, 2.
4
5 "As Rab, (Erubin 65. a. [comp. Sanh. 44. b.] 54. a. Beza 32. b.) Jocha-
nan, (Nidda f. 16. b.) Elasar, (j. Taanith 3, 6. j. Chagiga 2, 1. Bereshith
Rabba f. 10. a. Tanchuma f. 15. d.) Rabba bar Mare, (Yebamoth 63. b. Baba
Kama 92. b.
6“, says Rab, (Erubin 65. a.) 227, R. Chanina (1, 1.) and the Babylo-
nian Talmud (Berachoth f. 48. a.); Rabba Bar Mare uses the same expres-
sion with the addition D'an, and sets it over against the Law and the Pro-
phets, (Baba Kama 1. 1.) Eliahu Rabba has an of the same passage, in
Yalkut, Gen. f. 23. d, but in the editions, c. 12. f. 61. b, there stands for it,
'The wise say."" Ib. p. 102. a.
7 Zunz, pp. 102-4.
304 Son of Sirach, of high authority, yet speaks
so praised, so approved, so full of wisdom, should not have
been received into the Canon, but either that inspired au-
thority was then lacking to receive it, or that its author
had not the same tokens of Divine authority as the wri-
ters of the Old Testament; or both.
The writer himself speaks with authority; he sums up
his book, as a source of practical wisdom; "Jesus, the
son of Sirach of Jerusalem, hath written in this book the
instruction of understanding and knowledge; who out of
his heart poured forth wisdom. Blessed is he that shall
be exercised in these things; and he that layeth them up
in his heart shall become wise. For if he do them, he
shall be strong to do all things; for the light of the Lord
shall lead him, Who giveth wisdom to the godly." Yet
at the same time, he speaks of himself, as coming after
the writers of Holy Scripture, a mere gleaner after them.
❝ 2 I awaked up last of all, as one that gathereth after the
grape-gatherers; by the blessing of the Lord I profited,
and filled my winepress like a gatherer of grapes. Con-
sider, that I laboured not for myself only, but for all them
that seek learning. Hear me, O ye great men of the peo-
ple, and hearken with your ears, ye rulers of the congre-
gation."
The son of Sirach himself, in praising great men of
Holy Scripture, mentions generally, rulers, wise counsel-
lors, "rich men furnished with ability," and, with all
ranks and conditions of life, two classes of writers, those
who ❝ announced in prophecies," and those who "nar-
rated verses in writing," [setting them forth at length.]
By these last he manifestly intends the Psalmists, (as of
David especially he says, that "5 he praised the Holy One
most High with words of glory; with his whole heart he
sang songs;") and hagiographical writers, (as of Solomon
he says, "The countries marvelled at thee for thy songs
and proverbs and parables and interpretations,") and even
¹ 1. 27-29. 2 xxxiii. 16-18. 3 ἀπηγγελκότες ἐν προφητείαις, xliv. 3.
4 διηγούμενοι ἔπη ἐν γραφῇ, Ib. 5.
5 xlvii. 8.
6 Ib. 17.
of Canon, as higher. Tradition as to Nehemiah. 305
especially such lengthened works, forming one whole, as
Job, or the Canticles, or Ecclesiastes. So then we
have in the author himself, those two divisions of Holy
Scripture, the "prophecies" and "the writings," as, in
praising Moses, he adds "the law." "God gave him
commandments, even the law of life and knowledge."
Besides this, that long panegyric in itself bears witness
to the greater part of our existing Canon, and to nothing
besides that Canon.
This same division of the Old Testament into the same
three classes occurs in a document, attributed to Nehe-
miah in a letter which stands at the beginning of the 2nd
book of Maccabees. The book itself closes with the death
of Nicanor, B. C. 161, and the subsequent peaceful pos-
session of Jerusalem by the Jews; "from that time forth
the Hebrews had the city in their power." The work of
Jason of Cyrene, which the author epitomised, did not
extend beyond the reign of Antiochus Eupator10, who died
in the autumn B.C. 162¹¹. To one, probably the former 12
of the two letters, there is added a date 18813,i. e. 125, B.C.
There is no indication of any later date. This letter
quotes from some writings, called "commentaries of Ne-
hemiah 14" that Nehemiah, "founding a library, gathered
together the matters as to the kings and the prophets and
the things of David, and the epistles of the kings con-
cerning the holy gifts." The "library" was doubtless.
connected with the temple, in the treasury or Archives
of which we know other documents to have been depo-
sited 15. What document the writers of the Epistle had
before them, we have no clue.
9
XV. 37.
Nor do the words contain anything as to the formation
or closing of the Canon, or any act whatever in regard
7 Fritzsche, ad loc. owns this. 8 This argument is from Häv. Einl. i. p. 32.
10 ii. 20-3. 11 Clinton, Fast. Hell. iii. 325. 12 In 2 Macc.
xi. 21, 33, and 38, the date is at the end of the letter. 13 i. 10. It would
then be divided, "in the month Chasleu, in the hundred fourscore and eighth
year." Judas, whose name is prefixed to the 2nd letter, fell in battle, B. C.
161. Ἡ ἐν τοῖς ὑπομνηματισμοῖς τοῖς κατὰ τὸν Νεεμίαν, hit. “the commen-
taries according to Nehemiah," ii. 13.
15 1 Macc. xiv. 49.
14
X
306 Nehemiah stated to have laid up books of Canon,
to it. But the passage proves thus much, that a writing
was in existence a century before our Lord, under the
name of Nehemiah, presupposing the existence of the
Canon in the time of Nehemiah, in that he gathered to-
gether into a library the books of which it was composed.
Doubtless they were authentic copies which he was believ-
ed so to have collected, in like way as "the Epistles of
kings concerning gifts" were, doubtless, the original let-
ters of the kings of Persia, copies of which are preserved
in the book of Ezra, to which originals, when need arose,
appeal might be made. The law had been already spoken
of¹. "The matters of the kings" doubtless comprised
what are now called "the former prophets;" "the things
of the Prophets," "the later Prophets;" "the things of
David," the hagiographa; the third miscellaneous section
being designated from the Psalms, the first book in it,
precisely as our Lord speaks of 2 all things written in the
law of Moses, and the prophets, and the Psalms, concerning
Himself, in language familiar to those to whom He spake.
The writers of the Epistle speak of the act of Nehemiah
in gathering together those former books into the library,
as a place of safe keeping, in just the same way as they
speak of the act of Judas in "gathering together all those
things which were lost by reason of the war we had, and
they remain with us." "In like manner3," they say. As
then the writers, when they spoke of this act of Judas in
gathering together" those later documents, could not
mean to speak of any gathering for the first time into a
collection, (for they speak of them as having previously
"fallen asunder" and being "lost,") so neither could
their meaning be, that Nehemiah, with whose act they
compare that of Judas, for the first time collected those
former books into the Canon.
66
2 S. Luke xxiv. 44.
3 ωσαύτως ii. 14.
Let people place this letter at what date they will, be-
¹ ii. 2, 3.
4 diaπTETTWkóta dià tòv móλeµov. Herzfeld would translate this, "what hap-
pened in the war," i. e. that he gathered its events in a history, (i. pp. 444, 5.)
which is, of course, impossible.
inconsistent with its late completion.
307
fore our Lord, (and no one would now place it later,) it
were absurd to suppose that a writing, attributed to Ne-
hemiah, and speaking of the Canon as existing in hist
time, could have obtained belief, had the Canon been
closed subsequently to the times of the Maccabees. But
the validity and accuracy of the tradition has even been
insisted upon by opponents of the book of Daniel. For,
mistaking it for an account of a formation of the Canon,
they thought that it could be used, as an argument, that
the Hagiographa, in the time of Nehemiah, was as yet
unfixed. And so they committed themselves to admit
the correctness of a tradition which is evidence against
them 5
These traditions or indications of the close of the Ca-
non of the Old Testament coincide with the data which
5 "The second place is 2 Macc. ii. 13. where a notice has been preserved out
of lost memoirs of Nehemiah. The correctness of this account we have cer-
tainly no ground to doubt. The only question is, what writing we are to sup-
pose to be intended." Bleek, Schl. ZS. iii. 201. "Nehemiah directed his atten-
tion to the commenced collection of a holy national library, as is expressly re-
lated in 2 Macc. ii. 13. Probably he succeeded in gaining several books, not
yet found; and the passage quoted contains in fact very clear indications, that
through him some [tà #epì tŵv πро‡ηтŵν could not, of course, mean, some]
prophetic books, as also the books of Samuel, here called 'the books of David,'
(rà roû ▲avid,) because they treat chiefly of David; and the books of Kings'
(Tà πeρÌ Tŵv Baoiλéwy) were added to the national library." Berth. Einl. § 28.
pp. 75, 6. Movers would have the whole to relate to a commenced formation of
the Hagiographa. "The matters as to the kings," were to be the Chronicles ;
"David," "the first book of the Psalms; ""the Epistles," Ezra. Loci quid.
Can. T. &c. p. 15. Stähelin leaves it open to mean, "either the books of the
prophets according to their two divisions, or at least the books of Samuel and
Kings, perhaps the Chronicles also, the documents contained in Ezr. vi. 2 sqq.
vii. 11. and the Psalms." Einl. § 3. p. 9. Herzfeld is at pains to prove the gen-
uineness of the two Epistles, (which he counts as one, Gesch. Isr. Exc. 18. i.
443 sqq.) but will have it, that ẻmɩovvýyaye, in ii. 14. means “compiled ; " but
in ii. 13. with which the statement stands parallel, means “collected." He
too maintains that the threefold division of the Old Testament was intend-
ed by the writer of that letter; the first division being what are now the ear-
lier prophets (i. e. the historical books written by prophets, Joshua, Judges,
Samuel, Kings ;) the 2nd, what the Jews count the later prophets, “Isaiah, al-
though only to eh. 39; Jeremiah, with the Lamentations; Ezekiel and the 12
lesser prophets; only it may be that Jonah was added later; lastly, a collec-
tion of Psalms viz. Ps. 2-41., all attributed to David, and Ps. 42-50. from the
sons of Korah and Asaph.” Gesch. Isr. ii. 50. and Excurs 22. pp. 92 sqq.
x 2
308
The Pentateuch laid up from the first.
we have of its gradual formation before and in the cap-
tivity. I cannot, of course, here condense the evidence
for the genuineness and Divinity of the several books of
the Old Testament. I can only point out traces of the
gradual formation of the Canon, what books must have
been received into it before the Captivity, and so, how
little remained to be done after the return from it. The
harmony of the account throughout involves an antece-
dent probability, that the Canon was closed, as Josephus
states it to have been, while there were yet persons living,
who had a recognised Divine authority to receive books
into it.
The wildest criticism does not now doubt that the whole
Pentateuch was before the Captivity. The objections
which have lately been raised against it are but like the
chaff of the summer-threshing floors. They are but the
arguments of persons, who wish to be deceived and so are
deceived. But although, had their charges been true, the
Old Testament would have been as Satanic as it is Di-
vine, they concede all which is needed for this argument.
I will then here state, i) The indications, in the Old Tes-
tament itself, that a Canon was formed and enlarged; ii)
what books were manifestly of recognised authority be-
fore the Captivity.
i) The close of the Pentateuch contains a solemn ac-
count, with what earnest protest Moses, when ready to
depart, delivered the law to the priests, the Levites, and
all the elders of the people; to be read publicly at the
Feast of Tabernacles in the 7th year, the year of release¹,
when hearts would be gladliest. Besides this public gift
and public use, Moses gave a copy of it to be laid up by
the side of the ark. 2 Moses commanded the Levites who
bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying, Take
this book of the law, and place it at the side of the ark of
the covenant of the Lord your God, and it shall be a wit-
ness against you. It was deposited there, not as a mere
place of safety, but close by the place of the typical atone-
2 Ib. 25, 6.
1 Deut. xxxi. 10, 11.
+
Gradual accessions implied in Scripture itself. 309
ment for sin, the Ark of the covenant, as the protest against
their national breach of that covenant by idolatry. There
was yet further the provision, that the king, when he
should come to the throne, should write for himself the
copy of this law in a book, from that which is before the
priests the Levites, and it shall be with him, and he shall
read therein all the days of his life. This book, it is plain
from the Pentateuch itself, was not a section only of it,
since the word, the book, is used in the larger sense in
the Pentateuch itself. In regard to Amalek, Moses is
commanded; "write this for a memorial in the book
and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua." Moses "5took the
book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the
people." The curse is threatened to Israel, "if thou wilt
not observe to do all the words of this law that are writ-
ten in this book.” To this book Joshua added. Without
entering into the details, how much he added, the fact of
his so adding is stated clearly at the close of his book 7,
"Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of the
Lord." The very form, in which Joshua and the other
historical books (except the Chronicles) begin, And it
was, shews that the writers intended to join them on to
previous books. A Hebrew writer would not use the
form, any more than we should, unless he intended by it
to join on his book to a previous whole. In the book of
Chronicles, which is a whole by itself, Ezra does not use
it; nor does Daniel.
Samuel again, when he had "9 told the people the law
of the kingdom, wrote it in the book and laid it up before
the Lord;" on the same ground on which Moses had so
laid up the law, as a memorial against its infraction.
So also as to the books of the prophets. Isaiah bids
his people, 10 Search ye out of the book of the Lord and read;
3 Ib. xvii. 18.
4 Ex. xvii. 14.
5 Ex. xxiv. 7.
6 Deut. xxviii. 58. add 61, “every plague not written in the book of this
law ;” xxix. 21, "according to all the curses of the covenant that are written
in this book of the law;" 27, "to bring upon it [the land] all the curses
written in this book."
7 Josh. xxiv. 26. s See on Jonah i. 1. p. 265.
10. Is. xxxiv. 16. “nee huo win7.
9 1 Sam. x. 25.
310 Pentateuch an authority before Jeroboam's schism.
using the corresponding word to that which our Lord
used,¹Search the Scriptures. Isaiah appeals here, as else-
where 2, to the evident fulfilment of prophecy. But he
speaks of it as a whole, as one book of the Lord, of which
his own should form a part, in which they who should
search should find, in which God's word and the coming
events which he foretold were accurately paired, one with
the other. No one of these [predicted things] shall fail,
none shall want her mate. Even an opponent has owned
this, in his heathenish language ³.
3
The use of the law by the prophets, and of the earlier
prophets by those who succeeded them, implies the
same thing. It has been pointed out, how prophets of
Israel, Hosea and Amos, appeal to or presuppose the law
of Moses, as well known in the schismatic kingdom of Is-
rael *, and so, how certain it is, that the law, as contained
in the Pentateuch, was an existing authority, which Jero-
boam could not shake off, but had to adapt his corruption
of religion, as well as he could, to it. It has been pointed
out too, how the citations of each earlier prophet by those
who came after, presuppose that those former books were
of recognised authority. Amos, when he opens and al-
most closes his prophecy with words of Joel 5, or applies
more extensively those of Hosea, intends manifestly to
carry on a message, already recognised as Divine. So
also Obadiah, when he uses words of the prophecies of
Balaam, Joel, Amos, and a Psalm 7. Micah alludes em-
phatically to those parting words of his great predecessor
in the book of Kings, to expressions of the Psalms and
Proverbs, to Joshua, to David's elegy over Saul and Jo-
nathan, as well as to the Pentateuch; Habakkuk, Zepha-
¹ S. John v. 39. épevvâte tàs ypapás. 2 xlii. 9. (coll. xli. 21-23.) xliii.
9-12, xliv. 7, 8, xlv. 19, 21, xlvi. 8-11, xlviii. 3-8, 14-16.
3 "The poet seems to think of the insertion of his Oracle in a collection of
Oracles and sacred writings, from which posterity could judge hereafter as to
the correctness of his prophecy." Gesen. on Is. xxxiv. 16, i. p. 921.
4 Hengstenberg, Auth. d. Pent. i. 48-125.
5 See on Joel, pp. 94, 5. on Amos, p. 154.
7 See on Obadiah, pp. 230,1.
6 See on Amos, p. 153.
8 See on Micah, p. 289. Hengstenb.
Christol. i. 475. ? See at length in Caspari Micha: and on Micah, p. 294, &c.
Each later prophet presupposes the earlier. 311
niah, Ezekiel, employ words or thoughts of his. Jonah,
by adopting the form And, joins on his prophetic history
to the sacred histories before him, and blends his mission
to the heathen with the history of the people of God.
Nahum, in the opening of his prophecy against Nine-
veh, manifestly refers to Jonah's appeal to God in regard
to it. For Nahum had to exhibit the stricter side of
God's dealings as to that same city. God had said in Jo-
nah, how He forgave on repentance; Nahum opens his
book by saying in that self-same form of words, that He
was indeed long-suffering, but would not finally spare the
guilty. Nahum and Zephaniah use language of Isaiah 10;
Zephaniah uses that of Habakkuk, as also of Joel, Amos,
Micah; Habakkuk's hymn shews one well-acquainted
with the Psalms. Whom does not Jeremiah employ?
The appeal in his day to the great prophecy of the de-
struction of Jerusalem in Micah", in its own words, shews
that the book must have been in public use.
Even before the captivity God by Ezekiel speaks of the
prophets before him as one whole. 12 Thus saith the Lord
God; Art thou [Gog] he of whom I have spoken in old time
by My servants the prophets of Israel, which prophesied
in those days many years, that I would bring thee against
them?
When then Daniel, studying Jeremiah's prophecy of
the 70 years of the Captivity, says, I understood by the
books 13, i. e. the biblia, scriptures, the number of the years,
which the word of God was to Jeremiah the prophet, to ful-
fil as to the desolations of Jerusalem, seventy years, this
exactly expresses what we see from the writings of the
prophets before the captivity to have been the fact, that
the books of the prophets were collected together.
The captivity set God's seal on the true prophets of God
over against the false prophets, and gained a reverence
for them among those also of the people who had de-
rided and persecuted or slain them before. The for-
10 On this and the following I hope to write in the Introduction to those Pro-
phets. 11 See on Micah, p. 290.
12 Ezek. xxxviii. 17. 13 ix. 2.
312
Gradual accession of the historical books,
mer prophets¹ is a standing expression for the prophets
before the Captivity.
The historical books were, at all times, an essential part
of the teaching of Israel. They were a mirror in which
God exhibited to them in act, in their own history, what
in the law He had taught them in word, the fruits of obe-
dience and disobedience to Himself. Much as the seve-
ral series of histories vary in their character, this line runs
through them and holds them in one, as, outwardly too,
they are joined on together. Their difference of charac-
ter marks their independence; the unity of design marks
one guiding principle.
On ground of language the book of Joshua must have
been very early; for its language has so much in common
with the Pentateuch, although the Pentateuch has marks
of greater antiquity, having archaisms, which the book
of Joshua has not, and not having language which the
book of Joshua has. On historical grounds the books of
3
1 "Be ye not as your fathers, unto whom the former prophets have cried, say-
ing, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Turn ye now from your evil ways—Your
fathers, where are they? and the prophets do they live for ever? But My
words and My statutes which I commanded My servants the prophets, did
they not take hold of your fathers?" Zech. i. 4-6. "Should ye not hear the
words which the Lord hath cried by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was
inhabited and in prosperity?" vii. 7. "lest they should hear the law, and the
words which the Lord of Hosts hath sent by His Spirit by the former prophets."
vii. 12.
2 "The book of Joshua 1) has not the Archaisms which pervade all the five
books of Moses equally, and, 2) notwithstanding great agreement of language
with the Pentateuch, resulting from the common subject, yet it had distinct
expressions and forms, varying from and unknown to the Pentateuch.” Keil,
Einl. § 42. p. 166. Of archaic forms of the Pentateuch, unknown to Joshua,
Keil counts about 18; words and idioms, about 47; (Einl. § 15. 2. pp. 40-2.) of
new idioms or forms he also counts 18. (Einl. § 42. 4. p. 166. § 16. 1. p. 46.)
3 Keil (Einl. § 44. p. 172.) has these arguments; 1) The Jebusites were not
then driven out of Jerusalem (xv. 63.) which David did in the Sth year of his
reign. (2 Sam. v. 5-9.) 2) "The place which God should choose;" He had not
yet chosen, (Josh. ix. 27,) as it was chosen under David. (2 Sam. xxiv. 18 sqq.
1 Chr. xxi. 18 sqq. xxii. 1.) 3) The Gibeonites were still" hewers of wood and
drawers of water for the congregation and the altar" (Ib.); whereas Saul slew
them as enemies of Israel and Judah (2 Sam. xxi. 2.) and (it follows) dispersed
whom he did not slay. 4)" Great Zidon,” (xi. 8, xix. 28.) not Tyre, was sti?!
the chief city of Phoenicia. 5) "The Sidonians" were still a people to be ex-
Joshua, Judges, Samuel.
313
Joshua and Judges must have been written before the
time of David, the Judges probably by Samuel *.
The two books of Samuel were completed probably soon
after the death of David. They are far separated from
the books of the Kings by the language, as well as by the
style of the narrative. You must all have felt the differ-
ence between the full, almost biographical, character of
the books of Samuel, and the brief extracts in the Kings
from the fuller histories of the kings of Israel and Judah.
The books of Samuel too contain no quotation of any
written book, except the book of Jashar, and that in com-
mon with the book of Joshua 5. The books of Kings, with
a few very characteristic exceptions, close the reigns of
pelled (xiii. 4-6.); whereas in David's time they were friendly, (2 Sam. v. 11,
1 Kgs. v. 1-12, 1 Chr. xiv. 1.) and brothers. (See on Am.i.9.) Later times than
Solomon's are excluded by the fact, that the Canaanites were dwelling at Gezer,
(xvi. 10.) whereas Pharaoh drove them out and gave the city, as a dowry for his
daughter. (1 Kgs. ix. 16.) Keil added (Comm. Einl. p. xxxv.) 6) Psalm i,
(which I also doubt not to have been a Psalm of David,) embodies God's com-
וּבְתוֹרָתוֹ יָהְנָּה יוֹמָם וָלָיְלָה .8 .Jos. i וְהָנִיתָ בוֹ יוֹמָם וָלַיְלָה ; mand to Joshua in His own words
Ps. i. 2. König adds, 7) that it was probably written, before the shortlived con-
quest of Gaza, Ashkelon, Ekron. Judg. i. 18. comp. Josh. xiii. 3. Since the wri-
ter speaks in the first person, ("until we were passed over," v. 1. "the Lord
sware that He would not shew them the land, which the Lord sware unto their
fathers that He would give us, v. 6.) it is most probable that the book was wri-
ten by Joshua; which was the Jewish tradition. Baba bathra, f. 14. 2.
4 The book of Judges also, which is so manifestly one whole, was written
before David had driven the Jebusites from Jerusalem. (i. 21.) It speaks of a
forty-years subjection to the Philistines from the days of Samson, and so must
have been written, after the victory under Samuel had interrupted that subjec-
tion. (1 Sam. vii. 3-13.) The repeated contrast of the state in those days with
a more ordered state under a king (xvii. 6, xviii. 1, xix. 1, xxi. 25,) makes it
probable that it was written after the time of Saul.
Until the day of the cap-
tivity of the land,” xviii. 30, evidently marks the same period as, “ all the time
that the house of God was in Shiloh." Ib. 31. But this ended in that battle,
in which the ark of God was brought from Shiloh, and taken. 1 Sam. iv. 3-11.
It went back, not to Shiloh, but to Kirjath Jearim. (1 Sam. vii. 2.) There is
no reason to question the Jewish tradition, that the book was written by Sa-
muel. Baba Bathra, f. 14. 2, 15. 1. 5 2 Sam. i. 18, Josh. x. 13. Both are poetry.
6 The exceptions are, Jehoram king of Israel and Ahaziah king of Judah,
slain by Jehu; Athaliah, the usurping Queen, who was slain; Hoshea, the
last king of Israel; Jehoahaz, removed after a 3 months' reign (2 Kgs. xxiii.
31-34.) ; Jehoiachin, removed in like way (Ib. xxiv. 8, 12.); and Zedekiah, the
last king of Judah.
314
Probable date of books of Samuel and Ruth ;
the kings, both of Israel and Judah, with the reference to
the larger chronicles of the respective kingdoms. And
this is the more remarkable, since the books of Samuel
must be founded on the words of Samuel, Nathan and
Gad¹, in which the acts of David were written. In lan-
guage also the books of Samuel are wholly free from
Chaldaisms, and from later language generally. The
statement, 2 Ziklag belongeth to the kings of Judah to this
day, may refer to a time when there were kings of Israel
also. It is not indeed necessary, since it seems to be stat-
ed that it was a crown-property, and, whereaș it origi-
nally fell to Judah³, then was given to Simeon, now it
came back to Judah in its kings. There are no other
marks of time, and the absence of allusion to any later
event fixes the books of Samuel probably, at latest, in the
early part of the divided kingdoms 5.
The book of Ruth contains no marks of its date. It
is most likely to have been written, when the memory
was most fresh. The only custom which is related, that
of giving the shoe in witness of a covenant", belongs to
a very simple time, and may well have fallen into de-
suetude soon after David's time. The language has this
remarkable characteristic, that the forms, which look
like Chaldaisms, occur in conversation, and so represent
the language of peasant life; the narrative Hebrew be-
ing good. The history itself took place a century be-
fore David. The right of kindred in redeeming the land
is a Levitical law; the custom, that such redemption
66
66
11 Chr. xxix. 29. 2 1 Sam. xxvii. 6. 3 Josh. xv. 31. 4 Ib. xix. 5.
5 The explanation 1 Sam. ix. 9, as to the office of the Roch having passed to
the Nabi, requires no later date than the full establishment of the Nebiim,
prophets," by Samuel. The dress of the king's daughters (2 Sam. xiii. 18.)
might very possibly be changed in the days of Solomon. We could speak of the
long dresses" of 20 years ago. The cases, in which customs or things are
said to have lasted unto this day, do not require any long period. They are,
1 Sam. v. 5, Dagon's priests not treading on his threshold; vi. 18, the great
stone in the field of Joshua, the Bethshemite; xxx. 25, David's rule about the
equal division of spoils; 2 Sam. iv. 3, the sojourning of the Beerothites at Git-
taim; vi. 8, the name, Perez-Uzzah; xviii. 18, the name, Absalom's place.
7 iv. 3, 4.
8 Lev. xxv. 25.
6 iv. 7.
the books of Kings before the close of the Captivity. 315
in the case of a childless widow involved marriage with
her, is something beyond, not against, the Levitical
law; for the deceased had no brothers left.
The books of Kings close with the life of Jehoiachin,
whom Evilmerodach, in his first year, took out of prison
in the 37th year of his captivity 10. He was then in his
55th year ¹¹. It seems probable that he died within the 2
years of the reign of Evilmerodach, since it is said that
the king, i. e. Evilmerodach, gave him a daily allowance
all the days of his life. The kings of Judah had become a
shortlived race 12. In this case, the last event in the book
falls about B. C. 559, the restoration of Jehoiachin being,
as an act of kindness, a mitigation of their captivity, 22
years before its close. Since the book does not allude to
that close, there is no doubt that it was completed before.
The manner and language of the books fall in with the
Talmudic tradition, that the books of Kings were written.
by Jeremiah 13. The Hebrew of the books of Kings is in-
deed purer than that of Jeremiah, hardly any instance of
what are alleged as Aramaisms occurring in the narra-
tive¹¹. But this, probably, results from the careful embo-
9 Ruth iv. 5.
10 2 Kgs. xxv. 27.
11 He was 18 at his accession.
(2 Kings xxiv. 8.) "Eight," in 2 Chron. Xxxvi. 9, must be an error of a co-
pyist. For he was old enough to do deeds of oppression, if not of blood. (Ezek.
xix. 6, 7.) The long imprisonment too implies more of wilful rebellion against
the king of Babylon, than an 8-year-old child is capable of.
12 Manasseh alone reached 67. (2 Kings xxi. 1.) Jotham died at 41 (Ib.
xv. 33.); Ahaz at 36 (Ib. xvi. 2.); Hezekiah's life was prolonged, but only to
54 (Ib. xviii. 2.); Jehoiakim died at 36. (Ib. xxiii. 36.) (Amon and Josiah do
not come into account here, having been slain, Amon at 24, Ib. xxi. 19; Jo-
siah at 39, Ib. xxii. 1.) Of the uncles of Jehoiachin, Jehoahaz was dead in
Egypt, (Ib. xxiii. 34.) and Zedekiah, who was 3 years older than himself,
(Ib. xxiv. 18.) was doubtless already dead, since he is not mentioned.
13 Baba bathra f. 15. 1.
14, 2 Kings iv. 2. ',, Ib. 7. x, 1 Kgs. xiv. 2, 2 Kgs.iv. 16, 23, viii. 1.
are, of course, in conversation: but so also is ms for s with the affixes oms
2 Kgs. vi. 16. s Ib. iii. 11, 12, viii. 8. and thence perhaps, (though an angel
is speaking,) Ib. i. 15. So is an Ib. v. 18, and (if this were modern)
2 Kgs. vi. 11. (but on see on Jonah p. 250.) There remain only 7,, 2 Kgs.
xv. 10. and the two words ending in †, 1 Kgs. xi. 33, 2 Kgs. xi. 13, (the one
a proper name, the other, the name of an office, ¡y, 7). 20 (2 Kgs. viii,
21,) is probably an error of MSS.
316 Prophetic documents probably embodied in books of
dying of the original documents, so regularly referred to,
which accounts for some variations in the language also.
The carefulness of that embodying is shewn in the reten-
tion of the words "unto this day 1," as to things which,
at the time of the completion of the whole, had ceased to
be; and in the dates, in that the age of the kings of
Israel at their accession is not mentioned, nor that of
Abijam or Asa before Jehoshaphat, whereas it is not omit-
ted as to any king of Judah after Jehoshaphat. Still there
is a certain agreement of style between Jeremiah and the
books of Kings, and even verbal agreement has been no-
ticed where the writer of the books of Kings writes most
reflectively 2. The insertion of the history of the capti-
vities of Judah at the end of Jeremiah 3 is unaccountable,
except on the ground that it was Jeremiah's; and yet the
corresponding statement in the book of Kings is not
a mere abridgement of it, and so is, probably, from the
prophet 5.
4
This however, was but the completion of what, in sub-
stance, existed long before. The basis of the present
books was, from the time of Samuel, furnished by con-
temporary prophets. The history of David was written
by three, Samuel, Nathan, Gad; that of Solomon by
Nathan, Ahijah, Ye'di7; Rehoboam's by Shemaiah and
Iddo 8;
his son Abijah's by Iddo '; Jehoshaphat's by Je-
hu son of Hanani ¹º; Uzziah's and Hezekiah's by Isaiah";
1 Of the position of the staves of the ark in the temple, 1 Kgs. viii. 8; Solo-
mon's levying a tribute of bondservice of the Amorites &c., Ib. ix. 21; the rebel-
lion of Israel against the house of David, xii. 19; of Edom from under the hand
of Judah, 2 Kgs. viii. 22; the disgrace of the house of Baal, 2 Kgs. x. 27. The
name of Joktheel (2 Kgs. xiv. 7.) and the dwelling of the Syrians of Elath
(xvi. 6.) which are mentioned with the same formula, are not necessarily so li-
mited; but still the formula is probably retained out of the old document.
10
266 comp. 2 Kgs. xvii. 14, and Jer. vii. 26; xvii. 15, and Jer. ii. 5 ; xvii. 20,
and Jer. vii. 15." Häv. Einl. ii. 1. p. 171. Häv. also dwells on the corres-
pondence of Jer. xxxix. with 2 Kgs. xxv.; and the way in which both allude
to God's promise to the house of David, His choice of Jerusalem, and the spe-
cial employment of the language of the Pentateuch in both, pp. 171, 2.
3 ch. lii.
4 2 Kgs. xxiv. 18-20, xxv.
61 Chr. xxix. 29.
10 lb. xx. 34.
5 Häv. pp. 172-4.
8 Ib. xii. 15. 9 Ib. xiii. 22.
7 2 Chr. ix. 29.
п Ib. xxvi. 22, xxxii. 32.
Kings. First book of the Psalms, wholly David's. 317
Manasseh's by Chosai 12. These, it is clear, were incor-
porated in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Is-
rael and Judah, so often referred to in the books of Kings.
The books of Kings having been completed in their
present form before the close of the Captivity, then, on
this ground alone, it is clear that the previous books must
have been written from the pre-existing prophetic mate-
rials before that time.
So as to the third division. The Psalms, being intended
for devotional use in the Temple, must have been early
collected. They were needed for that vast elaborate sys-
tem of instrumental and vocal music which David insti-
tuted, setting apart 4000 Levites 13 to praise the Lord with
the instruments which I made, said David, to praise there-
with. The office of those set over them, was to ¹prophesy
with harps, to give thanks and to praise the Lord. The two
first collections or books of the Psalms, 1-41, 42-72, con-
tain only 7 anonymous Psalms. The first is entirely as-
cribed to David, except four anonymous Psalms 15, three
of which are certainly, the fourth probably, his ¹6; the 2nd
in
12 Ib. xxxiii. 19. "Seer of the Lord." The name is according to the ana-
logy of many other Proper names; there is then no reason to assume a rare and
doubtful plural ending, with Kim. The Vulg. and Ch. keep it as an appellative.
13 1 Chr. xxiii. 5.
14 Ib. xxv. 1, 2, 3.
15 Ps. i. ii. x. xxxiii.
16 Ps. ii. is quoted by the collected Apostles (Acts iv. 25,) as David's, not as
a name for the Psalter generally, but specifically, "Who by the mouth of Thy
servant David hast said." It corresponds also with Ps. cx. which our Lord
Himself quotes as David's in a conviction of the Jews, which turns upon the
Psalm's being David's. But Ps. i. is distinctly written as a pair with Ps. ii, as
well as an introduction to the whole Psalter. The Blessed, with which it be-
gins, corresponds with the Blessed with which Ps. i. closes; the end of Ps. i. the
way of the ungodly shall perish, ash bygga, bears on, and ye perish as to the
way, 177 asn, the close of Ps. ii. They correspond too in subject. Each ex-
hibits the 2 classes into which the world is divided, those who accept and those
who reject God, in their way and in their end. Ps. i. describes them in rela-
tion to the Law of God, the one studying and delighting in it, the other, in
practice and in words, scorning and scoffing at it. (i. 1.) Ps. ii. exhibits them
in relation to Christ, the one in concerted rebellion against Him, the other
trusting in Him; the one, His inheritance to the ends of the earth and bless-
ed; the other, perishing. One cannot doubt the unity of the author in the
unity of thought.
Ps. x. is so closely connected with Ps. ix. which is ascribed to David, that
318
Connection of Psalms ix, x, xxxii, xxxiii.
the only question has been, whether it is altogether one Psalm with it. It is
connected with it in outward form, in that both together form a partially al-
phabetic Psalm. In Ps. ix. the alternate verses, 2, 4, 6, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, be-
gin, in the order of the alphabet, with eight of the first eleven letters of the
alphabet, &, 1, 1, 1, 1, n,, ', to which a ninth is to be added, if p, v. 20, is used
to replace; in which case two only, 7, 7, would be omitted. Ps. x. has verses
beginning with 5 out of the remaining eleven. Both Psalms also have verses
where the alphabetic arrangement is broken. The xth, omitting 6 letters, be-
tween the with which it begins and the four last letters (p, 7, w, n, v. 12, 14,
15, 17,) with which it closes, has 3 tetrastichs, (i. e. 2 verses divided in the
middle,) 3, 4; 6, 7; 10, 11; and 3 tristichs (verses divided into 3) 5, 8, 9, cor-
responding to the number of the omitted letters, D, 3, D, y, D, x, and so in a de-
gree marking the omission. The omission in Ps. ix. is also marked by four
verses, successively beginning with 1, of which one only belongs to the alphabe-
tic order. Their subject is the same, the overthrow of the ungodly, who forget
(Ps. ix. 19) and despise God, and oppress the humble and afflicted, (7 ix. 10,
x. 18; else only Ps. lxxiv. 21) who trust in Him. There is a connection too
in their language, as especially in the remarkable phrase, y niny, which oc
curs only in these two Psalms, and which in Ps. x. manifestly refers to Ps. ix.
In Ps. ix. 10 he says, "The Lord will be a refuge at needful times in the trou-
ble." Ps. x. 1. asks, "Why hidest Thou Thyself at needful times in the trou-
ble?" Both end in the same way, the prayer against the prevailing of weak man
(i) against God, (ix. 20, x. 18.) and with the judgment of the heathen, w
,20 .ix קוּמָח יהוה,Both have the appeal .18 לִשְׁפּט יָתוֹם וָרָךְ .16 .x אָבְדוּ גּוֹיִם .20 .ix גּוֹיִם
x. 12. Both Psalms are complete in themselves, and yet are, in structure, es-
sentially different. Ps. ix. is a Psalm of thanksgiving for God's judgments, as
past, and has only two brief prayers, v. 13, 19, 20. Ps. x. describes the wicked
in the period of his prosperity, when he thinks that all things are given into his
hands, and briefly concludes with the judgment. In Ps.ix. the Psalmist thanks
chiefly in his own name, "I will praise thee, &c." (ix. 1, 2, 3, 4, 13, 14,) In Ps.
x. the prayer expressed or implied, and the thanksgiving, are for a class, “the
poor," &c. in the 3rd person. (x. 2, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 17, 18.) In like way, Ps.
ix. 13, 19. declares that God does not "forget (now) the poor;" Ps. x. 12. prays
that He will not, in contrast with the boast of the ungodly that He “has for-
gotten,” x. 11. Ps. ix. speaks of it as an attribute of God, that He “maketh
inquisition for blood," ' ; the turning-point of Ps. x. is the boast of the
ungodly, that God does not enquire vp ba x. 4. wọn xỶ x. 13.
Ps. xxxiii. begins where Ps. xxxii. ended. Ps. xxxii. closes with the ex-
hortation, "rejoice in the Lord, ye righteous, and jubilate, all ye upright in
heart;" Ps. xxxiii. takes up the key in words too used in Ps. xxxii, “Jubilate,
ye righteous, in the Lord," and then follows the wonderful jubilee of praise for
the marvels of His creation and of His Providence, how full the earth is of His
tender mercy; and the whole Psalm has only one brief prayer at the end, mak-
ing, as it were, all this universal love their own. The Psalm appears then to
have been written, as a sequel to Ps. xxxii. Its beginning connects it with
a Psalm of David's; there is a presumption that it is David's, from its being
placed in this first book of Psalms; there is nothing against its being his.
Even Hüpfeld (Ps. T. iv. p. 458.) thinks it probable that the 7 was once
there, and fell out subsequently.
C
2nd and 3rd Books of Psalms.
وو
319
contains, in addition to his', only a kindred Psalm of
Asaph the seer 2 and Psalms of the choir which he insti-
tuted," the sons of Korah "," one of Solomon's 4, and three
anonymous 5. To this second book is subjoined the re-
markable subscription, "The Psalms of David, the son of
Jesse, are ended;" and thereon follow two books, the 3rd
and 4th, each of 17 Psalms, of which the 3rd, i. e. Ps.
73-89, contains one Psalm ascribed to David; the fourth,
i. e. Ps. 90-106, two only. The subscription of the Psalms
of the 2nd book seems to have a bearing on the two follow-
ing books, separating off those books which had most of
David's Psalms, in contrast with those which had fewest.
The third book is, moreover, with the exception of the one
Psalm of David, composed of Psalms attributed to the
sons of Korah 7, and Asaph 8, which it completes, one
Psalm being apparently left uncertain, with a double tra-
ditional title, those, who affixed those titles, being unable
to decide between them and honestly admitting their ina-
bility 9. The 88th Psalm, which is ascribed in the second
title to David's seer, Heman 10, stands by itself also, as
the Psalm expressive of the deepest woe in the whole
Psalter, the only Psalm which ends in unmitigated woe.
The 89th also, alone ascribed to its author, Ethan 1, is
again characteristic, in its lengthened, unwavering, con-
fession to God of His faithfulness, and the unperplexed
simple pleading of the apparent contrast of the actual
1 li-lxv, lxviii-lxx.
2 Ps. 1.
11
3 Ps. xlii. (to which Ps. xliii. is manifestly a sequel) xliv-xlix. 4 Ps. lxxii.
5 Ps. lxvi. lxvii. lxxi. Hüpfeld says, "Perhaps the title, 7 has only drop-
ped out. It is exstant in lxvi. lxvii. in some MSS." Ps. T. iv. p. 459.
6 Ps. lxxxvi.
7 Ps. lxxxiv. lxxxv. lxxxvii.
8 Ps. lxxiii-lxxxiii.
9 In itself the mention of Heman the Ezrahite might, (however insulated
the case,) fix the individual among the sons of Korah who composed the Psalm.
makes מַשְׂכִּיל לְהֵימָן הָאָזְרָחִי and שִׁיר מִזְמוֹר לִבְנֵי קֹרַח ,But the completeness of each title
me think it probable that they are two titles.
10 1 Chr. xxv. 5, 6. add Ib. vi. 33. Eng. 18. Heb.
11 I think (with A. C. H. in Smith, Bibl. Dict. i. 939) that Ethan is probably
the same person as Jeduthun. (“comp. 1 Chr. xv. 17, 19. with xvi. 41, 42,
xxv. 1, 3, 6, 2 Chr. xxxv. 15.") The name, " Jeduthun," "great praise," may
have been formed by David.
320
Gradual formation of the Psalter.
state of things with that promise. The 4th book, on the
contrary, is made up wholly of anonymous Psalms, ex-
cept that of Moses which stands at the head, and the two
of David¹. And then again, in the last large book, i. e.
Ps. 107-150, we have what seem to be gleanings of 15 of
David's Psalms 2, whencesoever they were gathered,
among that larger mass of anonymous Psalms, no other
human author being named, except Solomon 3.
The large proportion of Psalms left anonymous is a
proof of the conscientiousness of the collector in not add-
ing doubtful names. Nay, we know that some Psalms
were David's, which do not bear his name, since Ezra,
probably, relates that, when David brought the ark to
Jerusalem he on that first day gave into the hands of
Asaph and his brethren, to thank the Lord, a Psalm,
whose two component parts in the Psalter5, bear no name.
On this ground too then, it is apparent that these Psalms
were inserted in the third book of the Psalter, before the
time of Ezra, and, if so, before the Captivity. For had
Ezra inserted them, he would have entitled them Psalms
of David, as he does in effect in the Chronicles. The
Psalm ends also with a prayer and doxology, with which
Psalm cvi. is now closed; a Psalm which stands in the
Psalter as a pair with Ps. cv, rehearsing exclusively the
mercies of God to Israel; while Ps. cvi sets forth the in-
gratitude of Israel for those mercies. The prayer and
the doxology form no integral part of Ps. cvi, the doxo-
logy closing the Psalm, like our Gloria Patri, and, with it,
that book of the Psalms.
But the character also of the Psalms in the several
books gives evidence of the gradual formation of the Psal-
ter. In the first of the three books there is no one Psalm,
of any later date than David. The second, in the main,
ends with Solomon; only that, among the Psalms of the
sons of Korah, two are inserted, which seem to corres-
1 Ps. ci. ciii.
cxxxviii—cxlv.
2 Ps. cviii-cx. cxxii. cxxiv. cxxxi. cxxxiii.
3 Ps. cxxvii.
4 1 Chr. xvi. 7.
5 Ps. cv. 1-15, xcvi. 1-13.
6 Ps. cvi. 47, 48.
Fifth book alone implies times after the Captivity. 321
pond best to the time of Jehoshaphat or Hezekiah. In
the 3rd book, there is one Psalm relating to Jehosha-
phat's time, one to Sennacherib's overthrow 9; and two
of Asaph 10, referring to the destruction of Jerusalem,
and the Captivity. But since this collection completed
the Psalms of Asaph, it may be, that later Psalms of one
of the choir of Asaph may have been inserted in the col-
lection. In the great festival of Hezekiah, at the restora-
tion of the worship which Ahaz had suspended ¹¹, he¹² and
the princes commanded the Levites to sing praise unto the
Lord in the words of David and of Asaph the Seer. It
may be that he collected a book of Psalms, as his men13,
we know, collected Proverbs.
11
Yet the fourth book also, which opens with a Psalm of
Moses¹¹, contains only one Psalm 15 belonging to the Cap-
tivity. In the 5th and last book there are, for the first
time, thanksgivings for the restoration from the great
captivity16. The reference to idolatry also, as foreign and
heathen, probably belongs to times when their own na-
tional idolatry had ceased¹7. Some of the gradual Psalms
suit well to the habitual low estate of the returned exiles¹8,
beset by the enemies who hindered the rebuilding of the
temple; one Psalm at least seems to belong to its dedi-
cation 19. The cxixth Psalm, every verse of which, save
one, has one of the ten words, denoting the law20, and every
verse of which, after the introduction, is directed to God,
suits no one so well as the pious restorer of the law, Ezra.
The five Halleluia Psalms, with which the book closes in
one varied thanksgiving, all mourning done away and
7 Ps. xlvi. xlviii, as describing a great gathering and raging of enemies and
their instantaneous dispersion; xlvi. 6, xlviii. 4, 5.
8 Ps. lxxxiii.
11 2 Chr. xxviii. 24.
13 Prov. XXV. 1.
9 Ps. lxxvi.
14 Ps. XC.
10 Ps. lxxiv. lxxix.
12 Ib. xxix. 30.
15 Ps. cii. 16 Ps. cvii. cxxvi. perhaps Ps. cxxix. and cxxxvi.
17 Ps. cxv. CXXXV. 18 Ps. cxx. (alluding probably to the calumnies men-
tioned in Ezra,) exxiii. cxxv. cxxvi. cxxix. cxxx.
19 Ps. cxviii.
20In every verse," is the observation of the Masora on v. 122, "except the
122nd, occurs one of the 10 words, (pointing to the x fundamental command-
Inents of the Law of Sinai, x, 177, ning, ang, oeyip, mpe, myo, nqin, ph, apoN,
(another reading, pay.") Delitzsch, Psalmen, ii. 187. note.
Y
322 No one Psalm contains any indication of the Maccabee
1
even prayer for the time absorbed in praise ¹, suits no time
so well as the completed restoration under Nehemiah,
when the Lord built up Jerusalem and strengthened the
bars of her gates.
These facts, that the Psalms were gradually collected;
that their earlier portions were the oldest; that the latest
belong to the times shortly after the Captivity; and that
there are no Maccabee Psalms; have impressed critics,
whose interest it was to maintain their later date, in or-
der to establish the late closing of the Canon.
I will give the summary of one of this school; " All the
later Psalms, which admit of or require an historical ex-
planation, can be perfectly explained out of the history
of Israel down to Nehemiah, and can only be explained.
out of it. A reference to later relations does not hold
good, even as matter of interpretation." The Psalms.
most plausibly, as he thinks, alleged ³, "are all Psalms of
penitence or complaint to God; in all, the congregation,
in its strait, calls on its God for help. Throughout, those
who so pray speak of themselves, as the congregation,
the whole of it. There is not the faintest hint of a divi-
sion of the people into two portions, contending against
each other with extremest embitterment, which division
is acknowledged to have lasted during the whole of the
Maccabee wars. No one hint is there of the foreign ene-
my of the Maccabee combatants, Greek heathenism, and
the Syrians. The main points at issue then, the being
or not-being of the true religion, abolition of the worship
of God, prohibition of the keeping of the sabbaths and
festivals, annihilation of the book of the law and of the
other holy books, eating of unclean food, sacrificing to
heathen gods, acceptance of the Greek religion, martyr-
dom of so many of the godly, are no where even alluded
to, (for even the words Ps. xliv. 23, Ixxiv. 9. are far too
¹ Hengst. Delitzsch. See Ewald, Poet. Büch. i. 188 sqq.
2 Dillmann, üb. d. Bildung d. Sammlung d. heil. Schr. d. A. T. in Dorner,
Jahrb. d. Deutsch. Theol. iii. 460-462.
3 Ps. xliv. lx. lxxiv. lxxix. lxxx. lxxxiii.
4 Dillmann adds, "which the book of Daniel describes clearly enough."
period; those selected as such belong to the Captivity. 323
weak for this.) The expressions, Thine enemies, O God ;
the enemy blasphemeth the name of God; arise, O God,
plead Thine own cause; and the like, are far from esta-
blishing that those wars were properly religious wars;
else many other passages of the Psalms and of the rest of
the Old Testament must be referred to the Syrian reli-
gious war. Then too we read nothing of appeals to vic-
tories already won by them over these adversaries, which
could not fail in hymns of Maccabee warriors: on the con-
trary, Ps. xliv. 2-9. refers back to God's deliverances in
old times, as the ground of the fresh entreaty. Contra-
riwise, most of these Psalms 5 contain clear references
to the Captivity, lament over the still-continuing aban-
donment to the Heathen, or pray for fuller restoration
out of banishment;-prayers and laments, removed far
enough from the Maccabee times. Others allude to the
mockery and malicious joy of the neighbouring people
at the ill-treatment of Israel through the peoples and
kingdoms, just as it happened at the time of the destruc-
tion of Jerusalem by the Chaldæans7. Almost all exhi-
bit the condition bewailed, as one which had long lasted;
they entreat, that God would not be angry for ever, would
now at the last help, would no longer behold with indif-
ference the long-enduring miserys. What meaning could
such expressions have in the period, to which the modern
expositors would force these Psalms down?"
6
The LXX translation of the Psalms is in itself a clear
evidence, that the Psalter, together with its titles, existed
long before it, for it misunderstands many of the titles";
yet, of course, the translators of the Psalms would be
among the best of their day, since the use of the Psalms
5 Ps. xliv. 12 sqq. 15. lx. 3, lxxix. 11, lxxx. 6 Ps. xliv. 14, lxxix. 4 sqq. 12.
7 Ezek. xxv, Jer. xlix. 7, Obadiah, Is. xxxiv, lxiii, Ps. cxxxvii.
8 See the expressions Ps. xliv. 24, lxxiv. 1, 3, 10, 19, lxxix. 5, lxxx. 5.
9 Ewald uses this argument, Poet. Büch. i. 206, "The translator of the
LXX. followed, in the Psalter, a MS., which only in less important things de-
parts from the Masorethic text, yet, in the inscriptions, this latest part of the
whole, [as Ewald thinks,] misunderstands much, or alters it on his own au-
thority; whence it follows that a considerable space must have elapsed between
its date and that of the completion of the present book."
Y 2
324 Psalter translated by LXX before Maccabees.
entered into the congregational as well as the personal
religious life of the Hebrew, as of ours. The translation,
however, of the LXX. was made long before the Greek
of the first book of the Maccabees, since Ps. 79. is quoted
in that book by memory from the Greek translation ¹, and
so must have been already familiar to the Alexandrian
Jews. Probably, the translation was completed before
the Maccabee times.
If completed before the Maccabee times, it is an evi-
dence, of course, that the whole Psalter was then com-
pleted; if not, it would still be remarkable, that, ascribing
four Psalms, in the Greek five, to Haggai and Zechariah 2,
they knew of no later author; whereas, had any Psalm in
the Canon been written in Maccabee times, it must have
been written by a contemporary.
The book of Proverbs also bears evidence of gradual
collection. The statement prefixed to the third portion
of it, that "the men of Hezekiah transcribed them," is
of course evidence, that the two former portions, which
are identical in language, were formed into one whole be-
fore that time. "The men of Hezekiah transferred "
them from one written document to another, i. e. from a
written collection, previously existing, to that in the Ca-
The words, "These also are proverbs of Solomon,"
imply plainly that, in the belief of the persons so trans-
1 1 Macc. vii. 17. Σάρκας ὁσίων σου καὶ αἵματα αὐτῶν ἐξέχεαν κύκλῳ Ἱερουσαλὴμ
καὶ οὐκ ἦν αὐτοῖς ὁ θάπτων. Ps.lxxviii. 2, 3. LXX. τὰς σάρκας τῶν ὁσίων σου
τοῖς θηρίοις τῆς γῆς. Ἐξέχεαν τὸ αἷμα αὐτῶν ὡς ὕδωρ κύκλῳ Ἱερουσαλήμ, καὶ
οὐκ ἦν ὁ θάπτων.
non.
4
2 Ps. cxlv-viii. [cxlvi-viii. Heb. Eng.] They add also the name of Haggai
and Zechariah to that of David before Ps. cxxxvii., ψαλμὸς τῷ Δαυὶδ Αγγαίου
kal Zaxapíov, in the same form as they do that of Jeremiah to Ps. cxxxvi.
[exxxvii. Heb. Eng.] τῷ Δαυίδ Ἱερεμίου.
3 Prov. xxv. 1. pay, “removed," then "transferred" from one place to ano-
ther. It means then, not simply "copied out," but "copied into," i. e. into
the book already existing. Meтnpav Aq., transtulerunt LXX., μetýveykav Gr.
Ven., eуpáчavTo LXX. Gesenius himself quotes from Buxtorf, p. 686. that
the Talm. pлyn is either "transcribed," or translated," (Buxtorf gives 'p'пYD
"translators.") It is then an arbitrary quid pro quo, when to the right expla-
nation, "transcripsit ex uno libro in alium," Gesenius adds a wholly different
meaning, "inde i. q. congessit."
גַּם אַלָּה 4
Proverbs ch. xxx, xxxi. alone can be after Hezekiah. 325
ferring, both collections, both that into which the pro-
verbs were so transferred, and the proverbs themselves
which were transferred, were Solomon's. There remain
then only the two last chapters, inscribed severally, “the
words of Agur" and "the words of king Lemuel,” (obvi-
ously a symbolical name",) which can have been admitted
into the book later than Hezekiah. Both are entitled by
names, claiming for them Divine inspiration, although
we have no data as to the authors.
It is mostly admitted now by the revolutionary school,
that the book of Job is any how earlier than the Proverbs,
in which Solomon uses some, although but little, of its
language and idioms 7. The adoption of its language by
לְמוּאֵל
5 xxxi. 1, by Ib. 4, "unto God," i. e. devoted to God, after the ana-
logy of , Num. iii. 24. The idea, that Lemuel is said to be "king of Mas-
sah," is, in Germany, probably now confined to Hitzig. The imaginary king-
dom was founded on the mention of Massa among the sons of Ishmael, Gen.
xxv. 14, 1 Chr. i. 30. The stress, laid upon the name Ithiel," God is,” “God
is,” would incline one to think that it too might be symbolical, in contradic-
tion to some school of unbelief, against which the beginning of the chapter,
v. 2-6, is directed. With this the other name, Ucal, "I am enabled,” (Sax,
other copies p) would, though not obviously, agree. But even then,
if my too could (like nap Eccl. i. 1.) be a symbolical name for Solomon, (“col-
lector," as St. Jerome's teacher and Judah ben Karish explained it,) it would
still be a degree of symbolism beyond what one would expect, that the son
of Yakeh, which looks like a real genealogy, should be symbolic too.
for
6
.1 .xxxi מַשָׂא .1 .XXX נְאֻם and הַמַּשָׂא
7 Some few of the instances given by Keil (Häv. Einl. iii. p. 354.) seem to
me satisfactory. Job xv. 7. abhin niya? Prov. viii. 25. pin... Job xxi. 17.
,18 .In Job xxviii .נֵר רְשָׁעִים יִרְעָךְ .20 .xxiv וְנֵר רְשָׁעִים יִרְעָךְ .9 .Prov. xiii כַּמָּה נֵר רְשָׁעִים יִרְעָךְ
יהוה אַל תִּמְאָס
Prov. iii. 15. the only resemblance is the setting the value of wisdom above □ş;
and this the Kethib in Prov. writes D. In Job v. 17. oyda by my pada, Prov.
iii. 11. ONDA by up map, the resemblance is in very simple words. Of single
words, in common to them only, niņa “guidances,” (of God, Job xxxvii. 12.)
(written ribana) Prov. i. 5, xi. 14, xx. 18, xxiv. 6. in a good sense; xii. 5. in a
bad sense:7,"destruction," Job xxx. 24, xxxi. 29, Prov. xxiv. 22. (Arab.): mean
solid wisdom," Job v. 12, vi. 13, xi. 6, xii. 16, xxvi. 3, xxx. 22, Prov. ii. 7,
iii. 21, viii. 14, xviii. 1. (else in Mic. vi. 9, Is. xxviii. 29 only:) jag “Abaddon,”
Kri.( Keth.) "place of destruction," Job xxvi. 6, xxviii. 22, xxxi. 12, Prov.
xv. 11, xxvii. 20, also Ps. lxxxviii. 12, and still more the thought, Job xxvi. 6,
Prov. xv. 11, are characteristic. Less so, are
“are crushed in the gate,”
Job v. 1; we by s27 by "crush not the poor in the gate," Prov. xxii. 22. Of
the rest, the use of the form by, once in Proverbs, vii. 18, twice in Job,
(whereas the Proverbs have also by once, and by twice,) seems to me not cha-
עָנִי
326
Job quoted from early times.
David¹, Solomon, Amos, Isaiah 3, Jeremiah 4, attests
that it was received as a sacred book. Each case is slight
in itself; together, they shew that the book was quoted
from early times.
The antiquity of the Canticles is conceded by those who,
without ground, question that it is Solomon's. No one
had any interest to question the age of the Lamentations
of Jeremiah. Only one or two5 raised an unheeded doubt,
racteristic ; nor "foolish," "one easily misled," Job v. 2; but probably, "en-
ticing,” i. q. Piel, Prov. xx. 19; nor 7x, Job xxxiii.7, (LXX Kim.i. q. 79, as "yix
for 'yi, oth. “weight," from 757, bowed,") comp. x, with by, "impelled,”
Prov. xvi. 26; nor лņ “drink,” i. e. “iniquity like water," Job xv. 16, “scorn-
ing like water," Ib. xxxiv. 7; in which two places the idea is of eagerness,
whereas "drinking damage," Prov. xxvi. 6, is against one's will. Of those
יִרְאַת אֲדֹנָי הִיא חָכְמָה .28 .Job xxviii יִרְאַת י רֵאשִׁית דָּעַת .7 .quoted by others, Prov. i
there is, in the words, not more than unavoidable resemblance. So again in
Job xxii. 29, and Prov. xvi. 18, xviii. 12, xxix. 23. In Job xiii. 5, the wisdom of
silence is real, in Prov. xvii. 28, only apparent; the thought that the perfection
of God is higher than heaven, deeper than hell, Sixwp mapy, Job xi. 8, has no
bearing on Prov. ix. 18, "her guests are in the depths of hell;"Sing 'ppyp. Of
like words for "calamity" Job vi. 2, xxx. 13. has Keth. Prov. xix. 13, n.
¹ Ps. xxxix. 14. has different reminiscences of Job's language; n wiŋ, Job
יָשִׁית מִמֶּנִּי וְאַבְלִינָה מְעַט בְּטֶרֶם .1 ,20 .Job x ,וְאַבְלִינָה בְּטֶרֶם אֵלֶךְ ; כַּמָּה לֹא תִשְׁעֶה מִמָּנִי .19 .vii
יִרְאוּ צַדִּיקִים וְיִשְׂמָחוּ .19 .xxii
b. Ps. Ixix. 33.
resembles in thought, partly in word, Job
Ps. ciii. 16. iipy & is identical with Job
vii. 10. Ps. lviii. 9. we un bangs by reminds of Job iii. 16. why wobbup-be1p;
and Ps. ciii. 15, has the special comparison of man's brief life with the py, in
.Job כְּצִיץ יָצָא וַיִּמָּל .Ps כְּצִיץ הַשָׂרָה כֵּן יָצִיץ .2 .common with Job xiv
2 Am. iv. 13, by an looks like a reminiscence of Job ix. 8, by 777
'n which is the bolder expression, and Amos has in the same verse the word,
בְּמְתֵי יָם
, which else occurs only in the form лy, Job x. 22.
,עשֵׂה כִימָה וּכְסִיל,8 .In v
Amos combines the same constellations as Job xxxviii. 31, and in the words
of Job ix. 9, only omitting wy, na) Spawy nyy. Keil in Häv. iii. 353.
.Is הָרוֹ עָמָל וְהוֹלֵי אָוֶן ;11 .Is. xix. 5. is verbatim from Job xiv וְנָהָר יָחֲרַב וְיָבֵשׁ 3
lix. 4. seems to be from Job xv. 35. ps hy by nha, Keil Ib.
4 The likeness in Jeremiah seems to me to lie chiefly in the woe on the day
of his birth, Jer. xx. 14-18. from Job iii. Of other places quoted, in Jer. xx.
7, 8, Job xil. 4. the specific likeness is only in the ping? 'n' Jer. ngay phy Job.
Jer. xlix. 19, and Job ix. 19, have 7; Lam. ii. 16, and Job xvi. 9, 10,
xxvii. 23, have no characteristic expression in common; Lam. iii. 14, and Job
xxx. 9, both say that the speaker is on; Lam. iii. 7, 9, and Job xix. 7, 8,
the unbeard cry; Lam. iii. 15. and Job ix. 18. have an idiom almost identical,
Job, and אָרְחִי גָדַר .Lam גָדַר דְּרָכִי בְּנָזִית, נָדַר בַּעֲדִי,in common נָדַר have only the worel
.Iam הִשְׂבִּיעַנִי בַמְּרוֹרִים,Job יַשְׂבִּיעַנִי מַמְּרֹרִים
5 Augusti, (Einl.) Conz, (in Bengel's Archiv. B. iv.) Kalkar (Lam. pp. 57 sqq.)
and Thenius, (Comm. p. 120.) chiefly on the ground that it is improbable, that
Arguments for lateness of Ecclesiastes invalid. 327
to vindicate the sovereign power of criticism to call every
thing sacred into question.
The basis then of the third division of the Canon was
beyond question laid before the Captivity, Job, the Pro-
verbs, except, at most, the last two chapters, the larger
portion of the Psalms; the Canticles; and probably the
Lamentations. Ruth occupied originally its place as the
sequel of the Judges, and was removed here, only on ac-
count of its festival use, together with the four other Me-
gilloth. Ecclesiastes alone is questioned.
Ecclesiastes would probably never have been question-
ed, but that, on the one hand, it contained so clearly the
doctrine of a future judgment and retribution according
to our works; on the other hand, people gained a plea
for the result which they wished, by ignoring the simple
fact, that language must be adapted to its subject. Most
of the words, selected to prove its late date, are simply
abstract words, formed naturally from ordinary Hebrew
roots 6. No one word has been found to characterise an
age later than Solomon's.
a poet should write five times on the same subject." Stähelin accounted
"the question as of no great moment, since they any how belonged to the time
of Jeremiah, and confessedly had his language." Einl. p. 285.
6 Several of Gesenius' list of words, which were to prove the late date of Ec-
clesiastes, were such abstract words, ending in }, },, Л, Gesch. d. Hebr. Sprache,
p. 36, a work written, if any ever was, in support of preconceived opinions,
only, in his case, anti-doctrinal.
The invalidity of such proof was, at last, observed by Herzfeld, who, in 1838,
swept away most of the rubbish which had hitherto been relied upon. (Kohe-
leth, pp. 12-22.) He, however, had the same anti-doctrinal prejudice, that the Bi-
ble was indebted to Magianism for the belief in the life to come. (Gesch. Isr.
ii. 305.) And so, on that ground, it was to be written after the captivity. (Ib.
ii. 66.) He admits that, "the Chaldaisms in it would not require that it should
be brought lower than the time of the Chaldee invasions; only (he adds) the
stage at which the doctrine of immortality appears in it, and its 11 or 15 mo-
dern Hebrew expressions speak for its having been composed, at least a cen-
tury after the Captivity.” (Ib. 67.) Six only of the words accumulated by his
predecessors, as marks of modern Hebrew, passed muster with him. 1) The in-
terjection ș, “woe," iv. 10, x. 16. an onomapoeticum, which must have been
very old in the language, since the word (of some shrill-voiced bird in Lev.
and Deut.) is formed from it. Both it and * lived on in Talmudic. 2) Granting
that ", for g, is Phoenician and old, the conjunction by viii. 17. is to be mo-
328 Invalid arguments from language or history,
The Canon then was almost completed before the re-
turn from the captivity. Of the books of the former pro-
dern. But too is Phoenician. See Ges. Thes. p. 1346, and my Introd. to
Jonah, p. 250. 3) is to be modern, " because it only occurs besides in Esth.
iv. 16;" and 4), vi. 6, "because it only occurs besides in Esth. vii. 4, and
the coalition of two conjunctions points to a late time. Ew. Kr. Gr. 632 n. 7.”
It is utterly unlikely that should be a compound of □ and ; 1. because they
are incompatible conjunctions; 2. because (for) is a simple conjunction in
Ch. Syr. Sam. And very probably in Hebrew is the same conjunction, only
pointed wrong. Both and are rare conjunctions; but there is no prin-
ciple on which 1 should be thought to be late, being formed in the same way
as 1pb, ¡p-by, 19-'70s. It has a meaning, which there was not often occasion to
express in the simple construction of Hebrew, "it being thus." In Esther both
words occur in conversation. 5) "y, occurring x. 20, and else only in Daniel
and Chronicles, instead of the old ny or np." But yap, Eccl. x. 20, is not
"knowledge," but "the place of knowledge," "conscience." It is the word
by which (as Gesenius remarks) the Peshito renders ovveídnois, 2 Cor. v. 11.
Neither ny, "knowledge," nor vn, “device, purpose," would have expres-
sed the idea. 6)", as a particle of comparison, whereas, earlier, the com-
parison had been expressed by the syntax only." It is clear from the cases in
which occurs, that it is no mere particle of comparison. "Wisdom is good
with (i. e. as) an inheritance; and better (i) to them that see the sun.”
(vii. 11.) "And more than these," neni, Eccl. xii. 12. nyo ni
over and
above that."
עָמַרל
מִלִפְנֵי
The expressions which Herzfeld himself adds are of no more account; 1)
“stand for,” (ii. 9.) is a genuine Hebrew use of ↳. 2) 87, (instead
of 1,) iii. 14, viii. 12, 13. recurs, he says, in 1 Sam. xviii. 12; which is an odd
argument for its lateness. Probably Solomon used the word, thinking of the
presence of God. 3), city, lit. “ place of jurisdiction," and hence used alike
of cities and provinces; of which Solomon, ruling to the Euphrates, doubtless
had many. (See further Note B at the end.) 4) He allows that the root w is
not modern, since, in Ps. Ixviii. 7, there is ning and in Prov. xxxi. 19. p, and
so, since abstracts are so much used in Eccl., jing (Eccl. ii. 21, iv. 4, v. 10,) need
not be modern; but (equally abstract,) "making to prosper," x. 10, is to
be modern, because it is part of the verb. (Herzf. Koh. p. 18.) 5) and lastly,
the use of the personal pronoun with the personal verb, ay. Of course, if
it is emphatic, it is no mark at all of modernness. Solomon is giving his own
personal experience, in a matter in which no other had experience so large, of
the vanity of every thing human, out of God. If any one will examine the
cases in which is added, and those in which it is not, in Ecclesiastes, he will
see that it has been added, not pleonastically, but on a definite principle. The
occurrences of eleven such words could not be the real ground of making Eccle-
siastes one of the latest books in the Canon.
In regard to the so-called Chaldee, or foreign, words; 1) "ditch," x. 10,
□y ♫♫?
2) "doings," ix. 1, both äπ. λey. and 3) "formerly," 7 times in Eccl.
and peculiar to it, occur in Syriac also, in Nasor. too; 4) Dan viii. 11, is a
foreign word, older than Pehlevi, naturalised in Syriac equally. 5) ↳, Eccl. xii.
to disprove that Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes.
329
phets, or historical books, the Kings at most had yet to
be formally added to it. Of the later prophets, there re-
3, is a Semitic word common to every dialect, Arab. Æth. Melit. Syr. Ch. Zab.
see Ges. 6) kaιpós (Eccl. iii. 1,) is also common to Arab. Eth. Melit. as
well as Chald.; the also remains in Sam., although in the present Syr. and Zab.
it is ; also would not (as Ges. says it would) represent it, for yi is "ap-
pointed time," 1, Eccl. iii. 1, is "fitting time." There remain then only the
punctuations of xyin vii. 26, xgh viii. 12, ix. 18; and the interchange of the n
for the x, in ; (viii. 1.) x97? (x. 4.) xyi (x. 5.) ; and this, "although, in un-
questioned Hebrew books, verbs and n borrow each others' forms, yet, on
the ground of the more frequent borrowing." Yet of the five words, in
the x is not "borrowed" but original, as is attested by the Phoen. and Arab.
(See Ges.) It occurs also twice in the Proverbs, xiv. 30, xv. 4.
The punc-
tuation of x and xyi, Herzfeld himself rightly calls "Syriac." (p. 120.) Syria
was part of Solomon's dominions; what marvel then in a few Syriac words?
Herzfeld himself would not make these Aramaic words (there is not one purely
Chaldee among them) any test of such extreme lateness of the book, as would
bear upon the history of the Canon.
"Nor was
Solomon is
As to history, it is said that "Solomon, whose father had chosen Jerusalem
for a residence, could not say, i. 16, ii. 7. above every one who was before me
in Jerusalem." Solomon does not even say, "every king," but Jerusalem was
an ancient city, and was a royal city at the time of the Exodus, probably in
that of Abraham. (Gen. xiv. 18.) It strengthens his statement, that in those
centuries, patriarchal, heathen, and lately Hebrew, none had made such trial
as himself, and he too had failed. "Nor could he recommend (viii. 5, 6. ) to
wait circumspectly the opportunity for rebellion against a tyrant." Solomon
does not recommend it, but submission. (viii. 1-5.) "Judgment,” (vezi?,) 5, 6.
is not man's but God's. Nor could he give a description of princely glut-
tons." (x. 16, 17.) He gives no such description; why should not God move
him, as much as Isaiah, to speak of the woe of princely petulance and intem-
perance, and the blessedness of their nobility and temperance? Well had it
been for Rehoboam, had he followed the warning against petulance.
the people in his time so unhappy as is presupposed in iv. 1, v. 7.”
speaking of individual cases, and doubtless in such large rule, ill held together,
there were cases of oppression. The next argument Herzfeld answers him-
self. "The complaints against unjust judges, iii. 17, violence, iv. 1, v. 7. [8
Eng.,] unworthy filling of posts of honour, x. 5-7, have often been urged against
a royal authorship; contrariwise, it might be said, that all this does not ap-
pear unsuited to a regent, who has taken the point of view of a popular teacher ;
yet, taken together with the other arguments against Solomon's authorship, it
has some weight." He wrote the book, not as a royal teacher, but as a royal
penitent, and in him it would be unnatural not to refer to the past misgo-
vernment. Lastly, comes the real ground; "Further, the assumption of the
return of the soul to God hereafter, which is questioned iii. 21, yet popular
enough to be spoken of in writing for the people, and which is even victorious,
xii. 7, cannot be ascribed to Solomon, since after him no trace of it re-appears
until after the captivity.” (!) On this subject see Lect. viii, pp. 497-512.
330 Book of Esther written by a contemporary;
mained, perhaps, the formal reception of Ezekiel; the
three last prophets only had not yet been sent¹. Of the
hagiographa, there remained the collection of some later
Psalms; some, in the last book of the Psalms, were not yet
written; Daniel perhaps was then formally added; the
historical books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, the Chroni-
cles, alone were as yet unwritten.
In no one of these books is there any thing, which re-
quires a date later than that which Josephus probably
meant to fix, the date of Malachi and of the second visit
of Nehemiah.
The book of Esther marks itself to have been written
by a contemporary. With this agrees the very accurate
yet simple description of Persian customs, entering na-
turally into minute details2; its exact yet incidental agree-
ment with the chronology of the reign of Ahasuerus,
(in Greek, Xerxes ;) the touching traits of her relation to
her uncle Mordecai. The difficulties alleged are but illus-
trations of its accuracy. Ending, as it does, with the ele-
3
1 On Jonah see the Introduction to Jonah, pp. 247 sqq; on Obadiah, the In-
troduction, pp. 227 sqq. Those who rend off from Isaiah such chapters as they
see good, still admit them to have been written and received before the return
from the captivity.
2 Heeren, looking upon it, (as the way then was in Germany,) as a fictitious
narrative, yet allowed that it was "a faithful picture of the manners of the Per-
sian Court." (i. 1. p. 132.) “The interior of the Harem is pictured to us most
exactly in the history of Esther." (Ib. 466.) Baumgarten, de fide libri Esther,
pointed out in detail the agreement with Persian customs; then Hävernick,
Einl. § 192,"on the historical character of the book Esther," pp. 338-357; so
that even Stähelin accepts the history, § 51.
3 Achashverosh (Esth. i. 1, &c) is formed from the Persian Kh.sh.w.e.r.sh.e.
(see Grotefend in Ges. p. 75,) only by the addition of vowels, which should make
it pronounceable in Hebrew. "That Ahasuerus is Xerxes remains the most
probable opinion, and will be the more confirmed, when we compare with it
the old Persian form." Lassen, D. Altpers. Keilschr. pp. 33 sqq. Rödiger (App.
p. 68.) gives it KH.SHa.Y.A.R.SH.A. from Lassen, p. 165, with which Sir
H. Rawlinson agrees. (in Rawl. Her. iv. p. 264.) The feast given in the 3rd
year (Esth. i. 3.) agrees with the special "assembly of the noblest Persians,"
(Her. vii. 8.) which followed on the subdual of Egypt, which was in his second;
(Ib. vii. 7.) but Esther did not become Queen till the close of his 7th year,
(Esth. ii. 16,) when the king returned to Susa, after the battle of Platea.
(Her. ix. 107, 8.)
the Chronicles prior to book of Ezra & by its author. 331
vation of Mordecai ¹, and appealing for further accounts
to the Chronicles of Media and Persia 5, it was very pro-
bably written by Mordecai himself; and it would be an
unmarked coincidence, that the historical books of the
times in or after the captivity, the historical parts of Da-
niel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, were written by those con-
cerned in them. The book of Esther does not imply that
it was written by Mordecai, but it does that it was writ-
ten very shortly after the events 6.
The books of Chronicles are marked to have been writ-
ten prior to the book of Ezra by their close. Ezra, by re-
peating, at the begininng of this book, the two verses with
which he had closed the books of Chronicles, identifies
the two works. He breaks off the Chronicles in the mid-
dle of the decree of Cyrus, yet so as to give a perfect
sense; and begins the book which bears his name, with
those two verses, finishing the decree of Cyrus, so far as
relates to his then object, the permission to return. A
similarity of style and object has been observed between
the books; so that believing and unbelieving critics 7
have been agreed, that they were written by the same
hand. The only question, of late, has been, whether Ezra
is the author of both, or whether both have been com-
piled by a later hand 8.
• Esth. x. 3.
5 Ib. 2.
6 Ib. ix. 30-32." And he (Mordecai) sent the letters unto all the Jews in the
127 Provinces of the kingdom of Ahasuerus, words of peace and truth, to con-
firm these days of Purim in their times, as Mordecai the Jew and Esther the
Queen confirmed them, and as they had confirmed them for themselves and
for their seed, the matters of the fastings and of their cry, and the word of Es-
ther confirmed these matters of Purim; and it was written in the book.”
The expression, "and it was written in the book," implies that it was a conse-
quence, which followed upon what preceded, as we should say, so it was writ-
ten,” &c; and the book can, I think, be no other than this our book of Esther.
7 Zunz, (Gottesd. Vortr. pp. 21-24.) Ewald, (Gesch. Isr. i. 252,3.) and still
more Stähelin, (Einl. § 45.) are at pains to shew the identity of the authors
of the books of Ezra and the Chronicles. Herzfeld (Gesch. Isr. Excurs 2.
p. 302.)says, “I agree perfectly with the result of Zunz, even although not with
all his proofs."
8 "It is indeed commonly accepted, that at least Ezra vii. 27—ix. comes
from Ezra himself; but the too close relationship of this section with the pre-
332 One genealogy alleged to prove the Chronicles later
The only plea, alleged for assigning a later date to the
books of Chronicles, has been obtained by making the
genealogy, at the close of the 3rd chapter of the first
book¹, consecutive, which any one can see, even from a
translation, that it is not. In this way, six generations
were obtained after Zerubbabel, and the date was carried
down to the end of the Persian Empire in the time of
Alexander. Yet there is a manifest break at the 2nd
generation after Zerubbabel; " And the sons of Hana-
niah, Pelatiah and Iesaiah." There his genealogy closes.
What follows, "the sons of Rephaiah, the sons of Arnan,
the sons of Obadiah, the sons of Shechaniah," obvious-
ly stands in no relation to what went before, since no
parent of any of those named, Rephaiah, Arnan, Obadiah,
or Shechaniah, had been mentioned. The phrase, "the
sons of Shechaniah," and the like, throughout this gene-
alogy, introduces the next link of the genealogy down-
wards. These families stand in no connection with that
of Zerubbabel. The want of relation to the preceding,
and of any grammatical connection with it, gives to the
section the appearance of an ancient gloss 3. Yet even
ceding [part of Ezra] to my mind speaks against it, unless indeed one were to
accept, that all, and so the Chronicles too, comes from Ezra, which, on account
of the genealogy, 1 Chron. iii. 18 sqq. is not possible." Stähelin, p. 161. Even
Zunz, (p. 28.) Herzfeld, (p. 316.) Ewald, (i. 258.) grant that Ezr. vii. 27—ix.
fin. is Ezra's, (except that Herzfeld deducts viii. 35, 6). Zunz adds iv. 1-6. x.
18-44. Herzfeld says, "whether x. 18-44. was in Ezra's document, or was ap-
pended from some other source, can naturally not be made out." (p. 306.) They
all agree that the rest is by the writer of the Chronicles.
1 1 Chr. iii. 21-24.
2 ver. 21.
3 This was the opinion not only of the older critical school, Vitringa, Hei-
degger, Carpzov, but even of Le Clerc, I. D. Michaelis, (Bibl. Or. T. xx. p. 28.)
and Eichhorn. (Einl. iii. 596. ed. 4. quoted by Keil, Apol. Vers. p. 45.) Herz-
feld too says, "A further descent [than Pelatiah and Ieshaia] is evidently not
given there; the 'sons' of Rephaia, of Arnan, Obadiahı, and Shechaniah, are
doubtless families descended from David, whose descent the writer of the Chro-
nicles either could not or would not specify, and which he therefore only re-
counts, parallel with one another." (Gesch. Isr. Excurs 8. pp. 378,9.) De Wette
too who, (ed. 2.) in 1822, said positively, "the genealogy of Serubabel is
(1 Chr. iii. 19-24.) carried down to the time of Alexander,” (§ 189.) modified the
statement. "In the (it must be confessed) confused passage, 1 Chr. iii. 19-24,
the genealogy of the house of David is carried down to the 2nd generation after
than Ezra; plain words of the text do not prove it. 333
if it be part of the book, the six generations, required to
bring down the date of the books of Chronicles, are only
obtained by introducing into the text what is not there,
viz. that Shechaniah, whose sons are mentioned, was
himself the son of Hananiah. Ezra speaks of the "sons
of Shechaniah "," as a well-known family, at the time of
the return from the captivity, without mentioning any
genealogy of their's. Probably they were too well known
Serubabel, and doubtless yet further;" he acknowledges, "the passage is
commonly looked upon as a later addition," ed. 7. 1852. Ewald (Gesch. Isr.
i. 229. ed. 2.) says, that the "order is difficult to be recognised," but gives it,
without explanation, as positively as if there were no difficulty; "the some-
what-difficult-to-be-recognised consecutive order is, 1 Zerubabel, 2 Chananiah,
3 Shechaniah, &c," overleaping the difficulty. Bleek says, equally without at-
tempting any explanation, "The passage is not quite clear; the text too is
not certain, since the LXX differs from the Hebrew text. Yet probably the
last is in the main the original. There too, according to the most probable in-
terpretation, it is contained that, after Serubabel, 6 generations of his descend-
ants are cited." (Einl. p. 395.) Stähelin only appeals to I Chr. ii. 42. The
sons of Caleb the brother of Jerahmeel were, Mesha, his first-born, which was
the father of Ziph, and the sons of Mareshah the father of Hebron." But this
passage is itself obscure; for Mareshah is not before mentioned among the sons
of "Caleb, brother of Jerahmeel," ii. 18-24, where his sons by three, if not four,
wives are mentioned and even a posthumous child, v. 24. In an early forefa-
ther like Caleb, the grandfather of Caleb the spy, it is natural to class a whole
family of descendants in one. A Scotchman might say of a distant forefather,
that he was "the father of the Stewarts, or the Campbells," &c. but it would
not be said, in any near interval, when families had not had time to ramify.
Moreover in 1 Chr. ii. 42, the words stand connected, "The sons of Caleb the
brother of Jerahmeel were Mesha his first born-and the sons of Mareshah.”
The very way of speaking implies a tradition, that "the sons of Mareshah
were known traditionally to be descended from this Caleb, but that the links
were lost. In iii. 21, "the sons of Rephaiah, &c." are not connected. They
stand quite distinct. On the same ground then, that we believe “the sons of
Mareshah" to have been descendants of that Caleb, viz. that they stand con-
nected with one who is stated to have been his descendant, we believe that the
sons of Rephaiah, &c. were not descendants of Hananiah, because it is not ex-
pressed that they are, in the way in which the author of the Chronicles, in
the like case, expressed it.
+ If 21-24 is part of the text, it must be pointed; "And the sons of Hana-
niah, Pelatiah and Iesaiah. The sons of Rephaiah, the sons of Arnan, the sons
of Obadiah, the sons of Shechaniah. And the sons of Shechaniah, Shemaiah,
&c." In this way, although the statement is rather abrupt, they would star.d
as Davidic families, of which the writer, in any case, gives the succession of the
last only.
5 viii. 3.
334 The Chronicles refer to nothing later than Ezra.
to need it. He mentions Hattush apparently as one "of
the sons of Shechaniah." If, (as seems probable,) he is
the same person as Hattush in the Chronicles, he would
be at least a grandson of Shechaniah 2, but could not be
the grandson's grandson of Zerubbabel, who returned 79
years before. If he be the same Hattush, then the ge-
nerations in the Chronicles go down to the great nephew
of one who returned with Ezra ; which, as nothing is
said of the age of Hattush at his return, involves no later
date than Ezra may have seen. This then, which is ad-
mitted to be the only ground for attributing to the Chro-
nicles a date later than Ezra *, coincides with the ac-
count given by Ezra.
There being no ground, then, why the books of Chro-
nicles should be later than Ezra, and the two books be-
ing confessedly by the same hand, the only remaining
وو
1 In the text it is divided, "Of the sons of Phinehas, Gershom; of the sons
of Ithamar, Daniel: of the sons of David, Hattush. Of the sons of Shecha-
niah, of the sons of Pharosh, Zechariah." But in Ezr. ii. 3, "the sons of Pha-
rosh are mentioned as a separate family, without being subordinated to "the
sons of Shechaniah;" and here too "the sons of Shechaniah are mentioned
apart after an interval. It seems then the simplest way, to join it thus ; “of the
sons of David, Hattush, of the sons of Shechaniah: of the sons of Pharosh,
Zechariah."
2 Hattush was one of the sons of Shemaiah,
who was of the sons of Shechaniah, 1 Chr. iii. 21, 22.
3 The genealogy is continued, not in the line of Hattush but in that of his
brother Neariah, of whose eldest son Elioenai, 7 sons are mentioned, 22-24.
4 "On the age of the Chronicles the genealogy, 1 Chr. iii. 18. can alone give
any result." Stähelin, § 43. p. 356. Bleek only adds 1) The place which it oc-
cupies in the Canon, (according to which, he must allow that Daniel was writ-
ten before Ezra, which would be to give up the whole object of this bringing
down of the Canon ;) and 2) the coin Darics, 1 Chr. xxix. 7. Darics are men-
tioned by Ezra (viii. 27.) in the reign of Artaxerxes, grandson of Darius Hys-
taspes. If then they were named from this Darius, they would furnish no ar-
gument as to the date of the Chronicles; not to dwell on the Greek tradition
that they were named from some earlier Darius, (see ab. p. 126.) or the con-
jecture that they may have been named directly from dara, "king." Scott and
Lidd. v. Sapelkós. This argument has been retorted, that, after the times of
Alexander, Greek, not Persian, money would become the coin of Palestine, as
being a Greek appanage. Davidson would have it, that "Shemaiah son of
Shechaniah," Neh. iii. 29. is the same as the Shemaiah in the Chronicles;
Herzfeld answers the objection, that, being the keeper of the East gate, (Ib.)
he was (he supposed) a Levite. Ib.
The book of Ezra is one whole.
335
question is, whether there be any ground to think, that
the book of Ezra is later than the time of Ezra. The
use of the first person in a portion of it has made all but
the extremest scepticism allow that a portion is from his
hand. The likeness of all the Hebrew parts of it has
also been admitted. But Ezra's thanksgiving at the be-
ginning of this admitted portion, that 6 God hath put it
into the king's heart to beautify the house of the Lord
which is in Jerusalem, and hath extended mercy unto me
before the king, is connected with the decree before it7;
and the insertion of that decree involves such a preface
as that prefixed to it; and that preface, beginning,"⁹ And
after these things, in the reign of Artaxerxes king of Per-
sia," involves a previous history, and that, of events prior
to the reign of Artaxerxes, which is just what the previ-
ous chapters contain. But those chapters are evidently,
as they stand, one whole; i. e. the whole is one history of
the rebuilding the temple, from the first permission of
Cyrus to rebuild it until its dedication and the celebra-
tion of the first passover afterwards. It is one progres-
sive history. First, there is the permission of Cyrus to
return 10, and the preparation of the Jews; then his re-
storation of the vessels of the temple 12, their amount 13,
and the number of those who returned ¹*; the setting up
the brazen altar, and restoration of sacrifice15; the collec-
tion of materials for the temple 16; the laying the founda-
tion of the temple, with that natural and touching mixture
of the joy of the young and the weeping of the old who re-
membered its former glories¹7; the cause of the opposition
to its rebuilding 18, and the means employed to hinder it
under Cyrus 19, Ahasuerus 20, [i. e. Cambyses,] Artaxer-
xes, [i.e. Pseudo-Smerdis 21;] the renewed efforts to rebuild
5 See pp. 331, 32. note S. 6 vii. 27.
this to be genuine.
s Ib. 1-10.
13 i. 9-11.
19 iv. 5.
12 i. 7, 8.
7 vii. 11-26. Even Herzfeld admits
9 Ib. 1.
10 i. 1-4.
11 i. 5, 6.
14 ii.
15 iii. 1-6.
16 Ib. 7.
17 Ib. 8-13.
20 iv. 6.
21 iv. 7-23. see ab. pp. 168, 9. Keil
18 iv. 1-4.
illustrates this adoption of a 2nd more brilliant name by the like act of Ochus,
who on his accession took the name of Darius (Nothus ;) of Arsaces, who took
that of Artaxerxes (Mnemon ;) of another Ochus, who took that of Artaxerxes
'336
Chaldee in Ezra written by a contemporary.
it under the new dynasty of Darius¹; the fresh attempt to
hinder it and the baffling of the attempt 2; the favor of
Darius ; the completion of the temple, its dedication 5,
and the first passover held in it º.
3
It has been thought most probable that the Chaldce
portion, which embodies the letters addressed to the kings
of Persia and their rescripts previous to the return of
Ezra, were written by a contemporary and inserted by
Ezra as a whole. This thread of history does not, in all,ex-
ceed 20 verses, the rest of these chapters being taken up
with the original documents. It seems to me, too,proba-
ble, that this was a distinct whole, part of a larger account?
which Ezra embodied in his book, beginning his extract.
with a few verses just preceding the first document, and
closing, a few verses after the last. For the first person is
used in this section, not as to any important event, in
which it might be thought that Ezra associated himself
with them, but in a simple statement that those who were
concerned in the building gave their names to the gover-
nor and his companions who demanded them. It was a
strictly personal act. Then accordingly we said to them,
(Diod. xv. 39); and of the last Persian king, Codomannus, who took that of
Darius (Justin, x. 3.); as also of Cyrus himself, whose name, before his accession,
was Agradates. (Strabo, xv. 3. 6. p. 729. Cas.) Pott says, "The name Arta-
xerxes was, we may safely say, a mere title, and when Bessus, 'taking the
royal apparel, commanded that he should be called Artaxerxes,' (Curt. vi. 6.) he
therewith declared himself the 'great king of kings,' which lies in the word.”
Etym. Forsch. i. pp. lxiii sqq. in Häv. Einl. ii. p. 294.
1 iv. 24-v. 2.
5 Ib. 16-18.
8
2 v. 3-17.
6 Ib. 19-22.
3 vi. 1-13.
4 Ib. 14, 15.
7 By itself, the beginning of the
Chaldee, ("Rehum the chancellor, &c." iv. 8.) might have been a sort of docket
on the letter. Even then one should not have expected it to stand, "wrote
a letter." But there follows further (iv. 9.) " Then Rehum, &c," which implies
that it is a sequel of a preceding history: it might have joined on to iv. 6, but
not, I think, with iv. 7.
8 v. 4. Gesen. (Thes. p. 652.) notices that in vi. 13. manifestly refers to
the past, [“according to that which Darius the king sent, accordingly, 801,
they did perfectly,"] and joins this instance with it. Our translators, follow-
ing the usual meaning of D, "so to speak," (for DX, D',) “after this man-
ner," put that as a question into the mouth of the Jews, which was in fact a
question to them, v. 10. "Then said we unto them after this manner, What
are the names, &c ?" instead of, "Then said we unto them, what the names
Ezra inserted the Chaldee document.
337
what were the names of the men who build this building.
But since this was 63 years before Ezra's return 9, and
since Ezra was engaged in the work of restoration with
Nehemiah whose visit was 13 years later¹º, it is not likely,
though possible, that dying, as he did, an old man ¹¹, he
should have been present at that early time. The con-
trary too is implied, in that he mentions himself for the
first time in the 7th year of Artaxerxes.
Ezra, however, it has been observed, had the Chaldee
document before him, as appears from his adopting into
his Hebrew three remarkable Persian words 12, which are
found exactly in this form, only in his Hebrew.
It has been attempted to make out the Hebrew of Ez-
ra to have been later than Ezra, partly by falsifying the
history in the Chaldee, and then asserting truly that Ez-
ra must have known such history to be false; partly on
the old childish grounds, that Ezra writes in the third
person as well as the first, and praises himself, and also
that he calls the King of Persia, King of Assyria.
1) They assume that Artachshasht, mentioned before.
were, &c." Herzfeld admits that it may be taken as in the text, only saying
"that v. 4. would thus contain an oblique construction which would be very
unusual even in later Hebrew." Gesch. Isr. Excurs 2. p. 304. He observes
also, that it is not the answer to the preceding question. Ib. But it stands in
connection with what follows, that God gave them courage to persevere until
the answer came from Darius. They gave their names, and made themselves
responsible for their act. The answer to the former question is given in the
letter to Darius, v. 11-16. Unless this verse contains the statement that the
Jews did answer the question, which the governors state that they did put,
(v. 10.) there would be no such statement at all. According to the present text,
then, the verse does contain an additional fact, but bears witness that the
Chaldee statement was written by a contemporary. Herzfeld by altering the
text & into, would get rid of the evidence, but introduce tautology. It
is contrary of course to all criticism to have recourse to conjectural emenda-
tion, when the text gives a good sense.
9 2nd year of Darius, B. C. 520; 7th of Artaxerxes, B.C. 457.
10 20th of Artaxerxes, Neh. ii. 1. 11 Jos. Ant. xi. 5. 5. A very late Jewish
tradition supposed him to have lived to 120. (Benj. Tud. Itin. p. 85.)
12 pay, "Epistle,” Ezr. iv. 7, vii. 11. Heb. iv. 18, 23, v. 5. Ch. (In Neh. and
Esth. ns,), "transcript" (of letter,) iv. 11, 23, v. 6. Ch. vii. 11. Heb. but
png Esth. iii. 14, iv. S. (See Röd. App. to Ges. p. 108.), “treasurer,” i. S.
.3 ,2 .Dan. iii בְּרָבָרַיָא vii. 21, but גִּוּבְרַיָא
2
338
History in book of Ezra consistent.
Darius under whom the temple was finished, was Longi-
manus, that the building hindered by him was that of the
walls not of the temple, and that the account, which re-
lated to times after Darius, was placed by the writer, be-
fore him ¹.
3
Yet in Ezra, the names of the sovereigns of Persia
stand in chronological order, three before Darius 2; and
both in Chaldee and Hebrew, an Artaxerxes after Dari-
us ³. Since then the hindrance of the building by the
Magian impostor is in keeping with what we know of
him from the monuments, whereas it was contrary to the
first principles of Persian belief for its kings to repeal
their own decrees ; since moreover there is no reason
whatever to think that Artaxerxes, in the first six years
of his reign, passed any decree against the Jews, whom
he favored ever afterwards; it is mere gratuitous falsi-
fying of the history to say that the king, called Artaxerxes
but placed before Darius, is meant by the author to be
the same whom he placed after him. The enemies of the
Jews do not indeed speak of the rebuilding of the tem-
ple, which was what they wished to hinder, but only of
the wall. But the restoration of the temple involved ul-
timately the restoration of the city. Angry and rival
accusers do not confine themselves to facts, when appeal-
ing to a distant authority.
2) The praise of Ezra amounts to this, that he gives to
himself his title in his own book. For it has been ob-
served 5, that, since the title, scribe of the law of the God of
heaven, is twice given to him in the decree of Artaxer-
6
1 Herzfeld, Gesch. Isr. Excurs 2. § 17. p. 303. The "then," iv. 24,
marks that the history belongs, (according to the writer,) to the times before
Darius. Davidson translates him, ii. 128.
2 iv. 5-7, 23, 4.
3 vi. 14, 15, vii. 1, 7.
4 See ab. pp. 168, 9. Herzfeld too observes (p. 306,) that throughout ch. iv.
the orthography is an (or &) with , iv. 7. bis, 8, 11, 23, but through-
out ch. vii, (of Artaxerxes Longimanus) with o, sapņas vii. 12, 21, as it is also
in Neh. ii. 1, xiii. 6. The difference, though slight, is remarkable for its uni-
formity, except that, in the addition to the original, Ezr. vi. 14, 7, the
form with is used of Artax. Longimanus.
6
5 Häv. Einl. u. 1. p. 281.
6 vii. 12, 21.
"Scribe of the law of God," his official title. 339
xes, such was his official title. It is added only, that he
was a ready, fluent, expositor of it. He mentions of him-
self, what others have observed of him in the books of
Chronicles, that the law of his God was the great study
of his life, and that he made progress in it. Perhaps he
meant, as one of the Psalmists, whose expression he used,
said before him, that he was a "ready writer 7" of what
he was taught by God, ascribing to himself only that he
was, what he was, the instrument of God. Now, if there
be any truth in the tradition, that Ezra, in various ways,
did so much for the preservation of the Canon, it may
have been of especial moment for those generations, until
our Lord should set His seal upon the whole ³, that his
fitness for the office should be authenticated in the Ca-
non itself. It is not self-exaltation to speak the simple
truth. It is not so accounted in St. John 9.
I suppose
that, in this day, some of the critics of Ezra would not
think it much to let it be known that they were good He-
braists 10, or understood the prophets by human skill, or
knew of them (whether they did or no) more than others
did before them. All which we hear about "enlightened
criticism," and the like, if it were true, would mean, in
Scripture language, that they are "ready scribes" in the
law of God.
8
3) Cyrus, under whom the Jews first returned, had
made Babylon the royal residence for seven months in the
7 Ps. xlv. 2. My tongue is the pen of vappi.
8 S. Luke xxiv. 44.
9 See ab. pp. 22, 23.
10 Zunz thinks that he understands the title go better than the writer of the
book of Ezra. "The panegyrics of Ezra [vii.] 6, 10, 11. can not only not
belong to this man, but not even to his time, since (v. 11,) they give an ex-
planation of the expression, which is over and above incorrect." (p. 23.)
Apart from inspiration, most of us will think that the writer of the book of Ez-
ra knew best. Hävernick observes that the title, which is given to Ezra by
Nehemiah also, (viii. 1, 2, 9, 13, xii. 26.) is also, [in Nehemiah's second visit,]
given to another, Zadok. Neh. xiii. 13. Davidson paraphrases Zunz, “The
way in which Ezra is spoken of in vv. 6, 10, 11. shews that he himself could
not have so written. He is termed a ready scribe in the law of Moses; ' it
is said that he had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord and to do
it,' and an explanation of p is given in v. 11. which is unsuitable to Ezra
himself." p. 129.
z 2
340 Kings of Persia naturally called kings of Babylon.
year¹; it had been the centre of the captivity; out of its
temples were the sacred vessels given back to them by
the command of Cyrus 2; it was, probably in the time of
Ezra, still one province with Assyria³; the kings of Persia
liked to connect themselves with Perseus, and held him
to have been an Assyrian 5. It is then nothing strange
that the Jews, in appealing to the edict of Cyrus whereby
he restored them, should have called him king of Baby-
lon; or that Nehemiah should so have called Artaxerxes7;
or that Ezra, speaking of the king of Persia, apart from
his name, should have said that God had turned the
heart of the king of Assyria unto them. But for this
petty controversial spirit, which grasps at any straw,
people would have seen how these various titles bear up-
on, and bear out, one another. The Persian rulers of As-
syria undid towards the Jews what its former rulers had
done. In the 2nd letter prefixed to the 2nd book of Mac-
cabees, it is even said, our fathers were led unto Per-
sia," and critics 11 have found nothing strange in the ex-
pression 12.
"
1 Xen. Cyrop. viii. 7.
66 10
"
2 Ezr. i. 7, v. 14.
3 Herod. iii. 92. In vii. 63, the "Chaldæans are recounted as serving
among the Assyrians,” i. e. as subordinate to them. Babylonia and Assyria
are counted separately in the lists of Darius. (in Rawl. Herod. ii. p. 485.) He-
rodotus (i. 192.) uses "the Babylonian country," and " the Assyrian country,"
as identical, says, "thus the Assyrian country is in wealth, of the rest of Asia,”
and speaks of this as far the wealthiest of the Persian Satrapies. Hävernick
(Einl. ii. p. 289.) refers further to Lassen, D. Altpers. Keilinschr. v. Persepolis,
pp. 67 sqq. 72. in proof of its eminence.
4 Her. vi. 54, vii. 61, 150. Häv.
8 Ezra uses CC
5 Her. vi. 54. 6 Ezr. v. 13. 7 Neh. xiii. 6.
Persia" after the name; " Cyrus King of P." i. 1, 2, 8, iii. 7, iv. 3, 5.
K. of P." iv. 5, 24. “Artaxerxes K. of P." iv. 7, vi. 14, vii. 1.
10 2 Macc. i. 19.
King of
"Darius
9 vi. 22.
11 Grimm, ad loc. Exeg. Handb. z. d. Apocr. iv. p. 43.
12 Zunz (p. 24.) adds the argument, "Ezra goes into the chamber of Joha-
nan, son of Eliashib, (x. 6.) although this high-priest lived long after Nehe-
miah." (Neh. xii. 22, 23.) Ezra does not say that either was high priest at that
time. But Joiada the son of Eliashib was high-priest in Nehemiah's 2nd
visit, (Neh. xiii. 28.) and Johanan, who succeeded him, may well have been
old enough for Ezra to resort to. Davidson fills up Zunz wrongly, "of the
high priest Eliashib who lived after Nehemiah." ii. 130. The natural con-
struction of Neh. xiii. 28, one "of the sons of Joiada, son of Eliashib, the high
priest," is that Joiada was high-priest then. Any how Eliashib did not “live
Nehemiah wrote his own book.
15
341
In the book of Nehemiah, Nehemiah himself relates, in
the first person, in one consecutive vivid narrative, the
history of the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, from
the time that God first put the desire into his mind at the
court of Persia until it was completed and he had made
over the charge of the city 13, and ends with his gathering
the people together ¹. The next portion describes what
they did, when so gathered ¹5. The acts being religious,
not civil, the prominent part belonged to Ezra. Nehemiah
joins himself in, with the rest of the congregation, saying
no longer, “I," but "we 16" The 11th chapter gave no
occasion for the first person, being an account of mea-
sures taken by the people themselves for the re-peopling
of Jerusalem. In the 12th and 13th Nehemiah had again
occasion to speak of himself. The act, with which the his-
tory closes, falls soon after B.C. 414. The whole then of
the book which admits of it (ch. i-vii. x. 28-39. xii. 27-47.
xiii.) is written in the Ist person. Where Nehemiah
acted alone, (ch. i-vii,) he necessarily speaks of himself,
66
I;
"where the first part belonged to another, he classes
himself with others, "we." (ch. ix. x.) Wherever then the
first person could be used, it is used; and the parts in
which it is not used stand closely connected with these;
as, the sealing of the covenant 17 (" we make a sure cove-
nant," in the present,) with the confession of sin and hu-
miliation before it 18, and this with the previous festival in
which, 19 day by day, from the first day unto the last day,
Ezra read to them in the book of the law of God. So then
all marks itself as contemporary, except the arrangement
of the re-peopling of Jerusalem, and the enumeration of
some towns and villages in which the rest dwelt 20, and a
list of priests and Levites 21. And yet these too are really
after Nehemiah," since (as Dr Dav. too states) Nehemiah expelled his grand-
son ;—“ a grandson of Eliashib the high priest had become son-in law to San-
ballat the Horonite, and was expelled by Nehemiah.” (Dav. ii. 137.) Accord-
ing to the natural meaning of the text, Nehemiah survived Eliashib.
15 viii-x. 16 ix. 38. (x. 1. Heb.)
17 aby on x. 1. Heb. (ix. 38. Eng.)
19 yiii. 18. 20 xi. 25-36.
13 Neh. i-vii. 4.
x. 29-39. [30-40. Heb.]
14 Ib. vii. 5.
18 44 And because of all this." Ib.
21 xii. 1-26.
(
342
Thoughtless criticism founded on the use
connected. For the re-peopling of Jerusalem was a mea-
sure which Nehemiah says he had at heart¹; and the
enumeration of the priests and Levites seems to be men-
tioned in connection with the dedication of the wall 2.
This is more evidence than can be alleged as to most
books, out of Holy Scripture.
The objections raised to the genuineness of a small
portion of the book amount to this, 1) that expressions of
Nehemiah's personal feelings do not occur, where Ne-
hemiah had no occasion to speak of himself; 2) that he
speaks of Almighty God under different titles, The Lord,
God of heaven, my God, (his own favorite, loving and beau-
tiful, title,) our God, their God, their Lord, or simply, God,
according to the varying circumstances, under which he
spoke. "My God," "our God," in that it expresses the
relation of the creature to the Creator, is as distinct a
title of Almighty God, as His Name Jehovah, or Lord,
or God. A Christian has no title of deeper love than my
God. This way of counting the names of God, Adonai,
YHVH, Elohim, El, without any reference to the shades
of feeling expressed by them, or any modification of those
names by the mention of our relation to God, is a mere
disease of the criticism to which it belongs. But the
statement is, over and above, inaccurate, and a seeming
contrast only. As imported to us, it would be more ex-
act, if reversed 3. It is not, of course, enough to count on
the fingers, that the one or other name occurs most often
in this or that part of Nehemiah, unless it could be shewn
that they had been so used under exactly the same cir-
cumstances. But, in fact, the main usage of the book
¹ vii. 4, 5.
2 xii. 27. sqq.
3 De Wette said, from Kleinert p. 132; "The names Jehovah, Adonai, and
Elohim, are used promiscuously viii. 1, 6, 8, 9 sqq. 14, 16, &c, whereas, except
i. 5, 11, iv. 8, Elohim is prevalent in Nehemiah, (especially 'God of Heaven '
i. 4, ii. 4, 20.)" Einl. § 197 a p. 263. (Davidson adopts the words as his own,
omitting the title "the God of Heaven," ii. 141.) The names being "used pro-
miscuously" is of course no real contrast with the one name being prominent.
The title Adonai is not used in the chapters, in which it is stated that it is used,
and is used where it is implied that it is not. Lord," with the personal pro-
noun, (“their, our Lord,") is used in both.
of the different Names of God.
343
is one. The result of a careful examination is, 1) that
the proper Name of God (YHVH) is nowhere, through-
4 The following are all the ways in which the name of God is used in Ne-
hemiah;
1) The title, my God, occurs in the phrases, the good hand of my God upon
me, ii. 8. I told them of the hand of my God, which was good upon me, Ib.
18. (in reference to 8;) my God put in my heart, ü. 12, vii. 5 ; the house of
my God, xiii. 14. Remember to me, my God, v. 19, xiii. 14, 22, 31. Re-
member to Tobiah, &c. O my God, vi. 14. Remember to them, O my God,
xiii. 29.
2) He prays, O our God, in what concerns others too, iv. 4. [iii. 36. Heb.]
as the Levites too pray, our God, the great and terrible God," ix. 32. Or
he relates, "we made our prayer unto our God," iv. 9. [3. Heb.] ; or speaks to
others, “our
our God shall fight for us," iv. 20. [14. Heb.]; "ought ye not to walk
in the fear of our God?" v. 9; "did not our God bring all this evil upon us ?”
xiii. 18; "shall we hearken unto you—to transgress against our God ?” Ib. 27.
Also, in the history of what they pledged themselves in common to do, he speaks
in common,
we made ordinances upon us, to charge ourselves for the service
of the house of our God, for all the work of the house of our God; we cast
lots-to bring it into the house of our God," "that minister in the house of
our God;" "to the chambers of the house of our God," "unto the house of
our God;" we will not forsake the house of our God;" x. 32-4, 36 bis, 37,
38, 39. [33, 34, 37, 38, 39, 40. Heb.] in all which there occurs once only, “the
altar of the LORD, (YHVH) our God,” x. 34. [35. Heb.]; (the altar of the
LORD, [YHVH] being, with the exception of Ps. xliii. 4, the uniform idiom,
see Ges. Thes. 579.) and once," the house of the LORD," (YHVH) x.35. (36. H.)
which again is the common idiom. The expression, the house of our God,
recurs xiii. 4. “Our God" he had just said, "turned the curse of Balaam
into a blessing,” xiii. 2. Contraiwise, the house of God occurs in the mes-
sage of Shemaiah to Nehemiah, vi. 10, and in the contrasted chapters alike,
viii. 16, xi. 11, 16, 22, xii. 40.
99 66
3) His God, is used, with emphasis, of Solomon, "beloved of his God;"
xiii. 26. and,
4) Their God, xii. 45, "they kept the ward of their God."
5) Their Lord (77) occurs iii. 5, "their nobles put not their necks to the
work of their Lord;" as does, our Lord, viii. 10, "this day is holy unto our
Lord,” (VN) x. 30, [29. Eng.] the commandments of the LORD, our
Lord."
6) The God of heaven, is used in the two first chapters only, where the con-
text relates to the power of God, in relation to those who were not Jews. i. 4,
"I prayed before the God of heaven;" Ib. 5, "and said, I beseech Thee, O
LORD, (YHVH) God of heaven, the great and terrible God. ii. 4, “ I prayed
to the God of heaven;" ii. 20, "The God of heaven He will prosper us.”
(against Sanballat and the others.)
7) In a title taken from the Pentateuch, "the great and terrible God,” he
uses the word, i. 5, as do the Levites, ix. 32.
8) Besides this he prays simply, O Lord, (îm') i. 11.
344
Use of the different titles of God
out Nehemiah, the subject of any sentence; 2) that God is
addressed by that Name throughout Nehemiah; 3) that
9) The Lord, ', is used once only, iv. 8. Heb. [14. Eng.]
There are different phrases in which the name of God, or the Lord, are in
Hebrew predominantly united; and these uses of the word God, or Lord,
should be considered in reference to the idioms.
;
YHVH being the Name by which God revealed Himself, "the command-
ments of the LORD," X. 30. [29. Eng.] is the received Hebrew phrase; (see
Ges. Thes. p. 579.) here it is added, "our Lord." Corresponding to this is
the expression, "the law which the LORD commanded Israel,” viii. 1 ;
"the
law which the LORD commanded by the hand of Moses," viii. 14. "The law
of the LORD their God," occurs ix. 3, but, simply the law of God (87) in
viii. 8, 18, x. 29, 30. (28. 29. Eng.) The "law of the LORD" occurs in Exod.
xiii. 9. "the law of God," Josh. xxiv. 26. 'Praise (7) the LORD” (v. 13.)
is again the common Hebrew idiom. So is, "worship (mnnwn) the LORD,"
(viii. 6. In ix. 3. is added, "their God,") and, although less exclusively, “bles-
sed (3) the LORD;" (it is added, "the great God," viii. 6.) and "they
cried unto the Lord," ("↳x py) with, or without, the addition “their God,”
ix. 4. (see Ges. Thes. p. 426.)
The man of God, xii. 24, 36, is the only idiom used.
Moses, the servant of God," x. 29. [30. Heb.] occurs besides only in
1 Chron. vi. 34. [49. Eng.] 2 Chr. xxiv. 9, Dan. ix. 11; but Moses, the servant
of the LORD, also occurs twice in the Chronicles, (2 Chr. i. 3, xxiv. 6.) as well
as in the earlier books, Deut. xxxiv. 5. Joshua 13 times, 2 Kgs. xviii. 12. The
title is used of Joshua in Judg. ii. 8. and of David in the titles of Ps. xviii. and
xxxvi.
The title "congregation of the LORD" was never largely used. It occurs
twice only out of the Pentateuch, Mic. ii. 5, 1 Chr. xxviii. 8. and, in the Penta-
teuch, chiefly in one set of laws, who were not to be received in "the congre-
gation of the LORD." Deut. xxiii. 2, 3 [bis] 4 [bis] 9. [1, 2, 3, 8. Eng.] Else
only Num. xvi. 3, xx. 4. The congregation of God occurs only Neh. xiii. 1.
To "make to swear by God," Neh. xiii. 25. also occurs only 2 Chr. xxxvi.
13, where it is used of a heathen, Nebuchadnezzar, who did not know His
Name. On the same ground Abimelech says to Abraham, and the Egyptian
slave to David, Swear to me by God, Gen. xxi. 23, 1 Sam. xxx. 15. Isaiah,
prophesying of the Gospel, also has, shall swear by the God of truth, jps nbsa.
The phrase shall swear by the LORD, Occurs, in all, 11 times; Josh. ii. 12, ix. 18,
19, Judg. xxi. 7, 1 Sam. xxiv. 22. [21. Eng.] xxviii. 10. 2 Sam. xix. 8. (7. Eng.)
1 Kgs. i. 17, ii. 8, 23. and Hif. Ib. 42. Abraham unites both to his servant,
I will make thee swear by the LORD, the God of heaven, and the God of earth.
Gen. xxiv. 3.
Thanksgiving unto God,” Da ninin xii. 46, occurs here only. " niin
occurs 1 Chr. xvi. 41, 2 Chr. v. 13, vii. 3, 6, Ezr. iii. 11. but in 2 Chr. v. 13,
vii. 3, Ezr. iii. 11. with the full addition, "for He is good, for His mercy en-
dureth for ever; in 1 Chr. xvi. 41, 2 Chr. vii. 6. with the last clause only.
Absolutely in stands only 1 Chr. xvi. 7, but there too premised to a Psalm
.8 .Ib הודו ליי which opens
in Nehemiah.
345
throughout Nehemiah God is addressed and spoken of as,
"our God;" 4) That in each part of his book, that in
which Nehemiah speaks in the first person, and that in
which he does not, God is spoken of as the "Lord of"
His creatures, "their Lord," "our Lord;" 5) That titles,
such as, house of God, law of God, occur throughout; 6)
That the expressions, the congregation of God, servant of
God, fear of God, thanksgiving unto God, cannot be made
use of, to identify the parts of Nehemiah in which they
occur with the books of Chronicles, since the other ex-
pressions, the servant of the Lord, the fear of the Lord,
occur in the book of Chronicles; and those, the congrega-
tion of God, thanksgiving unto God, do not occur there,
but the expressions, "thanksgiving unto the Lord,"
"congregation of the Lord," only. 7) That the fuller and
more solemn language is used upon the more solemn oc-
casions¹. In part too it occurs in spoken words². It
has been said truly, "The variation is a guarantee to the
accuracy of the relation, that the Levites (ch. 9.) pray dif-
ferently from Nehemiah." It would probably be the office
of Ezra, the priest, not that of Nehemiah, the civil go-
vernor, to prepare that prayer.
The historical ground alleged is, that the name of Jad-
dua who, according to Josephus, was high priest in the
time of Alexander, occurs in the book of Nehemiah. We
ought, of course, to be slow to assume any gloss in Holy
Scripture, unless the context absolutely requires it. But
there is, I think, evidence that the name of Jaddua did
not stand in Nehemiah. Ch. xii. opens with two lists of
priests and Levites, those which went up with Zerubbabel
and Jeshua, and those in the days of Joiakim the son of
The fear (7) of God (Neh. v. 15.) recurs in the remarkable prophecy,
2 Sam. xxiii. 3. In the Psalms (3 times) Proverbs (16 times) Isaiah (xi. 2,
3, xxxiii. 6.) and 2 Chr. xix. 9, (charge of Jehoshaphat,) the fear of the Lord
is used. Neither occurs in narrative. ( occurs Ps. xxxvi. 2. of “fear
towards God,”” being used of "terror inspired by God,” 1 Sam. xi. 7, 2 Chr.
xiv. 13, [14. Eng.] xvii. 10, Is. ii. 10, 19, 21; and □
29, in the same sense.) 1 viii. 5, 9, 10, ix. 3, 4, 5.
3 Keil, Einl. p. 523.
4 Ant. xi. S.
only in 2 Chr. xx.
2 viii. 9, 10, ix. 5.
346 Proof that the name of Jaddua did not
Jeshua. They are the priests and Levites, then, in two
generations. The Levites are, in both cases, distributed
into two classes, 1) those over the thanksgiving, 2) those
who kept ward. These enumerations follow in an exact
order; first, the priests who went up with Jeshua¹, then
the Levites²; then again, the priests in the days of Joia-
kim³, the sons of those mentioned before, (except that no
son of Hattush is named;) and, after them, the chief of
the Levites according to the former division; lastly,
the summary, 5 These were in the days of Joiakim the son
of Jeshua,-in the days of Nehemiah the governor, and of
Ezra the priest, the scribe.
>
But in the midst of these connected accounts which
give two generations of high-priests, priests, and Levites,
that of Jeshua and the next, there occur two lists of
high-priests, which go down to the 6th generation from
Jeshua", of the two last links of which no notice what-
ever is taken in this context. Elsewhere also, in the
history of Nehemiah, the last mentioned in the line of the
high-priesthood is an unnamed son of the high-priest
Joiada, the son of Eliashib, who was himself the son of
Joiakim, the last mentioned in this context; so that the
history stops short of Jaddua.
In the first of the two lists, even if it stands in part,
it seems probable that some generations have any how
been added. If it stood, "And Jeshua begat Joiakim,"
the words would introduce the following statement of the
priests in the days of Joiakim. But, as there is no sort
of addition more easily made, than that of some links of
a genealogy, it is probable that at all events the latest
links were added, which go beyond the history of Nele-
miah.
The two verses, containing the 2nd list of names, are
evidently altogether out of place. For they come be-
3 Ib. 12-21. 4 Ib. 24, 25.
1 xii. 1-7.
2 Ib. 8,9.
5 Ib. 26.
6 lb. 10, 11, “ And Jeshua begat Joiakim, and Joiakim begat Eliashib, and
Eliashib begat Joiada, and Joiada begat Jonathan, and Jonathan begat Jad-
dua." Ib. 22, "The Levites in the days of Eliashib, Joiada, and Johanan,
7 xiii. 28.
and Jaddua.”
originally stand in Nehemiah.
347
tween the statement as to the Priests and the Levites,
which before were closely joined. Further, the name
of Jaddua makes the two terms, which the verses assign,
inconsistent. The first states, "The Levites in the
days of Eliashib, Joiada, and Johanan, and Jaddua, were
written, chief fathers; and the priests in," or during,
"the reign of Darius the Persian." According to which,
Jaddua is apparently the last high-priest. But the
statement immediately following makes the list to end
in the high-priesthood before Jaddua. "10 The sons of
Levi, the chief of the fathers, were written in the book
of the chronicles, even until the days of Johanan, the
son of Eliashib."
They would only be consistent between themselves, and
with the history of Nehemiah, if the name of Jaddua
were omitted.
But these verses have so evidently the character of a
marginal note 11, which has by some inadvertence been
brought into the text, that it needs not to discuss details
in them. They are evidently supplemental to the account
in Nehemiah. That gives the priests and Levites in the
times of Jeshua and Joiakim; this supplement makes a
statement as to three or four generations, subsequent to
that account, omitting those mentioned by Nehemiah.
As a supplemental statement, written on the margin, they
were transcribed into a wrong place. It is characteris-
tic, that a school, which rejects with scorn the statement
of Josephus, that a high-priest Jaddua shewed the pro-
8 xii. 22. Johanan, in this list, occupies the same place as Jonathan in the
former, xii. 11. It may be, that the one was the son of Joiada, whom Nehe-
miah expelled.
10 Ib. 23.
על מַלְכוּת 9
"Even Herzfeld says p. 314, "vv. 22, 23. are any how of later origin; for
they interrupt yet more strongly [than 10, 11.] the context, which requires
that, as in v. 8, the heads of the Levites' in Joiakim's days should follow up-
on the heads of the priests.' I do not account them interpolated, but rather
as erroneously come from the margin into the text. I assign also each verse
to a separate author, &c." In p. 307, he speaks of them as " acknowledged
by all to be interpolated." But they suit the theory of Zunz too well to part
with, (pp. 26, 27.) and from him have been accepted by those who impugn the
rest, De Wette, Ewald, (G. Isr. i. 230.) Stähelin, Davidson, ii. 147, 8.
348
No, even plausible, ground for denying
phecy of Daniel to Alexander, accepts the unhistorical
confusion in the same context, whereby Josephus made
"Sanballat the Horonite," the contemporary and adver-
sary of Nehemiah, in the 20th year of Artaxerxes, B. C.
445, to be a contemporary of Alexander, 113 years af-
terwards ¹.
No other, even plausible, ground has been alleged, for
separating what is plainly one coherent whole. The rest.
which has been said are mostly mere insolent assump-
tions against Holy Scripture, grounded on unbelief.
It has long ago been observed, that offences which
1 Nehemiah says that a son of Joiada the high-priest, the son of Eliashib,
married a daughter of Sanballat the Horonite, and that he himself expelled
him from Jerusalem. (xiii. 28.) Josephus omits all mention of Sanballat at the
time of Nehemiah, whom he places under Xerxes, and makes Sanballat "a sa-
trap sent by the last king Darius to Samaria," who married his daughter Ni-
caso, to Manasseh, the brother of Jaddua, and son of John, the son of Judas,
the son of Eliashib, (Ant. xi. 7.) who are the Johanan, son of Joiada, son of
Eliashib, in Neh. xii. 22.
21) It was mere carelessness, when De Wette said, "The words Dp, (sa-
gans, rulers,) ¤ (nobles,) characteristic of Nehemiah, ii. 16, iv. 8, 13, v. 7, 17,
vi. 17, vii. 5, xii. 40, xiii. 11. do not occur in ch. viii. ix. x., and instead, max x
occurs viii. 13.” (followed by Dav. ii. 141.) “Sagans" is not so characteristic of
Nehemiah, since it occurs of Jewish civil prefects in Ezra (ix. 2.); still less on
"nobles," since it occurs in Eccl. x. 17, 1 Kgs. xxi. 8, 11, Is. xxxiv. 12, Jer.
xxvii. 20, xxxix. 6. But in all the places of Nehemiah except one, being ci-
vil titles, they are used in civil matters. In that one, xii. 40, Nehemiah says,
how, on the day of the dedication of the city-wall, there were two processions
round the wall, in which laity, priests, singers, were each divided into
halves, and in consequence of that division half of the sagans were with him,
half of the princes of Judah, (he used the words as equivalent xii. 31, 32,
40,) headed the other company. It was a religious ceremonial on the com-
pletion of the great civil work which God had prospered. On the other occa-
sion, which was purely religious, a public exposition of Holy Scripture by Ezra,
he classifies those present only as, "people, levites, priests ;" much as we
might speak of clergy and people, without speaking of noblemen or State-Offi-
cers. But to express that those who were present were "the heads of fami-
lies," he used the well-known Pentateuch expression "heads of the fathers,"
which he himself used in a chapter, admitted to be his, vii. 70, 71.
"Heads
of the fathers to all the people" expressed what the terms "sagans and nobi-
lity" would not express, unless "all the heads of families" in London meant
its aristocracy.
2) The title Tirshatha is a title which the Persian prefects of Judæa had.
It is used absolutely of Zerubbabel, (Ezr. ii. 63, Neh. vii. 65.) added by Nehe-
miah, in his signature to a document, (x. 2.) [1. Eng.] and on one public oc-
the book of Nehemiah to be his.
349
Malachi upbraids are so precisely the same as those
which Nehemiah corrected on his return as governor,
casion, when he was joined with Ezra, (viii. 9.) and under which, without his
name, he records a gift of his to the treasury for the expenses apparently of re-
peopling Jerusalem. (vii. 70.) It is used 5 times in all; in three cases, of Ne-
hemiah. Pechah is of much more extensive use. It is used, after the capti-
vity, of the Governor of Judæa, by Haggai of Zerubbabel, and by Malachi in
the time of Nehemiah. Nehemiah speaks of the bread of the Pechah (i. e. the
allowance made to him) v. 14,18; of "all the time in which he was their Pe-
chah" (D) v. 14; "the [Persian] Pechahs beyond the river," ii. 7, 9; of "the
throne of the Pechah on this side the river," at Jerusalem, iii. 7. In the list
of priests and Levites in ch. xii. alone, he is called "Nehemiah the Pechah,"
xii. 26. Why this case, which does not occur in the narrative, is to rule the
other cases, or, since both names are given to Zerubbabel, both should not be
given to Nehemiah, I know not.
3) No histories can well be more evidently distinct, than Ezra iii. and ix. are
from Neh. viii. Yet Zunz speaks of " a relation, partly dressing out what had
“a
been already related, partly repeating, as belonging to Ezra and Nehemiah, what
had already been related of Zerubbabel." (p. 24, translated by Dav. ii. 142, 3.)
"It is conformable to the character of the Chronicle-writer, that he forgets to
make the people take notice of the day of atonement, which occurs five days only
before the feast of Tabernacles, directly contradicts (v. 17.) his own account of
the former festival, (Ezr. iii. 4.) and even (v. 15.) quotes passages from the Pen-
tateuch which are not there." (p. 25, also nearly translated, Dav. ii. 143.) Ne-
hemiah quotes no passage at all. He says that they found written in the law,
that they should dwell in booths in the feast of the 7th month, and that they
should proclaim that boughs should be brought to make booths, as was writ-
ten. But it is contained in the law that the three great feasts were to be pro-
claimed. (Lev. xxiii. 4.) The sort of trees also, of which the booths were to
be made, are mentioned, fruit-bearing boughs of goodly trees, branches of
palm-trees, and boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook. (Ib. 40.) It
was directed also that they should dwell in booths. (Ib. 42, 3.) It is hardly
credible that language so insolent should be used, either because, in Nehemiah's
time, it was understood that the proclaiming of the festival involved the procla-
mation to make preparations for it, or that they specified as trees, the olive and
oleaster and myrtle, as explanations or applications of the directions in the
Law. Most enlightened and large-hearted criticism! The words, " since the
days of Joshua the son of Nun unto that day had not the children of Israel done
so,” are, Zunz himself owns, like those sayings in the Chronicles, (2) xxxv. 18.
there was no passover, like to that, kept in Israel from the days of Samuel
the prophet," &c. or of Hezekiah's passover, "since the time of Solomon-
there was not the like in Jerusalem.” (Ib. xxx. 26.) And so in the book of
Kings also. (2 Kgs. xxiii. 22.) But then what Nehemiah speaks of is the
greatness of the festival, which, of course, does not in the least contradict the
fact, that there had been a festival kept in the depressed condition of the first
band of returned exiles, amid the "fear upon them because of the people of
those countries." Ezr. iii. 3, 4. The prospect of a Commentary on Ezra and
4.
350
Coincidence of Nehemiah and Malachi.
that the two probably co-operated in their reformation;
Malachi, as the prophet; Nehemiah, as the civil Gover-
nor. Yet two classes of the offences stand in no evident
connection. They were against God and man. Out of
avarice, they offered imperfect and worthless sacrifices,
and withheld the tithes ; they had put away their wives, to
marry heathen women. To these is added, that priests
were not correctors of the evil, but corruptors ¹.
So then, from the examination of the later books them-
selves, we come back to the statement of Josephus, that
the canon closed with the last prophet, the last historical
book ending with the reform of those same varied abuses,
which the last prophet denounced in the name of God;
and the canon was closed about the beginning of the
fourth century before our Lord, above two centuries be-
fore Antiochus Epiphanes.
With this agrees the tradition in the Talmud, that
"the men of the great Synagogue wrote Ezekiel, the
twelve, [minor prophets] Daniel, and the book of Esther;
Ezra wrote his book and the genealogy of the Chronicles
down to lo. Rab says, Ezra did not go up from Babylon
until he wrote his genealogy, and so he went up. And
who finished it? Nehemiah.”
It is clear, both from the context of the whole, and from
the details, that by "wrote," they did not mean com-
posed," but "inscribed." For in no other sense could
they be said to write the twelve minor prophets, of whom
it is there said," 3our fathers made a large volume of them,
that they might not be lost for their littleness." As they
inscribed in the Canon the twelve, so they inscribed in
it Ezekiel, Daniel, and the book of Esther, which could
not have been inscribed in it before, being written in the
Captivity.
4
What historical grounds then are there to allege, why
Nehemiah, by an able writer, in our long-planned series, relieves me from fur-
ther details. 1 Neh. xiii. 4, 5, 7, 28, Mal. ii. 1-9. 2 Baba bathra, f. 15. 1.
4 So Kimchi says, "they wrote it [the Psalter] in the canon
of the Kethubim, pranan bhaa man, not in that of the prophets." Præf. in Ps.
Ib. f. 14. 2.
Principle of Jewish arrangement of the Cunon. 351
Daniel had not his place in the Canon then, when every
other book now in the Canon had?
Grounds alleged have been these; 1) that, had he writ-
ten in the Captivity, he must have been quoted, or alluded
to, by subsequent writers, especially by the son of Sirach:
2) the Jews disparaged him by placing his book, not
among the prophets, but in the Hagiographa.
Now, since the place where people have missed him in
Ecclesiasticus is among the prophets, in that the author
does mention Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and perhaps,
(though this is doubtful) the twelve, and does not men-
tion Daniel, plainly his not mentioning him there implies
no more than that the Jews in his time had the same ar-
rangement as they have now. If they had any good
ground for the arrangement, this plainly is no disparage-
ment at all, any more than it is as to David. The ar-
rangement of the Canon among the Jews, although dif
ferent from that of the Christian Church, proceeded on
definite and legitimate principles. 1) The law, as the
original fountain-head of revelation, stands at the head;
2) then all those books, believed to have been written by
men exercising the prophetic office, whether those called
the first prophets (the historical books from Joshua to
the Kings,) or what we call the prophets, they the later
prophets; 3) then, a more miscellaneous class, "Scrip-
tures," sacred writings, Hagiographa, written by persons
who, whether endowed with the gift of prophecy or no,
had not the pastoral office of the prophet. This last class
consisted even chiefly of persons in high secular office.
There were kings, as David who, in that wider sense, was
eminently a Prophet; Solomon, who wrote at least one
glorious Psalm 5, prophetic of Christ; Ezra, who had
charge to lead his people back from their captivity, the
priest, the scribe, yet who speaks of Haggai and Zecha-
riah, as having an office of "prophets 7" distinct from
his own;-Ezra, the author of the Chronicles as well as
of the book which bears his name; Nehemiah; probably
5 Ps. lxxii. 6 Ezr. vii. 6, 11, 12, Neh. viii. 4, 9, 13, xii. 26, 36. 7 Ezr. v. 1.
352 Hagiographa, sacred books by men in secular office.
Mordecai also, as the author of the book of Esther. The
distribution is allowable; since plainly it is as permissi-
ble to class books according to the offices borne by their
authors, as according to the subjects of the books them-
selves. But according to this distribution, the book of
Daniel could occupy no other place than it does. Daniel
had no immediate office of a practical teacher of his peo-
ple. He was the statesman, the protector probably, not
the direct teacher of his people. The historical portion of
his book contains some great dispensations of God, set
down in the order in which they took place, but with no
account of the date of its composition. The prophetic
portions of his book, in which he himself was the organ
of prophecy, belong to the last years of a life beyond
the common age of man. His first vision was probably
not vouchsafed, until he had reached the fourscore years,
after which man's ordinary lot is suffering and sorrow.
Even at this period, those visions were but insulated
events in his life, gifts vouchsafed to him in the midst of a
secular life. Daniel, in the four visions which, in the last
years of his life, were vouchsafed to him, was the recipi-
ent and transmitter of great revelations. Still his office
was different from that of those whom God sent, daily
rising up early and sending them¹, to speak in His Name
the words which He gave them. Their's was an abiding.
spirit of prophecy resting upon them; to him, as far as
we are told, insulated revelations only were disclosed.
It does not affect us, whether the later Jews were right
or wrong in distinguishing between those who wrote
"2through the spirit of Prophecy," and those who wrote
"through the Holy Ghost." The distinction might be
true, if they meant to express, by "the spirit of prophecy,"
the habitual gift of the Holy Ghost to those called to the
office of prophet; and by "the Holy Ghost,” the occa-
sional or specific gifts of the Holy Ghost to write what
¹ Jer. vii. 13, 25, xi. 7, xxv. 3, 4, xxvi. 5, xxix. 19, xxxii. 33, xxxv. 14, 15,
xliv. 4, 2 Chr. xxxvi. 15. 2 Maimon. More Neboch. ii. 45. pp. 317 sqq. Kim.
1. c. Præf. ad Psalm.
Writing thro'y spirit of prophecy & thro'y Holy Ghost. 353
He willed to be written by them. The distinction belongs
to the inspired persons, not to the substance of the things
conveyed by them. For in both cases alike the language
implies, that these men of God ³spake, moved by the Holy
Ghost, and that what they taught was infallible. The dis-
tinction appears to be altogether a late one; and probably
was erroneous in the character which the modern Jews
ascribed to "the spirit of prophecy," in that they imagined
those under its influence to be deprived of the ministry
of the outward senses. Still they did not mean by the
distinction to disparage the greatness of Daniel's pro-
phecies.
Josephus says, that he was "one of the greatest pro-
phets." And whereas the Talmud mentions a saying,
that "Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, had this above him,
that they were prophets, and he was not a prophet 5," yet
they themselves explain this to mean, "that he was not
sent to Israel for the office of prophecy;" i. e.
as said
above, that he had not the prophetic office. It was part
of that same saying, that, in another respect, “7 he was
greater than they, in that he saw the vision which they
saw not." And the Talmud says, "if all the wise of
the nations were in one scale of the balance, and Daniel
in the other, he would outweigh them all." And Abar-
banel says, that "9 he stood in the secret of God and heard
His words," and assents to the Rabbins who, in the Se-
der Olam, count him among the prophets, and "this they
said, not in the way of metaphor, or of mission, but in
the way of precision and truth."
In the one sense, then, as the organs of prophecy, Da-
vid and Daniel were prophets and very great prophets.
5
3 2 Pet. i. 21.
4 Ant. x. 11. 7.
Sanhedr. c. xi. Megill. c. 1. quoted by Carpz. Intr. iii. 235, 6.
and Voisin on Mart. Pug. Fid. P. ii. c. iii. § iii. p. 295. 6 The tradition is a
childish one, that those three prophets were Daniel's companions who saw not
the vision. Dan. x. 7. But it may be a vehicle of real meaning. Any how
the tradition, that he was superior to the three in some way, is of the same va-
lue as the other, in regard to the Jewish belief, which is the only point at issue.
7 En Israel in Megilla f. 144. c. 3 ap. Carpz. ib. 236. 8 Yoma quoted in
Carpz. ib.
9 Abarb. in Dan. p. 17, 3.
A a
354 Daniel & David, prophets, not placed among prophets,
If the term "prophet" be taken in the meaning of “exer-
cising the prophetic office," then, to deny that they were, in
this sense, "prophets," is only to own that God called Da-
vid to be the shepherd of His people, and, in His Provi-
dence, raised the captive Daniel to high secular office in a
heathen court. What no one imagines to be a disparage-
ment to the Patriarch David, whose memory was so reve-
renced, cannot have been meant as a discredit to Daniel.
Nor, clearly, is it any argument against the existence
of the book of Daniel in the time of the son of Sirach,
that that writer did not speak of its author in a place which
he did not occupy in the Canon. The panegyric is no ca-
talogue. Its leading principle seems to be to praise men,
eminent for their place along the line of history from the
creation; the Patriarchs, Adam, Seth, Enoch, before the
flood; Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, be-
fore the Exodus; Moses, Aaron, Phinehas, in the wilder-
ness; Joshua, Caleb, and the Judges generally, in the first
period in the promised land; Samuel; then Nathan, Da-
vid, Solomon, Hezekiah, Josiah; and, on occasion of He-
zekiah, the prophecies of Isaiah; then, Jeremiah, as pro-
phesying the captivity; Ezekiel; and, in the present text,
the Twelve ¹; after the captivity, Zorobabel, Joshua son
1
1 xlix. 10. The Syr. Vulg. and the exstant MSS. have the words, "And of the
12 prophets let the bones flourish again out of their place;" yet, as they stand,
what follows can hardly be construed, παρεκάλεσε δὲ τὸν Ἰακὼβ καὶ ἐλυτρώσατο
aùTOÙS ÉV míσTEL èxπídos, "but he [sing.] comforted Jacob, and redeemed
[sing.] them in faith of hope." For the best authorities, Cod. Sinait. Vat. and
others, are decided in retaining the singular. The plural of the Alex. looks like
a correction, as also Vulg. Syr. which paraphrase. Some MSS. evidently have
the plural, as a conjecture, since they have the sing, too. So then there is the
double anomaly, that the Imperatives are inserted in the midst of the narrative
form, and the number is changed. It has been proposed to remedy this, by plac-
ing the clause as to the Twelve prophets after the words, παρεκάλεσε—ἐλπίδος;
so that the clause, "he comforted Jacob," &c. should be a continuation of what
he said of Ezekiel. Only, there is no more authority for transposing the words,
than for omitting them. The only way, in which the words can be construed,
is to understand them to be spoken of God. Yet this too is not according to
the analogy of the other verses, in which that is attributed to the prophets,
which God did by them. (xlviii. 2, 6, 23, xlix. 7, 9.) The construction and
course of thought would certainly be easier, if the clause as to the Twelve
were omitted. The words "let their bones flourish out of their place," had
on one principle; we miss Dan. in Eccls only as prophet. 355
of Josedech, who rebuilt the temple; Nehemiah, who re-
stored the walls. Daniel had not so marked an office for
his people, as Ezra, who yet is equally omitted. It is not
as a man, that we miss him in the enumeration, but that
he does not occupy the place among the prophets, where
we are accustomed to see him.
The argument "from silence" is precarious at all times.
Here it is the more nugatory, because it stands in conflict
not only with the history of the canon generally, but with
facts as to the book of Daniel itself.
We have language of his prayer used in Nehemiah ; re-
ference to his visions in Zechariah; and, at the times in
which the writer must have lived, had he not been the pro-
phet, viz. the Maccabee times, we have quotations not of
the book only, but of its Greek translation, in the 3rd (the
Jewish) Sibylline book. It is quoted in the 1st book of
Maccabees, and at some time, at the least not later, in the
book of Baruch; and, men allow too now, in the book of
Enoch. I stated in a former lecture, how Ezekiel speaks
of Daniel in two respects, his wisdom and his righteous-
ness, just as he appears in his book.
i. The correspondence between the prayer of Daniel
and that in Nehemiah has been acknowledged and even
exaggerated by the opponents of the book of Daniel.
First they urged, that if the book had been written by
Daniel, it would have been referred to in the later books².
When the reference was observed, they quietly assumed
as self-evident, that the prayer in Daniel was copied from
that of Nehemiah³. They alleged in proof of the lateness
already occurred, in xlvi. 12, and were probably transferred here by one who
missed the mention of the Twelve. The writer had alluded to Malachi's clos-
ing prophecy, xlvii. 10.
2 In regard to Zechariah, the argument is
continued even in the posthumous "Introduction" by Bleek; "Had the book
been composed by Daniel, and so, extant from the time of Cyrus and known
among the Jews, one should expect to find use made of it in the Prophets after
the captivity, Haggai, Malachi, and especially Zechariah i-viii.—But there is
nothing of the sort. Jeremiah's prophecies of the Messiah have exercised an
influence over Zechariah's conception of the idea of the Messiah; but the visions
of Daniel, none." Einl. 1860. p. 589. Davidson, iii. 171, translates Bleck.
3"The passage ch. ix. contains verbal imitations of Nehemiah." Leng. p. lx.
A a 2
356
Characteristics of the prayer in Nehemiah,
of the book of Daniel, what had itself first to be proved,
and which is not true.
Nothing can be less like one another, than the two long
prayers of Daniel and of the Levites in Nehemiah in the
main. They are alike only, in so far as both are confes-
sions of sin. But the prayer in Nehemiah¹, like some of
the historical Psalms, turns wholly upon facts. It is a
confession of God's mercies from the call of Abraham, of
their own disobedience from the wilderness onwards, and
of the justice of their punishment, ending with a profes-
sion of amendment. It proceeds in one steady unbroken
course of narrative, from first to last. It contains scarce-
ly a petition. Just towards the end, there is that one,
2 let not all the trouble seem little to Thee, which hath come
upon us. But they expected no marked interposition
then; they confessed their sins, owned God's long-suffer-
ing and their unrighteousness, renewed the covenant, and
left the future to God. It is the prayer of one, whose me-
mory is well and exactly stored with the precise words in
which Moses had written. Throughout that part of the
prayer, which relates to the history in the Pentateuch,
idioms and sentences of the Pentateuch are worked in 3
;
"Through the expression on ix. 2, [see ab. p. 311.] we are directed to the
time after Nehemiah, and also by the employment of the book of Nehemiah,
v. 4; comp. i. 5, ix. 32; v. 15, Neh. ix. 10; v. 8, Neh. ix. 34." Id. p. 411. In
p. Ixi. he speaks of "the great use of the book of Neh. in ch. ix." De W. adopted
the argument, ed. 7. "Daniel employs not only Ezekiel, who, in the case of
the genuineness of the book, stood near him, but also (ch. ix.) Neh. ix." Einl.
p. 347; then Stähelin, p. 349, and Dav. iii. 194.
1 ix. 6-37.
2 Ib. 32.
כָּרַת י אֶת אַבְרָם 18 .Gen. xv וְכָרוֹת עַמּוֹ הַבְּרִית לָתֵת אֶת אֶרֶץ לָתֵת לְזַרְעוֹ ,8 .Neh. ix 3
,9.The names of the nations follow in each. Neh. ix .בְּרִית לֵאמֹר לְזַרְעֲךָ נָתַתִּי אֶת הָאָרֶץ
וַתִּתֵּן אֹתת,10 .Nelh. ix רָאִיתִי אֶת עָנִי עַמִּי אֲשֶׁר בְּמִצְרַיִם,7 .Ex. iii וַתֵּרֶא אֶת עֲנִי אֲבֹתֵינוּ בְמִצְרַיִם
,11 .Neh. ix .וַיִּתֵּן י אותת וּמֹפְתִים בְּפַרְעֹה וּבְכָל בֵּיתוֹ, 22 .Deut. vi וּמֹפְתִים בְּפַרְעֹה וּבְכָל עֲבָדָיו
וּנְטֶה אֶת יָרְךָ עַל הַיָּם וּבְקָעָהוּ וְיָבֹאוּ בְּתוֹךְ ,16 .Ex. xiv וְהַיָּם בָּקַעְתָּ לִפְנֵיהֶם וַיַּעַבְרוּ בְתוֹךְ הַיָּם בַּיַּבָּשָׁה
my n add 22. Neh. Ib. Ex. xv. 4, paying bispa. Neh. Ib. Is. xliii. 16. Dy
יוֹמָם בְּעַמוּד עָנָן .21 .Ex. xiii וּבְעַמּוּד עָנָן הִנְחִיתָם יוֹמָם וּבְעָמוּר אֵשׁ לַיְלָה לְהָאִיר לָהֶם 12 .Neh. ix
וְלָהֶם שָׁמַיִם ,40 .Ps. cv וְלֶחֶם מִשָּׁמַיִם ,15 .Neh. ix .לַנְחֹתָם הַדֶּרֶךְ וְלַיְלָה בְּעַמּוּד אֵשׁ לְהָאִיר לָהֶם
באוּ וּרְשׁוּ אֶת 8 .Deut. i וַתֹּאמֶר לָהֶם לָבוֹא לָרֶשֶׁת אֶת הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר נָשָׂאתָ אֶת יָרְךָ לָתֵת לָהֶם .Neh. Ib
וְהֵבֵאתִי אֶתְכֶם אֶל הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר נָשָׂאתִי אֶת יָדִי לָתֵת ,8 .Ex. vi .הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּע י לַאֲבֹתֵיכֶם לָתֵת לָהֶם
>
T
Dab moi ana apucha pohon. Neh. ix. 16, 2 Kgs. xvii. 14, Jer. vii. 26, ny wa
Dy (from Pent.). Neh. ix. 17, DE DA from Ex. xxxiv. 6, trans-
and in Daniel.
357
In
even the precise words are retained, in which Moses re-
minds them that their clothes waxed not old, and their
feet swelled not, although the last word occurs in those
two places alone. This was done of set purpose; for the
writer used, where he willed, language of his own.
the same way in which he used the language of the
Pentateuch and of other earlier Scripture, the writer of
that long confession used also language of Daniel's
prayer.
Daniel's prayer, on the contrary, is rhetorical, so to
say, not historical. Its subject is, what must be a crea-
ture's confession of sin, God's righteousness, man's un-
righteousness. But it is one eloquent, fervid, tide of
prayer. The prayer rises and falls alternately, in a pro-
longed chequered cadence, as it sets forth or owns suc-
cessively God's faithfulness, their unfaithfulness; God's
righteousness, their confusion through their unrighte-
ousness; God's property of mercy, their sins calling down
His foreannounced justice; then one brief reference to
the deliverance from Egypt, and an impassioned gush of
prayer rolling on and on, until the last, Lord, tarry not,
Lord, hearken and do, overcometh God, and his prayer
is answered. Apart from evidence, no one could doubt
which had used the language of the other.
It is not much which the two prayers have in common,
except what is common to all prayer in distress, the con-
with ,עָשׂוּ לָהֶם עֵגֶל מַסֵּכָה וַיֹּאמְרוּ זֶה אֱלֹהֶיךָ אֲשֶׁר הָעֶלְךְ מִמִּצְרַיִם,18 .Neh. ix .רַחוּם וְחַנּוּן posing
the remarkable change into the singular, from Ex. xxxii. 8, 7 bay onb wy
א
רוּחֲךָ,10 .Ps. cxliii וְרוּחַךְ הַטוֹבָה ,20 .Neh. ix .וַיֹּאמְרוּ אֵלֶה אֱלֹהֶיךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל אֲשֶׁר הֶעֱלוּךָ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם
וָה אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה יי אֱלֹהֶיךָ,,7 .Deut. ii וְאַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה כִּלְכַּלְתָּם בַּמִּדְבָּר לֹא חָסֵרוּ,21 .Neh. ix .טוֹבָה
שִׂמְלָתְךָ לֹא בָלְתָה,4 .Deut. viii שִׂלְמֹתֵיהֶם לֹא בָלוּ וְרַגְלֵיהֶם לֹא בָצֵקו .Neh. Io .עַמָּךְ לֹא חָסַרְתָּ דָּבָר
אַרְבֶּה אֶת זַרְעֲךָ ,17 .Gen. xxii וּבְנֵיהֶם הִרְבִּיתָ כְּכֹכְבֵי הַשָּׁמַיִם ,23 .Neh. ix .מַעֲלֶיךָ וְרַגְלְךָ לֹא בָצֵקָה
Neh .וְהוּא יַכְנִיעַם לְפָנֶיךָ,,3 .Deut. ix וַתַּכְנַע לִפְנֵיהֶם אֶת יֹשְׁבֵי הָאָרֶץ 24 .Neh. ix .כְּכוֹכְבֵי הַשָּׁמַיִם
וּבָתִּים מְלֵאִים,11 .Deut. vi בָּתִּים מְלֵאִים כָּל טוּב בּרוֹת חֲצוּבִים כְּרָמִים וְזֵיתִים וַיֹּאכְלוּ וַיִּשְׁבְּעוּ ,25 .ix
תִּתֵּן לָהֶם מוֹשִׁיעִים וְיוֹשִׁיעוּם, 27 .Neh. ix .כָּל טוּב אֲשֶׁר לֹא מִלֵאתָ וּבוֹת חֲצוּבִים כְּרָמִים וְזֵיתִים וְאָכַלְתָּ וְשָׂבַעְתָּ
וּבְמִשְׁפָּטֶיךָ הָטְאוּ בָם אֲשֶׁר יַעֲשֶׂה אָדָם,29 .Neh. ix .וַיָּקָם י מוֹשִׁיעַ לִבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיּוֹשִׁיעָם ,9 .Jud. iii
,11 .Neh. Ib. Zech. vii .וְאֶת מִשְׁפָּטִי אֲשֶׁר יַעֲשֶׂה אֹתָם הָאָדָם וָחַי בָּהֶם ,5 .Lev. xviii וְהָיָה בָהֶם
וְלֹא עָשִׂיתִי אוֹתָם כָּלָה בַּמִּדְבָּר ,17 .Ezek. xx לֹא עָשִׂיתָם כָּלָה ,31 .Neh. ix .וַיִּתְּנוּ כָתֵף סוֹרָרָת
Neh. ix. 32, Num. xx. 14, un agban beny add Ex. xviii. 8. Neh. ix. 35, 6,
תַּחַת אֲשֶׁר לֹא עָבַרְתָּ אֶת י-,47,8 .Deut. xxviii וְהֶם וּבְטוּבְךָ הָרָב לֹא עֲבָרוּךְ-הִנֵּה אֲנַחְנוּ הַיּוֹם עֲבָרִים
וּבְטוּב לֵבָב מֵרֹב כֹּל וְעָבַרְתָּ אֶת אֹיְבֶיךָ
358 Nehemiah, and others, knew Daniel's prayer.
fession of sins past and present which bring down God's
chastisement upon the sinner, or the sinful nation, and
thereon, what was peculiar to Israel, the pleading of the
promise that God would, on their repentance, restore
them. The prayer in Nehemiah had almost come to its
close, before there is any point of contact with that of
Daniel. The first words of Daniel's prayer, however,
which are themselves a re-moulding of a doctrinal state-
ment in the Pentateuch, so reappear in the two prayers in
Nehemiah¹, as to shew that those of his day were fami-
liar with that great deep prayer of Daniel.
1 Dan. ix. 4. Neh. ix. 32, i. 4. The basis of the passages is Deut. vii. 9,
י.יהוה אֱלֹהֶיךָ הוּא הָאֱלֹהִים הָאֵל הַנֶּאֱמָן שֹׁמֵר הַבְּרִית וְהַחָסֶר לְאֹהֲבָיו וּלְשֹׁמְרֵי מִצְוֹתָו know that **
The last clause is slightly modified from the decalogue, Ex. xx. 6, 707 ng
'niyo mpwba ‘anib o' (Deut. v. 10.) This, as being a fundamental statement
of God's relation to His people, was variously applied. Solomon, in memory
of his father and of God's promises to him, addressed it in thankfulness, "Lord
God of Israel, there is no God like Thee-Who keepest covenant and mercy
with Thy servants, that walk before Thee with a perfect heart." nan
Dab Saa anab orabina ar pa 1 Kgs. viii. 23. 2 Chr. vi. 14. Those times of faith-
fulness were gone. Daniel took the words of Deuteronomy, but instead of
"the faithful," he spake to God, as "the great, the aweful,"
שֹׁמֵר
ix. 4. The attribute of God is הַגָּדוֹל וְהַנּוֹרָא שֹׁמֵר הַבְּרִית וְהַחָסֶד לְאֹהֲבָיו וּלְשֹׁמְרֵי מִצְוֹתָיו
twice pleaded to Him in Nehemiah; but, both times, so as to shew that he took
it from Daniel, not from Deuteronomy, for in each case he takes words, which
are in Daniel, and are not in Deuteronomy. In both he uses the characteris-
tic words, the great, the aweful God;" in i. 5, he begins with the word of en-
treaty, which Daniel had revived from the Pentateuch, sș. (Gen. 1. 17, Ex.
xxxii. 31, Dan. ix. 4, Neh. i. 5, else only in Ps. cxviii. 25, the Psalm doubt-
less of dedication of the second temple, and so, posterior to Daniel. The word
is written ¬ 2 Kgs. xx. 3, Is. xxxviii. 3, Jon. i. 14, iv. 2, Ps. cxvi. 4, 16.)
In both prayers in Nehemiah, something is added. In i. 5, he uses his own
title, "God of heaven;" ix. 32, he adds the title, the mighty (in) and stops at
"keeping covenant and mercy." While both prayers of Nehemiah could be
founded on that of Daniel, that of Daniel could not be taken from either of
Nehemiah; not from Neh. ix. 32, because it is incomplete; not from that in
Neh. i. 5, because, although it is natural that Nehemiah should have added the
title which he uses elsewhere, "God of heaven," there would have been no
reason why Daniel, had he used his words, should have omitted them.
Of two other expressions, which Daniel and Nehemiah have in common,
the one, ix. 15, and Thou madest for Thee a Name as at this day, wyn
nn og og was, in Daniel, certainly a reminiscence of Jeremiah, (xxxii. 20,)
since the context is so. The words, with which Daniel introduces it, "And
now, O Lord our God, Who broughtest Thy people forth from the land of
Egypt," are nearly identical with those which follow it in Jeremiah. (xxxii.
Two of Zechariah's visions allude to Daniel. 359
ii. Nehemiah could naturally allude only to language of
Daniel; his history had no natural bearing on the history
of prophecies of Daniel. Two in the brief series of Ze-
chariah's visions presuppose Daniel's prophecies of the
four world-empires. They were given to those, who were
already in possession of the full disclosures to Daniel, and
cannot be understood without them. They are visions,
describing in different pictures the gradual restoration of
God's people until the Coming of Christ. Babylon had
fallen; Israel had been partially, yet only very partially, re-
stored. Zechariah's prayer, like that of Daniel, had been,
"Lord, how long?" In answer to the prayer, there are
exhibited to him the four horns, as the obstacle to its com-
plete restoration, and those who should fray them away³.
וַיֹּצֵא אֶת-עַמָּךְ אֶת-יִשְׂרָאֵל .Dan וְעַתָּה אֲדֹנָי אֶלהֵינוּ אֲשֶׁר הוֹצֵאתָ אֶת-עַמָּךְ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם בְּיַד חֲזָקָה (.21
of וַתַּעֲשֶׂה for the וַתַּעַשׂ Jer. Only, Daniel used the מֵאָרֶץ מִצְרַיִם בְּאֹתוֹת וּבְמוֹפְתִים וּבְיַד חֲזָקָה
Jeremiah. That same form occurs in Nehemiah, and since the context in Ne-
hemiah is a reminiscence of the Pentateuch not of Jeremiah, and the whole
passage has several such reminiscences, there is a probability that these words
too were taken from Daniel in whom they occur exactly, not from Jeremiah.
The third place in Daniel is a reminiscence of Jeremiah. The accumulation,
our kings, our princes, our fathers," or the like, appears repeatedly in Jere-
miah. Daniel owns, we have not hearkened unto Thy servants the pro-
phets, which spake in Thy Name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers,
and to all the people of the land." ix. 6. This is especially the complaint in
Jeremiah. (See ab. p. 352.) Then he confesses that "righteousness is God's,
confusion of face," theirs; and enumerates again those on whom that shame
had fallen, "to us, our kings, our princes, and our fathers," and "to the men
of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem." This is also a favourite enumera-
tion in Jeremiah, (xi. 2, xviii. 11, xxxv. 13. and the like, xvii. 20, xxv. 2,
xxxv. 17.) Both enumerations occur in Jer. xxxii. 32, en we'ven? by new
Again, in these same verses, the מַלְכֵיהֶם שָׂרֵיהֶם כֹּהֲנֵיהֶם וּנְבִיאֵיהֶם וְאִישׁ יְהוּרָה וְיוֹשְׁבֵי יְרוּשָׁלֵם
phrase, "the near and the far," pin oraingo, Dan. ix. 7, is also Jeremiah's,
xxv. 26, (originally in Deut. xiii. 8,) and that, “in all lands whither Thou hast
driven them,” og bananes nissa-, Dan. ix. 7, Jer. xxiii. 3, 8, xxxii. 37.
The passage in Nehemiah, ix. 32, is also probably a reminiscence of Jere-
miah, since two classes are enumerated, “our priests and our prophets,” which
do not occur in Daniel, but do occur in Jeremiah, ii. 26, where the context is
the same as in Nehemiah, and, in part, in Daniel; "so is the house of Israel
ashamed, they, their kings, their princes, and their priests, and their prophets,"
In this case then the likeness .כֵּן הוֹבִישׁוּ בֵית יִשְׂרָאֵל הֵמָּה מַלְכֵיהֶם שָׂרֵיהֶם כֹּהֲנֵיהֶם וּנְבִיאֵיהֶם
probably arises from both Daniel and the writer of the prayer in Nehemiah
having their minds stored with the prophecies of Jeremiah.
2 i. 12.
3 i. 18-21,
360 Zechariah's vision of four chariots, presupposes Daniel's
The four horns were together symbols of all world-empire,
yet were in themselves hardly significant, either as to their
number or their power, apart from the symbol of the ani-
mal which, in Daniel's visions, wielded them. The same
four-fold division of power recurs in the vision of the four
chariots¹ which issue from between the two mountains
of brass, with horses red, black, white, grizzled, strong,
(for so only can the word be rendered.) Those who have
not explained this vision by aid of Daniel's four world-
empires have been puzzled, 1) why the title strong should
have been given to one set only of these symbols of power;
2) why, in the explanation of the Angel, the first symbol,
the chariot with the red horses, disappears. Four symbols
of earthly power are exhibited to the prophet; three only
are explained. Obviously, since the symbols represent
the same as in Daniel, there was nothing to be said about
the first monarchy; for it was gone. Of the black horses,
the symbol of the second, it is said³, they have made My
anger to rest on the North country, i. e. on Babylon, of
which the former prophets had ever spoken, as the North.
The third, it is said, go forth after them; for the Greek
empire occupied the same portion of the earth as the
Persian. The fourth, the Roman, is designated by the
grizzled and strong horses, corresponding to those cha-
racteristics of strength and mingled character, so pro-
minent in the fourth empire in Daniel. These also are
represented in two relations, 1) in their specific bearing
on the Jewish people, they go forth into the south coun-
1 vi. 1-3.
The root, which is so common in Hebrew,
has no other meaning than that of "strength," as Aquila and Vulg. render,
KаρTEроí, fortes. The guess, that it was a colour, seems to have arisen from
its being joined with other colours; hence LXX yapoí, "dapple-gray," Jon.
ppp, from “ashes." Both then took it to be equivalent to 77, with which it is
joined. The further guess, that by might be i. q. 7, Is. Ixiii. 1, (Boch. Hi-
eroz. i. p. 111.) was founded on the idea, that the "red horses" must be meant
in vi. 7. But, over and above the presumption that py must be taken in the
uniform sense of the root, it is inconceivable, that an epithet, used to describe the
horses of the 4th chariot in vi. 3. should be used to describe those of the first
chariot in vi. 7. Gesenius (Thes. p. 118,) and even Maurer, Hitzig, gave up
the coniectural meaning; Ewald would retain it.
3 vi. 8.
4 vi. 6.
אֲמְצִים
4
5
of the four Empires. Book of Baruch.
361
try, 2) in their wide-spread solid empire, by permission
of God, they walk to and fro on the earth. Upon this
their establishment there follows, as in Daniel, the pro-
phecy of the Coming of Christ, the Man Whose name is
the Branch.
This, which was in the main the old interpretation of
Jews and Christians, is free from those difficulties, from
which those who forsook it have not been able to extricate
themselves; but it presupposes the existence of the book
of Daniel. Daniel's visions could not have been expand-
ed out of this vision of Zechariah. Zechariah's vision
would not be suggestive of them. It is not a mere frag-
ment or sketch, which could be expanded. It itself re-
quires the explanation, which Daniel's visions, in them-
selves so full and so one on the very points upon which
this is obscure, supply.
>
iii. The book of Baruch consists apparently of two
portions, the former 8 probably translated from the He-
brew, the latter bearing no marks of a translation. The
former which is, with an historical introduction, a prayer
for the Jews in Jerusalem to offer for their brethren, is
chiefly in the language of the ancient Hebrew Scriptures,
using largely the language of the law, of Jeremiah, of Da-
niel. The great prayer of Daniel is made the basis of the
early portion of the prayer in Baruch, and that, with
one exception, in the order in which the passages lie in
Daniel. The agreement then can be no chance coinci-
dence, as if two persons under the same circumstances
5 vi. 7.
6 vi. 12.
7 See e. g. Kimchi on Zech. Dr. Mc. Caul's translation, p. 55. 8 i-iii. 8.
9 There is no historical statement, that there ever was a Hebrew original.
In St. Jerome's time there was none. Among the Hebrews, it is neither
read, nor possessed.” (Præf. in expos. Jer.) Yet the direction, that it was to
be used “in the house of the Lord,” (i. 14,) implies a Hebrew or Chaldee ori-
ginal of the prayer; as does also some of the Greek, (I think, with Fritzsche,
Exeg. Hdb. z. d. Apokr. i. 171, 2, and others,) μavaà (for п739) i. 10; ov—
ἐπ' αὐτῷ, ii. 26 ; ὡς ἡ ἡμέρα αὕτη, (τη cia,) i. 15 ; ἀποστολή, i. 25 ; βόμβησις,
(for jiɔņ) ii. 29 ; hµépai kaipoû, for vid “2;, i. 14; épyášeσdaι with Dat. “serve,"
(for ↳ 724) ii. 22 ; πporeú§aode eis, i. 11, (2nh php Ezr. vi. 10.); èvvoeîv eis,
.16 .ii (בִּין אָלל)
362 The prayer in Baruch incorporates much from that
"1 had used formulæ, then in general use." The agree-
ment is not in formulæ, but in whole verses, and that
in the same order 2. Nor can there be any doubt, that
Daniel is the original, which is filled up and expanded
in Baruch ³. The prayer of Daniel is one whole, whose
inspired thoughts, like those in the Psalms, have formed
the devotions of 2300 years, ever gushing forth in re-
newed fulness. It is the prayer of one, whose mind had
been moulded by the writings of the great prophet of
the decline of Israel; and the tones of Moses and Jere-
miah sound anew in this fresh deep burst of trustful
love. But the human instrument, which the Spirit of
God struck, was not Jeremiah or Moses, but Daniel's
soul. The prayer in Baruch, on the contrary, is a mo-
saic, formed of jewels from Daniel, Nehemiah, and Jere-
miah, blended together, yet not forming one distinct whole.
The book of Baruch bears witness to Daniel on the
historical side also. For, in that the author mistook ap-
parently the relation of Nebuchadnezzar and Belshaz-
zar, speaking of them as contemporaries, he probably
wrote at a time when the memory of the Chaldee mo-
narchs had faded, and the book of Daniel was the only
source of information. The mistake, as it seems to be,
might arise naturally from Daniel's omission of the
1 Jahn's solution, Einl. iv. p. 864.
2 Dan ix. 7, Bar. i. 15; Dan. ix. 8, Bar. i. 16; Dan. ix. 10, Bar. i. 21;
Dan. ix. 11, Bar. i. 20; Dan. ix. 12, Bar. ii. 1, 2; Dan. ix. 13, Bar. ii. 8; Dan.
ix. 14, Bar. ii. 9, 10. (10 expanded ;) Dan. ix. 15, Bar. ii. 11 ; Dan. ix. 19, end
of Bar. ii. 15; Dan. ix. 18, end of Bar. ii. 16, 17; Dan. ix. 18 end, Bar. ii. 19.
3 The unbelieving school are bound by their disbelief to disbelieve this, un-
less they find some date for the book of Baruch, later than Antiochus Epipha-
nes. So Dillmann, (in Dorner, Jahrb. iii. p. 480) who thinks the book of Ba-
ruch “
a later off-shoot of the older prophetic literature, not to be so slightly
estimated," speaks of "its employment in the book of Daniel." Herzfeld hint-
ed the same, Gesch. Isr. Exc. 2. pp. 318, 19. Davidson, assuming B. C. 300 to
be the date of Baruch, lays down, “the author of Daniel made use of the He-
brew Baruch in ix. 4-19 which is taken from Bar. i. 15-ii. 17.” iii. P. 428.
Fritzsche, on the other hand, who puts the book late on inadequate grounds,
can afford to see that the book of Daniel was used in it, and makes it the chief
ground for the late date of Baruch. Einl. p. 173. So also De Wette, Einl.
§ 323. p. 427. Bertholdt, Einl. § 427. p. 1750. i. 11, 16. See Lect. vii, p. 401.
of Daniel; probably written soon after close of Canon. 363
wretched kings between Nebuchadnezzar and Belshaz-
zar, who were of no interest to mankind. But then it
implies, not only the existence of the book of Daniel, as
historical authority, but that there were then no sources,
from which people's Pseudo-Daniel could have compiled
his history.
But although there seem, to me, insuperable difficulties
against supposing the book of Baruch to have been writ-
ten at the date assigned in the book itself, the fifth year of
the Captivity 5, there is no ground to place it at any late
date. For although the latter portion of the book quotes
a Psalm 6, probably of the age of Nehemiah, that mostly
original and beautiful section was probably written not
so long after the close of the Canon. It is written amid
hopes of a speedy restoration 7; but in a calm atmosphere
5" The fifth year" (i. 2,) is doubtless the same date as that in Ezekiel i. 2, "the
fifth year of Jehoiachin's captivity." For "the house of the Lord" is spoken
of, as still standing, so that "the feasts and solemn days" could be kept, and
prayer said, there. (Ib. 14.) Nor is there any difficulty in the statement, that
Jerusalem was "burnt with fire," (i. 2,) since it may have been burnt, and
the temple have escaped; nor in the account of "the silver vessels" having
been "made by Zedekiah,” (Ib. 8,) which is indeed in itself likely, although
it does not appear, how they could have been carried off in the five first years of
Zedekiah's reign; at least, there is no account of his rebellion until his 9th
year. It may however have been. It is not right to argue from silence. The
expression, “that thou art waxen old in a strange land,” (iii. 10,) probably
means “decay,” not length of time, èñaλaι0ŋs having probably the meaning
of hạ given to it. But in the prayer, ii. 26, "the house of the Lord" is "de-
solate," and the captivity is spoken of, as complete, (“ we are but a few left
among the heathen, where Thou hast scattered us,” ii. 13,) and Jeremiah's
prophecy of the desolation of Jerusalem and the whole land, as fulfilled, ii.
21-23. add ii. 29-31. In the fifth year of Jehoiachin's captivity, B.C. 594,
also, Belshazzar, who was associated in his father's throne about B.C. 541, was
probably not born; nor would he then have been connected with Nebuchad-
nezzar as the king, under whose shadow Israel should live, and serve many
days; for there were yet 32 years of Nebuchadnezzar's reign remaining, and
probably 20 years of the intervening kings, including 14 years of Belshazzar's
father, Labynetus; nor was Belshazzar in the direct line to the throne. But
even supposing Balthasar to have been a name of one of the intervening kings
or of an elder brother of Evil-merodach who never reigned, (it can hardly be a
name for Evil-merodach himself, since they are named from different patron-
gods,) still there remains the difficulty that Daniel's prayer was not uttered
until B. C. 538, and could not have been taken from Baruch's.
6 Ps. cxlvii. 4 ; Baruch iii. 34.
7 iv. 22, 24, 25.
364 Testimony to Daniel in LXX version of Pentateuch.
of trust, in the consciousness of no troubles beyond those
which were the results of the Captivity, and with no an-
ticipation of the distresses of the Maccabee period. It
was then doubtless written before Antiochus Epiphanes.
iv. The LXX translation of the Pentateuch at least will
not be placed by any later than Ptolemy Philadelphus.
But it has been with good reason remarked that the LXX
version, in rendering, "1 when the Most High divided the
nations, when He dispersed the sons of Adam, He esta-
blished the bounds of the nations according to the num-
ber of the angels of God," instead of "the number of the
children of Israel," introduced into the Pentateuch the
doctrine, that angels are guardians over the several na-
tions, a doctrine which is no where found out of Holy
Scripture, and which, within Holy Scripture, is only found
in Daniel. Of course, some answer must be made, and
it is answered that the LXX may have drawn it from the
general belief of the Jews. This only throws the ques-
tion further back; for, however the Jews may have ex-
panded any doctrine, the source of their belief is Holy
Scripture, rightly or, in later times, wrongly understood,
and in this case, we have the fountain of the belief before
us, the book of Daniel. It is found no where else 2.
v. The next evidence in point of time is quite apart from
the religious writings of the Jews, a work of an Alexan-
drian Jew, the writer of the Jewish Sibylline book.
>
Since the investigations of Bleek³, Friedlieb 4, Alexan-
der 5, it is certain that the work, which now is found as
the 3rd Book of the Sibylline Oracles, is entirely distinct
from the others, that it has (with the exception of very
few manifest interpolations) no traces of Christianity, and
that it was written by a Jew about 170 B.C.º
1 Deut. xxxii. 8. 2 Sec Lect. viii, p. 526. 3 Schleierm. ZS. Heft i. pp. 120
sqq.
4 Orac. Sib. 1852. Einl. § 10-17. pp. xxii-xxxix. 5 Orac. Sibyll. Exc. 5.
c. 1. T. ii. pp.
pp. 314
sqq. 1856.
6 Bleek too saw that the date must be between
170-168 B.C. (Heft ii. pp. 222,3.) The first and successful expedition of An-
tiochus against Ptolemy Philometor, was 171 B.C.; the 2nd, after which he
first attacked Jerusalem, 170 B.C.; that from which the final persecution
began was 168 B.C. Ptolemy Philometor was a minor at the time of the
first expedition. See above p. 154, and Clinton, Fasti Hell. ii. 320, 1.
The 3rd Sibylline book about 170, B.C.
365
Friedlieb sums up his analysis of the book thus, "7 If you
remove from the third book the later foreign accessions,
viz. its present beginning, 1-45, and the last ten lines, as
the latest addition to it; also vv. 47-96, which were writ-
ten about 40-31, B.C., and if you restore to it the Preface
which originally belonged to it, such as it has for the most
part been preserved in Theophilus, you have, as an inde-
pendent whole, the Sibyl, composed by a Jew about 160
B.C., in regard to which it may be unhesitatingly assumed
that it is the old præ-Christian Erythræan Sibyl, known
to Alexander Polyhistor, Varro, Josephus, &c, which Theo-
philus and Athenagoras used, to which Lactantius as-
signed a very especial preeminence, estimating the num-
ber of its verses at about 10008. From this it appears,
that little is wanting to our Sibyl; for, after deducting
what is extraneous and adding the genuine fragments, it
contains 905 verses, so that in all only 95 verses are miss-
ing, of which some belonged to the Preface, the rest to
the book itself.
"This Erythræan was the old Hebrew Sibyl, as it is ex-
pressly called by Clement, Pausanias, &c. It deserved
this name the more, since it was composed by a Jew, and
the Old Testament was the chief source of its Oracles.
"All portions which, according to the accounts of the
old authorities, stood in the Erythræan or Hebrew Si-
byl, occur in our's; a proof that our inference is well-
founded. We can go a step further. Virgil has in his
fourth Eclogue the prophecy of the golden age, and as-
cribes it to the Cumæan Sibyl. This prophecy, which is
founded on Isaiah xi, also stands in our Sibyl, vv. 784-794,
so that we may attribute to this Sibyl the name of Cu-
mæan, though in this indeed there is a confusion, which
however could easily arise, since, according to Varro, the
Cumæan had also the names Amalthæa, Demophile, and
Herophile."
The writer three times fixes his date by annexing the
prophecies of the conversion of the heathen to the date
7 pp. xxxviii, ix.
s Lact. Inst. Div. i. 6.
366 Writer of 3rd Sibylline quoted book of Daniel,
of the 7th king, who should rule over Egypt, of Grecian
race¹. In the early years of that king or of his reign,
it mentions the 1st expedition of Antiochus Epiphanes
against Egypt, his overthrow of the kingdom, his return
to Asia with great wealth³; but the writer knows nothing
later of Antiochus, nothing of Maccabæan wars, nor
of any attempts of Antiochus against his people or the
temple. Contrariwise he foretells, in language taken
from ancient prophecy, from Joel and Zechariah, the
fruitless siege, not by one but by many kings, against Je-
rusalem and the temple, their utter overthrow by the
direct interposition of God; and the entire peace of the
sons of God, in cities and in the country, God placing
around them, as it were, a wall of fire. On this was to
follow the conversion of the heathen 5.
The date then of the writer cannot be later than about
B.C. 170, and before the commencement of the persecu-
tion by Antiochus.
Yet at this date he quotes the prophecy of the ten horns.
and the horn which should spring up at their side;
Ἐκ δέκα δὴ κεράτων παρὰ δὲ φυτὸν ἄλλο φυτεύσει.
—καὶ τότε δὴ παραφυόμενον κέρας ἄρξει.
On the other hand, it is even remarkable that, in re-
gard to the Messiah, employing, as he does, prophecies
of Isaiah and Zechariah, he scarcely alludes to those of
Daniel. It may be, that in the words, "7 Then from sun-
¹ iii. 192, 3, 318, 608-10. ed. Friedl. 2 βασιλεὺς νέος, 608. 3 611-15.
4 iii. 663-709.
5 Ib. 710-731.
7 Ib. 652-5. Καὶ τότ᾽ ἀπ' ηελίοιο θεὸς πέμψει βασιλήα
Ὃς πᾶσαν γαῖαν παύσει πολέμοιο κακοῖο,
6 Sib. iii. 397, 400.
Οὓς μὲν ἄρα κτείνας, οἷς δ᾽ ὅρκια πιστὰ τελέσσας. Lengerke, after Voss, under-
stands àπ' heλíolo to mean, that the Messiah was to come from the sun, i. e.
from heaven. (p. 337, comp. p. 334.) This would have been expressed by àƒ'
oùρavóðev. åπ' neλíolo, “from the sun-rising," is the converse of Homer's
πρòs 'Hŵ π' 'Héλióv te, “towards the morning and the sun," i. e. the East.
The author of the 2nd Sibylline book, (a Christian heretic) unites the language
of Daniel with that of the N. T., but does not use this expression :
"But there shall come in a cloud to the Immortal, Immortal Himself,
πρὸς Ηέλιόν
Christ in glory, with the excellent angels,
And He shall sit on the right on a lofty throne, judging
The life and ways of men, holy and unholy." ii. 242-5.
found nothing in it to support his temporal hopes. 367
rising God shall send a king, who shall stay all the earth
from evil war, slaying some, to others fulfilling faithful
oaths," he may allude to those words in ch. ix, He shall
confirm the covenant with many in one week. But his
omission, for the most part, of the prophecies of Daniel
as to the Messiah, is a striking answer to those who say
that the prophecies of Daniel were forged for those times.
The Sibylline writer was a fanatic; a modern school would
class Daniel with him; and yet, on this subject of the com-
mon hopes of the Jews, the Coming of the Messiah, he
found nothing in Daniel to use for his hopes.
The first of the modern assailants of the book of Da-
niel, pointed out the correspondence of the ten horns and
the other collateral horn with the prophecy of Daniel, and
also the carly date of the Sibyl, and had no other so-
lution than that both "8 the Daniel of Palestine and the
Egyptian author of the Sibylline book drew from an
earlier and common source," and that, "yet earlier, it
was not uncommon to represent Alexander and the king-
doms formed after his death under the image of an animal
with ten horns," whereas, in the time of Antiochus, there
had not been ten kings, and there never were ten king-
doms. "Who could believe it?" said a later opponent 9,
8 Bleek 1. c.
9 Hilgenfeld, D. Judische Apocalytik, p. 69. note. Hilgenfeld's expedient
was to bring the Sibylline book down to 137 B.C. This was to be effected by
interpreting of Antiochus Epiphanes, what must relate to Alexander, and then
explaining the sequel, of times after Epiphanes. The words are," But Mace-
don shall bring forth heavy woe for Asia, And greatest grief of Europe shall
shoot forth From bastards of the race of the Cronidæ and the race of slaves.
She [Macedon] shall o'ercome Babylon too, the strong city; And, of the whole
carth which the sun surveys Entitled lady, she shall perish by an evil fate,
Having no law for the late, much-bewailed descendants. Once too shall there
come unexpectedly to the happy soil of Asia, A man clad with purple robe on his
shoulders, Fierce, unjust, fiery, lightning-born; But all Asia shall bear the yoke,
and the bedewed earth shall drink much slaughter. But thus too shall Ades
take charge of every one in utter destruction. Whose race he willeth utterly
to destroy, From their race shall his race utterly perish, Giving forth one sucker ;
which too the destroyer shall cut off From ten horns; but shall plant another
plant close by. He shall cut off the warrior father of the purple race, And him-
self by sons, to whom war becomes an auspicious, likeminded [friend], Shall
perish, and then shall the he:n, planted hard by, rule." (iii. 381-400.) There
368 Auxiliary evidence of the date of 3rd Sibylline.
who thought that he had escaped the difficulty in another
"Credulity of the incredulous !"
way.
is no question, but the fierce conqueror of all Asia and Babylon is Alexander;
the term "bastard" "is probably an allusion to Zech. ix. 6, and to his claim to
descent from Jupiter," (Sib. v. 6, 7.) as it is explained distinctly Sib. ix. [xi]
195-8. The "one sucker" is perhaps Alexander's son, who was murdered.
But, in secular history, it is in vain to look for minute meaning in such a wri-
ter as the author of the 3rd Sibylline. He has one great contrast, Asia and
Europe, of which Asia, in the empire of the Messiah, was to requite to Europe
the ills it had received. The description does not suit Epiphanes. He came,
not as a conqueror, but redeemed from being a hostage at Rome by his bro-
ther, whose throne he occupied peacefully, and, in the absence of his nephew
Demetrius at Rome, lawfully; he sought to extirpate no race, neither the Pto-
lemies nor that of Demetrius. But with the groundwork the whole theory is
gone. The wars with the Parthians, in which Demetrius II. lost his liberty,
and his brother Antiochus Sidetes his life, were to be the explanation of “war
becoming to the sons their favourer and friend.” (Zündel, Daniel, p. 143.) Zün-
del (although he inadvertently accepted the explanation of Hilgenfeld) has
pointed out the following additional evidence that the 3rd Sibylline was not
later than B. C. 160. 1) The passage about the tower of Babel is cited as the
Sibyl's by Alexander Polyhistor. (Eus. Chron. Arm. i. 38.) But he had it from
Eupolemus. (Eus. Præp. Evang. iv. 17.) But "the work of Eupolemus cannot
be later than 160.” (Kuhlmey, Diss. Inaug.) But connected with this, is a pro-
phecy of empires, not world-empires like Daniel's, but successive powers, so as
to be an imitation of prophecy. "He raised up the kingdom of Egypt, then
that of the Persians, Medes, Egyptians, and Babylon of Assyria; then of the
Macedonians, again of Egypt, then of Rome." ii. 159-161. 2) That kingdom
was also in its beginning. But thereon will be the rule of another kingdom,
Hoary and many-headed, [the senate] and from the western sea, Which shall
rule much land, and shake many, And cause fear to all kings afterward, And
amass much gold and silver from many cities....In those days, there shall be
great affliction among men, and shall confuse all, And cut all to pieces and fill all
with ill, By disgraceful avarice, ill-gained wealth, In many countries, and Ma-
cedonia most. Until the 7th reign, which a king of Egypt shall reign who shall
be of the race of the Greeks." (iii. 175-193.) This suits the state of Macedonia,
before its subdual; not after it had become a Roman Province, 168 B.C.
3) Tribute from Asia was but recent. "Know, then, evil race of Egypt, that thou
art near destruction, And then will the past year have been best for the Alex-
andrians. What wealth soe'er Rome hath received from tributary Asia &c.”
(348-50. See above p. 162.) But then the writer threatens requital to Rome.
The tribute from Asia began with the enormous sum put upon Antiochus the
Great, after the battle of Magnesia, 190 B. C.; but the threat could not have
been after the battle of Pydna, 168 B.C. The utmost ambition even of Mithri
dates was to recover Asia. The most decisive proof of the age of the3rd Sibylline
book seems to me that given in the text p. 366; the rest harmonise with it.
Philometor too, though probably about 10 at his accession, B. C. 181, could hard-
ly have been accounted Baoiλeùs véos, 21 years afterwards, B. C. 160.
66
Extreme accuracy of 1st Book of Maccabees.
369
vi. The extreme accuracy of the first Book of Maccabees
is acknowledged on all hands. It is the history of the Jews
in that complicated period, wherein they were brought
into varied relations with contending powers. The wri-
ter gives us an outline of the persecution of Epiphanes,
as connected with his expeditions against Egypt¹, and
then, in order of years, the struggles of the Maccabees,
from the first bold act of Mattathias to the death of the
last of his sons, Simon. In this period of 34 years, he
gives 21 dates 2, names of various persons who claimed
the throne of Syria, sometimes outlines of their end.
His facts are in accordance with other history, wherever
they come in contact; he inserts written documents, and
1 ¹ 1 Macc. i. 10, 20, 29, 54. with three important dates, that of his accession,
A.S. 137; an expedition to Egypt, on the return from which he spoiled Jeru-
salem, A.S. 143; the beginning of his persecution of the Jews, A.S. 145;
Casleu 15.
2 ii. 70, A.S. 146, death of Mattathias; ii. 37, A.S. 147, Antiochus' expe-
dition to the East; iv. 28, expedition of Lysias, "the next year; " iv. 52, A.S.
148, cleansing of the temple by Judas; vi. 16, A.S. 149, death of Epiphanes ;
vi. 20, A.S. 150, Judas' ill success against Lysias, and relief by rivalry of Phi-
lip, returning from Persia; vii. 1. A.S. 151, Demetrius' escape from Rome,
murder of Lysias and Eupator by army; Ib. 43, Adar 13, defeat and death of
Nicanor; ix. 3, A.S. 152, expedition of Bacchides, in which Judas was slain ;
Ib. 57, rest for two years after the death of Alcimus; x. 1, A.S. 160, war be-
tween Alexander (Balas,) "son of Ant. Epiph.," and Demetrius; x. 20, 1, in
the 7th month Alexander makes Jonathan high-priest; x. 57, S, A.S. 162, Pto-
lemy marries his daughter Cleopatra to Alexander; Ib. 67, A.S. 165, “De-
metrius son of Demetrius" [i. e. Nicator II.] comes from Crete; xi. 19, A.S.
167, Demetrius is established on the throne by death of Ptolemy on 3rd day
after he had received the head of Balas; xiii. 41, 42, A.S. 170, yoke of the hea-
then taken away by grant from Demetrius, 1st year of Simon; Ib. 51, A.S. 171,
Simon recovers at last "the tower in Jerusalem;" xiv. 1-3, A.S. 172, Demetrius
taken prisoner by Arsaces; Ib. 27, 35, A.S. 172, 3rd year of Simon, Simon cho-
sen governor and high-priest by the people; xv. 10, A.S. 174, Antiochus (Si-
detes) "returns from the isles of the sea," (" Rhodes," App. Syr. 68.) to “the
land of his fathers;" xvi. 14-16, A.S. 177, Simon and two of his sons assassi-
nated treacherously.
3 In the answer from the Roman senate, viii. 23-32, the Latin gleams
through in three places. (see Grimm ad loc.) The author gives a transcript
(ȧvríypapa) Ib. 22, as also of the letter to the Lacedæmonians, (xii. 5,) and
their answer, (Ib. 19,) and of a second letter, (xiv. 20,) and of the decree in
favour of Simon. (xiv. 27.) Also he inserts a brief letter of Alexander Balas, (x.
18-20); a letter of his rival Demetrius, (whose beginning is characteristic, ad-
B b
370
Internal evidence of the accuracy and
there is nothing to contravene their genuineness; his
dates and names even remarkably stand the test of coins¹.
Sharing singularly Judas Maccabæus' simple trustful es-
timate of the Roman character 2, relating the reports
which reached Judæa just as they reached it³, the writer
is the more remarkable for the knowledge of customs
and facts, which come within the scope of his relation *.
dressed "to the people of the Jews," and ignoring Jonathan, who had just re-
ceived the high-priesthood at the hand of Alexander, Ib. 20, 21,) Ib. 25-45;
a letter of Demetrius in favour of the Jews, (xi. 32-36,) of which a copy was to
be sent to Jonathan, (Ib. 37,) and another of Demetrius to Simon, xiii. 36-40;
a letter of Antiochus Sidetes to Simon, xv. 1-9.
1
e. g.
in the remarkable title, x. 1, "Alexander, the son of Antiochus, Epi-
phanes," in which the writer attributes the title Epiphanes to Alexander Balas,
whereas every one imagined that it must belong to Antiochus Epiphanes,
whose son Balas claimed to be. But a coin of Balas (in Eckhel, Doctr. num.
I. III. 228,) bears the title Epiphanes, agreeing with the text. Grimm ad loc.
2 viii. 1-20. See ab. pp. 162,3. In speaking of "the terms of studied equa-
lity" in the treaty granted by the Romans, I did not observe the claim of su-
periority, unoffensively conveyed in the twice-repeated, "as it hath seemed good
to Rome," noticed by Grimm ad loc. p. 129.
2 e. g. as to the capture of Antiochus III. alive by the Romans, viii. 7; the
cession of India and Media as well as Lydia, by Antiochus and the grant of
them to Eumenes. Ib. 8. The writer expressly says, "Judas had heard," Ib. 1.
"it was told him also." Ib. 2. He tells accurately an inaccurate report which
altogether determined Judas. Grimm remarks on the mention of the Gauls,
(Ib. 2,) that Livy says, "the victory over Antiochus was more glorious to the
Romans; that over the Gauls gladder to the allies." xxxvii. 37. The promi-
nence given to Spain, (viii. 3,) and the policy and perseveringness of the Romans,
(Ib. 4,) are striking, as is the allusion to the Ætolian threat, to carry the war
into Italy, (Ib. 9); the amazement so natural in one, hitherto in contact only
with Eastern ambition, that no one sought to be Sovereign, (Ib. 14); and that
hitherto they had been free from internal discord. Ib. 16.
4 These are naturally most observable in the series of persons, kings and
others, who come in contact with the Jews. The incidental traits are in keep-
ing; c. g. the silence observed by Ptol. Philom., when Jonathan's enemies tried
to irritate him against Jonatban, (xi. 5); the way in which Demetrius got
rid of Lysias and Eupator, without ordering them to be murdered, (vii. 2-4);
Epiphanes' extravagance in gifts and consequent needs, (iii. 30); that Lysias
was of the blood royal, (Ib. 32); the mention of "the great pit" at Bezeth,
(vii. 19); Nicanor's hatred, (vii. 26,) connected probably with his previous de-
feat, (iii. 38); minute statement of taxation, very oppressive yet not unexam-
pled, (see Grimm) mentioned not in complaint, but in treaty promising its
abolition, (x. 29, 30); complex manoeuvring, beyond what appears on the sur-
face, (Ib. 80, 1); the service rendered by the Jewish troops sent by Jonathan
truthfulness of the 1st Book of Maccabees. 371
He also tells simply the retreats, defeats, flight, diminu-
tion, increase, of the Maccabee armies 5; how their chiefs,
to Demetrius, (xi. 44-51); hindrance of relief of besieged in the tower at Je-
rusalem by deep fall of snow, (xiii. 22; deep snow is mentioned else, once only
in Holy Scripture; 2 Sam. xxiii. 20.) the decree of the Romans on receiving
the shield from Simon, (xv. 20,) that all "pestilent fellows" should be given
up to Simon, who had fled to other kings and countries, (Ib. 21.) Grimm
quotes the remark of Josephus (B. J. i. 24. 2.) on a similar grant to Herod;
"To no other king did Cæsar give such honor, that he should recover one who
had fled from him even from a city not appertaining to him." Probably the
grant was made the more readily to Jews, the offences being religious, which
Romans did not care about, not civil. The names of kings and countries, to
which these letters were sent from Rome, are remarkable, in that no one, with-
out accurate information, would have selected all the names of kings, (e. g.
Arsaces ;) and that the names of countries are put down without reference to
relative situation; yet even Sampsames, which was an enigma in old times,
(the Vulg. has Lampsacus,) is now recognised to be Samsum, a town, "held
in considerable respect," in the gulf of S. (Ker Porter, Trav. ii. 690.) between
Sinope and Trebizond, mentioned by Abulfeda, (I. D. Mich. ad loc.) The
Epistle to the king of Syria was addressed to Demetrius, (xv. 22,) who was
king when it was despatched, but, when it arrived, was a prisoner in Parthia.
Of customs, may be named; slave-merchants attending a conquering army,
(iii. 41); intoxicating drink given to, and even set before, elephants to stimulate
them, (vi. 34); their "Indian," (Ib. 37); the " clasp of gold," as a token of
royal favour, (x. 89, xi. 58); that there were different classes of "the friends
of the king," (x. 65); the office of σrparnyós in Syrian rule, (Ib.); "leave to
drink in gold,” xi. 58.
5 Judas, in the second battle at Bethoron, had "a small company," (iii. 16);
then 3000, but ill-armed, (iv. 6); after the victory over Gorgias, he had 10,000,
(iv. 29); after the retreat of Lysias, he and his brother had 11,000, besides a
reserve, (v. 17-21,) which must have been considerable, since its commander
fighting against orders, lost in one battle 2000 men. (Ib. 60.) Aganst Lysias
with his larger army he is unsuccessful; probably by a bold charge, he de-
stroys 600 men, (vi. 42); his brother sacrifices himself in vain, (Ib. 43-6); his
army retreats. (Ib. 47.) After the intrigues of Alcimus, he had only 3000 men,
(vii. 40,) with which he defeated Nicanor, probably through his own personal
prowess, since Nicanor's death determined the battle. (Ib. 43, 4.) He has again
only 3000 against Bacchides, of whom all but 800 fled in the battle in which he
fell. (ix. 5-6, 18.) After this Jonathan had but a company, whom his opponents
thought to take in one night, (ix. 58,) who were besieged in a city "in the
wilderness" (of Tekoa.) Ib. 62. He does not appear at the head of an army, un-
til Demetrius, (over against Alexander Balas, x. 4, 5,) gave him authority to
gather an host, and released the hostages. (Ib. 6-8.) After Alexander had
made him Meridarch, (Ib. 65,) he could select 10,000 men from Jerusalem, be-
sides those under Simon, (x. 74.) In a battle with an army of Demetrius, on
a surprise, almost all his men flee, but return. (xi. 72, 3.)
Horsemen" ap-
pear in the Jewish armies for the first time under Simon, yet then too were
Bb 2
372 Internal evidence of exactness of Mattathias' speech.
1
in their openhearted character, fell into snares ¹; and how
they were relieved by events in their assailants' history,
rather than by their own power 2. He writes in a sim-
ple unimpassioned way, leaving the history to make its
own impression.
We have then good ground to think, that the few sim-
ple words of the dying Mattathias, the parent of the
Maccabee heroes, are likely to have been faithfully pre-
served. They are a few energetic short discriminating
sentences, such as such a man would speak, when trans-
mitting to his sons the cause of the faith, around which
he had rallied them. The direction, as to the part to be
taken by his sons, is not what men have looked for, but
is verified by thoughtful attention to the history 3. Two
very inferior in numbers, (xvi. 4,7.) He then "chooses out of the country
20,000 men of war." (Ib. 4.)
¹ xii. 46-48, xvi, 11-16. In the same simplicity, the Asidæans trusted Al-
cimus and Bacchides, because "he, a priest of the seed of Aaron, is come with
this army and he will do us no wrong," (vii. 14,) and those in Jerusalem ad-
mitted Lysias and Eupator into mount Zion, whereon they destroyed its walls,
vi. 61, 2.
2 The peace with Antiochus Eupator was granted to them in their extre-
mities, on advice of Lysias, on the ground of the return of Philip, the rival
of Lysias, vi. 54-63. Bacchides left them in peace for 2 years, the king of Sy-
ria having all the strong places in the country, ix. 50-7. Demetrius, in dread
of his rival Alexander Balas, authorised Jonathan to raise an army, (x. 6,)
whereon Jonathan re-fortified Jerusalem, (Ib. 10-11.) Grant of high-priesthood
from Alexander, (Ib. 18-20); immunities offered to the Jews by Demetrius on
the condition of their supplying him with 30,000 men, (Ib. 22-45); rejected,
because Demetrius was not believed, whereas Alexander was, (Ib. 46, 7.) Fa-
vor shewn to Jonathan by Alexander when successful. (Ib. 59-66.) Further
favor, when he had defeated Apollonius, general of Demetrius II. (Ib. 88, 9.)
After Alexander's death (xi. 17,) good terms given by Demetrius, (Ib 23-37,)
but troops asked for and sent. (Ib.42-44.) After his breach of promise, (Ib. 53,)
Jonathan accepts favours from Antiochus son of Balas and Tryphon, (Ib. 57-
60,) renews the alliance with Rome, (xii. 3.) On Tryphon's treacherous mur-
der of Jonathan, (Ib. 42-48, xiii. 23.) and of Antiochus, (xiii. 31,) Simon sought
and obtained recognition by Demetrius, (Ib. 34-40,) renewed treaties with
Rome, (xiv. 16-19,) with present. (Ib. 24.) Terms renewed by Antiochus Si-
detes, when trying to regain his father's kingdom, (xv. 1-9,) broken, when
successful. (Ib. 27.) Letters from Rome to different kings and countries in
favour of the Jews, in acknowledgment of their present. (Ib. 15-24.) The
pook closes with the murder of Simon by his son-in-law shortly afterwards.
3 Mattathias designates Simon as "a man of counsel," and bids them “give
Exact, but simple, reference to book of Daniel in it. 373
points have been observed in that speech, as bearing on
the book of Daniel. 1) His mention of Daniel's compa-
nions and of Daniel in the same simple way, in which he
had named other Scripture-examples before them, Abra-
ham, Joseph, Phinehas, Joshua, Caleb, David, Elias *;
and that, in the order in which their deliverances are re-
lated in the book, Daniel's companions being named be-
fore himself. Their histories too are touched on in a sin-
gle word, as recorded in Daniel. Ananias, Azarias,
and Misael, by believing were saved out of the flame.
"Daniel, for his innocency, was delivered from the mouth
of lions." 2) His acknowledgement that a time of de-
struction was come 7, such as Daniel had foretold; and
his absolute certainty as to the issue, such as the know-
ledge of the prophecies of Daniel would justify.
"The words of dying men are not written down,"
they say. True! but the glowing words of faith of such
a father as Mattathias are written in the table of the
heart, and live there in the breasts of sons, and, if need
were, of sons' sons.
ear to him, he shall be a father to you," whereas Judas he describes as "mighty
and strong from his youth; let him be your captain." (1 Macc. ii. 65, 6.) Grimm
criticises this, as a mere mistake of the relater, since Simon too had the sole
command, after the deaths of Judas and Jonathan, and Judas might have
"shewn counsel, had he lived." But the characteristic of Judas, which fitted
him to be captain then with their handful of men, was the personal lion-heart-
ed strength and courage, by which he made those sudden assaults which threw
superior numbers into confusion, (1 Macc. iii. 11, 23, iv. 3, 4, v. 28, 33, ix. 14,
15.) in one of which assaults, surrounded by superior numbers, he fell. (ix. 16,
18.) Simon was associated in a subordinated command by Judas, (1 Mace. v.
17 23,) and afterwards was joined with Jonathan, (Ib. ix. 33,) yet still as sub-
ordinate, (Ib. 65, xi. 59, 64, xii. 33, 38,) the authority remaining with Jona-
than. (Ib. x-xii.) Not until all his brethren were dead, did he have the
chief command.
+ ii. 52-60.
5 Ib. 59, comp. Dan. iii. 17, 18, 28.
Ib. 60, comp. Dan. vi. 22.
7 On the one side, the strong word ẻornplxon is used ii. 49, (vûv ẻoτnpíxon
ὑπερηφανία καὶ ἐλεγμὸς καὶ καιρὸς καταστροφῆς καὶ ὀργὴ θυμοῦ ;) on the other,
Mattathias bids them confidently, not to fear "the words of a sinful man."
(åvôpòs åµaρtwλoû) Ib. 62. This is independent of the question whether, in
the καιρός καταστροφής, there be any reference to the καιρὸς συντελείας in Dan.
viii. 19, xi. 35. The word "sinner" is not applied to the heathen as such, (as
Grimm says, on i. 34,) but to some special antagonism to God and His laws.
374 1st book of Maccabees, before death of Hyrcanus,
But the date of the book itself, embodying this mention
of the two miraculous deliverances in Daniel, as well as
that of the "¹ abomination of desolation," in those same
Greek words, by which the LXX had translated those of
Daniel, was, probably, early in the life of John Hyrcanus.
For the first book of Maccabees breaks off with the ac-
count of the assassination of Simon, and the carrying of
the tidings to his son John. The rest of the history of
John was contained "in the chronicles of his priesthood,
from the time he was made high priest after his father."
The writer's ground for breaking off was, he says, that
what remained had been written already. But the fact of
the history of Hyrcanus having been written would not
have shewn this, had Hyrcanus been dead and had there
been a period beyond him. This history of their former
war had also a special history, before the war of freedom
was over. The expression also, "the rest of the acts,
&c.they are written in the chronicles of," naturally signi-
fies that they were written in chronicles kept contempo-
raneously year by year. He refers, as do the older wri-
ters whose language he adopts 3, to chronicles officially
kept, not to any book publicly circulated. The writer
only names the time when they began, to signify that they
left no gap from the time when he left off. Nor do the
facts, which he says were contained in those chronicles,
necessarily go down far in the life of Hyrcanus. "The
rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem" was naturally his
first act on throwing off the Syrian yoke, when he heard
• Bồéλvyµa épnµwσews, i. 54, from Dan. ix. 27, xi. 31.
3 1 Kgs. [3 Kgs. LXX.] xiv. 19, 29, &c.
21 Macc. end.
4 Grimm rests his argu-
"Our writer refers to these
ment solely on the supposed circulation. He says,
annals, as to a book in extensive circulation, accessible to his readers. But it
cannot be well supposed, that it came into public use before it was completed
at the death of John Hyrcanus." p. xxiv. But it is one thing that writings should
be "accessible;" quite another, that they should be "in circulation." As it is
quite certain that those other chronicles of the Kings of Judah and Israel were
not in circulation, so, doubtless, this phrase, adopted from the old books, meant
what it meant before, that they were state-documents, accessible but not in cir-
culation. Those documents, if kept annually, were accessible, in any year of
the reign of Hyrcanus, down to that period.
probably about B. C. 125, certainly before B. C. 105, 375
of the death of Antiochus Sidetes", B. C. 1276. The wars
were ended soon after, and a long peace was secured by
the Syrian civil wars. The main wars were over then,
B. C. 125, and all which the writer of the 1st book of
Maccabees speaks of, as contained in the chronicles of
Hyrcanus, falls in that period. Probably then it was
written aboutB. C. 125. Soon after, Samaria was destroy-
ed, and the last ashes of war extinguished, B. C. 109. Any
how a very accurate and simple writer, who lived before the
death of Hyrcanus, B. C. 105, writing of a period at most
60, probably only some 40, years before, having access
also to written documents, relates that Mattathias, the
father of those whose history he relates, on his deathbed
encouraged his sons with histories taken from the book
of Daniel together with other canonical Scriptures. And
this, three years before the time, when, on the rationalist
hypothesis, the book is to have been written. He him-
self quotes the book of Daniel, as bearing on those times.
But, beyond the direct citations, the whole history of
the Maccabees, as recorded in that book, is inconsistent
with men's invention of a Pseudo-Daniel in the time of
the Maccabees; while the absence of any expectation or
5 The wars, in which he subdued Samaria and incorporated Edom, followed im-
mediately after the death of Antiochus, and were probably not long protracted;
for "most of the cities were void of fighting-men." Medaba alone resisted for
six months. The temple of Samaria was destroyed, some "200 years after" it
had been built by permission of Alexander, B.C. 332. (Jos. Ant.xiii. 9. 1.) Soon
after, was the Roman edict which confirmed Hyrcanus. (Ib. § 2.) After a long
interval of peace, Samaria was destroyed, one of the generals of Antiochus Cy-
zicenus perished, the other sold to Hyrcanus what remained in the hands of
Syria. (Ib. xiii. 10. 1-3.)
See Clinton, F. Hell. T. iii. p. 335. 7 First, between Antiochus Gry-
pus and Alexander Zebina; then, between Antiochus Grypus and Cyzicenus.
Josephus says; "After the death of Antiochus (Sidetes), Hyrcanus revolted
from the Macedonians, and neither as subject, nor as friend, did he yield them
anything. But his affairs were advancing greatly, and were at their height,
in the times of Alexander Zebina and especially of those two brothers. For
their war with each other gave Hyrcanus leisure, &c."
The identity of the formula used at the death of Judas (ix. 22,) with that
as to Hyrcanus (xvi. 23,) and those in the books of Kings, leaves me no doubt
that the writer meant, that the other acts of Judas and his wars, &c. were "not
written in the document from which he took the rest.
376 History in 1st book of Maccabees contradicts
looking for the Messiah then, falls in, as I said¹, with the
natural exposition of the prophecy of the 70 weeks. The
Pseudo-Daniel, men say, wrote to " encourage his coun-
trymen in their great struggle against Antiochus." Then,
we should have the phænomenon of a contemporary, wri-
ting to inspire his countrymen with the belief that their
struggles would be ended by the coming of the Great De-
liverer, and a minute, natural, accurate, history of 34
years of those struggles, written in all the simplicity of
trust in God, that He, Who had delivered their forefathers,
would, in His ordinary Providence, give them the victory,
but without the slightest thought of any unusual inter-
vention³. There is not one hope of a future temporal
deliverance, but a calm waiting in religious matters for
the time, when a " Prophet should arise." "We miss,"
says a writer 5, candid on the whole but unbelieving, "we
miss something essential in those speeches of the book.
For although no tradition had been preserved to us, we
must have pre-supposed, as necessarily involved in the re-
ligious mind [of the people,] that the hopes of the Mes-
siah should scarcely ever have kindled up clearer and
more glowing than in that extreme trouble under Antio-
chus Epiphanes, and that those hopes would have been the
mightiest impulse to animate to the most dauntless, bold-
est, struggle, and the most joyous endurance." Yet the
history is too vivid, too graphic, not to be true to the life.
It is consistent with itself. The actors in it look to
God's ordinary Providence, that He will give to the few
the victory over the many, on the whole; they are not
dejected by defeat; they look round and avail themselves
ably of human help; they act as religious men, with the
belief that God willed to preserve His people, looking for
no extraordinary interposition, but with what we should
call good practical wisdom. They expect a prophet, but
3 iii.
1
¹ Lect. iv. pp. 230-32. 2 Dr Williams, Ess. and Rev. p. 76.
18-22, 43, 4, 52, 3, 9, 60, iv. 10, 11, 24, 5, 30-3, v. 32, 3, vii. 37, 8, 41,
4 See ab. p. 230. 5 Grimm, Kurzgef. Hdb. z. d. Apokr. T. iii.
6 lit. "a religious-psychological necessity."
2, ix. 46.
p. xix.
unbelieving theories as to book of Daniel.
377
hereafter. The book of Daniel, according to the author-
ship and object imputed by these men, would be at vari-
ance with all this; and all this, with the imputed pur-
pose of the book of Daniel. The Pseudo-Daniel is to have
written a series of prophecies, bearing upon the times of
Antiochus; he is to have ascribed them to an ancient pro-
phet, and to have stated that they were to be kept con-
cealed until his own time: those prophecies are to have
been produced at the time of the Maccabees, in order to
awaken the expectation of a supernatural deliverer, who
should give them the victory, and establish a temporal
"kingdom of the saints," i. e. of the Jews. The prophe-
cies, framed, as is alleged, for this end, are to have been
received largely and at once, and are to have been placed
unhesitatingly at once among their sacred scriptures;
they are to have been referred to thenceforth as prophe-
tic truth, and yet there is not one trace of their having
the slightest influence on the minds of the people, in in-
spiring those hopes, which they are to have been forged
to create. The history of the Maccabees, as the authen-
tic history of those times, contradicts the unbelieving
theories as to Daniel.
The first book of Maccabees was, I think, probably
written in Hebrew 7. Had the Greek been the original,
7 S. Jerome doubtless means to say that he had seen the original Hebrew of
the first book of Maccabees, "Maccabæorum primum librum hebraicum reperi;
secundus græcus est, quod ex ipsa quoque phrasi probari potest." (Prol. gal.)
For the fact, that the language itself of the 2nd book shewed that it was Greek,
would have had no bearing on the former statement, unless he had meant that
the first was originally Hebrew. Origen's statement that they had a Hebrew
title implies the same. "External to these [the canonical books] are the Mac-
cabees which are entitled Sarbeth Sarbane el." (in Eus. H. E. vi. 25.) For
they would not have been known to the Greek-speaking Church by a Hebrew
title, unless such had been the original title. Hebraisms, of course, in them-
selves prove nothing; for one, who thinks in his own language and writes in
another, is, in fact, translating, although mentally. One e. g. who had the
word in his mind, might just as well use évartlov for it, instead of éváñiov,
as one who had it before his eyes; and so on. But mistakes in translating
shew that the writer and translator were different. The "two and thirty
strong men" upon each elephant seem likely to be for "two or three;” (wbu
ow for own awe. (vi. 37.) The difficult words, "at Saramel," (xiv. 28,)
378 Evidence from the Greek additions to the book
the quotation of the LXX¹ would have been by the origi-
nal writer, about 125-109; and in that case, the book of
Maccabees would have involved an earlier date of the
book of Daniel, on the ground of the following argument
also. If the original was Hebrew, it is only the Greek
translator of the Maccabees, who has adopted the trans-
lation of the LXX for the term in Daniel.
vii. It is admitted that a considerable interval elapsed
between the writing of the book of Daniel and its trans-
lation; and that, on the ground both of the additions to
Daniel, contained in the LXX and admitted to be con-
temporary with it; (viz. the prayer and song of the three
children, the history of Susanna, and that of the destruc-
tion of Bel and the Dragon,) and also of the character of
the translation itself. 1) The history of Susanna was
confessedly written in Greek. In regard to the other ad-
ditions there are no data. But, since they were not in
the Hebrew, and since the history of Bel and the Dragon
is evidently founded in part on the history of Daniel in
the Hebrew Canon, some interval must have elapsed be-
tween the writing of the book of Daniel, and the gather-
ing of these additions to it.
But 2) the LXX translation of the book itself is, even
in important places, so remarkable a modification of it,
that a long interval must have elapsed between the time
when it was written and when it was so translated.
The Greek itself is, in many parts, purer and more ele-
gant than that of any other of the LXX translations.
seem to be most easily explained by a mistake of 1 for a, b by me, so that it
should run,
"Simon the high priest and prince of the people of God," (Werns-
dorf's conjecture.) “Elam” is called a "city," (vi. 1,) perhaps as a faulty
translation of 7, “city” or country;" but perhaps also in that the name
of the country is given to the capital, as Arabic writers call Memphis or Cairo,
"Misr," originally Egypt." (Grimm, p. 91.) Still most of the cases alleged,
although possible, are not decisive. Thus the words, "be ye instead of me and
my brother," (xvi. 3,) probably allude to the last brother with whom he was
so long associated, (Jonathan ;) so that there is no reason to think that it is a
mistake of ' for 'g. Yet there are other minute expressions, which seemed
to me, on the whole, indicative of a translation.
1 See ab. p. 374, n. 1.
CC
2 No other explanation can be given of the verbal allusions, 54, 5; 58, 9.
of Daniel, and from the character of the translation. 379
The translator avoided Hebraisms, which Theodotion
subsequently restored, and, in some places, substituted
a classical Greek word. But in the same mind of re-
commending it and his people to the readers, he mani-
foldly glossed the text. In the historical portion, he in-
serted statements, more or less full, which he thought
would make the narrative easier, or would explain it, or
would increase its effect, or meet some lesser difficulties.
On the other hand, he omitted or changed statements,
which he thought would be unacceptable to his reader,
and modified some doctrines. He made both Nebu-
chadnezzar and Darius more religious and more tho-
roughly converted, than Daniel states them to have been.
He explained, who, he believed, Darius was. The mira-
culous accounts place us in quite a different atmosphere
from that in which we live in Daniel. The translator
made large additions, condensed, transposed, repeated,
as he thought would be acceptable. In some cases, his
thoughts must have turned on the times in which he lived;
as, when he made the insanity of Nebuchadnezzar the pu-
nishment for his sacrilege against the house of God, and
placed the dream, which predicted it a year before, in his
18th year, the year of the capture of Jerusalem, and of
the destruction of the temple 3.
The translation of the later historical prophecy, (ch. xi,)
is remarkable in another way. The prediction is to have
been, (Porphyry and his school say,) history in the form
of prophecy, because it is so exact. Of all this historical
prophecy, the translator understood well one part, just
that which a Jew, living at the time at Alexandria, would
know, or what happened in Egypt itself. He para-
phrases rightly the words, "there shall come ships of
Chittim," by," And the Romans shall come and shall ex-
pel him, and shall rebuke him strongly," in allusion to
the peremptory way in which Popilius cut short the sub-
terfuges of Epiphanes. But in the whole previous pro-
3 All this will be seen most vividly by an actual comparison of the LXX with
the text, for which see Note E.
* Dan. xi. 30.
380 Evidence from historical mistakes of the translator,
phecy, from the successors of Cyrus to Antiochus Epi-
phanes, at every stage, in every step of every stage, he
shews himself to be ignorant of the history. He trusts
himself with it as little as he can. A literal translation
would, of course, have guided him aright, wherever there
was no uncertainty of construction; but, on whatever
ground, down to the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, he al-
most always distorts the facts, because he would not trust
himself with a literal translation. Porphyry and his
school have maintained that it would have been an easy
thing, in the time of Epiphanes, to write the prophecies
of Daniel, on the ground that they could understand them.
by aid of the histories at their command¹. The case was
very different, when those histories were not written 2.
Tradition, or ordinary learning, did not suffice. The re-
markable failure of a Jew at the time of Epiphanes, even
with the prophecy of Daniel before him, well-read as he
was in Greek, (as the character of his Greek, here and
there, shews,) is an argument, which must strike any mind,
which wills not to be blind. It is even strange that the
translator of Daniel could have failed so uniformly. The
exception as to Popilius, in which he even added, (as his
way was,) what was not in Daniel, marks his own date.
There was nothing to fix this one fact in the memory of
a later generation, more than so many which he distorted
for want of any traditional or historical knowledge of the
past. In this case, he added real facts to those foretold
by Daniel, as, in other cases, he perverted the facts which
lay before his eyes in the prophet. Yet all this was not
"To understand the latter part of Daniel, manifold Greek history is neces-
sary; viz. Callinicus Sutorius [3rd cent. A.D.] Diodorus, Hieronymus, [3rd
cent. B. C.] Polybius, Posidonius, Claudius, (about 100, B.C. Smith, Biogr.
Dict. v. Quadrigarius) Theon, and Andronicus Alipius, (about 112-51, B.C.
Smith) whom Porphyry too says that he followed; Josephus also and those
whom Josephus puts down, and especially our Livy, and Pomponius Trogus
and Justin, who relate the whole history of the last vision, and after Alex-
ander down to Cæsar Augustus describe the wars of Syria and Egypt, i. e. of
Seleucus, Antiochus, and the Ptolemies." S. Jerome, Præf. to Daniel.
2 Polybius did not apparently begin his history until after 145, B.C. See Smith,
Dict. iii. 144.
and his falsifying of the prophecy of the 70 weeks. 381
for want of knowledge of the original language, which he
understood well, except perhaps, in places, some anti-
quated words of the prophet's date.
In the prophecy of the 70 weeks, the translator again
repeatedly falsifies the time, in order to make it fit in
with that of Epiphanes. For the dates of the original,
he twice substitutes seven, and seventy, and sixty two,
making 139. This, according to the era of the Seleu-
cide which the Jews used, comprised the second year
of the reign of Epiphanes, soon after whose accession
Onias was deposed, to which act this writer probably
alluded in his unfaithful paraphrase, "chrism shall be re-
moved." Apparently, he meant the first date of "seventy
weeks" to be literal weeks, since he renders, as if Daniel
himself were to see them; in his next numbers he sup-
plied “years,” capriciously effacing the word “weeks;
and then, at the end, under the "week," "weeks," means
again literal "weeks of days." Thus he makes the later
part of the prophecy a prophecy of the chequered but suc-
cessful resistance to Antiochus, ending not in the de-
struction of the city and of the sanctuary, but in a se-
cond rebuilding of the city ³. And this he does, altering
3
وو
3 This will be seen best by a translation of the whole. (In order to repre-
sent the original more exactly, I have not supplied the article where it is omit-
ted.) "Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon the city of
Sion; that the sin be accomplished and the iniquities become rare, and to wipe
away the iniquities and the vision be thoroughly understood, and everlasting
righteousness be given, and the visions and a prophet be consummated, and to
gladden a holy of holies. And thou shalt be gladdened, and shalt find commands
that answer be made, and shalt build Jerusalem, a city to the Lord. And after
seven and seventy and sixty two, chrism shall be removed and shall not be;
and a kingdom of gentiles shall corrupt the city and the holy place with the
anointed; and the consummation thereof shall come with anger, and unto time
of consummation it shall be warred upon by war. And the covenant shall
have might towards many, and it shall return and shall be built again in length
and breadth, and at consummation of times; and after seventy and seven times
and in sixty two years, unto time of consummation of war, and the desolation
shall be taken away, through the prevailing of the covenant for many weeks,
and at the end of the week the sacrifice and the drink-offering shall be taken
away, and on the temple shall be an abomination of the desolations unto end,
and end shall be given upon the desolation."
No theory of different readings will explain these variations. The transla-
tor seems to have taken like words suggested by the text, ad libitum, yet with-
382 LXX translator altered Daniel to make it bear on
tr
and transposing the words of the text as suited his pur-
pose, repeating of the later time what belonged to the ear-
lier, so that it has even been thought that we had a con-
fusion of different translations¹. He did, in effect, make
his translation, what a modern school has accused the
writer of making the book, a direct but fraudulent encou-
ragement in the Maccabee struggle. But he effected it
by falsifying the text of the Prophet; whence the Church
rejected his translation 2 alone out of the LXX. People
out any possibility of uniting them in a Hebrew construction. The first devi-
ation no change could account for. He gives apparently a double translation
of, reading the 2nd time, on "and to bring to an end a vision;"
‘gladden,” he obtains by substituting new for . It is mere guess-work,
how he came to add "thou shalt be gladdened," (one conjecture is as good as
another; it may be a mere repetition.) Then, in nigh, awah ng mybe, there
are materials for his words, "find," "command," "answer,'
answer,” “build," but not
so that any Hebrew could put them together: for he has ", "city," and for
"Messias prince" he substitutes "Lord." Then he springs to v. 26, substi-
tutes for the yawn the nya o'yay of v. 25, and renders, as if it were pypy. Then
having got through, as best he could, to the first words of v. 27, "and he
shall confirm a covenant with many," he goes back to the end of v. 25, which
he had omitted, substituting however "consummation of times," for “strait of
times." Then he repeats again the date at the beginning of v. 26, but passes
over to the end of it, which had before suggested the words, "and unto time
of consummation it shall be warred upon by war," and translates, "and unto
time of consummation of war ;" and out of nippe nyn, "decreed desolations,"
he gains his, "desolations shall be taken away;" (much as if we were to say
that "decision " meant "cutting off," "ending: ") then he inserts again the
prevailing of the covenant, but, this time, "for many" (he adds) “weeks,”
supplying "weeks" from the gay following: yn "half" seems, by its sound,
to have suggested PR, "end," and then he gets tolerably to the end of the
prophecy.
¹ Zündel, (pp. 177-182,) who makes it an argument for the higher date of the
original, in that there had been time for successive translations. To me it seems
too continuous a whole, to be the result of chance combinations of different
translations.
2 "Except the LXX translators, who passed over all this, I know not why,
the three other interpreted, 'colleague.' Whence, by the judgment of the
doctors of the Church, their edition was repudiated in this volume, and Theo-
dotion's is commonly read, which agrees both with the Hebrew and with the
other translators." S. Jerome on Dan. iv. 5. In his Preface to his version,
he expresses doubt how the LXX translation of Daniel came to be bad, but
asserts, in the same way, that it was deliberately rejected for its defects.
"The Churches do not read Daniel according to the LXX translators, using
the version of Theodotion. And why this happened, I know not. Whether,
times of Epiphanes. Interval between it and the book. 383
do not gloss the book of a contemporary. It is not until
a book has long had authority, and has had its place in
the minds or souls of men, that men write glosses upon
it. They do so, because their text has authority. Fur-
ther, this proceeding of the LXX translator attests that
the book, actually in existence and acknowledged, was
not the encouragement which human policy wanted, to
stimulate the people in their resistance. The book of
Daniel, as written, was an encouragement to persevere
under trial; as falsified, it became a stimulus to religious,
which ended in becoming a political, resistance. It is re-
markable that, in the prophecy of the 70 weeks, it effaces
the doctrine of the Messiah, teaching people, as far as its
influence went, to look for nothing beyond the present.
The opponents of the book of Daniel admit that a long
interval must have elapsed between the writing and the
translation³. But the translation bears marks of being
of the time of Epiphanes. There is then no room for
such an interval, unless the book of Daniel was written
when, place it where men will, if they place it before Epi-
phanes, it contained prophecy of events utterly undis-
cernible by man.
viii. I will only add briefly that there is one more evi-
dence to Daniel in these times, the book of Enoch. A
writer or writers of a portion of it had studied the book
because the language is Chaldee and in some peculiarities differs from our idiom,
the LXX were unwilling to retain in the translation the same lineaments of
language, or whether the book was published under their name by another, (I
know not whom,) not adequately acquainted with Chaldee, or whether there
was any other cause, I know not; this one thing I can affirm, that it differs
much from the truth, and was by a sound judgment, repudiated." Præf. in
vers. Dan. S. Justin and Tertullian used the LXX. "Origen asserts in the
9th volume of his 'miscellanies,' (stromateis,) that from this place (iv. 5. Ch.
8. Eng.) in the prophet Daniel he comments not according to the LXX, who
vary much from the Hebrew truth, but according to the edition of Theodo-
tion." (S. Jer. on Dan. iv. 5.)
3 Lengerke said, p. xxvi, "For its composition a space of from 50-60 years
was fully sufficient." De Wette at one time "maintained that the LXX
translation of Daniel must, from its character, have been made a considerable
time after the publication of Daniel." Einl. p. 358, quoted by Häv. Einl. ii.
p. 458. In De Wette's last edition, this statement was removed.
384 Book of Enoch speaks of the Messiah, chiefly as the
of Daniel, so that both his language and thoughts re-ap-
pear in it, combined with those of other prophetic writings.
It does not, like the Sibylline book, simply quote one or
two remarkable predictions. Its writers were diligent
students of the prophetic Scriptures, and had combined
their teaching into a whole, partly right partly wrong,
in the way of uninspired reflection. But the use of the
prophet Daniel is the more remarkable, because it is the
result of reflection upon his writings as part of a whole,
and that whole, Holy Scripture. I will name only two
chief subjects, the doctrine of the Messiah and of Angels.
66
1) The inculcation of a day of retribution is the chief
object and moral of the book of Enoch. The chief doc-
trine then, as to the Messiah, selected in it from Daniel,
is that of the Son of Man, sitting" in His glory. With
this title of "the Son of Man" is combined that of" the
Chosen," from Isaiah; and "the Chosen" is even the
most frequent name, although the two names alternate.
The then future worship of all nations is spoken of, in
language of the Psalms, and the gifts of His Humanity in
that of Isaiah, and the then present revelation of Him by
the prophets; still the central thought, which introduces
the mention of Him, is judgment to come, as in Daniel¹.
1 xlv. 3-5. "On that day will the Chosen sit on the throne of glory, and
will make choice among their deeds and abodes innumerable, and their spirit
will be strong within them when they see My Chosen, and those who have
prayed to My holy and glorious Name. And on that Day will I let My Chosen
dwell among them, and will transform the heaven and make it everlasting
blessing and light. And I will transform the earth and make it a blessing,
and will make My chosen dwell in it, &c." So the sequel of the passage already
quoted as to the Son of Man (p. 86,) is, "because the Lord of hosts has chosen
Him, and His lot before the Lord of spirits has excelled all through righteous-
ness for ever. And this Son of Man, Whom thou hast seen, will arouse the
kings and the mighty from their beds and the violent from their thrones, and
will loose the bands of the violent, and break in pieces the teeth (Ps. iii. 7, &c.)
of sinners. And He will drive kings from their thrones and their kingdoms,
because they magnify Him not, nor praise Him, nor thankfully acknowledge
Him by Whom their kingdom was given them. And He will repel the face
of the violent, and shame shall fill them; darkness will be their habitation, and
worms their bed (Is. xiv. 11); and they will have no hope to rise from their
beds, because they magnify not the Name of the Lord of spirits, &c.” xlvi. 3-6.
"And in those days I saw the Ancient of days, as He sat upon the throne of
:
Judge, from the book of Daniel.
385
Reflection had taught the Jews of his day to believe in
His glory, and the books of the living were opened before Him; and His whole
host, which is above in heaven and around Him, stood before Him." (xlvii. 3.)
"And on that day I saw a well of righteousness inexhaustible; round it were
many wells of wisdom, and all thirsty drank out of them, and became full of
wisdom, and had their dwellings with the Righteous and Holy and Chosen One.
And at that hour was that Son of Man named before the Lord of spirits, and
His Name before the Ancient of days. He will be a staff to the righteous and
to the holy, that they may stay themselves thereon and not fall; and He will
be the light of the people, [Is. xlix. 6,] and the hope of those who are troubled
in heart. All who dwell on the earth will fall down and worship before Him,
(Ps. xxii. 27-29, lxxii. 9-11,) and will exalt and praise and celebrate the Name
of the Lord of spirits. And therefore was He chosen and hidden before Him,
ere the world was created, and to eternity will He be before Him.” ["In that
he says," observes D. "that He (not His Name) was hidden before God, before
the creation of the world, and that to eternity He would be before God, it is
clear even from the analogy of the second part of this declaration, that the hid-
den Being cannot be understood to be merely ideal, but must be understood as
real.'
comp. also lxii. 7.
'For before was the Son of Man hidden, and the High-
est has reserved Him for His Might, and has revealed Him, the Chosen."] "And
the wisdom of the Lord of spirits has revealed (i. e. by prophecy) Him, the
Holy and Righteous; for He maintains the lot of the righteous, because they
have hated this world of unrighteousness and all its works and ways: for in
His days the kings of the earth, and the violent who possess the fortresses, are
of downcast look, for the work of their hands; for in the days of their fear
and need they will not deliver their souls. And I will give them into the hands
of My chosen, as straw in fire and as lead in water; so will they burn in presence
of the righteous and sink in presence of the holy, and no more trace of them
will be to be found. And in the day of their distress there will be rest on the
earth; for they will fail before Him, and will not rise again; and there will be
no one to take them in his hands and lift them up; for they have denied the
Lord of spirits and His Anointed. Praised be the Name of the Lord of spirits.
For wisdom is poured out like water, and glory ceaseth not from eternity to
eternity. For He is mighty in all mysteries of righteousness; and unrighteous-
ness will pass away like a shadow, and have no stay; for the Chosen hath stood
up before the Lord of spirits, and His glory is from eternity to eternity, and His
might from generation to generation. In Him dwelleth the spirit of wisdom,
and the spirit of Him Who giveth insight, and the spirit of teaching and of
power, (Is. xi,) and the spirit of those who have fallen asleep in righteousness.
And He will judge the secret things, (Ecel. xii. 14,) and no one will be able to
bring an idle word before Him; for He was chosen before the Lord of spirits
according to His good pleasure.” ch. xlviii. xlix. “And in those days the earth
will give back its deposit, and the kingdom of death will give back its deposit
which it has received, and hell will give back what it owes. And He will
choose the righteous and holy among them, for the day is come that they should
be delivered. And the Chosen will sit on His throne in those days, and all
mysteries of wisdom will stream from the thoughts of His mouth; for the Lord
сс
386 Præexistence of the Messiah in the book of Enoch.
Him Who was to come, as the Son of God', eternally
of spirits has given it Him and glorified Him: and in those days the mountains
will leap like rams, and the hills skip like lambs (Ps. cxiv. 4,) which are satis-
fied with milk; and they will all be like angels in heaven. Their countenance
will beam for joy, because in those days the Chosen has stood up, and the
earth will rejoice, and the righteous will dwell in it and the chosen will go and
walk in it."(ch. li.) "And he [the angel] said to me, All these things, which thou
hast seen, serve the rule of His Anointed, that He may be powerful and mighty
on the earth.—And those hills which thou hast seen of iron and of copper, and
of silver and gold, all will melt before the Chosen, as wax before the fire, and
as water which flows down (Mic. i. 4,) over those mountains, and will be weak
before His feet. And in that day men will not be able to deliver themselves
by gold or silver, nor to deliver themselves, nor flee away. All these things
will disappear and be annihilated from the face of the earth, when the Chosen
shall appear before the Lord of spirits." (lii. 4, 6, 7, 9.) “And after this, the
Righteous and Chosen shall manifest the house of His congregation, which
shall not be henceforth hindered, in the Name of the Lord of spirits." (liii. 6.)
"The chosen will dwell with the Chosen One." (Ixi. 4. add lxxi. 17.) "The Lord
of spirits sat on the throne of His glory, and the spirit of righteousness was
poured out upon Him, [the Chosen, See D. pp. 196, 7.] and the speech of His
mouth slew all sinners [from Is. xi. 4,] and unrighteous, and before His Pre-
sence they perish. (Ps. Ixviii. 2.) And pain will seize them, when they see that
Son of the woman sitting on the throne of His glory." [Ixii. 2, 5.] “And the
Lord of spirits will dwell above them, and with that Son of man will they
dwell together and eat and lie down and rise up from eternity to eternity."
(lxii. 14.) “And He sat down on the throne of His glory, and the sum of Judg-
ment was given over to Him, the Son of man, and He will remove and destroy
sinners from the face of the earth, and those who have seduced the world—And
thenceforth shall there be nothing transitory; for He, the Son of the Man, hath
appeared, and sitteth on the throne of His glory, and all evil shall disappear and
pass away before Him; but the word of that Son of the Man will avail before
the Lord of spirits." (lxix. 27, 29.) "And after this, his [Enoch's] name [i. e.
his person] was lifted up to that Son of man, to the Lord of spirits." (Ixx. 1.)
1 "And in those days, saith the Lord, shall they call all the sons of the earth
together, and bear witness to the wisdom thereof [of the books of Enoch ;] shew
them to them, for ye are their guides and rewards over the whole earth. For
and
I and My Son will unite ourselves with them for ever, ever, in the ways of
Yet the Chosen is named as one who
righteousness during their life.” c. cv.
should praise the Lord of spirits. "And the whole army of heaven, and all holy
ones above, and the army of God, the Cherubim and Seraphim and Ophannim,
and all angels of power, and all angels of dominion, and the Chosen, and the
other powers which are upon the firmament over the water, will call and will
begin with one voice and praise and glorify and extol and magnify in the spi-
rit of faith [or faithfulness,] and in the spirit of wisdom and patience, and in the
spirit of compassion, and in the spirit of right and of peace, and in the spirit of
goodness, and will all say with one voice, Praise to Him and praised be the Name
of the Lord of spirits for ever and ever." lxi. 10, 11. This is, of course, not
Doctrine of Angels, in some few points, from Daniel. 387
præexisting with God 2, but also as the Son of Man Who
shall come to be our Judge.
His office for us on earth
was, with this writer, subordinate. Having little thought
of any but the deadliest sin, and thinking but poorly of
repentance, he looked to the Rewarder, not to the Re-
deemer. Still, on this side, the book implies a long stu-
dy of Daniel, in connection with other Scripture and as
equally authoritative with it, utterly inconceivable, had
the book of Daniel been written 164, B.C.
2) The doctrine of Angels varies in the book itself. Yet
it implies, even in its errors, a meditative use of Holy
Scripture. It has not much, which bears directly on Da-
niel, only the names of Michael and Gabriel, the office
of Michael towards the Jewish people, and the title,
"Watchers," applied to the holy Angels. The common
truths as to the holy Angels are, in part, largely expand-
ed, and that by aid of other Scripture; in part they are
modified, and that untruly. The book of Enoch has some
names of chief angels, which occur rarely even in later
Jewish writings, or which do not even occur in them '.
Christian language; for Jesus receives the worship of all the creation, and al-
though the Manhood of Jesus is a worshipper of the Trinity, yet Jesus, being
God and Man, could not be so spoken of; much less, together with creatures.
2 See ch. xlviii. lxii. 7. lxx. 1. in pp. 385, 6. note.
3" In the day of trouble,
evil will accumulate on sinners, and the righteous will prevail in the Name of
the Lord of spirits: and He will let the rest see it, that they may repent and
cease the works of their hands. They will have no honour before the Lord of
spirits; but in His Name they will be delivered, and the Lord of spirits will
have compassion upon them: for His compassion is great." 1. 2, 3.
4 In ch. xl. there are "4 forms on the four sides of the Lord of Hosts, differ-
ent from "66 'the thousands of thousands and thousands of thousands," (taken
from Dan. vii. 10. " there being in Eth. no one term for 10,000.” Dillm. p. 20.)
“which stood by." "The first voice praised the Lord of spirits from eternity
to eternity. The second I heard praising the Elect, and the elect who are
weighed before the Lord of spirits. The third praying for the dwellers on the
earth, and beseeching in the Name of the Lord of spirits. The fourth I heard,
keeping off Satans and not allowing them to come before the Lord of spirits
to accuse the dwellers on the earth." The angel, who comes with Enoch, tells
him their names. These are, "1) the holy Michael, the pitying and long-suffer-
ing ; 2) Rufael, set over all diseases and wounds of the sons of men ; 3) the holy
Gabriel, set over all powers; 4) Fanuel, set over the repentance and hopes of
those who inherit eternal life. These are the 4 angels of God most High."
c c2
388 Special physical offices assigned to angels, in book of
1
It supposes that there are angels, presiding over each of
the ordinary changes in the physical world ¹, thunder and
lightning, hoar-frost, hail, snow, mist, dew, rain; and of
(mentioned again liv. 6, lxxi. 8, 9, 13, in the same connection with the " thou-
sands of thousands.") In ch. ix. "departed souls” “ cry to the holy ones of hea-
ven" to obtain vengeance against the giants (before the flood;) and four Angels,
“Michael, Gabriel, Surian, and Urian,” (“Suriel, Uriel,” Dillm. p. 97.) present
their cry.
"The name Suriel occurs in this place only and in Berachoth, f.
51. 1." [the only place mentioned by Buxtorf, p. 1453.] Dillm. Ib. In the
Greek, they are the four names received in the Church, Michael, Uriel, Ra-
phael, and Gabriel; but probably the translation is more exact than the ex-
tract of G. Syncellus, who probably corrected it. In ch. x. for Urian is Arsyal-
alyur [compounded of ", "Sun of God," ", "my God is light." D.]
and for Surian is Rufael. In ch. xx. there are six "holy angels who watch;
Uriel, the angel of thunder and earthquake; Rufuel, the angel of the spirits
of men ; Raguel, (7, "friend of God,”] who exercises vengeance on the
world and on the lights; Michael, set over the best part of men, the people ;
Sarachael, [8ɔ0 “president of God”] set over the spirits of the sons of men,
whom the spirits seduce to sin ; Gabriel, set over the serpents and over Para-
dise and over the Cherubim." An angel Zutel or Zutuel or Zuteel (580 D.
p. 135.) is once mentioned xxxii. 2. The Ophannim (“wheels ") from Ezek.
i. and x. are mentioned with the Cherubim aud Seraphim, (as in Rosh Hasha-
na, f. 24, 2. Buxt. p. 187.) and angels of power (éžovoíaı Col.i. 16. add Eph. i. 21.)
and of dominions (kupiótηtes Ib.) lxi. 10. The Seraphim, Cherubim, Ophan-
nim are mentioned as round the house of God. "These are they who sleep
not and who guard the throne of his glory." lxxi. 7.
The Archangel, who is supposed to accompany him, is called "the angel of
peace" (lvi. 2, lx. 24.); whence probably the ǎyyeλos eipývns in S. Chrysostom's
liturgy, of the guardian angel.
Perhaps it is in contrast with "the sons of men," that there occur the
phrases, "the children of the holy angels," (lxix. 4, 5.) "the sons of the an-
gels," (lxxi. 1.) "the children of the angels of heaven." (cvi. 5.) Yet there
occurs the strange and unexplained statement, "in those days [i. e. "when
the congregation of the just shall appear," ch. xxxviii.] the elect and holy chil-
dren shall come down from the high heavens and their seed shall unite itself
with the children of men." (xxxix. 1.
:
C
The "avenging angels" are, in one case certainly, (lxvi. 1. those employed
in the flood,) good angels. Yet lvi. 1-3. they seem to be evil angels. In lxii.
11, lxiii. 1, nothing is expressed; nor in liii. 3.
دو
1 lx. 14-21. The term applied to each is "spirit," "the spirit of the sea;
but it is also said, "the spirit of the hoarfrost is its angel, and the spirit of the
hail is a good angel ;" 17. “And he [the spirit of the mist] is its angel,” 19.
"When the spirit of the rain moves forth out of its containing vessel, the an-
gels come and open the vessel, and lead him forth," &c; and then follows the
mention of "those angels," who are described, (in imitation of Zechariah,) as
sent to measure in the North country, but here to measure the righteous, ch. lxi.
Enoch; details as to supposed full of angels beforey flood. 389
"
the sea also; "angels over the powers of the waters 2."
In the Noah-portion of the book, there is an angel who
stands in the fountain which, the writer says, "produces
lead and tin." It expands the title, "hosts of heaven,'
to mean, that angels "watch over the stars, that they
should appear in their season," and names "leaders of
the four seasons,' ""heads over thousands," with "other
subordinate guides ." The 15 names mentioned do not
occur elsewhere. It speaks of "the leaders of the heads
of the thousands, set over the whole creation and over
the stars." Of fallen angels, it is very full on that one
point, for which it gained for a time extensive yet not
complete reception in the Church, viz. the idea that the
sons of God, who were the parents of the giants before
the flood, were, not "the sons of Seth," but angels. Their
number it asserts to have been 200°, gives the names of
their 20 or 21 leaders, and states, what arts some of them
are to have taught to men. The giants born of them are
said to have been 3000 ells high. On the other hand,
it mentions but little of Satan or of continued evil-
agency'.
It is a remarkable change from the book of Daniel,
that the title "watcher," which, in the prophet apparently
2 ch. lxvi.
3 lxv. 8.
4 lxxxii. 11-20.
5 lxxv. 1. Enoch is said to have "seen the paths of the angels.” xviii. 5.
Of these it is said, (lxxx. 6.) " many heads of the stars set over will go astray."
(or "fail." D. who conjectures that he may mean the planets. p. 344.)
6 ch. vi-xi. lxix. Extracts in G. Syncell. Chron. pp. 20-23. ed. Dind. The 20
bear a relation to the two hundred; they are supposed to be "leaders of tens.”
In lxix, the chief, Semyaza, ('size) Buxt. p. 2444, from Ps. Jon.) is counted
apart. Dillmann corrects the corrupted names. pp. 93, 4.
7 In ch. viii, seven such are named: in Sync., 9: in ch. lxix. 4-12, attributed
to Noah, 5 others are mentioned, inconsistent with those lists. S vii. 2.
omitted by Sync. D. states, "one MS. has, 300,” evidently a correction.
Satans" are mentioned as accusers of mankind; (from Job i. and Zech.
iii.) xl. 7; (see p. 387. note 4;) "all mysteries of the angels and all violence
of the Satans," lxv. 6; "the avenging angels prepared all instruments [of
punishment, liv. 3-5.] for Satan," liii. 3. "The hosts of Azazel” were to be
laid in the depths of all damnation,” (D. p. 171.) “because they were sub-
ject to Satan and seduced those who dwell on the earth,” (liv. 5, 6, but this
too only relates to that one supposed set of acts before the flood.)
390 Changes of the doctrine of angels in Daniel in B.of En.
is given to the angels to designate their sleepless being¹,
is, in Enoch, almost exclusively used of those whom this
later writer reputed to have fallen before the flood 2.
In some of this account of angels we are in an entirely
different atmosphere from the book of Daniel. It is not
an expansion of the book of Daniel; but the result of a
meditation on various passages of Holy Scripture, to
which the book of Daniel gave no impulse, since it con-
tained no example of it. Fables, not from Daniel, are
mixed up with truths which are from Daniel.
There is, besides, detached use of the language of Da-
niel, as of other Scripture, in the book of Enoch.
The book of Enoch is professedly made up of several
1 Dan. iv. 10, 14, 20. [13, 17, 23. Eng.] See below Lect. viii, pp. 526, 7.
2 i. 5, "the watchers shall tremble;" x. 7, "that all the children of men may
not perish through the mystery of all that which the watchers have uttered and
have taught their sons;" Ib. 9, "go forth, and destroy the children of the watch-
ers from among men;" Ib. 15, "destroy the wanton souls and the children of
the watchers, because they have mishandled men;" xiii. 19, "I began to speak
those words of righteousness and rebuke those watchers of heaven;" xiv. 1,
"what follows written here is the word of righteousness and of correction of
the eternal watchers;" Ib. 3, “He has created me and given to me to rebuke
the watchers, the sons of heaven;" xv. 2, "go and say to the watchers of hea-
ven, who have sent thee to intercede for them." xvi. 1, 2, “So will they putrefy,
until the day when the great Judgment shall be fulfilled upon the great world,
upon the watchers and the ungodly; and now, to the watchers who have sent
thee to intercede for them, to them who aforetime were in heaven, &c." xci.
15, "In the 10th week in the 7th portion will be the judgment for eternity,
that is held upon the watchers."
On the other hand, the adjuncts, "who watch," "who sleep not," are used to
denote the unceasing praise and obedience in heaven, xxxix. 12, 13. "Thee
they praise who sleep not; they stand before Thy Majesty, and praise, bless, and
exalt Thee, saying, holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of spirits; He fills the earth with
spirits. And then my eyes saw those who sleep not, as they stand before Him
and praise, &c." Ixi. 12, "Him shall all they praise, who sleep not above in hea-
ven." lxxi. 6, 7, "Around it were the Cherubim and Ophannim; these are
they who sleep not and who watch the throne of His glory.” xiv. 23,
"The
holy ones, who were near Him, departed not day or night, and went not away
from Him." See also xx. 1, in note 4. p. 388.
The title" watchers" is only once given to good angels, xii. 2, 3, and then
in antithesis to those who had fallen, “All his [Enoch's] life was with the holy
ones and the watchers, and I, Enoch, was praising the great Lord and King of
the world, when the watchers called me, me Enoch the scribe, and said to me,
Enoch, thou scribe of righteousness, go, carry tidings to the watchers of
heaven who have left the high heaven, &c."
Part of book quoted in yº N. T. distinct from the rest. 391
books 3. Its parts are very unequal. Its moral exhorta-
tions are earnest; then again there are those miserable
false and childish physics, unrelieved in some places by
any moral tone 4, to which however one of the writers at-
taches primary importance with a foolish vanity 5. The
introduction is so loosely connected with the other parts,
that it may easily have been joined on afterwards, and
the passage in it, which resembles that quoted by S. Jude
3 The parts, of which the book of Enoch consists, are; 1) the brief intro-
duction, ch. i-v, declaring that God would come to judgment, and how all na-
ture obeyed Him, great and small, except man. In this, which is loosely con-
nected with the book, occurs a passage very like to, but not absolutely identical
with, that quoted by St. Jude. Then, unconnected with this, is the story found-
ed on Gen. vi. 2, and Enoch's embassy from the fallen angels to God, ch. vi-xvi.
Then follows a story, now detached, but connected by its beginning with some-
thing which once preceded it; "And they took me to a place." It is Enoch's
travels in the unseen world, in which he mixes up some childish and impossi-
ble physics, ch. xvii-xxxvi. Then follows what is called (ch. xxxvii,) a second
vision, distributed in 3 “figured discourses," in which he describes what he saw
in heaven, the abode of the blessed, ch. xxxviii-xliv, the Messiah, with the prophecy
of His Coming, ch. xlv-lvii. The third, ch. lviii-lxix, is in utter confusion ; a short
prophecy of the lot of the righteous, ch. lviii; a statement that the writer saw the
mysteries of thunder and lightning, ch. lix; another as to fabulous creatures, Le-
viathan, Behemoth, and angels of the elements, ch. lx. (in the mouth of Noah, lx.
8. ;) the world to come and judgment by the Chosen, ch. Ixi-lxiv; a revelation of
Enoch to Noah as to the flood and the punishment of fallen angels, with di-
gressions about the formation of metals and hot springs, ch. lxv-lxviii. It
winds up with a declaration of the might of the oath by the Name of God,
whereby the world was created, lxix. 16-19, and preserved, 21-23, and praises
God, 24, 5, whence it passes to the revelation of the Name of the Son of Man
and of Judgment, 26-29. Then follows the assumption of Enoch, and his
sight of heaven, ch. lxx. lxxi. Then "the book of the courses of the light of hea-
ven,” fabulous physics, ch. lxxii-lxxviii; a revelation addressed to his son Methu-
selah, ch. lxxix; a prophecy of preternatural changes of nature for men's wicked-
ness, ch. lxxx; Enoch's return to earth and his charge to Methuselah to hand
down this knowledge, chiefly as to the physics, ch. lxxxi, ii. Then two visions,
early in the life of Enoch, related by him to his son Methuselah, (the second
being a sketch from Adam to his own time,) ch. lxxxiii-xc. an address to Methu-
selah and his brothers, ch. xei. with a disjointed fragment, Ib. 12-17. The “doc-
trine of wisdom, written by Enoch the scribe,” an exhortation, mingled with
prophecy, founded on judgment to come, ch. xcii-cv. Marvels at the birth of
Noah, ch. evi, vii. “Another writing which Enoch wrote for his son Methuselah
and for those who shall come after him, and hold the law in his last days ;" a
brief exhortation, ch. cvii.
4 ch. lxxii-lxxviii.
5 xxxvii. lix. lxxxii. 3, 4. xciii. 10, 11, &c.
392
Probable date of the chief part
from the book of Enoch, may very probably have been
fitted in by a later writer¹. But the main substance of
the book is doubtless old. The latest event spoken of in
it relates to the time of the Maccabees 2. It has been
interpreted to relate to John Hyrcanus, professedly in
order to leave room for the later date of the book of Da-
1 The short preface contains the statement, that Enoch had observed that
all trees were deciduous, exeept 14, which is a Greek statement, Geopon. xi. 1.
See in Dillm. p. 91.
2 The only indication of time in the whole book lies in the vision, in which,
under an allegory, its writer gives chief points of sacred history from Adam
to the Maccabees. It indicates the restoration of the temple, then adds, in lan-
guage taken from Malachi," they began again to put a table before the tower
[temple,] but all the bread thereon was defiled and impure." So the eyes of
all these sheep were blinded as to everything, and their "shepherds too, and
they were given over to their shepherds to destroy, very many; and the Lord
of the sheep abode still, until all the sheep were scattered on the field, and
mingled with them, and they delivered them not from the hands of the beasts,"
(lxxxix. 73-5,) until a new generation arose, which tried to rouse the elders, but
fruitlessly. That generation acquired horns, and their destroyers cast them
down, until a great horn shot forth, which they assembled themselves to cast
down, but could not. Ravenous birds preyed on them, until there remained
only their skeletons, and these too sank to the ground and few sheep were
left, (xc. 2-4.) Thus far, there are the grinding oppressions by foreign gover-
nors, and their own heathenising, as described 1 Macc. i. 11-13. Then fol-
low three stages of recovery; 1) a new but defenceless generation, "lambs,”
whose eyes were opened, who cried to their deaf and blinded parents, the sheep;
the ravens flew at them and carried off one of the lambs. (Ib. 6-8.) 2) a time
when the lambs gained horns, and the ravens cast down their horns. (Ib. 9.)
The interval is marked by the formula, taken from Daniel, "And I beheld until"
(see ab. p. 80.) 3) a time when a great horn shot up, of one of the sheep, the
young ran to him, the ravens and ravenous birds tried to destroy the horn ; and
availed not, (Ib. 9-13); until, at last, they had exceeded the measure of de-
struction allowed, (Zech. i. 15); the Lord of the sheep came and smote the
earth with the rod of His anger; the earth opened and swallowed up the gathered
foes, (14-18,) a sword was given to the sheep to destroy, and all the beasts
and birds of the air fled before them. (19.) On this follows the Day of Judg-
ment. (20.) A throne is set up in "the pleasant land,” (Dan.) and the sealed
books were opened. (Dan. vii. 10.) Now as this is confessedly not prophecy,
but imitation of prophecy, it must have been written before the Maccabee
struggles were closed. For it represents the struggles of the enemy to destroy
the one great horn; and these struggles were to be ended supernaturally. But
since there was no supernatural end, then this part of the book must any how
have been written before the end,i.e. before the end of the wars of John Hyr-
But the whole description also suits better to the time before Hyr-
The first stage was unresisted persecution, when men's eyes were
canus.
canus.
of the book of Enoch.
393
niel with which the writers were so deeply imbued ³.
It suits more naturally to Judas Maccabæus, or Simon.
opened, but before they began to resist. This suits the first Maccabee suffer-
ings. (1 Macc. i. 62-4, ii. 1-41, 2 Macc. v. 27-vii. 42.) The one lamb who was
taken, may have been Eleazar, (2 Macc. vi. 18-31,) or possibly Onias III. The
second was the beginning of the Maccabee wars, when they were only a hand-
ful of men.
The third suits with the time of Judas, or Jonathan, or Simon,
under whom "the yoke of the heathen was taken away from Israel." (1 Macc.
xiii. 41.) In one respect, it suits Judas Maccabæus best, because he was the
first "great horn" who was raised up; but it suits either of the three better
than Hyrcanus ; for, after the first siege of Jerusalem in which he surrendered,
he fought, not against, but under Antiochus, (Jos. Ant. xiii. 8. 4.) and when
Antiochus was dead, he had no resistance from Syria to meet, until a slight
ineffectual effort at the end, not to subdue him, but to relieve Samaria. (Ib.
10. 2.)
The mention of the Parthians and Medes, as the nations whose kings should
in the last days be stirred up by angels against Jerusalem, is of no account in
fixing the date, as if the writer would not know of the Parthians until after
Hyrcanus had fought in the army of Antiochus against them. The statement
is a mere imitation of Zechariah. (ch.xiv.) Parthians and Medes stand only as
representatives of Eastern nations, "in those days shall the angels gather them-
selves, and direct their heads towards the East, towards the Parthians and
Medes, to stir up a spirit of uprising among the kings, &c." (lvi. 5.) The two
names stand, as in 1 Macc. xiv. 2, Arsaces is called "the king of Persia and
Media;" Philip "returned from P. and M.” Ib. vi. 56. The Jews knew of Ar-
saces, king of Parthia, in the time of Simon. 1 Macc. xiv. 2, 3, xv. 22.
I do not take account of the numbers of the rulers indicated in this section ;
for I do not think that they are any definite persons. Only it is clear that fo-
reign rulers are meant.
A writer, whom Dillmann accounts later than the chief writer of the book,
places himself and his revelation at the end of the 7th week of the world. But
the 6th week ended with the Captivity. (xciii. 8.) Of the 7th week he says;
"In the 7th week will a rebellious generation arise, and many will be its deeds,
and all its words will be rebellion. And at the end thereof will the chosen and
righteous be rewarded from the everlasting plant of righteousness, in that se-
venfold instruction [his own] will be given them as to His whole creation.” (Ib.
9, 10.) But the 7th week was not yet closed, for the 8th was to begin with
the times of the Messiah and with a power given to them over their enemies.
(xci. 12.) And this was to follow a miraculous destruction of the enemy. (xc.
19.comp. 18.) Since then the 7th age was not completed, the calculation of
Dillmann, that each week was to contain six generations, would, (if true) ar-
gue for the earlier composition of the book. For, according to him, the 14
generations would reach to John Hyrcanus. (pp. 390,1.) Since then they were
not completed, the book would, in this way too, fall before that time.
3 "Of all our canonical books in the Old Testament, the author (as is admitted
and universally owned) took for his pattern chiefly the book of Daniel. He
394 Authority of our Lord not counted with human evidence,
But, at latest, the period of John Hyrcanus, B. C. 130-109,
leaves no room for such a developement of doctrine after
B.C. 163. Yet there is absolutely no choice, it has never
been pretended that there is any choice, except between
true prophecy in the time from Nebuchadnezzar to Cy-
rus, and false prophecy in, or rather after, the death of
Antiochus.
I cannot, as some religious and eminent defenders of
the book of Daniel have done, add to these human evi-
rested on that book, or developed from it, many of his chief doctrines, (those of
the Messiah, the kingdom of Heaven, the resurrection, the judgment by the
Messiah, the times of the 70 shepherds ;) and he imitated it in many details of
his descriptions and in expressions, (e. g. entitling the Israelites 'stars of hea-
ven,' xlvi. 7, xliii. 3, 4; the conception of the shining of the righteous in the
kingdom of the Messiah, civ. 2, or the descriptions of the throne of the Ma-
jesty of God, and what encircles it, &c.;) and not merely the second part of the
book, but the 4th also, and in single reminiscences the 5th also, betray this de-
pendence on the book of Daniel. And this too of such sort, that it presupposes,
not merely that the writer was acquainted with that book, but that he com-
pletely lived in its fundamental thoughts and firmly believed in them. This one
circumstance would suffice to refute those, who would have it, that one portion
of the book, (most of it except ch. xxxvii-lxxii,) was written at the beginning
of the Maccabee wars, and suppose that the last important person in Jewish
history, whom the writer had lived to see, (ch. xc. 9.sqq.) was Judas Maccabæus,
not John Hyrcanus. Contrariwise, this circumstance compels us to assume,
that a long time had elapsed since the writing of the book of Daniel, in which
it had not only come into circulation and was much read, but had already at-
tained a high, almost canonical, estimation in the congregation. Such an es-
timation it could, however, have attained in the half century before the writ-
ing of the book of Enoch.” Dillmann, Das B. Henoch, Eiul. p. xlv. His other
grounds for placing the book in the time of Hyrcanus, are, that 1) a book so
full, with such comprehensive objects and presupposing such learned studies,
was not suited to such stormy times as those of the Maccabee wars, but "suits
a time of rest after the struggle, in which people sought to maintain, settle, and
defend, theoretically and scientifically, what had been practically fought for and
won." p. xlvi. Certainly the Maccabee wars were not times for any writing,
the book of Daniel as little as any other, unless by inspiration. But 1) it is not
made out that the book of Enoch was written in Palestine. 2) In Palestine
itself things were quiet, after the death of Antiochus Sidetes, B. C. 126. (Clin-
ton, F.H. iii. 335.) 3) The book of Enoch is childish, except where borrowed from
Holy Scripture. To assume then the later date, on account of this period of
reflection on Holy Scripture, is the usual " begging the question," the lateness
of the book of Daniel. Of the two other grounds, on 2) the mention of the
Parthians, and 3) the weeks of the world, see note 1. p. 393. It is plain that
the assumed date of the book of Daniel is the real ground, upon which the
date of the book of Enoch is fixed.
because it stands alone, Divine and Infallible. 395
dences the testimony of our Lord, or use Divine autho-
rity as a makeweight to human proof. There, we are al-
together on different grounds, in a different atmosphere.
What I have proposed to myself in this course of lectures
is to meet a boastful criticism upon its own grounds,
and to shew its failure, where it claims to be most tri-
umphant. The authority of our Lord stands alone. It
is all in all, or, we should have nothing. It is the word
of Him Who, being God, spake with a Divine know-
ledge, Perfect, Infallible. If His knowledge could have
failed in any one thing, if He could (God forbid!) have
set His seal on one thing which is not true, Divine au-
thority would be gone. Hesitate how men will for the
while, it was truly said by one of the most powerful in-
tellects of this day 1, "there is but one choice, Infallibi-
lity or infidelity."
1 Dr Newman. People rely, for this infallible teaching, personally on our
Lord, or on the divinity of Holy Scripture, by virtue of His promise (S. John
xvi. 13, xiv. 26); or on the witness of the universal and undivided Church (which
sanctioned the Creeds, and the doctrines of Grace, and of the Sacraments) by vir-
tue of our Lord's promise, (S. Matt. xxviii. 20, xvi. 18, "the gates of hell shall
not prevail against it ;") or on the manifold promises that God will bestow on
us the gift of faith in what He has revealed; so that we have not human, but
Divine, faith. In all these ways, people have an authority out of themselves
and their own opinions. But we must have, subjectively, a supernatural faith,
by gift of God the Holy Ghost, in that which has been supernaturally re-
vealed, or we should have no faith at all.
LECTURE VII.
On the "historical inaccuracies" falsely imputed to the
book of Daniel, and the "improbabilities” alleged.
1
THE charges of "historical inaccuracies" have been la-
vished with a reckless hand. They are gathered into one
in the following statement of Lengerke ¹, who exhibits in
them the current charges of the German rationalists 2.
They have been recently transferred among us by a dis-
senting writer ³.
"5) The lateness of its date is clear also through the his-
torical inaccuracies. Errors in chronology and antiqui-
¹ Daniel Einl. § 13. p. lxiii.
2 De Wette, in his Einl. § 255. a. Ed. 7. (as became his practice) epitomis-
ed Lengerke. "That Daniel is not the author of this book is clear, 1) out
of the fabulous contents of the historical portion, which is full of improbabili-
ties, (ii. 3 sqq. 46 sqq. iii. 1. 5 sqq. 20, 22, 28 sqq. iv. 31 sqq. v. 11 sqq.
18 sqq. 29. vi. 8 sqq. 26 sqq.) of monstrous miracles, (ii. 28, iii. 23 sqq. v. 5,
vi. 23, 25,) and even of historical incorrectnesses, (such as no other prophetical
book of the O. T. contains ;)" "incorrect representations of the wise men of
Babylon, Daniel's inconceivable admission among them (ii. 2, iv. 7, v. 7, 11.) ;
Darius the Mede instead of Cyaxares II (vi. 1. [v. 31. Eng.] ix. 1, xi. 1.);
mention of the (Persian) institution of satraps under Nebuchadnezzar, (iii. 3,)
and Darius the Mede, vi. 2. [1. Eng.]; Ahasuerus, father of Darius the Mede,
(Cyaxares II.) instead of Astyages (ix. 1.) ; Belshazzar, son of Nebuchadnezzar,
last king of Babylon (v. 11, 13, 18, 22, 30, contrary to Berosus in Jos. c. Ap.
i. 20.); conception of the lion's den as a pit. (vi. 17.)” “Its relations moreover
are formed so much upon the same type. (comp. ii. 2-11, with iv. 4-8, v. 8 ; iii.
4-12, 24-30, with vi. 8-18, 21-24.) This love of miracles and the religious fa-
naticism, as nourished by persecution, which it breathes, evince, that it is akin
to the 2nd book of Maccabees, and a fruit of the times of Antiochus Epiphanes,
and this uniformity betrays the fiction."
3 Davidson, Introd. T. iii. pp. 174, 5, 180-92.
Summary of imputed " inaccuracies."
397
ties, and embellishment of the history, remove the author
far from the prophetic period. For, only in regard to the
Maccabee times, does he give accurate and detailed ac-
counts. As historical inaccuracies must be accounted;
1) the date of the first deportation ch. i. 1; 2) the historical
contradiction between ch. i. 21. and ii. 1; 3) the false idea of
the lion's den, ch. vi. and 4) of the Magi. (ch. ii.) It excites
at least the gravest suspicion, that Daniel (ch. viii.) in the
reign of the Mede Cyaxares II. [Belshazzar,] 5) sees him-
self in vision at Susa, as a residence of the Persian kings;
for although Susa was already built in the reign of Da-
rius, it did not become a royal residence until the time of
Cyrus. 6) He speaks of satraps and government by satraps,
which cannot be imagined under the Babylonians, nor un-
der Medes and Persians at the time of the capture of Ba-
bylon. 7) He calls Nebuchadnezzar erroneously the father
of the last king, gives that king a false name, makes him of
royal blood, and follows a false legend as to the capture of
Babylon and the fate of the last king. 8) He brings on
the stage a Cyaxares II., Darius the Mede, who never liv-
ed. 9) He makes the supremacy of the Medes still subsist
at the time of the capture of Babylon; and 10) is in igno-
rance as to the order of succession of Persian kings."
Of this list of errors, attributed to the writer of the book
of Daniel, but, in truth, the inventions of the neologist
school, I have already shown the baselessness of the im-
putation as to the account of the Medes and Persians +.
1) It is quite clear that Daniel does not speak of the Me-
dian preeminence as still lasting at the time of the cap-
ture of Babylon 5. He twice expresses the contrary, that
"Darius the Mede received the kingdom" i. e. from ano-
ther, and "was made king" i. e. by another. 2) It is
probable that there was a Cyaxares II; but the identifi
cation of Cyaxares II. with Darius the Mede is only a pro-
bable historical conjecture, with which Daniel is in no
way concerned.
• Obj. 9.
5 See Lect. iii. pp. 124 sqq.
Obj. 8. See Ib. pp. 126, 7.
6 Ib. pp. 124, 5.
398 Ignorance asto Persian kings suits a prophet not a forger.
It is directly false, on the surface of the book, to say¹,
that Daniel gives an accurate account of the times of the
Maccabees alone. The accuracy of the prophecy of the
victories of Alexander, of his sudden untimely end at his
full strength, of the four-fold division of his empire, and
of some chief events in the two houses of the Ptolemies
and the Seleucidæ for 7 or 8 generations previous to the
time of Antiochus Epiphanes and the Maccabees, have
been used by the Porphyry-school as arguments against
their being prophecy. "They are too accurate and mi-
nute," these men say, "to be prophecies." Then they
cannot be inaccurate also; nor has there been an attempt
to point out an inaccuracy.
It
The hypocritical argument is plainly nihil ad rem.
is to be an argument against the genuineness of Daniel
that he was ignorant of the Persian succession 2. What?
In the minds of these writers, who disbelieve in prophecy,
it is to be an argument that Daniel did not write the book,
because he did not know events yet future in the time of
Daniel! So then each is alike to be an argument against
the genuineness of Daniel, that, on the hypothesis, he
did, and did not know the future! Be it that he did not
know more of the Persian succession than he sets down in
his book, that God only revealed to him certain marked
points of history and not the rest. We cannot tell. Per-
haps it is the most probable. But this ignorance, if it
were such, would have its obvious ground, if he knew what
he knew, by revelation from God. In that case, he did
not know it, because God did not reveal this unimportant
series of kings, which even human historians have re-
volted from dwelling on. The alleged ignorance is per-
fectly consistent with the real character of Daniel, as a
prophet. For God revealed to His prophets so much of the
future, as He willed His people to be forewarned of. It is
utterly inconsistent with the character of the assumed
Pseudo-Daniel. For it is absurd to suppose a person to
know by human knowledge the number of kings from Cy-
¹ Lengerke's Introductory Statement. See ab. p. 397.
2 Obj. 10.
The dates inch.i.ii.agree with Berosus, not contradicted.399
rus to Xerxes, and then again the chief events from Alex-
ander onwards, and to have been absolutely ignorant of
the whole intermediate history, or that there was any his-
tory intervening.
I will take the other charges in order.
i. The date³ in ch.i. accurately agrees with Berosus, and
is not contradicted by any authority; the date in ch. ii.
agrees exactly with that in ch. i. Daniel says, ch. i., that
Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem in the third year of
Jehoiakim; that God gave Jehoiakim into his hands and
a portion of the vessels of the house of the Lord; and that
certain of the seed-royal and of the nobles were carried to
Babylon. He does not say, whether Jerusalem was taken
or no. The mention that, not Jerusalem but, Jehoiakim
fell into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, rather implies that
it was not. Daniel states the expedition and its results.
Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem, and took Jehoia-
kim. Jehoiakim became tributary to Nebuchadnezzar,
as we read in the book of Kings, and became his servant
three years. Perhaps the profane king, (such as we know
Jehoiakim to have been 5,) redeemed himself with trea-
sures out of the temple, a portion of the vessels, and hos-
tages. The book of Chronicles relates the two leading
facts of the capture of Jehoiakim and the carrying away
of some of the vessels of the Lord, equally without rela-
ting any capture of Jerusalem. Against him came up
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and bound him in fet-
ters, to carry him to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar also car-
ried of the vessels of the Lord to Babylon, and put them in
his temple in Babylon. It is the more probable, that the
writer of the book of Chronicles is speaking of the same
event as Daniel, in that both speak of a portion only
of the vessels of the house of the Lord being taken; but
Daniel alone supplies the date.
©
The first year of Nebuchadnezzar falling, according to
Jeremiah, in some part of the 4th of Jehoiakim, this ex-
3 Obj. 1 and 2. 2 Kgs. xxiv. 1. 5 Jer. xxxvi. 23-25. 62 Chr. xxxvi.
8 Jer. xxv. 1.
7
.7 .Chr. xxxvi) 2 מִפְּלֵי בֵית יהוה .2 .Dan. i מִקְצָת כְּלֵי בֵית הָאֱלֹהִים : .6,7
•
e
400 Agreement of yº dates in Daniel with yº rest of yº history.
pedition, in the course of which he besieged Jerusalem,
was before his accession to the throne. This coincides
with the account in Berosus¹ of Nebuchadnezzar's success-
ful expedition, when sent by his father Nabopolassar, from
which he brought to Babylon Jewish captives, as well as
Syrian, Phoenician, and Egyptian; and "2 from the spoils"
of which war "he ornamented splendidly the temple of
Bel," who was specially his god. In Daniel, whose king
Nebuchadnezzar had been from boyhood, it is nothing sur-
prising, that he should speak of Nebuchadnezzar in no
other way, than, "king Nebuchadnezzar," even when
speaking of the time before his accession. Daniel does
not ordinarily mention kings by their name only, Ne-
buchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Cyrus, but adds the royal
title also ³. We should naturally say, "Queen Victoria
was carefully educated by her mother," or "the Empe-
ror Napoleon passed some years of his life in England," al-
though the education of our Queen was concluded be-
fore her early accession to the throne, and the Emperor's
residence here, was before his accession and while he was
in exile.
3
Daniel then having been carried captive in the third
year of Jehoiakim, there is no discrepancy, but perfect
agreement, between the dates in the first and second
chapters. Daniel was to be educated for three years+
in the learning and tongue of the Chaldeans; at the end
of the days he was examined before the king; and in
the course of the 2nd year of the reign of Nebuchadnez-
zar, he was counted among the wise men, and was to
1 See Lect. ii. p. 62.
2 Jos. c. Ap. i. 19.
3 Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, (in contrast with Jerusalem,) i. 1. the
king Neb., ii. 46, iii. 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 24, v. 11. Belshazzar the king, v. 1, 9. Belshaz-
zar king of Babylon, vii. 1, viii. 1. Darius the king, vi. 6, 9, 25. Cyrus king
of Persia, x. 1. In other places, in which the name stands alone, some attri-
bute of the royal title has been mentioned, or the title itself had occurred in
the context, as Dan. i. 18; "in the reign of Neb.," ii. 1, iii. 9, 13, 14, 16, 19; "Bel-
shazzar commanded,” v. 2, (the title “king” had occurred in v. 1.) “Darius
the Median received the kingdom," v. 31. "It pleased Darius," vi. 1.
the first year of Darius, which was made king," ix. 1.
"In
4 i. 1, 5, 18.
Dates of Jehoiakim's accession and subdual by Neb. 401
share their lot. For this period of three years there is
ample space.
Jehoiakim himself, probably, came to the throne in
the middle of B. C. 609. For since the expedition of Pha-
raoh Necho against Asshur was probably in the spring,
when campaigns commonly began, Josiah, who was slain
when Necho reached Megiddo, probably died in that
spring. Let us suppose it the end of April, for clear-
ness. Then the three month's reign of Jehoahaz would
have been broken off at the end of July, B.C. 609. The
3rd year of Jehoiakim, whom Pharaoh placed on the
throne in his stead, would begin at the end of July, B. C.
607. In that year Nebuchadnezzar, according to Da-
niel, came against him. If Jehoiakim submitted in No-
vember of that year, the three years of Daniel would
close, late in 604 or early in 603. If, again, Nebuchad-
nezzar returned to Babylon from that extensive expedi-
tion against Phoenicia, Cole-Syria, Egypt, and succeed-
ed his father near the end of the 4th year of Jehoia-
kim, B.C. 605, then the second year of Nebuchadnezzar
would not be completed till B.C. 603, and the close of
Daniel's three years would fall in the latter part of that
his second year.
But it is probable that the submission of Jerusalem did
take place in November, B. C. 607. For although Jere-
miah only mentions that the fast was proclaimed in the
ninth month5, yet as this must have been a civil fast, the
analogy of the four fasts in four several months 6, after the
final capture of Jerusalem, makes it probable that this day
was fixed in connection with some recent event which men
mourned. And that the more, because November would
otherwise hardly have been selected for a fast, which, at
that season, must have been the more trying for those who
had to come up to Jerusalem. There is no recent event
at that time, except the siege of Jerusalem.
At that time, the access to Jerusalem was open on all
sides. For the words were to be read in the ears of all
5 Jer. xxxvi. 9.
o d
6 Zech. viii. 19.
402 Jehoiakim's rebellion, expeditions against him.
Judah, that are coming out of their cities, that are coming
from the cities of Judah to Jerusalem¹.
3
In the following year Jehoiakim rebelled. In his days,
it is related 2, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up,
and Jehoiakim became his servant three years; then he
turned and rebelled against him. Jehoiakim must have
been already plotting that rebellion at the time of the
fast, a year before he avowed it. And this explains his
extreme anger at the predictions of Jeremiah, that he
burnt the roll and directed that Jeremiah and Baruch
should be seized ³. For Jeremiah had foretold the fruit-
lessness and destructiveness of that policy, upon which
the reckless king was bent. At that time, the sixth year
of Jehoiakim, Nebuchadnezzar was probably engaged
elsewhere; for he did not himself come up against him,
as he had before and did afterwards. For it is said *;
The Lord sent against him bands of the Chaldees, and
bands of the Syrians, and bands of the Moabites, and bands
of the children of Ammon. The mention of bands of these
several nations points to irregular incursions, made to
harass him, not to any formal effort directed by any chief
general.
With this agrees the mention, made by the Rechabites,
of the army of the Chaldeans, and the army of the Syrians,
which constrained them, so far, contrary to their father's
injunctions, to dwell at Jerusalem.
The expedition, led first by generals of Nebuchadnez-
zar, and then by himself in person in his 7th year, when
he carried captive three thousand Jews and three and twenty,
was doubtless in the first instance directed against Je-
hoiakim. The 7th year of Nebuchadnezzar coincided
with the latter part of the reign of Jehoiakim, and the
three months of the reign of his son Jehoiachin. But
10'xan Jer. xxxvi. 6. and again ver. 9.
2 2 Kgs. xxiv. 1. He had probably been placed on the throne by Necho, as
being in the interests of Egypt, as, contrariwise, he had been passed over after
the death of his father, and his younger brother had been made king by the
people, probably to continue the policy of Josiah.
3 Jer. xxxvi. 23-26.
6 Ib. lii. 28.
4 2 Kgs. xxiv. 2.
6 Jer. xxxv. 11.
Battle of Carchemish.
403
those three months were not enough to furnish the occa-
sion of the expedition, to begin and to complete it. Jehoi-
akim very possibly slept with his fathers, before the siege
began, and people may have thought for those three
months, that he had escaped the disgrace foretold by the
Prophet. The dragging of his corpse was probably meant
as a warning to bad successors, not to rebel.
The first siege of Jerusalem falling in the third year of
Jehoiakim, must have preceded the defeat of Pharaoh Ne-
cho at Carchemish, which took place in the 4th year.
But, as we know not one fact beyond these dates, except
the relative position of the places; not one circumstance
as to the campaign, except its success; since too the con-
quering party does not even name Necho, unless the Assy-
rians contemptuously regarded his authority as delegated,
and himself as the rebellious Satrap, we have nothing,
upon which to build a theory of the campaign. Senna-
cherib aforetime, and Nebuchadnezzar afterwards in the
time of Zedekiah, were engaged in the subdual of Judæa
before they attacked Egypt, and were withdrawn from the
siege by reports of an expedition from Egypt. Necho
took Carchemish three years before, after defeating Josiah.
Why Nebuchadnezzar should have placed his army be-
tween Carchemish and Egypt, preferring first to recover
the king of Jerusalem to his dependence on himself, of
course we cannot know. The fact is implied by Berosus
as well as by Daniel. But the measure has no such im-
probability, as to throw a doubt on any statement even of
ordinary history. Independent dates, such as these in
Daniel, which are perfectly consistent with each other and
with history, yet which could not have been suggested by
other history, bear the characteristic mark of an original
authority, viz. that it states what it knows, regardless
whether it agree primâ facie with other history or no.
It is even strange how a difficulty could be raised about
an account so simple and consistent. It was raised by
remodelling history, contradicting Berosus' account of the
campaign before Nebuchadnezzar came to the throne,
Dd 2
404
Gratuitous contradiction of Scripture.
asserting, that when Jeremiah said, the fourth year of
Jehoiakim was the first of Nebuchadnezzar, he did not
really mean his first year, but the "first, in which the Jews
heard of him¹;" contradicting the account in the book of
Kings, that on Jehoiakim's rebellion, after being tributary
for three years, God sent bands of Chaldees, Syrians, Mo-
abites, Ammonites, against him, and so placing Nebuchad-
nezzar's first invasion in the 6th year of Jehoiakim, and,
(contrary to the explicit statement in Jeremiah,) deny-
ing that, which was probably directed against Jehoiakim
in his last year, although it fell upon his son.
And yet for all this contradiction of Scripture, there
is not even a plea, except a mistaken arrangement of
the events in Josephus 2, and a preconceived opinion that
Nebuchadnezzar invaded Judæa once only, and an impa-
tience at the inability to gather scattered notices into
systematic history.
ii. Rationalists must now retract the assertion that
"the last king of Babylon has a false name in Daniel; "
since it is now an admitted fact, that the name of Belshaz-
zar occurs on Babylonian Cylinders, as that of the eldest
son of Nabunahit, (the Nabonidus of Berosus, the Laby-
netus of Herodotus,) the last king of Babylon, and being
associated with his father in the empire, and slain at
Babylon. The history was read at one and the same.
time in Lower Chaldæa by Oppert, and by Sir H. Raw-
linson in England. The three monograms, by which
the name is expressed, are each well known, as being of
1 Lengerke, p. 3. from Griesenger, Neue Ansicht, &c. p. 39.
3 Obj. 7.
5
2 Ant. x. 6.
4 "In Abu Shahrein in Lower Chaldæa, cylinders of Nabonid have been dis-
covered, wherein mention is made of his eldest son and co-regent Belsarussur.
He was slain in Babylon, and is the Belshazzar of Scripture.” Oppert, letter to
Prof. Olshausen, Jan. 16. 1854, in Zeitschr. d. Deutsch. morg, Gesch. viii. 598.
5 "Mr. J. Taylor-has lately discovered a number of clay cylinders at Um-
Qeer, the modern Arab capital of Sook-ess-shoohd on the Euphrates. Two
of these cylinders have already reached me.-The most important fact which
they disclose is that of the name Belsharezer, and that he was admitted by
his father to a share in the government." Sir H. Rawl. in Athenæum,
March 1854. p. 341. There was an earlier Bel-Sar-ousour, a king of Kisisim,
in the reign of Sargon, according to Oppert Hist. des Sargonides p. 24.
Name of Belshazzar, as co-regent, on monuments. 405
8
frequent occurrence. The fact, that Belshazzar was
slain, is illustrated "by the inscription of Bisutun, in
that the impostor, who caused the Babylonians to revolt
against Darius Hystaspes, and who personated the heir
to the throne, did not take the name of the eldest son
of Nabonidus, Belsharezer, but of the second son Nabu-
kudurusur." Berosus, then, gives the history of the
open campaign of the father Nabonetus, who, having
been defeated, shut himself up in Borsippa, and was
there taken after the capture of Babylon. Daniel relates
the prediction of the fall of the Babylonian Empire in
the capital, given to the son of Belshazzar in the midst of
his idolatrous insolence, and its fulfilment. The two
accounts, which unbelievers have insolently contrasted,
and which believers have been unable to harmonise, ap-
pear as distinct portions of the same history, the down-
fall of Babylon. But men might well ask themselves,
which is the most likely to have known the name of Bel-
&
"The name is expressed by three monograms, the first signifying the
god Bel; the second, shar, a king; and the third being the same sign which
terminates the name of Nabopolassar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nergalshareser, &c."
Rawl. I. c. Nergalshareser is, by a like contraction, called Neriglissoor by Be-
rosus in Jos. c. Ap. i. 21; Neriglisar, by Megasthenes, Alex. Polyh. in Eus.
Chron.; Niglisar by Jos. Ant. x. 11. 2. Belshazzar is not much abbreviated
from Bel-shar-usur, and is abbreviated according to that common principle of
languages, by giving it a more Aramaic form. The × is retained, although
not pronounced; the r alone is lost, and that is replaced by the double z. We
have for . Perhaps Daniel wrote it, as it was pronounced. We,
English, strangely change the pronunciation of our proper names.
I remem-
ber, Saxby being Sauceby; Birmingham being Brummegem; Cirencester is
pronounced Ciceter; Leicester, Lester; Worcester, Worster; Malvern, Maw-
vern; Magdalene College was, in Oxford, Maudlen; in London, the Magdalen
Penitentiary was pronounced as it is spelled.
7 Sir H. Rawl. in Athe-
næum 1. c. Prof. Rawl. Herod. Ess. 8. i. 525. note 8, from Behistun Inscr.
i. par. 17. iii. par. 13. re-edited, Ib. T. ii. pp. 595, 6. 608.
8 The fact, that Belshazzar was the eldest son, is stated in an inscription,
thus decyphered by Dr Hincks (Journal for Sacr. Lit. T. xiv. p. 412); Save
thou me; as to posterity, distant days to an extending extend thou; also as
to Belshazzar the son, the beginning of the issue of my heart, on the worship
of thy great godhead his heart make to abide." Prof. Rawlinson informs me,
that no name is mentioned in the inscriptions, together with that of the
reigning monarch, unless he were co-regent. Dr Hincks speaks of Belshazzar,
as being, according to the inscriptions, "heir apparent." Ib. p. 409.
406
Belshazzar's relation to Nebuchadnezzar.
shazzar, which remained unknown to Babylonian, Per-
sian, or Greek historians, the prophet who lived in Ba-
bylon, or a Jew who is to have lived in Palestine nearly
four centuries afterwards?
iii. In what way this Belsharusur was descended from
Nebuchadnezzar, since his father was not of the royal fa-
mily, may yet be discovered, or may, without detriment,
remain unknown. Intermarriage with the family of a
conquered monarch, or with a displaced line, is so obvi-
ous a way of strengthening the newly acquired throne¹,
that it is à priori probable, that Nabunaḥit would so for-
tify his claim. The fact, that two impostors took the
title of "Nabocodrossor son of Nabonid," completely es-
tablishes the fact, that Nabonidus wished to associate
his family and dynasty with that of the great conqueror
and the benefactor of Babylon. No one would hesitate to
accept such an explanation in secular history. It is un-
philosophical to set historical statements at variance,
when they admit of a ready solution.
iv. But, it is said, the Queen-mother and Daniel speak
of Nebuchadnezzar to Belshazzar, as his father, and to
Belshazzar, as being his son, whereas the relation was,
anyhow, that of grandfather and grandson, so that, al-
though, by God's Providence, men have unexpected ex-
ternal evidence that the name is right, still the relation
is to be wrong. These men teach the old prophet, that
he ought to have said, "Nebuchadnezzar, thy grandfa-
ther," "and thou, his grandson." Most accurate advice!
Daniel would doubtless have followed it, had he been
speaking English. But what if, in Chaldee, it was im-
possible, without coining a new word? Neither in He-
1 Prof. Rawlinson (Bampton L. pp. 443, 4.) gives as instances, “so Amasis
married a daughter of Psammetik III. (Wilkinson in Rawl. Herod. ii. 387.) and
Atossa was taken to wife both by the Pseudo-Smerdis and by Darius Hystas-
pes. (Her. iii. 68, and 88.) On the same grounds Herod the Great married
Mariamne. (Jos. B. J. i. 12. 3.)" Even Mr. F. Newman acknowledges the prin-
ciple in regard to the committing of Zedekiah's daughters to Gedaliah : (Jer.
xli. 10.) quoted Ib. The same principle was probably involved in Absalom's
incest, (2 Sam. xvi. 22, 23.) and Adonijah's request, 1 Kgs. ii. 23.
Neb. called his father, for no Chaldee word for grandf. 407
وو
4
8
brew, nor in Chaldee, is there any word for "grandfather,"
"grandson "." "Forefathers" are called "fathers" or
"fathers' fathers." But a single grandfather, or fore-
father, is never called "father's father," but always "fa-
ther" only. This is so, alike in early and late Hebrew,
and the Chaldee follows the idiom. Jacob says, 3 The
God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of
Isaac. God says to Aaron, the tribe of Levi, the tribe of
thy father. The confession, to be made at the offering
of the first fruits, began; 5A Syrian, ready to perish, was
my father; and in the same sense, probably, Moses says,
6 the God of my father. David said to Mephibosheth 7, I
will surely shew thee kindness, for Jonathan thy father's
sake, and will restore to thee all the land of Saul thy father.
And Asa is related to have removed Maachah his mother
from being queen, though it is said in the same chapter,
that she was the mother of Abijam his father 9. Maacha
herself, who is called daughter of Absalom, was really
his granddaughter, he having left one only daughter, Ta-
mar 10, and her own father being Uriel". Again, it is
said, ¹² Asa did right in the eyes of the Lord, as did David
his father, and in like way of Hezekiah 13. Contrariwise,
it is said that ¹4 Ahaz did not right, like David his father ;
that ¹5 Amaziah did right—yet not like David his father ; he
did according to all things as Joash his father did. Here,
in one verse, the actual father and the remote grandfather
are alike called his father; as, before, the father and grand-
father of Mephibosheth were called, in the same verse,
his father. 16 Josiah, it is said, walked in the ways of Da-
vid his father; he began to seek the God of David his fa-
ther. In Isaiah there occur, 17Jacob thy father; 18 thy first
father, i. e. Adam; and to Hezekiah he said, 19 Thus saith
12
15
14
7
2 Even in Rabbinic, Buxtorf only mentions the terms, 2, 2) "my old man,
my old woman,” for “my grandfather,” “my grandmother.'
3 Gen. xxxi. 42.
7 2 Sam. ix. 7.
+ Num. xviii. 2.
8 1 Kgs. xv. 13.
5 Deut. xxvi. 5.
• Ib. 2.
112 Chr. xiii. 2.
14 2 Kgs.
xxix. 2.
16 2 Chr. xxxiv. 2, 3.
13 1 Kgs. xv. 11.
xvi. 2, 2 Chr. xxviii. 1.
col. 684.
6 Ex. xviii. 4.
10 2 Sam. xiv. 27.
13 2 Kgs. xviii. 3, 2 Chr.
15 2 Kgs. xiv. 3.
17 Is. lviii. 14. Is Ib. xliii. 27. 19 Ib. xxxviii. 5.
408 In like way, men were called sons of their grandfathers.
3
the Lord, the God of David thy father. So, on the other
hand, there is no one Hebrew or Chaldee word to express
"grandson." In laws, if the relation has to be express-
ed, the idiom is ¹thy son's daughter, or 2 thy daughter's
daughter ; or it is said, thou shalt tell it to thy son's son;
4 rule thou over us, thou and thy son, and thy son's son. The
relation can be expressed in this way in the abstract, but
there is no way in Hebrew or Chaldee to mark, that one
person was the grandson of another, except in the way
of genealogy, “Jehu the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of
Nimshi." And so, the name son stands for the "grand-
son," and a person is at times called the son of the more
remarkable grandfather, the link of the father's name
being omitted. Thus Jacob asked for Laban the son of
Nahor, omitting the immediate father, Bethuel; Jehu is
called the son of Nimshi", omitting his own father, Jeho-
shaphat. The prophet Zechariah is called the son of
Iddo, his own father being Berachiah 10. Hence the
Rechabites said, as a matter of course, 11 Jonadab the
son of Rechab our father commanded us; we have obeyed
in all things the voice of Jonadab the son of Rechab our
father; although Jonadab lived some 180 years before 12.
And reciprocally God says, 13 the words of Jonadab the son
of Rechab, that he commanded his sons, are performed; and,
Because ye have obeyed the commandment of Jonadab
your father, and kept all his precepts.
6614
>
5
In the Assyrian inscriptions, Sargon speaks of the
❝14 kings my fathers," although himself probably connect-
ed with the former line of kings, only through intermar-
riage; and Isaiah speaks of "15 Merodach Baladan, son of
Baladan," the immediate father of Merodach Baladan
having been "Yagina 16"
The requisition then, that Daniel or the Queen-mother
1 Lev. xviii. 10.
4 Jud. viii. 22.
2 Ib. and 17.
6 Ib. xxviii. 5.
9 Ezr. v. 1, vi. 14.
5 Gen. xxix. 5.
8 2 Kgs. ix. 2, 14.
3 Ex. x. 2.
7 1 Kgs. xix. 16,
10 Zech. i. 1.
12 in Jehu's time B.C. 884. (2 Kgs. x. 15.) Jere-
2 Kgs. ix. 20.
11 Jer. xxxv. 6, 8.
miah's prophecy was about B.C. 707.
Rawl. Herod. T. i. p. 472.
13 Ib. 14, 16.
15 xxxix. 1.
14 Athenæum 1. c.
16 Rawl. B. Lect. p. 443. note 4.
Charges of error as to Susa, now abandoned.
409
should have expressed to Belshazzar the exact relation in
which he stood to Nebuchadnezzar, is a thing simply im-
practicable according to the genius of the language. But
further, it would have been false to nature. The object
of the Queen-mother was to influence Belshazzar; that
of Daniel, to impress him by the contrast of his conduct
and his grandfather's. The words "son's son" are used,
(where they are used,) to express distance. The idiom
expresses the continuing-on of the line. It is, as I said,
never used of an individual. Daniel used the only idiom,
existing in the language, to express the relation; and at
the same time, instead of mentioning an inglorious father,
he set before Belshazzar the history of his renowned fa-
ther, the father of his greatness, the neglected example
of God's judgment on the proud, and of His mercy on
humbled pride.
v. In regard to Susa 17, rationalism, credulous, as usual,
against the Bible, snatched at first at a statement of
Pliny, 18 Susiana, in which Susa, the ancient regal city
of the Persians, was built by Darius the son of Hystas-
pes." It also mistranslated Daniel, as though he said,
that he was actually in Susa 19, whereas he says, that in
his vision he was there, (as Ezekiel speaks of his being
in his vision at Jerusalem 20.) Then it tried to establish,
that Elam was not conquered by Nebuchadnezzar 21, so
that Daniel was to have stated that he was in a place,
not then built and not in the Babylonian empire. All
these allegations were plainly contrary to the facts.
Xenophon calls the city, Susa, in the time of Cyrus, say-
ing that he "22 passed the three spring months in Susa."
Cambyses sent Prexaspes to Susa to put his brother to
death 23; then, on hearing of the revolt of Pseudo-Smerdis,
he set off himself to march to Susa
died; the two Magi reigned there 25.
17 Obj. 5.
against him, but
Darius Hystaspes
18 N. H. vi. 27, 31. 19 Bertholdt defended this at length, (pp. 510,4.) follow-
ed by Bachiene (Heil. Geogr. p. 615.) and others; which every one now sees
to be wrong.
6. ult.
20 Ezek. viii-xi.
23 Herod. iii. 30.
21
See ab. Lect. iii. pp. 119, 20. Cyrop. viii
25 Ib. 65.
24 Ib. 61.
410
Susa, an ancient city, probably a residence
came thither from Persia Proper, of which his father was
Satrap¹. Herodotus too calls it "the Susa of Mem-
non," a name which carries its date back to the fabulous
times of Greece. Strabo says, that the Persian kings
chose it as their residence, in part, "3 on account of the
dignity of the city ;" and so, as long præ-existing. Greek
traditions placed "Memnon son of Tithonus and his
Susianians" in the time of the Trojan war. Pliny does
not contradict all this, if we understand that he used the
word "built," in regard to Susa, in the way in which it
is so often said of one who rebuilds, beautifies, enlarges
or fortifies. In that sense he must clearly have used it
of Ecbatana, when he says, "5 King Seleucus built Ec-
batana, the capital of Media." So Nebuchadnezzar said,
6 Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house
of the kingdom? and, in this sense, Solomon doubtless is
said to have "7 built Tadmor," and Rehoboam to have
8 built" Bethlehem, Tekoah, and other towns, which
existed long before. The Cuneiform inscriptions men-
tion "Shushan" (written as in Daniel) as one of the two
capitals of Elam, even during the Assyrian Empire, in
the reign of Asshur-bani-pal, son of Esarhaddon. It was
twice taken by Asshur-bani-pal, and, the second time, was,
with most of Susiania, incorporated with Babylonia, as
a Satrapy under his brother". If this continued, it was
already part of Babylonia, when Nabopolassar rebelled.
66
Rationalism then had to retreat from all those former
charges, step by step. What remains resolves itself into a
mere denial of prophecy. Daniel saw Susa, as a repre-
sentative of Persian empire. Probably it was already
the seat of that empire. For it is in itself unlikely, that
Cyrus should have abandoned his Persians, and made the
1 Darius, son of Hystaspes, arrived at Susa, having come from the Per-
sians. For of these his father was governor," (vπaρxos, i. q. Satrap.) Ib. 70.
2 vii. 151. In v. 54, he calls it "the Memnonian city;" v. 53, "the Mem-
nonian palace."
xv. 3. 2. p. 728.
1 Diod. ii. 22.
5 N. H. vi. 14, 17.
8 2 Chr. xi. 6.
B. pp. 452-4.
3
6 Dan. iv. 30. Eng. 27. Ch.
7 1 Kgs. ix. 18.
9 Rawl. five Empires ii. pp. 490-2. Layard N. and
of Cyrus, before his capture of Babylon.
411
Median capital his only seat of empire. The one autho-
rity, who states that he made Susa the Persian residence,
does not hint that he made it so after the conquest of Ba-
bylon. Contrariwise one of the grounds, which Strabo
assigns for the choice ³, its "bordering upon Babylon,"
suits the times before its capture better than those sub-
sequent. Before the capture, Susa was a good point,
whence to invade Babylon; a three months' residence
there was of no special value in regard to Babylon, when
Babylon was already their's. The account of the march
of Cyrus against Babylon, given by Herodotus, also falls
in with the probability, that Susa was already his capi-
Herodotus first 10 mentions the water of the Cho-
aspes, which the Persian kings took with them on their
expeditions; then, the crossing of the Gyndes11; but from
Susa on the Choaspes to the Gyndes was the first part of
the royal road 12, which connected Susa with the extre-
mity of the Persian empire on the west.
tal.
In the 3rd year of Belshazzar, probably shortly before
the close of the Babylonian empire, God foreshowed to
Daniel the rise, the growth, the fall of the 2nd world-em-
pire, which was about to destroy the first. This could not
be more graphically shewn than by the symbolic animal,
close by the capital of Persia whence its conqueror issued.
Ecbatana would have symbolised chiefly the inferior, the
Median, portion of the conquering empire. The name of
Susa symbolises the superior element, the Persian. The
slight touch is another indication, that Daniel knew the
relation of the two races, of which these writers would
fain make him out to be ignorant.
vi. The mention of Satraps is to yield a twofold argu-
ment against the book of Daniel; 1) that they are men-
tioned at all as Babylonian officers; 2) that there were so
many as 120 under Darius the Mede. True! Berosus,
the Babylonian historian, who is an infallible authority,
if he can be made to seem to contradict Holy Scripture,
mentions them too. He speaks, as we saws, of the Satrap
10 i. 188.
11 i. 189.
12 v. 52.
13. See above Lect. ii. p. 62.
412 Satraps, an essential part of the large Asiatic empires.
who rebelled against Nabopolassar. But this too is to be
an anachronism¹; for there are to have been no Satraps
in Egypt before the time of Cambyses, and those, of course,
Persian. True again; " 2 The government of the Asiatic
states, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medians, and Persians,
was a government by Generals, Princes, who at the
same time were Stadtholders, Governors general." Sub-
dued, but warlike nations, uncemented into one with the
conquering empire, and at a distance from its capital,
must be held in allegiance by the strong hand and will
of some delegated authority, to whom the distant go-
vernment is confided. The Governors in our colonies or
conquests, the Cape, Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, New
Zealand, would, when government was less organised,
have been Satraps. Governor, or Governor-General, is
the title equivalent to Satrap. But further, the Assy-
rian boast in Isaiah, Are not my princes altogether
kings? exactly expresses the character of the Satrap, an
officer who lived in almost royal state, almost indepen-
dent of his distant suzerain, so that he provided the
contingent of tribute, or, if need were, of soldiers, and
was often in a condition, and tempted, to assert his com-
plete independence. In the great wars or invasions of the
king, the Satrap brought his contingent of troops, and be-
came one of the great king's attendant princes. The title
of Nebuchadnezzar himself, king of kings, expresses the
same relation. The title involves this, that he was king
of those who governed as kings, under him. Merodach-
2 "We know from other places,
3
4
1 Lengerke on Dan. iii. 3. p. 117.
that the government [of the Medes,] as in other Asiatic empires, was a govern-
ment by Satraps; in that the foreign populations were under Median Satraps."
Heeren, Ideen, i. 1. 143. "The government by Satraps, which had in Xenophon's
time attained its full organisation, was common to the Persian Empire with all
great despotic empires.” Id. p. 489. "It belongs to the peculiar constitution of
the Assyrian, Chaldeau, and Persian Empires, that the provinces were govern-
ed by Satraps or Vice-kings, who were often relations, brothers, sons, or step-
sons, of the king, at times extremely powerful, rivalled the royal court in pomp,
but often withdrew themselves from its supremacy, and made themselves in-
3 Is. x. 8.
4 2 Kgs. xviii. 19, Is. xxxvi. 4.
dependent."
5 Ezek. xxvi. 7, Dan. ii. 37, as of Artaxerxes, Ezr. vii. 12.
Evidence from cuneiform Inscriptions.
413
baladan, entitled king of Babylon by Isaiah 6, was proba-
bly one of the vice-kings or Satraps of the king of Assyria.
For Babylon was, before and after this time, dependent
on Nineveh. Sennacherib made Belib his viceroy there";
his son Esarhaddon transplanted Babylonians to Sama-
ria, and carried Manasseh captive to Babylon 9. As-
syrian viceroys appear as Babylonian kings in the Ca-
non of Ptolemy 7. The name, Satrap, being of Sanskrit
origin, may have come in at any time. The relation, ex-
pressed by the name, neither began nor ended with the
Persians, being inseparable from the loose organisation of
the vast Eastern Empires. The office (and, if Oppert has
retained the name from the Cuneiform Inscriptions, the
name too) occurs even in Assyrian times. Sargon, Sen-
nacherib, Esarhaddon, Asshur-bani-pal, speak of their
having set Assyrian lieutenants, governors, (perhaps with
the very term, satraps,) or native kings as Viceroys, over
conquered provinces 10;-precisely the policy which we
7 as Elibus, (Polyhistor) or Belib. (Can. Ptol.) See
8 Ezra iv. 2.
9 2 Chr. xxxiii. 11.
6 Is. xxxix. 1.
Rawl. Herod. i. 504.
10 Sargon (in the Khorsabad inscription) speaks of placing his lieutenants,
as governors in the seacoast of Babylonia, (Oppert Hist. d. Sargonides p. 21,)
Samaria, (p. 22,) Tabal, (p. 23,) Kisisim, (pp. 24, 5,) Kharkhar, (p. 25,) Tel-
garimmi, Gamgoum, (p. 26,) Ashdod (p. 27); of placing a native governor
over the royal city, Simoukhta, (p. 22,) Albania. (p. 28.) According to Op-
pert (Sargonides p. 24,) he had a Satrapy of Parthia, (p. 22,) of Commagene.
(p. 28.) He speaks of his lieutenant at Babylon and in the country of Gam-
boul, (p. 30,) and generally, of his "chiefs of Provinces, Satraps, wise men,
doctors, magnates, lieutenants and governors of Assyria." Ib. 33. In the in-
scription at Nimrood, he speaks of placing his lieutenant at Karkemis, (Cir-
cesium,) Ib. 34. In the Inscription of the cylinders, he speaks, at least, of
placing his lieutenants, as governors, from Hasmar to the city Simaspatti in
the far Media at the sun-rising, in Scythia, Albania, Bet Hamban, Parthyene,
Van, Armenia, Colchis, Tubal, as far as the Moschi. Ib. p. 36. Sennacherib,
in his prism, mentions his placing Ilhinzas, which he made the capital of Bet-
Barrou, under his lieutenant, the prefect of Karkhar. (Ib. p. 43.) The kings of
Ashdod, Amgarron, Gaza, were tributary kings, owning him as their Suze-
rain. (Ib. p. 45.) Esarhaddon mentions placing “judges," together with the
native governors of cities of Media which for the first time submitted to As-
syria, to govern their country (Ib. p. 57,); and 12 kings of the coast of Pho-
nicia, and 10 kings of Yatman, to whom he “delegated ” his “powers.” (Ib.
p. 58.) His son, Asshur-bani-pal, mentions his reinstating in their govern-
ment in Egypt the princes and rulers, whom his father had appointed and
414
1
Cyrus is not said to have instituted the office.
find continued by Alexander. Berosus speaks of a Satrap
under Nabopolassar; Diodorus uses the term of the go-
vernor set by Ninus over Media ¹, and speaks of the " Sa-
trapy of Babylonia," as having been promised to Bele-
sys². The name continued on under the Grecian Alexan-
der³, and after his death. There is not then a shadow of
ground, because Xenophon says that Cyrus, "4 when he
was in Babylon, thought good at once to send Satraps to
the conquered nations," to assume that he was the first
who sent Satraps to conquered provinces, or that he was
instituting a new office. Xenophon says,
Xenophon says, "5 having se-
lected those of his friends whom he thought the fittest,
he sent Satraps to Arabia, Cappadocia, the Greater Phry-
gia, Lycia and Ionia, Caria, Phrygia on the Hellespont,
and Æolis. But over Cilicia and Cyprus and the Paph-
lagonians he sent not Persian Satraps, because they seem-
ed to join willingly the campaign against Babylon:" and
again, "The Cilicians and Cyprians joined his army very
readily. Wherefore he never sent any Persian Satrap
over either Cilicians or Cyprians, but their native kings
sufficed him." This is precisely the same policy which we
find in Alexander and his immediate successors, who left
certain kingdoms under their native kings, making them,
as did Cyrus also, tributaries. The king was in these
cases the Satrap, as elsewhere the Satraps became little
kings. Herodotus himself says generally, that the Per-
sians adopted the polity of the Medes'. Xenophon is
obviously relating no new institution, but how Cyrus
chose fitting Persians for the office, which itself was an
integral part of all Asiatic rule. The point insisted on in
Tirhaka had expelled. (Rawl. 5 Emp. ii. 485.) It has been conjectured, that
Psammetichus was one of them, (Ib. p. 486.) and this would fall in with the
supposition, that Berosus meant by the rebellious Satrap, whom Nebuchad-
nezzar conquered at the close of his father's reign, the king of Egypt. (See ab.
p. 403.) Mention is made of an Assyrian Governor placed over Minni; most
of Susiana was conquered, and united with Babylonia under the brother of
Asshur-bani-pal.
1 Diod. ii. 2.
6 vi. 4. 1.
2 Ib. 24. 3 See ab. pp. 156-8.
4 viii. 6. 1. 5 Ib. 4.
7 i. 134. see Bähr ad loc. following Heeren, i. 1. p. 142.
6610
Varying number and distribution of Satrapies. 415
each case is, that they were Persian Satraps. The state-
ment presupposes that the office existed before. It was
manifestly also a mere partial, unsystematic, arrange-
ment or account, since, of the six Persian Satraps, five
were placed in Asia Minor9; and, in all his other territo-
ries, one only, and that, in Arabia. Cyrus appears rather
to have modified the existing system of Satraps, by "10 plac-
ing the governors of the citadels and the captains of
guards at the different posts in the country," as checks
upon them. Herodotus also mentions a Persian Satrap
of Sardis under Cyrus 11, and of Egypt under Cambyses 12.
In regard to the number, it is evident that either Darius
diminished the existing number, or that his Satraps mean
something different from the office under Cyrus. For
in Asia Minor alone the Satraps under Cyrus were twice
as many as those mentioned in that division by Darius 13.
The number of twenty, under which Herodotus sums them.
up, is itself uncertain. In the Behistun inscription, Da-
rius mentions incidentally a "14 Satrap of Arachosia" not
included in the list of Herodotus, whereas the province
is mentioned in 15 the three authentic lists of the Per-
sian provinces, which are contained in the Inscriptions
of Darius."
و
The several lists of the provinces in those three inscrip-
tions are moreover imperfect, not exactly agreeing with
one another, yet each exceeding in number that given by
Herodotus 16. They shew, that variations took place even
8 mentioned both in viii. 6. 4. and vi. 4. 1. 9 viii. 6. 4. 10 Ib. 1. 11 iii. 120.
12 iv. 166. 13 In addition to the five Persian Satraps there were, under Cyrus,
the three native Satraps of Cilicia, and Paphlagonia, and the neighbouring
Cyprus. Xenophon, in his own time, names the Persian "rulers" of two more
divisions of Asia Minor, through which he passed, the Bithynians, and the Pha-
sians (to the East of Pontus,) with the Hesperians. Anab. vii. 8. pen. Poly-
ænus (vii. 21. 7.) mentions, in regard to the times of Artaxerxes Memnon, a
Satrap of Catonia, (one of the ten divisions of Cappadocia. Strabo xii. 1. 4.
p. 534.) Under Darius, Herodotus mentions four Satrapies only in Asia Minor.
14 Beh. Inscr. col. 3. par. 9. § 2.
15 The lists are given in Rawl. Her. T. ii. p. 485, n. 6. on Her. iii. 94.
16 The list at Behistun (given in Rawl. ib. and in the inscription itself, p. 591,)
mentions 23 provinces including Persia, (which it alone counts,) and the “Is-
lands of the sea;" (col. 1. par. 6. in Rawl. Her. ii. 591.) but not containing
416 Varying number and distribution of Satrapies.
in the reign of Darius himself. Several, which occur as
one Satrapy in the system given by Herodotus, are given
in the lists as distinct provinces¹. In all, those lists fur-
nish the names of 33 provinces, instead of the 20 Satra-
pies, or, (including 2 the Arabians, Ethiopians, Colchians,
who brought presents instead of tribute, and the Per-
sians, who were exempt from tribute,) the 24 divisions of
Herodotus. Yet they omit the fifth Satrapy, "all Phoni-
cia, Palestine-Syria, and Cyprus." Then also, since, in
the third year of the reign of Xerxes, his dominions were
divided into 127 provinces, it is in itself likely that the
division into 20, which Herodotus himself speaks of as
something peculiar 3, did not exclude a division into more
numerous provinces. A trace of such subdivision occurs
probably in the "nome in Dascyleium." One of those
larger Satrapies can hardly have been included under the
title. Æolis continued to be a separate Satrapy in the
time of Artaxerxes. It was held under Pharnabazus, and
given by him to whom he willed 5. Yet its Satrap, Ma-
nia, was in a condition to hold her own and to make war
with towns in the Troad 6, and to incorporate them in her
satrapy. She also joined Pharnabazus in his invasions
of the Mysians and Pisidians, gave him tribute and pre-
sents, and received him in a more distinguished way, than
Sagartia, which that at Persepolis has, nor India, which is in the lists at Persepo-
lis and Nakhsh-i-Rustam. The list at Persepolis (Ib.) alone has not “ the isles
of the sea.” That of Nakhsh-i-Rustam (Ib.) has not Mecia nor Sagartia, but
has eight, which the others have not. The four Satrapies of Asia Minor (Her.
iii. 90.) appear probably in the Nakhsh-i-R. list alone, as Cappadocia, Saparda,
and Ionia repeated twice; the two others have three only.
7
¹ Babylonia and Assyria are one Satrapy, but are two provinces in the lists;
(as they were also in Xenophon's time, Anab. vii. 8. pen.;) the Sagartians, Sa-
rangians, Mycians, part only of the fourteenth Satrapy, are three provinces ;
the Parthians, Chorasmians, Sogdians, Arians, the sixteenth Satrapy, are four
provinces in the lists; the Sattagydians and Gandarians, part of the seventh
Satrapy, are two provinces.
2 Herod. iii. 97.
3 Her. iii. 89. "It was only now, that the empire was divided only into
20 Satrapies, and that it was defined, how much each was to pay." Flügel,
in Hall. Enc. Art. Perser. Gesch. p. 374.
4 Her. iii. 120. In 126, Orates is called "the lieutenant-governor of Dasc.”
in vi. 33, "in Dasc." Thucydides also speaks of "the Satrapy of Dascyleium.'
i. 129. 5 Xen. Hell. 3. 1. 8. 6 Larissa, Hamaxitus and Colonæ. 7 ib. 10.
Satrap, a governor of a larger or lesser province. 417
the other lieutenant-governors. Pharnabazus, then, had
many subordinate governors, who had, equally with him-
self, the title of Satrap 8. Palestine itself, after the cap-
tivity and immediately after Daniel's time, is spoken of
as "a province." In the same book of Ezra it is related,
that 10 the commissions of the king were given to the satraps
of the king and to the governors on this side the river, and
they furthered the people, whereas, according to the later
arrangement of Darius, there was in that district one Sa-
trapy only. In the book of Esther also, the Satraps are
spoken of with reference to the one hundred and twenty
seven provinces 11, (Medinoth.)
The result then is, that the government by Satraps was,
according to heathen historians too, Babylonian also, and
was, under whatever name, an essential part of those large
Eastern empires; that Cyrus sent Persian Satraps, con-
tinuing, but modifying, the old office; sending Satraps, on
whom he could rely, and limiting the power of the Satraps;
and that the division by Darius Hystaspes, mentioned by
Herodotus, which, as appears from the monuments of
Darius himself, needs correction, did not interfere with
the previous distribution into smaller provinces, of which
we have notice before and after him. Plato asserts on
the other hand, that Darius made another distribution in-
to seven only, the Governors of which must have borne
the common title of Satraps. The title, signifying, (it
is thought 13,) "lord or protector of a kingdom or pro-
vince,” might relate equally to a larger or lesser pro-
vince, although history, as is natural, has occasion mostly
to speak of the greater Satraps. A Governor-general of
12
,
s The word "Satrap" is used in regard to Mania, n. 8-10; she is compared
with "the other maрxo." This word then must be used, as it is in Herodotus,
(see Bähr on Her. ii. 70. note, v. 25. note.) as the Greek equivalent for Satrap.
9 Ezra ii. 1, Neh. vii. 6, xi. 3.
10 Ezra viii. 36.
11 viii. 9. In iii. 12, the number of the provinces is not mentioned, but the
letters were written to the king's Satraps in each province (Medinah), of
which it is said, i. 1, viii. 9, and ix. 30, that there were 127.
12 "He divided [the empire] into seven parts." de Legg. iii. p. 144. Bip.
13 See in Rüdiger's App. to Gesen. Thes. p. 68.
E e
418
Rationalist fictions as to the "den of lions.”
India would be likely to be mentioned in history; not so
probably a governor of the Cape or of Bombay.
vii. Unbelief counted, it did not weigh, arguments, when
it would make an argument out of the description of the
den of lions¹. The den is to have been a cistern, (much
like that, I suppose, in which the white bears used to be
kept in the Zoological gardens,) and the stone is to have
been laid over the whole opening, excluding light and
air, so that no animal could live in it. Such is the de-
scription which Lengerke would insolently foist upon the
book of Daniel 2.
It is, of course, foreign from Daniel, who represents³
the king as speaking, and himself, as hearing and answer-
ing, ere the stone was removed. This is, of course, as
essential a part of the description as the rest. The den
was, for safety, below ground. Such a den must needs
have some approach from above, in order to admit of its
being cleaned by the keepers, and the bones of the ani-
mals, on which the animals were fed, being removed.
There is nothing in the meaning of the word to determine
further the shape of the den. But the way, by which
¹ Obj. 3.
2 pp. 272, 283. Davidson adopts the insolence of Lengerke, "How did the
animals live in a cistern-like den? Did an angel give them air to breathe,
whose vitalising property could not be exhausted? It is difficult to see how
life could have been long supported in the place. Lions would soon have died
in it." iii. 175. Leng. had said, p. 272, "Hengstenberg (p. 134,) and Hävernick
(p. 223,) decline considering the preservation of Daniel in the lion's den as
a natural event, but forget that the lions too could not have held out in a hole,
void of air, covered with a stone. Over these no angel watched, as over Da-
niel (v. 21,) and yet it were necessary to assume a 2nd miracle, to make their
preservation, and so the miracle of the deliverance of Daniel, possible."
+4
.נוּבָא
3 vi. 19-21.
In Syriac, goobo is used of 'a prison,' Barh. Chron. p. 178. I. 10;
of 'caves' Ib. p. 317.1. 15, &c." Häv. Neue Unters. p. 65. Jauba, in Arab.
is used of "a cleft between two mountains, a ravine; the opening between
clouds; space between houses or lands; a pit or ditch, a small inn." Freyt.
Lex. Arab.i. 321. In Syriac, it seems to be a hollow. The Rev. R. Payne Smith
has kindly furnished me with these instances from the collectanea of Bernstein
and Quatremère with his own; "the hollow receptacle of a bolt," Gest. AI.
88.7; “vessel," Ecclus. xxi. 14, Judith vii. 20; cistern," Ib. viii. 31, Jer.
ii. 13; from which flocks drank, Rel. Jur. 123. 9; "well," (at Bethlehem)
2 Sam. xxiii. 15, 16; “it is used of "pits "in which people hid themselves and
Word,rendered"den," used of large undergroundplaces. 419
the keepers descended, might obviously form a way of
escape for one whom the lions spared, when first cast to
them. The Jews, the keepers of the Emperor's lions in
Fez, contrived, at times, to rescue their compatriots
whom the Emperor had had cast in 5. The word render-
ed, mouth, is evidently the entrance. Of a well the whole
was, and often still is, covered in the East by a stone, to
reserve it for the time of use, to keep it free from un-
cleanly things, or from being stopped by sand. The ob-
ject of the princes, in laying a stone on the mouth of the
den and sealing it with the seal of the king and of his
lords, was simply to prevent the removal of Daniel. To
this end, it was only necessary to close the entrance, where
the stairs or ladder, by which the keepers went down into
the den, abutted at the top. Such an entrance from above
is described, in regard to a lion's den in Fez where state-
prisoners and Jews were often thrown. "The lion's den
was a large quadrangular hole in the ground, divided by
a partition into two chambers. This wall has a door,
which can be opened and shut from above. The keepers
dwelt, 1 Sam. xiii. 6; the large "pit" of Beth-Eked, 2 Kgs. x. 14; "pit of mud,"
deep enough for a prison, Barh. Chr. p. 118; "a dungeon," Jer. xxxvii. 16;
a prison,” Wisd. x. 13. S. Ephr. ii. 416. Bar Hebr. Chr. pp. 178, 303, 338;
(beit goobo prison-house, Acta Mart. ii. 239;) "den" of lions, Dan. vi. 7, 12,
Hist. Drac. 31. S. Ephr. in Ass. B. O. i. 78; a hollow in a wood, (perhaps i. ..
xáoμa, LXX) 2 Sam. xviii. 17. S. Ephr. ii. 48; "deep pit," for, "the pit of hell,”
Ecclus. xxi. 10; it is explained by nw, "large cisterns," Ass. B. O. iii. 1. p. 499.
It is also used (as my son has noted) for app, "prison," Ps. cxlii. 7 ; “2, “pri-
son,” Gen. xli. 14; and in the phrases, “go down to the pit,” Ps. xxviii. 1,
lxxxviii. 4; “in the lowest pit," Ps. lxxxviii. 6; a pit, into which an ass or ox
might fall and be killed, Ex. xxi. 33. In Jer. xli. 7, 9, it is used of the large
pit, originally dug by Asa "for fear of Baasha," whether to bury things in,
or, as Bochart thought, (T. ii. p. 65. Leipz.) as a subterranean hiding place, or
as a large reservoir. In any case it must have been a large one. Ishmael
cast 70 men into it. From the same meaning of “hollow," is perhaps derived
that of “bridge." In Hebrew too 2 is an "arched building,” Ezek. xvi. 24,
31, 39. The arch was known in Babylon in Nebuchadnezzar's time; for the
"hanging gardens" of Babylon were supported by arches, and were over the
river, Strabo xvi. 1. 5. p. 738. Cas. In Samaritan also, it stands for " well,"
Gen. xxvi. 25 ; cistern,” Lev. xi. 36 ; “ dungeon,” Gen. xli. 14, Ex. xii. 29.
Cast. Lex. col. 505. 5 Höst, Nachr. v. Fez u. Marokko, pp. 77, 290.
As to the present practice see Robinson Pal. i. 490. and
6 Gen. xxix. 2, 3.
note 1. 2.
EC 2
420
Classes of the Magi.
of the lions, (mostly Jews,) throw food into the one divi-
sion, and so entice the lions thither, then they shut the
door from above and clean the other division. The whole
is under the open sky, and is only encircled with a wall,
over which people can look down in. The Emperor
sometimes has men cast in.”
Of course, we cannot tell whether such was the struc-
ture of the den into which Daniel was thrown. Daniel
wrote for believers, not for antiquarians. Enough, that
a den of such sort would answer the description in Daniel,
and that, the entrance being closed by the stone laid on
it, the purpose of the princes could be effected without
the absurdity imputed. But to invent absurdities betrays
the malus animus of the critic; the prophet remains un-
harmed, as he was in the lions' den.
vii. The imputations of "ignorance about the Magi¹" are
to be made up of an alleged discrepancy of the statements.
of Daniel from those of Porphyry and S. Jerome. These,
it is said, divide the Magi into three classes, whereas Da-
niel, it is affirmed, enumerates five. As though, even if
their accounts were at variance, such a change as to the
number of classes into which an institute was divided, could
not take place in nearly eight centuries! But there is
no discrepancy. The four classes, enumerated by Daniel,
magicians, astrologers, soothsayers, Chaldæans, are a divi-
sion of kind, according to the character of their employ-
ment. The distinction in Porphyry is one, not of kind, but
of degree. They are three orders, like the different ranks
of the initiated, or of the Free-masons to this day. The
three orders of Magi, mentioned by Porphyry³, (from
whom S. Jerome gives an extract*,) were degrees in the
¹ Obj. 4.
2 Lengerke (p. 48.) overlooked, that the title D'p occurs
once only in the Hebrew, (Dan. ii. 2.) not in the Chaldee; and that in the Chal-
dee enumerations there stands 1, (ii. 10, 27, iv. 4, v. 7, 11,) which is not in
the Hebrew of Daniel. They are then doubtless equivalents. Compare espe-
cially ii. 48. he made him chief of the sagans of all the wise of Babylon with
ii. 2. on the one hand in which four classes are mentioned, including the Heb.
'p, and on the other, v. 11. in which there are also four, but the Chald.
a De Abstin. iv. 16.
מְכַשְׁפִים .stands for the Heb גָזְרִין
4 "Eubulus, who unfolded the history of Mithra in many volumes, relates
Error in Porphyry's statement as to the Magi. 421
highest, the priestly order. Porphyry distinctly calls
them ministers of the Deity. "5 Among the Persians,
those who are wise as to the Deity, and are its ministers,
are called Magi. For Magos means this in their native
language. This race is accounted so great and venerable
among the Persians, that even Darius son of Hystaspes
inscribed on his monument, in addition to the rest, that
he was a teacher of the things of the Magi. These were
divided into three classes, as Symbulus [Eubulus 6] says,
who wrote the history of Mithra in many books. The
first and most learned class neither eat any living thing,
nor slay it, but abide in the ancient abstinence from ani-
mal food". The second class use animal food, but do not
kill any tame animal; nor do the third touch all things,
like ordinary people. For the transmigration of souls is
a doctrine of all the first."
This last statement of Eubulus, which he assigned as
the ground of the whole abstinence from animal food, is
a manifest error, since the metempsychosis was no part.
of the Magian system; and the whole is directly contra-
dicted by Herodotus 8.
There may, of course, still have been three classes of
priests, although all besides is erroneous. So the evi-
dence for the threefold division was to be eked out by an
alleged threefold division of the ancient Egyptian and of
the Parsee priesthood. This, if true, would manifestly
be nothing to the purpose, unless it were shewn that the
Magi were all priests, or that the modern ritual-priest-
hood of the Parsee and the priesthood of the Egyptians
that among the Persians there are three kinds of Magi, of whom the first, who
are the most learned and eloquent, take no other food than meal and vegeta-
bles." S. Jer, adv. Jovin. ii. 14.
6 S. Jer. 1. c.
7 Leng.
adds, of his own apparently, that "they abstained from wine and marriage.”
(p. 46.) The classes of Parsee priests are hereditary, and so involve marriage.
8The Magi are much severed both from other men and from the priests
of Egypt. For these hold it matter of conscience not to kill any living thing,
except what they sacrifice. But the Magi kill with their own hands all, save
dog and man, and indeed shew great earnestness in it, killing alike ants and
serpents, and the other reptiles and fowls." i. 140.
5 1. C.
422
No old account of threefold division of Magi.
were identical with that of the Magi. In Christian tinres
however, in which alone we have any account of the di-
vision of the Egyptian priesthood¹, the number was not
three. It consisted of four or five more learned classes,
besides others, to whom the general name of "priest" is
also given. S. Clement of Alexandria recounts five³, as
entering into the Egyptian processions of his day. All
these were entrusted with books of Hermes, and four
were engaged in secular learning also.
The distribution of the Parsee priesthood into the Des-
turs, Mobeds, Herbads, is also a division of degrees; its
antiquity is altogether uncertain. The names are not
old, but modern Persian. They do not occur in the Zend-
avesta. Any how, this is not a division of the Magi ge-
nerally, and it relates to ritual only. Those who distin-
guish the Destur and the Mobed most, say, "that the
office of the Mobed is to utter the prayers, to enact the
ceremonies, and to this end he must know the whole Zend-
avesta by heart, but without necessarily understanding
¹ Herodotus (ü. 36, 58.) whom Leng. quotes, has nothing on the subject.
In ii. 37 he says contrariwise, "Each god has, not one priest, but many, of
whom one is chief priest: if any die, his son is appointed in his stead." In Exod.
vii. 11. it is not clear that three classes are mentioned. It is literally, “And
Pharaoh too called the wise men and enchanters; and they too, the writers of
the sacred writing, did so with their enchantments." It is not clear, then,
whether Moses speaks of two classes, or of three; any how, he does not say,
that there were only three.
2 "The true philosophising exists in the prophetæ and hierostolistæ, and
hierogrammateis, and the horologi. But the other multitude of the priests,
and shrine-bearers, and temple-sweepers, and ministers of the gods, exercise
cleanness in like way, but not with so much accuracy or continence." Porph.
de abstin. iv. 8. p. 321.
66
3 Strom. vi. 4. pp. 757, 8. Pott. Porphyry n. 9, p. 324, mentions the hymn-
singer, as employed in the worship of Sarapis by fire and water, making a li-
bation with the water and strewing the fire, when, standing on the threshold,
he, in the native language of the Egyptians, awakens the god."
4 Haug, die Gâthâs Abth. 2. p. xiii. from the Destur at Poonah. Spiegel,
(Avesta ii. p. xv. c. 1.) whom Haug criticises, quotes the Persian translation of
the Ardâ-virâf-nâme, "the Desturs of the law, they are the Mobeds," and re-
fers to Hyde Rel. Vett. Perss. p. 367. ed. 1. The name Mobed, for the chief
priest of the Magi, occurs often in accounts of Syriac martyrdom. Lorsbach,
Museum, p. 132, and Syriac collectanea of Quatremère.
Three of Daniel's classes, marked classes of Magi. 423
it. The Destur has the superintendence of all the cere-
monies and of the whole fire-worship, without being re-
quired to perform it, this being done at his direction by
the Mobeds. He is to understand and to be able to ex-
pound the Zendavesta, and in all matters of belief he
alone is appealed to." The Herbads are acknowledged
to be the lowest class of fire-priests.
This too is a division wholly different in principle from
that of Daniel. On the other hand the well-known ac-
count of Strabo corresponds so far with this of Daniel,
that he speaks of several kinds of Magi. "Of the astro-
nomical Chaldæans there are many kinds. For some
are called Orchians, and others Borsippians, and many
others, as, according to sects, speaking different things
concerning the same dogmas."
7
Three of the classes in Daniel are also marked classes.
The Chaldæans were known to Greek writers also, as
the priests among the Magi. These are the spokesmen
of all the wise men, in that first trial by Nebuchadnezzar 8.
The title is not used (as some have said) as a name for
all the Magi, but historically only on this one occasion.
Elsewhere, and even by "the Chaldæans" themselves, they
are mentioned as one class only among others. The
generic title, used in Daniel, is not Chaldæans, but, all the
wise men of Babylon 10. This, as to Nebuchadnezzar's
time¹¹, included four classes; in the single case, mentioned
in Belshazzar's reign 12, three only are named.
5 xvi. 1. 6.
6 γένη.
7 "The Chaldæans, being priests of this god," [Bel.] Her. i. 181. "On the
greater altar, the Chaldæans burn 1000 talents of frankincense every year, when
they celebrate the festival of this god." ib. 183. “The priests, whom the Baby-
lonians call Chaldæans." Diod. Sic. ii. 24. "The Chaldæans, being of the oldest
Babylonians, in the distribution of the polity have the like rank with the priests
of Egypt. For they are appointed to the service, and study wisdom during the
whole period of their lives, having their greatest glory from astrology.” Ib. 29.
Chaldæans, a kind (yévos) of Magians." Hesych. (Häv. Dan. pp. 48, 9.)
§ ii. 4, 5, 10. 9 with the '', ''s, □'997, Dan. ii. 2 ; with two classes only,
by the Chaldæans themselves, ii. 10. viz. o; with the same two
classes and the iv. 4, and v. 11, referring to Nebuchadnezzar's time; and,
of Belshazzar's, without the Dyno, v. 7. 10 ii. 12, 13, 14, 18, 24, (bis) 48. iv. 3.
Ch. [6. Eng.] v. 7.
ii. 48. comp. ii. 2. and v. 11.
12 v. 7
424
Education by Magi not against conscience.
A 2nd class, ashshufim, as has been already mentioned,
occurs only in Daniel and in West Aramaic¹.
A 3rd, chartummim, (which probably signifies, etymo-
logically, writers of sacred writing,) occurs besides only
of Egyptian magicians. But the connection of Babylo-
nian and Egyptian idolatry makes it, in itself, probable,
that it was one and the same institution in both; and we
are directly told that Democritus, (who died B.C. 357,)
wrote "on the sacred writings in Babylon."
The 4th class is, at least, characterised in this way, that
a different name is given to it in the Chaldee and Hebrew ;
which at least shews, (contrary to what has been stated
so carelessly,) that discrimination was used in the naming
of the several classes.
But it is said, that it was improbable that Daniel should,
with his strict principles, have been willing to be taught
among the Magi; or that they should have received him
among them, being an hereditary caste; or that he should
have been set over them, or should have accepted such a
charge'.
In regard to his willingness to be taught, Moses too,
we know, "was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.
As Moses acquired their secular knowledge without their
debasing superstitions, so Daniel. As Moses was edu-
cated by the priests, who were sole possessors of Egyp-
tian learning, so Daniel by the Magi, the possessors of
the Babylonian. In both nations the learning was ordi-
1 See Lect. i. p. 40.
2 Gen. xli. 24, Ex. vii. 11. In Exodus, it stands connected with the oppo
and op, whether including them, or no. The rendering of the LXX,
iepoypaµµateîs, (acquainted as they were with Egyptian customs,) makes it
morally certain that the word is compounded of “style” and on
sacred."
3 πeρl Tŵv ev Baßvλŵvı iepŵv ypaµµáтwv. Diog. Laert. vit. Democr. The
Hierogrammateus, according to S. Clement Al., "had to know, what are call-
ed Hieroglyphics, and about cosmography, and geography, the order of the sun
and of the moon and of the five planets; the ground-plan of Egypt, and the
diagram of the Nile; the register of the ornaments of the temples, and of the
spots consecrated to them; about the measures, and the things of use in the
temples." Strom. vi. 4. p. 268. Sylb.
4 Lengerke, Dan. pp. 50, 1. Bleek (Einl. p. 598,) only excepts to his under-
taking the charge, followed by Dav. iii. 183.
5 Acts vii. 22.
Large unsuperstitious learning of Chaldees. 425
narily transmitted from father to son: of the Persian
Magi it is expressly said, "The Persian Magi never edu-
cated non-Persians, unless the king enjoin it." In such a
monarchy as the Babylonian or Persian, the king's will
was, of course, law. As the Egyptian priesthood had a
large province of secular knowledge, so all tradition tells
us of the varied learning of the Chaldæans, and their as-
tronomy. Heathen knowledge was, of course, made sub-
ject to vanity; and astronomy was subjected to astrology.
Still astrology, however intense the interest in it might be
to those who believed in it, was only a subordinate stu-
dy. "In Babylonia," Strabo says 7, "an abode was set
apart for the native philosophers, called Chaldees, who
are chiefly engaged about astronomy; but some claim to
cast nativities, which others do not admit." Their as-
tronomical observations were received in Greece as of
acknowledged accuracy, and, from their extent, made a
change in Greek astronomy. Greeks too have thought
that the birthplace of philosophy was "among the Magi of
Persia, the Chaldees of Babylonia or Assyria." We have
also received unexpected notices of a very large literature
on ❝10political and social legislation, philosophy, medicine,
botany, natural history, and the history of man." There
6 Philostr. de vit. Soph. Protag. Opp. p. 498. Mor.
9
7 l. c.
8 Simplicius notices Aristotle's acknowledgment of his uncertainty about
the motions of the planets, and subjoins; "We ought then, persuaded by
Aristotle, to follow the later writers, because they best adhere to the phæno-
mena, whereas the earlier neither perfectly adhere to them, nor knew so
many, because the observations, sent by Callisthenes from Babylon, had not
yet arrived in Greece, which Aristotle had besought him to send ; which ob-
servations Porphyry relates to be for 1903 years, being preserved down to the
times of Alexander of Macedon." (on Aristot. de cœlo L. ii. f. 123. ed. 1526.
quoted by Prideaux, Conn. A. 570.) Epigenes (in Plin. N. H. vii. 57,) adds
the fact, that the observations were recorded on bricks, the well-known ma-
terial of inscriptions. The uneven numbers in Porphyry are an internal
evidence of truth, against the vague exaggerations of the 720,000 years of
Epigenes, 490,000 of Berosus and Critodemus, (in Plin. l. c.) 473,000 of Dio-
dorus Sic. (ii. 31.) 470,000 of Cicero, (de Div. i. 19.) 270,000 of Hipparchus,
(in Procl. in Timæum p. 31.) which Diodorus and Cicero too held to be in-
credible. 9 Diog. Laert. Procem. init. He mentions also the Gymnoso-
phists among the Indians, and the Druids among the Celts and Galatians.
10 See on Obadiah, p. 243 from Chwolsohn, &c.
426
Scope for Daniel's office of supervision.
was then a large field for Daniel to study or to regulate,
without entering upon their superstitions or misbelief.
His office, also, as described by himself, seems to point.
to a general supervision of the whole, rather than to di-
rect connection with details. He is not called Rab-Mag,
chief of the Magi; but is simply said to have been head
of the sagans (or governors) over all the wise men of Ba-
bylon; perhaps a sort of minister of public instruction.
But even in that which was most connected with su-
perstition, the astrological predictions of the wise men,
there may have been very large scope for correcting
abuses and superstitions. The wise men of Babylon cer-
tainly had the reputation of a very great political saga-
city. The character of human prediction is " to see events
while beginning¹, and to anticipate." To discern their
purport and tendencies from the first, is the province of
human long-sightedness. To see events in their super-
human causality in the mind of God, is His gift to the
prophet. The Chaldee politicians had, apparently, ex-
traordinary natural gifts of human sagacity, which, from
youth onwards, were diligently cultivated 2. "They say,"
says Diodorus 3, "that predictions have been made to
other kings not a few, and especially to Alexander the
conqueror of Darius, and to Antigonus, and Seleucus Ni-
cator, who reigned after him; and in all the aforesaid they
seem to have guessed well. They predict, also, to indivi-
1 "Take accurate account, if you will, of those things for which an orator is
responsible; I decline it not. What are these? To see, &c (as in text) and
foretell them to others." Demosth. de corona, p. 308. Dind. quoted by Strachey
On the Prophets of the O. T. p. 2. 29. (Tracts for priests and people.)
2 Diodorus (ii. 39.) contrasts the early, traditional, hereditary, persevering
training of the Chaldees in philosophy and astrology, with the Greek want of
training, late cultivation of philosophy, distracted pursuit of it, and the search
after novelty and speculations, not for truth's sake, but to attract disciples
and gain a livelihood.
3 ii. 31. The two cases mentioned by Herodotus of the Magi are intrinsi-
cally improbable, and inaccurate as related. As to the dream of Astyages, there
was nothing to alarm him that his descendant should flood all Asia (i. 167.) ;
nor, if true, is it likely that he should have married his daughter into the roy-
al family of Persia. In both cases too the Magi are related to have fallen into
complete error. (i. 120, vii. 10.)
Improbabilities alleged against the book of Daniel. 427
duals what is about to happen, so successfully, that those
who have made trial marvel at what happens, and deem
that it is beyond what belongs to man."
If this was so, the fraud lay in their claiming Divine
their
authority for that which was human. And this,
fraud, was the occasion of two of their defeats. In the
belief, which they encouraged, that the interpretation
was Divine, it was nothing unreasonable in Nebuchad-
nezzar, to ask of them to recall to him the half-forgot-
ten dream ¹. God did reveal both to Daniel. The un-
known character on the wall became the like test in the
time of Belshazzar.
665
II. The incorrectnesses then of Daniel being correct,
they are to be eked out by "5 a number of improbable and
suspicious statements." Of these we may sever off at
once, what is called "the rigorism of the Jews," i. e. the
obedience of Daniel and his companions to the law of
God; "the detestable self-will and fanaticism of the Jewish
Officers of state," i. e. the plain-spoken refusal of Daniel's
companions to be guilty of idolatry; "8 the fanaticism
of Daniel,” i. e. his refusal to cease to pray to God, be-
cause a king commanded; and contrariwise the non-men-
tion of Daniel, when he was not attacked; and 10 the
senseless requisition of Nebuchadnezzar, that the wise
men should tell him his dream;" which tacitly assumes
the falsehood of the history, since it would only be "sense-
less," if it was not calculated to be a test between truth
and falsehood.
Nothing is more common than an indistinct memory of a dream, of such
sort, that a person can be sure what the dream was not, although he cannot
recall what it was. Even Stähelin quotes from the Mémoires de l'Acad. d.
Inser. T. 48. p. 647, [extracts from Masudi, Sirat-alresool, by De Sacy] a like
account of Rebia ben Nasr king of Yemen, who made the selfsame requisition
on the same ground. Prince," the diviners said, “tell us the vision and we
will give you the interpretation." "No! for then I could not be certain of the
truth of your interpretation. He alone can know the meaning, who can know
the vision before I relate it." De Sacy's transl. The story has no historical
evidence; since Almasudi died near the end of our 10th cent.; but it illustrates
the principle. 5 Lengerke, xiii. 6. pp. lxiv, v. Improb. 1. See ab. Lect. i.
p. 17, 18. 7 Improb. 6. s Improb. 17. See p. 449.
See ab. Lect. i. p. 14, and below, p. 463.
9 Improb. 4.
10 Improb. 2. See in text.
428
Alleged improbabilities. Neb's. insanity
5
4
There remain,¹ the want of proportion in his golden
image; the religious persecution of Nebuchadnezzar ;
3 Nebuchadnezzar's seven years' insanity; that he prays
before he [wholly] recovers his reason; that he gives
an account of his insanity in an edict to his subjects; and
that yet, in that edict, he does not shew his belief in the
God of the Jews, as the only God; that Daniel did not
6
7
come with the rest of the Magi, and was unknown to Bel-
shazzar; that 8 Belshazzar was courteous towards Da-
niel, and ⁹ Daniel inconsistent in declining, and then ac-
cepting, the king's gift; 10 that the sacred vessels were so
coarsely profaned; 11that Daniel was proclaimed the
third ruler of the kingdom in the night of the capture of
Babylon; 12 the frantic law of Darius; 13 traces that a Jew
wrote the edict of Darius; and (which is the same as the
16th) 14 the incredible intolerance of the king.
It seems as incredible to these writers, that human na-
ture should be sinful and arrogant, as that man, through
the grace of God, should obey God. Strange that any
one, ever so little acquainted with the drunkenness of hu-
man power and pride, should venture to represent Bel-
shazzar's insolence, or the law into which the vanity or
policy of Darius was entrapped, as any thing incredible.
for human nature to venture upon. When such things
are swept together, we are at least sure, that no refuse
has been left behind. I will take the miscellaneous list
in the order of their interest.
i. It is now conceded that the madness of Nebuchad-
nezzar 3 agrees with the description of a rare sort of dis-
ease, called Lycanthropy, from one form of it, of which
our earliest notice is in a Greek medical writer of the
4th century after our Lord, in which the sufferer retains
his consciousness in other respects, but imagines himself
to be changed into some animal, and acts, up to a certain
1 Improb. 3.
2
Improb. 5.
3
5 Improb. 8.
6 Improb. 10.
9 Improb. 13.
13 Improb. 18.
10 Improb. 14.
Improb. 7.
7 Improb. 11.
11 Improb. 15.
4 Improb. 9.
8 Improb. 12.
12 Improb. 16.
14 Improb. 19.
probably a very rare form of partial mental disease. 429
point, in conformity with that persuasion. Those who
imagined themselves changed into wolves howled like
wolves, and, (there is reason to believe, falsely,) accused
themselves of bloodshed 15. Others imitated the cries of
dogs; it is said that others thought themselves nightin-
gales, lions, cats, or cocks, and these crowed like a cock.
It was no dissimilar form of disease, that others imagined
that their bodies were, wholly or in part, changed into
some brittle substance, whence they avoided contact, lest
they should be broken. Others had other similar delu-
sions, varying incidentally from each other.
The monotony of the descriptions of the disease seems
to imply that it was very rare. Marcellus (4th Cent.16)
mentions two sorts. "They who are seized by the ky-
nanthropic or lycanthropic disease, in the month of
February go forth by night, imitating in all things wolves
or dogs, and until day especially live near tombs." Aeti-
us 17, (end of the 5th Cent.18) quotes the exact statement;
giving his account also of the symptoms, and of remedies.
Paulus of Ægina [latter half of 7th Cent.] omits only the
kynanthropy19. Further, Galen, I believe, only mentions
one case, of one who acted like a cock. 20Another, hear-
ing cocks crow, as they, before they crow, flap their
15 Single instances of the disease are given in Calmeil, La Folie considérée
sous le point de vue pathologique, philosophique, historique, et judiciaire. Pa-
ris. 1845. T. i. pp. 276, 336, 416, (who also gives an account of an epidemic at-
tack of it in the Jura, Ib. 310,) and in Dr Arnold's Observations on the na-
ture, kinds, causes, and prevention of Insanity, (published 1782,) pp. 122-5. To
both these works Dr Browne kindly directed me. The references to other me-
dical writers, quoted below, were supplied to me by Arnold's work. Welcker's
work, Die Lycanthropie ein Aberglaube u. eine Krankheit, (Kl. Schriften, iii.
157 sqq.) contains no facts, only a theory that such was the origin of the fable
about Lycaon.
16 Biogr. Univ. xxvi. 597.
17 L. vi.c.ii.p. 104. v. reprinted also in Galen. Opp. T. x. pp. 502, 3. ed. Chart.
18 These dates are taken from Dr Greenhill's articles in Smith's Biogr. Dict.
19 iii. 16. He also says generally, "some think themselves some brute ani-
mals, and imitate their noises. Some think themselves earthenware vessels, and
fear that they shall be broken." iii. 14.
20 de loc. affect. iii. 10. Opp. vii. 442. The context is of actual mental delu-
sion.
"Fear besets all the melancholic; but not always the same sort of un-
natural phantasy. For one thought he was earthenware, and so gave way to
those whom he met, lest he should be broken." &c. as in text.
430 Neb's. disease, humanly too, admitting of recovery.
wings, so he, flapping against his sides with his arms,
imitated the noise of the animals." Trallian again (in the
6th century¹) mentioned the same form of disease only;
"2 Others think they are a cock, and imitate its crow-
ing." The notices moreover in the middle ages are rare.
Mostly, one only occurs in an author, writing on the sub-
ject of melancholic alienation 3; and the repetition of the
same stories in modern writers shews how little, in addi-
tion, modern experience furnishes. The disease is one
from which there have been recoveries. Mercurialis
says; "The disease is horrible, yet not destructive to
life, even if it last for months; nay, I have read that it
has been thoroughly cured after years." The exact
form of the disease, which would be Boanthropy, I have
not found any notice of 5; perhaps, because the howling of
2 De Art. Med. i. 17. p. 165.
1 Dr Greenhill 1. c. (v. Alexander) i. 126.
3 The authorities, quoted by Dr Arnold, mostly mentioned single cases.
Van Swieten (Comm. in Boerhaave, iii. p. 521,) says that Forest (L. x. obs. 25.
p. 441,) had "seen one countryman, seized with this species of mania, who in
spring wandered about a cemetery, and had all the signs mentioned by the an-
cient physicians," (which last remark implies that it was then unknown.) Wil-
liam of Brabant mentioned one case, one at Padua, A.D. 1541, who said that
he was a wolf, with the hair turned inside. (quoted by Wier, De Præstig. Dæ-
mon. iv. 23. p. 335.) Zacut, a Portuguese writer, also mentions a single case.
(Praxis Med. Obs. 51. p. 12.) Riverius writes more generally, "Others think
that they are dogs, cats, wolves, cuckoos, nightingales, cocks, and imitate the
noises of these or other animals. Others think that they are dead, and that
they must neither eat or drink." (Praxis Med. i. 14. p. 34.) But, as this last
was doubtless the celebrated case, in which the sufferer was led to think that
other dead ate, and so was recovered, probably the other rarer sorts, if au-
thentic, were but single cases. Besides these, Actuarius, (end of the 13th cent.)
mentions the case, but not as knowing it; "Of the same sort would that dis-
ease be, called lycanthropy, as if men had put on a wolf's nature." (De Math.
Med. i. p. 48.)
4 Med. Pract. i. 13. He gives much the same account as Paul. Æg.;"by day
they lie hid in the house. At night-fall, forthwith they go forth, and cours-
ing hither and thither, they howl, avoid any who meet them, seek the tombs,
are hollow-eyed, and of foul and black complexion."
Arnold (on Insanity, i. 223,) suggests that such may have been meant by
the story of the Protides in Virg. Ecl. vi. 48. Virgil describes a partial insa-
nity of this sort, lowing, looking for their horns, fearing to be yoked, while he
states it to have been in one respect partial. But this form of insanity is not
mentioned by any other writer who mentions the insanity of the Protides, Apol-
His physical condition agrees with other descriptions. 431
6
wolves, or dogs, or the crowing of cocks, are most heard
by night, and are more piercing sounds, and so make most.
impression on a diseased brain. The remarkable expres-
sions, his heart was made like the beast's, 7 let a beast's
heart be given him, fit most naturally with this form of
disease. This would be its most literal, and exhaustive,
explanation. The rest of the description would be in
conformity with this, that Nebuchadnezzar, when affect-
ed with this disease, ate grass as an ox, and allowed his
hair and nails to grow, unshorn and unpared, as if he
was the animal.
The growth of the nails described is exactly that which
modern physiologists have stated to be their growth,
when so neglected. His nails, Daniel says, were like
bird's claws. "The nails," says Kölliker", "so long as
they are cut, grow unremittingly; when this is omitted,
their growth is confined. In this case, as may be observ-
ed in the sick when long bedridden, and in the people of
Eastern Asia, the nails become 1 or 2 inches long,
(among the Chinese, according to Hamilton, 2 inches,)
and curve round the fingers and ends of the toes." The
principles, which regulate the excessive growth of hair,
are, Dr. Rolleston tells me, less ascertained 10. Both be-
lodorus, (ii. 2. 2,) or Pherecydes, (in Schol. on Hom. Od. xv. 225,) or Hero-
dotus, (speaking of the Argive women generally, ix. 33,) or Ælian, (Var.
Hist. iii. 42,) or Diod. Sic. (iv. 68,) or Pausanias, (viii. 18,) or Pliny, (xxv.
21,) or the Scholiast on Pindar, (Pyth. iii. 96,) or even by Ovid. (Met. xv.
325.) Perizonius (on Ælian 1. c.) says that it is equally unknown to Callima-
chus, to Vitruvius, (viii. 3,) to the author of the Epigram which he quotes, and
to Stephanus Byz.
6 Dan. v. 21.
7 Dan. iv. 16 Eng. 13 Ch.
9 Gewebelehre d. Menschen, 1859. § 54.
8 iv. 33 Eng. 30 Ch.
p. 126. furnished me by Dr Rolleston.
10" Whereon an excessive growth of the hair which occurs, and its diseased
falling-off, together with a frequent reproduction in great masses, depends,
cannot be stated with precision. Probably the increased or diminished exsu-
dation from the vessels of the papillæ and bulb of the hair, are the chief causes;
more distant causes are probably the condition of the skin and of the whole
frame.” Kölliker, Ib. p. 150. furnished me by Dr Rolleston. Dr R., in an-
swer to my enquiries about the condition of those boys and girls who have run
wild, tells me, "Linnæus (Amoenitates Academ. T. vi. p. 65,) says that all the
histories of them were to the effect, quod omnes fuerint hirsuti; and Ludwig
(Grundriss d. Naturgeschichte) speaks of some of these cases, which he gives a
432 Dr Browne on Nebuchadnezzar's insanity.
ing, I believe, called excremental, the excessive growth
of both would probably be simultaneous. But both may
have been the result of that personal neglect, which is so
strangely humiliating, a part of a most distressing form
of mental disease, and which I have seen as the result of
disappointed pride.
1
The expression, however, let a beast's heart be given
unto him, may only signify the privation of the charac-
teristic of man, reason, as the king wrote of himself, ¹ my
reason returned unto me. And there is a distinct form
of insanity, in which the eating of grass is one of the cha-
racteristic features. "In many classes of the insane,"
the eminent Commissioner of the Board of Lunacy for
Scotland, Dr Browne, informs me2, "the eating garbage,
excrement, even grass, is a symptom both of general de-
basement and of perverted appetites. I was accustomed
to distinguish a class of my patients as fæcophagi or eaters
of ordure; and there are met with in asylums sarcophagi,
individuals who have desired to eat, or who conceive that
they have eaten, or who have attempted to eat, human
flesh; and phytophagi, who devour grass, leaves, twigs,
&c. I have had such cases; as well as stone-swallowers,
hair-eaters, &c."
"If Nebuchadnezzar's punishment then be regarded as
'alienation,' involving the greatest conceivable amount
of degradation, the 'eating grass as oxen,' the expulsion
from the society of his fellow-men, and the exposure to
the elements, may be viewed as most graphic features of
his disease, and of the cruel treatment, to which, in those
and in much more recent days, such an affliction subject-
ed the sufferer."
Whichever was the form of Nebuchadnezzar's disease,
not even the extreme form of insanity interferes with the
resumé of in 1796, as being long-haired' (p. 147.); but in summing up he
says, 'Their skin was not more hairy, nor of a different complexion, nor thicker
than usual.' I have failed to find any statement as to a correlation between
the hair and mental alienation, but I hear that such a correlation does exist;
The hair becoming bristly, &c. was looked upon as symptomatic."
1 iv. 33 Ch. 36 Eng.
2 in one of the letters, which he kindly wrote
to me, in answer to my enquiries.
Insanity does not hinder consciousness or memory. 433
inner consciousness, or, consequently, with the power to
pray 3. Altomar gives an instance of lycanthropy, which
he had himself witnessed, in which neither conscious-
ness nor memory were at all impaired. The person, who
had thought himself a wolf, asked him afterwards, whe-
ther he was not afraid of him.
An eyewitness has related to me, how, when visiting
an asylum, one accompanied him, who made such acute
observations on the several forms of insanity of the other
patients severally, that the visitor expressed his surprise,
how he came to be confined there. "O, I am a cock,”
was the instant answer, and he began crowing, and flap-
ping his arms; just as the disease is described by Galen.
The Père Surin, who, in exorcising others, fell for
many years into a strange malady, in which he believed
himself to be possessed 5, gives a most vivid account how,
outwardly he was wholly powerless, spoke what was put
into his mouth, rolled on the ground, and was, mean-
while, within, in the most perfect peace and communion
with God. His description of himself is a most wonder-
ful specimen of acute mental analysis, while outwardly
he was a maniac. The inner consciousness remains un-
3 Improb. 9. * De medend. morbis. c. 9. in Schenk, Obss. Med. L. i. p. 229.
5 I believe that no authorised opinion was ever given as to the exact nature
of the P. Surin's disease.
6 "For three months and a half I have never been without having a devil
near me, and that actively. Things are come to that pass, that God has per-
mitted, I think, for my sins, what has perhaps never been seen in the Church,
that, in the exercise of my ministry, that devil passes from the body of the per-
son possessed, and, coming into mine, assaults and prostrates me, agitates and
crosses me visibly, possessing me for several hours like an energumen. I could
not express to you what takes place in me during this time, and how that spi-
rit unites itself with mine, without taking from me either the knowledge or
the liberty of my soul, acting nevertheless as a second self, and as if I had two
souls, one of which is dispossessed of its body and of the use of its organs, and
holds itself apart, looking on at the other which introduced itself into its body
as it acts. The two spirits fight on the same field, the body; and the soul is,
as it were, divided.
In one part of itself, it is subject to diabolical impressions
in the other, it has the emotions proper to it, or those which God gives it.
At the same time I feel great peace under the good pleasure of God, and with-
out knowing how, there comes to me an extreme rage and aversion to Him,
which produces a sort of impetuous motions to separate myself from Him),
F f
434
Wonderful self-analysis of the Père Surin.
changed, while, up to a certain point, the sufferer thinks,
speaks, acts, as if he were another. Dr Browne, who has
which amaze those who witness them; and, at the same time, a great joy and
sweetness, which shews itself by lamentations and cries like those of demons.
I feel the state of damnation and apprehend it, and feel myself pierced, as it
were, with the points of despair in that stranger soul which seems to me my
own; while the other soul, which feels itself in perfect confidence, mocks at such
sentiments and, in all freedom, curses him who causes them-nay, I feel that
the same cries, which escape my mouth, come equally from these two souls,
and I have difficulty to discern whether it is the joyousness which produces
them, or the extreme fury which fills me. The extreme tremblings which
seized me, when the holy Sacrament was brought near to me, proceed, it appears
to me, equally from a horror at its presence which is unsupportable to me, and
a cordial and sweet reverence, without my being able to ascribe it to the one
rather than the other, and without having it in my power to restrain them. If,
by a motion of one of these two souls, I wish to make a sign of the cross on
my mouth, the other turns aside my hand with the greatest rapidity, and seizes
my finger in my teeth to bite it out of rage. I never find orison more easy or
more tranquil than amid these agitations. While my body rolls on the ground,
and the ministers of the Church address me as a devil, and load me with ma-
ledictions, I could not tell you the joy which I feel, having become devil, not
by rebellion against God, but by the calamity which represents to me vividly
the condition to which sin has reduced me; and appropriating to myself, as
being such, all the maledictions bestowed upon me, my soul has reason to sink
in the abyss of its nothingness.
"When the possessed see me in this state, it is a pleasure to see how they
triumph, and how the devils make a mock of me, saying, Physician, heal thy-
self, go now this moment mount the pulpit; how glorious it will be to see him
preach, after having rolled on the ground!' what ground of benediction to see
one's self the sport of the devils, and that the justice of God takes account of
my sins in this world. Such is my condition at this moment almost daily.
There are great disputes about it, whether this be possession or no, whether
ministers of the Gospel can fall into conditions so unsuited to their state.
Some say that it is a chastisement of God upon me, in punishment of some
illusion ;
others say something else; and for me, I am content as I am, and
would not change my lot with another, being firmly convinced that there is
nothing better than to be reduced to great extremities. My own extremity
is such, that I have few operations free; if I wish to speak, my utterance is stop-
ped; at mass, I am stopped quite short. At table, I cannot carry the food to
my mouth; at confession, all at once I forget my sins, and I feel the devil en-
tering me, as into his own house.
"As soon as I awake, he is there at orison. He takes away all thought from
me, when he pleases; when the heart begins to expand in God, he fills it
with rage; he casts me asleep when I wish to watch, and publicly by the mouth
of the possessed [the Prioress] he boasts that he is my master, which I have
nothing to gainsay: having the reproach of my conscience, and on my head
the sentence pronounced against sinners, I ought to undergo it, and revere
Dr Browne on the praying of the insane.
435
done more, I am told, than any other of our day for men-
tal disease, tells me, as, the result of the experience of
above 30 years; "My opinion is, that of all mental powers
or conditions, the idea of personal identity is but rarely
enfeebled, and that it never is extinguished. The Ego
and non-Ego may be confused. The Ego, however, conti-
nues to preserve the personality. All the Angels, Devils,
Dukes, Lords, Kings, 'gods many,' that I have had under
my care, remained what they were, before they became
Angels, Dukes, &c, in a sense and even nominally. I have
seen a man, declaring himself the Saviour, or St. Paul,
sign himself James Thomson, and attend worship as re-
gularly, as if the notion of Divinity had never entered in-
to his head."
"I think it probable,-because consistent with experi-
ence in similar forms of mental affection,-that Nebu-
chadnezzar retained a perfect consciousness, that he was
Nebuchadnezzar, during the whole course of his degrada-
tion, and while he ate 'grass as oxen,' and that he may
have prayed fervently that the cup might pass from him."
"A very large proportion of the insane pray, and to the
living God, and in the words supplied at their mother's
knee or by Mother Church, and this whatever may be
the form or extent of the alienation under which they la-
boured, and whatever the transformation, in the light of
their own delusions, they may have undergone. There
is no doubt that the sincerity, and the devotional feeling,
is as strong in these worshippers as in the sane. I do
not say that all madmen pray, or can pray; but, as you
suppose, monomaniacs, and melancholics, chronic mani-
acs, and ements (in vast numbers) the hallucinated, &c.
the order of Divine Providence, to which every creature ought to submit."
Letter to the Père d'Attichi, May 3. 1635, quoted by Calmeil, La Folie, ii. 59-64,
from Hist. des Diables de Loudun, pp. 217 sqq. This condition lasted first for
two, then for 20 years, with few intervals, 1638-58, in which he composed a
much-valued work on the spiritual life, Catéchisme Spirituel, 2 voll. In 1658 he
was wholly restored; but was not allowed to go back to the place, where his
sufferings first came upon him. A brief notice of him, from the Biographie
Universelle, is prefixed to the translation of his "Foundations of the Spiritual
Life," (London, 1847.) with such illustrations from his letters, as I then could find.
Ff2
436 Force of evidence in true un-understood facts.
Those of the Edinburgh school of Philosophy and educa-
ted medical men would not, I conceive, take any excep-
tion to the view which I have given, because the very con-
ception of partial Insanity involves the possibility of the
sentiment of devotion and the recognition of a Supreme
Being remaining intact, while other powers are diseased."
There is scarcely any stronger internal evidence of
truth, than circumstances, on the surface unlikely, which,
on careful examination, appear to be in harmony with
the rest of the history. And this the more, when the
scientific knowledge of that truth belongs to a later age.
Thus, in secular history, Herodotus' account of the cir-
cumnavigation of Africa is now undoubted, because of
the fact of the position of the sun¹, which one would not
have known who had not crossed the line. So, in this
account of Nebuchadnezzar, if the disease was some form
of Lycanthropy, we should have an account of a rare dis-
ease, mentioned by no author before the Christian era,
with physical facts, not obvious, but in harmony with it;
but in any case, and still more remarkably, we have the
psychological fact, that one, with a beast's heart, perhaps
imagining himself an ox, any how in a very degraded form
of insanity, could still pray as a man. Although it be not
certain, yet it is highly probable, that the 2 band of iron
and brass, which, in the dream, was to be around the
stump of the tree, the symbol of Nebuchadnezzar, relates
to that mode of restraint, which, in Palestine, in the times
of the Gospel³, and down to a late period, was thought
necessary to secure the poor sufferer from self-injury, or
from injuring others. Any how, this dwelling with the
wild animals, and feeding like them, look like the state
of one, whose return to reason was wholly despaired of.
And yet, before he recovers, he prayed. This is related
in Daniel with the simplicity of truth; ignorant scepti-
cism pronounces it impossible; true physics and psycho-
logy attest the reality of the description.
ii. So from physics, men turn to historical evidence.
¹ Her. iv. 42.
2 Dan. iv. 15 Eng. 12 Ch.
3 S. Mark v. 3, 4.
All believe facts on insulated testimony.
437
"No one else relates it." What, if they did not? Where
are the full annals of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, that men
should pronounce any event related in Holy Scripture,
untrue, unless it were related in his secular history? It
is an hypocritical issue to put it on. They who do so,
do not believe themselves. They do not limit their belief
of Nebuchadnezzar's history to the few surviving frag-
ments of Berosus. What are those facts? Just that
sketch of his campaign before he was king, his captives,
his succession to his father, and his honoring Bel, his god;
his adding a second city to Babylon, and its strong walls;
his palace; his hanging gardens; his falling sick; and the
length of his reign 5. Until the decyphering of the mo-
numents, our knowledge of most of his great and useful
works came from Abydenus; who also has the tradition,
that he knew of the future desolation of his Empire by
the Medes and Persians7. Even for his conquests, Jose-
phus was obliged to supplement his account from Me-
gasthenes, Diocles, and Philostratus. Berosus does not
relate the battle of Carchemish; Egyptian annals do not
record it. These men eagerly believe it on the authority
of Jeremiah, set it down as a certain fact, because they
think they can employ it against Daniel. But why be-
lieve one fact of Holy Scripture, not another? The only
principle of belief or unbelief of this historical criticism
seems to be, whether a fact can seemingly be pressed or
no into the support of its preconceived opinions.
Enough, that there is neither external nor internal evi-
dence against the history of Nebuchadnezzar's insanity.
Almost all ancient or modern history is a mosaic, made up
of the fragments of single authorities. If we were to strike
out of it what is related by one author only, we should
4 Lengerke gave up the old objections to the disease, and rested his objections
on this.
“Granted that the condition, into which N. sinks, is explicable, yet
in no writer is there any allusion to an event, which must have occasioned such
changes in the kingdom, that no one, who ever so briefly related the reign of
that king, could have failed to touch on it." p. 145. Davidson re-writes the
statement of Leng. ii. 185.
5 in Jos. c. Ap. i. 19. See ab. p. 62.
6 See ab. pp. 121, 22.
7 See ab. p. 128.
438 Abydenus' tradition probably relates to facts in Dan.
often have but a threadbare history, a few hard outlines,
unrelieved and unshaded by all those minuter touches,
which supply the proportions and symmetry and beauty
and instructiveness of history. These critics would turn
aside from the dry bones of secular history, which alone
their system would leave. But that can be no canon for
the writing of Daniel, which would not hold as to secular
history; which the wildest criticism has not consistently
applied to sacred history. Even unbelief writes its his-
tory of "the Hebrew Monarchy," disbelieving of it only
what is Divine.
The singular tradition, preserved by Abydenus ¹, con-
tains an account of a supernatural state, which befel Ne-
buchadnezzar on the roof of his palace, in which he is
said to have prophesied the conquest of Babylon by the
Medo-Persians, and which, being in his mouth, looks like
a strange reminiscence of his illness. The statement can
hardly be put together out of Daniel himself. For it is
not likely, that Abydenus should have combined into one
whole materials scattered in the book, standing in no re-
lation to one another, and in part very subordinate,
whereas the history, with which they are connected in
Daniel, is so characteristic. As they stand in Daniel and
Abydenus, they are too unlike, to have been directly bor-
rowed. And yet, as we read Abydenus, they sound like
reminiscences of the facts in Daniel blended together, as
unauthentic tradition is wont to connect things heteroge-
neously. Eusebius was struck with the resemblance.
1 “I found, in the writing of Abydenus about the Assyrians, what follows
about Nebuchadnezzar. Megasthenes says &c" [see ab. p. 119.] Then, after
the prediction of the conquest of Babylon by a Medo-Persian, which tradition
put into the mouth of Nebuchadnezzar, (given above p. 128.) it made him con-
tinue; "Would, before my people were given [to him,] some Charybdis or
sea would receive him, and utterly extinguish him ; or, turned aside otherwhi-
ther, he were borne through the desert, where are neither cities nor step of man,
but beasts do feed and birds roam, wandering alone among rocks and ravines,
and that I, before these things had come into my mind, had met with a happier
end. Having foretold this, forthwith he disappeared." Præp. Ev. ix. 41.
66
2 Even Lengerke (p. 151.) “ agrees with Jahn (Arch. ii. 1. p. 214.) in think-
ing the tradition of Abydenus a late patchwork, put together partly out of the
prophecies, c. 2 and 4, partly out of the relation of the insanity c. 4, and lastly
439
Neb's. great works interrupted for a time.
"In the history of Daniel, it is related of Nebuchadnez-
zar, how and in what manner he became insane; but if
the Greek, or Chaldee historians, conceal the disease, and
state that it came from God, and call that madness which
seized him, some god or dæmon, we need not marvel.
For it is their custom to ascribe such things to God, and
to call gods, daimones." A sickness of his, which appa-
rently was remarkable, because it is recorded, is men-
tioned by Berosus. An interval, in which he did none
of his great works in Babylonia, is mentioned in his in-
scriptions; and that, the more remarkable, because his
works were so stupendous and so extensive. The fur-
ther doubt which has been raised, how his empire could
be preserved to him during those seven years of insanity,
finds its solution in the incidental notice of Berosus.
One chief Magus kept the government for him on his fa-
ther's death, until he could return 6. Much more would
they for one, to whom the whole empire owed its great-
out of the explanation of the unknown writing by Daniel c. 5." He accord-
ingly rejects "the assumption of Bertholdt (pp. 305 sq.) Bleek (p. 269.) Kirmss
(pp. 57, 62.)" who (in the way of that school) assumed that the tradition in
Abydenus was the basis of the history in Daniel. It is not unlikely, that tradi-
tion should have put into the king's mouth a curse taken from his own calami-
ties; but it is, in itself, absurd to suppose, that such a curse, which does not
contain any direct allusion to those calamities, should have suggested the his-
tory. Again, the incidental mention of the roof of the palace is unmeaning
there; in Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar was surveying from it great Babylon which
he had built for himself. Then also, it is the concentration of these reminis-
cences in one place, which marks the borrower. And what would the Pales-
tine Pseudo-Daniel have had to do with Chaldee traditions?
3 Chron. Arm. i. 61.
4 (6 falling into a state of sickness," èµñeσàv eis àppworíav. in Jos. c. Ap. i. 20.
Berosus connects the illness with Nebuchadnezzar's decease. The accounts
then are different, although, probably, his insanity was in the later part of his
life, since it stands connected with his greatness and completion of his works
at Babylon. It is also the last event of his life mentioned by Daniel. In the
only other case, in which Berosus mentions the sickness of a sovereign, it stands
connected with history, the sickness of Nabopolassar having given occasion to
Nebuchadnezzar's first military glory. (Hengst. Beitr. i. 106.) Bertholdt's
statement that Berosus, by this expression, marked that a sovereign died a na-
tural death, is directly false, since in our brief fragments he does not use it of
Neriglissar or Nabonedus. Hengst. Ib. pp. 105, 6.
5 See Rawlinson
Bampton Lect. v. p. 166, and note 29. p. 440. • See ab. p. 62.
440
Nebuchadnezzar's imperfect conversion.
ness, nay, its being. Nor was his son, Evilmerodach, one,
whose character would furnish any temptation¹ to ante-
date his reign by ingratitude to his great father.
3
iii. Nor is it in any way contrary to human nature, but
rather it is in accordance with it, that Nebuchadnezzar,
while acknowledging the supreme power of the God of
Daniel ³, retained his Polytheism. The belief in a su-
preme God in no way interfered with the acknowledg-
ment of inferior gods. Polytheism is in direct conflict
with Monotheism, not with the owning of one Supreme
God. The Persian kings owned Ahuramazda to be the
supreme God, yet worshipped gods many. Cyrus, in his
edict, owned the supremacy of the God of Israel 5, Ar-
taxerxes spoke of Him, as the God of heaven, yet doubt-
less without abandoning their hereditary Polytheism.
Constantine issued an edict, directing the auguries 7, and
had on his coins, "Soli invicto 8," after he had acknow-
ledged the God of Christians to be the One true God, and
had professed that he "awaited the judgment of Christ,"
"the Saviour."
A believer must wish that the great king had known
God more thoroughly. The history in Daniel bears the
more the character of truth, in that it must have been
against the wish of a pious Jew, that the conversion was
imperfect 10. The character of Nebuchadnezzar is one of
those, which have so much of nobility, that one longs for
them to have been more perfect. He is exhibited, as men
are, with their mixture of good and bad. As each of the
three proofs of the wisdom or power of the God of Israel
1 See ab. p. 122. 2 Improb. 10. 3 the high God. iii. 32 Ch. [iv. 2 Eng.]
4 Daniel, whose name is Belteshazzar according to the name of my god,
iv. 5. Ch. [8. Eng.] in whom is the spirit of the holy gods, ib. and 6, 15, [9,
18. Eng.]
5 Ezr. i. 3.
6 Ib. vii. 21, 23.
7 A.D. 321. Si quid de Palatio. cod. Theod. L. xvi. Tit. x. T. 6. p. 283.
8 Banduri Num. Impp. Rom. ii. 254, 266, 283-8, 300. There are coins also
with the inscription, Jovi Conservatori, Ib. 253, 262, 273-5, and Marti Conser-
vatori, Ib. 253, 263, 4, 276, and Herculi Conservatori, Ib. 262.
9 Epist. ad Episc. Cath. Concil. A.D. 314. i. 1455. ed. Col.
10 Hengst. points out how "Jewish and Christian interpreters have striven
to make the conversion as complete as possible." p. 116.
His edict true to our deepest nature.
441
comes to him, there is the quick, honest, self-forgetful,
acknowledgment of the truth. Two periods of power and
magnificence have been passed unnoticed, in which the
strong convictions faded before his own dazzling great-
ness. Years of conquest must have passed between that
first acknowledgment of Daniel's God, after the explana-
tion of his dream by Daniel, and the hour of pride in
which he commanded the image to be worshipped; and
then again another, in which he in a manner re-created
the cities of his country, and in which he forgot that he,
into whose hands God had given the known world, held
only a delegated power. In Daniel, (as is always the way
of truth,) the two sides of his character stand out unre-
lieved. Nebuchadnezzar uses in his edict the language of
Daniel, as to God, (for what other could he use, having
learnt what he did learn of God from him?) and he uses his
own heathen language. His relapses are related, not his
temptations. He owns the truth, for the time, with his
whole soul; what marvel, that, amid such greatness, he
did not uniformly persevere, when the marvel would have
been, (a crowning marvel of Divine grace and of heathen
faithfulness to that grace,) if he had uniformly persevered?
iv. The proclamation, which announced his past mala-
dy¹¹, would only have been strange, had there been nothing
remarkable in his restoration. The supposed objection.
must be, either that it was too humble, or that it might
have shaken the confidence of his subjects. But human
nature feels, even heathen nature felt still, that it is an
exceeding glory to be the special object of the care of
God. The god of unbelief must be a more dumb idol than
the Pagan gods, that unbelievers feel it not. Nebuchad-
nezzar, after the event, felt that it was so, even when
shewn in the correction of his pride. He who feels it
not, shews that he not only knows not God, but that he
cannot even imagine the relation of the creature to the
Creator, nor see, even dimly, something of the greatness.
and goodness of the infinitely Great and Good God. The
11 Improb. S.
11
442
Neb's. golden image had a political end.
fact, that Nebuchadnezzar felt that it was his own truest
honor, that God had so chastened and yet had so restored
him, is a great truth as to the soul, which does not lie
on the surface; as these men confess, in that they do not
see it.
v. Why Nebuchadnezzar so solemnly inaugurated his
golden image¹, and whom or what he intended by it, we
can have no certain knowledge. It manifestly had a
political end, since the officers of all the provinces of the
empire were assembled to inaugurate it ³. The ground,
why adoration was claimed for it, was the king's will, that
they should worship the golden image which Nebuchad-
nezzar the king had set up. The charge against the three
Jewish governors was ingratitude, and, as was so often
alleged against Christians, contumacy. Whether the
image was formed in reminiscence of that emblem of
human might, which Nebuchadnezzar had seen in his
1 Impr. 5.
4
2 Since Bleek, it has been repeated by one after another, that the history
was a pure fiction, intended as an example of steadfastness to the Jews, under
the persecution of Antiochus. The golden image was to denote a statue which
Antiochus is to have set up in the Temple; the refusal of the three youths to
worship was to be an encouragement to the contemporaries of the Pseudo-Da-
niel. Bleek says; "We cannot help thinking of Antiochus Epiphanes, who,
after he had caused Jerusalem to be taken by surprise and plundered, desecra-
ted the temple, had it dedicated to Jupiter Olympius, and heathen sacrifices of-
fered on the altar of burnt-offerings, after the Bdéλvyμa épnμwσews, 'the abo-
mination of desolation,' doubtless the statue of Jupiter, had, on Chisleu 15,
167 B.C. been erected there." (pp. 259-60. Einl. pp. 602, 3.) This statement,
that Ant. Epiph. had any statue of Jupiter set up in the Temple, was itself a
pure fiction; as even Lengerke (pp. 104, 5,) was constrained to own that Hengst-
enberg had shewn. (Beitr. i. 86.) No one of the three accounts of the descera-
tion of the temple (1 Macc. i. 44-64, 2 Macc. vi. 1-11, Jos. Ant. xii. 5. 4, B. J.
i. 1. 1, 2,) mentions anything of it. On the contrary, the history both of the
desecration and purification shews, that what was done was the building of an
idol-altar upon the Altar of God. "They built," (@kodóµnoav) it is said,(1 Macc.
A statue could not be
i. 54) “an abomination of desolation upon the altar.”
said to be "built." The account goes on, "and in the cities of Judah round
about they built (@kodóµnσav) altars" (ib.); and, in relating that desecration of
the temple, "and on the 25th day of the month, sacrificing upon the idol-altar
(Bwudy) which was upon the Altar,” (Ovσiaσтnplov.) ib. 59. In the account
of the purification it is said, "they bare out the defiled stones into an unclean
3 Dan. iii. 2, 3. 4 Ib. 5-7, 12, 14, 18.
place." [Ib. iv. 43.] Hengst.
Extent of worship of kings.
443
dream, and of which the head was declared to represent
himself, or whether it was himself whom he intended to
be worshipped in it, it was plainly some test of allegi-
ance, required of all peoples, nations, and languages, in
his whole empire. In Persian times, we should have no
doubt that it was the monarch himself, who made himself
his people's idol. A form of idolatry, which the Ethio-
pians and Egyptians are said to have shewn to their
kings; which ran through Persian history; which Alex-
ander adopted; which successors of his, among the Seleu-
cidæ and Ptolemies, stamped on their coins 7, or upon mo-
numents; which reappeared among the Arsacide when
they extended their empire 9; which Caligula could not be
5
6
5 The Ethiopians "said, that the accounting the kings to be gods is an Ethio-
pian institution," (carried with them by the Egyptians.) Diod. iii. 3. "Whomso-
ever the god, carried about in a festive procession, takes, the people forthwith
choose as king, and forthwith worship and honor as a god." Ib. 5.
6"The Egyptians seem to worship and honor their kings, as if they were
really gods." Diod. i. 90. "Darius was intimate with the priests in Egypt, and
partook of their theology, whence he was so honored, that he alone of (Per-
sian) kings was addressed as a god, while living." Ib. 85.
7 Antiochus Theus received the title, in flattery, from "the Milesians, for re-
moving a despot." App. Syr. c. 65. It appears on the coins of Ant. Epiphanes,
(Frölich pp. 47, 51, 53, in Clint. F. H. iii. 325,) Demetrius Soter, (Vaillant
p. 129. in Clint. ii. 326,) Antiochus, son of Balas, (Dr Smith in his Biogr.
Dict. T. i. p. 198,) Demetrius Nicator, (Frölich, pp. 71, 87, Vaillant p. 176, in
Clinton p. 336,) Demetrius Eucarus, (Eckhel üi. 245. in Cl. p. 342,) Antiochus
son of Ant. Grypus. (Vaillant Hist. Ptol. p. 100, Fröl. p. 113, in Cl. p. 342.)
The title "goddess" appears on a coin of Cleopatra, the mother of Ant. Gry-
pus and Cyzie. (Fröl. p. 91. in Cl. p. 339.) Balas took the title of "Theopa-
tor" on his coins. (Vaillant pp. 138, 140, Frölich, p. 67, in Clinton p. 328.) Of
the Ptolemies, the title "god" occurs on a coin of Philometor, (Vaillant p. 103,
in Cl. iii. 393.) and "goddess" on two of Antony's Cleopatra, (deà vewτépa,
ωτέρα,
Vaill. pp. 189, 190. in Cl. iii. 406.) Of the Ptolemies before Philometor, a coin
of Philopator alone had any title beyond that of king.
دو
8 In the inscription at Adule, “transcribed by Cosmas in the beginning of
the reign of Justin," (he reigned A.D. 518-527,) Ptolemy Euergetes gives
the title “Saviour gods," to his grandparents, Ptolemy Lagi and Berenice, and
that of "gods to his parents, Ptolemy Philadelphus and Arsinoe, claiming
"descent on the father's side from Heracles son of Zeus, and on the mother's
from Dionysus son of Zeus." in Montf. Coll. Nov. ii. 141, and thence in Clinton
F. H. iii. 387. note o.
9 Arsaces vii. took the title Theopator, (coin in Smith Biogr. Dict. i. 355.)
Arsaces xii. had that of "god." Phlegon in Phot. Cod. 97. p. 84. Bek. ib.
444 Proportion not to be looked for in Neb's. image.
sated with; which was the object of ambition to emperors
and empresses of heathen Rome, must have a deep root in
human nature. It is an offshoot of the primeval tempta-
tion, ye shall be as God. We know not enough of Baby-
lonian idolatry to say what Nebuchadnezzar intended.
It would have been altogether in keeping, that he, who,
like the Lycaonians¹, was ready to shew Divine honors.
to that which was superhuman, the spirit of the holy gods
which he believed to be in Daniel, should, in the intoxica-
tion of irresistible power, have claimed them for himself.
The Babylonians, in the time of Alexander, of their own
accord, greeted the conqueror's entrance with "the
burning of frankincense and all kinds of odours on silver
altars arranged on either side."
vi. The colossal form of the image was, doubtless on
purpose, not after the proportions of the human frame 3.
Majestic height was manifestly the idea of a statue 60
cubits high. The apparent height was much increased
by the diminished breadth, in that its height, as com-
pared to its breadth, was as 10 to 1, instead of 6 to 1.
Not proportion, but ideal effect, is the object of, at least,
the sculptures of Nineveh. There is no need that it
should have been "like the Amyclæan Apollo, the bust
of man on a column, with human [hands and] feet 4"
The sun-images bore no human proportion 5. Who could
3 Improb. 3.
1 Acts xiv. 11-13. 2 Curt. v. 1. 20. Häv. on D. ii. 46.
4 Munter Relig. d. Bab. p. 59. Hgst. p. 95. This obviously would not inter-
fere with the figure's being an image (by); since the human countenance, which
specially gave it the character of an image, would remain the same. Pausani-
as describes the Amyclæan Apollo; "It is not the work of Bathycles, but an-
cient and made without art. For, except its face and the extremities of the
feet and hands, the rest is like a brass column. It has a helmet on its head,
and in its hands spear and bow." Lac. iii. 19. 2. K. O. Müller speaks thus of
the class of statues to which it belongs; "Nothing is more common than to
find unworked stones, stone-pillars, stakes of wood, set up as images for wor-
ship. If, to the honor of the god, the sign was formed more costly and orna-
mented, it is called an ayaλua.-In order to bring the sign in nearer relation
to the god, single significant parts were added, heads, arms which contain the
attributes. In this way was formed the brazen pillar of the Amyclæan Apollo,
with helmeted head and armed hands, &c."
5 D. See Ges. Thes. p. 491. and Max. Tyr. viii. p. 87. ib.
Images plated with gold, not massive gold. 445
have looked for proportion in the Colossus of Rhodes ?
"Large colossi and very long men-sphinxes 7" entered
into the (probably kindred) idolatry of Egypt. Adver-
saries also admit, that images are called golden, which
are only overlaid with golden plates 8; but therewith they
own that objections have been wantonly multiplied.
vii. “The edict of Darius, that no one should for 30
days ask any petition of God or man, save of himself," is
said to have been "insane." Religiously, of course, it
was extreme insanity. But that which was in truth in-
sane, to pray of man as if he were God, to neglect God for
man, is simple matter of fact. The Persians looked upon
their king as the representative of Ormuzd, as indwelt by
him, and, as such, gave him Divine honors. Persians,
6 The colossus of Rhodes was 10 ells higher. Plin. H. N. xxxiv. 18. Pliny
mentions (ibid.) "a colossal figure 110 feet long, made in his own time by Ze-
nodorus for Nero, which, after his crimes were condemned, was dedicated to
the sun." "How little proportion was there in many of the little so-called
Etruscan figures!" Munter 1. c.
7 Herod. ii. 175.
8 “Some objections may be removed with little trouble. The statue must
have a pedestal, which must be high, in order that the statue might be visible
to the far-encircling multitude, and so one may assume, with Thube, that its
height was included in the 60 cubits. The statue too with its pedestal may
have been of wood within, [S. Chrys. Hom. iv. in S. Matt.] and only overlaid
with gold. (πepíxpvσa kaì ñepiápyvpa, Ep. Jerem. 8.) For the inside of idols
(ʼn kaρdía avтŵv Ib. 20.) was generally of wood or clay (Bel 7,) and was then
covered with gold by the goldsmith. (Is. xl. 19, xli. 7, xliv. 13, Jer. x. 3-5.)
And this explanation is supported by the Hebrew idiom, that they were wont
to call that 'gold,' or 'copper,' which was only covered with plates of gold
or copper. (Ex. xxx. 1-3, xxxix. 38, xl. 5, 26, xxvii. 1, 2.)" Bertholdt Dan.
pp. 256, 7. J.D. Michaelis, (as his way was,) had the amount of gold calculated,
supposing it to have been solid gold. And thenceforth this figured among “ob-
jections." Yet in truth Babylonians, as well as Hebrews, called that golden, (as
it was,) which was, not gilt, but overlaid with gold. "According to Herodotus,
the great gold statue of Bel, the golden table before it, the golden steps, and
the golden seat, together amounted only to 800 talents of gold, which would
not in the least suffice, if these things had all been of massive gold. Accord-
ing to Diodorus, 1000 talents of gold only were employed on a statue 40 feet
high, which would be a nothing for a massive image of that height, and of
breadth proportionate. Diodorus too (ii. 9.) expressly describes the statue as
beaten with the hammer, and so, not massive." Hengst. p. 98. "Such is indeed
the idiom of all languages, as in the aurea sella, Cic. Phil. ii. 34; Nep. Eumen.
7.” Häv. ad loc. The term "massive gold” implies other use of gold, not
massive.
9 Improb. 16.
446 Edict of Darius in harmony with known
4
Persian monuments, contemporary Greek writers, attest
this. "With us," said Artabanus¹ to Themistocles, "of
many and good laws this is the best, to honor the king,
and worship him as the image of god who preserveth all
things," i. e. Ormuzd. Curtius says, "the Persians wor-
ship their kings among the gods;" Isocrates, "3 worship-
ping indeed a mortal man, and addressing him as a Divine
being, but dishonoring the gods more than men." Ar-
rian relates that, from the time of Cambyses to that of
Alexander, the Magi had had the hereditary charge of
the tomb of Cyrus at Pasargadæ, and "received daily from
the king a sheep, wheatflour, and wine, and monthly a
horse to sacrifice to Cyrus." In Persian inscriptions they
are called "5 offspring of the gods," and "gods." Repre-
sentations at the royal graves at Persepolis, in whatever
way they are to be explained, indicate some very close re-
lation and identification of the king with Ormuzd. The
Persians, as they borrowed other things from the Medes,
so probably this. Deioces is represented by Herodotus
as retiring and keeping himself out of sight. In this ac-
1 Plutarch Themistocl. c. 27. from Charon of Lampsacus. (B.C. 504.) The
mention of the custom is not incidental, for the presentation of Themistocles
to the king turned on his compliance with it.
2 viii. 18. in Brisson de reg. Pers. pp. 8 sqq. who adds iii. 31, v. 9, 29, viii. 17,
and quotes also Herod. vii. 136, Val. Max. iv. 7, vii. 3, Justin vi. 2, Lamprid.
in Alex.; Trebell. Pollio in Zenobia; and, of the Parthians, Jos. xx. 3. Xeno-
phon (Ages. i. 34. quoted ib.) is speaking of the Persians generally.
3 Paneg. v. fin. pp. 140, 1. ib.
4 vi. 29.
5 "In the Greek inscriptions, corresponding to the cuneiform, at Naksh-i-Rus-
tam, in De Sacy Mémoires sur div. antiq. de la Perse, Pl. 1. pp. 27, 31, the Per-
sian kings are called ἔκγονοι θεῶν, ἐκ γένους θεῶν and θεοί.” De Sacy translates
an inscription, Mem. de l'Instit. hist. anc. T. i. pp. 183, 4, 188, "The figure is
that of the worshipper of Ormuzd, the excellent Sapor, king of the kings of
Iran and Aniran, heavenly germ of the race of the gods, son of the worshipper
of Ormuzd, the excellent Hormuz, king of the kings of Iran and Aniran, hea-
venly germ of the race of the gods, grandson of the excellent Narses, king of
kings." "Grotefend has found on cuneiform inscriptions the title, ‘race of the
ruler of the world.' comp. Munter l. c. p. 29." Hengst.
6 See Hengst. pp. 129, 30.
7 Her. i. 199. Brisson notices this, quot-
ing also from Aristotle (de mundo,) “ Himself, as is said, was fixed at Susa or
Ecbatana, invisible to all ;" and Justin, (i. 9,) “Among the Persians, the per-
son of the king, under semblance of greater majesty, is hidden;" and Xen.
Persian belief; probably political.
447
count of Darius itself, the unalterableness of the law of
the Medes and Persians is a part of the supposed relation
of the king to Ormuzd. Man, claiming to act through
a Divine presence, could not afford to appear mistaken
or changeable. There was a ready plea for the decree.
It was pressed upon the king by the assembled governors
of the provinces, whom the king had himself created.
They were governors in a conquered realm. The object
of the decree probably was to obtain from the Babylo-
nians and other provinces that special recognition of the
king, as the representative of the Supreme God, invested
with his delegated power, which the Persians already re-
cognised. The decree was for 30 days; for those who,
for such a space, had so recognised that divinity of the
king, would have admitted the principle of submission to
him, as a Divine authority. It came to the king, pressed
by the whole weight of his Councillors: once passed, it
could not be retracted without forfeiting the claim which
it was to establish. Hence the fruitless effort of the king
to evade the decree, and the bold tone of the Councillors
at the last. They represented a characteristic principle
of Medo-Persian Monarchy, while they abused it.
viii. But it is altogether an assumption, that “intole-
rance" was unknown to Babylonians 10 or Persians". We
are told from the inscriptions, that the Assyrian wars were
12 religious wars;" we also know that the Babylonians had
Ages. ix. 1. 2, "A reverence was thrown over him, in that he was rarely seen,
and difficult of approach."
8 This was observed by Heeren i. 259.
How will any justify the circumstance, that a command, which was to se-
cure the supremacy of the Magian religion, was given only for 30 days?" Leng.
p. 272. “Why for 30 days only?" Dav. iii. 192. 10 Improb. 5. 11 Improb. 19.
12 Prof. Rawlinson has pointed this out, Herod. Essay vii. T. i. p. 495. It
does not depend upon the translation of particular words, whose meaning may
not be as yet established, as "heretics," (in Fox Talbot repeatedly, but also in
Sir H. Rawl. Journal As. Soc. xviii. 1. pp. 164, 198.) It is expressed in too
various ways, to depend upon particular words. The following instances are
from the single inscription of Tiglath-Pileser i, translated simultaneously by
Sir H. Rawl. and F. Talbot, and, in part, by Hincks and Oppert. (Ib. 164-219.)
Tiglathp, speaks of subduing "the enemies of Ashur" (R. p. 168. R. T. 206, 7.
R. T. H. 202, 3, 214, 5.); "kings hostile to Ashur" (R. T. p. 168.); a king, who
448 Assyrian wars, religious wars; Persian oppression.
r
taken captive the Assyrian gods¹; as Cambyses and the
Persians afterwards took many of those of Egypt, the re-
covery of which gained for the 3rd Ptolemy the title of
Euergetes. The sacred bull was slain both by Cambyses
and Ochus; and the ready submission to Alexander has
been attributed to their resentment of the oppression of
their religion by their Persian masters. The Zoroas-
trian system took its rise in intense hatred of the Vedic
worshippers; it was established amidst civil wars5; and
subsequently wars arose on occasion of it. "Slay these
"was not submissive to Ashur my Lord," (R. p. 192,) "did not acknowledge A.
my L." (R.p. 184,) "paid no worship to A. my L." (T. p. 193,) "worship not A.
my L." (T. p. 184,) were disobedient to A. my L." (H. p. 199,) "foreigners hos-
tile to A." (R. H. p. 214,5,) "heretics, my enemies and the enemies of A." (T. p.
214.) "who knew not the true religion," (T. p. 188,) "the kings of infidelity who
are tributaries without faith [?]," (O.p.189,) "who had not paid tribute and of-
ferings to A. my L." (R. p. 178,) "withheld the tribute and offerings due to
A. my L." (R. T. H. O. pp. 170, 1,) "the cities of Subarta attached to the
worship of A. my L.” (R. 178,) "which belong to A. my L." (T. ib.) “under-
took (to do homage) before A. my L." (H. ib.) "the subjects of A. my L."
(0. p. 185.) Tigl's. own conquests are "in the service of my Lord A.” (R.
T. pp. 192, 3, 198,) "in the martial service of the great gods who rule in the
Euphrates land” (T. 188); he "rules in the service of the great gods." (R. ib.)
Ashur bids him war, (R. T. H. pp. 180, 1. R. O. pp. 188, 9. R. H. pp. 194, 5.)
"for the enlargement of the frontiers of his [A's] territory." (R. p. 178.) He
goes against those who do not acknowledge A. "in the might and power of
A. my L.” (R. p. 184,)“in the most high name of A. my L.” (T. ib.) “in
the execution of the will of A. my L." (O. ib.) He "attached" the conquered
"to the worship of A. my L." (R. p. 184,) “with 60 kings victoriously I fought,
and the laws and religion of my empire I imposed upon them," (T. p. 168,)
"with attachment to the worship of A. my L. I entrusted them, i. e. I caused
them to worship A.” (R. p. 186,) “their territory I annexed to the special pos-
sessions of A. my L." (T. ib.) “with prostrations before god Asur my L. I re-
ceived their contributions." (O. p. 187.) "I imposed upon them religious ser-
vice.” (R. pp. 176, 194.) “I left him in life, to learn the worship of the great gods
from my city of A.” (R. p. 192.) He took captive their gods, (R. T. II. pp. 174,
5, 196, 7. R. T. pp. 184, 5. bis.) "25 of their gods,” (R. T. O. 186, 7.) dedicated
them to his own, (R. T. O. 186, 7.) to his guardian god, (R. T. p. 176.) “his
guide." H. p. 177. His enemies "took their gods and fled." (R. H. pp. 174,5.)
1 In the Bavian inscription, Sennacherib records his having "brought back
from Babylon the images of the gods, which had been taken from Assyria 418
years before, and had set them in their places." Layard, Babylon pp. 212, 3.
from Dr. Hincks. 2 S. Jer. on Dan. xi. 7, 8. Inscription at Adule 1. c. 3 Smith
Geogr. Dict. i. 45. 4 See further Lect. viii, p. 532. 5 Gâthâ Ahunav.
5 [Yaçna 32] n. 7. pp. 15, 31. Haug, G. Uctav. 9. (Y. 44.) n. 15, pp. 11, 25.
Decree of Darius protective of Jews, not penal. 449
liars with the sword 6," is a maxim of Zarathustra as well
as of Mohammed. But heathenism, as is now recognised,
was tolerant only of those who did not deny itself.
ix. Daniel, however, did not thrust himself on danger.
He went into his house; there, he was in the upper cham-
ber, in the uppermost story, where the Orientals retired,
that they might be unobserved 7, the usual place of prayer.
Unostentatious, yet not even in appearance denying his
faith for the sake of the king's command, he did just as
he did before. He was probably out of ordinary sight;
for his accusers had to press tumultuously 8 in upon him,
and found him," it is said. Rationalists have declared
this fanatical: then, in their mind, it must be fanatical,
to be willing to die rather than deny God.
x. The decree of Darius appears to me a decree of pro-
tection for the Jews. It is not a command to worship
the God of Daniel, but to stand in awe of Him. To me,
it seems equivalent to the decree of Nebuchadnezzar, not
to speak against Him; only, the punishment, which Ne-
buchadnezzar annexed to the breach of his decree, is omit-
ted. The Satraps had combined to extinguish the wor-
ship of God. Darius decrees that, throughout his domi-
nions, men should stand in awe of Him, i. e. that they
should not make attempts against His worship, as these
had done. It is not usual for monarchs to write their
own decrees; and this decree had no relation to the perso-
nal circumstances of the sovereign, as that of Nebuchad-
nezzar upon his recovery necessarily had. There seems
to me no reason why Daniel himself should not have been
commissioned to write it, as first Minister of the Empire,
or should not have suggested its language 1.
10
•
6 Gâthâ Ahun. 4. [Y. 31.] n. 18, p. 30. Under the Sassanidæ it is spoken of
as a religious duty to force back any converted from Parsism. If any depart
from the path of the Yazatas, [gods,] he [the king] has him seized, and brought
back to the right way." Minokhired in Spiegel tradit. Schr. d. Pars. p. 135.
7 David retired to the upper chamber to weep over the death of Absalom.
(2 Sam. xviii. 33.) Elijah prayed there for the boy's life. (1 Kgs. xvii. 19.)
8 vi. 12. 7.
9 Lengerke says, "Daniel purposely seeks danger
[which is directly untrue] and his conduct must be estimated from the same
aspect as that of his three companions, c. 3." p. 279.
GO
10 Improb. 18.
450
Idle objections as to history of Belshazzar.
The objection is again put dishonestly. One who ur-
ges that the edict "bears traces of having been written
by a Jew," as a separate objection, concedes for the time
the fact of the edict itself. But if the edict was written
at all, by whom should it have been written, but by Da-
niel? Granted, that a certain proclamation was made by
a sovereign, no one could urge it as an argument against
its genuineness, that it bore tokens of the style of the
Prime Minister. The objection is added, only to swell
the number, and to make it seem as if the supposed forger
had betrayed himself.
3
xi. In the history of Belshazzar, the objections are sim-
ply childish. The insolence of Belshazzar, in desecrating
the sacred vessels in a festival in honor of his gods, is no-
thing strange¹. Excited by wine2, he would triumph over
God, as the Philistines did, when they placed the ark in
the temple of Dagon. It is far less strange than the reck-
lessness, with which, in the wantonness of party spirit,
the sacred vessels of the altar have been used to adorn
the side-boards of wealthy courtiers ³, or, in a time of po-
litical animosity against the Church, fonts have been turn-
ed into horse-troughs. Nor is it strange 5, that the in-
solent and sensual boy-king troubled not himself to know
of Daniel; but "following," as St. Jerome says, "the old
and inworn error of his race, called the astrologers and
Chaldæans and soothsayers, not the prophet of God;"
or that Daniel, so neglected, did not appear, uncalled,
with the wise men, when he would not be listend to if he
1 Improb. 14.
* Dype lit. "in the taste of the
wine." The LXX. renders "elevated by wine." Vulg. "jam temulentus."
S. Ephr. paraphrases, "exhilarated by the taste of the wine." Even Leng.
“Ammonius rightly, 'The exceeding wantonness of Belshazzar and his
wine-bibbing drew him to this great blasphemy."" in Mai Scriptt. Vett. T. i.
Many private men's parlours were hung with Altar-cloths, their tables
and beds covered with copes instead of carpets and coverlids ; and many made
carousing cups of the sacred chalices, as once Belshazzar celebrated his drunk-
en feast in the sanctified vessels of the temple." Heylyn Hist. of the reforma-
tion p. 134. (Hist. of Edward vi.)
says,
2
חַמְרָא
4 This is an authenticated fact after the war of independence of the United
States with England, the Episcopalians having been loyalists. 5 Improb. 11.
Dav. iii. 186, 7, extracts out of Leng. 238-40.
on Dan. v. 7.
6
Consistency of the history of Belshazzar.
451
spoke contrary to them, but reserved himself until some
opening should dispose the king to listen to him; or that
Belshazzar, when the Queen Mother had circumstantially
reminded him of the supernatural wisdom which had been
found in Daniel, in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, should
have remembered so much of him, that his father had
brought him from Judæa7. Daniel's Hebrew name, which
Nebuchadnezzar (the Queen-Mother had reminded Bel-
shazzar) had changed after the wont of conquerors, sug-
gested his Jewish origin. All the rest Belshazzar pro-
fessed to have been told. The accurate distinction has
the more the air of truth. Every one knows, how one
little circumstance will awaken a whole train of forgotten
histories of the past. Nor again, bound, as kings ever
held themselves to be, to fulfil, at least, the letter of their
public promises, is it at all strange, that, in that night
which Belshazzar knew not to be his last, he fulfilled his
promise to him who should read the mysterious writing.
When objectors charge inconsistency on a history, they,
for the time, presuppose its reality. Their argument
must be, "granted the rest of the circumstances, this is
inconsistent with them." Let them place themselves then
in the circumstances of that night. Let them imagine it
(what, as unbelievers, they must,) mesmerism, or what-
ever else they dare 10, but let them imagine the ungodly
revelry and triumph over God, broken at once by a sight
seemingly supernatural, the man's hand writing charac-
ters which no one could decypher; we may suppose them
the old Hebrew character, which would naturally be un-
known to the wise men of Babylon. Let them picture
7 v. 13. Lengerke says, "The author contradicts himself, for, according to the
discourse v. 11, Daniel is utterly unknown to the king; [not so; what the Queen-
Mother reminds him of is the extraordinary wisdom found in him ;] but then,
v. 13, he forthwith remembers him, and knows his origin." (p. 238.)
8 v. 14, 16.
9 Improb. 12.
10 Bertholdt, who admitted all the facts of the festival on the night of the cap-
ture of Babylon, the profanation of the sacred vessels, and a writing upon the
wall, supposed that the writing might have been contrived by some well-mean-
ing friend of Belshazzar to awaken him, or by some intriguer with Cyrus to
insult the king. Dan. pp. 352, 3.
Gg 2
452
The last night in Babylon.
3
to themselves the confusion of the revellers, impressed,
at the height of their idolatrous pride, with a sense of
the supernatural which it baffled all the wisdom of the
wise to explain; the increasing terror at the failure¹; that
sudden reverse, which changes presumptuous triumph in-
to prostrate fear; the calm, reassuring words of the
Queen-mother2, speaking with dignity and authority of
the respect of the great departed king for Daniel, as en-
dowed with a mysterious presence of the gods whom they
believed; and then let them view, amid that scene of bro-
ken revelry, the silver-haired prophet, of above fourscore
years, alone standing fearless, when all feared, the one
surviving witness of the departed greatness of their em-
pire, almost as a denizen of another world, since all of
his generation had long been numbered with the dead,
indifferent as to greatness, regardless of the king's dis-
1 v. 9.
2 The "Queen" v. 10, was obviously the Queen-mother, because the wives,
as well as the concubines, of Belshazzar were, according to the Babylonian cus-
tom, already present at the feast. The title , (the title of the "wives" in v.
2, 3, 23,) as distinct from the concubines, is used of the wife of the king of Per-
sia in Neh. ii. 6, and of the ideal queen, Ps. xlv. 10. “ is always the Queen.”
Rosh hashshana f. 4. 1. quoted Buxtorf Lex. Chald. col. 2327. In like way
777, the title for an Egyptian Queen, (1 Kgs. xi. 19,) is used of the dignity of
Queen-mother, 1 Kgs. xv. 13, 2 Chr. xv. 16, Jer. xiii. 18, xxix. 2, (coll. xxii.
26, 2 Kgs. xxiv. 12.) It seems to me also most probable, that "the children
of the king, and the children of the queen," (2 Kgs. x. 13,) were different per-
sons, viz. the children of Jehoram and those of the Queen-mother, Jezebel.
This was also the statement of Josephus. "Josephus" [Ant. x. 11. 2] “writes
that this was the grandmother of Belshazzar; Origen, that it was his mother;
whence also she was acquainted with things past, which the king knew not.
Let Porphyry then shake off his sleep, who dreams that she was the wife of
Belshazzar, and mocks at her knowing more than her husband." S. Jer. on
Dan. v. 11. S. Ephrem and Theodoret also speak of her as the king's mother;
and even the rationalist school now admits it, Leng. Hitz. Ros. Winer, Real-
Wort. i. 151. (against Bertholdt pp. 355, 366.)
3 The mother of the heir-apparent in Eastern monarchies had, in any case,
considerable influence. Heeren p. 500. Herodotus has a remarkable tradition
of the great wisdom of the mother of the last king of Babylon, whom he calls
Nitocris, (i. 188. The wife of Nebuchadnezzar was Amuhea, Abyd. in Eus. Chr.
Arm. i. 54,) attributing to her the same great brick-embankments on the Eu-
phrates, which, Berosus says, were built in the time of the last king, (πl ToÚTOV
in Jos. c. Ap. i. 20. and so Eus. Chron. Arm. i. 72,) and the bricks of which
actually bear his name. Athenæum N. 1377. Rawl. Herod. i. p. 521.
"Lavishing of miracles," three miracles.
453
pleasure, speaking words of forceful truth, explaining un-
hesitatingly, in the name of his God, the hitherto inexpli-
cable words, and announcing a doom, founded on the
just retribution of God, to which the heart of man in its
secret depth responds,-granted, for the time, the super-
natural, all the rest is in most perfect harmony with it.
Nor is it, in the least, inconsistent, that Daniel should
have declined the king's honors, when offered to him as
a bribe, and that, when his strict, because truthful, mes-
sage had been listened to, he should have accepted the
short-lived honour in the departing kingdom, which might
the rather prepare the conqueror to listen to his words in
the name of his God.
I said, "granted, for the time, the supernatural;" for the
question which has been raised does not relate to the ab-
stract fact, that God reveals Himself and attests His re-
velation by prophecy or by miracle. The truth of mira-
cles in the abstract, as I said at the outset, does not, on
the one side or the other, belong to criticism. Criticism,
in regard to a particular book, would, at most, have to do
with the harmony or the evidence for the facts recorded
in that book, not to the whole question of the intercourse
which the Creator vouchsafes to His creature, man. It
is consistently, so far, that some have objected to “the ob-
jectless prodigality of miracles, which, as miracles, are
improbable, and rest on incorrect statements." The
"prodigality” of miracles of power, as distinct from the
miracle of superhuman knowledge, consists in this, that
in seventy years, three miracles are recorded; the delive-
rance of Daniel's three friends in the furnace, of Daniel
4 Improb. 13. At last, the objection is to be, that, granted all the rest,
the events are to be too many to be crowded into one night. Leng. p. 241. Dav.
iii. 187. Yet the festival began by day and was prolonged into the night. The
events which took place after dark, are only 1) the handwriting, 2) the sending
for the Magi and their failure, 3) the Queen-mother's appearance and the send-
ing for Daniel, 4) the short conversation mentioned in Daniel, and 5) the con-
sequent fulfilment of the king's promise, which, as the Court and the atten-
dants were already assembled, could take place at once.
5 Davidson adopts Leng's., “objectless lavishing of miracles." p. lxii. "The
miracles recorded in the book are lavishly accumulated, without any apparent
454 Greatness of occasions of the three miracles in Daniel.
himself in the lion's den, (which itself, although super-
natural, could scarcely be called in the ordinary sense a
suspension of a law of nature,) and the miraculous hand-
writing in the midst of the idolatrous feast. "Objectless"
they can only seem to those, to whom all revelation of
God seems to be objectless. I would that they who
make the objection could say, what miracle they believed,
as having an adequate object. Unless they believe that
some miracles are not "objectless," it is mere hypocri-
sy to object to any particular miracles, as "objectless."
For they allege, as a special ground against certain mi-
racles, what they hold to be a ground against all miracles;
and act the believer in miracles in the abstract, in order
to enforce the disbelief in specific miracles. It was a
grand theatre. On the one side, was the world-mo-
narchy, irresistible, conquering, as the heathen thought,
the God of the vanquished. On the other, a handful of
the worshippers of the One only God, captives, scattered,
with no visible centre or unity, without organisation or
power to resist, save their indomitable faith, inwardly
upheld by God, outwardly strengthened by the very ca-
lamities which almost ended their national existence; for
they were the fulfilment of His word in Whom they believ-
ed. Thrice, during the seventy years, human power put
itself forth against the faith; twice in edicts which would,
if obeyed, have extinguished the true faith on earth;
once, in direct insult to God. Faith, as we know, "quench-
ed the violence of fire¹," "stopped the mouths of lions."
In all three cases, the assault was signally rolled back;
the faith was triumphant in the face of all the representa-
tives of the power and intelligence of the empire; in all, the
truth of the One God was proclaimed by those who had
assailed it. Unbelief, while it remains such, must deny
all true miracles and all superhuman prophecy. But, if
honest, it dare not designate as "objectless," miracles
which decided the cause of truth on such battlefields.
object, and differ from those elsewhere related. Their prodigal expenditure
is unworthy of Deity." iii. 174.
1 Heb. xi. 33, 34.
False statements, to make the miracles objectless. 455
In like way, as to the "improbable 2" character of the
miracles. Let men grant that any miracles are "proba-
ble," or that they have taken place, and then, from that
standing-ground, point out wherein these are "improba-
ble." Let one profess his belief that our Blessed Lord
walked on the water, multiplied the loaves and fishes,
healed by a word one born blind, raised one who had been
for four days dead, rose Himself from the dead, passed
through the sealed tomb and the closed doors, and then
let him point out what intrinsic improbability there is,
that God, in regard to the three youths who confessed His
Name in that great theatre, suspended the power of fire to
burn, or that He withheld for a night the wild fierceness of
some creatures of His hands, that they should not destroy
the prophet who would not, for fear of man, disown Him.
It is alleged that the miracles could not have been
wrought to strengthen the faith of God's people, for, 1) "it
would be a contradiction to the Divine dispensation, since,
at the beginning of the captivity, God had departed from
His people and had given it up to its enemies;" nor 2)
could they have been to "prepare the restoration of Israel
through the recognition of the Omnipotence of the Lord
and the authority of Daniel;" nor 3) that the heathen
might be brought to recognise the one true God ³.
Hitzig," says Lengerke p. 109, “appositely remarks, (Heidelb. Jahrb.
1832 p. 26,) The main improbability, the wondrous deliverance itself, Hengst-
enberg has passed over in entire silence.' Naturally; for here he must quit
the field, and retire to the province of a faith, ever ready to believe. In truth,
a miracle, which changes the nature of its element, is a great one. It is the
greatest in the Old Testament, but not therefore the most credible." This is
not hypocrisy, if either of these writers believed any miracle of the Old Testa-
This question of the greater or less of miracles, if spoken of God, is
gross anthropomorphism : in regard to its effects on man, such a miracle is, of
course, no more amazing than the parting of the Red Sea, or of the Jordan,
the ascent of Elijah, or any of the other miracles which could not, like the fall-
ing of the walls of Jericho, or the destruction of Sennacherib's army, be, possi-
bly, the operation of natural causes, minutely directed by the Providence of
God, Whose wisdom predicted what He willed, in the order of His Providence,
ment.
at that exact time to fulfil.
3 Leng, Ixii, lxiii, following Bertholdt against Hengst. Beitr. i. 35-40. The
section is, under a different arrangement, closely followed by Davids. iii. 174, 5.
456
God had not cast away His people.
661
The statements, as usual, "beg the question" of the
falsehood of the history, but, this time, of more history
than Daniel's. 1) There is no intimation, any where,
that God did cast off His people. On the contrary, in the
prediction of that captivity in the law, He said, “¹ yet for
all this, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will
not cast them away—but I will remember for them the cove-
nant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the
land of Egypt in the sight of the heathen, that I might be
their God. And more specifically He had promised, in
regard to the captivity at Babylon, that He would visit
them there 2, there 3 He would redeem them. There too,
meanwhile, He had promised them peace, in the peace of
the city whither I have caused you to be carried captive.
The captivity was, from the first, part of God's declared
purpose towards them. It was the crowning act of God's
discipline spoken of in the law, in which He promised that,
if they should repent, He would remember His covenant
with their fathers, and would remember the land 5. God
raised up Ezekiel, as the prophet of the captivity of the
ten tribes; He allowed Jeremiah to be carried down by
the refugees in Egypt. It was in harmony with this, that
He raised up Daniel in Babylon.
>
4
2) Nor was Daniel's position any slight mitigation of
the captivity, or any slight protection of his people. Let
any one imagine a Christian, as devoted to God as Da-
niel, and with that same love for his people which his
great prayer indicates, First Minister at the Ottoman
Court. The change which he would readily imagine in
the condition of Christians, now made like the dust by
threshing, may enable him to picture to himself the bene-
fits which Daniel's office yielded to his people. Each mi-
racle resulted in a decree in favor of the Jews. The mi-
raculous and the ordinary history are in harmony, which
is what men mean to deny by their word "objectless."
1 Ley. xxvi. 44, 5.
3 Mic. iv. 10.
2 Is. xlviii. 20, Jer. xxix. 10.
4 Jer. xxix. 7. • Lev. xxvi. 40-42. 6 The expression of a very intel-
ligent Syrian to myself, from 2 Kgs. xiii. 7.
No human motive, why Cyrus should release the Jews. 457
But further, it is most probable that the release of the
Jews was one consequence of these miracles. The mi-
racles stand connected in a chain. The superhuman
knowledge, shewn to Nebuchadnezzar, was the ground
why Daniel was called in on that last night of Belshaz-
zar; his reading of the hand-writing, and the office which
he occupied in consequence, were his first commendation
to Darius. The restoration of his people was doubtless
the fruit of his influence with Darius and Cyrus. It
will have surprised most of us, that according to the
chronology in Daniel, the restoration of the Jews was
not the immediate result of the conquest of Babylon.
Looking upon it, as we did, as the promised result of
that capture, and upon Cyrus as its foretold agent, we
expected it to have taken place at once. And doubtless,
had it been any human result, any political favour to a
people who were oppressed by those whom he conquered,
Cyrus would have given it at once, or not at all. Now men
have the double problem to solve, why he restored them,
and why he did not restore them at first. There was no
motive of human policy, why he should restore them 7.
7 Gesenius (on Is. xli. 2.) says, "Perhaps Cyrus favored the view of the Jews,
[of the similarity of their faith with his own religion, Magism,] because it
must have been of moment to him, when about to conquer the lands in which
the Jews lived scattered, to win the confidence and attachment of the people,
which cherished the liveliest national hatred to their oppressors." But, 1) with
the fall of Babylon, the whole empire, in which the Jews were scattered, ex-
cept Egypt, was already in his hands. 2) The Jews, (as appears from the few-
ness of those who returned at first,) were, as a people, well contented with their
condition. The religious portion only of them returned. 3) The state of the
Jews was not like what people are probably thinking of, and what are now cal-
led the oppressed nationalities." A nation, conquered, imperfectly amalga-
mated with the empire, longing for independence, is, of course, a formidable
source of internal weakness to that empire; a source of strength, if won, to
an invader. But the Jews in the Babylonian empire were not a “nationality.”
They were but scattered captives without organization, without leaders, with-
out military training. There is no ground to think that they could be of any
use to the conqueror, as neither is there any hint in history that they were.
We know the measures of the campaign against Babylon; a pitched battle,
in which Labynetus fled and shut himself in Borsippa, as Belshazzar did in Ba-
bylon; the provisioning of Babylon on the one hand, the stratagem whereby
Cyrus took it unresisting. Magism was also as much, perhaps more, op-
458 Dan.probably made known to Cyrus Isaiah's prophecy.
In the ordinary course of human events, he would not even
have known of their existence. There is no indication,
that he did know of it before the conquest. The pro-
phecy of Isaiah must have been shewn him; for his de-
cree in favour of the Jews evinces belief in it. But a
prophecy, in the language of a scattered population un-
known to him, would have had no convincing power 1.
The living authoritative speaker gains admission for the
unknown written word. As the history stands in Daniel,
Cyrus had reason to trust Daniel; he had no reason to
trust any ordinary Jew, who should shew him the, to him
unknown, oracle. The accounts in Daniel and Ezra cor-
respond with the facts, that the Jews were released, but
not at first. Their restoration was no part, apparently,
of the original plan of Cyrus; because he, who could have
done it with a word, did it not. It was no deep plan of
human policy; because, two years after he had granted
the permission, he restrained his favour ungraciously, per-
suaded by his councillors. His decree runs; 2 The Lord
God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of earth;
and hath charged me to build Him an house at Jerusalem.
The facts of sacred history accord with this; Daniel was
accredited to Darius by the events at the close of the
kingdom of Babylon; he was accredited personally to Da-
rius by his known innocency 3 and by his supernatural de-
liverance; Darius issued a decree, commanding that peo-
ple should reverence the God of Daniel. Daniel himself
4prospered in the reign of Darius and of Cyrus. One,
then, in high favor at the Court, himself accredited by
miracle, accredited the unknown prophecy, and Cyrus
acted upon it.
3) Nor, although the miracles did result in great bene-
fits to the Jews, is there any reason to think that such
was their sole end. In Babylon God shewed in act, what
prophecy all along declared, that He was not a God of
posed to truth, than Babylonian idolatry. The Sassanidae, who revived it,
were deadly persecutors both of Jews and Christians.
¹ Hengstenberg's argument p. 39. from Kleinert Echtheit d. Iesaia pp. 134
2 Ezr. i. 2.
3 Dan. vi. 22.
sqq.
4 Ib. 28.
No proof, that yº miracles were wasted on ye Heathen. 459
the Jews only. Nor were they wasted. It is said, "Ne-
buchadnezzar had ever to be converted anew. Especi-
ally, in c. 5, Belshazzar and his court, except the Queen-
Mother, were wholly unacquainted with Daniel and his
miracles, which he had as yet wrought 5!" Alas! If man's
waste or forgetfulness of God's goodness were to be a proof
that God had never shewn it, then we must disbelieve that
God has ever shewn any mercies of His Providence or
His Grace to our own bad selves; which yet we, each of
us, know that He has. But, although Nebuchadnezzar's
two first convictions of the greatness of the God of the
Jews faded in time, we know of no relapse after the last.
God triumphed at last, and won Nebuchadnezzar, as He
does so many relapsing Christians. There is no reason to
think that the aged Darius ever went back from his convic-
tion. The revelation to Belshazzar was the open temporal
judgment on one who had despised God's known dealings.
6 Thou, his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart,
though thou knewest all this, but hast lifted up thyself
against the Lord of heaven. Belshazzar had forgotten
Daniel; he had not forgotten God's ways with Nebuchad-
nezzar; but, like too many so-called Christians, he de-
spised known truth. We know, that God's judgment was
fulfilled. We do not know that it was wasted even on
him. Yet they are not the great of this world, who are
mostly converted to God. Many of those thousands of
souls, who were assembled in that plain of Dura, may
have been won to the belief of the One true God; many,
at Belshazzar's revelry, may have been awed towards
God, before they slept their death-sleep; many hearts may
have been reached through Nebuchadnezzar's affecting
5 Leng. p. lxiii. Davidson follows the inconceivably careless statement, “Bel-
shazzar and his nobles appear to have been unacquainted with Daniel and his
miracles, as the 5th chapter shews. Nebuchadnezzar had always to be con-
vinced anew. The array of marvels wrought through the instrumentality
of Daniel made little impression on the monarchs and their people." pp. 174, 5.
Again p. 171, “The cases of Ezra and Daniel are different. The former was a
priest and a scribe: the latter a prophet and worker of miracles.”
6 Dan. v. 22, 23.
460 Miracles in Daniel instructive to all believers since.
account of his humiliation, or awed into forbearance to-
wards His people by the edicts of Nebuchadnezzar and
Darius. "Many hearts may have been reached," did I
say? They who, like the German critics, come to know
of the history of Daniel, simply as a matter of criticism or
of unbelief, may look on that great history, as a matter
which could at most affect the then generation, and think
that the doings of God failed, because Belshazzar had
turned a deaf ear to God's warnings to Nebuchadnezzar.
We, most of whose minds must have been arrested in
our childhood or boyhood by the impressive fascinating
histories, we, to whom, as to the whole Church from the
first and the Jewish Church before us, they have been, all
our lives long, instructive, know that the works and
words of God do "not pass away." Miracles of God did
not cease their office of instruction and impressiveness,
with the generation before whom they were wrought.
Yet, even on that limited field, it is not true, according
to the history itself, that God's dealings with Nebuchad-
nezzar had no effect even on Belshazzar and his Court.
Daniel remained in honour among the conquering Medo-
Persians, as among the conquered Babylonians. If men
cast aside God's word as a fable, it is alas! their loss;
but at least, let them not falsify it, in order to prove it
to have been useless.
As regards the alleged "exaggeration" of the miracles,
objectors must, in their consciences, know, that the only
miracle, as to which this is alleged, could not have been
lessened, if it was to be a miracle at all. It was more
impressive to the great multitude, that Nebuchadnez-
zar's passion, which made him command that the fur-
nace should be heated seven times more than it had been
thought good to heat it, turned upon those whom he em-
ployed as his instruments. Little things affect us; and
the fact, that the smell of fire had not passed upon the three
confessors of God, set before people's eyes the complete-
ness of the miracle. But when a miracle admits of no
degrees, it is mere idleness to speak of "exaggeration."
Evidence from minute references to history, customs &c. 461
The result of examining these untrue allegations against
the book of Daniel is not simply negative, that nothing
can be alleged against it, which does not relate to all re-
velation, as such. Daniel wrote of certain events, which
he was inspired to record, in detail¹. He relates them,
(which is a stamp of truth,) without any explanation, in
all simplicity. He alludes, in his narrative, to kings un-
known to Grecian historians, and to the relations of em-
pires; he mentions whole classes of officers, and the
names of their offices, partly Semitic, partly of Aryan
origin, and gradations of their rank; wise men and their
classes; even musical instruments of different nations,
and names of articles of dress which Hebrews did not
use; he assigns dates freely; he describes what was pro-
bably a marvellous and very rare disease of the great mo-
narch, and the fact of his praying amid extreme mental
alienation, a fact, which seems in the highest degree im-
probable, but is accordant with known facts; he alludes
to customs, personages; he gives a scene from the inte-
rior of Babylon on the night of its capture, where, con-
trary to ordinary Eastern custom, he mentions the pre-
sence of the ladies of the harem 2, and distinct from these,
¹ Hengstenberg has a section," knowledge of the whole state of things at
the time of Daniel" Beitr. i. 333-52, from which several of these instances have
been taken.
2 "Relaxation of manners shewed itself among the Babylonians, especially
as to the other sex. There was not that retirement, which else prevails in the
harems of the East. Hence the prophet, when he threatened the city with its
fall, symbolises it as a luxurious and delicate female, who, from her soft couch,
is cast into captivity. (Is. xiii.) [? xlvii. 1-5.] Even in drinking-bouts their
women appeared;—Curt. v. 1." [The passage of Curtius is too revolting to
quote.] Heeren i. 2. pp. 201 sqq. The presence of a concubine at a drinking-
bout of the last king of Babylon is stated by Xenophon. (Cyrop. v. 2. 28.)
The dancing, united by Herodotus (i. 191,) with the "revelling" of that last
night at Babylon, implies the presence of their women. Among the Persians,
the drunken command of Ahasuerus, and the queen's refusal, (Esth. i. 10-12)
imply the contrary custom. "She, keeping to the Persian laws, which forbid
women to be seen by strangers, did not go to the king." Jos. Ant. xi. 6. 1. The
statement of the Persian Embassadors to king Amyntas, that it was the Per-
sian custom, that the wives and concubines should be present at their feasts,
(Herod. v. 18,) if historical, was a shameless lie, to attain their end. Plutarch
denies the presence of the wives at Persian feasts, affirms it of concubines. (Sym-
462 Force of evidence, from uniform correctness of facts
2
and not present with them at the feast, the Queen-mother,
speaking in a tone of authority; he tells even of the plain
stucco on the walls of the banquet-room, such as, notwith-
standing the prevailing taste for ornament, is still found
in the corresponding palaces of Nineveh¹; he alludes, in
one word, even to the custom of Eastern kings, (such as we
find it among Persians and Parthians,) to lie at table by
themselves, over against their guests, probably for safe-
ty's sake; he gives events of that night, which fill it up,
adversaries have said, even to overflowing, but for which
time is left, since the fact is supplied, that the capture
was not until towards morning 3; he describes capital pu-
nishments under the Babylonian and Persian kings,
varying, in one respect, in conformity with their religion ;
the furnace he describes, as one only could have describ-
ed it, who had seen such 5. In his natural, truthful, and,
so, fearless description, he again and again tells us what
for us, who have only an antiquarian knowledge of these
pos. i. 1.) So neither among the Parthians were the women present at feasts,
(Justin xli. 3. Macrobius adapts the statement of Plutarch to the Parthians.
vii. 1,) nor among the ante-Mohammedan Arabs. Häv. on Dan. p. 180. So
strange did the presence of the women seem to the LXX translator, that he
omitted the mention of them. Hengst. p. 338.
4
"There were chambers in the palace of Sennacherib, as well as in those of
Nimroud and Khorsabad, whose walls were simply coated with plaster, like the
walls of Belshazzar's palace at Babylon." Layard Nin. and Bab. p. 651.
2 “And over against the thousand (sp drank he wine." S. Ephr.
paraphrases, "Alone he lay over-against all reclined." A Greek Scholiast has,
"It was their custom, that each should have his own table." (in Mai.) Athe-
næus says, on the authority of Heraclides of Cuma, "When the Persian king
makes a drinking-feast, (TÓTOV [D] TOTαi,) and he often makes one, those
who drink with him are about twelve. And when they have supped, the king,
by himself, and the guests, one of the eunuchs calls those who drink with him.
And when they come in, they do not drink the same wine as he, and they, sit-
ting on the ground, he lying on a couch with gold legs." Parask. ii. in Athen¸
iv. 26. "Among the Parthians, in their feasts, the king had the couch, where-
on he lay alone, higher than the rest, and his table too apart, placed before
himself alone, as a demigod, full of barbaric meats.” Posidonius (about 100
B.C.) de Parth. L. v. in Athen. iv. 38.
3 Xen. Cyrop. vii. 5. 27.
4 Fire is mentioned, as a capital punishment, under Nebuchadnezzar, Jer.
xxix. 22, "whom N. roasted in the fire;" and probably Ezek. xxiii. 25, "thy
residue shall be devoured by the fire;" which was, of course, disused by the
Persians.
Even Bertholdt owns this. p. 69.
which would be known only to a contemporary. 463
things, it requires thought to harmonise; he explains no-
thing, as writers do at a period somewhat later than the
events which they describe, or when they write for a wi-
der or different circle. His accounts are minute, graphic;
he accumulates the names of the classes, which he men-
tions, whether of officers, wise men, or musical instru-
ments. Those who have been on the watch for his halt-
ing, have thought again and again, that they have found
some flaw, which should loosen the whole fabric. Look
closer, and you see that the parts fit closely together;
that, the more closely you press the expressions, the
more exactly they correspond.
And this exactness occurs, even where the antagonistic
critics have thought there was only a hap-hazard enume-
ration. For example, at Nebuchadnezzar's inauguration,
eight classes of officers of state are enumerated. Nebu-
chadnezzar gathered them; Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-
nego, were comprised among them. Why was not Da-
niel? There is no allusion to any excepted class. Why
should there? Daniel is describing what was, the ga-
thering of these officers, not, what was not. Yet, at the
end of that eventful day, we find the king conferring with
another class near himself, his councillors, who had not
been commanded to worship the image, and of whom Da-
niel was, from his position, one. So in other cases. When
you see a picture, representing the life of a people, and
see, not a feature, a garb, a gesture, a building, a plant,
other than you know to belong to the character of the
people and scene which it represents, you doubt not that
it is drawn from the life. No one could imagine a picture
of Teniers to have been drawn by one who had not a per-
sonal knowledge of what he depicts. One little flaw de-
tects, that a poetical description is taken from careful
research, not from sight. "Rhododendrons," it has been
said of a note on a description of the lake of Gennesareth
6 Dan. iii. 27.
7 Stanley Palestine p. 371, on Keble's Christian Year, 3rd Sunday in Advent.
Again "**Tabor's lonely peak' is an inaccurate expression, and the mountains
464 Improbabilities, verified, sure witness to truth.
which we all love, "is a mistake for oleanders." When
then there are no, "rhododendrons" for" oleanders," when
all these varied touches, so boldly and so freely given, each
and all, come true, what else can one judge, than that
Daniel drew from the life? The apparent improbability
is, when verified, the surest witness to truth. The build-
ing which, how ever many sides it may present to wind,
storm, flood, cannot be shaken, is founded on the firm
Rock.
terraced high with mossy stone' is an image belonging to the moist atmo-
sphere of the West, not to the bare landscape of the East." Stanley Ib. 372.
LECTURES VIII. AND IX.
The points of doctrine and practice mentioned in the book
of Daniel, which are alleged to indicate a date later than
that of the prophet, are identical or in harmony with the
other Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments; nor
was any doctrine or practice, mentioned in the book of
Daniel, borrowed from Parsism.
"Later ideas and practices" figure as an argument in
all the attacks upon Daniel. Lengerke stated this most
diffusively. "The dogmatic ideas are wholly at vari-
ance with those which prevailed in the Captivity and im-
mediately after it, but agree accurately with the Macca-
bee period; and consequently find numerous parallels
in the Apocryphal books. 2 The doctrine of the Messiah
appears already much more developed than in Ezekiel;
the Messiah appears as a superhuman being; traces of
the divine nature occur no where besides in the prophets,
1 Einl. z. Dan. § 13. n. 7. p. lxv. Davidson nearly translates, (iii. pp. 177, 8.)
"The doctrinal and ethical ideas of the book often differ from the notions en-
tertained at the time of the exile and immediately after, while they agree with
the Maccabæan age, as is seen by parallels in the Apocryphal books."
2 paraphrased by Davidson, ib. "Thus the Christology is much more de-
veloped, than it is in the prophets of the Captivity, like Ezekiel. Here the
Messiah appears a superhuman being. (vii. 13.)—This doctrine is not found in
any other passage of the Old Testament. The original of vii. 13. is evidently
Ezek. i. 26-28; but there Jehovah himself is represented as having some re-
semblance to a human form, whereas Messiah is the subject in Daniel.
Though the later Jews transferred qualities and attributes from Jehovah to
Messiah, the early ones, [i. e. the earlier inspired writers,] kept both apart,
because they did not believe Messiah to be other than human.”
Hh
466
Doctrines and practices alleged to be "later."
but first in the Sibylline books in the time of the Macca-
bees. That passage [of Daniel] is imitated from Eze-
kiel; only, in Ezekiel, the human form signifies Jehovah,
here, in Daniel, the Messias; as, altogether, the latest
Jews transferred many attributes from Jehovah to the
Messiah. Further, it is unmistakeable, that the definite
succession of Judgment, Resurrection, the Appearing of
the Messiah, is first most sharply marked in our book,
and the doctrine of the last things appears more developed
than in the earlier books."
"The doctrine of Angels in the book also carries us
into the latest time. The Angels appear already quite
in the form in which they were introduced from the later
Parsism into Judaism. Here first is found the distinc-
tion of higher and lower Angels, and the doctrine of guar-
dian angels." "3 Peculiar to the book of Daniel are also
the names of Gabriel and Michael, and, like the analogous
Raphael in Tobit, borrowed from a later doctrine of Angels
formed under Persian influence."
663
"The Asceticism also of the book approaches hard to
Pharisaism. The exaggerated ideas of the later Jews as
to the power of prayer 5, which subsequently were yet
more developed, appear to shew themselves already.
1 "The Angelology of the book points to a late origin. Thus the names of
Gabriel and Michael first appear in it. Higher and lower angels are distin-
guished, for Gabriel is commanded by another. (viii. 16.) One of the guar-
dian angels contends with another for 21 days, and helps another.
see the influence of Parsism on Judaism." Dav. pp. 178, 9.
3 from De Wette Allg. Enc. Art. Daniel p. 90.
Here we
2 x. 13.
4 Leng. Ib. n. 8.
5 vi. 11, ü. 18, ix. 3, x. 2. Davidson thinks this an argument, and gives the
same instances, "
Exaggerated and excessive notions of the value of prayer (!)
betray a later Judaism; not later, however, than what may have been de-
veloped in Judaism, under the influence of Parsism, a generation or two after
the return from Babylon." [Herzfeld said this of the "Angelology." "The An-
gelology in iv. 10, 14 is no sign of any considerable lateness of date. If it took
its rise out of the earlier belief of Israel through Persian influence, it need only
be a generation or two later than that influence." Gesch. Isr. Exc. 2. § 13.
p. 295.]
Thus Daniel prays and makes supplication with windows open to-
wards Jerusalem, though (!) he knew that a royal decree was signed, con-
demning any one that did so to be cast into the den of lions. (vi. 11.) He
mourned and fasted three full weeks. (x. 2, 3.) A secret was revealed to him
in answer to prayer, ii. 18." pp. 179, 80.
God might have revealed a truth to Daniel first. 467
Then too,revelations are imparted to him, in consequence
of frequent prayer. To this head belongs the abstinence.
from profane food ; the three-weeks fasting; the prayer
three times a day; the searching and grubbing in the
Scripture, and the interpretation of a prophetical por-
tion 8."
Now, apart, for the time, from the facts, and the arro-
gance and open profaneness of some of this, or the cen-
sure on the New Testament and our Blessed Lord which
some of it involves, the argument, as a whole, assumes
the falsehood of revelation. The fact asserted is this;
"None of these doctrines or practices are contained ei-
ther in the earlier books of Holy Scripture, or in Eze-
kiel who lived in the Captivity, or in Haggai, Zechariah,
or Malachi after it." Yet, as Daniel confessedly lived to-
wards the close of that former revelation, there would be
-nothing strange, that doctrines, especially as to the Mes-
siah, should be revealed at its close, which had not been
revealed before. Nor, considering the short compass of
the prophets after the Captivity, would it be anything
strange that any doctrine or practice should be contained
in Daniel, which does not occur in the three. God fore-
told by Haggai, that He would give peace while the 2nd
temple still stood, which does not occur in the others;
Malachi alone foretells the coming of Elias 10. God re-
vealed Himself in divers ways 11 to the Prophets," "12 di-
viding to each severally as He would." Granted, that
God did reveal Himself to the Jews, then the mention of
any truth in Daniel alone could be no ground for assum-
ing that it was not revealed to an earlier contemporary of
6 i. 12. "He also abstained from the king's meat as profane, and lived on
pulse. (i. 12.)” Dav. p. 180.
7 ix. 2.
6612
8 De Wette summed up thus; "The later expansion of the doctrine of An-
gels (iv. 14. [17 Eng.] ix. 21, x. 13, 21.) and of the Christ, (vii. 13 sq. xii.
1-3.) of doctrine, (xii. 2 sq.) morals, (iv. 24. [27 Eng.] comp. Tob. iv. 11, xii.
9.) and asceticism, (i. 8-16. comp. Esth. LXX after iv. 17. 2 Mace. v. 27.) Ac-
cording to Hävernick this only refers to abstinence from meat or drink offer-
ed to idols. [See ab. Lect. i. pp. 17, 18.] vi. 11. [10 Eng.] comp. Acts ii. 15, üi.
1, x. 9, 12. [30.]" Einl. § 255 c. ed. 7.
9 Hagg. ii. 6-9. 10 Mal. iv. 5.
¹¹ Heb. i. 1.
12 1 Cor. xii. 11.
#h2
468
Divinity of our Lord in the Psalms.
Haggai and Zechariah. It could be no à priori ground
against the genuineness of the book of Daniel. The
ground is not historical, but anti-dogmatic. These wri-
ters again tacitly assume in the negative the whole mat-
ter at issue, whether God revealed Himself to His crea-
tures. They assume that all man's religious knowledge
is the result of the workings of his own mind and is de-
veloped in certain orders or cycles; and so, that no por-
tion of it could exist before that stage of the developement
of the human mind to which they assume that it belongs;
and so, again, that the belief in any doctrine or practice,
expressed in any writing, is an evidence of the age to
which that writing belongs. Some such series of assump-
tions is necessarily involved in the argument, that the
book of Daniel must belong to the time of the Maccabees,
if it be true, that such or such beliefs or practices are found
in the book of Daniel, and are not found in the three pro-
phets after the Captivity or in those before them.
Another assumption is also involved, that the belief
was not derived in the Maccabee times from the book of
Daniel.
To take these subjects in order:
i. The first statement is untrue, both in what it affirms
and what it denies. It affirms that traces of the Divine
Nature of the Messiah are not found elsewhere in the
Prophets, and are first found in the Sibylline books. In
the Jewish Sibylline book,-the only Sibylline in exis-
tence before our Lord¹,-there is no trace of a Divine Na-
ture of the Messiah2. The language in the book of Enoch
is, obviously and confessedly on all hands, taken from
Daniel³. There is, as we know, in the Prophets, evidence
of the belief in the Divinity of Him Who was to save us,
before the time of Daniel. This, again, is a statement,
affecting not the book of Daniel only, but the Gospel.
a. Our Lord Himself cited the 110th Psalm of Himself,
the Christ, awakening up the thoughts of His adversa-
ries, that He, whom they gainsaid, was in truth an object
1 See ab. Lect. vi. p. 364, 5.
b. p. 366.
2 See the passage, alleged by Lengerke,
3 See ib. p. 384 sqq.
Greatness of the Object of Psalm cx.
4
469
of awe to them, and that they were His enemies, to their
own great peril. While the Pharisees were gathered
together, Jesus asked them, saying, What think ye of
Christ? Whose son is He? They say unto Him, The Son
of David. He saith unto them, How then doth David in
spirit call Him Lord, saying, The Lord said unto my Lord,
Sit Thou on My Right Hand, until I make Thine enemies
Thy footstool? If David then call Him Lord, how is He
his Son? The adversaries of Jesus, at that day, had no
answer to give. They could not deny that the Messiah
was to be of the seed of David; or that David himself
spoke in spirit, i. e. by inspiration; or that he spake the
words of that Psalm; or that he was speaking of the
Christ and of His reign, in despite of and over His ene-
mies. They could not deny any of this; nor could they
concede the inference which our Lord drew, that, accord-
ing to their own prophets, the Christ was to be more than
man, without taking away the ground of their own oppo-
sition to Him, for which, soon after, they condemned Him.
to death. They had no answer, because there is none,
save to confess that David in spirit foretold, that He, the
Christ, Who was to be born of him according to the flesh,
was, in another mode of being, his Lord. Jesus appealed
to their own convictions. The greatness of the Psalm
doubtless forced it on them, and, in the face of the Truth,
they dared not directly lie. Twice in the brief Psalm, the
prophetic asseveration of God is alleged, as pronounced
to the Object of the Psalm. The word of the Lord to my
Lord, Sit Thou on My Right Hand, until I make Thine
enemies Thy footstool. The appeal of St. Paul is irresis-
tible; To which of the angels said He at any time, Sit on
My Right Hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy foot-
stool? Are they not all ministering spirits &c. To sit on
the right hand of an earthly king involved an association
in the dignity of the Sovereign. Human nature, if it
have any true belief in God, if it know anything as to
God or itself, could not tell the lie to itself, that this could
be said to an earthly king. Unbelief, unless shameless,
5 CN1
4 S. Matt. xxii. 41-5.
6 Heb. i. 13, 14.
470
Inapplicability of Psalm cx. to David,
could not say, that David sat on the Right Hand of God,
because David had brought in the Ark into the city, where
he dwelt. As if any one sat on the Right Hand of God,
because his house was by a Church! Nothing in David's
life corresponds to the saying. David was a warrior-king;
his enemies were subdued through human means and a
human arm sustained by God. He himself fought, till his
strength failed him¹; and he fled before Absalom. Ra-
tionalism will scarcely say, that this is a fulfilment of that
calm reign, which God affirmed, Sit Thou on My Right
Hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool 2. And
he, who was so to sit, was also to be a Priest, not after
any priesthood which existed in David's time. Thou art
a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedek. A priest
for ever! David was no priest. He was soon to pass
away, and to be gathered to his fathers. The Psalm must
have been written, after Zion had been taken ³. It were
mockery, on any hypothesis, as addressed to David. The
whole Psalm is personal. God binds Himself by an un-
changeable oath. Thou art a priest for ever. To sum up,
the king sits in calm majesty at the Right Hand of God,
where no human king was ever imagined to sit. While
He is enthroned there, God sends forth the rod of His power.
He rules, not by subduing only, but amidst His unsub-
dued enemies; yet He is to reign until all His enemies be
beneath His Feet. His people offer themselves willingly
in the day of His power, yet clad not in earthly armour,
but in the beauties of holiness. He Himself is a priest,
and that for ever, yet by a priesthood, superseding the
Levitical priesthood, unchangeable, in His own Person.
Thou art a priest for ever. All corresponds to the truth
His Human Nature has ever been believed to
in Christ.
1 2 Sam. xxi. 15-17.
2 Ewald, I see, does say this. He interprets the whole Psalm of David,
(Psalm. pp. 23-5,) and "to sit on the Right Hand of God," is, that God would
go with him, as it were, on " a chariot of victory" to fight against his enemies.
3 Even Ewald admits, that "the language of the short Psalm does not con-
tradict its being of the time of David," and supposes it to have been “addres-
sed to David, as he went forth to war against powerful enemies.” ib. Dav.
iL 285, follows Ewald.
its fulfilment in our Lord.
471
be in that special nearness to God, expressed by His Right
Hand; St. Stephen saw Him there; Apostles averred it;
the whole Church ever confessed it. He is there, our
Priest as well as our King, King with an unchangeable
Priesthood. His people fight, not with weapons of this
world, but in the armour of holiness. Godliness in them
wins fresh subjects to Him. His kingdom is still upheld
amid the hostility of the world. He rules in the midst of
His enemies. The time, when all shall be subdued to Him,
is, in the nature of things, yet to come. Such a waiting
lies in the words of the prophecy and is a part of it; sit
Thou on My Right Hand till. The long expectation,
which is the mockery of human hopes, is the fulfilment
of the Divine promise. He rules, He gathers His willing
peoples in each generation, until time shall melt away in
eternity. Each century, during which the consumma-
tion of all things is delayed, is full of new victories over
all the powers of darkness, the resistance of the world,
the weakness of the flesh. Each century is a prolonged
victory over the destroyer of all human things, time.
What says rationalism? "The word 'until' is not to be
pressed, but is to be understood ideally of an unending, un-
closed, uninclusive term." But where was it for David?
And what are the objections of the interpretation given by
Christ? 15 The sitting on the Right Hand of the Fa-
4 Hupfeld Ps. T. iv. p. 183. Ewald (Ps. p. 25) refers to Bathsheba's lan-
guage at David's death-bed, "Let my lord king David live for ever," (1 Kgs.
i. 31) and the Psalms prophetic of Christ, xxi. 5, [4 Eng.] xlv. 3, 7, [2, 6, Eng.]
and Psalm xli. 13. Bathsheba did not, like the Persian, greet the king,
Mayest thou reign for ever.” (Ælian V. H. i. 32.) I cannot think that, with
the knowledge of the life to come which David had, the words "life for ever"
were an unmeaning heartless formula, a mockery to the dying man.
an sense,
5 Hupfeld p. 175. It is certain that a prophecy of Messiah in the Christi-
i. e. with the attributes ascribed to him in the New Testament on
the ground of this Psalm, is in the way in which it is here expressed, utterly
inconceivable in a poet of the Old Testament, being irreconcileable with all his-
torical and psychological conceptions and principles of interpretation, acknow-
ledged elsewhere. For" &c (as in the text.) The remaining grounds are,
3) "that the Object of the Psalm is addressed as present;" as if the Prophet could
not in vision, like Balaam, see Him but not now, behold Him, but not nigh;
and 4) "that God would destroy his enemies;" which is but what our Lord Him-
self says, Those Mine enemies who would not that I should reign over them,
472 “Sit Thou” &c.said to Jesus, as Man,because He is God.
ther in the New Testament is a heavenly, ever united with
the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus, of which, earlier,
no anticipation could come into the heart of man." 2) "The
high-priestly, or atoning office of Christ, (as it is taught
in the Epistle to the Hebrews in contrast with the Mo-
saic Priesthood and including the abolition of the Mosaic
law,) equally goes too far beyond the position of the Old
Testament, and, especially is too foreign to the idea of
the Messiah of the Old Testament, that such a thought
could have come into the mind of an Old Testament poet
or prophet." In other words, because the thought could
not come in any human way, and, it is assumed, was not
revealed by God, it could not have come at all.
It was to our Lord as to His Human, not His Divine,
Nature, that it was said, Sit Thou on My Right Hand.
For, as God, He is ever one with the Father. But it was
said to Him, because He was God. David's Son, as Man,
would not have been David's Lord. The later prophets,
even if any of them were greater prophets, were not the
lords of those who went before them. Among those born
of women, there is not, our Lord said¹, a greater prophet
than John the Baptist. Nay, he was more than a prophet.
Yet he was the lord of no one. The angels themselves
were the fellowservants of the Apostles and prophets,
and of those who have the testimony of Jesus 3. Jesus
was David's Lord, because He was God; He was his
Son, because He was God Incarnate. To sit on God's
Right Hand, was a property of His Human Nature; but
it belonged to that Nature, because, in that Nature, He
was Lord and God. And so David gave to the Christ a
title, which, as Man, did not belong to Him, and he pro-
phesied of Him what did not belong to man.
His words,
like those of Daniel, ascribe to the Messiah a ncarness to
bring them hither and slay them before Me. (S. Luke xix. 27.) Davidson
adopts these last arguments, adding, “Not to speak of the psychological im-
possibility before-mentioned, that a writer should, without the least intimation,
identify himself with a person who was to live long after." (1. c.) This is mere
carelessness. The Psalmist speaks of the subject of the Psalm, as
my Lord."
2 S. Matt. xi. 9.
¹ S. Luke vii. 28, S. Matt. xi. 11.
8 Rev. xix. 10, xxii. 9.
"Thy throne, O God," owned piecemeal by opponents. 473
God which has never been said of any created being. They
foretell that fact, which our Lord predicted of Himself 4,
which has ever been believed by all who ever believed in
Jesus, which ever formed a part of the earliest Creeds,
that Jesus is, as no other is or can be, in that special near-
ness of glory, which is called the Right Hand of God. If
men believe the fact, they will find it difficult not to believe
that the Psalmist's words relate to the fact which they
describe. The Psalmist and Daniel foretold the super-
angelic glory of the Messiah in the same way.
b. A direct statement of the Divinity of the Messiah, in
the Psalms, has the authority of St. Paul, who alleges it
in contrast with even superhuman beings. 5 But unto the
Son He saith, Thy Throne, O God, is for ever and ever.
The attempts to eliminate the meaning betray their origin,
and condemn one another. No one, but for a preconceiv-
ed opinion, could interpret the word, Elohim, otherwise
than as God, and as the title of the being addressed.
No one, acting up to the boasted principle, that "Scrip-
ture" is to be "interpreted like any other book," could
hesitate so to render it. No one, who could evade the
meaning which he wished not to see, has hesitated about
either. Grotesque as have been the renderings or ex-
planations offered, no one, who thought he could so
construct the sentence, that the word, Elohim, need
not designate the being addressed, doubted that Elohim
signified "God;" and no one who thought that he could
make out for the word, Elohim, any other meaning
than that of" God," doubted that it designated the being
addressed. A right instinct prevented each class from
doing more violence to grammar or to idiom than he
needed, in order to escape the truth which he disliked.
If people thought that they might paraphrase, "thy
throne, O judge, or prince 7," or "image of God," or
“who art as a God to Pharaoh," they hesitated not for
* S. Matt. xxvi. 64, S. Mark xiv. 62, S. Luke xxii. 69.
Prof. Jowett Essays and Rev. p. 377.
8 Obad. Siporno.
5 Heb. i. S.
7 Rashi.
Isaac Jabetz, Torath Chesed (as said to Moses.)
474
Non-natural and ungrammatical renderings
a moment to render with us, "Thy throne is for ever and
ever." If men think that they may assume such an idiom
as, "thy throne of God," meaning "thy divine throne,"
or "thy throne is God," meaning "thy throne is the
throne of God," they doubt not that Elohim means pure-
ly and simply "God." "There are interpreters," says
Gesenius¹, "who say that Elohim is used, in the singular,
of one king, and is the same as Ben-Elohim, 'Son of
God,' appealing to those almost Divine honours which the
Easterns pay to their kings, and the Divine attributes
with which they adorn them, as 'Antiochus Deus Epi-
phanes.' But the primary place which they allege, Ps.
xlv. 7, does not at all prove this. They render, Thy throne,
O God, (i. e. O divine king,) shall stand for ever; but it
can scarce be doubted that Elohim, the wonted name of
God in the Psalms of the sons of Korah, is the same as in
countless other places."
Modern criticism, here or elsewhere, has been busy in
blinding itself to what it wished not to see. No one, in
the least conversant with Hebrew, and who had any idea
of the idiom of language, could doubt how the four
simple words are to be rendered. We could not doubt
in Latin, how we must understand the words, "Solium
tuum Deus in æternum." The Hebrew words are as sim-
ple as any in any language. If people could but persuade
themselves that the words were a parenthetic address
to God, no one would hesitate to own their meaning
to be, "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever." They
express naturally the eternal dominion of God. This
is their obvious, their only natural grammatical meaning.
In no other Psalm would any one have doubted it. One
may appeal to men's own consciences, that they could not.
When then they strive so hard, in non-natural ways, to
force other meanings on the words 2, it is clear that their
1 Thes. p. 99. He used the same arguments on Is. ix. 5. pp. 564, 5. note.
But on Isaiah, he adopted the one evasion, "thy God's-throne is for ever and
ever;" in the Thesaurus, the other, "thy throne shall be ["is" ib. 699.] a throne
of God (i. e. fortified and prospered by God.")
2 These renderings have been, 1) "Thy throne is God for ever and ever."
of simple words, "Thy throne, O God."
475
ground for this lies in their own conceptions, what the
CC our
Even Hupfeld saw that this was "too bold." "God is our refuge," nay,
dwelling-place," for in Him we live and move and have our being. He is be-
tween us and our foes; so He spoke of Himself, as the "shield" of His own.
He doth that for them, in spirit and in body, which these outward things do
for the body. But the throne is a symbol of dignity higher than its own, that
of the monarch. It would be unbefitting to speak of the Creator as the "throne "
of the creature, because it would imply, not that the creature had a glory de-
rived from the Creator, but that the Creator was subordinate to His creature.
So Saadias dropped the rendering, and supplied, "God shall establish thy
throne for ever and ever;" which, however, just requires the additional word,
"shall establish," . Not in Hebrew, any more than in any other language,
can, "Thy throne God for ever and ever," stand for, "God shall establish thy
throne for ever and ever."
}'?;.
2) "Thy throne, God," is to mean, "Thy throne of, or from, God." This
is not so expressed in Hebrew. The throne of Israel was God's throne, be-
cause it was a theocracy, its kings were His vicegerents. Once it is said, God
chose Solomon to sit upon the throne of the kingdom of the Lord over Israel,
1 Chr. xxviii. 5 ; and then, Solomon sat upon the throne of the Lord, as king
over Israel. But this cannot make the words, "Thy throne, God," mean
"Thy throne from God."
3) They say, by 8p is for 77 xe, the pronoun, thy, being, (as, it is
alleged, in some few other instances,) interposed between the nominative and
genitive. But 78 89, itself, must mean," the throne of thy God ;" it could
not mean, "Thy throne from," or " of God." No one could seriously main-
tain that it did. And this might have shewn people, that that other rare idiom
does not apply to this case. The few cases are strictly cases of apposition. DED
(Ps. lxxi. 7) or ↳ŋ my? (2 Sam. xxii. 33, for ↳ 477 Ps. xviii. 33,) are not
for y pp or for n ny, which would rather mean, "the refuge of my
strength," or would, at least, be ambiguous; but are to be taken simply, "my
refuge, strength," i. e. "and that a strong one." (Ps. xxxv. 19,) is
illustrated by on, with which it is united ; as □ is an adverb, so. They
are added absolutely, "my haters gratis," "mine enemies falsely." So won
lit. "our help, (which is) vanity." Lam. iv. 17. In like way, 72 172 (Lev. vi. 3)
is, "his garment, linen;" i. e. "consisting of linen;" 777 (Ezek. xvi. 27)
791
"thy way, lewdness," i. e. mere lewdness. In all the cases, except Lev. vi. 3,
the words added express a quality; viz. strength, might, lewdness, falseness, gra-
tuitousness. Lev. vi. 3, "his garment, linen," is but the well-known case of
an explanation standing in apposition, as is seen in cases where the chief word
has the article. 3, "his garment, linen," is the same construction, so far,
as vợ nghịu, “the coat, fine linen,” Ex. xxviii. 39; 17: “the cherubs, gold,
1 Chr. xxviii. 18. But God could stand in no such relation to the throne"
of man.
Ewald himself gives an explanation of the idiom, similar in principle,
(ausf. Lehrb. § 291. 3. b.) "Poets can easily append the suffix to the first sub-
stantive, to which it belongs, and then subordinate the second independently,
as typ, my refuge in strength,' i. e. my strong refuge; ", “my lying
enemies,' Ps. lxxi. 7. (ny) app, "Thy chariots, which are salvation,"l
.enemies,
476 Contradictory and ungrammatical renderings
words theologically can not mean, not in any persuasion
Hab. iii. 8. Ezek. xvi. 27, xviii. 7, (taking an inhan (both åñ. λey.) as if it
were "his pledge for a debt," others, as E. V. "debtor."] 2 Sam. xxii. 33."
4) They render, "Thy throne is (a throne of) God," which is, of course, sim-
ply impossible. Ewald (Kr. Gramm. § 343 note) said, "Very seldom is the
status constructus wanting in the predicate, when it is the noun immediately
preceding, as thy throne is God's (throne') for & &?; more easily
with a noun designating the matter, Jer. xxiv. 2." But Jer. xxiv. 2. requires
nothing to be supplied. We have, in English, many such idioms; "The one
basket, very good figs, like the figs first ripe; and the other basket, very bad
figs, which could not be eaten for badness." The cases which others allege are
obviously irrelevant, being cases in which the article has been put anomalously,
yet on a different principle, before the nominative, as na jinxo, the ark of
the covenant;", "the God of Bethel." For in these cases, there
is only one nominative and one genitive; there is nothing really to be supplied.
the" ,הָאָרוֹן אֲרוֹן הַבְּרִית was for הָאָרוֹן הַבְּרִית The saying of Hebrew graminarians, that
ark, the ark of the covenant," is, in itself, obviously a mere shift to explain the
anomalous placing of the article; for there is no such emphasis, as this repeti-
tion would imply; and, if this anomaly were to be thus accounted for, it would
have no bearing on the passage in the Psalm; since, in those cases, the words
are in apposition; in the Psalm they would be made to stand as subject and
predicate. In his ausf. Lehrg. § 296 b. ed. 7, Ewald quotes, as exactly cor-
responding, only Cant. i. 15, rendering, (as the E. V.,) "thy eyes are doves'
eyes." But from Cant. iv. 1, "thy eyes are doves behind thy veil," or "locks,”
and, still more, from v. 12, “His eyes are doves at the rivers of waters, bath-
ing in milk, sitting in fulness," or, "at the fulness" (i. e. of the streams,) it
is clear that the object of comparison, in i. 15 also, is the dove itself, not its
eyes. For in iv. 1, v. 12, there follows on the comparison the mention of the
situation of the dove. Ewald too rendered iv. 1, “thine eyes doves around
thy locks;" v. 12, "His eyes are doves over the water-brooks.” Delitzsch (adloc.)
says, “Hitzig, on Pr. vii. 27, rightly questions the correctness of the elliptical
explanation in places such as Deut. viii. 15, 1 Kgs. iv. 13, Ezr. x. 13." Cer-
tainly in such idioms as, "Who led thee through the great and terrible wilder-
ness, fiery serpents and scorpions and drought," (Deut.) "threescore great
cities, walls and brasen bars," (1 Kgs. iv.) "the people is many, and the wea-
ther is showers," (Ezr.) no one scarcely could think of filling it up “wilderness
of serpents," "cities of walls," or "the weather is weather of showers." Such
renderings ignore the idioms of language. Yet Hitzig now justifies his ren-
dering, “thy throne is a God's throne,” by such idioms. (ad loc.) According
to these interpreters, in the 2nd half-verse, where there would be no ambigui-
ty, “a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom," vạy ¬biş bayi
, the nominative is inserted in both clauses; and in the first half-verse,
where (as the Versions shew) the obvious rendering is, "Thy throne, O God,”
the nominative, which would prevent the ambiguity, is omitted. A writer, who
writes fully, not w only, but mabo vaw ip me would, à fortiori, have writ-
ten, obx 800 7807, if he had meant it, since there was the greater need of pre-
cision, because its obvious meaning involves an important dogmatic statement.
5) Gesenius (on Is. ix. 5) adopted yet another construction. "The word
•
of words, grammatically most simple.
477
what they grammatically do mean. The words are ad-
dressed to God¹; the context shews that He Who is so
O has two genitives, in different relations, after it, just as Lev. xxvi. 42, na
apy: 'my Jacob's covenant,' i. e. my covenant with Jacob.” In Lev. xxvi. 42,
two constructions are united. In Hebrew, n' is joined in the genitive very
commonly with the name of the person who makes the covenant, (as in the of-
ten-repeated,"n"??, “the covenant of the Lord,") and more rarely with that of
those, with whom the covenant is made, as Deut. iv. 31, an a
"the cove-
nant with thy fathers; " Mal. ii. 10, “with our fathers; " Ps. lxxxix. 40, 5779 .3
"the cov. with thy servant;" Mal. ii. 8, nba nma, the covenant with Levi;
Is. xlii. 6, xlix. 8, oy na, “a covenant with the people." In the emphatic
saying, Lev. xxvi. 42, I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and also My
covenant with Isaac, and also My covenant with Abraham I will remember,
the two constructions are united, which has no difficulty, because, as Gesenius
said, "they stand in different relations," well known in the idiom of the lan-
guage.
So in Jeremiah xxxiii. 20, n? is united with on and abba “My co-
venant with the day and My covenant with the night, parallel with, My cove-
בריתי את דוד v.21.) The construction .בְּרִיתִי אֶת דָּוִר) .nant uith David My servant
in itself suggests, that the construction, □ na, is idiomatic and elliptical. In
v. 25, the adverb, or, is substituted for . The elliptical idiom was doubt-
org.
less the rather used, on account of the great frequency of the fuller idiom, "made
a covenant with" &c. The covenant, of course, implies the two parties be-
tween whom it is made. The two persons in (lit.) "the covenant of Me, Ja-
cob," "the covenant of Me, Isaac," "the covenant of Me, Abraham," stand
not only in relation with the word, “covenant,” but with each other.
זָכַרְתִּי
have no ambigity. It is but אָת בְּרִיתִי יַעֲקוֹב וְאַף אֶת בְּרִיתִי יִצְחָק וְאַף אֶת בְּרִיתִי אַבְרָהָם אֶזְכֹּר
*
the union of known relations.
My covenant," "the covenant of the Lord,”
is, every where, the covenant which God made; "the covenant of your fa-
thers,"
‚""of your servant," is "the covenant which He made with the fathers,
&c;
" and the phrase, “My covenant with Jacob," does but blend them, in the
same sense in which they were used apart. There is also no other possible
meaning. The words "Thy throne," "the throne of God," equally have de-
finite meanings, but exclusive of each other. They express, each of them, to
whom the throne belonged. They are both the genitive of the subject. "The
throne of God" never occurs in the sense of " the throne which God gave."
We have, "Thy throne (O Lord) is from generation to generation," Lam.
v. 19; “the Lord's throne is in heaven," Ps. xi. 4; “God sitteth on His holy
throne,” Ps. xlvii. 8; “justice and judgment are the habitation of Thy throne,"
Ps. lxxxix. 14; "the heaven is My throne," Is. lxvi. 1; "the throne of the Lord,"
Jer. iii. 17; "the place of My throne," Ez. xliii. 7. And we have no other
meaning. To render, then, "thy throne of God," in the meaning "thy throne
entrusted to thee by God," (Ges. on Is. ix. 5) is to join the words in a sense
which they never have, rejecting that which the like phrase actually has. (Lam.
v. 19.) Gesenius abandoned this (Thes. pp. 98, 699.) for No 3 ; yet rendered
(Ib. p. 1036.) “solium tuum a Deo constitutum stabit in æternum.”
1 "The Versions take Elohim as the Vocative; but neither can this be an
address to Jahve, (YHVH) as the Targum takes it; nor can the king be so
directly taken as God." Hitzig. As for Hitzig's supplementary argument, (from
Ewald,) it contains its own answer; “moreover ¬yoby (without ↳, comp. Lam.
478 Evidence of Divinity of Christ and close union
addressed as God, is a King among men, but One Whose
kingdom is not of this world; His end truth, and meek
righteousness; Himself, beauteous above the sons of men;
His lips overflowing with Divine grace; and these things
in Him, the Source of Divine Unction. Men would not
believe that our Lord was God, or that God foretold this
of Him¹; they dare not deny, that the simplest meaning
of the words in themselves is, "Thy Throne, O God, is
for ever and ever."
2
c. A 3rd Psalm, which the whole body of the Apostles
quoted¹, while addressing God, which St. Paul alleged
to the Jews at Antioch in Pisidia, quoted in the Epistle
to the Hebrews 3, and alluded to in the Epistle to the Ro-
mans, speaks of the Messiah, as, in a special way, “the
Son of God." The second Psalm is a prophecy against the
vain attempts of heathen nations to throw off the sove-
reignty of God and of His Anointed. It exhibits, as Isaiah
and Daniel do, the vain tumults of men, and, over-against
them, the calm supremacy of God. Rebellion against
the Lord and against His Anointed, i. e. His Messiah or
Christ, is one and the same act. 5 The kings of the earth
set themselves in array, and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and against His Anointed. Obedience
to God and reverence to the Son are also one and the
6 Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trem-
bling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry. Trust in Him is
the source of manifold blessedness. Blessed are all they
that put their trust in Him. His wrath is destruction.
It is one and the same as the wrath of God, as instanta-
neous in its effects and as fatal. Lest He be angry and
ye perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a
v. 19) is uniformly only an incidental determination of the predicate, xlviii. 15,
x. 16, lii. 10, not the predicate itself." It is mere straw-splitting, to admit
that ?? (Lam. v. 19) signifies, "Thy throne is for ever and ever,
and to deny that by means the same. The construction, which is
the point questioned by Hitzig, is precisely the same.
gotten Lam. v. 19, when he made the assertion. by is as near an expres-
sion for eternity, as human language admits; it expresses clearly the same as
1 Acts iv. 25, 6.
2 Ib. xiii. 33.
same.
.לע. וער
4 Rom. i. 4.
5 Ps. ii. 2.
Ewald had doubtless for-
3 Heb. i. 5.
6 Ib. 11, 12.
with God in Psalm ii.
7
479
little. His inheritance embraced all nations. Ask of
Me and I will give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance.
It is given by God, as our Lord says, 8 All power is given
unto Me in heaven and in earth; but it is coextensive
with the earth; the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy
possession; as our Lord, after mention of that power given
to Him, said to His Apostles, and, in them, to His Church
unto the end, ⁹ Go ye and disciple all nations. Of Him
alone it is said, Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten
Thee. Others have been and are adopted sons, He alone
is a Son by nature; of Him Alone is the word used, which
expresses the special relation of nature. Of others whom
God made His sons, He said; 10he shall be My son, and I
his Father. To Him Alone, Who is the Son by Nature,
He saith, This day I have begotten Thee. The kiss also
(as it continues among us to this day,) to a superior was
the well-known act of fealty, or of worship 11. But, be-
yond the word itself, was the association with God. The
7 Ps. ii. 8. 8 S. Matt. xxviii. 18.
11 See on Hos. xiii. 2. p. 82. p
these cases are in the idiom,
9 Ib. 19.
10 1 Chron. xxii. 10.
occurs 34 times in the Bible. Three of
"drawers of the bow," and are, in fact,
from a different root. In all the other 31 cases, it has the one meaning, "kiss."
In all cases but one, the object is expressed; in 7 places besides this Psalm, it
is in the accusative; 21 times it stands with ; in Gen. xli. 40 with by; in
Ezekiel, iii. 13 of things inanimate, with. The one exception, where the
object is omitted, is in Ps. lxxxv. 11,
py, “righteousness and peace
have kissed; " obviously, each other. occurs once besides, in the undoubted
sense, "son." Pr. xxxi. 2. It is not an Aramaic word only, as is commonly stat-
ed. It is also a Phoenician word, and so it belongs to the earliest stock of the
language. It occurs in Plautus, (Ges. Script. ling. Phonic. p. 379) and in pro-
per names; Fermina, Beppivâs=1 Liv. App. (Ib. p. 415); Bar-melech, ra
7, "son of the king" i. e. Baal, Inscr. Melit. 2, 4. (Ib. p. 348); Bapμókapos,
Polyb. 7, 9.="py, “son of Hercules.” (Ib. p. 403, coll. p. 353.) Gesenius also
explains by it the names, Пápaλos (Diod. xvi. 9) i. e. by "son of Baal"
(Ib. p. 412.); Bogudes (App. Dio C.) i. e. 711 70 son of a troop" (Ib. 404.);
and Bomilcar (Liv. Pol. App.) "ph "son of Milear," i. e. Hercules. (ib.)
Aramaic are poetic forms. But the form was also probably chosen here, to
avoid the repetition of the same sound, 11, without any corresponding em-
phasis. The word p then, taken in its uniform meaning, and in a received
construction, fits in with the mention of the object, "kiss the Son." The
grammatical meaning suits the context. God said, "I have set My king
upon My holy hill of Zion." He declared of that king ; "Thou art My Son."
The world was in rebellion against Him. God exhorts them to shew reve-
rence to the Son, lest He be angry and they perish.
בר מעקר
480 Rendering "kiss the Son" alone grammatical;
close of the Psalm corresponds with the beginning. It
is an exhortation to those who were in rebellion, to re-
turn to obedience to God and to His Son.
"The words,
On the ground of this uniform meaning of pes, its meaning was retained even
by those who did not understand, or who wished to evade, the meaning of .
Hence Aquila translated strictly, катapıλhσaтe, "kiss ; " Symmachus, in the
derived meaning, "worship," троσкννÝгате; as St. Jerome too, "adorate."
But then it was inconsistent, not to take, as the object of the verb, in either
of its known senses, "Son," or, (from the root 1,) "pure." For it is unidio-
matic, to take as an adverb a word, which is only used as a noun, and that, when
following an active verb, which requires a noun to complete its meaning. Aq.
KλEKтs, Symm. каlар@я, S. Jer. purè. Yet even thus Aquila, at least, must
have thought that "the king" was the object, since the word "kiss," which
he adopts, could not be applied to God, save through the Incarnation. In re-
gard to the rendering of the late Chaldee Targum, and of the LXX, "lay hold
of instruction," po never signifies to "lay hold of," only to "stretch the bow ;"
and (if the vowel be changed) is only once used with the affix, 5, "my pu-
rity," and that, when the idiom, 0, had just preceded, and the equivalent
followed. Even thus, "purity" is not "instruction." Hupfeld, rejecting
the real meaning, "son," as inapplicable, (he thought,) so felt that no other
would hold, that he devised a correction of the text, a for, although well
knowing that this was a construction unknown to Hebrew.
כַּפַּיִם
1 Aben Ezra. The reference to the Christ is acknowledged by the older Jews
of all Schools. It is mentioned as a tradition in the Talmud, tract Succa, dist.
Hachalil; "Our Rabbins handed down, 'Messiah ben David, (who is to be re-
vealed, may he be revealed in our days!) God, blessed for ever, said to him, ‘ask
something of Me and I will give it Thee,' as is said, I will declare the decree,
The Lord said unto Me, Thou art My Son &c. Ask of Me &c.' And when he
shall hear, that Messiah son of Joseph is slain, he shall say, 'Lord of the world,
I ask of Thee nothing but life;' God shall say to him, thou askest life of Me;
before thou saidst this, David thy father prophesied of thee, He asked life of
Thee; &c."" Ps. xxi. 5. (Mart. Pug. Fid. f. 330.) The unworthiness of this re-
presentation belongs to the Talmudists; but they are witnesses to the tradi-
tional meaning. In the mystical school, the Midrash Tillim says, “kings shall
rise up against him, [Messias ben David,] as it is said, the kings of the earth &e.
Ps. ii. 2. Mart. f. 332. (See also ib. f. 604.) and again, "when his hour shall
come, God shall say, 'I must create him by a new creation,' and so He saith,
This day have I begotten thee.” on Ps. ii. 2. Mart. f. 285; and on ii. 7, (f. 3, 4.)
Ps. cx. 1, Ps. ii. 7, and Dan. vii. 13, lo with the clouds of heaven, are quoted
together of the Messiah. (Schöttg. Hor. Hebr.ii. p. 121.) And on Ps. 21, “R. Jo-
hanan says,‘Ask,' was said to three, Solomon, (1 Kings iii. 5,) Ahaz, (Is. vii. 11,)
and king Messiah, Ask of me &c Ps. ii. 8." (Mart.f.516.) And in the Bereshith
Rabba, "R. Huna in the name of R. Idi, [and R. Joshua B. Levi,] saith, "This
(Jer. xxxi. 21) is king Messiah, of whom it is said, 'Thou art My Son."" (in
Mart. f. 284.) In the Pirke R. Elieser c. 28, Mesharshia [4th cent.] is quoted,
interpreting v. 2. of the last "gathering of all nations to fight against Messiah
b. David." (Schöttgen ad loc. p. 227.) So also the Avoda saraf. 3. 2, (ib. p. 228,)
Tanchuma f. 55. 2, (Ib. p. 74,) Pesikta Sotarta, f. 58. 1, (lb. p. 96,) the Zohar,
owned by the Jews also.
481
serve the Lord, refer to the words, take counsel against the
Lord; the words, kiss the Son, to the words, and against
His Anointed,"
The omission of the article gives even an added empha-
sis to the word Son 2, in that the name thereby gains the
character of a proper name, belonging to Him, and to no
other as it does to Him 3.
ib. p. 227,) Midrash Esther f. 107. 4, (Ib. pp. 68, 9,) interpret the beginning
of the Psalm of Gog and Magog. The Mechilta, quoting the words, against
the Lord, and against His Anointed, has the simile of "a robber, standing be-
hind the royal palace, insulting it, and saying, 'If I find the king's son, I will
seize and slay him and crucify him, that he may die a hard death,' but the
Holy Spirit shall mock them; He that sitteth in the heavens shall mock them."
(in Yalkut Shimeoni, ii. f. 90, 1. Sch. p. 227.) The Midrash Tillim has the
likeness of " a king who was wroth with his subjects; but they went to his son
and besought him to appease the king. When they were reconciled, they sang
a hymn to the king; but he said, 'Why sing ye a hymn to me, go rather and
present it to my son. For but for him, I should have destroyed the whole city.'
(f. 4. 2. Sch. p. 229.) It recognised the interpretation, even while misapply-
ing it to the Jewish people.
2 So, "king," Ps. xxi. 1, and ph, "decree," in this Psalm, v. 7. Delitzsch
remarks, how the omission of the Article is emphatic in Arabic also, quoting
Fleischer on Zamakshari, Not. 2. pp. 1. sq. and De Sacy Anthol. Gramm. p. 75.
Hupfeld (p. 33) says, that the word, , "son," would be "unmeaning without
' or the article." Yet he had himself, a few lines before, remarked the simi-
lar use of a, Ps. xxi. 1. And this, in face of the acknowledged fact, that the
article is habitually omitted in poetry, where it would stand in prose, as is said
in all grammars. (e. g. Gesen. Lehrg. p. 652. Ewald ausf. Lehrb. § 277 p. 679.
ed. 7.) again occurs in this same Psalm, v. 2.
3 Dr Williams said, "If he would follow our version in rendering the 2nd
Psalm, kiss the Son, he knows that Hebrew idiom convinced even Jerome, the
true meaning was, worship purely,” (Ess. and Rev. p. 68) quoting him, ca-
villatur—quod posuerim—Adorate purè—ne violentus viderer interpres et
Jud. [aicæ calumniæ] locum darem." Hieron. c. Ruffin. [i.] § 19. This is not an
accurate account of S. Jerome's statement. Ruffinus blamed him for inconsisten-
cy, that, "having, in his brief commentary, said, 'adore the Son,' in his transla-
tion he put 'adore purely."" S. Jerome defends himself, that "Bar' had differ-
ent meanings; 'Son,' as in Barjona, Bartholomæus, Barthimæus, Bariesus, and
Barabbas; also 'wheat' and 'a sheaf of corn' [i. e.‘corn even standing, ' Ps.
lxv. 14] and elect' [from Cant. vi. 9] and 'pure.”” "What then have 1 of-
fended," he says, "that I have rendered diversely an ambiguous word, and that
while in the little commentary, where there was freedom of discussion, I had
said, 'adore the Son,' in the body of the work, [his translation,] lest I should
seem to do violence to the text and give occasion to Jewish calumny, I said
'adore purely,' or ' in a chosen way,' as Aquila and Symmachus also translat-
ed?" It seems to me that S. Jerome preferred the rendering, "the Son,"
since he adopted it where he could explain it, but gave way to prejudice in
1 i
482 The King in Psalm lxxii. has Divine attributes.
3
d. The King, who is the subject of the 72nd Psalm,
has attributes, which could not belong to any human
being, immortality, omniscience, omnipotence. He is the
source of an immortality of blessing, by acts strictly per-
sonal, so long as this world shall endure¹. Wherever the
needy should cry in the whole world, there and then
would He save. This is the special prerogative of God.
Omniscience alone hears the cry of every human heart
which it framed: Omnipotence alone can deliver every
one every where. Human benefactors can do this here
and there; God alone every where. When he cried
unto Him, He heard. 4 Thou shalt cry, and He shall say,
Behold Me! is the prerogative of an Almighty Helper.
5 Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee
and thou shalt glorify Me, is God's invitation to all who
will seek Him sincerely, and an anticipation of that
loving invitation of our Lord, Come unto Me, all ye that
labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Yet
this is assigned as the ground, why all kings shall fall
down before Him; all nations shall serve Him. For He
shall deliver &c. This is, in truth, the attractive power
which has drawn men unto Jesus, before they yet knew
what it is to love Him, that He is an Almighty Deliverer.
6
7
Yet the government of this King is wholly spiritual.
Peace is to be the yield of the world, but in righteousness³;
salvation, righteous judgment¹º, tender compassion ¹¹, de-
rendering "adore purely." But, although S. Jerome had very valuable tradi-
tional knowledge of Hebrew, which he acquired with so much cost and pains
from his Jewish instructors, no one thinks now that he had an idiomatic know-
ledge of Hebrew. It was not his line. Yet in rendering p“ adore,” he pa-
raphrased rightly on the right grounds.
1 Ps. lxxii. 5, 7. v. 5. is clearly addressed to the subject of the Psalm. In
v. 17, it is said, "His Name shall endure for ever," and in Ps. lxxxix. 29, 36,
"His seed shall endure for ever;" Ib. 4, "Thy seed will I establish for ever;
Ib. 37, "it shall be established for ever;" here only, it is said of the Person.
2 Job xxix. 12.
3 Ps. xxii. 24. add Ps. xviii. 7, xxxiv. 4, 5, 6, 15-17,
iv. 3, iii. 4, lv. 16, xcix. 6, cxvi. 4-16, cxviii. 5, cxx. 1, cxlv. 18, 19, Jon. ii. 2.
4 Is. lviii. 9.
5 Ps. 1. 15. add xci. 15, Jer. xxxiii. 3, Is. Iviii. 9.
6 S. Matt. xi. 28.
9 v. 4, 13.
7 v. 11, 12.
8 v. 3. Each hemistich fills up the
other, “mountains and hills shall yield peace to the people in righteousness."
10
v. 2, 4.
11 v. 13. by on
14
,
Empire of the King in Psalm lxxii. in all time & clime. 483
liverance¹², redemption 13, are His acts; the afflicted ones ¹4
of God, of the people 15, the sons of the needy 15, and ge-
nerally, the needy 16, afflicted 17, or those in low estate 18
he who hath no helper 19, are the objects of that love; and
that, by His coming down from above, as rain upon the
herb, when ready to dry up. Precious in His eyes should
be the blood 20 of such as these 21; as it is said of Almighty
God, 22 Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of His
saints. All are strictly personal acts. The King Himself
is to do all these things. His empire is to be coexten-
sive with the world, coenduring with time. The confines
of the promised land are by turns removed; His domi-
nion is to be from sea to sea, from the Mediterranean their
Western boundary, to the encircling sea beyond Asia's
utmost verge, and, from their Eastern boundary, the ri-
ver, the Euphrates, unto the ends of the earth 23. Some
nations are mentioned as specimens ; the wild sons of the
wilderness 24, countries known to Solomon by commerce
only, in the then distant Spain, or the empires on the
shores of the Mediterranean 25, the depths of Arabia or
the far-removed and wealthy Nubia 26. But these are in-
stances only of the voluntary submission. The prophecy
passes on to universal empire. All kings, all nations are
to fall down before Him and serve Him. They are to
offer their best, presents and gifts; yet the most costly
offering is to be the oblation of the poor. The kings of
Sheba are to be there, but the gold of Sheba is specified
as the offering of the poor. Precious shall their blood be
in His eyes. And live he, he will give of the gold of She-
ba. His enemies are voluntarily to submit themselves.
12
v. 12.
13
v. 14.
17 v. 12.
14 v. 2.
13 V. 13.
15
ས་
V. 4.
19 v. 2.
16 v. 12, 13. [ü]
20 v. 6.
6. "upon the mown grass," as in Am. vii. 2. E. V. rightly. Striking
image of a world, in all appearance, hopelessly dead, but with a hidden capa-
city for receiving life! v. 7. The like image occurs in the prophecy of Christ,
2 Sam. xxiii. 4.
22 Ps. cxvi. 15.
21 v. 14.
23 1 'ppy occurs 14 times, and always in this sense, as also fix is? (4 times)
and 17 (20 times.) The plural in itself involves it, as in the Homeric
πείρατα
Teípaтa yains, and we say "the land's end," but "the ends of the earth.”
24
DY. v. 9.
D"
25 N v. 10.
26
סְבָא
I i2
484 The king in Ps. lxxii to rule, Himself out of sight,
The abundance of peace in His days is to be as long as
the moon endureth. He is to be the object of reverent fear,
so long as sun and moon endure. And yet, by a wondrous
coincidence with the fact, it is hinted that He Himself
should be out of sight. For it is said, His Name shall
be for ever; His Name shall propagate¹, gaining, gene-
ration after generation, à fresh accession of offspring, as
long as the sun and moon endure; and yet, again, He is
to be the personal source of blessing; men shall be bles-
sed in Him². The prophecy of Solomon expands the pro-
1 The E. V. has, (according to its rule,) followed the kri, ɲ¹?,
pagated." It is a mere substitution for the bold image of the text.
must be an old correction, since it supplies one of the names of the Messiah.
"Pirke R. Elieser c. 3. and Bereshith rabba s. 1. f. 3. 3. 'Six things' (seven
are counted in Pesachim f. 54. 1. Nedarim f. 39. 2. Midrash Tehillim f. 35, 4.
[see in Mart. Pug. fid. f. 335.] and Midrash Mishle f. 53, 3.) 'were before the
foundation of the world, and among them the name of the Messiah, Before the
sun, Yinnon is his name.' Ibid. c.36, among those six, whose name was known
before their birth, the name of the Messiah,' is mentioned, with an appeal to
this place. [See in Mart. f. 334.] Echa Rabbathi f. 59. 3. and Sanhedrin
f. 98, 2, 'They who are of the school of Jannai said, that the name of the
Messiah is Yinnon,' from this place. Midrash Mishle c. xix. 21. f. 57. 1, 'The
name of the Messiah is Yinnon,' also quoting it." Schöttgen de Messia ad loc.
"shall be pro-
Yet it
In the Bereshith R. 1. c. and Midr. Till. I. c. it is explained actively, yet the
pass. form seems to have crept in, "Why is his name called p? Because he
shall give birth to (p) those who sleep in the dust of the earth.'
66
2 There is no pretext for the gloss of Le Clerc, (following Rashi,) that the
words, "shall be blessed in Him," are to be limited by the idiom, Gen. xlviii.
20. By thee Israel shall bless; which, by force of the conjugation, must have
a different sense, and which is explained by the addition, saying, God make
thee as Ephraim and Manasseh. 7, orig. 'bent the knee,” “prayed,” is
used of man's act as to man, in no other sense than, "prayed for a blessing," (as
"Israel shall bless by thee,"
even benediction in God's name is still a prayer.)
has then no other meaning than that which is expanded in the sequel, "use
thy name in praying a blessing from God." Even apart from the meaning of
the word, man cannot "make blessed" through man; self-evidently he cannot
bless through forefathers, long since departed. Yet the very fact that the word
is explained by the addition, "saying, God make thee &c." shews that it is no
ordinary idiom, as indeed it occurs in that one place only of Scripture. From
In itself, the
God to His creature, man, to "bless" is to "make blessed.”
Hithpahel or Nifal might be either reflective or passive, "he blessed himself,"
or, "he was blessed" by God. 7 is reflective Deut. xxix. 18. "shall bless
himself in his heart," i. e. "pronounce himself blessed," as explained in the
context. In Is. lxv. 16, and Jer. iv. 2, (where it is united with 7) it signifies
"shall bless himself in," i. e. "seek blessing in." In both cases, the object
to intercede for His people, a priest, for ever. 485
mise to Abraham; as it is itself afterwards expanded in
those of Micah, Isaiah, and Zechariah 3. Yet further, the
king, (as is said more explicitly in Ps. cx.) exercises the
office of a perpetual priesthood. The words, And He shall
pray for him continually, anticipate the revelation by St.
Paul, He ever liveth to make intercession for them.
is God; "He that blesseth himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God
of truth" (Is.); "the nations shall bless themselves in Him, and in Him shall
they glory." (Jer.) In both, it stands connected with an act of man, "shall
swear by the God of truth" (Is.); "thou shalt swear, 'The Lord liveth,' in
truth, in judgment, and in righteousness, and the nations shall bless themselves
in Him." (Jer.) Even then, if were to be rendered in the Psalm re-
flectively, "shall bless themselves in Him," it would still mean, (according to
the idiom in Isaiah and Jeremiah,) "shall seek their blessedness from Him.”
In the first passage in Genesis xii. 2, God had already said to Abraham,
"Thou shalt be a blessing," i. e. in its most natural sense, a source of bless.
ing," as in Ps. xxi. 7. The Nifal occurs only in these prophecies, Gen. xii. 3,
xviii. 18, xxviii. 14. It is not known that it is any where used reflectively. The
Hithpael is used twice, Gen. xxii. 18, xxvi. 4. After the typical sacrifice of
Isaac, the term of the blessing is changed to Abraham, "in thy seed shall all na
tions be blessed," instead of "in thee." (Gen. xxii. 18, xxvi. 4.) To Jacob,
(Gen. xxviii. 14) both are united, "in thee and in thy seed." The emphasis,
laid on the words in the five-times-repeated blessing, also precludes an inter-
pretation, at once so empty and so exaggerated as, that this full promise should
mean, that all nations of the world should use this as a formula of blessing,
"God bless thee as He blessed Abraham, Jacob, and their descendants." Am-
mon, and Bertholdt, (de ortu theol. Hebr. p. 102,) got rid of the prophecy by
saying that, "all nations of the earth" meant the Canaanitish nations; and
that the blessing on them was, that the remnant, which was not destroyed,
was associated with the Jews! They admitted thus, that St. Peter (Acts iii.
25, 6) and St. Paul (Gal. iii. 8, 16) were right in arguing from the plain
meaning of the words, "In thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be
blessed."
3 The peace, characteristic of the ruler in this Psalm, reappears in the title,
"Prince of peace," in Is. ix. 6; in the peace foretold Is. xi; in Micah v. 5, "this
Man shall be our peace;" in Zech. ix. 10, quoting this prophecy.
♦ Heb. vii. 26, add Rom. viii. 34. The words, y, cannot be rendered,
as in the P. B. version, "prayer shall be made ever unto Him;" on the other
hand, the idiom is used exclusively of the intercession of one nearer to God for
one less near. It is used of Abraham who, as "a prophet," was to intercede
for Abimelech, that he might live, Gen. xx. 7; of Moses, interceding for Aaron
after the sin of the calf, Deut. ix. 20; of Samuel interceding for the people,
on their putting away their idols, 1 Sam. vii. 5; of his intercession after the
offence in asking for a king, asked for by them and owned by him as his per-
petual office, Ib. xii. 19, 23; of the prophet interceding for Jeroboam at his
486
Isaiah's prophecy that the Child to be born
2
e. In Isaiah there occurs that wonderful prophecy of One,
Who should be born a Child, yet of Whose personal rule
there should be no end, Whose reign should not pass away,
like that of mortal kings, who succeed others, to be suc-
ceeded by others, but which should endure from thence-
forth even for ever¹. The line of David had lasted, from
father to son, nearly 3 centuries, when Isaiah so prophe-
sied. God had promised to David, Thine house and thy
kingdom shall be established for ever before thee. Three
centuries had verified the promise. Isaiah opens ano-
ther mode of its fulfilment. It was no longer to be from
father to son, but was to abide in one individual, Who
should be born of his seed. Of Him he gives that won-
drous prophecy of lowliness and Divinity, united in the
Incarnation. 3 Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is
given, and the government shall be upon His Shoulder, and
His Name shall be called, Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty
God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. El, the name of
God, is no where used absolutely of any but God. The
word is once used relatively, in its first appellative sense,
* the mighty of the nations, in regard to Nebuchadnezzar.
It occurs absolutely in Hebrew 225 times; and in every
place is used of God. It has been observed, how, in He-
brew too, it is specially used in union with some attribute
request, that the use of his hand might be restored to him, 1 Kgs. xiii. 6; of
Zedekiah's request to Jeremiah, "intercede with the Lord our God for us,"
Jer. xxxvii. 3; of the like request of the people to Jeremiah, Jer. xlii. 2, 20,
and as forbidden by God, on the ground that He would not remit the pu-
nishment, Jer. vii. 16, xi. 14, xiv. 11; of the duty of the Jews in the captivity
to intercede for the heathen, Ib. xxix. 7; of Job, interceding for his friends that
they might be forgiven, Job xlii. 10. These are all the cases in which the
Concordances, at least, give the idiom. is also used with by of the per-
son for whom intercession is made, Job xlii. 8, and with 1 Sam. ii. 25.
1 Is. ix. 6 Heb. 7 Eng.
2 2 Sam. vii. 16. 3 Is. ix. 5 Heb. 6 Eng.
4 Ezek. xxxi. 11. It occurs once also in the plural, Ib. xxxii. 21. onica 'bx,
where 23 MSS have .
5 See Fürst Conc. pp. 48, 9.
6 Gesen. Thes. p. 48. by bx, Gen. xiv. 18, 19, 20, 22, Ps. lxxviii. 35. bx,
Gen. xvii. 1. &c. xap by, Ex. xx. 5. pang cang by Ex. xxxiv. 6. aging bing by Deut.
.21 .Ib אֵל צַדִּיק .15 .Is. xlv אֵל מִסְתַּתֵּר .3 .Ps. xv אֵל גָּדוֹל .10 .Jos. iii אֵל חַי .21 .vii
.Deut. vii. 9. &c הָאֵל הַנָּאֶמָן .16 .Is. v הָאֵל הַקָּדוֹשׁ And so .אַל גְבּוֹר as here
8
should be called" Mighty God."
487
of God; “God most High," "God Almighty," "a jealous
God," "the Living God," "God compassionate and gra-
cious," "God, the great and terrible," and the like, as, here,
"Mighty God." This way of rendering the words in
pairs agrees also with the immediate context, in which
the title of the Saviour, Who was to be given, is, in the
three other cases, expressed in pairs of words. Deci-
sive, however, is the occurrence of the same phrase in
the next chapter. There, no one could render other-
wise than, º A remnant shall return, a remnant shall re-
turn, to the Mighty God. No one can doubt that such is
the natural meaning of the words El Gibbor. Any one
acquainted with Hebrew, if asked irrelatively of any con-
text, "what is the meaning of the words El Gibbor? "
would answer at once, Mighty God; just as one, acquaint-
ed with Latin, would answer, that "Deus Omnipotens "
means, "God Almighty." There is no more real doubt
about the one than about the other. Had any Hebrew
writer wished to express might only, he could have been
at no loss to do so, without taking words, belonging to
God alone. It would then have been simply misleading,
to have used those words at all, unless the prophet had
used them in their simple meaning. And this, not in a
matter of slight moment, but in one touching the centre
of the faith. The Jewish people was a witness to the
Unity of God the Creator. The doctrine of the Trinity
enlarges the doctrine of the Unity, by revealing fully
that, of which indications only were given in the Old
Testament, the mode of the existence of the One God.
The doctrine of the Trinity being true, it is in accor-
dance with all God's other ways of teaching the Jews,
that He should have gradually prepared men's minds for
the full revelation of the doctrine. No one, who believes
the doctrine, doubts that these passages are to be under-
stood in their plain grammatical sense. No one,who had
not a repugnance to the doctrine contained in them, would
פֶלֶא יוֹעֵץ אֲבִי עַד שָׂר שָׁלוֹם 7
x. 21.
488 Isaiah's prophecy that from David's line in low estate
hesitate for a moment about it. Those who, because
they disbelieve that doctrine, resort to violent expedients
of explaining away the obvious sense of the words, have
to suppose, that prophets of God taught in words which,
in their only natural sense, contradicted, according to
them, the central doctrine as to the Being of God.
f. The passage does not stand alone in Isaiah. It is
nearly connected with that announcement of the Virgin-
Birth of Him, of Whom it is said, ¹she shall call His Name
Emmanuel, God with us.
g. In the prophecy of the rule of Him Who should spring
from the house of David when laid even with the ground,
the sucker from its hewn stump 2, Isaiah describes Him
1 vii. 14.
2
.only in the noun גזע (בִּרְעֹנִי גִדְעוֹן בִּדְעָם ) ,bers and the Judges
(xi. 1) is the "hewn stump," according to etymology, usage, and tra-
dition. and ya, differing only by the omission of the sibilant in 1, survived
in Hebrew; yu only in the verb and in two or three proper names in Num-
Both occur, as
verbs, in Arabic, y, "amputated," y, specifically of the "hewing off wood
from a tree." (Cast.) In Job xiv. 8, y is the "hewn stump" which may yet
revive and shoot forth. "There is hope to the tree, if it be cut down, and
it shall yet put forth, and its sucker shall not fail. Though its root wax old
in the earth, and its stump (?) die in the ground, through the scent of wa-
ter it shall shoot, and bring forth boughs like a plant;" (y, a tree freshly
planted.) In Is. xl. 24, the term, D, must necessarily be a part of the tree.
For the mighty, (as so often in Scripture,) is compared, in the different like-
nesses, to the tree itself. "They are not planted, (like a young tree,) yea,
they are not sown, (like a seedling,) yea, their stump shall not shoot forth root
in the earth." They themselves would be the stem, and this had just been
mentioned. The y are planted,” corresponds to the vy, "like a plant,” in
Job: the D, "their stump," to the yp, "its stump." It is a frequent con-
trast in Scripture, that the mighty shall neither prosper, (like the fresh plant,)
nor recover their fall, (like the sucker from the stump.)
In the context,
the via Is. xi. 1, corresponds with the □y, which had just preceded, Is. x. 33.
They are the two forms of the root, by which, in Hebrew, the action "hewing”
and the "thing hewn," "the stump," are expressed. It is a continuation of
the metaphor, and the common contrast in Scripture, that the mighty shall be
brought low, the lowly exalted. "Lo, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, loppeth
the bough with terror, and the high of stature are hewn down, (DY7) and the
lofty shall fall—and He shall cut down the thickets of the forest with the iron,
and Lebanon shall fall by a Mighty one; and a rod shall shoot forth from the
stump of Jesse, and a Branch shall shoot forth out of his root." The image
of a chance shoot from the stem, while yet standing, is also unseemly. Such
can but come to nothing, at best weakening and disfiguring the tree. From
shd, issue One, with Divine power. Micah & Zechariah. 489
as exercising Divine power. On His will hangs the life
and breath of His creatures. By His word they were
created; at His word the ungodly perish. He shall smite
the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath
of His lips shall He slay the wicked. St. Paul describes
in words, slightly varied from them, the destruction of
Anti-Christ. Then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom
the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth and
shall destroy with the brightness of His Coming.
4
h. Micah, the contemporary of Isaiah, prophesied the
birth of the Ruler at Bethlehem, as Isaiah had foretold His
birth in low estate. He too contrasts the going forth in
time to be the Ruler of Israel with the going forth from of
old, from the days of eternity; teaching not a præexist-
ence only, but an existence before all time, in eternity 6.
i. Two out of the three prophets after the Captivity con-
tain the same doctrine. It is God Almighty Who says,
I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabi-
tants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and supplication, and
Who adds, in words following at once, they shall look upon
the hewn stump, which has vitality, a strong tree will shoot forth. As such
a sucker, the Messiah is spoken of, both here (xi. 10.) and in Is. liii. 2. The
mention of Jesse, "the stump of Jesse,” belongs to the lowest estate of his line.
The book of Ruth mentions its more prosperous condition in the time of Boaz.
Eliab, Jesse's son, speaks of "those few sheep in the wilderness," (1 Sam.
xvii. 28) which yet were his father's whole flock, (Ib. xvi. 19, xvii. 15,) and
David speaks of himself as a poor man and lightly esteemed." (Ib. xviii. 23.)
Amos had already foretold the coming of the Messiah, when the tabernacle of
David should be fallen (see on Amos ix. 11. pp. 223, 4.); and Micah indicated
the same, when he foretold His birth at Jesse's little village Bethlehem. (See
on Micah v. 2.) Aq. Symm. Theod. render кopµds, and Kimchi says, “The tree
which is cut down, and its root is left in the earth, is called y." Is. xi. 1. is
quoted in connection with the preceding x. 34. in the Talmud Jerus. Bera-
choth f. 5. 1. (in Mart. Pug. fid. f. 279. Lightfoot Hor. Hebr. on S. Matt. ii. 1.
Schöttg. de Mess. p. 529.) in the Sanhedrin f. 93. 2. (in Schöttg. ad loc.) in the
Midrash Tillim on Ps. 72, 1. (Mart. f. 603.) the Bereshith Rabba on Gen.
xxxviii. 18, xlix. 8. (in Schöttg.) Tanchuma in Yalkut Shim. i. p. 247. (Ib.)
as also in Rashi and Abarb. Subsequent verses of c. xi. are quoted of the Mes-
siah in the Zohar also, and Sanhedrin; xi. 4, is quoted in the Midrash Tillim
on Ps. ii. 2, Midrash Ruth rabba, Pesikta rabb. f. 63, 1, (Sch. ad loc.) Tan-
chuma, (Sch. p. 77.) Zohar chadash. (Ib. 137.)
3 Is. xi. 4.
v. 1 Heb. 2 Eng.
4 2 Thess. ii. 8.
6 See further on Mic. v. 2.
490
Zechariah's prophecies
Me Whom they have pierced. But to pour out the Spirit,
issuing in and producing grace and supplication, is plain-
ly a Divine act, God alone having the sovereign power
over the heart, alone the power to give the Spirit and
to work in the heart grace and supplication. When Ze-
chariah prophesied, the Jews were familiar with that
great prophecy in Joel¹, in which God speaks of the future
outpouring of the Spirit, I will pour out My Spirit upon
all flesh, as the signal act of Divine power and grace.
Here He foretells that same outpouring of the Spirit, and
that, as a fruit of it, they should gaze earnestly on Him-
self Whom they pierced. Then, Zechariah prophesied
that He, Whom they first pierced and then penitently gazed
on, was God. Unbelief, of course, must have its ways of
escape. It has altered the text; it has ascribed to the
Hebrew word, dakaru, a sense which it nowhere has; it
has adopted unnatural constructions. Here again, each
party concedes all the truth which it can afford. They,
whose way of escape has been to alter the text, have ad-
mitted the genuine meaning of the Hebrew word; they
who have evaded the truth by means of a non-natural
rendering of one Hebrew word, admitted, as a matter of
course, the genuine meaning of the other, or the correct-
ness of the text. A full consent of all the Versions and
the oldest MSS attests the correctness of the text; an uni-
form use of the Hebrew words throughout Holy Scripture
attests, that their meaning, here, is that in which St. John
quotes them, declaring the actual piercing of the Christ 2.
3
k. As Zechariah then in this place, spoke of Him Who
was wounded, as God, so, in another, alleged by our Lord
of Himself, God speaks of the Shepherd Who was slain, as
equal with Himself. Awake, O sword, against My Shep-
herd, and against the Man that is My Fellow, said the Lord
of Hosts. The word rendered, My Fellow, (it has been ob-
served,) was revived by Zechariah from the language of
1 See on Joel ii. 28, pp. 127-9.
2 To avoid needless repetition, I reserve the details of proof for my Com-
mentary on Zechariah, if God wills. 8 Zech. xiii. 7. Hengst. Christ.
4
of the Divinity of the Messiah.
491
the Pentateuch. It was used 11 times in Leviticus, and
then was disused. There is no doubt, then, that the word,
being revived out of Leviticus, is to be understood as in
Leviticus. But in Leviticus it is used strictly of a fellow-
man, one who is as himself. The places are, 5 If a soul
sin, and commit a trespass against the Lord and lie unto
his neighbour in a deposit &c. or have oppressed his neigh-
bour. With the wife of thy neighbour thou shalt not lie
carnally. Ye shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie (lit.)
a man against his neighbour. 8 Ye shall do no unrighte-
ousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of
the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty; but in right-
eousness thou shalt judge thy neighbour. Thou shalt not
hate thy brother in thine heart; thou shalt in any wise re-
buke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him.
10 If
a man cause a blemish in his neighbour, as he hath done, so
shall it be done to him. 11 If ye shall sell ought to thy
neighbour or buy from the hand of thy neighbour, oppress
not (lit.) a man his brother; According to the number of
the years after the jubilee, thou shalt buy of thy neighbour.
12 Ye shall not oppress (lit.) a man his neighbour.
9
In all the cases, the ground of the injunction is, that
the duty commanded, or the offence prohibited or pu-
nished, relates to a fellow man. They are applications
of the great law, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy
self. "What, as a man, thou wouldest not have done to
thee, do thou not.” It is the law of our common huma-
nity. The name designates, not one joined by friend-
ship or covenant, or by any voluntary act, but one, unit-
ed indissolubly by common bands of nature, which a
man may violate, but cannot annihilate; which, when
they are violated, turn to his condemnation, and God is
offended, the common Father of His creatures.
6613 When
then this title is employed of the relation of an indivi-
5 Lev. v. 21 Heb. vi. 2 Eng.
iii. 529, 30. ed. 2.
7 Ib. xix. 11.
6 Ib. xviii. 20.
8 Ib. 15. 9 Ib. 17, where by refers to pay, as being
masc. in meaning, though fem. in form.
14, 15.
12 Lev. xxv. 17.
11 Ib. xxv.
10 Ib. xxiv. 19.
13 Hengst. Christ. iii. 530.
492 Zech's, and Malachi's prophecies of the Divinity of Xt.
1
dual to God, it is clear that that individual can be no
mere man, but must be one, united with God by an uni-
ty of Being. The Fellow of the Lord is no other than
He Who said in the Gospel, ¹ I and My Father are One,
and Who is designated as, 2 the Only Begotten Son, Who
lay in the Bosom of the Father. The word, it seems, was
especially chosen, as being used, in the Pentateuch, only
in the laws against injuring a fellow man. The prophet
thereby gives prominence to the seeming contradiction.
between the command of the Lord, Awake, O sword,
against My Shepherd, and those of His own law, whereby
no one is to injure his fellow. He thus points out the
greatness of that end, for the sake of which the Lord re-
gards not that relation, whose image among men He
commanded to be kept holy. To speak after the manner
of men, He draws attention to the greatness of the sa-
crifice, whereby ³ He spared not His own Son, but freely
gave Him up for us all. The word Man forms a sort
of contrast with My Fellow. He, Whom the sword is to
reach, must unite the Human Nature with the Divine."
3
4
7. On yet a third place in Zechariah I will only say
here, that it is Almighty God Who says, I will feed the
flock, Who with authority deposes the three shepherds
who abused their office; it is He Who said, give Me
My price, and, when the thirty pieces were given, spoke
of it as the price at which He Himself was valued. The
Lord said unto me, Cast it unto the potter, the goodly price
that I was priced at.
m. Malachi, lastly, gives to the Christ the Name, the Lord,
which belongs to God only. The ungodly Jews longed
for an interference of God in their behalf. Where, they
said, is the God of judgment? Behold, is the well-known
answer, I will send My messenger, and he shall prepare
2 Ib. i. 18.
8 Rom. viii. 32.
1 S. John x. 30.
4 Zech. xi. More fully, I hope in my Comm. See Hengst. Christol. iii. 410
sqq. Dr Mc Caul Obss. appended to his translation of Kimchi on Zech. pp. 132,
sqq.
Mal. iii. 1. "The Lord whom ye seek." "This is king Messiah,
and He is also the Angel of the covenant." Kimchi.
Daniel's prophecy of Him, as Man yet more than man. 493
the way before Me, and the Lord, Whom ye seek, shall sud-
denly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the cove-
nant, Whom ye delight in; where the coming of God to His
own temple and that of the Messenger of the covenant,
"the Mediator of the new covenant, is one and the same.
Our Lord Himself marks the identity, when He says of
St. John Baptist; "This is he of whom it is written, Behold,
I send My messenger before Thy face, which shall prepare
Thy way before Thee.
Daniel, does, certainly, foretell of the Christ, that He
should be Man and yet more than man.
One like a son
of man. He speaks of Him, not as before His Birth, nor
in His days on earth, but, as He is now, since His Ascen-
sion, at the Right Hand of God. He speaks of Him, not
as "to come," but as already come, His life on earth
past; (for on earth only could He have become a Son of
man;) His days of humility ended; not coming from
Heaven, but ascended to Heaven, and receiving all power
in heaven and earth, which, He said on earth, was given
to Him on His Resurrection. We see, in act, what was
said in words in David's Psalm, which Jesus quoted as
written of Himself, 'The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou
on My Right Hand until I make Thine enemies Thy foot-
stool. We see that everlasting dominion given to Him,
which has now been acknowledged for above 1800 years;
we behold Him, receiving the beginnings of that homage,
which has been rendered to Him ever since, and shall be
rendered to Him for ever, that 10 all peoples, nations, and
languages should serve Him. But this prophecy of Da-
niel, although clear in itself, and understood both by the
Jewish and the Christian Church, is not, in the least,
6 Heb. ix. 15.
7 S. Matt. xi. 10, S. Luke vii. 27.
8 vii. 13.
10 vii. 14.
9 Ps. cx. See ab. pp. 468-73.
11 There is a remarkable agreement of different Jewish Schools, that the Son
of Man, Dan. vii. 13, is the Messiah, much as they shrink from the prophecy
of the 70 weeks. "This is king Messiah." Zohar (Parasha Toledoth col. 338.
Sultzb. in Eisenm. Entd. Jud. ii. 756.) Rashi. "This is Messiah our righteous-
ness," Saadia, (comparing with it Ps. cx. 1.) "who shall come into the Pre-
sence of God," Ibn Yech. adds. Eisenm. quotes even Aben Ezra, as saying
494 Daniel and the rest prophesied alike the same truth.
clearer than those other prophecies. It is arbitrary to
select the one passage of Daniel, as clearly containing the
doctrine of the superhuman Being of the Messiah; then,
on the à priori ground that prophets and Psalmists could
not have meant it, to reject that meaning in other places,
where it is not a whit less clearly stated; and, finally, to
raise an argument upon the assumed omission of the doc-
trine in the other Prophets and Psalmists and its men-
tion by Daniel¹, that the book of Daniel must be consi-
derably later than they, because he believed what, in the
literal meaning of their words, they believed also. The
grammatical meaning of the words is as plain in the other
Prophets and in the Psalms as in Daniel. The argument
also tacitly assumes, not only the absence of any true re-
velation under the Old Testament, but the mere humani-
ty of our Lord. For, our Lord being God, then, accord-
ing to their own witness, the author of the book of Daniel
truly prophesied (to say the least) His superhuman Na-
They also assume, either the non-credibility of the
Gospels, or (God forgive it) error in our Lord Himself,
since He quoted that description of His Divinity and
Power over all, as fulfilled in Himself. The wound is
aimed at Daniel, through the Redeemer's Side.
ture.
3
ii. The statement as to the definite succession of
judgment, resurrection, appearing of the Messiah," is am-
biguous. If it were meant, that the second Coming of
Christ was to follow upon the judgment upon Anti-Christ,
and that then would be the general resurrection, this
would be the same as St. Paul also taught ³, and would be
nʊon, though in the present copies he explains it of the Jewish people. Mar-
tini Pug. Fid. P. ii. i. 13. f. 352, quotes from him; "R. Yeshuah said that this,
(Who was) 'like the Son of Man,' is the Messiah, and the saying is right." (pa
7777) Add the Tseror Hammor (Mart. p. 214.) the Midrash Tillim, on Ps. ii. 2.
comparing Ps. cx. (Mart. f. 423.) “ R. Berachiah in the name of R. Samuel,”
in Midrash Tillim on Ps. xxi. 7. (Mart. f. 504, 517.) See also Bereshith R. on
Gen. xxviii. 10. (ab. p. 86.) Tanchuma (ib.) Sanhedrin, Chelek (ib.) Beresh. R.
on Gen. xlix. 11. (Mart. f. 656.) Bammidbar R. sect. 13. f. 200, 1. (in Schöttg.
de Mess. § iv. p. 63.) 1 "Here he is presented in a higher aspect than
in any of the prophets; a heavenly being or messenger." Dav. iii. 177.
8 2 Thess. ii. 2-8.
2 Leng. p. Ixix.
He foretold the Second Coming of Xt. apart from time. 495
دو
true. But then it could be no argument against the ge-
nuiness of the book of Daniel, except on the assumption
of the falsehood of both. Lengerke, like the Jews, con-
founded the second Coming with the first, himself disbe-
lieving both. "4 We must naturally think, in conformity
with the parallel places 5, that, at this time, the reign of
the Messiah was to burst in. But the author conceives,
as connected with this, the Judgment as well as the Re-
surrection, as in Isaiah "." Now, first, if these events do
stand so connected in Isaiah, and no critic dreams of
placing the chapter of Isaiah later than the close of the
Captivity, how is their being so connected in Daniel to
be a proof that the book is later than the times of Dani-
el? But, secondly, the statement is not true. The great
"last things," are predicted in Daniel, independently of
time. In c. xii. after the prediction of the last troubles
of Anti-Christ, the Resurrection is foretold; but the Judg-
ment and the Second Coming of our Lord are not spoken
of there. In c. vii. the presence of our Lord in heaven,
as the Son of Man, is predicted, but not His actual Com-
ing to judge, although the judgment on Anti-Christ is
thrice spoken of7. The fact, if true, would be irrelevant,
except on the assumption of the falsehood of the state-
ments in St. Paul; since what, being true, could be known
to St. Paul by revelation only, might equally have been
made known to Daniel.
iii. But, apart from the order of these events, we are
told that "8 in Daniel's time they did not yet think of the
Resurrection ;" and, in order to account for the reception
of the doctrine of the Resurrection from the Parsees, it
is assumed that "9 it was first received by the Jews who
remained behind in the Captivity and who lived in an at-
4 p. 564, the place referred to in proof of the assertion, p. lxix.
5 "vii. 14. comp. 11, and ix. 24."
7 vii. 11, 22, 26.
6 “xxvi. 19. comp. 1-4, 9."
s Berth. Einl. iv. p. 1540.
9 Herzf. Gesch. Isr. ii. 309. Earlier rationalism asserted that the Jews bor-
rowed the doctrine of the resurrection from Parsism during the captivity, so e. g.
Ges. on Is. xxvi. 19. p. 805. Davidson follows these; on Ezekiel iii. 150. How
the Jews in Northern Assyria in the time of Ezekiel should have come in con-
496
The belief of man's immortality lay
mosphere altogether filled with this doctrine, and at last
passed from the Eastern Jews to the Jews, as Jewish."
The truth is nearly the reverse, that the doctrine of the
Resurrection, i. e. of the body, as distinct from a continued
existence of the soul after the death of the body, was not
known to the Zoroastrians until after the Christian era,
and was borrowed by them, together with much besides,
from the Christians.
Man's creation for immortality was, according to Holy
Scripture, contained in the history of his creation. Adam
knew it. His creation in the image of God, after His
likeness¹, in itself involved his immortality. All created
good is some reflex of its archetype in the Infinity of its
Maker's mind. Man alone, of all created things in this
our world, was formed in the image and likeness of Him-
self. He bore in himself that, for which, when it had been
defaced by the fall, he has been reborn in Christ, 2 the
image of the heavenly. But in that he was created in
the image of God, he must needs have in himself created
gifts, corresponding to the all-perfect attributes of God.
Man had then, as endowments wherewith he was created,
reason, intelligence, imagination, beauty of soul, justice,
goodness, righteousness, love, immortality, as a sort of
created reflection of the infinite Wisdom, Beauty, Good-
ness, Justice, Righteousness, Eternity of Eternal Love,
which is God. Every thing else may in the end be lost;
every gift of grace, even the capacity of grace, may in
the end be obliterated; every thing good, wherewith he
was endowed, may be forfeited for ever, in the endless
separation from God in hell. Immortality alone must
remain; and man is conscious of his immortality, be-
cause immortality is of the essence of his being. Thence
doubtless is that almost inextinguishable belief of his
tact with Parsism, or the Jews in Babylonia until the very end of the cap-
tivity, these writers do not explain. The argument against Daniel, of course,
falls through, since, if the Jews knew the doctrine in the captivity, its men-
tion in Daniel can be no argument, that he did not write during the captivity.
1 Gen, i. 26, 27.
21 Cor. xv. 49.
in the history both of his creation and his fall. 497
own immortality, however perverted the forms of that
belief may have often become.
And when he fell, and the image of God was defaced
in him and His likeness was obscured, the sentence pro-
nounced upon him at once implied, that death was not
his original portion, and that God willed to restore him to
life. In that
In that sentence, until thou return
3 unto the
ground, for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art,
and unto dust shalt thou return, it lay, that even his body
was not originally formed to be dissolved. For the death
of the body would not have been pronounced as the sen-
tence on his sin, had it been God's purpose for him if
he had not sinned. The truth of the Apostle's words, * by
one man sin entered into the world and death by sin; and
so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned, lay
in the sentence of God upon Adam. And so, again, that
first Gospel, the promise of the Seed of the woman who
should bruise the serpent's head, in itself implied man's
immortality. For the victory over the serpent would not
have been complete, unless man had been restored to what
he was before. It would have been nothing to him, had
he not been immortal. What of Adam was earthy re-
turned to the earth, and no redemption was wrought, no
victory was won. Then, since God's word is true, its
accomplishment lay beyond, and Adam, for whom it was
to be wrought, still lived, though unseen.
5
This belief was expressed by the Patriarchs, as St. Paul
developes their meaning 6, when they said that they were
strangers and pilgrims on the earth. The saying was
applied in the law, that each generation had but a life-
3 Gen. iii. 19.
4 Rom. v. 12. St. Paul is speaking only of the death of man, as the fruit of
sin, as is plain from the addition, “and so death passed upon all men &c.”
The objection then of some geologists, that death was antecedent to the exis-
tence of man, is plainly, in any case, irrelevant. Not but that, since angels
fell before the creation of man, death may have first existed, and that, even on
this our earth, in consequence of sin. Only it is not contained in the Apostle's
statement, which relates to man only.
5 Gen. ii. 15.
6 Heb. xi. 13 from Gen. xxii. 4, xlvii. 9.
K k
498 Belief in immortality in history of the Patriarchs, and
1
hold property in the promised land. The land is Mine;
for ye are strangers and sojourners with Me. The much-
containing phrase, "sojourners with God," itself lived
on. David took up the word2. It still expresses our
Christian hopes; we use his words in parting for a while
from those whom we love. For they, who are sojourners
with God here, undoubtedly abide with Him for ever.
The term in itself expresses, that they who used it look-
ed for a better country, their everlasting home with Him,
with Whom they now were sojourners. So David, in
the same Psalm, confessing man's frail condition at his
best estate here, owned forthwith, where his own longing
expectation lay. And now, what look I for, O Lord?
my longing expectation is to Thee.
4
3
The doctrine of life after death lay, for thoughtful minds,
in the continued relation of God to the Patriarchs, expres-
sed in the title, I am the God of thy father, the God of
Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, by which
God revealed Himself anew to Israel in Egypt. For our
Lord would not have blamed the Sadducees so severely,
5 ye therefore do greatly err, unless, through their own
fault, they had remained ignorant of what they might
have known. God, our Saviour adds, in explanation of
its meaning, is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
He said not, I have been, but "I am the God of Abra-
ham ""&c. God, (it lay in the words,) took no transient
care of those who were His; He, the Unchangeable, could
not be named from His relation to something so fleeting
as man's visible existence here; He, the All-Good, did not
enter into a relation to His creature, only, of His own ac-
cord, Himself unforsaken, to end it; He, the self-commu-
nicating, the Fountain of life, did not leave without some
portion of His life, those with whom He deigned to stand
in so close communion; they, who lived to Him, lived in
1 Lev. xxv. 23. 2 1 Chron. xxix. 15, Ps. xxxix. 12.
4 Ex. iii. 6, 15, 16, iv. 5.
5 S. Mark xii. 27.
3 Ps. xxxix. 7.
6 St. Mark follows the original in omitting the am, but the present relation
is expressed by the force of the terms, "I the God of Abraham." The sim-
in God's declaring Himself their God, after their death. 499
Him and by Him, and they who lived by Him, could not
wholly die: so then Abraham, the real Abraham, could
not be simply that form of earth which was to return to
the earth, although that also was a part of Abraham, and
therefore in the fact of the life of Abraham was involved
not only a continuance of life after death, but a resurrec-
tion from the dead. God would not be called the God
of the fishes of the sea or of the fowls of the air, or of any
of His irrational creation, although they were all the work
of His hands and He preserves them all, nor the God of
the wicked, although He was yet merciful to them, since
one day they would cease to have any portion of Him and
had now withdrawn themselves from Him; but only of
His saints and of the Holy hosts of heaven. His interest
in those whom He loves continued still after they were
gathered to their fathers, and was continued on to their
children; yet He took not an interest in that which was
not. All this, and far more, lay in those deep, simple,
words, "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the
God of Jacob."
7
The belief in reunion after death lies also in the va-
ried expressions of the association of the soul by death
with those who had gone before. It was said first, in the
form of a promise, thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace.
Of Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, it is said, he s was
gathered unto his people, words which do not intend a
reunion of the bodies in a common burial-place; for Abra-
ham was not buried with his fathers, nor was Ishmael9;
and Jacob speaks of it as something distinct from his
burial, ¹º I am gathered unto my people; bury me with my
fathers. It means also more than a common lot of death.
It speaks of the "I," and of a congregation, into which
each "I" should be received, the assembly of those, who
had been parted with out of sight for a time, but with
ple copula is not, and cannot be expressed in Hebrew; but the past or future
would have been expressed.
7 Gen. xv. 15.
8 Ib. xxv. 8, 17, xxxv. 29, xlix. 33.
9 Ib. xlix. 31.
10 Gen. xlix. 29. So also as to Abraham xxv. 9, and Isaac xxxv. 29.
K k 2
500
Belief in man's immortality in histories
1
whom, through death, he should be joined. David's com-
fort of himself, as to his child, I shall go to him, implies
the same belief of personal reunion. The later language,
he 2 slept with his fathers, contained the same truth.
3
The impression made by the history of Enoch, that God
took him ³ is marked by the repetition of the word as to
the ascension of Elijah *. The same word expressed the
faith of the Psalmists, the sons of Korah and Asaph, and
the faith, so expressed, entered thenceforth into the public
worship. From the time of David, Israel drank in that
faith in their devotions. ❝5 The rule of prayer was the
rule of faith." They confessed it, as we do, in their prayers
to God, and what we confess with our lips God works in-
to our heart, by the gifts of faith and of certain knowledge.
7
The subject of the 49th Psalm is the different lot of the
brutish who live for this world, as if it were their ever-
lasting dwelling-place, and that of those whose portion is
God. As to both, the Psalmist sees beyond the grave;
the worldling living, in his thoughts, by a sort of posthu-
mous immortality, but in vain. No brother can indeed
redeem a man, or make agreement unto God for him. They
are laid together in the stall of the grave, with death for
their shepherd. But what man could not do for himself,
God would. God will redeem my soul from the hand of
the grave; for He will receive me'. The grave had a claim
upon him; God would “redeem" him. He seems to hint
at mysteries which he does not speak. We know how
God willed to redeem from the power of the grave; but the
8
1 2 Sam. xii. 23.
2 1 Kgs. ii. 10 &c.
42 Kgs. ii. 3, 5, пph, add 9, 10.
5 “ut legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi."
Gall. § viii. Conc. iii. 475. ed. Col.
3 Gen. v. 24. in na?.
S. Celestine Ep. ad Episc.
6 Ps. xlix. 11.
emphatically at the beginning.
ṛ, “a man, his brother,"
7 Ib. 7, 8. vg ngọt ni ny. The пy is placed
The idiom is wholly different from the common,
i. e. one another. The construction here brings out the relation of the пy, “a
brother," i. e. one, who is merely a brother, cannot pay that great ransom,"
(the force of the emphatic 777) for a man, and give to God his redemption."
When then it follows, “God shall redeem my soul,” (the same word 779) it
follows, that it is altogether a different kind of redemption.
8 Ib. 14.
9 Again Ib. 16. (Heb. 15 Eng.)
of Enoch and Elijah. Psalm xlix. lxxiii.
501
result he expresses; "for He will receive me," i. e. to Him-
self. So far the two classes are separated; the world-
lings will be with Death for their shepherd, the godly
will be with God. But the Psalmist seems also to speak of
a meeting of the righteous and the wicked after this first
severance, a Morning yet to come after the night of death,
the great Resurrection-morning, "the Morning" which
has no evening; when there shall be the great public
reversal of men's judgments; the righteous shall have
dominion over them. Then, they, not the wicked, should
have the preeminence.
"
Yet more marked is the 73rd Psalm, because the pros-
perity of the ungodly had taken more hold of the Psal-
mist 10, and because it was in the Sanctuary of God that
he found his answer. The end of the ungodly is evil, sud-
den destruction12; and that end, like that of Korah, Da-
than, and Abiram, coming upon an evil life, is the earnest
of an evil hereafter. If this life were all, it were all one,
how it ended. The Psalmist saw, beyond, the contempt
to which they should awaken. 13 As a dream when one
awaketh, O Lord, in the Awakening 14 Thou shalt despise
their image, their vain unsubstantial being, since it was
void of God; a vain show, "full of sound and fury, signi-
fying nothing." What God despises must be full of con-
tempt; and so Asaph forestalls Daniel's words, ¹5some shall
rise to shame and everlasting contempt. On the other
hand, he sums up the past, present, future of the godly.
I am continually with Thee; Thou hast holden me by my
right hand, Thou shalt guide me by Thy counsel, and, af-
ter, receive me¹6 into glory. The after, when God's gui-
dance is past, can be no other than the great hereafter:
the word, receive me, is the appropriated term for our,
10 Ps. lxxiii. 2-4.
11 Ib. 17.
12 Ib. 18, 19.
13 Ib. 20.
יַקְטִיל on the same principle as the ordinary future is formed בְּהָעִיר for בָּעִיר 14
for up, and in common nouns, for . In the Inf. Hif. the contrac-
tion is more frequent with, on account of its more frequent use and closer
union with the verb, but it occurs with 1 also, wya, Neh. x. 39, iniba Jer. xxvii.
20; in Nif.ipa Pr. xxiv. 17. Lam. ii. 11. See Ges. Lehrg. § 94. 3. p. 320,
Ewald ausf. Lehrb. § 244 b. p. 612. ed. 7. 15 Dan. xii. 2. 16 Again v. 24.
502 Asaph knew that the godly wd. dwell for ever with God.
"take unto Himself." But the ground of this assurance
lies deeper than the assurance itself. And so it sheds
its light over much of Holy Scripture besides. Its
ground is that same ground which our Lord pointed out
in the title, "God of Abraham." God was the Psalmist's
own God, and so He could not fail him. All which God
had been to him, all which He was, He must be for ever.
For He is unchangeable. It is an inner revelation, such
as Heathenism could not know, because it could not know
of union with God, that God could make Himself belong to
the soul, as He had made the soul His own. Whom have I
in heaven? None had he, save God. But then God, in
all that wide heaven, was his. And with Thee, together
with Thee, and so, having Thee, I have no delight on earth.
In God he had all, and so he desired nought besides. But
then He who was so his, must be his for ever. My flesh
and my heart faileth, i. e. though flesh and heart be con-
sumed, nay, he speaks of them as consumed already, God
is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever. For
ever! Not then for this little span of life only. Union
with God is a pledge of immortality. But then every
child of Israel, who had learnt the truth of that Psalm,
10 God, Thou art my God, had in him the assurance of a
deathless unbroken unitedness with God.
2
The like contrast of the future of those who choose this
world, and that of those who choose God, for their por-
tion, occurs in a Psalm of David, with the same reference
to the Awakening, but in the calm self-possession of one
who knows in Whom he has believed, a Christian before
Christ came. He grants that the worldly had their whole
heart's desire. They were men of (lit. from) the world³
they belonged to it, and it to them; their portion was in
this life; God's choicest temporal treasures, His hidden
store*, were theirs; He filled their belly with them; they
1 Ps. lxiii. 1.
2 2 Tim. i. 12.
EK TоÛ KÓσμOU TOÚTOV. S. John viii. 23.
;
3 υἱοὶ τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου. S. Luke xvi. 8.
4 Ps. xvii. 14. 7py as by Job. xx. 26 ;
Deut. xxxiii. 19; and 15, (God) "stored up for,” Ps. xxxi. 20, (19 Eng.)
Prov. ii. 7; y with “stored up for,” in God's Providence, Ib. xiii. 22; of evil,
David knew of the Beatific Vision.
503
were sated with children, and had a sort of posthumous
existence in them, and a survival of their wealth, continued,
at their will, to their descendants. In contrast to these,
whose portion was in this life and in God's earthly gifts,
David says, where his was. As for me, I shall behold Thy
face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied, in the Awakening,
with Thy likeness. Satisfying is opposed to satisfying 5
end to end, all to all. The portion of the worldly had been
pursued to the utmost verge of this life, yea, and to all
of this world, which they could in their imagination grasp,
after their unwilling departure from it. And then there
stands, in opposition to it, the short summary of David's
whole portion; I shall behold Thy face; I shall be satis-
fied with Thy likeness. David had, before, spoken of that
beatific Vision, in contrast with the destruction of the
wicked. The upright shall behold His Face 6. Here,
alone, it is repeated, I shall behold Thy Face. This is ex-
actly what God had said to Moses, that man could not
see in the flesh and live 7. God revealed Himself to Mo-
ses more nearly than to others. Yet God did not, for
him, suspend the law of our mortality, that we cannot,
in the flesh, behold God and live. David, in both places,
says that it shall be hereafter, in the consummation of
the righteous, as opposed to the consummation of the un-
godly. Here, he says further, in the Awakening. It is
the special term, used of the awakening from death, ei-
ther for a time or for ever 10.
9
And in that sight will be
satisfying fulness. It is the beatific Vision. I shall be
satisfied, in the Awakening, with Thy Likeness, or Form 11,
The worldly had their fulness in children; he should have
his, in the Form of God.
Job xxi. 19.
.15 . אֶסְבְּעָה תְּמוּנָתְךָ .14 .v יִשְׂבְּעוּ בָנִים 5
6 Ps. xi. 7. The
two places illustrate one another. On the other side, "the face of the
Lord" is said to be "upon," i. e. turned in displeasure "upon evil doers,” (Ps.
xxxiv. 16,) yet, not “the countenance" but "the eyes" are said to "behold.”
The renderings then, "His countenance doth behold the upright," or "the thing
which is right," are unidiomatic. 7 Ex. xxxiii. 20, 23. s Num. xii. S.
10 Job xiv. 12, Is. xxvi. 19, Dan.
A corresponds to eîdos, S. John v. 37. or μoppń, Phil. ii. 6.
92 Kings iv. 31, Jer. li. 39, 57.
xii. 2.
11
504
Awakening" is necessarily said of the body.
The whole context, each expression, and the harmony
with other Scripture, require it to be interpreted of the
world to come. And then not of future life only, but of
resurrection ¹, and, since of the resurrection, then of the
body.
1
Continued life and resurrection are incompatibles in the
same subject. The soul lives on, sleeps not, continues
its unbroken existence; resurrection, awakening, belong
to that which was dead, asleep, the dust which had re-
turned to the dust.
The 16th Psalm speaks yet more distinctly of the body,
since it is a prophecy of the resurrection of the undecay-
ed Body of Jesus. It expresses a certain future, which,
every child of Adam knew, could not be directly fulfilled
in himself. He, of whom he speaks, was to see the grave,
but He was not to abide in it;
"Therefore My heart was glad, and My glory rejoiced,
My flesh also shall rest securely;"
and the ground of this unanxious rest of the body is;
For Thou wilt not leave My soul to Hell;
Neither wilt Thou suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption."
The force of the words is strengthened by their bearing
on each other. To "leave the soul to Hell," is, in He-
brew as with us, to abandon it to its power 2. The ground,
why the flesh, as distinct from the soul, should "rest se-
curely," is this, "for it shall not be left to hell." It should
rest securely; for it was to be there but for a little while.
And thereon follows eternal life, to which death is the en-
trance-hall;
Thou shalt make me know the path of life;
In Thy Presence is satisfying fulness of joy,
At Thy Right Hand are pleasures for evermore.
Even apart from the distinct words, "Thou shalt not
This is owned by R. Nehemiah in the Bereshith Rabba on Gen. iii. 23,
(Mart. Pug. fid. f. 457) and by R. Rachmon in Rashi, and Rashi himself, (quot.
ed. ib. f. 682.) The quotation from Rachmon rests on Martini's MSS.
2 as in Job xxxix. 14; with x, Ib. 11; Nif. with, Is. xviii. 6; or, in the
other sense of our "leave to," i. e. "bequeath to," Ps. xlix. 11; or “leave for,”
Lev. xix. 10, xxiii. 22. Mal, iii. 19. [iv. 1 Eng.] In each case it is an “aban-
donment to."
Psalm 16. prophesies our Lord's Resurrection.
3
505
suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption 4," the whole con-
3 De Rossi counts 158 MSS. of Kennicott and 183 collated by himself, in all 271
MSS., which read on "Thy loly One;" and 40 editions, some of the 15th,
most of the 16th cent. All the old versions render so. He quoted also Tal-
mud Bab., Midras Tehillim, Yalkut Simeoni, and, of later Jews, "Kimchi, Ara-
ma, Aben Sohev, Aben Yachia, Joseph Chivân, Alshech and others in their
published Comm. and R. Immanuel in his MS. Comm." The MSS., both Kenn.
and De Rossi affirm to be the best, although De Rossi states, that there are
even ancient Spanish MSS., one of Toledo A. 1277 and one A. 1413 Hillel,
and a Neap. Psalter A. 1490 which have 7705," (Scholl. Critt. p. 99.) Even
when the plur. p was brought into the printed editions, it was with the
punctuation of the singular and the note, 'n', "Yod is superfluous; " so that
'
it should be read 770п, “Thy holy one.' In the MS. of the Arab. version of
Saadiah (Poc. 281, see my A. E. to Nicoll's Cat. pp. 559, 60) the old Hebrew
text has on, the 'being squeezed in, in a different and later ink.
renders inconsistently, "holy ones," (plur.) but "see" (sing.) Tx bon eb
bb 18 In Hunt 416, (see ib.) where this and other missing Psalms
have been supplied in a different hand, the sing. occurs, 7 "thy friend." The
whole context is of the sing. The plural is owing to Jewish anti-Christian
controversy. "Very few MSS.," De Rossi says, "have the points of the plural.”
אן ירי בהא אלהלאך
Saadiah
4 (diaplopá LXX. Acts) is most naturally rendered corruption in Job
xvii. 14, (where it stands parallel with 727, "the worm,") and in Ps. lv. 24,
now awab,
,"to the pit of corruption" or "destruction." Also in Ps. xlix. 10,
ciii. 4, Jon. ii. 7, it is probably "destruction." Hengstenberg's attempt to main-
tain that S. Paul too may have taken in the meaning "pit," will not stand
comparison with the text. (Acts xiii. 35-7.) No one could have argued so
briefly; "He saith, Thou shalt not suffer Thy Holy One to see the pit-For Da-
vid-fell on sleep and was laid unto his fathers, and saw the pit. But He Whom
God raised again saw not the pit,” whereas, if the pit meant the grave, Jesus,
as well as David, did see the pit, and the Burial of Jesus as well as His Resur-
rection is part of our faith, "He was crucified, dead, and buried." Hengst.
tries to save himself from contradicting the Apostles by supposing that they
used the original word in the sense, "pit," and that St. Luke substituted the
LXX word "corruption," although wrong. This would any how have in-
volved an unfaithful rendering of St. Paul's own words. (v. 34, 36, 37.) But
Hengst. says; "In the sense, in which David did, Christ saw not the grave, saw
it not in the sense of the Psalmist.' Had this been St. Paul's meaning, the
supposed meaning of "see" must have been drawn out; whereas, not in any
given sense, but altogether, St. Paul denies that of Jesus, which he affirms of
David. This is one of the unhappy compromises in the later theories of one,
who has done so much good service to the truth, which has drawn down on him
the praise of Dr Williams, “even the conservatism of Hengst. is free and ra-
tional, compared to" &c. Essays p. 67. The belief of the later Jews, on the
ground of this Psalm, that David's body did not decay, (see e. g. R. Isaac in
Midr. Tehillim ap. Mart. P. F. f. 681,) is a strong proof of their interpretation.
Perhaps St. Peter alluded to it, and corrected it, "Let me freely speak unto
you of the Patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried,” &c. Acts ii. 29.
33
506 Passages in ye Pss., implying belief in yº life to come.
nection would be destroyed, if the verse were understood
of a mere temporary deliverance from death. Everlasting
life does not follow upon the mere delay of death, but the
freedom from death and corruption, in which the Psalmist
rejoices, is an entrance to the fulness of joy in the
everlasting vision of God.
What was fulfilled in Christ redounds to us, for, for
our sake, it was fulfilled in Him. The Psalm relates to
the Psalmist and to us, reflected back from Christ.
What was accomplished perfectly in Him the Head, over-
flows to us the members; His resurrection was the source
and the pledge of ours. So we believe, that God will not
abandon our souls to hell. But David knew and impressed
the more the belief in the resurrection, in that he set
Him before his people, over Whom death had no power,
and joyed in His joy, which He has made ours.
7
6
Besides these passages in the Psalms, which directly
express in words the belief in the life to come or the re-
surrection, there is also much language which implies it.
Look at the doings or gifts of God which, the early
Psalms say, will be "for ever." 1 Your heart shall live
for ever; Thou settest me before Thy face for ever;
3 Thou gavest him length of days, for ever and ever.
4 Thou hast set him a blessing for ever. Or reciprocally;
5 I trust in the tender mercy of God for ever and ever ; I
will praise Thee for ever; I will give thanks unto Thee
for ever; or again, the fear of the Lord endureth for ever.
An immortality of praise implies an immortality of be-
ing; the endless abiding of the reverence of God involves,
that they too who so revere Him shall abide alway.
Again, In Thee is the fountain of life; and in Thy light
shall we see light. What can it mean, but that, when we
shall be plunged into that Ocean of Light which God is,
all darkness shall cease; then, admitted to Himself, the
Fountain of life, we shall see in Him, what on earth we
1 Ps. xxii. 26. 2 Ib. xli. 12.
4 lb. 6.
3 Ib. xxi. 4.
5 Ib. lii. 8, 9.
6 lb. xxx. 12.
7 Ib. xix. 9. Add Ixi. 5. □phy, the "ages all along"
8
of the Veni Creator.
* Ib. xxxvi. 9.
General judgment & ye 2nd death, spoken of in Psalms. 507
11
و
9
never saw, the true eternal Light? What is this, but the
vision of God? Or when a son of Korah says, this
God is our God for ever and ever, He Himself 10 will be our
guide over death, what is death, but a mere point in our
everlasting relation to Him, over which He Himself, like
a tender Shepherd ¹¹, leads us?
leads us? Or when, in the sight of
the fruitlessness of all worldly pursuits and aims, he asks
God to teach him his end 12, what comfort was there to
know his end, unless he saw therein what was beyond that
end, even Him, of Whom in that same Psalm he says, my
longing is for Thee 13? David's words express our Chris-
tian hopes. We, whose hopes they express, cannot think
that they meant less to David, whose hope they first fed.
David knew also of a judgment of the world ¹. But
since the inhabitants of this world are ever in one flux,
some going, others replacing them, judgment of the
world implied a resurrection of the world, the great
meeting of all before the judgment-seat of God.
David knew too of the second death, of a "Sheol," into
which the wicked and they who forget God should be
cast 15. When then, under the sense of guilt, he says, 16 In
death there is no remembrance of Thee, he speaks not of
death only, but of the sentence after an evil death. At
times, thirsting to advance the glory of God in this life,
he desires life for the sake of that, for which the Chris-
tian too desires it, because here is the scene of promot-
ing that glory in others: whence Hezekiah says in the
same contrast, 17 The living, the living, shall praise Thee,
10
.הוא
9 Ps. xlviii. 14.
This is the simple meaning of no by mag. Death cannot be the end of the
guidance of a shepherd, (17 Gen. xxxi. 18, Ex. iii. 1, Ps. lxxx. 2, Is. xi. 6,
Ixiii. 14,) nor would God be our God for ever and ever, if death were a break
in that His relation to us. The most literal rendering is the truest. It is
not up to (,) but over (by). So also in v. 11, the praise of God is not spoken
of as reaching to the ends of the earth, exclusively of them, but overpassing
them. So the Syr. renders "over death," and, in the same sense, Lxx. and
St. Jer. "for ever;" as though it were an irregular plural, nihy.
13 See ab. p. 498.
14 Ps. i. 5, ix.
8, xevi. 13.
16 Ps. vi. 5.
1 lb. xxxix. 4.
15 Ib. ix. 18. (Heb.) Ixiii. 9. comp. Ps. xlix. 20, lxxxviii. 10-12.
17 Is. xxxviii. 19. So Ps. xxx. 9, cxv. 17, exviii. 17.
508 Distinct prophecy of the Resurrection of the flesh in Job;
as I do this day; the fathers to the children shall make
known Thy truth.
The great passage in the book of Job is a confession
intended for all times:
1 O that my words were written, O that they were graven in a book,
were cut with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever!
Their most literal translation is ;
And I, I know that my Redeemer liveth;
And that, the last, He shall arise upon the dust;
And, after my skin?, they have destroyed this body,
And from my flesh I shall behold God,
Whom I, I shall behold for myself,
And mine eyes shall behold, and not another [lit. a stranger ;]
My reins are consumed within me.
No doubtful meaning of any words can efface from the
passage the doctrine of the resurrection of the flesh.
Whether the dust mean the surface of the earth³, or the
dust, into which the human body returns; whether the con-
suming of the reins be, (as elsewhere in Job 4,) their actual
consumption, or whether it be an idiom, (although not
occurring elsewhere,) expressing that his inmost self
was consumed with a longing for that day,-this remains,
that Job looked forward to a manifestation of his Re-
deemer at the end, with power, whether on the earth, or
1 xix. 23-27.
The two constructions, in which 8 is taken as a
conjunction, (1. after they have destroyed my skin, this shall be; 2. after my
skin, which they have destroyed, this shall be ;) interrupt the description, and
would be very heavy and prosaic. The rendering, And after they have destroy-
ed this my skin, joins a masc. and fem. ni "y.
3 y occurs, 1) of the habitable surface of the earth, Job xli. 25. It is used
also not merely of the dust, but of the solid earth, Job viii. 19, xiv. 8, Is. ii. 19.
Elsewhere, the meaning of dust, friable earth, remains. 2) It is used of
man's returning to the dust, Gen. iii. 19, Job x. 9, xxxiv. 15, Eccl. iii. 20,
to their dust, Ps. civ. 29, resting in the dust, Job xvii. 16, lying down in, Job
vii. 21, xx. 11, xxi. 26, goers down to, Ps. xxii. 30, inhabiters of, Is. xxvi. 19,
place in the dust of death. Ps. xxii. 16. Man is spoken of as dust, Ps. xxx.
10, ciii. 14, Eccl. xii. 7; dust and ashes, Ny. Gen. xviii. 27. But op with
by signifies to “arise against," not, "with power over.”
4 is used of actual “consuming away" Job iv. 9, vii. 6 ; a cloud which va-
nisheth away, Ib. 9; his flesh consumeth away, xxxiii. 21; and so also be,
God destroyeth, ix. 22, and simply, they pass away, xxxvi. 11.
5 The common expression, his eyes shall consume, (viz. with vain longing,)
¿
of our Lord's in Hosea; of our's in Hosea and Isaiah. 509
over his own dust specially; that he knew that he himself
for himself should gaze upon his God; and that, after the
destruction of his body, he should, with the eyes of his
flesh, behold Him.
>
7
The saying of Hosea, After two days He will quicken
us; in the third day He will raise us up and we shall live in
His sight, is a continuation of this connection of the Head
and His members. "The strictest application is the tru-
est. The two days and the third day have nothing in his-
tory to correspond to them, except that, in which they
were fulfilled, when Christ, 9rising on the third day
from the grave, raised with Him the whole human race.'
99
Hosea and Isaiah carry on the triumph over death and
the grave, in terms so large and so absolute, that St.
Paul had no greater words wherewith to conclude his so-
lemn hymn of victory wherein he reverses, one by one, the
temporary triumphs of the grave over our poor bodies,
than the jubilant exultation of the two Prophets, 10 Death
occurs in Job xi. 20, xvii. 5, as in Ps. Ixix. 4, cxix. 82, 123, Jer. xiv. 6, Lam. iv.
17, and in Piel, 1 Sam. ii. 33. Else, he is joined, in the same sense, with the
"soul," Ps. lxxxiv. 3, cxix. 81, and the "spirit,” Ps. cxliii. 7; but does not, at
least, happen to be used with "the reins."
6 The rendering of "without my flesh," adopted by Davidson, ii. 227,
from Ewald, &c. is unidiomatic and unnatural. ¡, can no more, of itself, mean
"without," than our 'from." Where we might render" without," the
meaning is gained from the context. Job xi. 15, “thou shalt lift up thy face
□, from spot,” i. e. as we say "above," or "removed from; " Mic. iii. 6,
"there shall be a night to you ji, from vision,” i. e. hiding all vision from
you. Jer. xlviii. 45 is best rendered as in E. V. “because of the force.” (Gesenius'
instances, Thes. p. 805.) Gen. xxvii. 39 is best rendered as in E. V. "Thy
dwelling shall be of the fatness of the earth." Edom was rich once. Its de-
solation is prophesied. (See on Joel iii. 19. p. 144.) Obad. 9, also, (as in E. V.)
“from slaughter," as the cause. (See Ib. p. 239.) Is. xxii. 3, (also as in E. V.)
"bound by the bow," i. e. by the archers, as 3 verses before, xxi. 17. (These are
all Ewald's instances, Ausf. Lehrb. § 217b p. 480. ed. 6. p. 551 ed. 7.) On the
contrary, “I shall behold, ?, from my flesh," implies that he will be in the
flesh, from which he shall behold, as he goes on to speak of the eyes of his flesh.
Unless he had meant emphatically to assert, that he should from his flesh behold
God after his body had been dissolved, the addition of had been not merely
superfluous, but misleading. For the obvious meaning is “from out of my flesh,"
as the Versions shew. 7 Hos. vi. 2. my Comm. Ib. p. 38. 9 S. Jer.
10 1 Cor. xv. 54, 5. from Is. xxv. 8, Hos. xiii. 14.
S
510 Isaiah's prophecy of the resurrection of the good & bad,
is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O
grave, where is thy victory? Hosea's words of triumph
followed upon the most absolute declaration on the part
of God, ¹I will ransom them from the hand of the grave; I
will redeem them from death. The words of Isaiah go
even beyond the resurrection. Death, the destroyer, is
1
destroyed for ever.
All judgment is an earnest of the judgment to come;
all deliverance, of the deliverance; and so Isaiah having,
in previous chapters, pronounced God's judgments upon
single nations, does, in the great prophecy, c. xxiv-xxvii,
go beyond all particular judgments. The mention of the
end of all earthly things fits in with the largeness of the
other language. Three times in the prophecy he speaks
of the end of all, 1) of that swallowing up of death; 2) of
the resurrection of the body; 3) of judgment.
In the prophecy of the resurrection, his words too agree
with those of Daniel.
2 Thy dead men shall live; with my dead body (or, my dead bodies)
shall they arise.
Awake and jubilate, ye inmates of the dust;
For Thy dew is like dew on herbs,
And earth shall cast out the dead³.
Isaiah, like Daniel, foretold the resurrection of the good
and bad; only, that the good alone should rise to joy.
As the dew quickens the vegetation which lies so parch-
ed and dead, so the life-giving power of God, which the
Psalmist calls directly His Spirit, should quicken those
so long dead 5.
C
4
1 Hos. xiii. 14. See my Comm. pp. 86, 7.
רְפָאִים 3
2 Is. xxvi. 19.
"Refaim" is never used except of the evil dead. Primarily, it is the
name of a giant-race, one of the early races in Palestine, (Gen. xiv. 5, xv. 20,
Deut. iii. 11, 13, Josh. xii. 4, xiii. 12, xvii. 15,) who gave their name to "the
valley of Refaim," South-West of Jerusalem, (Jos. xv. 8, xviii. 16 &c) and, then,
(either from them or from the root, y5", "height," common in Arabic,)
"giants," generally (Deut. ii. 11, 20); as 7977 (2 Sam. xxi. 16, 18, 20, 22)
8977 (1 Chr. xx. 4, 6, 8.) Thence, strength being so often abused to violence, it
became the title of the ungodly dead (Job xxvi. 5, Pr. ii. 18, ix. 18, Is. xiv. 9);
whence it is said of them, that they shall not rise, i. e. to life, (Ps. lxxxviii. 11,
Is. xxvi. 14) and here, that they shall be cast forth.
4 Ps. civ. 30.
Davidson says, (from Knobel Ics. p. 172,) "His, [the prophet's,] idiosyn-
of the punishment of evil spirits and of evil men. 511
But, in one respect, Isaiah has more than Daniel.
For he foretells the judgment, not only of all on the
earth, but of those higher beings, who kept not their first
estate.
6
"7 The LORD shall punish the host of the height in the height,
And the kings of the earth upon the earth;
And they shall be gathered in a gathering, prisoners down to the pit,
And shall be shut up in prison;
And after many days shall they be visited,
And the moon shall be ashamed and the sun confounded;
For the LORD of hosts reigneth on Mount Zion,
And before His ancients gloriously."
The "host of the height" is contrasted with "the kings
of the earth," as, in Daniel, "8 the army of heaven" with
"the inhabitants of the earth." Each is to be punished
in the place of their sin. Both are to be kept in prison,
until a visitation 10 after a long period, as St. Peter says,
11 God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them
down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness
to be reserved unto judgment. Then, in the brightness of
the Eternal Presence before which sun and moon shall
pale, follows the blissful nearness of the righteous in
glory. Isaiah mentions specifically elders, anticipating
St. John 12
And so we cannot doubt that the same is contained in
the visitation of the crooked serpent and the dragon 13
which, in the corresponding place, follows on the resur-
rection of the dead,
The prophecy in Daniel 14, some shall awake to shame
and everlasting contempt, lies already in Isaiah, 15 They
crasy is deeply imprinted. Peculiar conceptions are, the life-giving influence of
dew on the dead," &c. iii. 22. They obliterate the metaphor, in order to insult
7 Is. xxiv. 21-23. 8 Dan. iv. 35. (32 Ch.)
the prophet. 6 S. Jude 6.
9 The E.V. supplies, "that are upon the earth," yet contrary to the parallelism.
"visited in punishment," as in Is. xxix. 6, Pr. xix. 23. comp. p
יִפָּקֵרוּ 10
in the corresponding place Is. xxvii. l.
11 2 S. Pet. i 4. add S. Jude 6. He hath reserved in everlasting chains un-
der darkness unto the judgment of the great Day.
v. 6, 8, 11, 14, vii. 11, 13, xi. 16, xiv. 3, xix. 4.
14 Dan. xii. 2.
12 Rev. iv. 4, 10,
13 Is. xxvii. 1.
15 lxvi. 24.
512 Isaiah, foretells y second death; Ezek., y flesh shallrise.
shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that
have transgressed against Me: for their worm shall not
die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be
an abhorring unto all flesh.
The great passage of Ezekiel',-with its vivid and thril-
ling minuteness of description of the bones, exceeding
many and exceeding dry, which, at God's word, came to-
gether, bone to his bone, and were covered with sinews,
flesh, skin, and the breath came into them, and they lived
and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army,-
implies the current belief of the resurrection of the flesh
the more, because the application is figurative, and is
made to strengthen a disheartened people. "Never," says
St. Jerome, "would the likeness of the resurrection be
used, in order to signify the restoration of the people of
Israel, unless the resurrection itself stood firm and was
believed as to be; for no one confirms things uncertain
through things which are not."
We may make the case our own. To a Christian no
future of the Church, (except whatever is involved in our
Lord's promise of His own continual Presence with it, and
that the gates of hell should not prevail against it,) is so
certain as the Resurrection of the Flesh. To us, an assu-
rance on God's part, that any future good condition of the
Church would as surely be, as the Resurrection of the
flesh, would be most reassuring, on the ground of our
certain knowledge of that doctrine. So then to the Jews
also.
On the first vague acquaintance with the writings of
the Parsees, it became an axiom among rationalists, that
all the fuller belief in the resurrection came from the
Zend writings. Those who disputed the antiquity of re-
velation, received with both hands any statements of the
antiquity of Zoroastrism. Its books passed muster, en
masse, with those who were dissecting every chapter of
2 ad loc. "A figure could not be taken from the bones,
unless the self-same reality were to come to pass as to the bones too.” Tert.
1 xxxvii. 1-10.
de res. carn. c. 30.
Fulse notions as to the Zend books.
513
the prophets; any interpretation was accepted unhesi-
tatingly, so that it presented a doctrine which might ri-
val or eclipse revelation. The doctrine of the Zend
books was preferred to the Old Testament by renegade
Christians 3.
2
The statement, that the Zend books contained the doc-
trine of the Resurrection, was first rested on mistransla-
tions. Anquetil had translated "until the resurrection 4"
a word which is now acknowledged to mean "for ever 5,”
and on the strength of this mistranslation or from writ-
ings long after our era, it was received as infallible truth,
that Isaiah and Daniel, or the writers who wrote under
their names, borrowed the doctrine of the Resurrection
from the Parsees". Whether the doctrine was true or
3 Rhode, with whom the Bundehesh, (a book of the 7th century A. D.) was
an authority earlier than Moses, said, "The Mosaic tradition and the Mosaic
law gain more consistency and become more intelligible, if we consider them
as offshoots of the older revealed doctrine, which is preserved fuller in the
Zend writings." (d. heil. Sage, p. 461.) "An impartial comparison of the rela-
tion [of the fall] in Genesis with that in the Zend, forces on us the conviction,
that the older Zend tradition of the rebellion of Ahriman, of his strife with
Ormuzd, of the position of man between those two great beings (!), and the
consequent interest of Ahriman to draw man over to his side, is presupposed,
and that one must of necessity refer to it, if the narrative of Moses is to be-
come intelligible." (Ib. 393.) He maintained that the Pentateuch is dualistic,
(p. 455,) and said, "One might in truth call the prayer of Jesus, [the Lord's
prayer,] a brief extract from the prayers of the Zend writings." p. 416. Rhode's
uncritical book, embodying Anquetil's necessarily faulty and unreliable trans-
lation of books of various dates, is still the source of the rationalist imputation
of Parsism to Holy Scripture.
4 "Of the resurrection of the dead, or the awakening of the dead at the
end of the world, mention is often made in the Zend writings, and the ex-
pression which occurs so often, 'unto the resurrection of the dead,' always de-
notes the duration of the world which yet remains."
Rhode heil. Sage p.
465. "The expression occurs in this sense countless times, e. g. Vendidad
Farg. viii. p. 342." Ib. note.
5" In consequence of Burnouf's enquiries into the phrase, yavaécha yavatá-
taếcha, which had been translated by Anquetil, 'till resurrection,' but which
means nothing but for ever,' the existence of such a doctrine in the Zend
Avesta was lately doubted." Haug, Essays on the Parsees p. 266.
6 e. g. Gesenius on Is. xxiv. 21 pp. 772, 3. quoting Rhode. Herzfeld still de-
rives the doctrine of the Resurrection in Ezek. Is. Dan. from Parsism, chiefly
on the ground of the language of the very late Bundehesh. Gesch. Isr. ii. 307.
früh. Gesch. 180, 1.
Ll
514 Resurrection unknown to ye older books of ye Zend Av
false, the school did not trouble itself; only it was to be
borrowed. Probably it was supposed to be false, and
its derivation from Zoroastrism was tacitly to prove
its falsehood.
Another passage from the Vendidad, which had been
so translated as directly to affirm the resurrection of the
dead, and which used to be alleged as, beyond all question,
containing that doctrine, now, in a more accurate version,
plainly contains no such doctrine. It even shews that, at
the date of the Vendidad in which it is contained, the
doctrine of the resurrection, as it exists in the later Par-
see books, was not known to them ¹.
1
The statement, that the books of the earlier Parsism
contained the doctrine of the Resurrection, being neces-
sarily abandoned, the germs of the doctrine, at least, were
to be found in the Zend writings. One passage, whose
meaning is confessedly extracted with great difficulty, has
been found in what are claimed to be the older writings;
Anquetil translated Vend. Farg. xix. thus, "Zoroaster consulted Ormusd,
'Ormusd, who knowest all, shall the pure man rise again, shall the pure wo-
man rise again, the Darvands, the worshippers of the Dews who torment men,
shall they rise again? (shall one see) the running water, the corn which grows,
go upon the earth given by Ormusd? Shall all these things go upon (the
earth ?)' Ormusd answered, '(all) shall rise again, o pure Z.' 'How shall they
be pure, how shall they walk pure, how shall they be pure, how shall they ap-
proach purely; the men of the existing world, to whom the soul shall have
been restored?' Ormusd answered, 'When the man is dead, when he is in this
state, the Dew, master of the evil law, besieges the corpse behind and before
during three nights,""&c. Zend. Av.ü. pp. 417, 8. Spiegel's translation is, “Shall
I summon the holy man, shall I summon the holy woman, shall I summon the
sinner among the evil, the Daeva-worshippers? Shall they spread over the
earth running-water, growing fruits, shall they spread other riches over it?
Ahuramazda answered, 'summon, o pure Zarathustra !' 'Creator! where are
these judgments, where do these judgments take place, where are these judg-
ments gathered, where do these judgments come together, which man dis-
charges to the corporeal world for his soul?"" Spiegel observes; "The follow-
ing passage is of moment, and, taken together with § 26, is a proof, that the
resurrection, at the time when the Vendidad was written, was not yet known
to the Parsees. The pious here go at once on the 3rd day to paradise; the bad
to hell. Also the present passage exhibits the whole idea very simply, whereas
the later Parsism in the Minokhired, Viraf-name, and a little fragment belong-
ing to the older period (Anq. ZAv. i. 2. pp. xiii. sqq.) variously deck it out."
Av. i. pp. 248, 9.
"Perpetuation of life" distinct from Resurrection. 515
“2 We," [i. e, Zoroaster and his friends,] "will be they,
who make this life lasting; and the living wise [a plural
of Ahura mazda] are the supportings most moving and
true; for the intelligent is wont to be, where prudence is
at home." Granting the utmost which can be meant by
this passage, of which all the important words have to
be decyphered with difficulty, and from which any mean-
ing certainly has not yet been decyphered, it contains,
manifestly, no doctrine whatever of a resurrection. "A
future life,” after the death of the body, is the belief of
mankind; a doctrine, which, like that of the Being of
God, unless stifled, lives on, amid whatever debasements,
in the human heart and consciousness. Not the immor-
tality of the undying soul, but the restoration of this in-
dividual body, which is resolved into the dust whence it
was taken, was, and is in part, the stumbling-block of
intellect. The Zend phrase, "the perpetuation of life,”
is, by the force of the term, distinct from, and incompa-
tible with, resurrection of the same substance. It ex-
presses what Heathenism believed, the continued life of
the soul; it had no bearing upon what God revealed in the
Old and New Testament, the restoration of the body.
So this too has been eked out by a passage from one
of those books, the Yashts³, which the author, who quotes
2 Gâthâ Ahunavaiti (Yaçna c. 30.) 4, 9. translated by Haug, d. Gâthâs d. Za-
rathr. i. 9. and Comm. pp. 109-113. I have preferred the translation in his La-
tin and his Commentary, because his German translations are often a popular
paraphrase, in which more or less is naturally added to the original. The un-
certainty of the passage appears from the very different rendering of Spiegel,
Avesta ii. 120; "May we belong to thee, we who seek to further this world.
May the wise lords bring help through Asha. Whoso is here teachable, will
there unite himself with wisdom."
3 Haug translates the passage thus, "This splendour attached itself to the
hero who is to arise out of the number of the prophets, (called Soshyanto,) and
to his companions, in order to make the life everlasting, undecaying, impe-
rishable, imputrescible, incorruptible, for ever existing, for ever vigorous, full
of power, at the time when the dead will rise again, and imperishableness of
life will exist, making the life lasting by itself. All the world will remain for
eternity in the state of purity; the devil will disappear from all those places,
whence he used to attack the religious men, in order to kill; and all his brood
and creatures will be doomed to destruction." Zamyâd Yasht 19, 12. (90 West.)
L12
516 The Bundehesh, probably of the 7th cent. after Christ,
it, confesses to be of late date, calling it "1a literature,
which grew up at a time, when the Zoroastrian religion
had already very much degenerated," itself largely "con-
tributing towards that deterioration."
The modern Bundehesh has no claim to be considered
a developement of Zoroastrism. It is written in a lan-
guage, the basis of which is some form of Aramaic, (it is
thought, Assyrian Aramaic 3.) According to the close of
³,)
the book, it is later than Mohammed 4. But, whatever
its date, the writer has borrowed largely from Christian
sources, as on other subjects, so here. The illustrations",
Spiegel translates it; “which attached itself to the victorious Çaoshyanç and
his other friends, that he might make the world progressive, not aging, un-
dying, not stinking, not putrid, ever-living, ever-benefiting, an empire accord-
ing to wish, that the dead may arise, that deathlessness may come for the liv-
ing, and the world advances itself according to wish. The worlds which teach
purity will be undying, the Drukhs will disappear at that time. So soon as
it comes to the pure to kill him and his hundred-fold seed, then is it for dying
and fleeing away (ripe)." Avesta iii. pp. 183, 4, 174.
1 Haug Essays p. 223. "This kind of literature, [the Yashts,] grew up at
a time, when the Zoroastrian religion had already very much degenerated, and
its original monotheism [dualism] partially given way to the old gods, who
had been stigmatised and banished by Zarathustra Spitama, but were after-
wards transformed into Angels." "This kind of literature has, no doubt,
largely contributed towards the deterioration of the religion founded by Z. Sp.,
and partially re-established what the prophet had endeavoured to destroy."
2 The original purity of Zoroastrism is a theory of Haug's contrary to
the facts, in regard to Monotheism, since the Gâthâs are distinctly dualistic,
and in regard to the inferior gods, since those borrowed from Vedism must al-
ways have belonged to it. Human nature would be to be pitied, if it could be-
lieve such trash as that Yasht to be the original of the doctrine of the Resur-
rection.
3 Haug üb. d. Pehlewi Sprache u. d. Bundehesh, p. 28.
4 "The grammatical and lexical peculiarities, which, to the philological en-
quirer, establish its late date, have been already mentioned in the preceding
paragraphs. Lastly, the list of Emperors at the end of the book, often men-
tioned already, which brings us to the time after the destruction of the Empire
of the Sassanidæ, is an undoubted mark of its late origin, and I can discover
no mark which should justify criticism in considering these notices as appended
later, as has often been maintained." Spiegel d. trad. literat. d. Parsen p. 94.
Haug, who thinks the existing book to be probably a translation, supposes it
to have "come into being in the first centuries of our era; the translation pro-
bably towards the end of the rule of the Sassanidæ ; or, if the close of the book
is genuine which speaks of the dominion of the Arabs, not until after the con-
quest of the Persian Empire by the Arabs." ib. p. 30.
5 They are, in sum, that God, Who created, could restore what He created.
borrowed from Christianity.
517
by which it defends the resurrection of the body against
objections to its possibility, are such as were current in
Christian apologists, and were doubtless learned in the
school of Edessa, where Persians also studied 7.
iv. The allegations, in regard to Daniel's teaching as
to the Angels, also assume grave doctrinal error in the
New Testament. For most of the points objected to are
taught there also. Leaving this for the time, I will first
remind you briefly, what is the doctrine as to Angels
before Daniel; so we shall see the better, what acces-
sions came through Daniel. The doctrine, as contained
throughout the Old Testament previous to Daniel, is this;
that there lives in the Presence of God a vast assembly &
myriads upon myriads of spiritual beings 10, higher than
He brought light out of darkness; "created the seed of corn, which, after de-
caying in the earth, bursts forth anew, and multiplies countlessly." He created
the sap in trees, the living fruit in the mother, &c. c. 31. pp. 111,12.
9
8
6 "Thou sayest, how can matter, which hath been dissolved, be made to ap-
pear?
Consider thyself, O man, and thou wilt find how to believe this thing.
Think what thou wast, before thou hadst a being; simply nothing; for hadst
thou been anything, thou wouldest have remembered it. Thou therefore that
wast nothing before thou didst exist, and that becomest also nothing, when
thou ceasest to exist, why canst thou not begin to exist again from nothing
by the will of that self-same Creator, Who hath willed that thou shouldest come
into being, out of nothing?-Declare, if thou canst, the manner in which thou
wast made, and then seek to know how thou shalt be made. And yet surely
thou shalt be more easily made that which thou once hast been, seeing thou
wast made, equally without difficulty, that which thou never hadst at any time
been. There will be a doubt, I suppose, as to the power of God, Who hath
framed out of that which was not before, not less than out of a death-like void
and nothingness, this vast body of the universe, animated by that Spirit which
animateth all souls, stamped too by Himself as an emblem of the resurrection
of man, for a testimony unto you. The light, which is extinct every day, shi-
neth forth again, and the darkness in like manner departeth and succeedeth
in its turn;—the seasons, when they end, begin anew; the fruits are consumed,
and again return; the seeds assuredly spring not up with new fruitfulness, ex-
cept they be first corrupted and dissolved; all things are by dying preserved;
all things are formed again from death." Tert. Apol. c. 48. pp. 99, 100. Oxf. Tr.
See other fathers, Greek and Latin, referred to ib. not. z. b. c.
See ab. p. 148. n. 1.
8 Ps. lxxxix. 5. 1 Kings xxi. 19, “all the
host of heaven standing by Him on His right hand and on His left."
9 Ps. lxviii. 18. (17 Eng.) lit. "twice ten thousand, yea thousands of repeti-
It is Daniel's "thousand thousands and ten thousand ten thousands.”
tion."
vii. 10.
10 Ps. civ. 4.
?
518
Numbers and nature of Angels and their
4
7
3
2
9
we, but infinitely removed from God¹, mighty in strength,
doers of His word, ever set to hear the voice of His word;
who ceaselessly bless and praise God; wise 5 also; to
whom He gives charge to guard His own in all their ways;
ascending and descending to and from heaven and earth,
and who variously minister to men, most often invisibly.
But all, (it was declared,) are interested in us and our well-
being. For, when our earth was created, all the sons of
God burst forth into jubilee, in prospect of our birth, who
were to be their care here, their fellow-citizens hereafter
in bliss. It was an anticipation of that which we know
more fully, that the angels desire to look into 10 the myste-
ries of our salvation. At the giving of the law on Mount
Sinai, they were present¹¹ in myriads. At that great ma-
nifestation of the goodness and condescension of God,
how should not they be present, who rejoiced at the crea-
tion of our race? Good beings must be interested in those
capable of good, and in God's ways of forming them for
Himself. When God vouchsafed His Presence at Mount
Zion, and the holy place became a new Sinai 12, twice ten
thousand angels, yea, thousands many times repeated,
were there. They are present with God, witnessing the
trials of our race. On two occasions, when they present-
ed themselves 13 before God, they heard of Job's spotless-
ness and of the great trial of his faith. Job already,
like the Apostles afterwards, was 14made a spectacle to
Angels. This trial of Job was the proving of one outside
of Israel; their joy at our creation related to the human
race. They were again present 15, and learnt how Ahab's
false prophets would, by the intervention of a lying spirit,
¹ Ps. lxxxix. 6. Job iv. 18. nn lit. "folly." Eng. V. from 7. So Kim.
AE. Saad. ap. Ges. Lex. p. 382. The Verss. render it as of a moral defect;
OKOλIÓV TI, LXX; pravitatem, S. Jer.; iniquity, Ch.; in which case it would re-
late to the fallen angels.
4 Ps. lxxxix. 5, ciii. 20.
7 Gen. xxviii. 12, 13.
xxxiii. 2, Num. xx. 16,
9 Job xxxviii. 7.
12 Ps. Ib.
8
2 Ps. ciii. 20.
5 2 Sam. xiv. 17, 20.
a vibwh
6 Ps. xci. 11.
as Gen. xxiv. 7, 40, Ex. xxiii. 20-23, xxxii. 34,
Is. Ixiii. 9. and note 6.
10 1 S. Pet. i. 12. 11 Deut. xxxiii. 2, Ps. lxviii. 17.
13 Job i. 6, ii. 1.
14 1 Cor. iv. 9. 15 1 Kings xxii. 19.
interest in us, as revealed before Daniel. 519
have power to deceive to his destruction Ahab who wish-
ed to be deceived; Ahab and his prophets accomplishing,
each of his own freewill, what was against their will.
Their love for man shews itself, in that, when God com-
manded them to destroy the guilty in Jerusalem, the
charge is given to them, 16 let not your eye spare, neither
have ye pity, as though they would have pity, only that
they must needs be of the same mind with God. It is in
conformity with this, and an anticipation of the New Tes-
tament, that, in the prophecy of the Day of Judgment in
Daniel, the myriads of the ministering spirits are exhi-
bited as standing around the Throne. Their office there,
it was reserved to our Lord, the Judge, to declare; Da-
niel only declared their interest in it. The Day of the
judgment of our whole race must needs unfold, even to
those blessed spirits, more of the wisdom and love and
justice of the Creator of us all.
Some distinction among those heavenly hosts was re-
vealed from the first. It would be out of harmony with
the manifold beauty and gradations in the rest of God's
creation, if those higher orders of intelligent beings were
of one kind only. At the closed gates of Paradise were
the Cherubim 17.
But chiefly there was one, designated as "the Angel
of the Lord," in whom God accustomed His creatures
to the thought of beholding Himself in human form.
Whether it were God the Son, Who so manifested Him-
self beforehand 18, (His Godhead invisible, as in the days
16 Ez. ix. 5. comp. viii. 18. It is Herzfeld's observation. Gesch. Isr. ü. 277.
17 Gen. iii. 24.
18 This was the common belief of the earliest fathers. S. Augustine pointed
out the mistake of inferring this from S. John i. 18, "No man hath seen God
at any time," since the Divine Nature of the Son is as invisible as that of the
Father. See references on Tertullian de Præscr. n. 13. p. 463. n. f. Oxf.
Tr. ed. 2. S. Athan. Conc. Arim. p. 120. n. q. O. T. S. Augustine's own sum-
mary is, "the modest and cautious consideration of the Divine mysteries per-
suades us, I deem, not to pronounce rashly, which Person of the Trinity ap-
peared to any one of the fathers or prophets in any body or likeness of a body,
except where the context supplies any probable indications." de Trin. L. ii.
fin.
It is plain that all those objects which were seen by the fathers, when
520 The "Angel of the Lord," probably a created Angel
of His flesh,) or no, yet there was one, known as the An-
gel of the LORD, distinct from and above all the rest. He
speaks with authority, as the Lord; therefore the Lord,
whether the Father or the Son or the Holy Ghost, was
present with him, and spake by him; he is called, not as
an epithet, but as a description of his being, the Angel of
the LORD; therefore it seems to me most probable, that he
was a created Angel¹. It seems most probable, that the
word, Angel, describes his actual nature, not the higher
Nature, which spoke or was adored in him. God spake
by the Angel of the LORD to Hagar 2, I will multiply thy
seed exceedingly; and she called the Name of the LORD that
spake unto her, Thou, God, seest me. The Angel of the
LORD arrested Abraham in doing that which God had bid-
den him to do, to offer Isaac his son.
God in him ac-
God was represented to them according to His own manifestation, as befit-
ted those times, were wrought through the creature. And if we cannot tell,
how He did them through the ministry of angels, yet that they were done by
angels, we say not of our own minds," but on "the authority of the Divine
Scriptures." iii. 11. n. 22. "This Person [of God the Word] angelic nature
could aforetime figure, in order to fore-announce; it would not expropriate,
so as to be Itself." Ib. iv. 20. fin. n. 30. "The Son Himself, Who is the Word
of God, not only in these last times, when He vouchsafed to appear in the
flesh, but aforetime too from the foundation of the world, announced as to the
Father to whom He willed, whether by speaking, or by appearing, either
by some angelic power or by any creature." c. Adimant. c. 9. S. Irenæus
also speaks of "the shewing of God through the creature." iv. 20. 7. And
S. Athanas. “But if, when an angel was seen, he who saw heard the voice
of God, as took place at the bush, for the Angel of the Lord was seen in the
flame of fire from the bush, and the Lord called Moses out of the bush, saying,
'I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac
and the God of Jacob,' and the Angel was not the God of Abraham, but it was
God who was speaking in the Angel, and he who appeared was an Angel, but
God spoke in him." Orat. 3. c. Arian. § 14. p. 421. Oxf. Tr.
So also Dionys.
de cæl. hierarch. c. 4. in Petav, de Trin. viii. 2.
1 The fathers mostly applied the title of the Angel to God the Son on the
ground of the gloss of the LXX in Is. ix. 6. μeyáλns Bouλñs ǎyyeλos, “magni
consilii Angelus." But, although Malachi foretells our Lord's coming in the
Flesh, under the titles "the Lord," "the Angel," or Messenger, "of the Cove-
nant," (iii. 1.) there is no proof that He is any where spoken of absolutely
as "the Angel," or that His Divine Nature is so entitled.
2 Gen. xvi. 10, 13. add Ib. xxi. 17, 18, where the Angel of God says, 1 will
make him a great nation.
with special Presence of God; named in all the O. T. 521
cepted the obedience, as having been done to Himself.
³ Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not
withheld thy son, thine only son, from Me. Angels of
God's host met Jacob; but it was one, to whom he made
supplication, and who blessed him, and who, Hosea says,
was the LORD of hosts, of whom Jacob said, I have seen
God, face to face. The Angel of the Lord withstood Ba-
laam, because, God says by him, "thy way is perverse before
Me; the word that I shall speak unto thee, that thou shalt
speak, the self-same words which God had said to him
in vision before 7; those words, which were the turning-
point of his next subsequent history. Of this Angel God
says, My Name is in him; in him were manifested the
Divine attributes; he was the minister of God's justice
who would not pardon their transgressions; to him God
required obedience to be paid. His speaking was God's
speaking in him; for God says, 10 If thou shalt indeed obey
his voice and do all that I command you. And since he
was not present by any visible presence, there was no
way of obeying him, except in obeying what God com-
manded to Moses. Since God was present in him, God
uses as equivalent terms, the words, 11 the Angel of His
Presence, or 12 My Presence. And when the time of fulfil-
ment came, of which God had said, 18 Mine Angel shall go
before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, &c, and
I will cut them off, it is still one Angel in human form,
who says to Joshua, As Captain of the LORD's host am I
come, in whom Joshua worshipped God, and by whom
God required the same tokens of reverence as He had
from Moses 14.
13
3 Ib. xxii. 11, 12. Dr Stanley, (Jewish Church, pp. 48, 50,) avoiding the
coarse language of Dr Williams as to "the fierce ritual of Syria," in substance
agrees with him, and represents that as a stern logical consequence of the
ancient view of sacrifice," "infirmity, exaggeration, excess," which, God says,
was obedience to His voice. Gen. xxii. 18.
4 Gen. xxxii. 1, 2.
5 Ib. 24-30, Hos. xii. 2-5. See my Comm. p. 77.
8 Ib. xxiii. 12, 26, xiv. 13.
7 Ib. 20.
11 Is. lxiii. 9.
6 Num. xxii. 32-35.
10 Ib. 22.
14 Josh. v. 13-15, and Ex. iii. 5.
12 Ex. xxxiii. 14.
9 Ex. xxiii. 21.
13 Ib. xxiii. 23.
522 The Angel of the Lord in Judges and Psalms ;
1
By the Angel of the LORD God upbraided Israel in the
time of the Judges; ¹I made you to go up out of Egypt,
and have brought you unto the land which I sware unto
your fathers, and I said, I will never break My covenant
with you. Wherefore also I said, I will not drive them out
from before you. The Angel of the LORD, pronounced the
curse upon Meroz² for unfaithfulness; and it disappears
from history. In the mission of Gideon, the titles, the
Angel of the LORD, and the LORD, interchanged 3. Yet
both are evidently one. God promised by him what God
only can promise 4, and accepted the sacrifice".
In the revelation to Manoah and his wife, the wife, ig-
norant, at first, who he was, yet speaks of the Angel of
the LORD, as a being, known to them. His counte-
nance was like the countenance of the Angel of GOD, very
terrible. To offer sacrifice unto the LORD and to the
Angel of the LORD, was one. His name was wonderful'.
No mention having been made of an Angel previously,
the Angel of the LORD is not, "the Angel," i, e. he who
had been spoken of, but he who was known as "the An-
gel of the LORD."
Of this Angel, and of others with him, it seems to be
said, 10 The Angel of the LORD encampeth round about them
that fear Him and delivereth them. The word, encampeth¹,
probably alludes to that appearance to Jacob on his re-
turn from Mesopotamia, when he saw God's host and from
it called the name of the place, Mahanaim 12, "Two-
camps," and, after that, saw the Angel of the LORD, who
¹ Judg. ii. 1, 3. Dr Stanley (J. Ch. p. 418) following Ewald, makes him
a human messenger, “an earlier Malachi," contrary to the uniform idiom, and
the use of the 1st person, "I made you &c."
2 Ib. v. 23.
3 the Angel of the LORD, vi. 11, 12, 21, 22; the angel of God, 20; the Lord,
4 Ib. 16, 23.
14, 16, 23.
7 xiii. 6.
5 21.
6 as in 2 Sam. xxiv. 16,
1 Chron. xxi. 15.
8 The clause, for Manoah knew
not that he was the angel of the Lord, explains the angel's injunction, Thou
must offer it unto the Lord. Manoah and his wife wished to bring the kid,
as ordinary food. He refuses it as ordinary food, and bids him, if he would
offer it in sacrifice, to offer it to the Lord in him. 9 פ, xiii. 18, as
Is. ix. 5.
10 Ps. xxxiv. 7.
11 Ilengst. on Ps. xxxiv.
12 Gen. xxxii. 1, 2. p, from “camped,” the word used in the Psalm.
probably the Angel-Interpreter of Job; ye Seraphim. 523
,
tried his strength and blessed him. The captain of a
host is said to "encamp 13," but he "encamps around,"
through the army of which he is the head. On account
of this image, and the mention of" the chariots of God 14,"
as a title for the angels present at His manifestations of
Himself, it seems not improbable that the horses of fire
and chariots of fire 15 round about Elisha, and those which
carried up Elijah to heaven, were symbols of Angelic
presence.
This same Angel, I think, was meant by Elihu, the An-
gel-interpreter 16, one of a thousand, who sheweth unto man
his righteousness, i. e. how he may be righteous in God's
sight, and is gracious unto him, and saith, redeem him from
going down to the pit, I have found a ransom. For it is
the office of no mere created Angel, but is anticipative of
His Who came, at once to redeem and to justify; as S. Gre-
gory says 17, "It is as though the Mediator of God and
men said, 'since there hath been no man, who might ap-
pear a righteous intercessor for man, I made Myself man
to make propitiation for man.'
This then, in itself, involves a distinction among the
heavenly beings, so far at least that, in the earliest books.
as well as in Daniel, we hear of one Angel, above those
ordinarily spoken of.
In the Seraphim, (probably, fiery 18 spirits,) in Isaiah,
13 2 Sam. xii. 28. Hengst. 14 Ps. lxviii. 17. 15 2 Kings vi. 17, ü. 11.
16 Job xxxiii. 23. php is unquestionably "interpreter," Gen. xlii. 23; "em-
bassador," 2 Chr. xxxii. 31. In Is. xliii. 27, "thy interpreters have sinned
against Me,” it seems most natural to understand it of those who interpreted
God's will to man. (comp. Mal. ii. 7.) “The Angel-interpreter," I think
then, has more probably his name from an office from God to man, than from
one for man with God, viz. intercessor. The office to man is explained, "to
shew unto man his uprightness," i. e. how he should be upright with God.
17 ad loc. L. xxiv. n. 6.
18 So Kimchi and Abulwalid. The root 7, "burned," is so common in
Hebrew, (whence also , like πрησтýρ, каvσоs, a poisonous serpent, whose
bite was "inflaming,”) that the Hebrew etymology is much safer than the Ara-
bic, eminent." Gesenius' only objection is, that signifies "burning,"
not “shining.” But “burning” suits best with what the Church has thought
to be the special character of the Seraphim, “burning love. All languages
speak of “the fire of love," and the Holy Ghost, at the day of Pentecost, fell
524 Cherubim ; the Angel of the Lord, probably, Michael.
and the Cherubim¹, we have other orders of spirits in
near relation to God. Of these, the Cherubim are not
mentioned to have any office of ministry to man, but, hav-
ing been placed, with symbols of terror, to forbid his re-
turn to Paradise, were objects of awe. The Seraphim
are spoken of, as engaged in ceaseless praise in great
nearness to God, yet as concerned also about us below; for
part of their song was, the earth is full of His glory.
One of them also was sent to Isaiah with the symbolic
burning coal, which was to cleanse his iniquity and fit
him for the Seraphic mission of bringing good tidings
to man.
2
In regard, then, to the greater dignity of some Angels.
above others, no addition is made in Daniel to what was
known from the time of Abraham. It is even most pro-
bable that Michael is no other than that Angel of the
Lord, by whom God manifested Himself of old. For the
Angel of the Lord seems to be the same who declared
himself to be the prince of the host of the Lord ³, a title gi-
ven in Daniel to Michael, your prince, 5 one of the chief
princes: the great prince which standeth up for the chil-
dren of thy people.
6
4
3
We have, then, alike in Joshua and Daniel, the belief
as to one spiritual being, to whom the charge and pro-
tection of the Jewish people was specially entrusted. In
Daniel, there is the name only of Michael above what
was known before, and the name and being of Gabriel 7,
both, in common with the New Testament 8.
on the disciples, with the symbol of "cloven tongues, like as of fire." Acts ii. 3.
1 The Semitic etymologies of p are severally possible, yet no one is satis-
factory enough to be adopted with confidence. The Persian etymology, in
itself quite unsatisfactory, is also excluded by the early mention of the Cheru-
bim.
2 Is. vi. 3.
5 Ib. 13. 6 Ib. xii. 1.
3 Josh. v. 14. See ab. p. 521. 4 Dan. x. 21.
7 Ib. viii. 16, ix. 21. 8 Gabriel, S. Luke i. 19, 26; Michael, S. Jude 9, Rev.
xii. 7. The statement in the Jerusalem Talmud, from R. Simeon ben La-
chish, (in our 3rd century,) "The names of angels went up by the hand of
Israel out of Babylon," plainly means no more than that the names of Angels
first occur in Scripture written in Babylon. For so it continues; "For, before,
it was sari,, Phen flew one of the Seraphim unto me; before Him stood the
Doctrine of Angels in Daniel the same as in all ye O.T. 525
Such gradation then of heavenly beings, as is implied
in Daniel, is in harmony with what had been revealed be-
fore. He sees one in great majesty, whom he describes
in language of Ezekiel 10, probably that same Angel of the
Lord, who had appeared to those before him. This An-
gel gives directions even to Gabriel 11. It seems also that,
among those exalted intelligences, some know more of
the Divine purpose than others, and communicate that
knowledge to others. Twice, in these visions, an Angel
enquireth of that exalted Angel 12, (who yet himself is a
creature, for he swears by the living God 13,) and receives
an answer.
Both these relations of that one great Angel, his spe-
cial office for the people and his superiority to other An-
gels, are mentioned in one of the prophets after the Cap-
tivity, Zechariah. There, other Angels, whom God had
sent to walk to and fro upon the earth, give account of
their mission to the Angel of the Lord 14, and he himself
intercedes with the Lord 15. He stands as judge, sur-
rounded by Angels who fulfil his commands, hears the
accusations of Satan, pronounces forgiveness to Joshua
the high priest, and, in him, to the people whom he re-
presents 16. It is probably "the Angel of the Lord," cer-
tainly it is a superior Angel, who, in another vision, di-
rects another Angel to instruct Zechariah 17. Again, God
speaks of the Angel of the Lord, as having a glory like
His own 18.
As
The one fact as to Angels, which is peculiar to Daniel,
is in harmony with his position in God's revelation.
he was employed to disclose God's care and providence
Seraphim, (Is. vi. 6 and 2) but afterwards, the man Gabriel, (Dan. ix. 21)
and Michael your prince.” (Ib. x. 21.) But, although first given in Babylon,
the names are opposed to the errors of Babylon. Michael is one of the oldest
Hebrew names, a sort of watchword and challenge to all idolatry, "Who is like
God?" The name Gabriel also, "man of God," declares that Angels too are
but agents of God.
11 viii. 16.
14 Zech. i. 10, 11.
9 x. 5, xii. 6,7.
12 xii. 6, viii. 13.
17 Ib. ii. 7, 8, Heb. 3, 4, Eng.
15 Ib. 12.
10 i. 7, 14, 16, 24.
13 xii. 7.
16 Ib. ii. 1-5.
18 Ib. xii. 8. The house of David shall
be as God, as the Angel of the Lord before them.
526 Other nations, besides the Jews, under care of Angels.
1
2
over Heathen nations, so through him it was disclosed,
that, as God set one chief Angel as the deputed guardian
of His people, so He set others over other nations. It is
in harmony with all which we know about those blessed
spirits. As we know that all of them are ministering
spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of
salvation; as we know, from our Lord's words and from
the Apostolic belief³, that each Christian at least is, from
childhood, assigned to the care of his own guardian An-
gel; so Daniel, declaring that the heathen also were the
objects of God's care, taught, in the case of two great
nations, Persia and Græcia, that they were under the
care of eminent Angels, princes with God. For the An-
gels of Persia and Græcia were, manifestly, good Angels,
since they desired the welfare of their people, and they
contended with Gabriel and Michael before God, each, in
submission to the Divine Will, desiring what seemed for
the good of his people, which, since their apparent inte-
rests were diverse, seemed to be contrary. The interest
of the heavenly beings in man had been revealed before.
To Daniel it was made known as part of God's mercy
over all His works, that "constituting the services of An-
gels and men in a wonderful order," He assigned to each
nation one of those ministering spirits to succour and de-
fend them, and plead their cause with Himself, the Fa-
ther of all.
In the dream, in which Nebuchadnezzar was warned
of the insanity, which God was about to inflict on him
unless he repented, there occur the remarkable words,
66
The matter is the decree of the watchers the ever wake-
ful 6" ministers of God, and the request is the word of the
5
1 Heb. i. 14.
4 Dan. x. 20, 21.
.
2 S. Matt. xviii. 10.
3 Acts xii. 15.
5 iv. 14 Ch. 17 Eng.
6 7., (probably the same word as eyelpw or Sanser. gri,) is used intrans.
of "arousing one's self;" in Pi. Hif. of "arousing" others. It has not the mean-
ing of , “guard." In Job viii. 6, if it had had the sense of being "wakeful
for," it would have had it (as in Eng.) by force of the by, "over," not of the
word itself. But there too the E. V. is best. "He would awake for thee," (as
God is so often said to "awake" for His people, when He notices that, which
He had before left unremedied, their "trouble" &c.). "y then (to judge from
Daniel does not associate the creature with the Creator. 527
8
holy ones7; for which Daniel, in his interpretation, substi-
tutes, This is the decree of the Most High. Daniel, using
the self-same word, states that the decree was solely
from God. There is no association of the creature with
the Creator. The same decree is by Daniel called "the
decree of the most High," and, if Nebuchadnezzar's me-
mory was accurate 10, "the decree of the watchers," i. e.
the Hebrew, for y occurs in Daniel only, and in Syriac as ultimately derived
from it,) is watcher, (i. e. one ever-aroused, unsleeping,) not watchman, which
in Hebrew is pi, in Ch. 3, in Syr. . In Aramaic, only Pal. Af. Ithpeh.
seem to have been used, in the sense, "aroused, was aroused." This is the
rendering of the Vulg. "vigil;" of Aq. Symm. ¿yphyopos, and probably of the
LXX, (whence the typhyopoι of the book of Enoch. See above p. 389, 90.)
Theod. and the Pesh. retain the word, which, in Syriac, has the two senses
which it has in the book of Enoch, and which doubtless are derived from it.
There is absolutely no authority for the sense "custos."
7 is of course the Hebrew, which, in actual usage, signifies, “ pe-
tition;" in 1 Sam. ii. 20, also; for Hannah did not lend Samuel to God, but gave
him back for life to Him, from Whom she had asked and obtained him. 1 Sam.
i. 27, 8. In like way, hy, in the instances of its use given by Buxtorf (col.
2300, 1) from the Targums, signifies "petition." In itself, it might mean
"interrogation," since, as well as, signifies, 1) ask, i. e. to enquire;
2) specifically, "ask" for a thing, request, beg. But this too comes no near-
er to the sense which Gesenius would give it, "spec. quæstio forensis, (legal
enquiry,) causa forensis judicata, inde decretum." No where in the Tar-
gums, any more than in Hebrew, does mean a decree; any more than our
"suit" would mean "the judgment in a suit.” Gesenius assigns this mean-
ing, in order to make identical with . But on itself signifies
'word," not "decree," which is ny, and from which it is distinguished in
Ezr. vi. 11. The "word of a king is with authority; and if one with autho-
rity “sends word,” (spang nhy Ezr. iv. 17, v. 7) that “word" is to be obeyed.
But it does not follow that on means "decree," any more than our "word”
does, which we use in precisely the same idiom. It is also one of those com-
mon abuses of Hebrew parallelism, to assume that each parallel word must
mean the same thing.
8 iv. 21 Ch. 24 Eng.
9
פִּתְגָּמָא שְׁאֵלָא
.21 וּגְזֵרַת עֲלִיָּא הִיא .Ch ,14 בִּגְזֵרַת עִירִין
10 Hengstenberg and others have held that the title of the "watchers" had
reference to the Beol Bovλaîor of the Babylonians, and this, consistently with
revelation, on the supposition that the revelation of God was amalgamated in
Nebuchadnezzar's mind with his own belief, (Beitr. p. 161) in which way Da-
niel's explanation would be a correction of it. But the col Bovλaîoi of the
Babylonians, (if Diodorus has represented them rightly; there is probably an
error as to the number,) are only stars, and have to do with astrology only.
He says, "They say, that the most important calculation and motion is of
the 5 stars called planets which they name 'interpreters,' and especially those of
the star called by the Greeks Kronos [Saturn] but they call the clearest and
528 "Gods of counsel,” in Heathenism, astrological only.
of the holy Angels. This it might be, either as the decree
of God, entrusted to them to execute, or, since the holy
Angels must needs be of the same mind as God, it may be
said to be their decree, in that they embraced His. This
decree had been first their request. It appears from
Daniel's advice to the king, that the sin, for which that
aweful seven-years' insanity was inflicted upon him, was
that common sin of conquerors, unmercifulness and op-
the fore-signifier of the most and greatest things, El; but the other four
they name as do our astrologers, Ares, Aphrodite, Hermes, Zeus, [Mars, Venus,
Mercury, Jupiter,] wherefore they call them interpreters ;' because, the other
stars having their own fixed orbit, these alone, having an orbit of their own,
shew what is about to happen, interpreting to men the good-will of the gods.
For by their rising and setting, and partly by their colour, they say that they
foreshew to those who choose to attend accurately. For sometimes they shew
the vehemence of winds, sometimes excessive rain or drought. Sometimes al-
so, the rising of comets, sometimes eclipses of sun and moon, earthquakes too,
and altogether all the circumstances, resulting from the atmosphere, good as
well as bad for nations and places, for kings too or private individuals. Be-
neath their orbit, they say that there are 30 [36] stars ordered, which they call
'gods of counsel,' and that half of these look to the places above the earth,
and half under the earth, looking at once at the things which fall out among
men and in heaven. And that, every 10 days, of those above to those below
a messenger of the stars is sent, and of those under the earth to those above,
in like manner, one. This orbit they have defined, established by an eternal
circuit. But of the gods they say, that 12 are lords, to each of which they
assign a month and one of the 12 signs of the Zodiac. Through these they say
that the sun and moon and 5 planets have their orbit.-But after the Zodiac
they separate off 24 stars, of which they say, half are set in the Northern part,
half in the Southern. Of these they assign those visible to the living, the
invisible to the dead, which they call the judges of the universe. But the
moon, they say, has its orbit below all these, &c." ii. 30. 1.
I doubt not that Gesenius combined rightly the 12 lords, of the gods, to
whom the signs of the Zodiac were assigned, and the 24 extra-Zodiacal stars,
which together make up these inferior "gods of counsel." The whole context
is of astrology. In astrology, while the position of the planets in the heavens
was held to be of chief import, yet, subordinately, so was the position which
they occupied in the Zodiac at that time, two of the signs being the "houses"
of each planet while the two remaining belonged to the sun and moon. (See
in Ges. p. 354.) While then the 5 planets were the "interpreters," the fixed
stars were so subordinately, and were called "gods of counsel." Among the
Egyptians, the 12 signs of the zodiac were called "gods of counsel," the pla-
nets, the "rabdophori;" (Schol. Apoll. Rhod. iv. 262. quoted by Wess. on
Diod. I. c.) so that they occupied the same relative position. It is only in rela-
tion then to the planets and in astrology, that certain stars were called "gods
of counsel," either that by their astrological meaning they gave counsel, or that
Doctrine of Angels earlier than the Magism. 529
pression¹. The word, "the request," gives another
glimpse into the interest of the holy Angels in our-
selves. They too longed that the oppression should cease;
and, joining in the cry which is ever going up from the
oppressed to the Throne of mercy and judgment, prayed
for that chastisement which was to relieve the oppressed
and convert the oppressor. But the statement, that it
was a "request," precludes the supposition, that the holy
Angels had any portion in the "decree;" for to "request"
and to "decree" relate necessarily to different parties.
One who can "decree" has no occasion to "request,” nor
does he.
All this, from the first book of the Old Testament to
the last, is in harmony. Throughout, it was revealed
that there were different orders of the heavenly beings.
This is as clear in Genesis, as in Daniel or Zechariah.
Nor in all this is there any even seeming likeness to any
thing Magian. Had there been any likeness, it must have
existed in the Pentateuch as much as in Daniel, since the
doctrine in both is one. An unbelieving Jewish writer,
unable to escape the conviction of the oneness of the
doctrine as to the holy Angels throughout the Old Tes-
tament, was, at least, consistent in laying down that it is
ante-Biblical, and, (in regard to the evil angels,) in as-
they were subordinate advisers to those which were reputed to be of primary
significance.
1 Dan. iv. 27 Eng. 24 Ch.
2 "Through this belief in angels of such various sort and of such varied sig-
nificance, there was gained for the ancient Hebrews an imaginative addition
to the belief in One God which was as yet too spiritual and too bare for them,
and the gulph which they saw between God and man, so long as God did not
appear to them as indwelling in man, was filled up satisfactorily. Yet evidently
this belief was not created to satisfy that need, but was adopted from præ-Jah-
vist views, and only recast and developed in conformity with Jahvism, [God's
revelation of Himself by Moses,] in which way it unquestionably did it good
service." Herzf. pp. 278, 9. It is true, of course, that the belief of other spiritual
beings adds to our knowledge of the Creator of us all, yet not as
filling up
a gulph;" for every creature is, of course, alike infinitely removed from the
Creator. There are no steps from the finite to the Infinite. Contrariwise,
the conception of beings immeasurably above ourselves, yet, together with
ourselves, infinitely below the Creator, helps us, like a long vista in created
CC
M In
530 Imperfection of supreme god of the Aryans ;
serting the influence of Magism upon the religion of the
Bible from the beginning, while he admits that such in-
fluence cannot be proved¹. In one sense, the doctrine of
the holy angels was ante-Biblical, since one portion is co-
eval with the closing of the entrance to Paradise. But
then, of course, its existence in Daniel or any other book
cannot be any proof of the late date of such books.
The harmony of the doctrine as to the Angels, from
the first to the last, might have exempted us from any
enquiry as to Magism. But since the imagination, that
true religion, in both the Old and New Testament, is in
some way indebted to Magism, is one of the "veteris ves-
tigia fraudis," which still lingers on from times which
knew little of Holy Scripture or of Magism, I would point
out briefly, that, if any thing was borrowed, Magism
must have been the borrower. And this, both from the
character of the two religions and people, and also from
the age of the books, in which the doctrines are contained.
In regard to the religions, the god of the Aryans, Ahu-
ra-mazda 2, is not the living God, such as He has revealed
Himself³, but a being, depending partly upon certain co-
>
things, to conceive the more of His ever-communicated, never-exhausted, in-
finity of Goodness.
"The inability to shew, in what way the Magian religion so early [as Ge-
nesis] gained this influence upon Israelite views, does not entitle us to deny
that influence." Herzfeld, G. Isr. ii. 281, 2.
2 Max Müller translates the name "wise spirit," Science of language, p. 208;
Spiegel, "very Lord," Av. iii. p. 11; Haug, “living wise."
3 Spiegel points out that Ahura-mazda is represented as corporeal, ("who
has the best body," Yaçna 1, 2. Farvardian Yast. 80, 81) with a soul and fra-
vashi, (Farv. Y. 81. Yaç. 26, 3. Vend. xix. 46, 7) as human beings have their
body, soul, and fravashi. Mention is even made of "Çpenta-armaiti and thy
other wives," (Vispered iii. 21,) of "thy wives," (Yaç. 38, 2,) and of a daugh-
ter of this Cp. Armaiti and Ahura-masda viz. Ashis-vaguhi, (Ashi-Yast n. 16.
Av. iii. p. 164) although Cp. Arm. is elsewhere daughter of Ahura-mazda. (Gâ-
tha Ust. 44, 4. Vd. xix. 45.) Av. iii. Einl. p. v. In Yaç. Ixx, the praise of the
body of Ahura-mazda intervenes between the praise of himself and that of the
Amesha-çpentas; "Ahura-mazda, the pure, lord of the pure, we praise. The
whole body of Ahura-mazda we praise. All Amesha-cp. we praise." n. 10-
12. Av. ii. p. 203. Sp.
time, light, space, co-existent with him.
531
eternal existences, light, space, and time, which were
also objects of worship 5, partly on the physical coopera-
tion of what he is said to have created". Time is not his
creature, nor space his presence; they are conditions of
his being, independent of himself. In like way, those
other beings, which were the objects of Zoroastrian wor-
ship, are only a more refined form of creature-worship.
4 Under the name Qadhâta, "self-created," or "self-governed," (Spiegel,
Av. ii. 218. note) occur 1) "light without beginning," as contrasted with
"created lights; " 2) thwâsha, (Spiegel thinks, "the boundless space of hea-
ven" in contrast with Açman, "the firmament; ") and 3) “Zrvâna akarana,”
"uncaused time." (Spiegel, Av.iii. xxxix. I have substituted "uncaused" for the
common rendering "time without bounds," on the authority of Dr. Aufrecht.)
Time, light, space, then, are co-existent with Ahuramazda. Plutarch speaks
of the “light,” as the original of Oromasdes, "Oromasdes sprang out of the
purest light" (de Is. et Osir. c. 46); and later Parsism conceived “uncaused
time" as his original, although this opinion was wrapped up in a myth. (Eznik
of Armenia 5th. cent. A.D. "refutation of the false doctrine of the Persians,"
in Haug, Essays, pp. 10, 11, and more concisely, but essentially the same, in the
proclamation of a Persian general A.D. 450, in Elisæus Hist. of Vartan, trans-
lated by Neumann, pp. 11, 12.) There is no such opinion in the Zendavesta.
The words rendered by Anquetil, "the boundless time has given thee," are
now owned to mean, "Сpento-mainyus made, in the uncaused time." Herz-
feld (translated by Davidson, iii. 177) says, that "the time without bounds'
of the Magian religion is an attribute of Ormusd," on the authority of the Hall.
LZ. 1845. n. 73. (früh. G. Isr. p. 460.) This is only the theory of a Parsee gen-
tleman, Doshabai, one of the new school, who wishes to dress up Parsism as
a respectable Deism. His language is strange enough, below any belief of any
of the old heathen who were not Atheists. "Zervân is the name of time,
and is an attribute of Ormusd, applied to him, because no one knew the be-
ginning or end of that Lord, the Creator, or, in other words, when that Lord
[the supreme God] was created, or how long He will exist.”
5 "Praise the self-created firmament, the uncaused time, the air which ope-
rates on high." Vend. xix. n. 44. "I praise the self-created firmament, &c." ib.
n. 55. "I praise the brightly shining sky; I praise the unbegotten ["unbe-
ginning" Sp.] lights, self-created." Vend. xix. 118, 19. Haug, Essays, p. 217. "I
worship stars moon and sun, the unbeginning light, the set by itself, ["self-
created" Sp.] and all the ["pure" Sp.] creatures of the holy spirit Ormusd.”
["of Cpentomainyus, male and female, the lords of the pure." Sp.] Yaçna, i.
45. (Av. ii. pp. 42, 3.) iii. 59. (Ib. p. 53.) "We praise the unbeginning lights,
the unlimited." (Yç. xvii. 41. Av. ii. p. 92.) All unbeginning lights we
praise." (Yç. lxx. 45. Av. ii. p. 204.) Gâh Uzîran, 6 (Av. iii. 24.) "The un-
beginning lights, which follow their own laws." Rashnu Yast, 35. (Av. iii. 111.)
Sîroza, 30. (Av. iii. 202.) See also Schlottm. Hiob. pp. 145, 6.
See below, pp. 535, 539.
M m 2
532
Zoroastrism only a modification of Vedism.
They are connected with those elements, on whose har-
mony God has made the well-being of this order of things
to depend¹. Zoroastrism betrays its original, the Aryan
creature-worship, to which has been added its character-
istic Dualism.
The Zend religion is any thing but an original religion.
It broke off, at some unknown time, from the religion of
the Vedas in mutual and deadly hatred, which burst out
into war, simultaneously with a change from the nomad
to the agricultural life 2. The adherents of the new reli-
gion continued to be fire-worshippers like the Vedists;
they retained, with certain changes, much of the ancient
worship, but they evinced their hatred of their antago-
nists, by employing the Vedic name for their gods gene-
rally, “ Devas,” as the title for evil spirits, and making
some of the gods themselves, Indra, Sarva 5, into devils.
They retained as gods, only some of the lesser deities","
There is no indication of any such changes on the part
of the Brahmans. But withal, the characteristic error
66
66
2 Haug, Essays, pp. 248, 9.
1 See below, p. 534.
3 Haug (Ib. pp. 337-40) points out "the identity of a good many terms re-
lating to the priestly functions," "the Izeshne ceremony, as performed by the
Parsec priests now," "the use of the juice of the Soma plant," "the Barsom,
or bundle of twigs, used in reciting Izeshne," &c.
4 "Deva, in all the Vedas and in the whole Brahmanic literature, is the name
of the gods, who are the objects of worship among the Hindoos to the present
day. In the Zend Avesta, from its earliest to its latest parts, deva, (modern
Pers. div,) is the general name of an evil spirit. In the confession of faith,
as recited to this day, the Zoroastrian religion is distinctly said to be vî daêvô,
i. e. ‘against the devas,' and one of their most sacred books is called vî-daêvô-
dâta (now corrupted into Vendidâd,) i. e. ‘what is given against, or for the re-
moval of, the devas.'" Haug, Essays, pp. 225, 6.
5 Ib. p. 230.
6 "The Devas that are not degraded to demons in the Zendavesta are
mostly minor deities and personifications of nature, the natural meaning of
which was not forgotten. They were not gods, but only bright poetical beings
in the minds of those who took them over. Thus the Buddhists carry about
the statues of Brahma, Vishnu, Siva and other gods; they tolerate them as
ornaments, because they are not afraid of them." Prof. Max Müller, MS. letter
to me.
7 Prof. Max Müller kindly answered my enquiries, "I cannot agree with
Haug in ascribing the later change of meaning in the Sanskrit Asura to a
reacting influence of Zoroastrianism.-In the most sacred hymns of the Brah-
Dualism in the earliest Zoroastrian writings. 533
of the Zend religion, its Dualism, was its blot from the
first. It is a mistake to represent Zarathustra as teach-
ing "monotheism." Dualism is enunciated, in the most
distinct way, in what are held to be its oldest writings.
mans, asura constantly stands in the sense of 'god.' In the Brahmanas, a
new name of god springs up, Sura, from suar, 'heaven,' which has nothing
to do with asu-ra etymologically. But by a kind of irresistible etymological im-
pulse, the Sanskrit language produced, in opposition to this Sura, a negative,
A-sura, "not-god," quite distinct in reality from the old asu-ra, though iden-
tical in sound. The Brahmanas are full of legends about Suras and Asuras,
but there is no trace of any Zoroastrian influence, nor do we ever meet with one
Asura, as in the hymns, but always with many." MS. letter.
8 Two distinct passages occur in the Gâthâs, which are not affected by any
difference of translation.
1) "These two first-spirits, twins, are known to act of themselves,
In mind and word and act, these two, the good and the evil,
(Choose) between these two; be doers of good and not of evil.”
Gâthâ ahunavaiti, (Yaçna 30.) 3, 3. Haug, d. Gâthâs, i. p. 7. Spiegel renders;
These two heavenly beings, the twins, first allowed from themselves to perceive
Both, the good and the bad, in thoughts, words and works.
Rightly decided as to them the wise; not so the unwise."
2) "So will I pronounce two first spirits of life; Of which two the holier said
to the wicked, ["the white said to the black," Essays, p. 153]
Do not thoughts, do not words, do not understandings, or doctrine; do not
sayings, or ceremonies, ['actions' ib.] do not meditations, do not minds fol-
low (me)?"" Gathâ Uçtavaiti, (Yaçna 45.) 10.2. Haug, ii. p. 13. Spiegel ren-
ders;
'Now will I announce the two heavenly from the world's beginning;
Of the two the holy spake thus to the bad;
Not our spirits, not our doctrines, not our understandings,
Not our wishes, not our speech, not our works,
Not the laws, not the souls will unite." Av. ii. p. 150.
The contrast of two primeval beings, one good, the other evil, remains in
both translations. Spiegel observes, "The term, 'twins,' applied to the two
heavenly beings, almost forces one to think of the myth as to the origin of the
two heavenly spirits, which is found among the Armenian writers, e. g. Eznik,
according to which Ahura-Mazda and Agra-mainyus are both thought of as
sons of time." (Avesta, ii. p. 119.) In Spiegel's translation, the Gâthâ Ahunav.
goes on to describe the creation by the "twins ; "
4) "As these two heavenly beings came together first to create
Life and perishableness, and how at last the world was to be ;
The Bad for the bad; for the pure the best Spirit;
5) "Of these two heavenly, the Bad chose the bad, (so) acting ;
The holiest Spirit (chose) the pure [neut.], and created the most firm heaven
And those who content Ahura with open acting, believing in Mazda.”
534 The six Amesha-cpentas below the Ange.s,
A religion, starting, like this, in negatives, is not likely to
have had truth unknown to other Heathenism.
Nor, in fact, is there anything peculiar in those infe-
rior deities of the Persians, more than in those of the
Vedic nature-worship of the Aryans from which some
of them were taken, or those of any other polytheistic
people. A genius of light¹, a genius who presides over
marriage², a genius of the earth³, a genius, identical
with the morning wind 4, are no more like angels, than
Apollo, or Juno, or Ceres, or Æolus. Yet these and the
like were part of the original Zoroastrism; for, having
been Vedic gods, they would not have been imported
subsequently. In regard to those six beings, who, in the
later books, are placed nearest to Ormusd, it is agreed that
the common title, Amesha-çpentas, "holy immortals,"
does not occur in the oldest part of the Zendavesta 5, and
that the names, whereby they are severally distinguished,
occur there also as names of qualities or substances.
The names of three of them occur so frequently, that it is,
Haug renders these stanzas,
4) "And thence these two spirits meet together; they create the first,
Existence and non-existence; and that the last should be;
An evil life is to the liars, but to the truthful the best mind.
5) "Of these two spirits choose (one,) who (i. e. one of whom) is liar, doing
things most wicked ; (the other, doing) truth Spirit most holy. Whoso girdeth
himself with very hard sling-stones (Hang, p. 103) and they who venerate
the Living-wise religiously by essential actions." Ib. p. 9.
1 Mithra, the Sanscrit form being Mitra." Haug, Ess. p. 230.
2 "Aryaman, the genius Airyaman of the Zend-Avesta." ib. p. 231.
3 “Aramati, a female genius in the Vedas, meaning 1) devotion, piety,
2) earth, is apparently identical with the archangel [!] Armaitii, which word
has exactly the same two meanings in the Zend-Avesta." Ib. 231, 2.
4 "The Vedic god Vâyu ('wind,' chiefly the morning wind) who first drinks
the Soma at the morning sacrifice' is to be recognised in the genius Vayu of
the Zend-Avesta, who is supposed to be roaming every where. (see the Râm
Yasht, p. 194.)" Haug, p. 232. See Spiegel, Av. iii. xxxiv. 151 sqq.
5 The Gâthâs. Haug noticed this, Essays, p. 220.
Spiegel (Av. iii. Einl. p. viii.) owns this. Haug would make the names
always appellative in the Gâthâs, except that of Armaiti; but he owns that it
is most natural, in some places, to understand them to be the names of the
genii. I cannot but think that he has been biassed by his wish to make out Zo-
roastrism to be a pure monotheism, and to gain an earlier date for the Gâthâs.
too near to the supreme god of Parsism.
535
I suppose, certain that they are mentioned as living be-
ings, although details depend upon interpretations, of
which they, who have studied those poems most, are not
yet agreed upon the first principles 7. Yet taking these
beings as what they became, a group of six invisible be-
ings, they help to shew that Zoroastrism is no true The-
ism, but they do not approach to the nature or office of
the holy Angels. Their character is below that of the
holy Angels, as that of Ahura-mazda is below that of the
Living God. They are but little removed from Ahura-
mazda, are associated with him, and independent, in
7 Spiegel rests chiefly on the traditional interpretation, (Av. T. iii. Vorr.;)
Haug, on comparative philology.
8 In the Behistun inscription, although Ahura-mazda is exclusively and re-
peatedly named, as he by whose help Darius conquered, it is twice added, "and
the other gods which are." col. 4. par. 12. 4. par. 13. 2. revised in Rawl. He-
rod. ii. p. 612. Both Mithra and Anaitis were worshipped before this time.
“Auramazda is not only called [in the inscriptions] the great God' (baga, as
also in Yaçn. lxx. 1 ; and, in Yaçn. x. 10, baghổ is certainly to be referred to
Ahura,) but also the greatest of all gods,' (Darius inser. H. Benfey, p. 52) as
of Mithra it is said, he is the most intelligent of the gods." (Mihr Y. 141.)
For together with Auramazda other gods are mentioned, both generally (uta
aniya bagáha Bis. iv. 61, 2 ; hadá bagaibis Xerxes A. 28, Ca 15, E. 18; hadá
vithibis bagaibis, Darius, H. 14, 22, 24, which signifies the patron-gods of
the Achæmenidæ, the Oeol maтpoi of Xenophon,) and, in the inscriptions of
Artaxerxes Mnemon, by name, Mithra and Anâhita; whence, as has been
shewn elsewhere, it cannot at all be inferred, that Artaxerxes introduced these
worships, but only that he was especially devoted to them." Windischm. Zo.
roastr. Stud. p. 123.
9 In the following list, I have omitted the passages which Spiegel owns to
be difficult. In others, it will be recollected that almost every expression is dis-
puted. Still any how the juxta-position remains. The references are to the
sections of the Yaçna, in which the Gâthâs lie, in Spiegel's Avesta, T. ii. “Maz-
da, [i. e. Ahura-mazda, Ormusd,] Fohumano, Asha who furthereth the world,
Armaiti, Khshathra,” are appealed to together, Yaç. 33, 11; Ahur. Voh. Asha,
Arm. and perhaps Haurv. Ib. 50, 4; Ahur. Voh. Asha, Khsh. are praised toge-
ther, Ib. 49, 4. Else those chiefly named with Ahura-mazda are, Fohumano,
Asha, and, (although less frequently,) Armaiti.
Fohumano is joined with Ahuram. 28, 1. prayed to with him and Asha, 34, 6.
48, 7, praised with them, 28, 3. 34, 15. 49, 7; the sight of them is the object
of desire; 28, 5. his creatures are spoken of, his works," for those who labour
with the driven cow," 34, 14. 28, 10. his goods, 31, 10. 34, 2. 45, 2. nurtured
by him, 34, 3. his good dwelling, (joined with that of Ahur. and Asha,)30, 10.
32, 15. Ahur. has like dwelling with him and Asha, 43, 9. his kingdom, 33, 5.
kingdoms, 45, 16, joined on to those of Asha and Arm, ib. (and perhaps 34, 11.)
536
Amesha-cpentas mere genii
great measure, of him; on the other hand, they have, each
his, or her, or its, own local office.
1
The six were, 1) Vohumano, (Bahman,)"the good mind,"
(neuter) which had the care of cattle; 2) Asha-vahista,
(Ardi-bihist) "the best purity," (neuter) which had the
charge of fire and what relates to it; 3) Khshathra-vai-
rya, (a neuter,) Shahrevar, which was in charge of metals
below the earth; 4) Cpenta-armaiti, a sort of female ge-
nius of the earth ¹, and in charge of it; 5) Haurvatât, who
makes water to flow over the earth; 7) Ameretât, who
protected trees and fruits. Both "are identified with the
things they protect." What have such beings as these,
mere genii, with their physical occupations, in common
with the Angels and Archangels of Holy Scripture ? So
connected are they with the things of which they are the
genii, that Spiegel says, "3 it is a practice not unusual in
As to his personal being, Khshathra is said to come with him and Asha, 30, 7.
(see Haug, i. pp. 105, 6) and with him alone, 30, 8; he is said to be "given as
help" with Asha and Khsh. 29, 10. A diligent agriculturist is said to be in the
service of Vohum. and Asha, 33, 3.
Asha invoked with Ahura-mazda, [in the plur.] 31, 4. with Ahur. [sing.]
34, 3, 4. 47, 9. 48, 6. 49, 5, with Ahur. and Arm. 50, 2. Ahura-m. has the same
will as Asha, 28, 8. 45, 18; created sacred poem in union with Asha, for the
cow, [earth] 29, 7. Zarathustra desired of us, Ahur. and Asha, 29, 8. Ahur.
and Asha rule, 47, 9, are worshipped together, 28, 9. (comp. Haug) are thought
of together, 45, 17. Asha is joint-creator of the earth, 29, 2, has the "drujas,”
(evil genii, mostly female, Spiegel, Av. iii. p. 1.) given into his hand, (30, 9.)
will slay them, 47, 1. There is no protector save Ahur, and Asha, 49, 1. re-
ward is asked from Asha, 28, 7. 47, 8. long life, 28, 6; to "obtain the cow from
Asha," 50, 4. (See also above with Vohumano.)
Khshathra is scarcely mentioned by himself. See above with Fohumano.
Armaitis, female genius of the earth, is enthroned with Asha, where Fohu-
mano reigns, and Ahur. dwells, 45, 16. she belonged to Ahur. (" in thee was
Armaitis, in thee was the former of the [cow] earth;" Haug, i. pp. 11, 136)
31, 9. "she gave strength to the body," (" created the body," Haug,) 30, 7. she
is invoked for "riches, blessing and the life of Vohum." ("possession of a good
mind" Haug,) 42, 1. she, "the good agent, is the daughter of Ahuram." 44,
11. (See also above with Volumano and Asha.)
Haurvatat and Ameretat, who, elsewhere also, are almost always named to-
gether, are just named, "that II. and A. may be rulers," 43, 17; "what H. and
A. have promised me," 43, 18; "Asha's words" were created as help for A. as
a reward for H." 33, 8; they come to the obedient. 44, 5.
¹ Burnouf sur le Yagna, p. 157. Spiegel, Av. ii. p. 50.
3 Ib. iii. p. viii.
of the same sort as other genii of Parsism. 537
the Zend-Avesta, that the name of the Amesha-çpenta is
put for the thing entrusted to his care." 4 Khshathra-
vairya is directly called metal.”
But, on the other hand, from a radical defect in hea-
then conception of God, they, like the gods of all heathen-
ism, were too independent of Ahura-mazda, to have any
bearing on our belief in Angels. Late books speak of
them as his creatures, or again of him, as their father
and lord, yet placing them at the same time on a level
with him 5.
Any independence whatsoever of God is, of course, ra-
dically at variance with any true conception of God.
God is All, His creatures nothing, save what, by His Will,
they hold from Him. This truth is guarded throughout
the Old Testament. The very name, " Angel," expresses,
that they are "messengers" of God, a higher order of
spirits, ministering, according to His Will, to the lower,
man. Or, like the Seraphim, they are seen in adoring
love, about His throne. Whether or no all heavenly
beings have, at times, any office for man, yet, no where
we
4 Ib. p. x. "Khshathra we praise; the metals we praise." Visp. n. 23. 1. Av.
ii. 30. Hence the formula, “for Khsh., for the metal, for the compassion which
nourishes the beggar." Sîroza, n. 4. Av. iii. 198. Yast, d. 7 Amsh. 16. pp. 34 and
36. The name Khshathra vairya is even used for a "pointed metal-instrument,”
or "knife.” Vend. ix. 21. Av. i. 164. and Spiegel's note 1. Vend. xvii. 17. Ib.
164 and note 1. So of Cpenta Armaiti (female genius of the earth,)
praise thee, (our) dwelling, Çpenta Armaiti,” Yac. 17. 53. Av. ii. 92. So Yaç.
iii. 2. "Haurvatât and Ameretât with the well-made cow," stand for the things
offered to Ahuramazda and the Amesha-cpentas. (See Spiegel, Av. ii. 50. note.)
Again Haurvatât and Ameretât are identified with the things which they have
in charge, in these formulæ ; "For Haurvatât the lord, for the yearly good
dwelling, for the years the lords of the pure, for Ameretât, the lord, for the
fulness relating to the herds, for the corn for the horses;" Yast, d. 7 Amsh. 3.
Av. iii. 35. "Haurvatât the Amesha-cpenta we praise; the yearly good dwelling
we praise ;" and so on, ib. p. 36. “Haurvatât and Ameretât conquer hunger and
thirst." Zemyad Yast, n. 16. iii. 184. So as to Ardviçura, “I praise the water
Ardviçura, the pure, the full-flowing," &c. Yaç. n. 64. Av. ii. 192. add Ormusd-
Yast. n. 32. Av. iii. 32.
5 Farv. Y. 83. “All which seven are of like mind, all seven of like speech,
all seven like in acting. Like is their mind, like their word, like their action.
like is their father and ruler, viz. the creator Ahuramazda." But Ahuram.
is one of the "seven;" so the words are self-contradictory as they now stand.
6 Is. vi.
538 Theft to give Christian titles to Persian genii.
in Holy Scripture, does any, even the highest, so act,
save as commissioned by God. They speak and act in
His Name.
It is then a mere misnomer, that some have called
the Amesha-çpentas, "Archangels," meaning to liken
the Zoroastrian notion to the Christian belief¹. They
scarcely form a class by themselves; but, in any case,
they are wanting in that one essential characteristic of
every good creature, however exalted, that they are sim-
ply 2 ministers of God, to do His pleasure.
Then too they are, practically, not distinguishable from
the other genii, who rank after them ³.
The six Amesha-çpentas have the precedence in the
dry, insipid invocations of Parsism. They are invited to
the sacrifice, next after Ahura-mazda. They are invited
before "the body and soul of the" fabulous primeval
"Cow," or "5 the fire of Ahura-mazda, who comes the rea-
diest of the Amesha-çpentas," &c. But practically, seve-
ral of the other objects of worship or gods, the Izads,
seem to have been thought more powerful. Of Mithra.
1 "Archangel" is a title belonging to the New Testament, not to the Old.
Another grave misstatement of the like sort, is the substitution of “guardian
angels" for "Fravashis." The Fravashis are nothing less. They are a strange
abstraction. For Ahura-mazda himself and the Amesha-çpentas also have their
Fravashi. In the Vendidad, Ahura-mazda is made to say, Praise my Fra-
vashi, mine, Ahura-mazda's, (19. 46) the greatest, best, most beautiful, &c.
(47) whose soul is the holy word." (48) So, according to this paraphrase, the
supreme god of Magism, and its "Archangels" would have their "guardian
angels." This is stealing from Christianity to trick out Magism, with the view
of reducing them to one level.
2 Ps. ciii. 21.
3 "The word 'Yazata' means properly,' worthy of worship, worthy of sacri-
fice,' and must also often in the Avesta be still taken in its original meaning.
The expression bagha, god, is probably nearly identical with it. There seems
to be no very defined line of demarcation between the Amesha-çpentas and Ya-
zatas, as, in fact, Ahuramazda himself is in some places called Yazata." Spie-
gel, Av. iii. Einl. xii. “ Yazatas (now Izads) corresponds to the Vedic Yajata,
i. e. 'a being who deserves worship'. The modern Persian Yazdẩn, ‘God,' is
the plural of this word Yazata." Haug, Essays, p. 175.
4 Yaçna, i. 5. ii. iii. 3. vi. 2. vii. 1. In Yaçna, iv. 4. Çraosha is interposed be-
fore them, Av. iii. & 1. In their Yast, after the two first there are interposed
Airyama-ishya (the Vedic deity Aryaman, Haug, Essays, p. 221) and Çaoka.
Yaçna, i. 6.
Supreme god of Parsism prays to the genii.
668
539
the god of light, "possessor of wide plains, who has 1000
ears and 10,000 eyes," Ahura-mazda is made to say, "7 I
created him, as worthy of worship and praise as myself;"
of Tistrya, the dog-star, he is made to add, "8 as worthy
to be satisfied, as upright as myself." Ahura-mazda is
said to have sacrificed to Mithra, as also to Ardvî-çûra
Anahita, who in Syria became infamous as Anaitis 10, the
genius of water, the fertiliser of the earth; of whom also
"11 he prayed the favour, 'grant me, O good, most benefi-
cial Ardvî-çûra, spotless, that I may unite myself with the
son of Pourashaspa, the pure Zarathustra, so that he
thinks according to the law, speaks according to the law,
acts according to the law.' Then Ardvî-çûra the spotless,
granted to him [Ahuram.] this favour, to him who ever
brings, gives, offers, sacrifices, who prayeth the givers
[femin.] for a favour." Indeed, as man, in his wants, looks
most to those from whom he expects most, one should
think that those whose great gifts to the heroes of old
who prayed to them are recited, Anaitis 12, Gosh 13 or the
Cow, or Ashis-vaguhi 14, or, again, those who were held
to give the gifts which men most desire, would probably
be more worshipped than he, who was, in the abstract,
6 his ordinary title. Av. iii. 79. &c. He is called "the first heavenly Yazata,"
Mihr Y. n. 13. iii. 81.
7 Mihr Yast, n. 1. Av. iii. 79. “to be of the same rank and dignity, (as far as
worship is concerned) as I myself am." Haug, Ess. p. 183.
9 MihrY. n. 123. Av. iii. 99.
8 Tistar-Yast, n. 50. Av. iii. 72.
10 Windischmann, üb. d. Pers. Anahita od. Anaitis. Munchen, 1846. 4.
11 Aban Yast, n. 17, 18. Av. iii. 45, 6. Spiegel says, "Here, as often in the
Yasts, Ahura-mazda is represented as standing in need of the help of individual
genii, which, taken accurately, is absurd, for they are his creatures and have re-
ceived their strength from him." Ib. note. The inconsistency could not have
been, where there was any true conception of God, a real Theism.
12 Ib. n. 21-83,90,1,97-99, 104-18. Ahura-mazda, and the old heroes and maid-
ens sacrificed also to Ramaqâçtra (Râm Yast 2-21. Av. iii. 151-6.) "To him
sacrificed the Creator Ahura-mazda.-He begged of him this favour, Give me, O
air thou that workest aloft, that I may slay among the creatures of Agramain-
yus, as one who to Cpentamainyus” (belongeth.) Ib. 2, 3. Spiegel says, “It
almost seems as if the writer considered the air as a deity on a level with Ahu-
ram. and so belonging to the Qadhâtas. Otherwise, it were absurd that the
creature grants his good-will to the Creator." p. 152. note.
18 Gosh Yast, throughout, Av. iii. 74-9. 14 Ashi Yast, n.24-52. Av.iii. 165-8.
540
Extensive devotedness to Mithra
owned to be the supreme god. Even Israel did so in the
idolatries, into which it fell before the captivity; in Ma-
gism such idolatry was an essential part of the religion.
Accordingly we find a wide-spread worship of Anahita
and Mithra, rooted in the countries of Parsism, and more
popular, apparently, than that of Ahura-mazda. In re-
gard to Anaitis, Windischmann sums up, "¹Anaitis had,
in the midst of institutions plainly Zoroastrian and to-
gether with beings of the same religious system, a far-
spread worship in Persia, Bactria, Media, Elymais, Cap-
padocia, Pontus, and Lydia; her temples are at Baby-
lon, Susa, Ecbatana, Konkabar, Sardis, Hierocæsarea,
and Hypæpa, in Damascus, Zela, Ariselene, an Armenian
province. Her worship was provided with priests and
hieroduloi, and connected with mysteries, feasts, and
unchaste ways. The Persian Saciacs were connected
with her, holy cows were dedicated to her. Artaxerxes
Mnemon first set up statues to her thereby introducing
image-worship into Persia. The worship of an Aphrodite
among the Persians, which Herodotus attests, allows us
not to question its early date." It lived on in Armenia,
with that of Vahagn or Virathragna, until Armenia was
converted by S. Gregory 2, and, while Ahuramazda was
recognised as the creator, Anaitis was associated with
him, as an equal source of the greatness of Armenia ³.
The worship of Mithra we hear of in Greck authors,
from their first acquaintance with Persia. Xenophon
introduces Cyrus, swearing "by Mithra." Herodotus
mentions a "Mitradates "(" given by Mitra 5") and that,
1 Windischmann, üb. Anahita, pp. 19, 20.
2 Wind. ib.
3 "And those who are really makers,' thou insultest, and the great Artemis,
[Anahita,] in whom the country of Armenia lives and hath life, and with her
the most mighty Zeus, [Ahura-mazda,] the maker of heaven and earth, and,
after him, the other gods thou hast called lifeless and speechless." Tiridates to
S. Gregory, in Agathangelos Hist. of convers. of Armenia, c. 4. n. 28. Acta
Sanctt. Sept. 30. T. viii. p. 335. quoted by Wind. Ib. p. 22.
4 Cyrop. viii. 3. 53. ŒEcon. c. 4. n. 24.
• See Pott, Etym. Forsch. T. i. pp. xlvii sqq. Rosen, in Journal of Education
ix. p. 334. quoted by Smith, Biogr. Dict. ii. 1093.
probably coeval with Parsism.
7.
541
a peasant, the herdsman of Astyages; and a "Mitro-
bates," (probably the same name corrupted,) a Satrap un-
der Cyrus or Cambyses 7; a Mithridates was a trusted
Eunuch under Xerxes ; a Mithridates accompanied Cy-
rus against Artaxerxes II.9; a Mithridates was the Sa-
trap of Lycaonia and Cappadocia under Artaxerxes II.10;
the ultimate founder of the kingdom of Pontus was a
Mithridates, Satrap of Phrygia, under the same 11. Then
it became the name of the kings of Pontus; it occurs as
the proper name in the line of the Arsacidæ, kings of
Parthia 12; a king of Media Atropatene, a king of Cappa-
docia, two kings of Commagene, bore the name 13. But
the corresponding title, Hormisdates, Hormisdas, "given
by Ormusd," does not, I believe, occur until the revival
of Magism under the Sassanidæ, when it became the
name of some of their kings. One of the greatest Per-
sian festivals, Mihragân 4, was in honor of Mithra; and
while the Persian empire was still in being, "15 the satrap
of Armenia sent the king yearly 20,000 colts for the Mi-
thriacs." Deceit against Mithra is a chief and most
deadly sin. Morally, it relates to breach of promises or
compacts, and is especially punished by law 16. Yet Mi-
6 Her. i. 110. Sir H. Rawl. thinks that Atradates in Nicol. Damasc. is the
Median equivalent to it, "Atra" or " Adar" signifying the "sun" or “fire.” in
Rawl. Her. i. p. 252.
7 Her. iii. 120, 126.
10 Ib. vii. 8. pen.
8 Diod. xi. 69.
9 Xen. Anab. ii. 5.9.
11 Ariobarzanes II. Satrap of Phrygia (Curt. ii. 6) got possession of his king-
dom after his death in 362. Diod. xv. 90. He himself betrayed his father Ari-
obarzanes. Xen. Cyrop. viii. 8. 4. See Clinton, F. H. ii. 431. ed. 2.
12 See in Smith, Biogr. Dict. i. 354-6.
13 See Smith, Ib. ii. 1094. Mithrenes, and Mithrobarzanes (first mentioned
under Artaxerxes II. Diod. xi. 91, three others are mentioned ;) Rheomithras,
(under the same,) are other traces of the worship of Mithra.
Pott also puts
together, Ithamitres, (Her. viii. 130, ix. 102) Ithamatres, (Ib. vii. 67) Si-
romitres, (vii. 68, 79) Harmamithres, (vii. 88) Mitraios, (Xen. Hell. ii. 1. 6)
Mitragathes (Esch. Pers. 43.) Mithraustes. (Arr. iii. 8. 9.)
14 Hyde, De Rel. Vett. Pers. p. 245. Duris, (B.C. 320-281.) Hist. vii. (in Ath.
x. 45. p. 434. Cas.) mentions the greatness of the festival. Windischm. Mithra,
p. 57.
15 Strabo, xi. 14. 9. p. 530. Cas. Wind. p. 58.
16 The 4th Fargard of the Vendidad, which is on criminal law, assigns the
punishments for "Mithra-deceit," at 300, 600, 700, 800, 900, 1000, stripes,
542
Worship of the Haoma coeval with Parsism.
thra himself was held to punish it, especially in making
"Mithra-deceivers," "Anti-mithras," powerless in war¹,
so that the title seems very mainly to include foreign ene-
mies, or non-Parsees 2. Mithra is associated as the equal
of Ahura-mazda³. "Ahura and Mithra, the two imperish-
able pure; and the stars, the creatures of Cpentomainyus.'
Not the name only of Mithra, but his relation to other
gods is Indian, so that the mode of his worship, as well
as his actual worship, must have been coeval with Parsism.
وو
More remarkable still is the worship of Haoma, as
identical with the Soma of the Vedas. "Soma is, in the
Vedas, not only the holy sacrificial drink. It is also it-
self a god. So Haoma in the Zend-Avesta is not only a
plant, but is also a mighty genius; in both, the ideas of
the heavenly genius and the holy juice of the plant work
marvellously into each other." Both are the causes
of the birth of heroes7; their "gifts are immortality,
firmness, health of body, long life, protection against un-
(Sp. Av. i. p. 93. n. 24-35) "whereas 200 stripes are elsewhere a very great
punishment, which is very seldom exceeded." Spiegel, Av. i. p. 89.
1 Mihr, Yast n. 17. Av. iii. 83. Wind. n. 18 sqq. p. 3.
2 Ib. 20, 21, 23, 24, 26-80.
3 Yaç. i. 34. Av. ii. p. 40. Add Yę. ii. 44. üi. 48. "Come to our help, Mithra
and Ahura, the great ones." Qarset-nyâyis. 9. (Av. iii. 2.)" M. and A. the two
great, imperishable, pure, we praise." Mihr-nyâyis 3 (Av. iii. 12.) "Wherefore
may these come to our help, M. and A. the great ones, yea M. and A. the
great ones." Mihr Y. n. 113. (Av. iii. 97.)
4 See Windischm. p. 54.
5 Windischm. über d. Soma Cultus d. Arier, from Abhandl. d. K. Ak. d. Wiss-
T. iv. P. 2. p. 132.
6 W. proceeds; "The most important places on this personified Haoma are
in the 9th and 10th Ha of the Yaçna, which are illustrated by striking analo-
gies of the hymn of the Rig-Veda, hymn 91." "In early dawn came Haoma
to Zarathustra, who was purifying his holy fire and repeating prayers. Z. ask-
ed him, 'What man art thou, whom, in the whole existing world, I see the
noblest, on account of his immortal life ?' Haoma the pure, the disease-re-
moving, answered me; ‘I am, O Z., Haoma, the pure, &c. Invoke me, holy
one; drop me out to be tasted, praise me with praise, as the pure have praised
me before thee.' Thereon said Z. 'Honour the Haoma."" Ib.
7 "Haoma was the cause of the birth of Jima and the blessings of his time;
so Rig-veda to Soma, 'through thy guidance have our noble fathers, O glori-
ous, obtained treasures from the gods."" W. p. 134. "On the gifts of sons see
Samoveda,(W. p. 135) Rig-veda.” Ib. p. 137.
Parsee genii, or gods, dependent in turn on man. 543
foreseen accidents 8." "The worship is spoken of in the
Avesta as præ-Zoroastrian."
Yet these their gods, were in their turn, dependent on
man. "It is known," says Spiegel 9, "that the genii of
of the Parsees are just as much in need of men, as men
of the genii. If these deities do not receive from men
the prescribed sacrifices, they become powerless and
unable to accomplish their duties, unless Ahura-mazda
sees himself occasioned to help them in a supernatural
and unusual manner. This idea occurs often enough in
the Yasts 10" And not only so, but, if the translation be
correct, they needed it for themselves. Mithra's im-
mortality depended on the sacrifices of man to him ¹¹.
It is then a mere myth, to speak of the relative purity
of early Magism, on the ground that, in five songs, con-
sisting of not more than 404 lines of a longer and 494 of
a shorter measure, which would occupy some 27 pages,
there is no mention of the sacrificial rites, or of the gene-
ric names of the Amesha-çpentas or the Yazatas, when it
is certain that those gods must have been always wor-
shipped, and those offerings always made. And yet in
those same songs there is the distinctest enunciation of
dualism. Yet the god of dualism is, ipso facto, not less
removed from the conception of the One Living God than
Bel or Zeus or Jupiter or any other heathen god, with
the overruling fate.
2) Then, also, in regard to the history of the two na-
tions, however the Jewish people were seduced into the
sensuality of idolatry, it is not even alleged that, in any
8 "Its [the Haoma's] gifts are immortality, &c. all, traits which agree with
those produced out of the Veda.” W. p. 137. The parallel goes into even more
detail, as of marvellous birds. Ib. p. 139.
9 On Aban Yast, n. 9.
Av. iii. p. 44.
10" See Yast, 8. 13 sqq. 10, 34 sqq. &c." Ib.
11 "I am the beneficent protector of all creatures; I am the beneficent
preserver of all creatures; and yet men do not sacrifice to me with named of-
ferings, as they sacrifice to the other Yazatas with named offerings. For if
men sacrificed to me with named offerings, as they do to the other Yazatas with
named offerings, I should advance from the momentary, passing, limited, pe-
riod, to the proper, lasting, undying, unlimited life." Mihir Yast, n. 54, 5.
Wind. transl. p. 7, and n. 74. p. 9.
544 Prophets warned against errors of Babylon & Persia
2
case before the Captivity, the sacred writers admitted
any thing from profane sources. Contrariwise, on the
approach of the captivity, Isaiah warned beforehand
against the fundamental error of Parsism. It is in the
prophecy of Cyrus by name, after the mention of the vic-
tory which God would give him, and of His call of
him¹, that God immediately inculcates anew the funda-
mental truth, that there is no God but He Alone, and
that He is the Creator of those which the Persians held
to be primeval principles. I am the Lord, and there is
none else; I form the light, and create darkness; I make
peace, and create evil. As we had no ground, from the
original of Parsism, to look for any characteristic truth
in it, so even beforehand we see the truth, (as it must
be,) in direct antagonism to its error. The portion of
Isaiah which bears upon the captivity and the deliverance.
from it, is full of challenges to all the objects of worship
in heathenism. Jeremiah gives the Jews a Chaldee for-
mula ³, wherewith to answer the heathen, who asked them
why they did not worship their idols. Isaiah, Ezekiel,
and Jeremiah denounced punishment for the worship
of the heavenly influences. Daniel's history is in har-
mony with this, that pious Jews were willing to give
their lives, rather than deny God by worshipping any
but Him.
3
I said "the sacred writers.” But as to the Jewish
people also, idolatries, not abstractions, were its temp-
tations. The besetting sin of the Jews before the Cap-
tivity was idolatry. We have a long experience of their
character in this, the experience of 900 years 5. Nay we
have the experience of every heathen nation. Whatever
they took, they took wholly. Whether the Jews took
the worship of Baal or Ashtoreth, or the Romans the Bac-
chanalia, or subsequently the worship of Mithra, they
took the gods as gods. The temptation was to worship
something nearer and more like themselves, from whom
3 Jer. x. 11.
4 Is. lxv. 11, 12,
From the Exodus to the captivity.
1 Is. xlv. 1-6.
2 Ib. 6,7.
Jer. xliv. 15-28, Ezek. viii. 15, 16.
Men borrow objects of idolatry, not abstractions. 545
they hoped to gain the things of daily life, or to avoid
evils, or for its sensuality. But the objects of Magian wor-
ship, under whatever name, whether Amesha-çpentas or
Izeds, Anaitis or Mithra, were just as much objects of
idolatry, as ever Baal or Ashtoreth had been; nay, they
were the corresponding gods. The temptations to wor-
ship them were just the same. But it is not in human
nature, certainly it was not in Jewish nature, to abstract
the being from the object of worship. It is in human
nature to worship an angel, if any one thought that he
could obtain what he wanted, more easily than he could
from God; it is not in human nature to form to himself
(if one so may speak,) an Angel out of a false god; to
substitute a being to whom he should stand in no direct
relation, from whom he had nothing to gain, for one
from whom those, whom he is to have copied, thought
that they gained the necessaries of life. But such, it is
self-evident, is the characteristic of the Angels in the Old
Testament as far as they have offices for us. Unless God
made them in any case, the disclosers of His Will, or gave
them an office to man, they were believed to be, in their
offices for man, unknown, invisible,“ministering, spirits,”
doing whatsoever offices for man God willed, but not do-
ing any thing at the request of man.
It is, again, in human nature, when it has come to see
the falseness of its false worship, if it will not accept the
truth, to trick out its fables anew, and form abstractions
of its false gods. So did Alexandrian philosophy over-a-
gainst the Gospel; so is neo-Parsism doing at this day.
This it does in self-defence, over against the truth, which
it will not receive. It makes to itself as plausible a coun-
terfeit as it can. It throws a veil over the grossness of its
error, in presence of the light. But it is not in human
nature, to adopt, in a refined form, the errors of others.
Error has no intrinsic winningness for man, who was
formed in the image of the Truth, Almighty God. To
soften errors which he will not abandon, is a natural com-
promise with truth. Man's self-respect demands it of
N n
546 Persians imitated, in matters of religion too.
him; it is a tribute to the truth which he rejects, forced
upon him by the yearnings of his nature which he stifles,
and it is one of the subtlest snares of Satan.
The original error belonged to the coarser side of hu-
man nature, man's animal requirements or his passions.
The refinement of his discovered error belongs to the sin of
his intellectual nature, his pride. Both have their pleas.
But there is no temptation to trick out or refine an error
own. Least of all was this the character of the
not
Jewish mind.
On the other hand, it is admitted that the Persians
were, of all nations, the most impressible and the most
imitative ¹. In the time of Cyrus, they had adopted re-
ligious symbols, originally Egyptian; in that of Darius,
they had borrowed others from the Assyrians 2. Hero-
dotus says, "they have learned in addition, to sacrifice to
Urania, (i. e. Mylitta,) from the Arabians and Assyrians."
Ammianus Marcellinus ascribes the Semitic admixture,
which has been observed, to Zarathustra himself; "5 he
added many things from the secret lore of the Chaldæans."
Artaxerxes II. brought in image-worship". It would then
be à priori probable, both from their known character
and from other facts, that they would borrow from the
Hebrews any thing which commended itself to them.
3) But the Zend books, which have any bearing on the
revealed doctrines of the Old or New Testament, are ac-
knowledged to be late. On the one hand, the tradition
of the Parsees themselves is of a general destruction of
their books under Alexander. This looks like an apology
for the absence of ancient books, but is "7 the unanimous
belief of the Parsees up to this time." They give a list,
moreover, of the literature, such as they allege it to have
been collected in post-Christian times by the Sassanidæ,
containing additions to what they suppose it to have con-
1 See ab. Lect. iii. p. 131.
Layard's Nineveh, ii. c. 7.
v. 221 sqq. vi. 78 sqq.
2 See Sir H. Rawl. in Rawl. Herod. i. p. 270. n. 3.
4 in ZS. D. M. G.
3 Herod. i. 131.
6 S. Clem. Al. Exh. ad gentes, p. 43. Sylb.
5 Amm. M. xxiii. 6.
7 Haug, Essays, p. 124.
Parsee traditions against antiquity of their books. 547
tained in the time of Alexander. Out of twenty-one
books, which they enumerate, two only have any bearing
upon the books now extant 9. They mention books on
physics, law, medicine, panegyrics of men and angels, fa-
bulous history 10, duties of their religion and morals; but
they make no mention of what is now accounted the old-
est part of the Avesta¹¹, nor again of the modern12, which
has been mainly cited for approximations to the faith of
Jews or Christians.
The question, moreover, does not depend on the date of
Zoroaster, which those, who have most studied the sub-
ject, give up as a hopeless problem 13; nor even on the
age of some of the songs, or of the basis of the rules of
purifying, or whether a fragment, here and there, can
be recovered of ancient date. It is admitted that the
books have come down by an unwritten tradition, and
it is of the nature of that unchecked tradition in any hu-
man system to receive modifications, as it rolls onwards.
"There are no facts," says Max Müller¹, "to prove that
the text of the Avesta, in the shape in which the Parsees
of Bombay and Yezd now possess it, was committed to
writing, previous to the Sassanian Dynasty," which began
"226 A.D." Spiegel says, "15 Evidently very little in the
writings of the Avesta, preserved to us, comes from Zara-
thustra himself; most comes from different and mostly
late authors." "16 The grounds for ascribing the author-
ship to Zarathustra are utterly untenable." Then, as to
8 It is given by Haug, pp. 125-7. It is taken from "two collections of decisions
of Destoors," of which the earliest was made early in our 17th century, “about
250 years ago." Ib. 125. note.
9 n. 20. the Vendidad, “on removal of uncleanness," and n. 1. their wor-
ship of the Yazatas or gods. 1011. Vishtasp Nosk, 60 ch. (in Alexan-
der's time only 10,) on the reign of king Gustasp and his conversion to the re-
ligion, and its propagation by him throughout the world. 13. Safand, on the
miracles of Zoroaster, &c." 11 "The Yaçna (Izeshne) is not mentioned at all,
or the Visparad.” Haug, p. 128. The Yaçna contains the Gâthâs and the Yaçna
12 The Bundehesh.
13 As Lassen," It will never be possible to fix
his date." Ind. Alt. i. 754.
14 On the Veda and Zend-Avesta, p. 24.
15 Avesta, p. i. 13. quoted by Hengst. Christ. iii. 2. p. 75. 16 Id. i. 54. ib.
Heptanhaiti, written in the oldest dialect. Ib. p. 161.
See above pp. 516, 17.
N n 2
548
Present books, unauthentic traditions.
its borrowing from others, Spiegel says; "In this his-
torical time, the Persians have certainly borrowed mani-
foldly from their more cultivated Semitic neighbours."
He lays it down as a rule; "If we find any view in the later
books, contradicting the clear letter of the earlier, we
may unhesitatingly assume it to be later; if it clearly
sounds like any foreign doctrine, we may mostly assume
that it was borrowed." Burnouf also thought that "the
Zend fragments, which have reached us under the name
of Zendavesta, are subsequent to the mixture of the Ba-
bylonian worship and of the ancient religion of the peo-
ple of Aria, and that they were collected in a country
where this mixture prevailed."
The analogy fails in every way. 1) There is no evidence,
that the books, upon the extent of which Haug lays stress,
ever existed. If they ever existed, many of them are on
secular subjects and have no relation to Magism. 2) A
tradition, resting on no written document, as to the titles,
subjects, number of chapters of books, said to have ex-
isted some 2000 years before, more or less, would not be
listened to, except to prop up a system. 3) The mere
statement of the number of chapters, of which 21 books
exist, does not necessarily involve the size of those books.
The chapters, said by the Destoors to have existed before
Alexander, amount to 626. The Hebrew Bible, as stated
in the preface to our English Bibles (which counts the
Psalms as so many chapters,) consists of 921 chapters; the
New Testament, of 260: the Apocrypha, of 172. 4) The
tradition contradicts that of the destruction of the books
by Alexander, since this states, of four of the books, that
some seven-ninths were added to them, after Alexander.
2
¹ Id. i. 374. ib.
Yaçna, p. 351, referred to ib. Haug alone imagines them earlier, building
on a fanciful analogy with "the sacred literature of the Jews," which," to be
dated from the earlier times of Moses (between 1300 and 1500, B. C.) down to
the close of the Talmudic literature 960 A. D. [rather, about 500 A. D. See Wolf,
Bibl. Hebr. ii. pp. 658 sqq.] comprises a space of about 2, 400 years." (Essays,
p. 129.) Had Haug known the Talmud, he could scarcely have placed it and
the Old Testament together.
Amesha-cpentas like in nothing to Archangels. 549
This relates to the facts. But in matter of principle,
5) There is neither developement nor corruption in the
Avesta, for all alike is corrupt; dualism, (which is in-
consistent with the idea of God,) and the worship of infe-
rior gods, tainted it from the first. 6) It has no history.
In the O. T. there is a continual history of the revela-
tion for above 1000 years, during which revealed truth
was enlarged. But the length of time was no necessary
condition of the maturing of the revelation. When our
Lord came, fuller truth was revealed in less than four
years from the beginning of His Ministry to the Day of
Pentecost.
Amid this radical and essential difference between the
error and the truth, it is almost inconceivable that people
should have repeated so often and so long, that the Ame-
sha-çpentas were the originals of the Archangels; and
that, on such grounds as these; 1) and chiefly, the number.
If the supreme god of Parsism is counted in with his
supposed creatures, the number seven is made out, (as it is
in some of the Yashts 3,) but only so. People have then
their choice, either to give up this point of the similarity
of numbers, or to own that the Persians made their su-
preme god, only first of a class, "primus inter pares.
And, in the book of Tobit, it is mentioned that there are
seven angels, (it is not said, "Archangels,") "which pre-
sent the prayers of the saints and which go in and out
before the Holy One." To "present the prayers of the
saints" is no office of the Amesha-çpentas; nor will it be
readily believed that the number "seven" will identify a
system in which the creator is counted with his crea-
tures, with one, in which the highest creatures appear as
servants in presence of their Lord.
2) In each there is to have been a “heavenly Council,"
in which God or Ahuramazda are to have deliberated
with creatures. There is no trace of any such council in
Parsism; in the Old Testament, it is rejected as a thing
3 Yasht 3, 26. Yasht 4, title.
¹ xii. 15.
550 Fasting of the Day of Atonement; fasting of women
1
abhorrent from faith. Who hath known the mind of the
Lord? or who, being His counsellor, hath taught Him?
3) They are to have had the common offices of "watch-
ing from the height over the soul." In regard to the
Amesha-çpentas, this is one of the exploded mistransla-
tions of Anquetil. They have no moral office for the
soul of man. In revelation, the Archangels have not
this office assigned unto them, nor have any angels, in
this sense, the title of "3 Watchers."
Such being the sum of what is alleged as to doctrine,
we may turn to morals.
v. The charges in regard to asceticism condemn prayer,
fasting, the study of Holy Scripture, or any belief that
alms, (given, of course, rightly,) are of any benefit to the
soul of the giver. Of course, they condemn equally the
Gospel and our Lord. It is however also contrary to facts,
that these acts of religion belonged to later times only.
v. I. Fasting, in the Pentateuch, is expressed by the
words, "to afflict the soul." The great day of atone-
ment was a sabbath of "affliction of the soul." Sin was
not to be forgiven without sorrow for sin, as expressed
by self-affliction. God commanded them to rest from
work, and to afflict their souls by fasting. And it
shall be a statute for ever unto you: in the seventh month,
on the tenth of the month, ye shall afflict your souls and do
no work at all:—for in that day he [the high-priest] shall
make an atonement for you, to cleanse you; that ye may be
1 Is. xl. 13.
2 Lengerke, (p. 165, nearly translated by Dav. iii. 178,) says, “ Who, by the
holy watchers, is not reminded of the Amshaspands of the Zend-Avesta, whom,
issuing from the seven planets, they honored as the first seven spirits or intelli-
gences of heaven, to whom Ormuzd entrusted the oversight of the universe,
[if they are seven, Ormuzd is one] who watch out of the height over the soul?
Kleuker's Zend-Avesta, ii. 257."" Hence the original is Parsism," adds David-
son. Anquetil's version, translated by Kleuker, is proverbially incorrect. It
ran; “O that they may watch out of the height over the soul, which strives
after purity of heart, after purity of word, after purity of deed, which thinks
of nothing but Garotman.” “Yesht Farvardin, 23 Carde." In Spiegel's trans-
lations it is; "Of which [the frawashis or spirits of the six Amesha-cpentas]
the one sees the soul of the other, how it thinks on good thoughts," &c.
4 Ley. xvi, 29-31.
3 See above p. 526.
regulated; public and private fasting.
551
clean from all your sins before the Lord. It is a sabbath
of rest unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls, by a sta-
tute for ever. The self-affliction or fast, and the absti-
nence from work, were alike sanctioned by that solemn
penalty; "he shall be cut off from among his people; the
same soul will I destroy from among his people.
8
This fast alone was prescribed in the law; but it stood
connected with the most solemn service of the whole
year. Yet voluntary vows of self-affliction were so far
regulated, that women's vows of such self-affliction might
be annulled by their fathers before, or by their husbands
after, marriage, when first they knew of the vow. Else,
to prevent tampering with such vows, the penalty was
annexed, he shall bear her iniquity. The vow of self-
affliction, made by a man or a widow or one divorced ³,
stood. We have accounts of such public and severe fast-
ings before God from morning to evening, after the de-
feats at Ai⁹ and at Gibeah 10, and in hope of deliverance
from the Philistines, under Samuel at Mizpeh¹¹; and in
the mourning 12 for Saul and Jonathan and the people of
the Lord, after the defeat at Gilboa. The men of Jabesh,
when they buried the bones of Saul and his sons, 13 fasted
seven days. David fasted ¹, in the hope that God might
spare the child of his sin; Ahab fasted 15, and God de-
ferred the temporal evil, for this temporary humiliation.
Joel, as a pattern for all days of public calamity, bade,
16 sanctify ye a fast. 17 Jehoshaphat proclaimed a fast
throughout all Judah, on the conspiracy of the neigh-
bouring nations against it. Private, and that, severe
fasting, is mentioned in the Psalms, as part of religious
humiliation. 18 I humbled my soul with fasting; 19I wept
and chastened my soul with fasting; 20 my knees are weak
through fasting. The repeated forty-days fasting of
5 Ib. xxiii. 29, 30.
8 XXX. 2, 9.
12 2 Sam. i. 12.
15 1 Kings xxi. 27.
18 Ps. XXXV. 13.
14
6 Num. XXX. 3-8, 13.
9 Josh. vii. 6. 10 Judg. xx. 26.
13 1 Sam. xxxi. 13.
16 Joel i. 14, ü. 15.
19 Ib. Ixix. 10.
7 ver. 15.
11 1 Sam. vii. 6.
142 Sam. xii. 16-22.
17 2 Chron. xx. 3.
20 lb. cix. 24.
552 Abuses of fasting attest its recognised use.
Moses¹ and that of Elijah 2, (images of that of our Lord,)
were supernatural. A public fast was proclaimed proba-
bly in sorrowful memory of a conquest of Jerusalem by
Nebuchadnezzar 3, even in the reign of the godless Jehoi-
akim. God accepted the fasting, humiliation, repentance
of the Ninevites. Ezra proclaimed a fast 5, in order to
obtain a safe return for the people with him. Nehemiah
fasted and prayed before God, when he desired to gain
permission to restore Jerusalem. The ungodly had to
pay this tribute to truth, masking their wickedness with
a religious observance; as when they proclaimed a fast,
to colour the conspiracy against Naboth 7, or fasted to
smite with the fist of wickedness³.
The very fact, that the prophets had to rebuke hypocri-
tical fasting as well as hypocritical worship, shews how
deep hold it had upon the people. Pharisaism is faith
without love, and so is the product of human nature, not
of one time only. It deludes itself and others with that
which is in high repute. The prophets undervalue not
(how should they?) even outward observances sanctioned
by God. They condemn only the body without the soul of
fasting: abstinence from food, in order to colour, either to
the sinner himself or to others, indulgence in sin; fasting,
which is "an image of famine."
But what is this amount of fasting, which is to be a
characteristic of a later date? Literally this, that on
two great public occasions,-the first, the approaching
close of the 70 years of captivity, the 2nd, the hin-
drances to the rebuilding of the temple interposed by the
councillors of Cyrus,-Daniel fasted, or abstained from
pleasant food. On these occasions he did what Joel
bade to be done, in times of trouble, what so many had
done before him : he added outward expressions of sor-
row, partly the natural, partly the prescribed accompa-
niments of grief. I set my face unto the Lord God, to
seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting and sack-
¹ Ex. xxxiv. 28, Deut. ix. 9, 18. 2 1 Kings xix. 8.
9. see ab. p. 401.
71 Kings xxi. 9, 12.
5 Ezr. viii. 21, 23.
4 Jon. iii. 5.
8 Is. lviii. 4.
3 Jer. xxxvi.
6 Neh. i. 4.
9 Dan. ix. 3.
Daniel fasted, as God prescribed by Joel.
553
cloth and ashes. On the second occasion, he was in sor-
row for three weeks 10, lengthening out the period of the
bread of affliction 11 of the Passover, which he could not
celebrate, into three times its wonted length. For
seventy years, he had longed for the promised restoration
of his people from captivity. His life had been prolonged
beyond man's ordinary term, that he might see it. And
now, the rebuilding of the temple, the centre and condi-
tion of their public worship, the bond of their unity 12
was hindered ¹3. Who, that had a heart, would not mourn?
Daniel mourned in earnest. Like persons in deep grief,
he did what would maintain life, but put away all plea-
sant things. ¹ I ate no pleasant bread, neither came flesh
nor wine in my mouth, neither did I anoint myself at all.
A person must be very fond of good food, or not know
what sorrow is, who counts this Pharisaism. God saw
otherwise. He did not at once remove the hindrance;
but He comforted Daniel and his people by foreshewing
to them His Providence over them in future times of
trouble. 15 From the first day that thou didst set thine heart
to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy
words were heard, and I am come for thy words. Daniel
humbled himself before God; and God, as He did so often
in the times of old, accepted the humiliation. What is in
common with all times before Daniel, can be no proof
that the book is later than Daniel.
v. 2. In like way as to prayer. Prayer being the voice
of the creature to the Creator in its needs, something
had to be found, characteristic of the prayer of Daniel.
The prayers of Daniel are mentioned on four occasions;
1) when his life was in peril, and God, on his prayer, made
known to him Nebuchadnezzar's dream 16; 2) that he per-
severed in praying to God, as aforetime, when forbidden
by Darius, on which occasion it is mentioned that his
habit was to pray three times in the day; and that 3, 4)
he prayed earnestly, with fasting, on the two occasions
10 Ib. x. 2.
1 Deut. xvi. 3.
13 Ezr. iv. 5.
14 Dan. X. 3.
Ib. 12.
12 Ps. cxxii. 3, 4.
16 Dan. ii. 19.
554 God suggests to pray for what He wills to grant.
above mentioned. On three of these occasions, the real
objection is to the supernatural, that, " 1 upon his prayer
revelations were made to him." But Daniel did not ask
for them, except on one occasion, to save his life and
the lives of his companions. Any how, this is nothing
new, nothing late. The whole attitude of prophets was
that of watchers, men standing on their watch, as Ha-
bakkuk describes himself, 2 I will stand upon my watch,
and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what He
shall say unto me.-And the Lord answered me, and said,
write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, &c. What
occurs in Habakkuk cannot be a characteristic of a later
date than that of Daniel. Granted the supernatural in
the abstract, that God does make revelations to His
creatures, it is in harmony with the whole relation of the
creature to the Creator, that the creature should ask for
what the Creator gives. God doubtless suggested to Da-
niel the prayer which He willed to grant. Our Lord says
of one sort of possession, 3 This kind goeth not out, but by
prayer and fasting. On earnest self-afflictive prayer
alone, Jesus said that His Apostles should be able to free
these sufferers by miraculous cure. What is there incre-
dible that God should reveal the future to Daniel on self-
afflictive prayer, when He made self-afflictive prayer a con-
dition of the exercise of miraculous powers? It would
of course, be presumption and fanaticism for man to ask
for revelation or miraculous powers, without some secret
inspiration of God. But it is "begging the" whole “ques-
tion," to assume that Daniel's prayer, that God would
make known to him the dream which was to save his
life, was not suggested by Him Who suggests all good
thoughts, and Who, the history tells us, heard it. The
objection is to the supernatural in itself; one objection
must not be made into two. An objection to all reve-
lation must not be made into a specific objection to the
genuineness of the book of Daniel. Prayer, such as Da-
nicl's, belonged to the days of living faith, not to the life-
1 Leng. P. lxxii.
2 Hab. ii. 1, 2.
3 S. Matt. xvii. 21.
All self-affliction forbidden by Parsism.
555
less routine of the later Pharisaism, which, content with
its outward soulless round of observances, needed, as it
thought, nothing of God, but thanked Him, that it was
not as other men are.
The next charge relating to Daniel's habit of prayer,
which is to be of Parsee origin, I may just add that absti-
nence, such as Daniel, on two occasions, associated with
prayer, is among the Parsees accounted a sin, contrary
to the first principles of their dualism 5.
v. 3. Prayer "three times a day," however, is to "point
to a time at which religious ideas had penetrated out of In-
dia into the neighbouring countries to the West." Nay, a
learned Jewish rationalist held that apart from that which
is the point at issue, whether the minute prophecies in the
book were of God or were forgeries after the event,
67 of
4 S. Luke xviii. 11.
5 cc Almsgiving too, [i. e. to the good, not to sinners,] is a pious duty of the
Parsees: contrariwise, all self-affliction and fasting is forbidden, in strict contrast
to the usages of the surrounding populations, Indians, Mendæans, Harranians,&c.
This antagonism to self-affliction is very intelligible from the whole Parsee view
of nature, according to which it could be as little meritorious to afflict one's-
self, as any other being of the good creation." Spiegel, Av. ii. p. lviii. “If you
feed the hungry out of piety, you will gain great merit, if only they, who eat of
thy food, be of good name, not sinners." Sadder, p. xxi. quoted ib. "You must
beware of fasting; for to eat nothing from morning to evening is not good in
our religion. Our fast, each month and year, is, that we should not have even
the least sin." Ib. p. xxv. ib.
6 Herzfeld, (früh.) Gesch. Isr. 1827. Exc.
2. p. 295. translated by Day. iii. 179.
7 I see that Herzfeld unsaid this in his later history. He had said 1. c.
"Of other traces of a date so late, which people hold that they have found in
these chapters, I regard one only as perfectly valid; the prayer three times a day
points to a time, &c." (as in text.) In his later work, 1863, Gesch. Isr. ii. 191,
he gives up this point altogether; "I will not maintain, that Egyptian or In-
dian influence occasioned the Jews to pray three times a day; but I conjecture
that, in many places in the East and so in Judæa too, the custom of pray-
ing, by preference, at dawn, at midday, and at sunset, as being the most mark-
ed times in the day, originated in the mere aspect of nature; as also, later,
Julian recommends (Opp. p. 302) to pray three times a day, or, at least, morn-
ing and evening, according to which he took doubtless midday as the middle
time of prayer, and so, according to Robinson, [ii. 282.] now too the Samari-
tans pray, morning, midday, and evening, on their sabbaths, festivals, and new-
moons. Although then, even in the ante-Maccabee times, the morning and
evening prayer had, more and more, in the soul of worshippers, grown into
one with the morning and evening sacrifice, yet pious individuals still retained
the custom to pray at midday also, and 'the men of the stations' (Maamad)
556 Prayer three times a day, natural filling-up of prayer
all the traces of such late date, which people will have
it, that they have found in the chapters, this one alone
altogether bears testing." Indeed? Prayer at morning
and evening is the dictate of nature itself. To Israel these
seasons were marked by the morning and evening sacrifice.
Is it then necessary to have recourse to India, to suggest
to the pious in Israel, the habit of praying to Him on
Whom they knew that their being hung, Who had revealed
Himself to them, as the Hearer of prayer¹, at some set
time, a resting-place in all those long hours between
morning and evening? Our proverbs tell us, "what may
be done at any time, is done at no time." A fixed time
of prayer is, as every one who has tried it knows by ex-
perience, a fresh centre from which other prayer ramifies.
It would rather be a matter to be proved, that the pious
in Israel did not use fixed prayers three times in the day,
than that they did. They themselves say that they did.
Rationalists, like other romancers, "ought to have good
memories." Daniel's praying three times a day, is to
be a proof that the writer had learned his duties to God
from the Parsees.
2
From whom then did David learn them? Psalm lv,
whose words typically prophesy of Judas in whom that
treachery culminated, describes in the first instance
the relation of Ahitophel to David. The Psalm is very
individual. It was written in the midst of a secret con-
spiracy in Jerusalem against the subject of the Psalm;
and in that conspiracy one was chief, his once smooth-
tongued friend, with whom he had taken sweet counsel and
walked unto the house of God as friends. No situation in
adopted it for the weekdays.” In another place, again, he leaves it open; “Pi-
ous people especially prayed at that time a midday-prayer too. This custom
comes either írom without; for both the Egyptian and the Indian religions
prescribed the worship of the rising, culminating, setting sun, or it had its
birth on Jewish soil out of the like (!) desire to distinguish by a pious em-
ployment, not only the sunrise and sunset, but also the next most marked
time of the day." Ib. p. 136. So the custom, which was first to be clearly
derived from India, and so of a date later than Daniel's, it is conceded, might
be Egyptian, or, (which of course it was,) the worship of Jewish piety. In ii.
185, he speaks of the custom, as, "certainly much earlier." See p. 557. n. 9.
Ps. lxv. 2, &c.
2 Ps. lv. 14.
at morning and evening; David mentions it in Ps. lv. 557
3
the Old Testament agrees so well with this, as his, to
whom the title ascribes the Psalm, David. It is a kin-
dred Psalm to the xlist, also ascribed to David, written
in like way in a period of conspiracy, in which alone,
besides, is that trait of the once mine own familiar
friend in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, who
magnified himself against me. Both fall in with the con-
spiracy of Absalom; and Psalm xli, in that it speaks of
David's sickness +, fills up his history in Samuel, and ex-
plains how Absalom could charge his father with negli-
gence, and so openly court the people who came to the
king for judgment 5. When he threw off the mask, he
sent at once for Ahitophel, implying thereby the previ-
ous understanding between them. In that sickness the
treacherous friend availed himself of his nearness and ac-
cess, to spread evil reports as to David. But since the
Psalm, as we have reason to think, is David's, we have
a trace of that expression of devotion, so natural to those
who have devotion, prayer between morning and even-
ing, and, according to the letter of the words, at that
same time which became the fixed hour of prayer, half-
way on the course from morning to evening, midday.
By a happy forgetfulness, some Rationalists, at least,
did not remember the bearing of this Psalm upon the
argument as to the book of Daniel; and so one ³ conjec-
tured that Jeremiah wrote it; another, that it, with
8
In
3 Ps. xli. 9. 4 Ib. 8. 5 2 Sam. xv. 2-6. 6 Ib. 12. 7 Ps. xli. 6. 8 Hitzig.
9 Ewald. Herzfeld's opinion as to the time "when the pious in Israel began
to pray three times in the day," was changed apparently by this Psalm.
his last work, he says, "In Dan. vi. 11. prayer three times in each day is ascrib-
ed to Daniel. In itself indeed, this statement only proves that, at the time
when it was written down, viz. at the beginning of the Maccabee times, pious
individuals were wont to pray three times a day. Yet, on account of Ps. lv.
18, this custom seems certainly to have been much earlier. In like way Aris-
teas, about 80 B.C., relates, that the 70 translators went to their work of
translating, ‘after having washed their hands and prayed after the custom of
all Jews.' The incidental character of this notice implies a very extensive use
of the daily morning prayer. But if it is improbable, that even a single man
should for years pray day by day at a fixed hour, without such prayer be-
coming, in consequence, fixed and formularised within a short time, it is
simply impossible that prayers should be extemporised three times every day
by many individuals and perhaps for centuries." Gesch. Isr. 1863. ii. 185.
558
Parsee worship of the five portions of day,
ten other Psalms, was written by some unknown author
in the last ten years before the destruction of Jerusalem ;
another¹ referred it to an early period in David's life;
and so on".
But what again are the prayers, what is that habit of
praying, from which the Jews are to have learned to pray
a third time in the day? Rationalists could, I hope, not
make the charge, if they looked into the facts. The Par-
see-worship was a worship, not at only, but of the five
portions into which they divided night and day. It was
part of that large worship of nature, which was the sin
wherewith Israel was infected before the Captivity, for
which it was punished, from which it was recovered.
Time, in its grand course, containing within it all which
receives being and passes away, the most spiritual of the
unintelligent creatures of God, and, in its ceaseless flow,
the nearest image of His own eternity, was, in all its
parts, an object of Parsee-worship.
"Uncaused time" (as they called it, asserting thereby
an existence independent of God) was too abstract a
thought to enter much into the worship of a worshipper
of nature. The idolater worships chiefly what is, he
supposes, useful to him, those operations or creatures of
God, which touch his being most nearly. "Uncaused
time," then, was invoked but rarely. More often, "time
of the long periods," i. e. the time which envelopes the
history of man and his future destiny in this world, the
lifeless image of the all-embracing Providence of God,
corresponding to the "fortune" or "fate" of more ab-
1 Paullus, Colenso, Pent. ii. pp. 285, 6. Davidson too does not count it
post-Davidic. ii. 260.
2 Hupfeld, (Ps. T. iii. p. 56, who seems to have no definite opinion as to its
date,) will have it, that "evening, morning, and noonday, only describe the
day in its most prominent turning-points," and so, that it means, "the whole
day through." But then, it means more than morning and evening, and it
evinces, at least, a habit of praying more than twice in the day only. It
were an odd argument, that "evening, morning, noonday," do not mean the
three periods of set prayer in the day, which the words describe, in the order
of the Jewish day, beginning with the evening; and that the less definite
"three times in the day," does so precisely describe them, that people must
have recourse to the Indian worship of the sun to explain it.
unconnected with prayer to God thrice a day.
559
stract systems, according as they retained more or less
of the expression of the belief in God, the Ruler of all.
But nearer still to the agriculturist, to whom the cultiva-
tion of the earth was a central religious duty ³, were the
seasons and portions of the day, with their continual in-
fluences. The portions of the day, five or four according
to the season of the year, each in union with its own set
of gods, celestial or terrestrial, among whom the opera-
tions in nature were mostly distributed, were daily objects
of Parsee-worship. Strange and melancholy corpse of
3 See e. g. in Haug, Essays, pp. 141, 144, 146, 148, 154, 156, 7, espec. Vend.
Farg. iii. 24-33. "on the holiness of agriculture." Ib. pp. 206, 7.
4 "Especially used is the invocation of the several portions of the day, and
of great importance in the daily worship. They are called Gâhs. There are five
of these, (in winter, four only.) 1) Ushahina, morning, from midnight till the
stars disappear; 2) Háwani, from sunrise to midday; 3) Rapithwina, from
midday to the beginning of evening twilight; 4) Uzayéirina, from the be-
ginning of the twilight till the stars become visible; 5) Aiwiçrúthrema,
from the time when the stars become visible, to midnight. The invocations
of the times of day are found especially in the first chapters of the Yaçna and
in the pieces, called Gâhs. In union with the times of day, commonly some
other deities are also invoked, which are accounted their helpers and protect-
ors: viz. a heavenly genius, and then two others, who, it appears, have to
work in the world, and are not further named. 1) In union with Ushahina,
Çraosha appears, as heavenly watcher; then Berejya and Nmânya, of whom
the first, according to later authorities, has to watch over the growth of corn,
while Nmânya, to judge from his name, must look to the growth of fami-
lies." [Yç. i. 20-2, ii. 26-8, iii. 34-6, iv. 25-7, vi. 18-20, vii. 26-28. Qarsetnyâyis
n. 3. Av. iii. 10. Rashnu and Arstat are, I suppose, to be added to the gods
presiding over this part of the day, because their names occur in each place at
this, which, in that order, is the last of the times of the day, and before the
invocations of the monthly festivals. i. 23, iii. 29, 30, iii. 37, iv. 28, vi. 21, 2, vii.
29.] 2) The superintendent of the time Havani is Mithra; with him is uni-
ted Çavaghi, the protector of the herds and Vîçya the protector of the clans.
[Yq. i. 7-9, ii. 13-15, iii. 21-3, iv. 13-5, vi. 4-6, vii. 13-5, lxv. 4-6.] 3) With
Rapithwina, Asha-vahista and the fire [son of Ahuramazda Yç. i. 12.] stand
in connection; of earthly deities, Frâdat-fshu, the multiplier of cattle, and
Zantuma, the protector of societies. [Yç. i. 10-12, ii. 16-18, iii. 24-6, iv. 16-8,
vi. 8-10, vii. 16-8.] 4) Uzayéirina has as his protector Apanmnapât, the na-
vel of the waters : (according to glosses, the mountain Arburj,) [or Alburg:]
co-operating in the world are Frâdat-vîra, the preserver of men, and Daqyuma,
the protector of districts. [Yç. i. 13-15, ü. 19-22, iii. 27, iv. 19-21, vi. 12-4, vii.
19-21.] 5) Aiwiçrúthrema is placed under the care of the Frawashis of the
pure; with them cooperate Verethraghna, 'victory' ["the Indian Vritahâ,”
Haug, Ess. p. 244.] and Vanainti, 'smiting,' from above; and of terrestrial
deities, Frâdat-viçpanm-hujyâitis,”" 'the complete good condition,' and Zara-
560 Traces of Parsee prayer to the sun three times a day,
the living belief in the ever closely-present Omnipresence
of God, Who, the Psalmist knew, ¹hast known my sitting
down and my uprising,hast understood my thought afar off.
My path and my lying down hast Thou sifted, and all my
ways Thou hast been acquainted with. In whose hand is
the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind.
A worship of the portions of the day has no connec-
tion with a worship at given seasons of the day. No one
would venture to connect the morning and evening sa-
crifice, which, from the giving of the law, was part of the
daily worship of Israel, with the worship of the sun, which
that same law strictly forbade.
Granted that the worship of the god of fire, three times
in the day, was, of old, a part of the Parsee, as it certain-
ly was of Vedic idolatry 3. The first mention of any
such worship among the Parsees occurs indeed in a
thrustrotema, the protector of priests." [Yç. i. 16-19, ii. 23-5, iii. 30-3, iv.
22-4, vi. 15-7, vii. 22-5.] Spiegel, Av. iii. pp. xl, xli.
4
1 Ps. cxxxix. 2, 3, &c.
2 Job xii. 10.
3 "The following hymn (in Rig-veda iii. 28. 1) to Agni, (fire,) was pointed out
to me by Prof. Max Müller, as translated in his "history of ancient Sanskrit
literature." (p. 492. ed. 1.) Agni was a god, created by Brahmah. (Ib. 452, 2.)
I give the hymn in illustration of the character of the worship. "Agni, accept
our offering, the cake, O Jâtavedas, at the morning libation, thou rich in
prayer. The baked cake, O Agni, is prepared for thee alone indeed; accept
it, O youngest of all the gods. Agni, eat the cake, offered to thee when
the day is over, thou art the son of strength, stationed at the sacrifice. At
the midday libation, O Jâtavedas, accept here the cake, O sage! Agni, the
wise do not diminish at the sacrifices the share of thee, who art great.
Agni, as thou lovest at the third libation the cake, O son of strength, that is
offered to thee, therefore, moved by our praise, take this precious oblation to
the immortal gods to rouse them. Agni, thou who art growing, accept, O
Jâtavedas, the offering, the cake, at the close of day.”
4 Haug introduces mention of the prayers, said five, or three, times in the
day, into two neighbouring places of the Gâthâ Uçtavaiti. The first stands in
his Essays, p. 151. In his text, as translated by himself, there is no mention
of either. "What soul, (what guardian angel) may tell me good things, to
perform five times (a day) the duties which are enjoined by thyself, thou Wise!
and to recite those prayers, which are communicated for the welfare of all
beings by the good mind? What good intended for the increase of life is to
be had, that may come to me?" The basis of this, in his own Latin transla-
tion which was meant exactly to represent the original, and in his German
placed in the order of the Latin, is, "to remind me, what is thy doctrine,
(ratio,) O Wise, and what the advancement promised (dicta) by the good
subsequent to our Lord; to us, indifferent.
561
book 5, written after the revival of Magism by the Sas-
sanidæ 6, and so, long after our Lord. Yet it is probable
mind, and what true things of life exist to possess them, what mind shews
(edicit) (good,) that it may approach.” Die Gâthâs Yç. 44. n. 8. T. ii. p. 9. 43.
The place into which he introduces the prayer three times in the day, occurs
three stanzas earlier in the same poem. His literal translation is, "Who
(created) what morning, noon-day, and night, which are inventresses of
things," ["remind of his duties" Germ. tr.] "to him who has a divine reve-
lation." [Lat. Germ. "the priests." Essays, p. 150.] Die Gâthâs Yç. 44. n. 5.
T. ii. p. 9. 43. In his notes, "inventresses of things to him who hath a divine
revelation," is expanded into, "which ever remind the wise of his duties;
i. e. which through their continued even changes define the different duties
and activities of the wise, i. e. of the priest, that he bring the offerings at the
right time, and at the right time sing praises to the honor of God.” Ib. p. 41.
Granted, that "inventresses of things" could mean "reminding of duties,"
there is nothing to limit the expression to these any more than to other
duties of the day. Spiegel renders the first,
"This would I ask thee, tell me rightly, O Ahura.
Who has, goodworking, made the light as the darkness?
Who, goodworking, sleep and watching,
Who the dawns, the middays, the nights,
(Who) him who thinks on the measures of the law ?"
The second, "This would I ask, &c.
Thy five fold doctrine, O Ahura,
The prayers, for which thou art asked by Vohumano, (man)
The purity, which in the world is perfectly to be known,
How can my soul enjoy these goods, (and) obtain them ?"
He observes, "what the fivefold things are, spoken of here, cannot be said.”
Av. ii. 147.
5 “The Mînôkhired prescribes to pray to the sun three times in the day, to the
moon and the fire Behrem and Adarô (Aderân ?) at daybreak and midday. The
more modern practice is commonly to pray the Nyâyish of the sun four times
in the day, and that of the moon thrice only in the month, when the moon
waxes, and in the middle of the month, and when it wanes." Spiegel, iii. li.
6 "I account the Mînôkhired one of the most important works from the 2nd
period of Parsism." Spiegel, Tradit. Schr. d. Pars. p. 135. "On the ground
of language one must be inclined to assign it a comparatively higher age, un-
der the rule of the Sassanidæ. The book contains no historical points; yet
from some expressions I think myself justified in inferring that the book be-
longs to the rule of the Sassanidæ. Kings are often mentioned in the work.
'It is most useful to kings to consult with intelligent persons.' 'A good
king takes care that the land is cultivated, the poor protected, right hereditary
custom preserved. For the good mazdayaçn faith he gives his life, and if
any departs from the path of the Yazatas, he has him seized and brought back
to the right way.' Such a picture seems to me to belong only to a ruler at a
time when the religion of Zarathustra was still supreme in Eran.-He men-
tions wheat as the chief corn, which a Parsee, living in India, certainly would
0 0
562 Daniel's advice to Neb. about alms ascribes to them
that this idolatry, having been part of the Vedic worship,
was part of the original Zoroastrism, having, with the rest,
been retained rather than subsequently adopted in it.
The fact, however, that the Parsees, of old, did perform
the libations thrice a day is denied by one who identifies
the Parsee Homa ceremony with the Soma libation, or
Savana of the Indian worship¹. To us it is indifferent.
For what has such idolatrous ritual to do with the private
prayers of Daniel? The Parsee worshipped the creature ;
the Hebrew, the Creator; the old Vedic worship was a liba-
tion to the god of fire, in reference to the rising, meridian,
and setting sun; Daniel's prayer was without ritual,
without the Temple, amid suspended sacrifice, in his secret
chamber, to the One Omnipresent, Invisible, God. His
worship was as far removed from that of the Parsee, as
God is above His unintelligent creation. Of simple
prayers three times in the day, apart from ritual, no men-
tion, I am informed, occurs in the Institute of Manu;
the first mention of these prayers in Indian books is in a
book whose earliest date is two centuries after our
Lord 2.
v. 4. Lastly, Daniel's advice to Nebuchadnezzar is to
not have lighted on." Spiegel, Trad. Sch. p. 137. "Also the doctrine of the
heavenly wisdom, so prominent in the book, and its contact with the ideas of
Western Asia in the first centuries after Christ, speak for an early date of the
book." Id. Ib.
1 For the third, or evening oblation, there was no room in the Parsee ri-
tual, because no sacrificial rites are allowed to be performed at evening or
night time." Haug, Essays, p. 239.
6
2 Dr. Aufrecht, with his wonted kindness, wrote for me the following state-
ment on the times of prayer among the Hindus, (as distinct from the libations
or Savanahs above mentioned.) "The term for twilight in Sanskrit is sandhyd.
In this meaning it occurs already in Vedical books, and, as natural, very often
in the Dual. As it was enjoined on every Hindu to say his private prayers
before sunrise and sunset, sandhyd soon became the technical term for the
time of private devotions, and to sit down to the sandhyâ,' is as much as to
perform one's daily devotions. Manu knows only of two such periods, and,
repeatedly either uses the Dual (2, 78. 222.), or particularises them by saying
púrva and paschimá, or pírvá and apará sandhyd, 'the former and latter
time of prayer.' (2, 101,4. 93.) Yájnavalkya, who avowedly is later than Manu,
is the first who speaks of a traikályasandhya, 'devotions performed three
times a day,' (3, 308.) including the devotions at noon. But this third time
of prayer has at no time become so obligatory as the two first." Stenzler,
no "magical" effect, but agrees with the N. T. 563
3
4
have been wrong, and to ascribe a magical effect to alms,
such as, it is assumed, could only belong to the decay of
Judaism. "Magical" it certainly is not; for Daniel does
not even venture to assure Nebuchadnezzar that it would
avail. This future had not been revealed to him ; so he
ventures not to anticipate the judgment of God. He says
only, if it may be a lengthening of thy tranquillity. But
Daniel's advice is, to imitate those two great attributes of
God, which are the theme of the whole Old Testament,
justice and mercy. Oppression and injustice were, pro-
bably, almost inseparable from Heathen despotism. Any
how, Daniel's advice implies that Nebuchadnezzar had
fallen into them. His advice then is to those same two
acts, which the Saviour of the world accepted in Zac-
chæus ³, reparation, and deeds of love. Redeem thy sins
by righteousness and thine iniquities by shewing mercy to
the poor, or afflicted. If the Gospel has any other terms
of forgiveness, than the breaking off of sin by its contrary,
righteousness; if there is any other valid token of re-
pentance than newness of life; or if mercy shall cease
to have that prerogative with God, that 5 the merciful
shall obtain mercy, then we may think that this advice
belonged to a decayed Judaism. But, if the copying of
those two great attributes of God is essential to the
Christian, and, in the Great Day, mercy shall rejoice
over judgment, then we shall admire the great Prophet,
who fearlessly admonished of his sins the conqueror of
the world in the centre of his self-created magnificence,
and exhorted him to a greater work than the conquest
of the world, the conquest of himself, and to a greater
glory than his stupendous works, to imitate that most
glorious prerogative of the King of kings, the merciful-
ness of our God.
6
And now, by the mercy of my God, my task is done.
I have pointed out to you that, place the book of Da-
who edited the work of Yajnavalhya, puts his earliest date in the 2nd cent.
after our Lord. Vorr. p. xi.
¹ Dan. iv. 27 Eng. 24 Ch.
3 S. Luke xix. 8.
5 S. Matt. v. 7.
6 S. James ii. 13.
002
564
Summary.
3.
niel where men will, it contains undeniable prophecy¹;
that its prophecy is at once vast and minute, relating both
to the natural events of God's Providence, and the super-
natural order of His Grace2; that its minute prophecy
is in harmony with that of the rest of Holy Scripture 3; so
that they who reject it, do, either nakedly or on the one
or other plea, reject all definite prophecy, leaving, of
Holy Scripture, only what they will; that, whereas the
minute prophecies of the book of Daniel exclude any date
between its real date, that of the close of the captivity,
and that which must have been its date, had it been a
human book, that of Antiochus Epiphanes, the later
date is precluded, both by the history of the closing
of the Canon 4, and by the references to the book of Da-
niel 4, as well in books of the Canon, Nehemiah and Ze-
chariah, as also in other books, before, in, or soon after
the date of Epiphanes, and also by the character of its
first Greek translation; that neither its language, nor
its historical references 6, nor its doctrines7, imply any
later date than that of Daniel himself; but that, contra-
riwise, the character of its Hebrew exactly fits with the
period of Daniel 5, that of its Chaldee excludes any later
period 5; that the minute fearless touches, involving de-
tails of customs, state-institutions, history, belong to a
contemporary; and that what are, superficially, historical
difficulties, disappearing upon fuller knowedge, are in-
dications of the accurate, familiar knowledge of one per-
sonally acquainted with customs or events. I have
shewn too how its doctrines are in harmony with those
of other Scriptures, earlier and later 7.
Of the objections, I believe, that no one would have
been thought of, but for the necessity of getting rid of
the miracles and prophecies of Daniel, unless people
would believe them. Certainly, no one objection appears
to me even plausible. I have answered the objections.
1 Lect. ii. and iii.
4 Lect. vi.
2 Lect. iv.
6 Lect. vii. 7 Lect. viii. and ix.
3 Lect. v.
5 Lect. 1. and Note and D at the end.
To answer objections prepares for faith, God's gift. 565
To convince, is the office not of man but of God. Gibbon
enunciated a larger truth than he was aware of, when,
unable to see any escape from the contemporary evidence
for a fact, or from its miraculousness, if it were true,
he said, "They all [all the witnesses of the fact] lived
within the compass of a century; they all appeal to
their personal knowledge or the public notoriety for
the truth of a miracle which was repeated in several
instances, displayed on the greatest theatre of the
world, and submitted, during a series of years, to the
calm examination of the senses. But the stubborn mind
of an infidel is guarded by a secret incurable suspicion,”—
incurable save by God.
St. Paul had said the same before, the natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; only it is
man's own fault, if, encompassed with the Gospel, he
remain in, or apostatise into, a state of nature. Yet to
see, (as I believe,) a solid answer to those objections,
although it cannot give faith to one who has lost faith,
may aid in beating off unbelief or may predispose for
faith. It may put a person in the position, in which he
will either not admit unbelief, or will seek for faith from
Him Who gives it to all who seek Him. It is not enquiry,
but a non-enquiring acquiescence in doubt, which is the
peril of this day. It costs much to disbelieve; it requires
submission to our God and His grace, to believe. The
temptation of this age is to try to find a middle path be-
tween faith and unbelief; to say that "there is much to
be said on both sides ;" to think that all things must be
nncertain in themselves, because many of the persons
around us are at sea as to all things, as if one thought all
things to be in a whirl, because they seemed so to our
neighbours who had dizzied themselves; to be browbeaten
out of belief; to shrink from avowing a steadfast ad-
herence to that which must be old because it is eternal,
and which must be unchangeable because it is truth;
to pick something out of revelation, which, it thinks,
8 Decline and Fall, c. 38. A.D.530. "Persecution in Africa.”
9 1 Cor. ii. 14.
566
Truth-destroying compromise or truth.
will not be gainsaid, and to relegate all else to be matter
of opinion; an indolent, conceited, soft, weak, pains-ha-
ting, trifling with the truth of God.
It is not, for the present, a day of naked blasphemy.
The age is mostly too soft for it. Voltaire's "écrasez
l'infâme" shocks it. Yet I know not whether the open
blasphemy of the 18th century is more offensive than
the cold-blooded patronising ways of the 19th. Rebellion
against God is not so degrading, nor so deceiving, as a
condescending acknowledgement of His Being, while it
denies His rights over us. Be not then imposed upon by
smooth words. It is an age of counterfeits. Look not
only at what is said, but look for what is suppressed and
tacitly dropped out of the Creeds. The rationalism of
this day will give you good words as far as they go, but
will empty them of their meaning; it will give as plausible
a counterfeit as it can, but the image and superscription¹
is its own. It will gild its idols for you, if you will accept
them for the Living God. It will give you sentiment
instead of truth, but as the price at which you are to
surrender truth. It will praise Jesus as, (God forgive
it!) in fact, an enlightened Jew, a benefactor to mankind;
and it will ask you in exchange, to consent not to say that
He was God. It will extol His superiority to Judaism,
and include under "Judaism"truths of God. It will praise
His words as full of truth, and will call them, in a sense,
divine truths, and will ask you in exchange, not to say
that it is the infallible truth. It will say, in its sense, that
"the Bible contains the word of God," and will ask of you
to give up your belief that "it is the word of God." It
will say, in its sense, that the prophets spake by the Holy
Ghost, (i. e. as all which is good and true is spoken by
inspiration of the Spirit of God,) and will ask of you, in
exchange, to drop the words, or at least the meaning,
of the Creed, that God the Holy Ghost "spake by the
prophets." It will say to you, that the prophets were
"elevated by a divine impulsion," and grant you an
intensified presentiment," but only in the sense common
1 S. Matt. xxii. 20.
66
The choice.
567
to the higher conditions of humanity, even unaided by
the Grace of God. It will acknowledge a fallible inspi-
ration, fallible even as to matters of every-day morality 3,
and will ask of you to surrender the belief in the infalli-
ble. It will descant on the love of God, if you will surren-
der your belief in His aweful Holiness and Justice; it
will speak with you of Heaven, if you, with it, will sup-
press the mention of Hell. It will retain the words of
revelation, and substitute new meanings, if you will be
content with the sound, and will part with the substance
of the word of God 4.
The battle must be fought. It is half-won, when any
one has firmly fixed in his mind the first principle, that
God is All-Wise and All-Good, and that man's own wis-
dom, although from God, is no measure for the Wisdom
of God, and cannot sound its depth. The criticism of
rationalism is but a flimsy transparent veil, which hides
from no eyes except its own, (if indeed it does hide it
altogether from its own,) the real ground of its rebellion,
its repugnance to receive a revelation to which it must
submit, in order that it may see.
You must make your choice. Let it be a real one. But,
before you choose, set before you that Day in which you
shall see unveiled, all which you now see in part, and think
what it will be to find, that they whom you adopted as
teachers, critics and criticism which has in no case sur-
vived its parents,-taught you to ignore or deny or dis-
believe, or accuse in the Name of God, what is indeed the
very truth of God. Even in this life, those mists which
hurry along so vehemently, so darkly, so impetuously,
like hosts disarrayed, in yon tumultuous, thronging and
seemingly endless flight, part to the eye which watches
well, and there opens to it the serene depth of heaven,
in its own unchanging brightness, calm as ever beyond,
"They shew that there is a preconscious region of the soul, with which
the Divine Spirit, evoking its latent phænomena, has sympathetic relation.”
Davidson, ii. 466. from Contributions to Mental Philosophy by I. M. Fichte,
translated by Morell, c. 3, 4.
e. g. Dr. Stanley, Jewish Church, p. 329.
3
4 Prof. Jowett, Epistles of St. Paul, ii. 589. Essay on the Atonement.
568
Object of faith as certain to us as our being.
uneffaced, undimmed, uninjured, by the black earth-born
clouds, which roll so far below. Those glimpses, which,
by the gift of God, come even in this world to the soul
which resigns itself wholly to God, in prayer, in contem-
plation, in meditation, in devout study of His word, are
earnests of the clearness of the Eternal Day. The Christ-
ian is as certain of the truth of what rationalism im-
pugns, as of his own existence.
his being, gave him also his faith. God did not reveal
Himself, that we should live in a twilight, seeing nothing
of His truth distinctly, but only men, as trees, walking.
Twilight must brighten into full day, or darken into the
heaviness of night. To choose not to believe, is to dis-
believe. To halt between two divided ways 2, is to reject
God-given truth. If the Lord be the God, follow Him;
and if Baal, go after him.
1 S. Mark viii. 24.
For God, Who
For God, Who gave him
·1
2 'yon 1 Kings xviii. 21.
Thanks be to God.
NOTES.
Note A on p. 38.
EXPLANATION of the worDS IN DANIEL which are, or
were supposED TO BE ARYAN WORDS, by PROFESSOR
MAX MÜLLer.
One who is only a Semitic scholar cannot, of course, estimate
the different explanations of the Aryan names in Daniel, except in so
far as some are self-evidently bad. I applied therefore to one, who
to his great Sanskrit knowledge adds a marvellous genius in compa-
rative philology, Max Müller. With his wonted kindness, he has
written down for me the following explanations of the words, upon
which I consulted him. Words, which, as na and 1770, are clearly
Semitic, or, as 17p, th, are of simple etymology and became indige-
nous in other Semitic languages, needed no explanation, and on
these I did not consult him.
1) " Pathbag is of Persian origin. Path corresponds to the Zend
preposition paiti, and is the same as pith in pithgam. (No. 2.) This
Zend preposition paiti corresponds to the Sanskrit preposition prati.
(comp.πρоrí, (Homer,) Toprí, (Cretan,) Torí, (Homer,) andπpós.) This
paiti in Zend expresses distribution, as paiti açni, day by day, (Sanskr.
pratyaham.) It likewise conveys the notion of movement towards,
whether in a friendly or hostile sense, (paity-âra, contrarius.) The
second part of pathbag is the Persian bág, 'tribute,' the Sanskrit
bhaga, a portion.' It happens that the very compound pratibhaga
has been preserved in Sanskrit, where it is explained as 'A share of
small articles, as fruit, flowers, &c. paid daily to the Rája for house-
hold expenditure.' This was pointed out by Gildemeister, Zeitschrift
für Kunde des Morgenlandes, iv. p. 214.
"Scaliger (Animadversiones ad Euseb. Chron. p. 112,) speaking
of the change of g into z, has the following remark: "hanc commuta-
tionem Get Z nihil planius ostendere potest quam #oríßalis, quod
dictum est pro ποτίβαγις vel πατίβαγις. Nomen est Assyriacum, path-
bag Danielis, i. 8. Δείνων ἐν τρίτῳ Περσικῶν, citante Athenaeo,-ἔστι
δὲ ποτίβαζις ἄρτος κρίθινος καὶ πύρινος ὀπτὸς, καὶ κυπαρίσσου στέφανος,
καὶ οἶνος κεκραμένος ἐν ὠῷ χρυσῷ, οἱ αὐτὸς βασιλεὺς πίνει. Itaque
570
Max Müller on Aryan words
pathbag non solum cibum significat, ut interpretantur Iudaei, sed
et omnia quae recensentur a Dinone, in quibus corona, quod ad su-
perstitionem Chaldaicam pertinet. Ideo Daniel et socii maluerunt
abstinere quam iis uti. Nam si solus πύρινος ἄρτος aut κρίθινος fuis-
set, non magis respuissent quam eorum legumina cocta.'
"The coincidence between Dinon's explanation of Tоτíßalis as ve-
getables, wreaths, &c. to be taken by the King, and the independent
interpretation of pratibhaga by Sanskrit lexicographers is curious.
2) "In pithgam, the first portion is again the preposition paiti, in
the sense of 'towards;' gam is to 'go' in Sanskrit, Zend, and the Cunei-
form Inscriptions. Hence pratigama might well have had the mean-
ing of 'messenger,' though the compound does not occur in that sense in
Sanskrit. There is, however, a similar compound in Sansk., prati-
śásana, which means 'sending a servant on a message,' from prati
'towards,' and sasana, 'commanding.' That the compound pratiga-
ma, in the sense of 'messenger,' existed in Persian, is shown by the mo-
dern Persian paiẩm, nuntius. There is the intermediate form pai-
gham, and the Haft qulzum mentions an archaic form paitam. In
Armenian too patgam exists, in the sense of 'message.' Paiti sinks
down to pai in modern Persian, as for instance, paiker, 'picture,'
corresponding to a Sanskrit compound, prati-kara, literally counter-
feit. Patikara occurs in the Cuneiform Inscriptions."
[The i in paiti was probably elided in Aramaic, (both pathbag and
pithgam became indigenous in Syriac also,) on the principle of re-
ducing the words to quadriliterals.]
3) "Sagan is very likely connected with the Modern Persian shah-
neh, a ‘prefect,' but the etymology of the word is not clear. The
Sanskr.root Kshi, to rule, appears in the Cuneiform Inscriptions as shi
in shiyati, dominion;' once shayatá. Kshayathiya, King,' in the
Cuneif. Inscriptions, becomes shúh in Mod. Persian. Another verb
meaning to command is the Zend çańh.
<
4) “Pechah. Is this a foreign word, having a Semitic status con-
structus, and the plural pachoth? It could not be derived from Sansk.
paksha, Prakrit pakkha, which means, 'side,' 'wing,' pratipaksha,
enemy,' sapaksha, 'friend.'
66
[The Hebrew Pechah is remarkable from its early reception
into Hebrew, having become a title of some governors" in Solo-
mon's outlying dominions. For in that they are mentioned, both in
1 Kings x. 15, and 2 Chron. ix. 14, in union with "the kings of Ara-
bia," as persons who supplied a yearly quantity of gold in addition
to his regular revenue, and this, in connection with that derived from
in Daniel.
571
the merchants, it is in itself probable, that "the Pachoth of the land”
were governors set over the outlying country beyond Judæa proper.
And this is illustrated by the second place in which they are men-
tioned, (1 Kings xx. 24,) where Benhadad, after his first defeat, is
advised to depose the thirty-two subordinate kings who helped him,
(Ib. 16) and to put Pachoth in their place. He substituted Syrian
"governors" for the 32 tributary "kings." Then, still in that neigh-
bourhood, and in part doubtless in the same country, they are in mi-
litary command in Sennacherib's army, leading doubtless their own
contingent of troops, in his multitudinous host. (2 Kings xviii. 24.)
Sennacherib compares Hezekiah to one of the "governors" of the
subjugated provinces, which he held subdued. (Comp. Is. x. 8, 9,
2 Kings xviii. 34.) Then, in each case joined with Sagans, Pechah is
used of Babylonian, (Jer. li. 23, 57, Ez. xxiii. 6, 23,) and Median,
(Jer. li. 28,) governors. Daniel, in recounting the Babylonian go-
vernors, places the Pechahs the third, after the Satraps and Sagans.
(iii. 2, 3, 27.) Under Darius, they are not immediately united with
the Sagans, but still are enumerated with these only, the Satraps and
the haddaberin, “privy councillors." vi. 8. Somewhat later, (Esth.
viii. 9, ix. 3,) the Pechahs are mentioned without the Sagans, but
with the Satraps and the "princes of the provinces." In the times
after the captivity there were several such Pechahs, westward of
the Euphrates, between it and Judæa, (Ezr. viii. 36, Neh. ii. 7, 9,)
probably the same locality, in regard to which the name was first
used under Solomon. Specifically, Tatnai is entitled as "Pechah
beyond the river," Ezr. v. 3, vi. 6, who,(although apparently he dwelt
at Jerusalem, Neh. iii. 7,) is yet, in the same rescript of Darius, dis-
tinguished from "the Pechah of the Jews," (Ezr. vi. 7) whom natu-
rally there was most occasion to mention. (Hagg. i. 1, 14, ii. 2, 21,
Mal. i. 8, Neh. v. 14, 18, xii. 26.)
It seems to me most probable, that Solomon adopted the title, as
it already existed in the Syrian territories, for it is not said that he
"placed Pechahs," but only that they paid him gold. Thus the
name Rajah" is continued in our Indian dominions.
(C
On my replying that Pechah had no possible Semitic etymology,
and enquiring whether it could be connected with Pasha or with
Beg, Max Müller kindly gave me this further answer;]
"If Pechah is connected with Pasháh, the history of the word would
be very curious,
"The modern Persian padshah is a compound; pád, the Sansk. pati,
‘lord' (πóσis), Zend paiti. It does not occur in the Cuneiform In-
572
Max Müller on Aryan words
scriptions. Shah, King,' is what remains of the Khshayathiya, the
name for 'King' in the Cuneiform Inscriptions; Darius calling him-
self Khshayathiya Khshayathiyanam, just like the modern Shahin-
shah. Hebrew does not tolerate, I believe, two such initial con-
sonants as Kh+sh; hence, in the name of Xerxes, the Cuneiform
Khshayarsha, we get Achashverush; instead of Satrap, the Cunei-
form Khshatrapává, we get Achashdarpenim. In Persian, the guttu-
ral was afterwards dropt; this gave Satrap instead of Khshatrap.
In the same manner Kksháyathiye in Persian sank down to shayathi-
ya, and finally to Shah. Could the chah in Chaldee be meant for this
shah? The guttural was there originally as much as the sibilant,
but I find no trace of the sibilant being dropt in Persian and the
guttural retained.
"As to Beg I can find nothing except that it is treated as a bonâ
fide Turkish word, and would therefore be quite independent of Se-
mitic or Aryan.
CC
Possibly Pechah is from Persian pesh, 'before,' peshvá, 'governor.'
5) "Gisbar, a compound of gis and bar. Bár is clearly Persian,
meaning at the end of compounds, 'Keeper.' Gis is most likely a
contraction of gins, (comp. ginsin, 'treasures,') but it is doubtful whe-
ther gins is of Semitic or Aryan origin. Dietrich thinks it can be
explained as a Semitic formation and that it was borrowed by the
Persians from their Semitic neighbours. If on the contrary gins is,
like bár, of Persian origin, it will have to be identified with the
Mod. Pers. genj, 'treasure,' and the compound gisbár with genjvár,
'treasurer.' Genj in Persian has been derived from Sansk. ganja
treasure.' But though ganja occurs in Sanskrit in that sense, and
likewise ganjavara, 'treasurer,' they both occur in late Sanskrit
only, and were probably transferred from Persian into Sanskrit.
Other words for treasure' in Sansk. are kosha, which has been sug-
gested as an etymon of gis; and kanchana, 'gold.'
6
C
The Old-Persian gaitha (the Zend gaétha) has been guessed by
Dr Haug as the origin of genj and gins, and this would explain the
form gedabar, used by Daniel. Gaếtha in Zend, however, means only
'hurdles,' property,' but not treasure'. The Greek yála, ' royal trea-
sure,' and yağoþúλag, ‘treasurer,' come from the same source as the
Persian genj, but they throw no light on the original intention of the
word."
[The Semitic etymology of 1, “treasure,” is, in itself, satisfactory ;
since, in Aramaic, it signifies, 1) “hidden,” (as, in the unsettled state
of the East, would be common as to "treasure,") then, “laid up.”
In
}
in Daniel.
573
Syriac i "the hidden," is a common title of God, the adv. ni
"in a veiled way" occurs in S. Ephr. i. 414; of one “ lurking con-
cealed," Barh. p. 490. 1. 17. B. A trace of the same meaning occurs
in Arabic too, 1) "covered," 2) "collected." (See Ges. Thes. p. 296.)
And, since a is used of a "chest" in which merchandise was "laid
up" and conveyed, (Ez. xxvii. 24.) the name may have travelled with
the thing; and the word, which originally expressed the chest in which
valuables were "stored up," may have been transferred to the stores
themselves. The word having been naturalised in Persian, (see Max
Müller above,) the difficulty of its etymology being half Semitic, half
Persian, is removed. The naturalised Persian word was united with
the old Persian, as we, in our familiar " stable-keeper," unite the La-
tin and Saxon, unconscious that they are such. The compound it-
self, gidsabro, "treasurer," occurs in the Peshito in Kings, Chron. Ezr.
and also in Barh. Chr. pp. 425. 1. 6; 152.1. 7, and, (written 1x2,) in
a Nestorian Epistle, A.D. 1504, in Ass. B.O. iii. 594 (quoted by Ges.
1. c.) as also the abstract, gidsborutho, "treasury." B.B. and B. A.
The gedabar of Daniel is recognised as a variation, perhaps dialectic,
of the gidsbar of Ezra and modern Syriac, the sibilant being dropped.]
6) "Dethabár is clearly a Persian compound; the second part búr
is the same as in gisbúr; the first deth stands for the Mod. Pers.
dad. It occurs also as dath in Daniel. The two roots da, ‘to give,”
(Sidwµi) and dhấ, 'to place' (tíbŋµ) assume in Persian one and the
same form.
Hence dád means a gift,' (from da,) and also 'law' and
'religion,' i. e. what is settled and established, (from dha.) The
Partic. past of dd, in the Cuneiform Inscr., is data. The modern
Persian Dávar, judge, is a corruption of dádvar.
7) "Tiphta seems a Semitic word, though it occurs in Daniel only.
The same Semitic root yields the Arabic Mufti.”
[In answer to a subsequent enquiry, "whether Benfey's explanation
of Tifta by Atipaiti was admissible ?" Max Müller answered, "atipati
is really no Sanskrit word at all;—at least, it never could mean 'Ober-
herr.' [Benfey's rendering.] That in Sanskrit would be adhipati. If it
is objectionable to trace Tifta to the same root as Mufti, the word,
Tifta, must be left for the present unexplained, without saying any-
thing about such a mere guess as atipati." The Semitic etymology
is perfectly satisfactory, Tifta, as well as Mufti, being the name of an
office. I hesitated to adopt it, until Benfey's etymology should be dis-
posed of, because, if Atipaiti had the meaning, which he assigned to it,
it was a possible etymology, (although, as Fürst also observes, very
vague,) and also because of the bearings of the etymology on the
date of the book of Daniel. For, derived from the same root л, it
574 Max Müller on Aryan words in Daniel.
involves this; that the name of the office, in Daniel's time, was de-
rived from a meaning of the root in Aramaic, which was subsequent-
ly wholly lost, although it survived in the corresponding title in
Arabic. Its use in the Arabic verb is rather obscure. In conj. iv.
it signifies," he taught another, by way of response, as to the truth
or law of a thing," (see in Freytag Lex.) whence the partic.
Mufti, "one who so taught." Yet the words, fatvai, fotvai, the
response" itself, indicate the existence of the simple root. Proba-
bly it was connected with the Heb. root, nn,
66
66
was open," which, in
its stronger form, ns, signified, "laid open," which also in Arabic
is used of God's "laying open " by revelation, and of man's "dijudi-
cating." See Freytag, sub v.]
8) "Sarbal, like the Arabic servál, plur. serávíl, is of Persian ori-
gin. Dozy (Dictionnaire des Noms des Vêtements, p. 204) shows
that Mohammed forbad pilgrims to wear serávil on their pilgrimage
to Mekka. The Persian word for braccae is shalvar, or more cor-
rectly shulvár. Shul in Persian is femur, the Sanskrit Kshura or
Khura, hoof; Latin, crus, cruris. The Greeks changed Shulvar into
σαράβαρα, (ἐσθὴς Περσική, Suidas), later, σαράβαλλα. In Sarbal, the
r and 1 changed places.
“The Zend, çáraváro, [quoted by Gesenius Thes. p. 971,] is a dif-
ferent word, and means literally a cover of the head.' From this
word çara, or çara 'head,' Sanskrit śíras, the term
9) "Sarak may be regularly derived, being an adjective in ka,
meaning' head-man.' In Sanskrit, siras is not used with reference to
persons, as little as the Greek kópus ; but ser, ‘head,' is frequently ap-
plied to persons in modern Persian, in the sense of kopvpaîos.
10) “ Hamnik, derived from Sanskr. mani, a ‘jewel,' with a secon-
dary derivative, ka, manika. The Latin monile is a cognate word.”
"It is impossible to give any etymology of the proper names Mishach,
Shadrach, &c. Mîshach may have been mis, ‘friend,' shah,' King,' but
in Persian this compound could only mean, King of the friend.' Mi-
shach may be 'lambkin,' Sanskr. meshaka, as Dietrich supposes; but
there can be nothing certain or even probable with regard to proper
names of which we know nothing but their sound.
66
Kilapis cannot possibly be derived from the Persian sitáreh, a
three-stringed (not six-stringed) instrument. Kilapis occurs in
Κίθαρις
Homer, and the numeral 'three,' the Sanskr. tri, is still unchanged in
Zend, where it appears as thri. Si is a much later corruption of this
numeral.
"Partemím is clearly the plural of a Persian word. It is the
On the Hebrew of Daniel.
575
Sanskr. prathama; Zend. fratema; Cuneiform Inscriptions, fru-
tama; πρῶτος.
66
Daryavesh is a more accurate transcript of the name of the Per-
sian king than Aapetos. Darius calls himself in his Inscriptions
Daryavush, which means the 'holder' or 'supporter.'
Note B. on p. 36.
66
ON THE HEBREW OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL, AND THE
ARGUMENT ALLEGED FROM IT FOR THE LATENESS" OF
THAT BOOK.
The evidence for the "lateness" of the book of Daniel, to be de-
rived from its six Hebrew chapters, was not a little eccentric. Of
course, the book of Daniel was "late." According to its historical
date, it was one of the "latest" books of the Canon. Eight books
of the Canon only were later; the three prophets after the captivity,
the Chronicles, (in which however earlier documents were used,) Ezra,
Nehemiah, Esther. The date, however, required for the book of Da-
niel, if it was not to be his, was two centuries and a half later than
the latest of these. In order then to prove that the style of the book
of Daniel evinced that it was so much later than his date, it ought to
have been shewn, that it was different in character from the books
written soon after the captivity. On the contrary, the evidence chief-
ly alleged is, that it has certain words in common with them.
Thus, i. "Daniel, as well as Ezekiel and the author of the books of
Chronicles, revived idioms out of the Pentateuch." (Leng. p. Ixi.)
This, at least, suits a date which lay between Ezekiel and the historian.
Granted, that it shewed that Daniel wrote at a late date; yet it is not a
date, later than that of the prophet himself.
ii. “There are agreements with Ezekiel, and the books of the latest
period." (Leng. p. lx.) Again, correspondence with Ezekiel, who was
older than Daniel, as a proof that Daniel was above four centuries
younger!
iii." He imitates Jeremiah, who in the case of the genuineness [of
the book,] was almost his contemporary." (Leng. followed by Dav.
iii. 194.) But it is now acknowledged that the prophets did pur-
posely use the words of those almost their contemporaries. (see ab.
pp. 310, 11.) The date, also, at which Daniel wrote the prophecies
576
Alleged marks of “lateness” in
delivered through himself, was nearly 70 years after Jeremiah's pro-
phecy of the captivity.
""
iv. "The prayer c. ix. contains verbal imitations of Nehemiah."
(Leng. and from him De Wette and Dav.) The truth is the converse,
that Nehemiah adopted a few words of address to God from Daniel's
prayer. (See ab. pp. 355-8.)
v. Daniel's expressions "are often careless, clusmy, or obscure.”
Three such expression are alleged out of his Chaldee; ii. 30, v. 4,
vi. 21; four out of his Hebrew, i. 21, ix. 8, 26, xi. 6. What, if there
had been obscurity? Is there none in Hosea, or in the hymn of Ha-
bakkuk, or in Ezekiel, or even here and there in Isaiah? This “ob-
scurity, &c," however, is to be an indication, that he had not the full
grasp of the language, but wrote as one who had learned it. (Leng. Ib.)
Now, contrariwise, a writer, who has learned a language, avoids ob-
scure expressions. Obscurity arises from the use of words or idioms,
which, in course of time, become obsolete, or of allusions, which come
to be forgotten; or in a pregnancy or conciseness of diction, which
a writer uses, in the full confidence that he shall be understood by
those to whom the language which he uses is as familiar as to himself.
Moreover, three out of the seven expressions are in his Aramaic, the
language which Daniel spoke, which, in the later style, the Jews con-
tinued to use. Daniel's style in writing Aramaic is to be a proof of
his "clumsiness," &c. in writing Hebrew! But after all, in three
out of the four Hebrew passages, there is no obscurity. a) There
could not be a simpler sentence than that, Dan. i. 21, nag y b7 277)
abeo wch nog lit. “And Daniel was, [i. e. continued,] unto the year
one of Cyrus the king." He states, in other words, that he continued
through the whole residue of the Bablyonian empire. "Unto," it
is well known, does not exclude the time beyond; it only reaches
quite up to the term. This is an idiom of all Hebrew. The ex-
pression is "unsuited to an author of the Maccabee times.” (Leng.)
Granted. b) ix. 8. there is not even an alleged obscurity of style.
אֲדֹנָי לָנוּ בַּשֶׁת הַפָּנִים לִמְלָכִינוּ לְשְׂרֵינוּ וְלַאֲבֹתֵינוּ אֲשֶׁר חָטָאנוּ לָךְ :It is flowing Hebrew
"O Lord, to us confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and
to our fathers, us who have sinned against Thee." What is alleg-
ed, is to be, not an obscurity, but an anachronism; the mention of
their "kings" is not to suit either the time of Daniel or of the Mac-
cabees; the writer is to have "used places like Ezra ix. 7, forgetting
the contradiction that there were no kings in the exile." But 1) the
shame of the Jewish kings must have been most keenly felt in Baby-
lon, where Jehoiachin lived in his prison-garments for 37 years, dur-
the Hebrew in Daniel.
577
ing the whole reign of Nebuchadnezzar, and, when removed by
Evilmerodach above the other kings of Babylon, was still part of his
conqueror's show. (2 Kings xxv. 27-30.) There too, while he lived,
was the eyeless Zedekiah in chains. (Jer. xxxix. 7, 2 Kings xxv. 7.)
2) The mention of "our fathers," in the same sentence, shews that
Daniel was not thinking of his own generation only. But his fathers
were kings. (Dan. i. 3.) 3) Of course, whatever explanation suited
Ezra, who lived after the captivity, would have suited Daniel too, since
at neither time were there kings reigning. c) "Dan ix. 26, i p," is
only too clear. It will not mean, what these writers want it to mean,
for their explanations. (See ab. p. 184. n. 11.) d) Dan. xi. 6, re-
quires attention; but the obscurity lies, not in the Hebrew words,
but in the substance. It is prophesied of the alliance between Antio-
chus Theos and Ptolemy Philadelphus, who married his daughter
Berenice to Antiochus, to make terms of agreement, (the legitimate
wife Laodice being dismissed,) that it should "not stand." She
shall not retain the power of the arm, neither shall he stand nor
hís arm; but she shall be given up, and they that brought her, and
he that begat her, and he that strengthened her, in the times. Out
of all this, the one word, iy, "his arm," is selected as obscure, neither
he shall stand nor his arm, i. e. according to the common Hebrew idi-
om, "neither he nor his helper," i. e. she who was to have strengthen-
ed him by her alliance, Berenice, (as Leng. himself explains it,
p. 517,
in seeming unconsciousness of any difficulty.) I will add, in illus-
tration of this criticism, that the Aramaic passages, against which
Leng. excepts, are equally clear.
v. "He is unacquainted with vau conversive." (Leng. Dav. iii. 194.)
This is a marvellous statement, since Daniel uses it continually. It
means, (as Leng. shews, p. 552,) that, in vivid prophetic description,
Daniel used the abridged future with the simple "and." But this
occurs in books of the middle age, and even in the Pentateuch. (See
below p. 591.)
vi." He omits the article, where there can be no ambiguity." (Leng.
translated by Dav.) Why should he not? He does so only in the
more elevated prophetic descriptions, as do writers of the middle age
of Hebrew. (See below p. 589.)
vii. "Other words only find their parallels in the Targums and the
Rabbins. Such are, oy, [our "vegetables,"] only in Aramaic; phy
'everlasting life;' and 7, in its original meaning 'shine,' only in
the Targums (!); and a proverbial expression, (D. iv. 32,) which only
occurs besides in the Targums and the Talmudists." (Leng. Dav.)
Pp
578
Hebrew of Daniel suits his age.
This large language, ("the Targums and Talmudists,") really means,
that Buxtorf noted one instance of the Aramaic expression, D'O NOQ!,
in a late Targum, (Eccl. viii. 3,) and one in Sanh. 93. 1. The ex-
pression would be remarkable, only if it had the meaning given to it
by Gesenius, on the strength of an analogous Arabic idiom, "Who
shall strike His hand?" Buxtorf, however, did not think that such was
its meaning, but rather, "restrain." There is no trace of the physi-
cal meaning in the other idioms, given by Buxtorf, in which wn, as
in this, signifies "restrain or "prohibit." In them, it cannot mean
"strike." "It was in his power to hinder, and he hindered not," 17''
an' minds, Sanhedr. 103. 1. (in Buxt. c. 1186.) "For My glory ye
did not avert it, (on'no &) but for flesh and blood ye did avert it (on'ND).”
(Sanh. 10. 1. 103. 2. Ib.) “ He hindered them not," ' xh. Sanh.
93. 1. (Ib.) "He who removes, takes away, his neighbour's wife,”
mann ænn'æb a'b л Sanh. f. 109, 2. (Ib.) np ", " to remove its
intestines." Pesach. f. 65. (Ib.) bɔa indo xbi 93 ind, "they remove
with the hand and do not remove with an instrument." Shabb. f. 440.
So then, probably, 17 л simply means "withhold his hand,” as 1 D
means withhold him." It would have been a remarkable expres-
sion, had Nebuchadnezzar used it of Almighty God. Yet, in that case,
its occurring in Daniel's Aramaic could not indicate, even on the un-
believing hypothesis, a late date of the book; for the character of the
Jewish mind (as seen in the Targums) was to efface or soften any
expressions, which speak of God after the manner of men.
after all, the critics must have forgotten that the expression occurs
in Daniel's Aramaic, not in his Hebrew. For what an argument is
it, "We find a proverbial [Aramaic] expression, only found besides in
the Targums and Talmudists!" Where else should one find it, since
there was no occasion for it in Ezra, and there is no other Bibli-
cal Aramaic?
CC
But
But, in the Hebrew of Daniel, Aramaic as well as Aryan words
suit his real age. On the other words, see below.
The result of the following arrangement of the marked words or
idioms in Daniel is, I think, to shew that his Hebrew is just what one
should expect at the age at which he lived. The number of words
or idioms peculiar to himself suits the age of one who himself had
full mastery of the language. The use of words, which have not
lived in the Aramaic which the Jews cultivated, (that which remains
in the Targums and the Gemara,) but which have lived on in the lan-
guage of Western Syria, belongs to a date, when those dialects were
more allied than they came to be, or perhaps before they had yet sc-
Words or idioms peculiar to Daniel.
579
parated. The use of the Pentateuch, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, is in
harmony with what we know of one who, when he had reached man's
threescore years and ten, was himself made the channel of prophecy,
but who, up to that time, had only had insight given to him as to the
meaning of the visions vouchsafed to Nebuchadnezzar, and who, he
himself tells us, had studied the previous Scriptures. (Dan. ix. 2.)
The proportion of the idioms, which he has in common with the mid-
dle age of Hebrew, to that of the books which are historically of a late
period, shews that there is no marked preponderance of either, while
there is not one word or idiom, which, in the slightest degree, beto-
kens an age later than that of the prophet.
I have marked with a † the words or idioms, which Lengerke put
together, De Wette copied, Stähelin selected mostly, and Davidson
translated, in order to give a shew of proof for the "lateness" of the
book of Daniel.
1) Words or idioms peculiar to Daniel.
.לִפְנֵי ,Dan. i. 4; else עָמַר בְּהֵיכַל הַמֶּלֶךְ
Dan. i. 5, 8, 13, 15, xi. 26. see Note A pp. 569, 70, and C
pp. 599, 600.
.16 .i אֵין מִשְׁתֵּיהֶם ; 8 ,5 .Dan. i אֵין מִשְׁתָּיו
>ning D, then, with name, but omitting . Dan. i. 7. The
construction in the Chaldee of Daniel is that which is usual in He-
brew, any oy with the name. Dan. v. 12, Judg. viii. 31, 2 Kings xvii.
34, Neh. ix. 7.
— wpa,“ sought from-that," Dan. i. 8. comp. 7—¡? xy? ii. 16,
23. Ch.
opp†,"like (those of) your age," i. 10. (In Samaritan also bu, mbi ;
and ↳,in the like idiom in Arabic, "with (those of) thine age." See Ges.
p. 283.) from л, as in, "generation," from 77. In Talm. it survived
in the one idiom, 1 1, "his contemporary." This then was to be Tal-
mudic. But did then Arabs and Samaritans get it from the Talmud ?
shop, i. 11, 16. The Hebrew article implies that a word, even if it
becomes a propername, retains its appellative meaning. Hebrew writ-
ers do not add the art. to foreign proper names, when the etymology
is lost. (See Ew. dehrb. 679.) The name Melzar must then have been
an appellative or nearly so, in Daniel's time. In the time of the earli-
est translations, it must have been lost; for all treat it as a proper name
and corrupt it. It has (Dr Aufrecht tells me) a possible Persian
etymology, (that of Bohlen,) molsar, “head of wine," i. e. "the chief
cellarer," and this agrees with the context. Only there is no proof
that the compound existed in old Persian. It has not survived.
P p 2
580
Words or idioms
""
Also D,
oy, † i. 12, “herbs," lit. "things sown."
(formed with Heb. ending, p-) Syr. 7,
p.
Dan. i. 16,
Isaiah has o'yin,
, Lev. xi. 37.
of "garden herbs," lxi. 11, and Moses has the sing.
The only other Hebrew words for herbs are, nis, 2 Kgs. iv. 39, (poet.
Is. xxvi. 19.) p, our greens, Deut. xi. 10, 1 Kgs. xxi. 2, Pr. xv. 17.
} D'py's, † i. 20. ii. 2. In Ch. sing. Dan. ii. 10; plur. Dan. ii. 27,
iv. 4, v. 7, 11, 15. In Syriac, "ashoofo" was used by Bar Hebræus
(Chron. p. 491,) so late as the end of the 13th cent., of a kind of en-
chanter; in the Targums or Talmud it does not apparently occur.
(See Buxtorf.) See further Pref. pp. xxxviii, ix.
ying, "his sleep was away," lit. "
upon him," (so that its
absence was heavy on him,) ii. 1. like Ch. by "his sleep was
fled, (so as to be oppressive,) upon him." Dan. vi. 19.
aņa, Ib. like 'ņu, viii. 27.
ya, “The Chaldæans," i. e. the learned caste among them. Dan.
ii. 2, 4, 5, 10, iv. 4, v. 7, 11.
CC
""
28 jhọ 7871, Dan. viii. 1. 7 is often used of God's "appearing,"
allowing Himself to be seen," as man can see Him. Here only of
a vision, shewn by Him.
S77, viii. 1, (add 15,) an emphatic repetition of the
pronoun, used throughout Hebrew, Gen. xxvii. 34, 1 Sam. xxv. 24,
2 Sam. xvii. 5, Ezek. xxxiv. 11, 20, (probably not in Ps. ix. 7, Hag.
i. 4,) but the use of the noun after the pronoun so repeated is rare.
777occurs in 1 Kings i. 26; the exact idiom only in the Chald.
.15 .vii רוּחִי אֲנָה דָנִיֵּאל ,vii. 21. and of Daniel מִנִּי אֲנָא אַרְתַּחְשַׁסְתְּא ,of Ezra
C6
baix or bax, stream," Dan. viii. 2, 3, 6. The root occurs in 47:,
"stream," [plur.] Is. (ii.) ; ↳av Id. (Jer.) and even ↳, “flood,” and
na, (of diseased sheep) Lev. xxii. 22. Aquil. Theod. Syr. retain the
word Ubal; lxx. render "gate; Symm. "marsh.”
DR, Dan. viii.3. [ii.] 6, 7, 20, after the analogy of 277, Prov. xxviii.
6. See Ew. ausf. Lehrb. § 186. g. p. 485. ed. 7.
ya, viii. 5, more vividly than y&; lit. "there was none touch-
ing the earth."
In prose, is used throughout Hebrew with the
participle, as in Lev. xi. 4, Deut. xxi. 20, Judg. iii. 25, 1 Sam. xi. 7
and so with all the persons, ¡n³ "ars, Ex. v. 10, Deut. iv. 22 ; 78, Gen.
xx. 7, xliii. 5, Ex. viii. 17; opp, Deut. i. 32, iv. 12. See Fürst, Conc.
p. 45, col. 3, 4. v. &c. The use of ry with the noun and the
partic. following, occurs even in the Pent., probably to express more
emphatically the utter absence of the act; as in Gen. xxxix. 23,
the keeper of the prison did not in * ; שָׂר בֵּית־הַכֹּהַר לְאָה אֶת־כָּל־מְאוּמָה בְּיָדוֹ ;
any way regard anything whatever under his hand," (as we say,
66
ven;
""
peculiar to Daniel.
581
wholly disregarded,") and in Ex. v. 16. 1 18 13, "straw none is gi-
as we might say, "there is no straw whatever given." In
like way, 799 1, 2 Chron. ix. 20. add Ezr. iii. 13, Esth. iii. 4.
The proper name occurs in the same construction in Esth. ii. 20,
xx, and iii. 5. No other usage reaches the conciseness and
energy of the idiom in Daniel.
, viii. 5, 8. of conspicuous beauty, as 79, 2 Sam. xxiii. 21.
inb naga, viii. 6.
by, with verb of motion, viii. 7, 17.
72727: (Hithp.) Dan. viii. 7, xi. 11. comp. Arab. marmara, “was an-
gry,” Syr. ethmarmar, “ was embittered.”
ine bush Swe mg a, viii. 7. instead of ny, perhaps with the idea of
"extending help to."
"And when it was strong, the great horn was broken," † m
78, lit. "and there rose up, conspicuous beauty, four" (horns.)
Dan. viii. 8. The idiom, nun 172,
The idiom, 12,"horn of conspicuous beauty,"
just before (viii. 5), which bears out the meaning, justified its exceed-
ing boldness.
opya nini yash, the fuller form, Dan. viii. 8, xi. 4. comp. Dan.vii. 2.
Ch. for nin ya, Ezek. xlii. 20.
ay? “less than little," " very little," viii. 9; after the analogy of
"next to the by, nearest of kin," or . See Ges. Thes. p. 801.
, lit."the pleasantness," for, "the pleasant land," Dan. viii,
9, as Judæa is called, 27, "the land of pleasantness," Dan, xi.
16, 41; comp. nis-, “the glory of all lands,” Ezek. xx. 6,
15; 2, "the glory of the land,” (Moab,) Ib. xxv. 9; nichẹp tạ,
"the glory of kingdoms," (Babylonia,) Is. xiii. 19.
an idiom sufficiently frequent, nor was the term
propriated to Judæa, that should be a brief form for
Rather it is a bold use of the abstract, like ning below, ix. 23.
is not אָרֶץ הַצְבִי
sufficiently ap-
.
With a like boldness, T," the continual," is used Dan. viii. 11,
12, 13, xi. 31, xii. 11, instead of the phrase in the law, ny (in
Numbers xvi times, also in Neh. x. 34.) "the perpetual sacrifice.”
Daniel may the rather have chosen this form, in order to include the
whole continual worship of God, in which the shewbread is also called
TD, Num. iv. 7. See Hengst. Christol. iii. pp. 108, 9.
o, with p of the person, viii. 11; of place, Is. lvii. 14; abs. Ezek.
xxi. 31. Ewald would read the Khethib, 77, after the analogy of
Zech. v. 11. and in Daniel's Chaldee, Dan. vii. 4. (Ausf.
Lehrb. p. 343. ed. 7.), of the ultimate cause, as in Ps. xxxvii. 23,
Eccl. xii. 13.
582
CC
Words or idioms
wi, (sing.) "holy," i. e. angel, viii. 13, as
Dan.iv. 10. Ch. The
plur. p, "the holy ones," occurs in Job v. 1 (comp. iv. 18.); WIR,
'His holy ones," Ib. xv. 15; op hop, opio, "the congregation of holy
ones,” “the assembly of the holy ones," Ps. lxxxix. 6, 8 (the art. be-
ing omitted, as is usual in the poetical books.) In these two places of
the Heb. and Chald. of Daniel alone, it is used of a single “angel.”
† viii. 13. See ab. pp. 40, 1.
De van 18an jing, lit. "the vision, the continual sacrifice and the
transgression, which maketh desolate." Dan. viii. 13. The apposi-
tion is exceedingly bold; the subject of the vision replacing the vi-
sion itself. The ordinary cases, in which an explanatory word stands
in apposition with the chief word in the sentence, are grammatically
the same, (see ab. p. 475.) but have not the like emphasis. The most
like perhaps is Jer. xxv. 15. “take ni ny, the wine-cup, the
wrath, from My hand."
De viii. 13. ix. 27. xii. 11, 12, for ppi (Dan. ix. 27, xi. 31,) as
Shiy for Shivp, (which occurs Is. iii. 12 ;) nay, Eccl. iv. 2, for nav.
we pay Dan. viii. 14. “the sanctuary shall be cleansed," lit. "jus-
tified."
35
7, abs. "understanding" of the vision. viii. 15. ix. 22. It is ex-
pressed more fully in," he had understanding in the vision,
x. 1. comp. the Imper. pa ix. 23. x. 1; 137, intrans. viii. 17. ix. 23.
x. 11. trans. viii. 16. x. 14. pax xii. 8. intrans.
pa ¬vich's, Dan. viii. 19; dan op ', Ib. 26; “For till the ap-
pointed end; "for till many days; ""it is "being omitted, for
energy.
""
by, viii. 22. The form is not from the Chaldee, since the whole
form is not Chaldee, and the · is the Arabic præformant of the 3rd
fem.fut. also, and л occurs in Gen. xxx. 38, and 7 in 1 Sam. vi.
2; the form also
app, occurring for it.
byn occurs in viii. 22.
is
altogether rare, (Ges. Lehrg. p. 276,) pp,
(Ew. Krit. Gr. p. 643.) The regular form
Dлn?, "when they have filled up "i. e. their sin. viii. 23. Comp.
the intrans. jy by Gen. xv. 16. and Is. xxxiii. 1.
niņ, prob. wiles, from "twisting, intertwining," viii. 23. στpopaí.
See Ges. Thes. v. 278 and .
•
1hp by, viii. 25, here only in a bad sense, "cunning."
CC
mbwa, "in security," viii. 25; mh x7 came when they were in se-
curity.” xi. 21. 24. Comp. in Ch. b, "prosperity," "prosperous
case,” Dan. iv. 24; mh, Ps.cxxii.7, Ez.xvi. 49. Plur. niya “in thy
prosperities," Jer. xxii. 21. "quietness," Prov. xvii. 1.
, of God, viii. 25, as in Ch. php sp, ii. 47. & ßaoideus Tŵv ẞaoi-
peculiar to Daniel.
583
λευόντων καὶ κύριος τῶν κυριευόντων. 1 Tim. vi. 15. κύριος κυρίων καὶ
βασιλεὺς βασιλέων. Rev. xvii. 14.
, abs. "has been said," i. e. to thee, Dan. viii. 26. In Gen. x.
9, xxii. 14, "it is said," in proverbs; in Num. xxi. 14, “it is said,"
in a book.
by Dan. ix. 1. See ab. pp. 124, 5.
,הַסְפָרִים
"the books" of Scripture, ix. 2. Comp.
pp Is. xxxiv. 16, »pp Is. xxix. 18.
""
ters or "letter."
Ps. xl. 8,
Elsewhere, in the plur. "let-
mxbph with r. ix. 2. The word is taken from Jer. xxix. 10,
niw o'yaw baab nab, comp. Jer. xxv. 12, nyi oyzy mixbąą.
png, with by p. (to God) and with infin. Ezekiel has 7 'V,
with of the persons to whom he was to prophesy, xiii. 17. xxi. 7.
xxv. 2. xxxviii. 2.
vp with cognate acc. abs., ix. 3. u pa ix. 5, translated
by the LXX, εὑρεῖν προσευχὴν καὶ ἔλεος.
ior apa yg any unpq. ix. 5. No instance of the use of the ab-
solute inf. after finite verbs equals this in energy. After four words,
in themselves containing a climax of their sin, we have sinned, &c.
there follows in one word, “and turning away," io; as we should
say, "it was all turning away." This was the root of all. See the
converse, the finite verb after the accumulated infinitives, Hos. iv. 2,
and my Comm. p. 26.
up, ix. 17, "for the sake of my LORD." (The two words stand
with great pathos at the end of the sentence.) ix. 19; both sin-
gle cases; elsewhere, y or uph, maan jyph.
ix. 18. according to the ana-
a very rare and emphatic form.
It is not for ning eg, “vir
aypy, anbp, only in Dan. ix. 19. as 7
logy of hy, Is. vii. 11, 7, Ps. xli. 5.
ni, lit. “longednesses." (ix. 23.)
desideriorum,” x. 11,19, but an abstract, (“ desiderium meum," Cat.
or" mea desideria," Cic.) like na
es,” (i. e. all willing.) Ps. cx. 3.
"thy people are willingness-
† Dan. ix. 24. "is decreed." The Nifal is not found elsewhere.
Hithp. occurs in a late Targ. Esth. iv. 5, “decided." The physical
sense, cut, survived in the Talmud. Buxt.
,"broad place, street of city," fem. Dan. ix. 25, according to
the analogy of y &c. The name, Rechoboth, Gen. x. 11, attests
an early use of the fem. plur. Even this form y niam is joined with
the masc. verb, in Zech. viii. 5. Else the gender of 7 is not
marked.
♫ng “corruption.” pass. Dan, x. 8, like nyp, “a thing marred,”
Is. lii. 14. ng is used actively of "wastefulness" (whereby a person
destroys his own substance) Prov. xviii. 9, and in a double sense
584
Words or idioms
"the mount of corruption" and so of "destruction" also,
2 Kgs. xxiii. 13, (of the scene of Solomon's idolatries, and thence Jer.
li. 25;) and of "destructiveness" generally, 2 Chron. xx. 23, xxii. 4,
Ezek. v. 16, ix. 6, xxi. 36, xxv. 15.
תְּנִיעֵנִי
66
set me trembling," Dan. x. 10.
nis, "palms of my hands," (Dan. x. 10.) after analogy of pha ning
Josh. iii. 13. iv. 18. 1 Kings v. 17. Is. lx. 14. Ez. xliii. 7. Mal. iii. 21; of
the statue of Dagon, 1 Sam. v. 4; of one dead, 2 Kings ix. 35; of hands
amputated, 1 Sam. v. 4; handles, Cant. v. 5; "hollow vessels," and
so, "spoons," Ex. xxv. 29, &c. "hands," including the palm.
77773 87, Dan. x. 12, "I am come at," or "through, thy words."
7. Dan. viii. 5. x. 16, i. q. Syr. Sapıb Ch. Saph. In a different
sense, "stood opposed to," Dan. x. 13, as in Prov. xxi. 30.
iv. 12.
כַּפַּיִם
7 Eccl.
,"marked down as decreed." Dan. x. 21. In the Chaldee of
Daniel, is used of the sentence written against Belshazzar, v. 24,
25; of the king's subscribing the decree, vi. 9, 10, 11, 13, 14. (See
ab. p. 40.) In the Targg. it corresponds to 'pping, "those who de-
cree," Is. x. 1; puna, "set a mark on," Ez. ix. 4. In Syriac, it is
used, theologically, of the "seal" of Baptism and of predestination.
nybby" stir up all (in strife) with,” xi. 2; a single instance, as
God is said yn with acc. p. and by.
יָעִיר הַכֹּל אֶת
used of man.
Sepp, "dominion," Dan. xi. 3, 5. "dominions" i. e. princes. I Chron.
xxvi. 6.
וְיָחֲזַק מֶלֶךְ הַגְּנָב וּמִן שָׂרָיו
by Dan. xi. 6. (as, in familiar English, to set things straight.')
"And the king of the South shall be strong and
of his princes,” i. e. one of them, Dan. xi. 5. The idiom, and there
went of the people," (i. e. some of them,) is common. (See instances
in Ges. Thes. p. 800.) Here only, the subject to be supplied is one
person. In Dan. xi. 7. “and there shall stand up from the sucker
of her roots," most naturally expresses the extraction, i. e. from
whom he should be born. In Mic. v. 1. relates unquestionably to
the birth-place.
ŋiɔ Dan. xi. 6, probably a trace of a fuller pronunciation. The Kri
substitutes the common form, ŋ, which Daniel too has 7 times, be-
sides in 4 times. This form of nouns, yy, occurs in middle as well
as later Hebrew. in Ps. lxxii. 14. (in Ps. x. 7. lv. 12, an) ain Job
xxxv. 9. (as well as Esth. x. 3.) Din Prov. x. 9. ty, Ps. lxxxiv. 6. Prov.
xxiv. 5. xxxi. 17. 25. Ps. lxxxi. 2.
by in Deut. xxi. 3, as well as in Jer. v. 5.
lated in their several roots to argue from.
occurs only in Job v. 21,
The forms are too insu-
[In like way, wip occurs
only in Dan. xi. 30; but v also occurs in the same verse and
even in the same expression, MG.]
peculiar to Daniel.
585
, "shall come to," i. e. as a bride, åπ. Dan. xi. 6. abs. “ came”
ל with הֵבִיא
D.
of one actually married, Josh. xv. 18, Judg. i. 14. It corresponds with
p. "took a wife for a son, Judg. xii. 9; here,
“bestood his place," very boldly, Dan. xi. 7, i. q. vǝ by Ib.
20. 21; 2, "standing up,” having the idea of motion.
aan, abs. xi. 10. (ii.) "strive," lit. "stir themselves up." (comp.
Syr."they strove together," Barh. p. 219. in Ges. p. 301.) with
menheb added, Ib. 25.
in be by hoy, Dan. xi. 11, probably an emphatic repetition of the
preposition, retained by Daniel from the Aramaic. It occurs in the
Chaldee both of Daniel, (v. 12, 87 ) and Ezra, (iv. 11. by mibe
A.) In Syriac, Rom. vi. 8, "'ameh 'am Meshicho," "with Him,
even with Christ." (See Hofmann, Gram. Syr. p. 319.) The empha-
tic repetition of the preposition separates it from the cases of the so-
called pleonastic pronoun. A similar emphasis, without a preposi-
tion, occurs in the earliest Hebrew, Ex. ii. 6, p ng 7, "and she
saw it, the child.” In Prov. v. 22, xiv. 13, our Version retains the
emphasis; in Jer. ix. 14, it is marked by the following, "Lo, I
am about to make them, this people, ( 7 ) eat wormwood."
Dy, "years," determining a re, "at the end of the times," Dan.
xi. 13. as in x. 2. og; o'yiny ngby “three weeks (of) days.”
שָׁנִים
את
jing, confirm the vision," lit. "make it stand," Dan. xi. 14.
Toy is used with abstracts, in the sense of "constituting a law to,”
with acc. and p. Ps. cv. 10; with by p. we constituted ordinances
(as binding) on us." Neh. x. 33.
66
ninya? ny Dan. xi. 15. fem. åπ. Jeremiah has 7 Jer. v. 17.
Daniel has the form, p," fortresses,” xi. 24. 39.
ny, with gen., "the arms of," i. e. "the might of," Dan. xi. 15, 22.
o'ÿì, abs. xi. 31, according to the analogy of 7 oyga mbing vina ab Ez.
xvii. 9, and Ch. by Ezr. iv. 23; and the phrases, "I will break
Pharaoh's arms; "“I will strengthen the arms of the king of Baby-
lon;” (Ezek. xxx. 22, 24, 25,) although in these cases the metaphor
is prominent.
עם מִבְחָרָיו
oy, "his people of choice," Dan. xi. 15. The pl. a oc-
curs here only; the order is that of 2 Kings iii. 19,
7 stands first. (xi times.)
לֹא בְאַפַּיִם
CC
y; usually
anger," occurs else
esp, Pr. xiv. 17.
,"not in anger." Dan. xi. 20. De, as
only in the phrase DN 7, and in the opposite,
nippa, “with flatteries," Dan. xi. 21, 34; niphqa, Dan. xi. 32, both
once only; but we have nipha ny, niphany, Ps. xii. 3, 4. niphp?q, “slip-
pery places," Ps. xxxv. 6. Jer. xxiii. 12.
impy: q9yo niyhj, xi. 22, lit. "the arms of the overflow shall be over-
586
Words or idioms
flowed; " i. e. the tide of power which threatened to sweep away shall
be swept back by a mightier tide. My is construed with the masc.,
probably, from the idea of strength.
נְנִין בְּרִית
Obad. 7.
Ib. "a prince of a covenant," after the analogy of n
717 xi. 24, only. Pi. only in Ps.lxviii.31. In Ch. 77, Pa., Dan. iv. 11,
Aram. Samar. In Heb. 5, x times. Ps. (v.) Prov. Joel, Jer. (ii.) Esth.
upp bp xi. 26, after the analogy of his, Ps. xli. 10.
,לְמֵרֶע
(6
"for evil doing," Dan. xi. 27; subst. like app, Cant. i. 12.
12, with a p. come upon him." Dan. xi. 30. Else, with acc. p. in
poetry; in prose, with by p. Yet there is ample analogy for this con-
struction with 1, in that of a, ha, n77, bwp, nyy, with a p. (Ew. 606.)
o" "ships" (Ib.) as o". Num. xxiv. 24, Ez. xxx. 9, the plur.
is D.
.fig ,זְרֹעִים
In
arms," Dan. xi. 31, masc. with idea of strength, Gen.
xlix. 24; of God, Is. li. 5; vg "between his arms," 2 Kings ix.
Else niy (xix times in all, in Dan., ii.)
24.
' ' Dan. xi. 32. (peculiar idiom) "who acted wickedly as to
the covenant.'
""
Ib., "corrupt," i. e. seduce to defile themselves. This is trans.
of, Jer. xxiii. 11, "priests and prophets became polluted." Else,
of the land, Kal Ps. cvi. 38, Is. xxiv. 5, Mic. iv. 11, Jer. iii. 1, 9. Hif.
Jer. iii. 2, Num. xxxv. 33. In the Peshito, it is used as equivalent
to the elvikòs of the N. T.; and Afel, of "apostatising," S. Ephr. de
fide iii. 6. If it had this meaning in Daniel, it would be another in-
stance of his language surviving in Syriac, while lost in the Chaldee
of the Targg.
177, “purify,” Pi. only Dan. xi. 35.
raha trans. only ib.; 1, "cleanse self," Ib. xii. 10, only.
Db, "God of gods," Dan. xi. 36, i. q. bang Deut. x. 17,
Josh. xxii. 22, Ps. cxxxvi. 2 ; pabg abg, Dan. ii. 47, Ch. o w, of God,
Dan. viii. 25.
nish will speak marvellous," i. e. proud things, Dan. xi. 36.
nisbea 7271
i. q. 17777 Shop, "speaking great things," Dan. vii. 8. 28, Ch. and
.4 .Ps. xii ,מְרַבָּרֶת גְדֹלוֹת
man Hithp., only Dan. xi. 40; Piel, map, Dan. viii. 4. In the phy-
sical sense, "push with horns,” Pi. Ex. xxi. [iii times ;] metaph. as
here, Deut. (i.) Ps. (i.) 1 Kings (i.) Ez. (i.) Chr. (i.)
yay Hithp. only Dan. xi. 40, “come as a whirlwind;" comp. Job
xxvii. 21, pippo inv.
.42 .Dan. xi הָיָה לִפְלֵיטָה
pppp, †“hidden treasures,” Dan. xi. 43. The root, pɔ, must, in
peculiar to Daniel.
587
the time of Daniel, have had a meaning, "hide," which has survived
in Arabic, but was lost both in Eastern and Western Aramaic. In
the Targg. (see Buxtorf,) and where it occurs in the Peshito, as also
in all the places noted by Bernstein and Quatremère, it has only the
derived sense, which occurs in the Arabic also, "lay in wait for," i. e.
hid himself, in order to fall on another. In Talm. Levy gives one
instance of persons hiding themselves, in order to be witnesses
against one, p. 368.
"7, lit. “at, in his steps," Dan. xi. 43; perhaps chosen, as more
stately than, the ordinary idiom in prose, Ex. xi. 8, Deut. xi. 6,
Judg. iv. 10, viii. 5, 1 Sam. xxv. 27, 2 Sam. xv. 17, 1 Kings xx. 10,
2 Kings iii. 9. [viii times.]
xpo, for 720, “ anger.” Dan. xi. 44.
,אַפַּרְנוֹ
, "his palace," xi. 45. See ab. pp. 39, 40.
y with by p."stood over," to protect, Dan. xii. 1. Comp. 1 Sami.
xxv. 16,why vṛmpin, "they were a wall, protecting us;" Ez.xiii. 5, "Ye
have not made up the fence, n'a by, for [protecting] the house of Is-
rael;" and on with by p. "fight for." Neh. iv. 8.
of
"the book of life" or <<
¬ng “written in the book" (i. e.
God") only in Dan. xii. 1. The idioms, "Thy book, My book,” oc-
cur in Ex. xxxii. 32, 3; "Thy book," (of God) Ps. lvi. 8, cxxxix. 16;
"the book of life," Ps. lxix. 29; "every one written to life,” an↳
.3 .occurs in Is. iv לַחַיִים
yes Dan. xii. 2. lit. "the sleepers of [in] the earth of
dust shall awake;" like Is. xxvi. 19, pg upd-wɔpy lit. “awake, ye dwel-
lers of [in] the dust." Comp. y Job vii. 21, xx. 11, Ps. xxii. 30,
P Ps. xvii. 15.
،،
xxx. 10; and p; Job xiv. 12,
obiy, lit. "life of eternity," Dan. xii. 2. on, of “life,” in itself,
life unceasing, was fixed in the language by the title, on py, “the tree
of life," used metaphorically, without the art. Prov. iii. 18, xi. 30,
xiii. 12, xv. 4; and D absolutely in Ps. xxxvi. 10, "with Thee is ip?
□”, the fountain of life; " Prov. xi. 19, as righteousness is on, to
life;
CC
so also in the idioms, " nk, Dn 377,
way of life." For the
rest of the idiom, comp. hiy лpy, "perpetual joy," Is. xxxv. 10; 777
Diy, “the way everlasting,” i. e. which shall abide for ever, Ps. cxxxix.
24; and, of God, yn," He Who liveth for ever," Dan. xii. 7, and
sphyn Id. Dan. iv. 31. Ch.
""
Diy jix77, Dan. xii. 2., drawn out from Is. lxvi. 24.
; lit. "give out brightness, ""shine," only Dan. xii. 3. It is
the original force of the word, which survived in Aramaic, and from
which was derived the meaning, common to the earlier Hebrew,
"teach, ""warn.", which Gesenius gives as its earlier equivalent,
(p. 408) is used actively of "giving light to," "illumining," others,
588
Words or idioms agreeing
chiefly of God. Only in Ezek. xliii. 2, it is used of light reflected
from God," the earth shall shine from His glory,"
. Daniel,
doubtless, revived the word in its primitive sense, in allusion to that,
with which he joins it, vpni, "brightness of the firmament," Dan.
xii. 3. comp. in Ezek. viii. 2.
die abs. Dan. xii. 4; with and inf. "go to and fro to seek," Am.
viii. 12; with ≥ of the place, Jer. v. 1, Zech. iv. 10, 2 Chron. xvi. 9.
} man, & man, on this side of—on that side of," Dan. xii. 5. Else
"hither and thither," Josh. viii. 20, 1 Kings xx. 40,
,הַנָּה וָהֵנָּה only
2 Kings ii. 8.
ni
plur. only Dan. xii. 6.
ohiyŋ ʼn Dan. xii. 6. See above xii. 3, commonly ŋ bx, oun onbe.
ii. Agreement with middle period of Hebrew.
?
byn with ạ, Dan. i. 4, ix. 25, Ps. ci. 2; ban, noun, with ≥ Dan. i. 7.
Dan. i. 4, viii. 7; [in xi. 15, with pers. is omitted]
also 1 Sam. xxx. 4, Is. 1. 2, 2 Chron. xxv. 8, Ezr. x. 13. Comp. Deut.
viii. 18, in nib ni ab znło.
p letters Dan. i. 4, 17. Is. xxix. 11, 12.
.8 .Ps. lxi מִן-יַנְצְרָהוּ .5 .Dan. i וַיְמַן וּלְנַדְּלָם וּמִקְצָתָם יַעַמְרוּ
Dan. i. 8, Is. xlvii. 7, lvii. 1, 11, Jer. xii. 11; with bg,
2 Sam. xix. 20; with, Job xxii. 22, 1 Sam. xxi. 13.
Dan. i. 9. The same construction with וַיִּתֵּן אֶת דָּנִיֵּאל לְחֶסֶד וּלְרַחֲמִים לִפְנֵי
acc. p., ph, and
Neh. i. 11.
of p. occurs 1 Kings viii. 50, Ps. cvi. 46,
?, Ex.
Dan. i. 10, i. q. nphy Cant. i. 7, like Syr. 57.
Dan Dan. i. 10.
This intensive form occurs in nouns,
xxx. 18; p?, Am. v. 26; 7, judge, 1 Sam. xxiv. 16, Ps. lxviii. 6; 27,
Jer. xvi. 16, Keth. Ezek. xlvii. 10. In the verb, it occurs in op Ps.
cxix. 28, 106; as well as in Ruth iv. 7, Ezek. xiii. 6, Esth. ix. 21-32.
[vii times close together.]
ypy with p. and 737 7772 Dan. i. 14, 1 Sam. xxx. 24.
a ng Dan. i. 20; constr. as op n Ps. xxv. 19.
, “jurisdiction," (from 17;) then, of some small "jurisdic-
tions" in the kingdom of Israel, (1 Kings xx. 14, 15, 17, 19,) or of
Solomon, (Eccl. v. 7,) [8 Eng.] or of petty tributary kingdoms, (Eccl.
ii. 8;) then, in the general sense of "countries," (Lam. i. 1, Ezek.
xix. 8, sing. Dan. xi. 24,) transferred to the "provinces” of the Ba-
bylonian and Persian Empires, in the Hebrew and Chaldee of Daniel,
the Chaldee of Ezra, and the Hebrew of Esther, (Dan. viii. 2, and
Ch. of Dan. ii. 48, 49, iii. 1, 2, 3, 12, 30, and of Ezra iv. 15, vi. 2,
vii. 16, Esth. xxxix times) and to Judæa, after the return from the
Captivity, as a Persian "province." Ezr. ii. 1, v. 8, Ch. Neh. i. 3,
vii. 6; xi. 3. This sense is purely Hebrew; in Aramaic and Arabic
with middle period of Hebrew.
589
of old, the word signifies simply "city," whence the name Medina.
In Jon. it is retained from the Heb. 1 K. xx. 14. Ezek. xix. 8.
It is put as a paraphrase for ov (so as to leave the meaning un-
determined) Is. xxxii. 9. Zech. v. 9. It is also used freely Zech. v. 11;
else it signifies "city." It is retained also in the Targ. Esth. ii. Esth.
i. 1. &c.
bm (Syr. yathir) Dan. viii. 9. 789 73, Gen. xxvi. 13, Job ii. 13.
But Dan. has the common is ¬ viii. 8, xi. 25; and Isaiah has
™, lvi. 12, and David ; by, Ps. xxxi. 24.
fem. Dan. viii. 12, Is. xl. 2.
The use of 1, 1, "et, et," Dan. viii. 13, Ps. lxxvi. 7, Prov. xxvi. 10,
Is. xiii. 9, Jer. xiii. 12, xxi. 6, xxxii. 14, Neh. i. 6, xii. 28; yet also
once in the Pentat. Num. ix. 14, and Job xxxiv. 28. (The other in-
stances in Nold. n. 64. are wrong or doubtful.)
The omission of the article belongs to the elevated character of
the prophetic style, as being essentially poetic. We could represent
In "pi na by "to give both sanctuary and host," so by my v. 25.
See ab. p. 481. There is no characteristic omission of the article in
Daniel, as Leng. would have it.
-лn, Dan. viii. 13, cp. opp ini, Is. x. 6. op n Is. v. 5,
xxviii. 18, Mic. vii. 10. Else in two places with gen. after opp, Is.
vii. 25, Ezek. xxxiv. 19.
ra, "between," used in regard to a whole. r, "between [the
banks of] the Ulai,” viii. 16; niam pa “in the midst of the streets,”
Prov. xxvi. 13.
17, without a subst., "this (man),” Dan. viii. 16, 1 Sam. xiv. 1,
(as Arab. allads for alludsi); not in the Pent.; nor is the of Pent.
(iii) in later books.
with of pers. Dan. viii. 16, xi. 33, as in Job vi. 24, according
to the analogy of other words, which signify "imparting instruction
to." It is united with the personal affix, as an acc. Dan. x. 14.
.xi ער עַת אֵין כִּי עוֹד לַכּוֹעֵר ,19 .viii כִּי לְמוֹעֵד קֵץ .17 .viii כִּי לְעָת קֵץ הָחָזוֹן
35, pp ny ny xii. 4, pa ni xi. 27, nephe pa ix. 26, refer back
to the saying in Hab. ii. 3, rab nem nyiah jing niy ‘a, that, though God's
promises tarried, they did not tarry out. Comp. Ps. cii. 14. any a
.כִּי בָא מוֹעֵר
In like way, own, "at the end of the wrath," Dan. viii. 19,
chy Dan. xi. 36, from Isaiah x. 25, oyi ¬p} ; xxvi. 20, y hay 18,
of a fixed measure of God's chastening displeasure.
nish adv. "marvellously," Dan. viii. 24, as in Job xxxvii. 5. The
plural expresses "manifold marvellous ways."
.10 .Is. liii וְחֵפֶץ י בְּיָדוֹ יִצְלָח viii. 25, the reverse of הִצְלִיחַ מִרְמָה בְּיָדוֹ
590
Words or idioms agreeing
7 box?, viii. 25, i. q. bp with noun, Job vii. 6, Prov. xiv. 28, xxvi.
20, Is. lii. 4;
Job xxxiv. 20.
'7, of God, with aff. and prepos. of object, viz. by Dan. ix. 17,
Ps. xxxi. 17; Num. vi. 25; ny Ps. lxvii. 2; Ps. cxix. 135; abs. Ps.
lxxx. 4, 8, 20.
.18 .Dan. ix הַנֵּה אֱלֹהֵי אָזְנְךָ וּשְׁמָע פְּקָחָה עֵינֶיךָ וּרְאֵה
-יהוה
פְּקַח
-2 Kings xix. 16.
phy 7 x7 g Dan. ix. 18; of God's house, na Jer. vii. 10, 11,
14, 30, xxxii. 34, xxxiv. 15; of the city, "y Ib. xxv. 29.
NAN, of God, Dan. ix. 19, only Ps. xl. 18, lxx. 6; ; x, of the
vision, Hab. ii. 3; with ix, of God, "will not be slack to him that
hateth Him," Deut. vii. 10.
.24 .Is. xv עוֹר הֵם מְרַבְּרִים וַאֲנִי .21 ,20 .Dan. ix עוֹד אֲנִי מְדַבֵּר !
xxviii. 22.
Dan. ix. 27; ny ix. 26;
Dan. xi. 36, Is. x. 23,
777 (abs.)" a word" revealed, (, here) Dan. x. 1, Is. ix. 7, xlv.
23, 1. 4; then Jer. xxxvii. 17, Ezek. iii. 17, xiii. 6, xxxiii. 7; of secret
inspiration, Job iv. 12.
niba Dan. x. 6, Ruth iii. 4, 7, 8, 14.
in Sip Dan. x. 6, Is. xxxiii. 3.
ש. פ. לַעֲלוֹת ,15 .Kings ii 1 שׂוּם פָּנִים אַרְצָה .Dan. x. 15; i. q נָתַתִּי פָנַי אַרְצָה
2 Kings xii. 18, baby.. Ez. vi. 2.
17 Dan. x. 16.metaphoric use of the words of 1 Sam. iv. 19.
pi piq, Dan. x. 19, p 2 Sam. x. 12, thence 1 Chr. xix. 13,
Rippi. Generally, piq Deut. xxxi. 7, 23, Josh. i. 6, 7, 9, 18;
thence 1 Chron. xxii. 13, xxviii. 20; Ps. xxvii. 14.
.5 Kings x 1 לֹא הָיָה בָהּ עוֹד רוּחַ .Dan. x. 17, comp וּנְשָׁמָה לֹא נִשְׁאֲרָה בִי
only in these two נֶעֶר .1 .Is. xi נֶצֶר מְשָׁרָשָׁיו Dan. xi. 7, as מִנְצָר שָׁרָשֶׁיהָ
places and Is. xiv. 19, lx. 21; and w of "sucker from root," only
in Is. xi. 10, liii. 2.
ha, for eg, Dan. xi. 8. Comp. Is. x. 4, and Dp D, Gen.
xliii. 3.
Dan. xi. 10, 40, from Is. viii. 8.
"
by jion 7’pyn,
, "set," in their place, "a great multitude," Dan. xi.
11, 13; ngyen "set the watch," Is. xxi. 6. Else, of persons or
animate things, the place is expressed, as with acc. of place,
Lev. xiv. 11, xvi. 7 ; or " ? alone, Num. v. 16, 18, 30, pass. Lev.
xvi. 10; or, Lev. xxvii. 8, 11, Num. iii. 6, viii. 13, xxvii. 19,
22; or, of a king, Gen. xlvii. 7; or with of place, 1 Kings
xii. 32, 1 Chron. xvii. 14, Neh. iv. 7, vii. 3; nia'ap, Num. xi. 24 ; j'a,
Jud. xvi. 25; 99, 2 Chron. xxiii. 10; †, Neh. xii. 31; ↳ỵ, of place,
implying watch, 2 Chron. xxiii. 19, xxxv. 2, Neh. xiii. 9. The idiom
with middle period of Hebrew.
591
in which y, c. acc. p. signifies "set up, constituted," is different,
and occurs in Exodus ix. 16, Neh. vi. 7, and with on, "in their
place," Job xxxiv. 24. In Ps. cvii. 25, by a very bold image, it is
said, "God made the wind to stand.”
CC
, “sons of the violent men of thy people," (seditious,)
Dan. xi. 14, comp. 1, sons of poor," Ps. lxxii. 4; 07??? "752,
"children of strangers," Is. ii. 6.
CC
nbbb aov, cast a mound,” Dan. xi. 15, vy by, 2 Sam. xx. 15; by
7y, 2 Kings xix. 32, Is. xxxvii. 33, Jer. vi. 6, Ezek. iv. 2, xxvi. 8; abs.
as here, Ezek. xvii. 17, xxi. 27.
by Dan. xi. 16, y 17, am 10, 18, 19, ₪ 25, 28, jan 30. The
condensation of this idiom, the use of the apocopated form with the
simple and, shews that there is great emphasis in it. Daniel used it
besides in this chapter, v. 4, pany, and viii. 12, abym. But, (as no-
ticed by Ewald, Ausf. Lehrb. § 343. c. p. 829, 30. ed. 7.) it occurs in
Joel ii. 20, Syn; Mic. iii. 4, mapy, and even in Lev. xxvii. 43, p?}; and
Lev. xv. 24. These cases in Daniel are the ground of Lengerke's
strange assertion, that "he is not acquainted with the conv.," (" does
not use vau conversive," Dav. iii. 194.) which he uses continually.
nyan is aby zbyn xb, Dan. xi. 17, from Is. vii. 7, npn by cpp &, comp.
Is. xiv. 24.
הָחֲזִיק
"laid hold of," with acc. instead of, Dan. xi. 21, 2 Sam. xv.
5; "terror seized hold of," c. acc. p. Mic. iv. 9, Jer. vi. 24, viii. 21;
"trouble seized, &c." Jer. 1. 43.
יָעִיר קִנְאָה 38 .Ps. lxxviii לֹא יָעִיר כָּל חֲמָתוֹ xi. 25, like יָעִיר כּוֹחוֹ וּלְבָבוֹ
Is. xlii. 13.
Da og iba, Dan. xi. 26,
217,
lit. "as-and as," for
xxx. 24, Ezek. xviii. 4.
?
Judg. ix. 40, 1 Chron. v. 22.
Dan. xi. 29, as, Josh. xiv. 11, 1 Sam.
,"despond," Dan. xi. 30. 3 Ps. cix. 16.
abgą: niz, “multitudes [fem.] shall stumble," [masc.] xi. 41. niy
rumours [fem.] shall terrify [masc.] him." xi. 44. These may
be the use of the 3rd pers. masc. plur. as a common gender, includ-
ing the fem., as in Job iii. 24, Cant. vi. 9, Prov. xvi. 3, Hos. xiv. 1,
7, and 2nd. person plur., Cant. ii. 7, viii. 4, Joel ii. 22, (Ew. Gr. p.
643.) Esth. i. 20; or they might be a very bold change of gender, in
conformity with the image; since, as to the first, those who" stumble
must be persons; as to the second, the "terror" implies might; and Je-
remiah has (xlix. 16,) api wa mashan, "thy terribleness [fem.] hath
deceived (masc.) thee; as nŋ is construed as masc. from the image
of a wild beast, "sin [fem.] coucheth [masc.] at the door." Gen. iv. 7.
ngo with art. lit. “the [only] knowledge.” Dan. xii. 4, Hos. iv. 6.
iii. Words and idioms common to Daniel with later books.
592
Words and idioms common
´o mobab vily njy, "in the year three of the reign of,” i. 1, ii. 1,
viii. 1, 1 Chr. xxvi. 31, 2 Chr. iii. 2, xv. 10, 19, xvi. 1, 12, xxxv. 19,
Esth. ii. 16. Moses has the fuller idiom n! "nh nhi nhập xử nữa Gen.
vii. 11, (followed in 1 Kings xvi. 8, 15, 23, [with the shorter form
ver. 10,] 2 Kings viii. 25, xiii. 1, 10,) but also own without
л, Num. xxxiii. 38. m, however, only occurs in the Pentateuch
in the mouth of Balaam (from Aram,) Num. xxiv. 7; the form most
used in the earlier books being nabop.
Daniel has also (i. 21, vii. 1, ix. 1, x. 1, xi. 1,) the shorter form,
which is frequent in the Kings, with simply prefixed to the name of
the king, and the nay nya ix. 2, which occurs in Kings [ii.] Jere-
miah [iii.] Chron. [v.] Esther [i.]
ny? [form n Ps. xvi. 5, &c.] "some," of things, Dan. i. 2; of per-
sons, Neh. vii. 70; л, Gen. xlvii. 2, (thence in Ezek. xxxiii. 2;) of
time, Dan. i. 5, 15, 18, л? Gen. viii. 3, &c.
oby naba, Dan. i. 2, 2 Chron. xxviii. 24, (bis) xxxvi. 18, Neh.
xiii. 9; "na, Jer. xxvii. 16, xxviii. 3, 6, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 10, Ezr. i. 7;
Kings viii. 4, as Num. iii. 31, also 1 Chron. ix. 29,
The name
but pa họ, 1
2 Chron. v. 5.
ix. 10, 13, 14,
occurs only in Daniel's own prayer, Dan.
[ii.] and its immediate context ix. 2, 4, 20.
on he Dan. xi. 8. Comp. php 2 Chron. xxxii. 27, non be
” n≥ 2 Chron. xxxvi. 10, pop' Ib. 19, but also Hos. xii. 10.
in Dan. i. 2, (“the treasure-house of his gods," for the
simple is ;) is n'a, Mal. iii. 10, Neh. x. 39; in Jos. "ix, vi. 19;
” n'a i̇şix, Ib. 24, and so I Chron. xxix. 8; " n'a ninșix 1 Kings vii. 51,
18, 2 Kings xii. 19; obgg .3 .8, 2 Chron. v. 1.
XV.
אוֹצְרוֹת
with and inf. "commanded to," Dan. i. 3, 4, 18, ii. 2, (in
Chald. of Dan. ii. 12, 46, iii. 13, 19, 20, iv. 23, vi. 24.) 1 Chron.
xxi. 17, Esth. i. 17, iv. 13, ix. 14. In 2 Sam. xxi. 16, (quoted by
Ew. Lehrb. p. 818,) as in Ex. ii. 14, it signifies, “thought to." See
Ges. Thes. p. 120.
* פַּרְתְּמִים
mpɔbọn vụp Dan. i. 3, 2 Kings xxv. 25, Jer. xli. 1, Ez. xvii. 13.
"Nobles,” Jewish, Dan. i. 3; Persian, Esth. i. 3, vi. 9;
Aryan word. See Note A. p. 575. The Hebrew title is by Ez.
xvii. 13, 2 Kings xxiv. 15. Comp. şi-hy Ex. xv. 15. or pin, see above
p. 348, or generally Di, 07.
,† knowledge, Dan. i. 4, 17, 2 Chron. i. 10, 11, 12, ( Ch.
Dan. ii. 21, iv. 31, 33, v. 12, Sam. ny) connected with contraction in
.מָה יָדוּעַ for מַדּוּעַ ,the oldest Hebrew
ban, "was defiled," Dan. i. 8, Ezr. ii. 62, Mal. i. 7, 12, Neh. vii. 64,
but also before Captivity, Is. lix. 3, lxiii. 3, Zeph. iii. 1, or at its begin-
ning, Lam. iv. 14.
i, Dan. i. 17, by nina 1980, 2 Chron. xxvi. 5, and ge
to Daniel, and the later books.
593
nerally ran with ♬ ix. 23, (ii.) x. 11, 2 Chron. xxxiv. 12, Neh. viii. 8,
xiii. 7.
77, "castle," "tower," Dan. viii. 2, Chron. (ii.) Neh. (iii.) Esth.
(x.)
is ng Dan. viii. 4, xi. 3, 16; with plur. aff., Neh. ix. 24, Esth.
ix. 5.
ony7 7px (i. q. oyyy of Pent.) Dan. viii. 5, 8, 2 Chron. xxix. 21,
Ezr. vi. 17. Ch.; pyn alone, Dan. viii. 5, Ezr. viii. 35; with ryp, Dan.
viii. 21. (7 Ch. Sam. y Syr.)
nip
Dan. viii. 22, like ni Jer. xxxvii. 16.
ix. 6, accumulation like Jer. xliv. 17.
y c. by p. viii. 25, xi. 14, 1 Chron. xxi. 1, 2 Chron. xx. 23.
py, only with affix, "where I, he, stood," nearly
viii. 17, 18, x. 11, xi. 1, 2 Chron. (iii.) Neh. (iii.)
Dipp, Dan.
also occurs
ny, Dan. viii. 27, only occurs in Ez. xx. 14; but we
only five times; ng also occurs 1 Kings xvi. 25, 2 Kings iii. 2,
xiii. 11, Ezek. xviii. 19.
DY DADO7 WİN DİST be Dan. ix. 7, from Jer. xxiii. 3, 8. xxxii. 37.
Du nya, for nya only, Dan. ix. 7, 8, 2 Chron. xxxii. 21; with aff,
Ps. xliv. 16, a Jer. vii. 19.
obwan; 'genba ngan; Dan. ix. 7, Jer. xxxv. 13; with the prep. by
and y, Jer. xi. 2, xviii. 11.
DU HP 27 Cx bạ 2 Chron.xxxiv.30.
bay nang ba Jer. xvii. 20, xxv. 2.
.17 .Jer. xxxv אֶל יְה. וְאֶל כָּל י י
.2 .Jer. xxv עַל כָּל עַם יה' וְאֶל כָּל
12 Chron. xx. 15, 18, xxxii. 33.
2 Chron. xx. 20, xxi. 13, xxxiii. 9.
'pinay ringa Dan. ix. 7, Jer. xxv. 26, Esth. ix. 20, from Deut.
. הַקְרֹבִים אֵלֶיךָ אוֹ הָרְחֹקִים מִמֶּךָ 8 .xiii
by, verb and noun, revived from the Pentateuch in the later books;
very little used in intervening books.
The verb occurs in the Pent. (vii times) Josh. (iv.) Prov. (i.) Dan.
ix. 7. Ezek. (vii.) Ezr. (ii.) Chron. (xii.) Neh. (ii.); the noun, in Pent.
(vii.) Josh. (v.) Job (i.) Ezek. (v.) Dan. ix. 7. Ezr. (iii.) Chron. (v.)
bye bye, with ", or pronoun relating to God, Lev. v. 21, xxvi. 40,
Num.v. 6, Josh. xxii. 31, Ezek. xvii. 20, xx. 27, xxxix. 26, Dan. ix. 7,
1 Chron. x. 13, 2 Chron. xxviii. 19.
77 Dan. ix. 9, Jer. xvi. 5, "the mercies, compassions; "m
Q q
594
Words and idioms common to Daniel
D'77 Dan. ix. 18, "Thy mercies, the great," i. e. Thy great, well-
known mercies. Nehemiah has, na, lit. "in, according
Else, only a
to Thy mercies, the great."
Ps. cxix. 156, “Thy
mercies are great;
2 Sam. xxiv. 14, 1 Chron. xxi. 13;
77,"according to the multitude of," &c. Ps. li. 3, Ixix. 17.
ninhon Dan. ix. 9, phon Ps. cxxx. 4, ninho nibg Neh. ix. 17.
nabb
לא,23 .Dan. ix. 10, from Jer. xliv וְלֹא שָׁמַעְנוּ בְּקוֹל יי אֱלֹהֵינוּ לָלֶכֶת בְּתוֹרֹתָיו
שְׁמַעְתֶּם בְּקוֹל יה' וּבְחֹרָתוֹ וּבְחָקְתָיו וּבְעֲרוֹתָיו לֹא הֲלַכְהֶם
“poured out," of God's anger, Dan. ix. 11, 27, Nah. i. 6, Jer.
vii. 20, xlii. 18, xliv. 6, 2 Chron. xii. 7, xxxiv. 17, 21, 25.
ng before Nominative, Dan. ix. 13, Jer. xxxvi. 22, Neh. ix. 19.
7py with by of thg., Dan. ix. 14, Jer. i. 12; with by p. Jer. xxxi. 28,
xliv. 27.
.33 .Neh. ix וְאַתָּה צַדִּיק עַל כָּל הַבָּא עָלֵינוּ ; 14 .Dan. ix כִּי צַדִּיק יי עַל־כָּל־מַעֲשָׂיו
nan dia by ab-wym Dan. ix. 15, verbatim from Jer. xxxii. 20 (only
Jeremiah has the unabridged form, gym). Dip, like "hodie" for
"adhuc " in good latin.
לְהַפִּיל ,20 .Dan. ix( מַפִּיל תְּחִנָּתִי לִפְנֵי
,18 .Dan. ix מַפִּילִים תַּחֲנוּנֵינוּ לְפָנֶיךָ
11
rap papan Jer. xlii. 9, of God; aber haben Ib. xxxviii. 26.
1918, Dan. x. 5, Jer. x. 9.
CC
Say "nevertheless,”
" "however," Dan. x. 7, 21, Ezr. x. 13, 2 Chr.
i. 4, xix. 3, xxxiii. 17; nay but," Gen. xvii. 19, xlii. 21, 2 Sam.
xiv. 5, 1 Kings i. 43, 2 Kings iv. 14.
♫¬gy Dan. x. 8, 16, xi. 6, 2 Chron. xiii. 20; with 1 Chron. xxix.
14, 2 Chron. xxii. 9.
¬y, †“trembling," of the human being, Dan. x. 11, Ezr. x. 9,
after the analogy of pyn Is. viii. 12, xxix. 24, and other words, ex-
pressive of emotion. We say, "do not frighten yourselves." The
simple root, 77, is used of the lifeless earth, Ps. civ. 33.
bling," occurs Ex. xv. 15, Ps. lv. 6.
77, "trem-
ing with and inf. Dan. x. 12, Eccl. i. 13, 17, viii. 16, 1 Chr.
xxii. 19, 2 Chron. xi. 16; with of thing, Eccl. vii. 21, viii. 9.
by Dan. x. 12, Ezr. viii. 21.
CC
as
" not
† (for 's) "how ?" Dan. x. 17, I Chron, xiii. 12. 77
"how?" occurs in Sam. Pent. Gen. xxxiv. 31. [The Sam. Targ. has
always 78 for Heb. 78, 778 MG.]. 78 (not 77) is also the basis of
all the compound conjunctions and abstracts in Syr., as also of the
abstracts in the later Jewish writers, mp's "quality," endowed
spa
with qualities,” [and of the interrog. pp "how?" used exclusively
with the later books; with the Pentateuch.
595
in Onk. and Jon. MG.], itself (which, Ges. says " is very frequent
in Ch.") mostly occurs in the later Targg. "The Targ. on Job, Ps.
Prov. often use 7 for ." Buxt. [Targ. Prov. has mostly 's, as in
Syr. But N, 87, "where?" are used promiscuously in Jon. 7'7,
"how?" occurs once also in Ps.-Jon. Deut. i. 12, who has else
, except in Gen. xxxix. 9. MG.]
,היכא איכא
app "writing," Dan. x. 21, 2 Chron. xxxv. 4; else "written cha-
racters,” Ezr. Esth.; "letter," 2 Chron. ii. 10; "writ," Esth. iii.
14, viii. 8, 13, iv. 8; God's "book" of the people, Ezek. xiii. 9; “re-
gister," Ezr. ii. 62, Neh. vii. 64; "book," Arab. Aram. Samarit. In
Chald. “writing,” Dan. v. 8, 15, 16, 24, 25.
ey pinne Dan. x. 21, 1 Chron. xi. 10, 2 Chron. xvi. 9.
a with oy p. Dan. xi. 6, 2 Chron. xx. 35, 37. a Dan.
xi. 23, verbal noun like myga, Ez. xxiv. 26.
ny, with a p. “do against," Dan. xi. 7; of God, Jer. xviii. 23.
jing, "forces," Dan. xi. 10; b, chiefly of oby," the princes
of the forces, (of Benhadad 1 Kings xv. 20.) 2 Kings xxv. 23, 26,
2 Chron. xvi. 4, Jer. [ix times.]; also a 1 Chron. vii. 5,7,11,40.
; Dan. xi. 12, Ez. xxxi. 10.
mis27, “10,000s," Dan. xi. 12, pointed in Ezr. ii. 69. ms27. On the
sing. i see on Jonah p. 250.
xinh " DU; Dan. xi. 17,Jer. xlii. 15, 17, xliv. 12; nich is in 2 Kings
xii. 18.
, Dan. xi. 17, Esth. ix. 29, x. 2; Ch. Dan. ii. 37, iv. 27.
לא יַעֲבֹר עֲלֵיהֶם ,Dan. xi. 20 ; contrary prophecy as to Israel מַעֲבִיר נוֹגֵשׂ
by Zech. ix. 8.
ma † xi. 24, 33, fem. form of the ordinary, 19, (in Syr. fem. xħa,
Sam. m.)"booty," Ezek. xxix. 19, Ezr. ix. 7, 2 Chron. (iii.) Neh. (i.)
Esth. (iii. one phrase, ix. 10, 15, 16.)
by nigge av Dan. xi. 24, Jer. xi. 19, xviii. 18; sing. Jer. xviii.
11, xlix. 30, Esth. viii. 3; plur. with ↳ Jer. xlix. 20, 1. 45.
iv. Words and idioms revived from the Pentateuch, in part in com-
mon with other of the later books of the O.T.
Dan. i. 2, from Gen. x. 10; also adopted in Zech. v. 1].
The name was still exstant in the time of Joshua, whether as derived
from Genesis or as travelling with the article of merchandise, MEN
"a garment of Shinar," i. e. of its tapestried manufacture. Josh. vii. 21.
Isaiah used, alone, xi. 11. The name,, Sen'ar, was still the
Syriac title for Babylon, in the time of Barhebræus, as distinct from
Q q 2
596
Words taken from the Pentateuch
Persia, Syria, Mesopotamia, Assyria, Chron. pp. 9, 93, 169, 256, 274,
314, 529, 565, 578. See Tuch de Nino urbe, p. 9.
7872 Dan. i. 4, Gen. xxiv. 16, xxvi. 7, 2 Sam. xi. 2; also in
Esth. i. 11, ii. 2, 3, 7.
logo 77 Ex. (iii.) Lev. Num. Deut. Kings (ii.) Chron. (iii.) Ezr.
(i.) Neh. (ii.) Jer. (i.)
D'yi of the countenance, only Dan. i. 10, Gen. xl. 6.
777, with gen. of abstract word, Dan. i. 20, from Ex. xxii. 8; al-
so in 1 Chron. xxvii. 1.
ny, i. 20, from Gen. xliii. 34, ni; ; comp. Gen. xlvii. 24,
vas; this last in Neh. xi. 1.
D', iepoypaµµareîs, Dan. i. 20, ii. 2; in his Chaldee, ii. 10, 27,
iv. 4, 6, v. 11 ; a common name for an office common to Babylon and
Egypt; Gen. xli. 8, 24, Ex. vii. 11, 22, viii. 3, 4, 15, ix. 11.
פעם . וַתִּפָּעֶם רוחו,8 .Ib. 3, from Gen. xli וַתִּפָּעֶם רוּחִי ,1 .Dan. ii רוּחוֹ תִּתְפָּעָם
does not occur in Chald. except in the sense of the Heb." times," nor
in Syr. at all; in Arabic it only signifies
66 was full."
, "in the beginning," Dan. viii. 1, ix. 21, Gen. [iv] Jud. [iii].
II. X. 5; from וָאָשָּׂא אֶת עֵינַי וָאֵרָא וְהִנֵּה ,3 .Dan. viii וָאֶשָּׂא עֵינַי וָאָרְאָה וְהִנֵּה
.וָאָשָּׂא עֵינַי וָאֵרָא בַּחֲלוֹם וְהִנֵּה ,10 .Gen. xxxi
mali? mjibyj ne; † Dan. viii. 4, from Gen. xxviii. 14, malul mabyg merp) met.
The 4 points of the compass are given by Gen. xiii. 14,
and in 1 Chron. ix. 24. It is not a mere imitation, since the East is
omitted purposely. See ab. p. 88.
† Dan. viii. 14, with art. 27, referring to this, Ib.
26; from Gen. i. 5, sqq.
798753 Dan. viii. 15, " as the appearance of a man,” (add x. 6, 18.)
from Num. ix. 15, 777; thence Ezek. i. 13, 14, 26, (ii.) 27, (ii.) 28,
viii. 2, (ii.) x. 1, xl. 3, xlii. 11, xliii. 3.
my, “vision,” viii. 16, from Ex. iii. 3, of the "burning bush;” then
Ez. viii. 4, xi. 24, xliii. 3.
7x7 Id. Dan. x. 7, (ii.) 8, 16, Num. xii. 6, plur. Gen. xlvi. 2, Ezek.
i. 1, viii. 3, xl. 2; sing. 1 Sam. iii. 15.
□ 19 Dan. viii. 23, from Deut. xxviii. 50; 1 p Is. xix. 4.
,"confess," Lev. v. 5, xvi. 21, xxvi. 40, Num. v. 7 ; then Dan.
ix. 4. 20, and Ezr. (i.) Chron. (i.) Neh. (iii.)
Verbatim from האל הגדול והנורא שמר הברית והחסד לאהביו ולשמרי מצותיו,4 .ix
Deut. vii. 9, except that Dan. has substituted, the aweful, for
37, the faithful. Daniel has retained even the 3rd persons, vsD,
and from Ezekiel.
597
a. Nehemiah uses the verse, i. 5, and some of it in ix. 32. Solo-
mon employed Moses' words 'me in his prayer, 1 Kings viii. 23,
2 Chron. vi. 14. See ab. p. 358.
772, with, “rebelled against " God, Dan. ix. 9, Num. xiv. 9, Josh.
xxii. 16, 18, 19, 29, Ezek. ii. 3, Neh. ix. 26.
רָבְצָה בּוֹ כָּל ,19 .Dan. ix. 11, Deut. xxix הָאָלָה וְהַשְׁבוּעָה אֲשֶׁר כְּתוּבָה בְּתוֹרַת מֹשֶׁה
הָאָלָה הַכְּתוּבָה בַּסֵּפֶר הַזֶּה
Dev-ben
Dan. ix. 12, Gen. vii. 19, Deut. ii. 25, iv. 19, Job
xxviii. 24, xxxvii. 3, xli. 3. [11 Eng.]
, of living body, Dan. x. 6, Gen. xlvii. 18; thence Ez. i. 11, 23,
Neh. ix. 37.
Six. 4, title given to the Euphrates (n) Gen. xv. 18,
Deut. i. 7, then Jos. i. 4; here transferred to the Tigris, ban xan.
7777 Dan. x. 7, Gen. xxvii. 33.
Ani Dan. x. 13, as Gen. xxxii. 25.
лny Dan. ix. 12, (ii.) Num. xv. 24, Deut. xiii. 14, xvii. 4, 2 Sam.
(i.) Neh. (i.) Mal. (i.); лņÿÿ Dan. xi. 36, in pause.
.14 .Dan. x * אֶת אֲשֶׁר יִקְרָה לְעַמְךְ בְּאַחֲרִית הַיָּמִים
יִקְרָא אֶתְכֶם
Gen. xlix. 1.
In this place only, p is pointed like 7, for which it is substitut-
ed; and here only has p., not the acc.
¬♫♫ Dan. xi. 4, Pent. (xxiv.) Jos. xxii. 29, 1 Kings x. 13, Ezr. (i.)
Neh. (i.) Chron. (iii.)
hyp for my? Dan. xi. 10, from old form in Pent. Gen. xlix. 11, [ii.]
(changed by Kri once), Ex. xxii. 4, 26. xxxii. 17, Lev. xxiii. 13; thence
2 Kings xix. 23, xx. 13, Ezek. xlviii. 18, all corrected in Kri (Hiller
Arc. Keth. p. 74. Ges. Lehrg. p. 212.)
Dan. xi. 13, from Gen.xiii. 6, xxxvi. 7; thence 2 Chron. xxxii.
29. occurs in the Pent. xiii times; in Dan. iii; in Ezr. iv; in
Chron. viii times.
ip by Dan. xi. 20, 21, 38, prob. from Gen. xl. 13, xli. 13.
Dog De Dan. xi. 20, from Gen. xxvii. 44, xxix. 20.
"the rich (lit. fat) places of the land," Dan. xi. 24, from
Gen. xxvii. 28, 39.
אֲבֹתֶיךָ וַאֲבוֹת אֲבֹתֶיךָ,, .Ib. like Ex. x אֲבֹתָיו וַאֲבוֹת אֲבֹתָיו
לְוָה
על
ggi Dan. xi. 29; 7x7 else only Deut. ix. 18.
mbs c. by p. "cleave (so as to lean) upon," Dan. xi. 34; from Num.
xviii. 2, 4; but also Is. xiv. 1, and Esth. ix. 27; as to God, Is. lvi. 6.
k ng Dan. xii. 5, from Gen. xli. 3; 22, Dan. xii. 6, from
Ex. vii. 24.
598
Aryan, or other rare words in Daniel
v. Words or idioms taken from Ezekiel.
סָתַם
לא
"shut up," of things obscure, Dan. viii. 26, xii. 4, 9; Ezek.
xxviii. 3, "lo, thou art wiser than Daniel," ppy 'h can be. It im-
plies, not that the thing was not known, but that it was not under-
stood; pas viii. 27. comp. Ps. li. 8, np, "in the hidden part."
on, Dan. i. 10; comp. zin, debt, Ezek. xviii. 7.
בֶּן אָדָם
cr
son of man," vocative, Dan. viii. 17, as Ezek. passim ; comp.
Dan. vii. 13.
0179 wich Dan. x. 5, from Ezek. ix. 2; and (referring to this) wa
'77 Dan. xii. 6, Ezek. ix. 11.
v
Dan. x. 6; the word, not the idiom, from Ez. i. 16, x. 9.
.13 .Ez. i כְּמַרְאֵה הַלַּפִּירִים וּמִן הָאֵשׁ יוֹצֵא בָרָק .6 .Dan. x כְּלַפִּירִי אֵשׁ כְּמַרְאֵה בָרָק
Sp ngng jy?. Ib. Ezek. i. 7.
□ jì ìy “the vision is yet for those (fixed) days." Dan. x. 14.
Before, he said, undefined,
viii. 26. Ezekiel says, sier n'a
7
D'an dech nin xin ng jing pups xii. 27.
If there be an allusion, it is a
remarkable adoption, as truth, of what was said scornfully.
Note C. on p. 38.
Of the Aryan or other rare words in Daniel relating to offices, dress,
musical instruments, most were lost in Aramaic, together with the
things themselves, several had become obsolete, when the book of
Daniel was translated.
The more common names of offices, Achashdarpenin, sagan, pe-
chah, were understood and translated by the Peshito, but had disap-
peared from the language. The translation of these, and the reten-
tion of the names of the four next in order, in Dan. iii. 2, &c. makes
it probable that the meaning too of the four latter names of offices
was obliterated. The original words can still be traced, being dis-
guised only by the interchange of similar letters. Adargazeraiia
lies hid under agardoie; gedaberaiia under gerabdoie, (the d and 2,
as differing only by the position of the dot, being transposed;) de-
thaberaiia under therabdoie, (the d being again changed into r and
r into d, and r, so changed, being further transposed with th ;) Tiftaiia
under Thibethoie (the f being changed into b, which it much resem-
bles.) The entire expiry of two of these words is the more remark-
able, because they are pure Aramaic. They perished with the offices
themselves. A third was a variation of a word which lived on in
Syriac, which yet the translator did not recognise under the slight
disguise of gedabar for gidsbar. The name satrap was revived, but
probably from the Greek, sipp (e. g. Barh. 159. 1.) whence was form-
lost subsequently.
599
ed, with the Syriac ending, ship or Nin, "satrapy," (e. g. Barh.
162, 6). Hammelzar was also retained, although without the Article.
It has now become Meshizar i. 11, Menisar in i. 16. Haddaberaiia
(again an Aramaic word) is translated in Dan. iii. 24, 27, iv. 33, as is
also Sarechin, Dan. vi. 3, &c. Partemim, "nobles," was doubtless
retained in what is now an unmeaning word, partevoye. No trace of
any of these three words remains in Syriac.
Of the names of musical instruments, the Syriac name mashrooki-
tho was naturally retained; as being Syriac, and remaining, although
in a modified form, in the language. (See below Note D.) Kithoro
also survived, being used in the Peshito, Gen. iv. 21, 1 Cor. xiv. 7,
and Plur. Ps. lxxvi. 3; as was the Syrised Kithooroodootko, “ mu-
sic," Barh. p. 149. pen. p. 162. 1. 6; mekaithoro, minstrel;" Nov.
149; kithoroodo," minstrel;" F. methkithar, Tò Kibapičóμerov, 1 Cor.
xiv. 7. (Bernst.) It seems probable that, at the date of the Peshito,
the Syrians had the instrument symfoneyah or sifoneyah, because the
Peshito does not simply retain the word, but slightly inflects it, ze-
fooneyo, (D); yet there are no subsequent traces of it, and the
learned lexicographers differ as to the nature of the instrument. (Sce
Ges. de B. Ali, p. 26, 7.) It is even remarkable that there is no trace
of the instrument pesanterin in Syriac, since it had become an As-
syrian instrument in the time of Sennacherib, and continues in use to
this day in Egypt, the trunk of its name, santer, santur, &c. still sur-
viving. See ab. pp. 32, 3.
Of the names of dress, the Peshito pronounces sarbal, sharbolo.
This is designated as "a flowing garment" by Barhebræus, say
sibby
p. 223. 1. 16. and a verb is formed from it; "their dress was me-
sharbelin,” lit. “trousered." Barh. p. 80. 1. S. (The reading is un-
doubted, occurring in cod. Hunt. 1. also.) The defeat of the Per-
sians is ascribed to this peculiarity of their dress, and their bows being
relaxed by the humidity of the air.
The word carbal, the Peshito alone understood rightly. It is the
more remarkable, that there is no trace of the word in Syriac, except
as, "the crest of a cock." In Hebrew there occurs the derived verb
bap 1 Chr. xv. 27.
Petsho was retained, is explained by the Syriac lexicographers, but
no instance has been found of its use.
Hamnuca not only lived on in the form of the Kri, hamnica, as
equivalent to dsiro, a “jewelled collar," but gave rise to a verb, ham-
nec, “girt,” and a corrupted noun, kamnisono, “a girdle.” See in
Ges. de Bar Ali et B. B. ii. 10.
600
Aryan or other rare words in Daniel
Pathbag had become a naturalised term in the Hebrew of Daniel,
being used, not only of the royal food allotted to the three youths, (i.
5, 8, 13, 15, 16,) but also in the prophetic description of the treachery
to Ptolemy Philometor, (xi. 26, not mentioned in exstant historians,)
where "they who eat of his pathbag" replaces the "they who did
eat of my bread" of the Psalmist. In the exstant Syriac, pathbag
(a) occurs both in the more limited and in the wider sense.
S. Ephrem uses it of the "royal dainties," which Barzillai declined,
(i. 423,) but also of "the dainties of Egypt," which Israel pined af-
ter, (i. 260,) and of the food with which Abigail supplied David and
his men. (Ib. 382.) Barhebræus uses it of something given by the
Atabeg, which would keep for a year, unspoiled, in a cloth in the
slave's bosom. Chron. p. 331. The Syriac Lexica say, that petboge
are “dates without rind;” patboge, pathbogotho, “various sorts of
strong soup;” pathbogo,
pathbogo, “a royal cook." Ges. on B. Ali. ii. 25.
Of the Hebrew of Daniel, we have, as is known, no Targum. The
Jewish tradition states that "Jonathan B. Uzziel was forbidden to
write a Targum on the Hagiographa," "because in it" ("i. e. in Da-
niel,” adds Rashi,) "is contained the term of the coming of the Mes-
siah." (Megillah, f. 3. 1. in Schöttg. de Mess. p. 264.)
¬¬
Of the titles of officers, which occur in the Hebrew or Chaldee of
Daniel, the Targum of Esther substitutes a corrupt form of the Greek
otparyλárys for x in Esth. iii. 12, viii. 9, ix. 3. (Buxtorf's re-
ference to Esther x. 3, (Lex. p. 64.) must be an accidental erratum,
since, there,
occurs in the Hebrew, not in the Chaldec.) Su-
gan was perpetuated in the Chaldec of the Targums and Gemara
from the Hebrew; yet so as to shew that the name was retained only
in the generic sense of “prefect." (See Buxt. p. 1435.) Pechah, al-
though so common in Biblical Hebrew, was lost. Adargadserin, al-
though lost, was understood rightly by Saadiah. Aben Ezra professes
not to understand it or the names which follow it. Rashi thought it
to be the name of a nation. Gedabar Saadiah explains rightly by
the gidsbar of Ezra; but dethabar he explains wrongly by aid of the
Hebrew bar; and tiphtaie, as though it were formed from patach.
Haddaberin was lost, although Buxtorf gives one instance of mc-
dabbera (87777) in the Targ. Prov. xi. 14, [where some Edd. read
medabberana (877) which is also in Peshito MG.] The Targ. on
Cant. i. 8. has also 8777 777, "guiders (i. e. teachers) of their time."
Medabberana, (777) is also used of a pilot, Targ. Esth. II. iv. 1,
and in the Talmud of a teacher as a guide of his nation, Sanh. 14. a.
and Keth. 17. Levy ii. 9. Partemim is retained in one of the two
lost subsequently.
601
places of Esther, in which it occurs besides Daniel, (i. 3,) as TD ;
in Esth. vi. 9, it is replaced by pre i. e. σтpanyol.
Of dress, carbela is used once (Berach. f. 20, 1.) of dress of a cer-
tain "gentile woman," and is explained in the gloss by reference to
Dan. iii. 21. (Buxt. p. 1084.) Sarbal, like the Syriac sharbal, gave rise
to a pass. part. Sapp or pop. Buxt. 1544, 5.
Hamnuca survived in the form which the Kri substituted, Hamnica,
(Prov. i. 9, Esth. ii. 9, Buxt. c. 1226,) or the more Greek form, me-
nica (Gen. xli. 42. Onk. xlix. 22. Targ. Jer. Esth. ii. 17, vii. 7. Buxt.)
or moniuk, paviákŋs. (Buxt. c. 1228.) Pattish was lost. Of the mu-
sical instruments, the Mashrokitha, Sabca, Pesanterin were lost;
the soomphonia occurs in the Talmud twice, (Kelim c. 11 and 16)
and is explained wrongly "lyre." (Buxt. c. 1504.) Kathros occurs
wrongly in Jonathan, Is. v. 12, for a, i. e. timbrel; and in Targ. Eccl.
ii. 8. (Buxt. c. 2164.) Pathbag, so common in Syriac, was lost.
Of the Greek-speaking Jews, the LXX translated in a general
way the names of Offices, shewing that they attached no definite mean-
ing to them. Achashdarpenin (Satraps) they rendered Stoikntai,
Esth. viii. 35; oikovóμos, Esth. viii. 9; σaτpáπys, in Dan. iii. 2. vi. 1. 4.
[2.5.] where they were guided by the numbers; σTpaTηyoì in Esth. iii.
I; Túpavvo in Esth. ix. 3, (where they render nie "the rulers
of the Satraps," perhaps, "satrapies"); vaтol, Dan. iii. 3, 27. (94.)
Sagan, they render by apxwv (as they do many other words,) 4 times
in Nehemiah and in Is. xli. 15; by στparηyoì, 12 times, including Dan.
iii. 27, (94); by youμevos, Dan. ii. 48; by тожápɣai, Ib. iii. 27. (94.)
Pechah also they render in Nehemiah, twice by apxwv, as also twice
by βία, βίαι, and twice by ἔπαρχοι ; in Ezra, by ἀφηγούμενος in vi. 7;
by ἔπαρχοι, 5 times; by θησαυροφύλαξ, v. 14. They render it by ἡγεμών
Jer. li. 23; by yoúμevos, Jer. li. 28, and Ezek. xxiii. 6; by σaтpáñaι,
twice in Kings, once in Chron.; by тoπápуns, in 2 Kings xviii. 24, Is.
xxxvi. 9, Dan. iii. 2, 3; by aρxaтρiôτaι, iii. 27 (94); by èk þʊλîs,
4 times in Haggai.
In
Of adargadseriia, gedaberiia, dethaberiia, tiphtalia, the LXX ren-
dering must be uncertain, since it has only six names for seven offi-
ces; and жαтoɩ, which occupies the first place in iii. 1, is now the
the fourth in iii. 2; but there is no one characteristic rendering.
Ezra the LXX retain gisbar in the form yağßapırós, i. 8. In the
plural they render "treasures," instead of "treasurers," yálat. viii. 20.
Haddabere malca is rendered, “the king's friends," in Dan. iii. 27.
(94.) haddaberohi, “his friends,” Ib. 24. The clause, in which it oc-
curs, is omitted in iv. 33, and in vi. 8. Theodotion renders it by
602 Words of Daniel retained or lost in LXX.
μεγιστάνες αὐτοῦ, iii. 24, δυνάσται τοῦ βασιλέως, iii. 27, οἱ τύραννοί μου,
iv. 33, and by vπатоs in vi. 8.
Sarechin the LXX translated, vaguely, youuévous aurov, Dan. vi. 2,
omitted it in 4, 5, 6, 7, 8; Theodotion rendered TaкTıkоì in vi. 3, 4, 5
6,7 ; στρατηγοί in vi. 8.
The LXX were still acquainted with the musical instruments, and
rendered mashrokitha rightly oúpys. Of the articles of dress, in
Dan. iii. 21, they rendered sarbalin wrongly "sandals," and patti-
shin, “tiaras;” carbelath they omitted; but in iii. 27, (94,) they re-
tained sarbalin in the form in which it had already been Grecised,
(Antiphanes in Poll.x. 40.) σapáßapa; yet they understood apparently
neither the Chaldee nor the Greek word, since they mistranslated the
Chaldee iii. 21; hamnic they recognised by aid of the Greek paviákηs.
Pathbag they rendered by a general word "table," i. 5, or "feast,"
i. 8, 13, 15, where the context clearly guided them, but in xi. 26,
they wholly missed the meaning, as did, subsequently, Theodotion. So
also they were ignorant of the meaning of Hammelzar, of gazerin,
a Babylonian class of soothsayers, which they retained with the Greek
termination Gazarenoi, Dan. ii. 27, v. 7, repeating it v. 8, but omit-
ting it altogether in iv. 4, v. 11. So also they omitted Appadno, in
Dan. xi. 47, a well-known term in Babylonia, whose meaning was
lost in their time in the West. They translated the proper name
Dura, not knowing it to be such. In Daniel, as throughout the O.T.,
they rendered rab-hattabbachim or sar-haitabbachim, apxuyapos,
except in Gen. xl. 4, where, determined by the context, they rendered,
ảpxideoµútns, “captain of the prisoners." Nor did they understand
pupp, to which the later Chaldee did not guide them; nor bw and
other words of the date of Daniel. In a word, they knew the mean-
ing of musical instruments still in use, but they were ignorant of the
names of Babylonian officers, Babylonian dress, Babylonian sooth-
sayers, a Babylonian castle. Naturally. For their fathers had quit-
ted Babylon some centuries before. And yet, on the rationalist hy-
pothesis, the writer of the book of Daniel is to have lived in Pales-
tine, some 363 years after his people quitted Babylon, and yet to
have been familiar with, and to have used rightly, all those non-He-
brew words, which, shortly after, his countrymen did not understand.
Note D on p. 50.
The chief characteristics, which sever the Chaldee of the Bible
from that of the Targums, lie in those grammatical forms which run
Aramaic words of Daniel lost subsequently.
603
through the whole diction, a summary of which has already been
given from the careful examination of the Rev. J. Mc Gill, p. 44-52.
It is only as very subsidiary to that decisive proof, that I have set
down a certain number of words, which occur in the six chapters
which Daniel wrote in Chaldee, and which do not apparently occur
"do not
in the Targums or the Gemara, or either of them. I say,
apparently occur," on the ground of the 30 years' labour of Buxtorf.
Even such a labour would leave many gleanings for those, who
should make the subject either of the Targums or of the Gemara a
special study, as he did. They, who are not called to this, may rely
with a certain degree of confidence on such a prolonged labour by
one so accurate as Buxtorf; as,.in fact, I have not observed in the
Thesaurus of Gesenius a statement on the Chaldee of the Targums
which is not taken from Buxtorf. Meantime, while individual state-
ments may have to be modified, the main fact of the difference be-
tween the Biblical Aramaic and that of the Targums, will only be
established the more clearly. Daniel was, of course, in early times
a subject of study both to the Targumists and the writers in the
Gemara. Men do not infer that the Pentateuch is of the age of
Daniel, on the ground that Daniel adopted some idioms from it. So
neither should they, that Daniel was of the age of or near the Tar-
gums, because the paraphrasts adopted idioms from Daniel. Many
words, doubtless, were retained in the later Chaldee, as the result of
the study of Daniel. On the other hand, Zündel has hinted at the
converse of this argument, viz. the idioms of the Targums, which
might naturally have occurred in Daniel, but for which Daniel uses
his own equivalent expression. (Daniel, pp. 246, 7.) I have marked
with a
* those words only, which Buxtorf did not know to exist in
the Targums or the Gemara. By the kindness of the Rev. J. Mc
Gill, who has made the Targums a special study, I have made se-
veral additions in this second edition, which I have marked as his.
I have also consulted Levy's Chald. Lex. (as far as it has appeared)
on all the words. When any of Mr Me Gill's contributions are
identical with instances given by Levy, I received them before the
publication of the portion of Levy's Lexicon, which contains them.
in Dan. xxiii times; in Targg., [except those on Prov. and
Job, in which last it is almost universal, MG.] less frequent, mostly
MDD, or abans. [ is also not unfrequent in the Targ. on the
Psalms, except where "words" of God are spoken of. Buxtorf
and Levy give no examples from Onkelos. It occurs in the plural
604
Aramaic words of Daniel
accu-
in the sense of “statements made in a judicial cause," together with
Don for the cause itself, in Deut. i. 17, and in the sense of "
sations" or "bad fame" in Deut. xxii. 14, 17. Else Onk.has DanD
in Ex. v. 9, xxiii. 8, xxxiv. 28, Deut. i. 34, v. 28, xvi. 19; whereas
in all the above מלא the Syriac has ; ממלל or מלה the Samaritan has
except Deut. v. 28; Ps.-Jon. has so Ex. v. 9, xxxiv. 28, [once]
Deut. i. 17, [once] xvi. 19, as has Jerus. T. in xvi. 19. In Jon.
on the Prophets, occurs seldom, and mostly in the same versc
with pan, 1 K. xii. 7, Is. xxix. 21, Jer. ix. 20. In Jer. xxvi. 10 Dan
occurs twice in Jon.; the Syriac has once. In 1 Sam. xxviii. 20,
פתגם
2 Sam. xix. 23, (bis), Is. xxix. 11, xxxvii. 4 (bis), Jon. has on,
where Pesh. has . MG.] Levy only adds Is. liii. 7, lviii. 9, 13,
where it is joined with its own verb, S, and Jud. xxi. 13, with x7p.
In Is. lviii. 9, 13, and Jud. it is also followed by a gen. [The ex-
pression on pho occurs also in Is. lix. 4, and Hos. x. 4 (with part.
of ), and pho is used in 1 Sam. ii. 25, in the sense of " pleadings."
In Syriac it is more frequent than even in the Syrising Targg. MG.]
[Ny Dan. ii. 5 &c. is used as an idiom by Daniel, my being
a partic. 24 times and a preterite 6 times. The two words are
generally retained in the Peshito, whereas and its plur. &c.
rarely occur in the Targg. Where the Pesh. has xy, Onk.
has, generally followed by м, Gen. xviii. 27, xxiii. 5, 10, 14,
xxiv. 50, xxvii. 37, 39, xxxi. 14, 31, 36, 43, xxxiv. 13, xl. 18, xli.
16, xlii. 22, Ex. iv. 1, xix. 18, Nu. xi. 28, xx. 18, xxiii. 12, 26,
xxxii. 31, De. xxi. 7, xxvi. 5, xxvii. 14, 15. The Peal of my is
not cited from Onk. by Buxt. or Levy, and has been found only
in De. xx. 11, (Jerus. Ps.-Jon. ). In like way Jon. has
nx, when Peshito has xy; Ps.-Jon. has ans, where Onk. has it, except
Gen. xlii. 22, De. xxvii. 14, 15, where he uses y, which he inter-
polates De. xxvii. 16-26. On the other hand is very rare in
Dan., and is not followed by 28 as in Targg., but is construed with
an accusative, pans, Dan. iii. 16, as in Ezra v. 11, and og ney Dan.
ii. 14, as in Ezr. v. 5 pp. Fürst (Conc. p. 849) is utterly wrong in
saying that sy is "most frequent in the Targums."occurs in
an interpolated prayer of Adam, Gen. iii. 18, both Ps.-J. and Jer. ; and
in converse of Cain and Abel, Gen. iv. 18, four times in Ps.-Jon.,
twice in Jerus. Targ. Both then use it only in interpolated pas-
sages. MG.]
אַזְדָּא
*
, probably from 78 i. q. 58, (as Theod. Vulg.) Dan. ii. 5, 8. (d
for 1,) comp. лbp, as connected with p; by and "97; (w and wih,
CC
last subsequently.
605
and bɔ are remoter instances). Also between Greek and Latin,
'Odvoσeús, Ulysses; danp, levir; μederáw, meditor; dákpvov, lacryma,
(Ges. Thes. pp. 727, and 58.) [yet dacrima too, often in Livius
Andronicus. MG.] Within Latin also Festus gives dautia for lautia,
de sign. verb. 1. iv. Novensiles may be written with or d; for
these letters had a communion among the ancients, as dinguam,
linguam, Capitodium and Capitolium, sella from sedes, olere from
odor, ¿dwdévai." Marius Vict. de orthogr. L. i. p. 32. C. O. Müller
on Fest. adds kadamitatem, which " Pompey continued to use for
calamitatem,” adaudam, d for l ; delicata for dedicata (to the Gods) ;
delicare for dedicare (Fest. pp. 53, 55.); melicam for medicam
(Varro de A. R. iii. 9); impelimenta; l for d. In the Talm. 8 occurs
"A. went after his own opinion."
Ges. Thes. p. 58, from Saad. [The 3rd pers. plur. 1 occurs in this
phrase, ' "y, Pesach. f. □ p. 1. 1. 20, ed. Amst. A. D.
1646. Fürst's objection, that p, in the Targg., corresponds
to x and not bis, and that p is the word used for "the going
forth" of a decree, is so far true. Thus ng 877, Dan. ii. 13, cor-
responds to Heb. 777 xy; Dan. ix. 23, and 777 8-p Dan. ix. 25. So in
Targg., 1874 Dane pin, Esth. i. 19, and of what was at least virtually a
king's command, abeo ep xy; nago Esth. vii. 8, Targ. naboj arbido paş cina,
and of the decree of God, 777 9 **, Is. xlv. 23, Jon. in 7RQ Paş.
But the same objection, viz. that the idea is otherwise expressed in
the Targg., lies against Fürst's translation. It is determined," in
,אורא פלוני לטעמיה,,in the one phrase
the Targg. is often ans, as in Esth. i. 1, ii. 11 &c. Thus,
I
*327, Eccl. viii. 4; syy jo nang Ruth i. 1, iii. 18; and "DIR, 19 87 D7D8,
Is. v. 9. Or again pen, as in Gen. xli. 32, "¤IR. 19 spine Tra; or
, of a thing fully settled, 1 Sam. xx. 7, 9, 33. MG.] Fürst's ob
jection, however, rather confirms the rendering of Theod. Vulg.
&c. "The thing is gone from me," since his corresponds to 7, and
in Job xvi. 6, № corresponds to 57, “what will go from me ?”
pravna 190,* Dan. ii. 5, iii. 29, lit. "ye shall be made limbs," i. e.
cut to pieces. Syriac, hadom hadom, “limb for limb.". It is the only
version which translates right. Levy gives two instances of noun
and verb in Talm. Ch. Wort. i. 194. [When the noun occurs
in the Peshito (as Ex. xxix. 17, (twice) Lev. i. 6, 8, 12, viii. 20
(thrice), ix. 13 (twice), Onkelos has always 7 and Ps.-Jon.
which are not in Bibl. Ch. MG.] The verb occurs in Jon. Jud.
xiv. 6, xix. 29, xx. 6, 1 Sam. xi. 7, 1 K. xviii. 23, 33, xix. 21. The
Syr. verb occurs in Pael in Carm. de Alex. Knös, 97, 8. Ges. cites
606
Aramaic words of Daniel
Barh. p. 218, 1. 19 Syr. Ib. 138. 1. 4. [Bernst. p. 378 mentions
'limbs' of animal as its only meaning, but it also means parts of any
corporate body, e. g. of the Alphabet, in S. Ephr. hymns. MG.]
“It is used, like 'members,' of the parts of a sentence, and so of
the letters of the Alphabet. In regard to the supposed derivation
from Pers., os only (not ox,) is mentioned by Vüllers Pers.
Lex. and is itself a word of uncertain meaning; signifying 1) body,
2) member, 3) neatness or proportion, 4) ornament, beauty, 5)
good manners, 6) rule of action, 7) a court-yard, 8) and adj.,
adorned, beautiful." Dr Payne Smith. [In Targg. yns (Ethpeal)
is used abs. for, CC
was made," not for, was made another thing,"
as Dan. iii. 29, and Ezra vi. 11, except in Ps. lxii. 4. In Dan.
ii. 5, most MSS. and Edd. point Ithpaal. MG.]
66
*
* for ny, Dan. ii. 5, iii. 29, as by for my, Ezr. vi. 11. Targ.
and Talm. (Levy p. 97.) have bm, "beshaming," "the shaming of
the daughters of Jerusalem," Lam. iii. 51. Talm. has, "defiled,”
99 (6
came into con-
of the y, the "fomes peccati." Buxt. p. 1317. Levy gives Talm.
instances of "beshaming," and of the verb,
tempt," was odious." ii. 97, 8. The word was understood by the
Syr. only. [This word again is much more frequent in Syriac, in
its physical sense, as buns, "brought to ruin.” The Talm. words
given above occur not only in the Gemaras, as cited by Buxt. and
Levy, but also often in the Mishna in the sense of “disgrace,
"""" de-
gradation." See Sota Cap. x. and Sanhedr. Cap. vii. &c. In the Targg.
wnbphp and nbpp denote "refuse-heap," from php, "corrupt,"
"bring to ruin." MG.]
קיקלתא קלקלתא
v Ib.ow is rarely found in Targg. which generally have. Ges.
[Dan. herein approaches to Syriac use, the Peshito having often ¤,
where the Targg. have. Even in Dan. iii. 29, v. 21, ' is used
in its Syriac rather than Chaldee sense. See instances in Buxtorf
or Bernstein. MG.]
iq &c. Hafel, in Dan. ii. 6 (bis), 7, 9, 10, 16, 27, v. 12, 15.
[Pael (Dan. ii. 4, 11, 24, v. 7) very frequently occurs in the Targg.,
and is alone used in the Syriac. MG.] Of Afel, Buxt. gives 2
instances from the Talm., none from the Targg. But the infi-
nitive noun, as, Dan. v. 12, occurs also in the Targg., so that
Gesenius' inference from Buxt., "In Targg. hæc conjug. non usitata
est," must be so far limited. [Ps.-Jon. has Afel-Deut. xxxiv. 1, MG.]
and Lev. xxvii. 34, and the Jerus. Targ. Deut. iii. 2. Levy.
[The infinitive noun, ans, also occurs frequently in Ps.-Jon. ; once,
lost subsequently.
607
(Deut. iv. 44,) it is preserved in the Jerus. Targ. also. In ad-
dition to the places given by Levy, Ps.-Jon. uses it Lev. xiv. 57,
xv. 32, Nu. v. 29, vi. 21, xix. 12, 14. But in every case, except
Lev. xv.
32, Ps.-J. uses two words for the one used in the Heb.
text and in Onk. Even in Lev. xv. 32, he has two words, though in
the stat. const., Heb. nyia nxi, Onk. spis 87, Ps.-Jon. n^ns A77) 87
MG.]
77173, Dan. ii. 6, v. 17, “ large gifts," from a with prefixed,
Buxt. c. 281." then, 2 for 121, as Golgotha for Gulgoltha," &c.
Ges. p. 842. In the Targ. Jer. xl. 5, (quoted Buxt. 1. c.) the whole
phrase, ja jɔnd, was probably adopted from Daniel, as it is not the
literal translation of Jeremiah. Else Buxt. and Levy quote only
the late Ps.-Jon. Deut. xxiii. 24. [Ezr. vi. 4 has also 7, "a layer
of brick or stone," formed by prefixing, but this occurs in Targg.
Ges. also supposes it may be Nif. from 737-pa. wiņa (Syr. being)
(6
storm," occurs in Targg.
occur in the נכזריות and נכזרי,נהפכנות
Targ. on Prov. only, and in passages where, according to Levy, the
MSS. vary.
These words only are so formed in Ch., though the
prefixing of is common in Assyrian. Oppert § 218. p. 82. MG.]
*"therefore," Dan. ii. 6, 9. iv. 24; in Heb. Ruth i. 13.
*,* xy.* for D. See ab. p. 52.
52. n. 4.
,לָהֵן
¯¯19,*, like our, "of a certainty," Dan. ii. 8; as viip-je, Dan. ii. 47,
our, “ of a truth.” Comp. ἐξ ἀναγκῆς, ἐκ περισσοῦ, ἐξ ἰσότητος, ἐξ
¿µpavoûs, ¿§ ïoov, ex æquo, ex integro. [Targg. do not use ș: in
this sense, and, when they use up, always prefix 2, never ¡. Pesh.
has np Jer.xxvi. 15, generally ny. MG.]
זָבְנִין
-"gaining [lit. buying] time." Dan. ii. 8. The two
words, of course, occur separately.
japa “sentence, [lit. "law"] for you," ii. 9. n is always used from
a superior to an inferior, as law, religion. n occurs viii times in the
Ch. of Dan., vii times in that of Ezra ; not quoted in Targg. or Talm.
by Buxt. or Levy; [not even where many synonymous words are in
the Heb. text, as Lev. xxvi. 14,15. Deut. Ps. xix. 8-10. cxix. In
the formula of marriage and divorce it is used by the Rabb. of the
"law" of Moses; also, according to Buxtorf, of the law of Christ-
ians and Turks. MG.]
1210 *"settle." Ib. So Samar. often. Ges. In Targ., Af. only
signifies "prepare," "invite," with ↳ p. Buxt. c. 677; [but in Gen.
xxiv. 7, Ps.-J. (in Levy) with acc. of a personal object, mon
"He will appoint, send, His angels before thee." MG.]
608
Aramaic words of Daniel
** Dan. ii. 10, 27, iv. 4, v. 7, 11, 15. i. q. Heb. and Syr. See ab.
p. 40, and Pref. p. xxxviii, xxxix.
77, ii. 11. 77 only here; else iv. 22, 29, in v. 21, as in
Targg. [So Dan. v. 21, 7; in Targg. 772 Heb. ing, chiefly oc-
7i7y
curs. MG.] Buxt. and Levy give Hos. viii. 9, Jer. xiv. 6 alone, as
instances of W.
This too is a Syriac word. "Bar
[** Dan. ii. 12, verb; Ezr. vii. 23, noun. Verb in Targ. Esth.
ii. 21, only; else rendered by 1 or D, and the noun by some of the
numerous derivatives of 11. MG.]
Bahlul gives bsp, envy, emulation.' Dr. P. Smith. Peal, 'envied,'
occurs in Ephr. iii. 215, and for èñaσɣáλλw, S. Cyг. Præf. in Expos.
xii capp. cod. Marsh." P. E. Pusey.
* 7,"chief of the executioners," (the "body-guard" hav-
ing this office), Dan. ii. 14, as on in Heb. In Targg. ny
is "butcher," or "cook." [In Targg. this office is always called
[.MG .רב קטוליא
,על
"went up," Dan. ii. 16. y is used xii times, in different con-
jugations, of "entrance" to the king, (in regard either to the dignity
or the elevation of the palace,) once to Arioch, probably in the king's
palace. ii. 24. The simple idea of "coming " is, in Dan., expressed
by g; in Targg. by represents both alike, though not excluding
.אתא the use of
נְהִירָא
* “light,” as in Syr., Dan, ii. 22. The Kri changes it into
the form used in the Targg., 7i73. Dan. has again, in the spiritual
sense, 77 “illumination,” (v. 11, 14.) abridged from the fuller Syriac
נָהִירוּת form
[by* with fut., deprecating, D. ii. 24, iv. 16, v. 10, twice. In
Ps.-Jon. Gen. xxii. 12, it is prob. a mistake, since the second clause
has . In Joel ii. 17., it occurs ed. Walt., but Antw. text has x
There are a few instances in Talm., not only in slightly Hebraising
sentences, and wing my di Pesach. 113, a., but also in other-
wise pure Aramæan, as 777 by Pesach. 112. Oppert
mentions among the negative Assyrian particles, but without
stating its meaning. (Gram. Ass. § 205 p. 77.) In Ethiopic too
by is almost = Job xxiv. 25, espec. denying the existence of what
is expressed by a noun, as mp by Prov. xii. 28. (See Dillman § 197 c.
but also the x of Heb.
&c.) It is also not unfrequent in Samaritan,
text is often changed into & in Sam. Vers. This occurs most, where
God is speaking to Moses, or Moses to the people; yet not always
in this case. (See Uhlemann § 96. p. 233) MG.]
*
lost subsequently.
609
77, Judæa, Dan. ii. 25, v. 13, vi. 14, Ezr. vi. 8, vii. 14. In Syri-
ac also.
*(part.) Dan. ii. 26, iv. 15. *(part. plur.) Dan. v. 8, 15; i. q.
Heb. . It is probably i. q. ↳=4; the л, (as also in Æth.,) standing
(as in some other cases, especially in Aramaic) for the softer 1. Levy
gives two instances of a Gen. xxxvi. 7. Ps.-Jon. and Cant. vii. 9.
1'?,* probably, "they who define the course of man's life," Dan.
ii. 27, iv. 4, v. 7, 11. The root was in frequent use; this meaning,
"soothsayers," "diviners," only in Daniel.
[phy D. ii. 29, 30, iv. 16, v. 6, 10, vii. 28, (in Heb. only Eccl. i.
17, ii. 22, iv. 16,) rare in Targg.; chiefly in those on Job and Prov.
Much more often, y in Targg. of Job, Prov., which is very fre-
quent in Peshito. MG.]
[737-778 Dan. ii. 29, 45, 17
6, 7. and (contracted)
Dan. vii. 24; also -
Dan. vii.
Ib. ii. 39. Fürst states rightly that in
Targg. n is used for ; i. e. Daniel uses both phrases; Targg.
one only. Also other derivatives from ¬ are frequent in Targg. MG.]
*“in order that," Dan. ii. 30; 77 72,* Dan. iv. 14. (al.
by) adopted from Heb. nay, Eccl. vii. 14, and, without g, Eccl. iii.
18, viii. 2. [Targg. have in this sense ppy by, Gen. xliii. 18, Ex. viii. 11,
Ps. xlv. 5, Eccl. viii. 2, ix. 1. [see Buxt.] Ps.-Jon. has often pa.
Onk. and Jon. on Prophets use 5, "in order to," (generally
followed by) or ppy-by, none of which are in Dan. MG.]
1
g,* Dan. vii. 2, 5, 6, 7, 13 ; in
This may possibly be a mere
use in English. Or the ori-
*g* Dan. ii. 31, iv. 7, 10, vii. 8, bis.
all cases with the prefixed; and lo!
exclamation, like one, sunk into vulgar
ginal may be, 187, "see," and the may be softened into . The
Targg, have . [In the Babyl. Talm. 18 is sometimes used, as in
ואלו אנא קא מודענא לך דמנסינא לך ברבר ערוה .Daniel, e. g. in Sanhedr. Gen
"and lo I apprise you that I am about to try you in a matter of un-
cleanness." MG.]
70 oby,
CC
a certain image," Dan. ii. 31; 19, "a certain stone,”
vi. 18; as in Ezr. iv. 8, 877 878,
a certain letter." This is rare in
66
Hebrew. N WIN, a certain man,” Jud. xiii. 2, 1
,אָחָת
CC
Sam. i. 1. c
a certain hole," Ez.
This use of an is
nṇy, “a certain broom," 1 Kings xix. 4; 1 h,
viii. 7; 778 oy,
a certain people," Esth. iii. S.
common in Syriac; it is not mentioned apparently by Buxt. c. 708.
[On the other hand Dan. does not use it with 1 in iv. 7, nor with
Ch. ay iv. 10, 20 though he does in Heb., viii. 13, bis, and
by viii. 3. The Targg, only use in this sense when 8 occurs
in the Heb. MG.]
RI
610
Aramaic words in Daniel
1, "chest," Dan. ii. 32. The Hebrew form, n, used of animals,
is the original, lit. "what may be seen," "the front,” like op. In
Dan. ii. 32, in Syriac, and in cod. Shabb. beg. (in Buxt. c. 710.) Prov.
xxiv. 33=Pesh. (Levy i. 240) it is used of the human chest.
[ Dan. ii. 33, and 19 times in all, as in Syr. Onk. and Jon.
mostly have the Hebrew form 17. Buxt. 355 from Elias. is
comparatively rare in Onk. So Targg. often hebraise in this,
Daniel never. MG.]
"y,*"chaff," ii. 35. In Syr. also. Perhaps it is from 9. Ges.
derives it from 7, "blinded;" which does not seem to me probable.
[The Peshito uses it for pax Is. v. 24, for p Is. xxix. 5, xli. 15,
Zeph. ii. 2, Job xxi. 18, Ps. i. 4, and for xvous Wisd. v. 14, [and Is.
xvii. 13, Hex. P. Sm.] Contrariwise the Targg. on the Ps. and Job use
,, for the Heb. pin; Jon. on the Prophets, always xxi. MG.]
[x3, "carry," Dan. ii. 35, Ezr. v. 15, very rare in Targg., as
Ges. observes. For x, when nearly nps, Targg. use ; when
carry away," Targg. have
it signifies "lift up" and esp. if also “
by, used by Dan. iv. 31, of "lifting up " eyes. MG.]
[10,"strength," ii. 37, iv. 27; Targg. join, rare; [Levy's only
instances are Cant. v. 16, Ps. xxxi. 3.] generally in, bn or
12),
all in Dan. also. Comp. Dan. iii. 27, pq Dan. iv. 12. below.
The reading pn, "barns," Joel. i. 17, is doubtful, and ¬, the com-
mon Targ. word for "barns," occurs in the same line. MG.]
Søn, *
"beat as with hammer," Dan. ii. 40. In the Targg. on
the Hagiogr. it occurs only in the derived sense devised; as we
say, “beat out; "and perhaps in hen, "barley freed from its husk,”
"threshed;" and in bn, "storm-wind." See on ii. 6. [In Syr.
ben is used for pr', Ex. xxxvii. 3, 13, xxxviii. 5, In Knös, 70,17.
bwn x is, I think, arms of metal," [i. e. beaten out]. Bar Ali
renders it ÿxx, which Freytag renders, “finxit, inde conflavit.” phon
nb is the version of KaтaσKeváľovoi oteþávovs, Ep. Jerem. 9.
But mostly it is [as in the Targums of the Hagiogr.] "devised.”
P. Smith]"formed” (a key) met. S. Ephr. iii. 130. 1. 14. P. E. P.
firmness,” Dan. ii. 41. In Targg. it is only used of
"planting" or "what is planted."
,נִצְבְּחָא
הא
**
CC
66
(for 7) Dan. ii. 43, perhaps retained from Gen. xlvi. 23, Ez.
xvi. 43. In Syr. 87.
* (lit. “acquiescences," "acceptablenesses,") is used in Dan.
ii. 46, Ezr. vi. 10; absolutely, of "incense," not as in Heb. 0'?
"smell of acceptableness." In Heb. too, the plur. is only used Ezek.
x. 28.
lost subsequently.
*
ii. 47, v. 23. See on iv. 16.
611
In Targg.
and in the
*y with ? pers. ii. 49, like pa with p p. Dan. i. 8.
only as to God," a Ps.-Jon. Nu. xii. 13;
phrase
'ya Gen. xix. 18. (Jerus. Targ.), Esth. iv. 8,
1 Sam. i. 17, 27. Levy. i. 105.
'ya
777,"noble judges," Dan. iii. 2, 3, from 77, "magnificence,"
(comp. "his Excellency" &c. "his Eminence" &c) and ", "decide."
There is no other trace of the word. Of the two halves of the word,
778 must have been old Aramaic, since it appears in the name of the
idol of the Sepharvites of Mesopotamia, (2 Kings xvii. 31.)
and, from it, of Sennacherib's parricide son, Is. xxxvii. 38, 2 Kings
xix. 37. (See Ges. Thes. p. 29.) Yet this whole meaning of the root
is entirely lost in Syriac. It occurs only, as a compound, in Persian
names, mentioned by Syriac authors. (See Bernstein, Lex. p. 42 sqq.)
77,
* Ib. doubtless from the same root as the Arab. "Mufti; " but
there is no trace of the word elsewhere, the name having perished
with the office. "The roots occurs in Syriac only in the sense
'latus fuit.' The Afel is very common in the sense of amplifica-
vit." P. Smith from his own and Bernst. and Quatr's. collections.
See above Note A. pp. 573, 74.
XXV.
why we wey occur in this order, Dan. iii. 4, 7, 29, v. 19, vii. 14;
, Dan. iii. 29; eg, Ezr. iv. 10. In Onk. ses occurs, appa-
rently, only to represent the word in the Hebrew text; niș, Gen.
16, [Onk. Ps.-J. Jer. MG] Num. xxv. 15; [Onk. Ps.-J.] and
in Ps.-Jon., Jerus. Targ. in Gen. xxv. 3. in a wrong explanation of
D. It occurs in Targ. on Ps. cxvii. 1, for Dex, [and in Ps. lxvii.
4, 5, for D. is interpolated Eccl. x. 8, and, together with
*
, Esth. i. 8, and their plur. are inserted after DDY, Esth. iii. 8.
Also the three words in the above order are interpolated in Esth.
i. 1, 22, vii. 8, viii. 15, as also in the poetical passages, Is. Ixvi. 18,
Jo. ii. 25, 1 Sam. ii. 2, 2 Sam. xxiii. 32. (Ps. xviii. 32). now is in-
terpolated between spy and web in Is. lxvi. 18. The interpolations
are evidently borrowed from Daniel. s occurs in the freely rendered
poetical passages Deut. xxxii. 8, 21, 43. (Ps.-Jon. or Jer. or both,)
along with oy, where Heb. has Dy and ", and Onk. repeats oy; also
for Ps.-Jon. Deut. xxxii. 28; and for oy in vs. 6, Jerus., and in
Ps.-Jon. Deut. xxix. 12 (13), xxxiii. 19. MG.] and in Pr. xiv. 34,
[for "] Levy.
גוי
On the words of Aryan origin in this v. see Note A.
spyping,* "pipe," Dan. iii. 5, 7, 10, 15. p in Heb. Ch. Syr. Na-
Rr 2
612
Aramaic words in Daniel
sor. signifies "hiss." In Heb. it is used of the sharp sound used
in calling bees, and, seemingly, of the calls of shepherds to their
flocks, nip¬y Jud. v. 16. In Syr. alone and the Ch. of Daniel it is
used of a musical instrument. Mashrukitho, except in the Syr.
translation of Daniel, only occurs of 'hissing' [as in the Carm. de
Alex. Knös Chr. p. 97.] or for ovplyμoí, Judd. v. 16. Hexap. but
mashruko is used of 'the pipe;' Bar-Ceph. Hem. 198. Bar-Salib. com.
174." P. Sm. The exact gloss which Ges. quotes from Bar Ali of
the Afel, "ashrek, shabbaba bilzaffara," does not occur in the Oxford
MSS, but there is abundant proof of the use of the Afel. Bar Ali
says that mashrek is chiefly used of the hissing of the serpent;
(Hunt. 25. f. 184) but that it is used also of the mashrukitho, "play-
ed on the Zaffárat” (pipe), Ib. 12. v. and that mashrukitho is the
zaffarah, and that mashrekono is used of "the player on the zaffá-
rah.” (f. 184.) B. B. also says that mashrekin are "those who
blow in the ssur." (a musical instrument.) It is also used of those
who suffer from singing in the ear. (B. B. Hunt. 157. f. 560.) The
mashrukitho is explained also as the instrument shebabah (see Freyt.
ii. 387.) and ssur, (Hunt. 170. f. 210.) and those who play on it,
mashrekin, are described by the verbs formed from those instruments,
ssaffara, shabbaba. (in Hunt. 170. 1. c.) According to Bar Ali, An-
ton (i. e. Antonius Rhetor a learned Monophysite early in the 9th
cent. Ass. B. O. ii. 345.) wrote the Afel, ashreg. Hunt. 25. f. 12. v.
x77* Dan. iii. 5, (written xppy, Ib. 7. 10. 15,) a sort of harp, whence
σaμẞúkŋ,which the Greeks call a Syriac instrument. (See ab. pp. 25,6.)
There is no other mention of the instrument. On the other instru-
ments, see ab. pp. 24-30.
Mang na*, “in that hour,” Dan. iii. 6 ; sng-ng, iii. 15, v. 5 ; Nhạc Hạ
iv. 30; iii. 7, 8, iv. 33; as in Syr. hy na, na. See Röd. in
Ges. This construction is peculiar to Daniel. [Examples of the re-
petition of the preposition as in Syriac are given below on v. 30. MG.]
[Sş: Dan. iii. 6, 10, 11, Ezr. vii. 20, according to analogy of Syr. 51.
Targg. and Sis, (never Sp: as in Buxt.,) and b, only in Syrising
Targ. Prov. xiii. 17. Dan. then and Ezra agree with Syriac, while
Targg. mostly follow Hebrew analogy. MG.]
שִׂים
Dy Dy*, “made a decree,” Dan. iii. 10, Ezr. iv. 21, v. 3, 9, 13, vi. 1,
3, 12, vii. 21. Dy Dp, "a decree is made by me," Dan. iii. 29, iv.
3, Ezr. iv. 19, vi. 8, 11, vii. 13, and, in the same idiom, oy D'w wnia IP
Ezr. v. 17; also ou op Dan. vi. 27. [In Targg. the idiom
occurs only in Esth. vi. 8, interpolated, with nothing in Heb. text.
lost subsequently.
613
The Targg. always use 7 for "decree," which, in Daniel, occurs
only iv. 14, 21. Daniel and Ezra then agree herein in differing
from the Targg. MG.]
Dy Dy* with by p.
* with by p. "take account of," (lit. "set the mind on,")
Dan. iii. 12, vi. 14; different from a c, vi. 14, as "mind" from
"heart." This idiom involves attention, regard to, not the affections.
*"of deliberate purpose," Dan. iii. 14, as in Heb. 7 Num.
xxxv. 20, 22, п7 Ex. xxi. 13, 1 Sam. xxiv. 12, and in Syr. In Targg.
it signifies "desolate," in all conj.; and in the Syrising Targ. on
Prov. "mock," twice in Af. xvii. 5, xxx. 17, for Heb. y, and twice
in Ithpeal xviii. 1, xx. 3, for Heb. yhann.
nein*"need," (act.) Dan. iii. 16; is "needful," Ezr. vi. 9; nangin,
need," Ezr. vii. 20. In Syr. "is useful, needful," a common word.
[Bernstein says that the Peal in Syr. is used only in the Partic. as in
the Bibl. Chald. The Targg. use for “ utility, necessity,” iş or
some other derivative of 7. MG.]
,חַר שִׁבְעָה
CC
one seven times more," iii. 19. [In the Targg. by is
always prefixed to with every number, (see instances in Gesenius
&c.) except only the Syrising Targ. nn, Prov. vi. 31, as
in Syriac. In Syriac, is followed by 2, (as in Gen. iv. 15,
Ps. xiii. 7, Is. xxx. 26,) before all numerals except pn, which is always
, except Ex. xxii. 4, (Heb. 3.), and there too pn oc-
curs in ver. 7, 9, (Heb. 6. 8.) as elsewhere. The Samaritan has 778
אחר תרין
in Ex. xxii. 3, on Ib. 7,9. The form in Daniel is then ori-
ginal, standing as an adverbial accusative, without help of a pre-
position: the only analogy being in the Syr. n n and the Samaritan,
as far as is known. MG.]
הזֶּה
פֶטִישׁ
,"it seemed good," "visum est." Dan. iii. 19. p Targg.
* "tunic," Dan. iii. 21. In the Targg. and Gem. the word
survived in the meaning which it has in Heb. and Arab., but not in
Syriac, "hammer." Of an article of dress it is retained in the Sy-
riac out of Daniel, (see Note C. p. 599.) not in the Targg, or Gem.
The case in which in one MS. vv occurs for vive," shoe," is evident-
ly wrong, and owing probably to a wrong explanation of Daniel. See
Buxt. c. 1865. Levy rightly omits it.
,"cloak," Dan. iii. 21. (In Heb. 7, i.q. ", "girded,"
1 Chr. xv. 27.) In Berach. f. 20, 1. (Buxt. c. 1084.) probably taken
from Daniel.
870 *7 87'39,* “flame of fire,” Dan. iii. 22 ; 791 7 1'7'27 Dan. vii. 9. In
Syr. also. In Talm. 120 7, explained in a gloss, "between the suns,"
614
Aramaic words of Daniel
"twilight," (Shabb. f. 109. 2. in Buxt. c. 2303) from Syr. shpy
"dawn." [In Job xviii. 5. (where alone it occurs in Heb.) it is
not retained in Peshito or Targ. (In the Targ. indeed it no where
occurs except that Jerus. and Ps.-Jon. (Gen. xv. 17) retain the idiom
except in Job ,שַׁלְהָבִיתָא .Pesh ,שלהובית,שלהוב of Dan. vii. 9.) Targg. have
66
, הַדָּבְרִין
xli. 10, (Heb. 11.) where Pesh. has for w . MG.]
*"counsellors," Dan. iii. 24, 27, iv. 33, vi. 8, doubtless (as
Ges.) 777, “leaders," with the art. Although Pers. 7 is used of
a human lord, yet, even allowing the interchange of the strongest
Persian guttural kh with the weak h (of which ↳ and 7 are cer-
tainly not instances,) there still remains the difficulty that ", as
keeper," is used as a compound with things, as in 77, 77, but there
is no proof, that it is united with a person; which is the less pro-
bable in this case, since the Persian kings were held to be residences
of Deity. So that would be "keeper of God." The punc-
tuation too corresponds with the art.; 7 has but one letter in
common with 877. The art. must, however, have melted into one
with the word, and come to be disregarded; since the word occurs
in the stat. const. iii. 27, in the emphatic state vi. 8, and with an
affix iii. 44, iv. 33. [There is one clear example of such "melting"
and disregard of the Heb. article in the Targg. viz. p (in the
constr. st.) for pp in 2 Kings xxiii. 7. 77 is used of driving
cattle, Is. xi. 6; 7 of moral guidance, Ps. v. 9. (See also ab. p.
600.) The Pael is used in Syriac, of royal government, but the noun
* of a subordinate governor only, not a king, Prov. xi. 14; and
(quoted by Bernstein Lex. Chrest. p. 100.) "counsellor," Barh.
Chron. p. 219. 1. 15, and, with gen., a commander of forces,"
Barh. p. 439,“ governors of the Church," Ass. Acta Mart. ii. 184;
with adj. S. Eph. ii. p. 3. 27 ay, "took counsel," e. g. in B. H.
p. 531. 1. 15. from Bernst. Lex. MG.]
66
rebe * Af. Dan. iii. 25, iv. 34, Pa. iv. 26. In Targg., Pa. and
Ithpa. only, in Buxt. and Levy.
by, as Syr. by, Dan. iii. 26, and ix other places in Daniel, "the
most High." In Kri and Targg. always ny.
D, [abs. form does not occur, MG.] "body," Dan. iii. 27, 28, iv.
30, v. 21, vii. 11. In Jerus. Targ. only spa. Levy.
¬”, “error,” “any thing amiss," E.V. Dan. iii. 29. by Kri,
Dan. vi. 5. Ezr. iv. 22. as in Targg.
[,"changed, transgressed," (in good sense ;) Dan. iii. 28, as
Syr.; Afel, D. vi. 9, 16 (also for good); Ezr. vi. 11, 12, in bad sense.
lost subsequently.
615
Targg. use Pael in the general sense of "change," not in this of
"transgressing," for which they use the Aphel. MG.]
,יִשְׁתַּנֵּה
"shall be made," Dan. iii. 29. Pa. is common in this sense.
Ithpa. not in Targg. in Buxt. [Ethpe. is occasionally in Syr. " shall
be made like to," with particle; and Ithpe., but not so frequently, in
Targg.; Ithpa. in no certain instance. MG.]
,רַעֲנָן
[ Dan. iii. 29; an vi. 15; xp vi. 28. The word is very
rare in Targg.; Buxt. and Levy give no instance. It occurs Is.
v. 29, n'; Hos. ii. 9, by; by: Job xxxvi. 18; also Ittaphal
in Berachoth f. 54, 1. Targg. on law and prophets use 2, (9 times
in Dan.) Targg. on Ps. and Prov. use Peal ? (Pael Syr.) MG.]
* "flourishing,” Dan. iv. 1. [µy occurs 20 times in Heb.
(Fürst Conc. omits 1 K. xiv. 23.) In 16 of these, Targg. have pay ;
in 3, (Cant. i. 16, Jer. xi. 16, Hos. xiv. 9,); in Ps. xcii. 15. 27;
but þy never occurs in any of the Targg. MG.] The Syriac
implies, doubtless, the same lost root, but " of the root itself there is
no further trace. Fürst is a great inventor of roots." P. Sm.
iv. 2. "imaginations." Syr. In Targ. [7 or- or-7
MG.] "evil conceptions, evil thoughts of God, concupiscences."
[The verb also is used in a bad sense. MG.] “In Syr. * is only
used of the mirage,' Bar Ali explains it of the ." P. Sm. The
Arab. 8 stands insulated, (the root remaining in Aramaic) as well
as in Syriac. Castell's explanation, "phantasma, imaginatio,"
arose in a mistake as to Bar-Bahlul's meaning.
הַרְחֹרִין
&
*
אָחֲרֵין
ער
"at last," iv. 5.
Dy with pers.,*"is oppressive to," i. e. too difficult for. Dan. iv. 6.
In Targg. it is used of actual " oppression," and corresponds to Heb.
ps7, b, poy. Buxt. [The Targ, phrase for "difficult" is adj.
(Heb. ). See Ex. xviii. 26, Ouk. and Ps.-Jon. "Too difficult
for" is commonly expressed by verb (as Heb. np). See Deut.
i. 17, in both. The Peshito uses the
use
קְשֵׁי
same. Targg. sometimes
', as in Deut. xvii. 8, Onk. Ps.-Jon. But Jerus. Targg.
.IG .נָתְכָּסֶא מָן .as Syr יִתְכַּפִּי מִן
, branch, Dan. iv. 9, 11, 18; only in Targ. Ezek. xvii. 8, and Is.
xvii. 6. [Elsewhere or ab. MG.] Syr. xby Sap. iv. 4. 5. and N
was full of branches." BB.
CC
,עיר
Ty,*"a watcher," iv. 10. pry, "watchers," iv. 14. See ab. p. 526,7.
[y is never found in Targg., and in later Chaldee literature occurs
only as borrowed from Daniel, as a pry in a hymn, nearly made up
of quotations from Daniel, en bao nhon Amst. 1756. Fürst's Perlen-
schnüre p. 66, most correctly Beelen Chrest. Vol. i. P. ii. P. 143.
616
Aramaic words of Daniel
MG.] Michaelis on Cast. Lex. Syr. p. 649, referred to by Gesen.
sub v., is wrong in saying that it is used in Syr. of fallen angels. [Of
good angels it is used also in an old Syriac hymn in Heidenheim's
Vierteljahrschrift, No. vii. p. 342. MG.]
66
772, cut,” Dan. iv. 11, 20, as in Arab., jadda. In Ber. Rab. c.
71. Buxt. and Ps.-Jon., Deut. xiv. 1; Pael, Ib. xxxiii. 20; in Talm.,
Beza 6 a. Bechor. 44 a. g. E. B. bathra 36. b. Kethub. 51. a. Add
Tanchuma i. 20. sect. Ki Thissa. Levy. In Targg. 1 Buxt. [Targg.
Hebraise, not Daniel. The Syr. has usually Pael, "; so Daniel is
quite independent. MG.]
ņinņa, iv. 11, vii. 27. In Targg. &
Deut. xxviii. 13, 43 for
,תְּחוֹת adj. But the
preposition is always תַּחְתִּיתָא תַּחְתָּאָה also לְמַטָה or מַטָה
The Targg. use the one word "py,
and, with affixes, pining &c.
Pportion." Dan. iv. 12, Ezr. iv. 16. sp Syr. phan Targg.
niwy ¬py, Dan. iv. 12, 20, 23.
or vv, but not this idiom. [w is retained in Targg. 2 K. xix.
10, Is. xxxvii. 31, liii. 2, Jer. xvii. 8, Ez. xvii. 6, 7, 9 [bis], Hos.
ix. 16, Am. ii. 9, Job viii. 17, xiv. 8, xviii. 16, Ps. lxxxi. 10, and
in Ps.-Jon. Deut. xxix. 18. It is also the word, used in free trans-
lations, as in Ezek. xxxi. 3.
py occurs frequently in the Targ. on
Job, and occasionally elsewhere. MG.]
*Dan. iv. 13, 14, like Samarit. &ws. Kri conforms it to
, אֲנוּשָׁא
-אֲנָשָׁא .Targg
, שִׁבְעָה * עִדָּנִין
*
CC
seven times,” i. e. “years,” iv. 13. Onk. has 177 17`V,
"time in time," for 'D. Gen. xxiv. 55. Levy.
"word," (in stat. const. only) Dan. iv. 14, Ezr. vi. 9. Targg.
, except occasionally in Prov. and in Cant. v. 13 and Esth. ii. 20.
[, the Syriac form, occurs in the Syrising Targ. on Proverbs
only, in iv. 5, 20, xvi. 24 (Buxt.), vi. 2 (bis), xix. 27. The proper
8, xxiii. 12,
Targum form occurs Ib. v. 7, vii. 1, 24, viii.
xxx. 5. Even the Heb. is changed into
מאמר
ix. 32, and is retained only in ii. 20. MG.]
in Esth. i. 15,
$77, “my Lord,” Dan. iv. 16, 21. Kri alters it to, as if it were
from, whence 1, "our Lord."
x, also, Dan. ii. 47, v. 23, as
Buxt. only mentions &
xxiii. 2. it should be a
Prov.
7]
in Syr. 87, [never occurs in Targg.]
xxiii. 2, frequently. [In Prov.
as in MS. and Bibl. Rab. Levy. [by 87 Ps. lxxi. 4, in Buxt. p.
616. is an error for Polygl. and Bibl. Rab. is the form in
Pr. xxii. 24, xxiv. 8, as always in other Targg. MG.]
[,"enemy," Dan. iv. 16, as in Heb. Targg. use & and byz
×127, also p’yn. MG.]
lost subsequently.
617
[14, "dwell," of birds, Dan. iv. 18; my 1 (God) "made His
name dwell,” Ezr. vi. 12; thence Targ. Cant. iii. 10. In Ezek. xvii.
23, xxxi. 13, Ps. civ. 12, and (Aph.) Ezek. xxxii. 4, where Daniel's
phrase recurs, Peshito has (as here) ¡, Targg. . Only in Is.
xxxiv. 11, Pesh. too has . MG.]
fre-
[nail' of man, Dan. iv. 30, of beast, vii. 19, as Syr. . In
Targg. only occurs [of point of diamond] Jer. xvii. 1. but
quently. MG.]
,לָקָבֵל אַלְפָּא חַמְרָא שְׁתֵה
66
over against the thousand, wine he was drink-
ing." v. 1. On the force of this idiom and its correspondence with East-
ern customs, see ab. p. 462.
ony lit." make bread," "i. e. a feast," Dan. v. 1., as Heb. ons nvy,
Eccl. x. 19, a Chaldee idiom peculiar to Daniel. In Eccl. x. 19,
(Mr Mc Gill observes) the words on y occur; but not in this
idiomatic sense. The Chald. paraphrases, "For joy the righteous
make bread, to support the poor hungry; and the wine, which they
mingle for the thirsty, shall be joy to them for the world to come:
where the context of the "mingling " shews that the "making bread "
is used in the physical sense, as ons by Ezek. iv. 15.
pawn—nnab neg, Ib. transition from infinit. to finite verb, as in i. 5.
7 Dypa, lit. "in the taste of the wine," v. 2., idiomatic for "exhi-
laration through the wine."ogy is used of physical taste in Onk.
Ps-Jon. Jer. Targ, in Nu. xi. 8. Levy. The idiom then only is peculiar
to Daniel.
mojo? *,
,"his singing women," v. 2, 3, 23, according to the Baby-
lonian and Persian customs. Such was the original meaning of the
Arab. n. 18, "songs," Tochf. Ichw. in Freyt. Lex.; janbaba nya
"the art of music;" thence it is used of the wrong pronunciation of
vowels, making long short, short long, in singing. "Modulation "
is a secondary, not, as Ges. says, the primary meaning. In Targg.
only "concubines." Heraclides of Cuma, in his Parask. ii. quoted
from Ath. iv. 26. above p. 462. mentions that at supper the con-
cubines sing and play to him, one leading, the others singing in
chorus." It seems then probable that the explanation of the word
by "concubines" expresses the fact, while the meaning and ety-
mology of the word, “singing women," which existed in Aramaic
in the time of Daniel, was forgotten, being retained in Arabic only.
↳ng, wall, Dan. v. 5, (Sam. xbnɔ) i. q. bpɔ Cant. ii. 9. The form of
the Targg. is iɔ, with which app, Ezr. v. 8, with Heb. and Targg.,
agrees. [Yet in Targg. it is often written pb, so as to reduce the
difference to the pointing. MG.]
618
Aramaic words of Daniel
App, lit." the bands of his loin," i. e. the vertebræ. Dan. v. 6,
quoted in Esth. Targ. ii. vi. 10 Levy. prop, in a figurative sense, for
lineaments," occurs in Yelamm. and Vaiikra rabba in Buxt. c. 2024.
In Syriac, np is used of the "bands of the hand," i. e. wrist.
hy—ba* lit. “he shall rule, third in the kingdom.” Dan. v. 7.
- Ib. 16, p, "third ruler," Ib. 29, i. c. next to the
Vizier, and third, including the king as the first. [Or, next to Bel-
shazzar, who was only a vice-king. MG.]
*
*
17, with prosth., Dan. v. 12. Syr. and Targg., on Ps. Prov.
but ,חִידְוָן and חורון חוּרָאִין .plur ; חיותא חורתא חוריתא Targg. also ; אוּחַרְתָּא
אחירן not
[179p v. 12, 16. “knotty points," or "difficult questions," peculiar
to Daniel in this figurative sense. MG.]
8973, (Sam. 7073,) "throne,” Dan. v. 20. In Targg. p, Syr.
.כוּרְסָא and כורסי
, probably to be ready, Peal, only in Dan. v. 21.
33.66
07, 0`,“ breaking, broken," Dan. v. 28. Sec above on p. 130.
[sha ma Dan. v. 30, as in Syr. See instances from the N. T. in
Hoffm. and Uhlemann, and in O. T. Deut. i. 9, Is. xviii. 7, Jer. iii.
17, Zeph. i. 12, iii. 20. The Prepos. is not ordinarily repeated in
Targg. They repeat it with the noun, so as to express more ac-
curately what is denoted by the preceding preposition and suffix,
where the Hebrew text does; and so, never for emphasis, but only
when the noun is given as a more precise explanation; as in Jos. i. 2,
1 Chr. iv. 42, in Heb. and Targg, as also in Dan. v. 12, Ezr. iv. 11,
(as we should say to them, i. e. or viz. M. and N.) But for em-
phasis, whether for time or otherwise, the Targg. have a demonstra-
tive after the noun as in Heb. Only in a few cases it is put before
the noun, as any '', Ps.-J. Nu. xxii. 28, or a Cant.
66
i. 13, or anyw '7 Cant. ii. 15, 16. As an analogy to the full Syr.
form, Dan. v. 30, Winer gives xnywa m', Jerus. T. on Gen. xxii. 10,
in a long interpolation; and the very words bban recur repeat-
edly in a long interpolation Esth. vi. 1, as well as in the literal
rendering of the first clause of the verse. MG.]
x with Dan. vi. 3. Targ. by.
hy
Dya, “give account,” Dan. vi. 3. Dyp, “account, " Ezr. v. 5; byş
Dy Ib. iv. 8. In Pesh. and Targg. the word used is wɔɔwn.
P13, "suffer injury," only Dan. vi. 3. In Targg. Peal is trans.;
Buxt. quotes Ps. xci. 7. Pael is quoted twice, Jer. xii. 14, 1 Chr.
xvi. 22. Else Afel is transitive, as is Haf. Ezr. iv. 13, 15, 22. [Ezra
approaches nearer than Dan. to the idiom of the Targg. MG.]
,po על with *, מִתְנַצַח
66
lost subsequently.
619
was preferred above." Dan. vi. 4. In Targg.
only of "victory." [In Syr. also, as in Dan. See Bernst. and Hahn.
MG.]" In Syriac, ns is used for inclaruit, Ass. B. O. i. 321, 323;
floruit, S. Ephr. iii. 344, 345, 1. 19, Joh. Eph. 92, 1. 23. nyund
evdokiμeî, S. Cyr. in S. Luc. Hom. 67; Afel, пss, promovit, S. Ephr.
i. 485. So xh is constantly used for λaμmpós, sins for λaμπрórηs."
P. Smith.
* עָשִׂית
was minded," Dan. vi. 4. In Targg. only Ithpa. [and
always in bad sense; MG.] in good sense, in Heb. and Bibl. Ch.
7p, lit. "
on the side of the kingdom,” i. e. in temporals. Dan. vi. 5 ;
"[blasphemies] against," so as to be "side by side" with God,
contesting on equal terms, Dan. vii. 25. Buxt. quotes only one instance.
"thou shalt not approach of a woman," for by, Ex. xix. 15.
[Onk. has ned. Antw. Targg. use and, as Syr. too;
Ty, but not ™, is occasionally used in Ps.-J. and Targ. on Prov.,
andy is very common in Syriac. MG.]
,לְצַר of
אֲסָר
66
an interdict," Dan. vi. 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 16. In Targg. Buxt.
only gives the case in which the Heb. word, "obligation,” (viz. to
abstain from a thing,) has been retained from the Hebrew in Num.
xxx. 3, 4, 6, &c.
ong with by Dan. vi. 15; as xp with by p., vi. 24 ; and, in Hebrew,
רע
and בְּעֵינִין with באש ; 17 .occurs Eccl. ii בִּישׁ עַל] .17 .Eccl. ii ,על with
by obj. occurs in Ps.-Jon. and Onk. Gen. xxi. 12. ex occurs also with 구
​of cause or obj. and ↳ pers. MG.]
777,*"knelt," i.e. to God, Dan. vi. 11; as in Heb. Ps. xcv. 6,2 Chron.
vi. 13; more widely in Syr.
like ov,
e, a Syriac
ba* oy with by p. "set his heart upon,” Dan. vi. 15;
1 Sam. ix. 20. a, ba* for 2, is common Syriac,
idiom; ↳ Arab., but not Ch. or Talm. [co with by occurs Barh.
Chron. p. 257,S. Cyril Hom. 95 on S. Luke; with 7 and fut. Bibl. Or.
ii. 231 ; saboo Sirac. vi. 32, and with 2, Ruth iii. 4. by my occurs
Ex. vii. 23, ix. 21, 1 Sam. iv. 20, 2 Sam. xiii. 20, xix. 19, Is. xlii.
25, Ivii. 1. Ephr. iii. Præf. 61, Acta Mart. ii. 282. The constr. DD
* in Castell Lex, is from Ferrar. With a co, the usual construc-
tions are with by or . Dr P. Smith.] In the Peshito, the construction
with by is used Job i. 8, ii. 2, that with 1, Deut xxxii. 46, to repre-
sent and retain the expression
xxvii. 23, Job vii. 17, Ps. xlviii. 13
used, as in Is. xli. 22, Hagg. ii. 16,
1,* “laboured," Dan. vi. 15.
; in Prov. xxii. 17, xxiv. 32,
(Syr.) for a ne. saba do is also
(19, Syr.) and elsewhere.
g, Targg. In the Targg.
620
Aramaic words of Daniel
signifies," was sent," as in Syr. Only the Jerus. Targ. has a'm
"in his (Jacob's) wrestling," Gen xxxii. 25.
[by, "sunset," like wown, Dan. vi. 15; in Targg. uhyn,
Buxt. MG.] Jerus. T. has sie byb Nu. xxv. 4, and Ps.-Jon. Syð
with gen. for y, Gen. xiv. 13, Nu. xxii. 28. Levy.
ny, Dan. vi. 18. " is rare in Targg., which generally have."
Buxt. c. 2349, [but very common in Syriac; also in Targ. on Pro-
verbs.]
טות
mp, "hungered," Dan. vi. 19, (comp. the usage of the Arab. " in
Ges. ;) once in Talm. Berach. f. 55. 2. Buxt. "in Aram. Prov. in
Talm.," Fürst; unknown to Buxt. and Levy. "In Cureton's re-
cension of the Gospels from the Nitrian MS. m is used for vyoteîs in
S. Matt. xv. 32, pas no 72, where not having food is alone to be ex-
pressed. In all other places, when religious fasting is spoken of,
Ds is used. Mr. Bensley has also found the word in the Vitæ
Patrum." P. E. Pusey.
1109,*
,חדה
(C
66
CC
Dan. vi. 19. Probably women who played on (lit.
'struck') an instrument." Heraclides (ab. p. 617) mentions that the
concubines played as well as sang to the king at supper, (a custom,
still, I am informed, continued in the East). Darius passing the
night fasting, the women, who played and sang at supper, were not
brought in.' Saadiah gives this meaning, women singing with
harps and viols," though he supposed л to be a transposition for
, "gladdening." Abraham Ben David, a Hebrew-Arabic Lexico-
grapher of the 10th century, also held this etymology to be the " most
probable" (17p); so that the word should mean a musician.” (Opp.
Cod. Add. 25.) Buxtorf guesses that it may mean "expelling, i. e.
sorrow." Aben Ezra explains it "neginoth and songs;
Ibn Yech. "instruments of music; " the Aruch “instruments of joy,"
probably from the same etymology. Rashi (after R. Donash Ben
Librat, of the 10th century) and David Kimchi (quoted by David
Coben de Lara Lex. Talm. Rabb.) explain it "table "from a word,
66
Levi and
(הרחונות של בעלי בתים,occurring in one passage of the Tosafta) וחונות
a word so rare as not to occur in Lexica, even in the Morshid. See
also Sal. B. Melech. Very probably (as in other cases) the Talmudic
word was adopted from the Scripture-word (whose meaning had been
forgotten) in the sense which was, in later times, ascribed to it. The
Gr. Ven. has also rрárea. Abraham B. David rejects this expla-
α.
-has no meal גואר .יקאי גואר (חואן .leg) בלא דליל ",nation as * unproved
ing which will suit with ; between and jij, a table" (a Per-
lost subsequently.
621
like.
sian word Arabised) when written in Arabic letters without diacritical
marks, the only difference is between the n and r, which are very
Theod., Syr., S. Jer. render "food." Sal. B. Melech mentions fur-
"tellers of
ther, that some explained it as a compound word, pa› "7,
riddles and gifted with song." The LXX avoided translating it.
So wholly was its meaning lost. The rendering, "instrumenta
pulsatilia," as well as the coarse etymology imagined by Lengerke
and Ges., would require that p should be a passive, which, of
course, it is not. The concubines, if introduced at all, could only
have been introduced, for that which Heraclides says was their office,
singing and playing.
[2p, "shut," D. vi. 23, Peal as in Syr. In Targg. Afel, but general-
lynx is used, MG.] except as to leprosy: 8, "closed" a leprous
house, Lev. xiv. 38; "shut up" a leper, Lev. xiii. 4, 5, 11, 54 ; vụp, a
leper so “shut up ; ”10 "leprosy," Lev. xiii. 2, 9 &c. Levy adds a
var. rendering Job xxxviii, 8,
"a way enclosed," Cant.
i. 9, i, Job xxxviii. 16.
[ with by," was glad," Dan. vi. 24, an approach to Syriac idiom.
Not in Targg. (except 1 Sam. xvi. 23, with ↳) even where Heb. has
a with a, e. g. 1 S. xxv. 36, 2 S. xiii. 28, where Targ. has
with by. See also Judg. xviii. 20, 1 Kings xxi. 7, Esth. i. 10.
The most common word for "be glad" in Targg. is x, which
the Pesh. also has. The Peshito has sometimes 282. MG.]
, "substance," much as we say,"heads." Dan. vii. 1, (as in Heb.
Ps. cxix. 160, and Lev. v. 24.) No instance of this use of in Buxt.
or Levy from Targg.
eg, "said," (in writing)=wrote. Dan. vii. 1.
“bursting forth," of winds. Dan. vii. 2. So in Heb. and Syr.;
but in Targg., only of "going forth to war," whence commonly joined
with 2, Buxt. c. 402. In Job xxxviii. 8, pu, and in Jud. xx. 33, way,
the word is retained in the Targ. from the Heb. text.
,אָמְתָּנִי
strong," vii. 7. The word, formed perhaps by Daniel, is
from a root, exstant in Arabic only and in a derived word in Heb.,
, not in any other Aramaic besides Daniel's, in any allied sense.
See ab. p. 76. n. 2.
[N23 “pure, fine," wool. Dan. vii. 9. Targg. p, as in Heb., but it
occurs very rarely. So Dan. does not hebraise here. Targg. gene-
rally have of physical purity; of moral purity they use (as
Buxt. notices) for p. MG.]
.5 .i יַעַמְרוּ לִפְנֵי .vii. 10. i. q קָדָמוֹהִי יְקוּמוּן
622
Two remarkable correspondences
, "judgment" (i. e. judges) "was set." Dan. vii. 26.
The following observations, collected by the Rev. J. Mc Gill
from decypherers of cuneiform Inscriptions, illustrate in two points
the Chaldee of Daniel. More will result from further investigation.
[“i. on the use or insertion of Nun.
נטר
, יִדָּן
,נבא
66
In Daniel, certain words sometimes retain or insert n, sometimes
reject it. In Babylonian, mandatta is "tribute;" in Assyrian,
madatu, madata oblique; yet sometimes mandata (Rawl. Anal.
of Bab. text of Behistun, Inscr. p. xxvii.). Mindah occurs in Rehum's
letter, Ezra iv. 13; middah, in the king's answer, iv. 20, and the decree
of Darius, vi. 8; but mindah in that of Artaxerxes vii. 24. The word
is not in Daniel. Oppert (Gramm. Assyr. n. 217) gives mandanath,
or madnath, “tribute." He says, ' many verbs preserve the n in all
cases, as 7, 7. At Persepolis, there occurs 17; at Nineveh,
announces," sinks the n or takes m. So you have N
or xps, save or say.' Ib. n. 173, 174. In the Piel, m is inserted
instead of the reduplication. "The prism of Tiglath-pileser I. has
, the gem of Michaux .' Ib. n. 175 note. He also gives the
forms xp n. 139, and 1, n. 233, p. 88 antep. Nöldeke says, that
this insertion of n is pretty common in Mandæan before 7, 1, 3.
That this nasal is not a mere note for the reduplication, appears
from the fact, that before the n is changed into m.' die Mundart
d. Mandäer p. 21, 2. A radical remains in Mandæan more decidedly
than in Syriac. The very word 'Mandaite,' i. e. Gnostic, preserves
a trace of n in the participle of yr. The use of the linea occultans,'
in Syriac, shews that the forms with n are the oldest."
J
MG.]
There is, I believe, only one trace in Syriac of the n being inserted,
corresponding to the Hebrew intensive form. This is in a noun
x i. q. 7, which still exists in the written language, although
the "linea occultans" marks that it is pronounced wi27. Else the
"linea occultans" applies to cases, where the n was part of the original
word, but precedes t, and in one case, b: 1) in the pronoun 2nd pers.
,מדינתא ספינתאלן feminine nouns (2 ; אנתי, אנת, אנתין אנתון,throughout
, וּבִינתא לן or the pass. part. of (3; מֶסְכיתאמריתא, ספית pronounced, מֶסכינתא
pronounced siva. The other instances given are, sлns (i. q. Heb. nys)
pronounced sing; xh, pronounced why, Heb. "year" (contract-
ed in the Phoenician coins also, ne, and Sam. лn); 1, pronounced 23.
[The insertion of n, it may be observed, was not uncommon in
the South-Semitic languages. In Ethiopic, Gesenius gives one in-
of Cuneiform Inscr. with Daniel.
623
stance only; but Dillmann, in his Gram. p. 110, gives thirty one.
In Arabic, as compared to Hebrew there are, such as, 'ancabo,' the
male spider,' 'ancabao,' the female spider,' also 'ancabut, but in Heb.
way, Ch. spicy; 1y, ' goat,' aza, Phoen., siy Syr., but iy Arab. ; 77
Heb., “Pentecost," Arab.; ÿ, “ trouble,” ¬y‡y Arab.; ¬¬¬, ‘bee,'
Syr. 7 'bee, wasp,' Ch. 77, 87127, and 8777, 77, 'bee', but Naz.
*, Arab. and wasp.' Ges. also gives (lit. p, 833) nay,
Ar. nap, ear of corn;' visp, Ar. hedge-hog.' Add q, Syr.
sig, Ar. xii, swine. [Amid the difficulty to find an etymology for
AN, it may not be improbably i. q. Arab. ] In the Hebrew, p Job
xviii. 2, is no instance of this, (see Ewald, Delitzsch) [nor Ps. lxiv,
7, Lam. iii. 22; but probably, 'Valeria' Lev. xi. 13, Deut. xiv. 12,
is ; quo, Is. xxiii. 11, is perhaps conformed to the Phoenician. See
Hitzig Grabschrift p. 16. Levy Phoen. Stud. p. 17.] This insertion
of a non-radical n, cannot then be owing to Hebrew influence. MG.]
[“ii. On the , as the preformative of the 3rd person future, in il-
lustration of the xn of Daniel.
CC
"Dr Hincks (first, I believe) gave a full description of the as.
marking the "Optative" or Precative," in the Journ. Sacr. Lit.
Oct. 1855, “On Assyrian verbs." He says, 'Of the optative, pre-
cative, there are numerous examples in the 1st pers. sing. and the
3rd pers. masc. sing. and plur. The standard forms are lupkul,
lipkul, lipkulu.' The third person sing. and plur. he establishes by the
Pers. translation of the Achæmenian inscriptions (n. 69.); the 1st
pers. sing. by the context of those of Nebuchadnezzar. (n. 70.) He
also gives instances of the↳ as the sign of the optative from older in-
scriptions. [n. 71.) Oppert in his "Grammaire Assyrienne" (n.
114 p. 41 note) gives the following forms from the Trilinguar in-
scriptions, as ascertained by the Persian: ?, let him protect; 7,
let him curse; 7, let him give; a, let him bless; Plur. kal, »x?,
let them protect; 8, let them (thy days) be prolonged. He gives
also other examples, Ib. n. 121, 5, 166. MG.]
In conclusion, I would note, how Dr Payne Smith, Mr Mc Gill
and myself, independently of one another, observed, (what indeed I
think will strike most persons even on a cursory reading of this note)
that Daniel and Ezra agree so remarkably, not only in differing from
the Targums, but in their correspondence with Western Aramaic or
Syriac. This correspondence too belongs very remarkably to the
grammar as well as to the vocabulary. This is further illustrated
by the correspondence with what Mr Mc Gill rightly calls the "Sy-
624
LXX glosses and changes
rising" Targums. This character of the Chaldee of Daniel and Ezra
separates them off from these Targums, which come nearest to their
age, by an almost dialectic difference, analogous to the difference
of the Greek of Homer from that of later Greek writers, when the
dialects became distinct. It is yet further illustrated by the corres-
pondence of both Daniel and Ezra with the Samaritan, which, what-
ever be the age of its Targum, was separated off from its parent-
stock of Eastern Aramaic at a period, earlier than even Daniel and
Ezra.
Note E. on p. 379.
The character of such a translation as that of the LXX is, with
difficulty, exhibited by mere references or extracts, here and there. I
have therefore translated, throughout, what seemed to me characte-
ristic renderings, and many which contain in them little which is
characteristic. The variation of the degrees of free translation or
almost re-writing in different chapters is in itself remarkable. Where
there was little temptation to embellish or gloss, as in ch. viii, the
prayer in ch. ix, and ch. x., there is very little variation. But the ad-
herence to the text in some parts makes it the more evident, that it
was of set purpose, that the translator departed from his text, in
other parts. One who could so translate must have been removed by
centuries from the prophet. The whole tone of mind is different, and
not accounted for by the mere absence of inspiration in the translator.
i. 2. “ The Lord delivered it (Jerusalem) into his hands and Joia-
kim," (stating the capture of Jerusalem.) Ib. "he carried them to
Babylon," explaining the land of Shinar of the Hebrew. Ib. "in his
idol-temple,” for, "in the treasure-house of his god." 3." of the sons
of the nobles of Israel," added. 7. "And to Daniel he gave under-
standing in every word and wisdom and dreams and in all wisdom."
i. 10. (lest he should see) "your faces distressed and weak above
the youths of the aliens who are nourished with you; (as though
Daniel and his companions were the only Jews, and so no Jews had
eaten forbidden food.) 11. “Daniel spake to Abiesdri who was ap-
pointed chief of the eunuchs," for, "to Hammelzur whom the chief
&c. had appointed;" probably not understanding Hammelzar (see
ab. p. 579.) 20. "And the king glorified them, and made them rulers
and declared them wise above all his, in affairs in all his land and
in all his kingdom," added. 20. "the sophists and philosophers,”
for, "magicians and astrologers."
imply early date of Daniel.
39 66
625
ii. 1. “visions and dreams." 2. "and sorcerers of the Chaldees,"
for "and," not understanding the Chaldees to be a distinct class.
ib. "my spirit was troubled; I wish therefore (added) to know my
dream.” ii. 5.“ Unless ye shew me the vision in truth,” added.
ib. instead of, " ye shall be cut in pieces and your houses shall be
made a dunghill,” ye shall be made an example and your property
shall be taken into the royal." ii. 9. "ye shall die," for, "there is
one decree for you." 8. CC
as I have commanded, so it shall be,"
added. 9. "and shew its interpretation," added; "the word which
I have seen by night,” added, Ib. 11. "is rare and glorious," added.
Ib. "
except some angel," for, "except the gods,' "wherefore
it cannot be, as thou thinkest," added. 13. "Daniel and all who
were with him, that they might perish with" (the wise men) as if they
were a distinct class (Toû σvvañoλéolai).” 16. “Daniel went quickly
(του συναπολέσθαι).”
to the king ;"" he would shew all things," for, “the interpretation.”
18. for "that they would desire mercies from the God of Heaven,”
"and he enjoined fasting and supplication and self-affliction (lit. “re-
venge," Tчuwpíar, added) "to seek from the Lord the Most High, &c.”
"with the sophists of Bab.," for "with the rest of the wise men of
B." separating Daniel from them. 19. "in a vision, in that same
night," for, "in a night-vision." 23. "Thou hast made known unto
me what I desired, that I should make known to the king accordingly,"
for, “what we desired of Thee, for Thou hast made known unto us.”
25. "I have found a wise man. 26.Daniel, who was surnamed in
Chaldee Belteshazzar." 34. “ a stone was cut out of a mountain,”
added. 37. "gave them glory in the whole world," added. 38." the
fowls of heaven,” he adds, " and the fishes of the sea.” 41. for "the
kingdom shall be divided," "there shall be another kingdom of two
parts in it" (Sepǹs), adapting the prophecy to the Seleucidæ and
Ptolemies. 43. "They shall be commingled for the generation of
men; but they shall not be of one mind nor well-minded to one
another.” 44. "set up another kingdom,” “and this kingdom shall
not suffer another nation,” for, "shall not be left to.”
iii. 1. “In the 18th year," King N. “governing cities and coun-
tries and all dwellers on the earth from India to Ethiopia," added,
this last probably from Esther i. 1. 2.“in the plain of the circuit,”
not knowing Dura, as a proper name.
ruling the whole world sent to collect all nations and tribes and
tongues and satraps, &c. and all throughout the world.”
"N. the king of kings and
12. « serve
not thy idol,” for “thy gods,” “ and thy golden," &c. for "the, &c.
S S
626
Daniel, in part rewritten
" Our
17. "For God is in heaven, our One Lord, whom we fear," for,
God, Whom we serve;
18. "And then it will be clear to thee,"
for, “And if not, be it known, &c.;”“ thy idol," for, "thy gods."
22. "And the men, who were appointed, having bound them and
bringing them to the furnace cast them into it;" added. 23.
"The men then who bound Azariah and his companions, the flame,
coming forth out of the furnace burnt and killed, and these were
preserved," added.
The Greek has only "the height thereof [of the statue] six cu-
bits," avoiding the statement of the want of proportion, but the Sy-
riac Hexaplar agrees with the Heb.
After the prayer of Azarias, there follows an addition, 46. “ And
they who cast them in, ministers of the king, ceased not heating the
furnace, and when they cast the three together into the furnace, and
the furnace was red-hot, sevenfold, according to its heat, and when
they cast them in, they who cast them were above them, but others
from below kindled under them naphtha, and tow, and pitch, and
faggots. And the fire was poured forth above the furnace, 49
cubits. And it went forth, and kindled those whom it found of the
Chaldæans around the furnace. But the angel of the Lord descended
with Azariah and his companions into the furnace and struck out
the flame of fire from the furnace, and he made the midst of the furnace
like a whistling wind of dew, and the fire touched them not at all,
nor distressed them, nor troubled them." After "the hymn of the
three children," 91. “And it came to pass when the king heard them
hymning, and stood and saw them living," added (introductory to the
mention of his surprise.) 92. (25 Ch.) “the form of the fourth is the
likeness of an angel of God," for " the Son of God." 95. (28.) “yielded
their bodies to the burning," added. 96. (29.) “shall be cut in pieces
and his house shall be confiscated," for, "made a dunghill."
66
iv. 1. (4 Eng.) added, “ In the 18th year of the reign.” 3-6. (6-9,)
omitted. 7. (10.) added, “ and there was no other like to it, its branches
were in length as it were 30 furlongs, its fruit was much and good."
"all the beasts of the field, &c." 8. (11.) added, " and the trunk of
it to the clouds, filling the space under heaven, the sun and the moon
were in it; they dwelt and enlightened the whole earth." 10. (13.)
an Angel," for, "a watcher and a holy one." 11. “cut it down,
and spoil it; for it is commanded by the Highest to uproot and make
it useless." 12, 13. (14, 15.) "leave one root of it in the ground,
that with the beasts of the earth on the mountains he may be fed
66
by the Septuagint translator.
627
with grass like an ox, and by the dew of heaven his body may be
changed, and for 7 years he may be fed with them;" omitting the
greater part of v. 14. 14. (17.) " until he know," for, "that the liv-
ing may know ;" "that the King of heaven hath power over all things
in heaven and in earth, and what He wills to do He doth in them,"
omitting the characteristic language, "This matter is by decree,
&c.--holy ones." 15. (18.) added, " In my presence it was cut down
in one day, and its destruction was in one hour of the day, and its
branches were given to every wind, and it was torn away and cast
down, and he ate the grass of the field, and was given in charge, and
was bound by them in fetters and handcuffs of brass. I wondered at
these things exceedingly, and my sleep departed from my eyes, and, ris-
ing early from my bed, I called Daniel, chief of the sophists, and prefect
of those who interpret dreams, and I related to him the dream, and he
shewed me all its interpretation.” 16. (19.) “and, affrighted, trem-
bling seizing him, and, his aspect being changed, he, shaking his head,
for one hour, much marvelled, having answered me with a mild
voice," for, "The king said, let not the dream or the interpretation
thereof trouble thee. Daniel answered." 17. (20.) abridged, “The
tree which was planted in the earth, whose aspect was great, thou, O
king, art it." 18. (21.) explained with omissions," And all the birds
of the heaven which nestled in it, ""the might of the earth and of
the nations and of all tongues to the ends of the earth, and all coun-
tries shall serve thee." 19. (22.) The description of the tree is re-
peated from v. 8; "But that the tree was exalted, and reached to
the heaven, and its trunk touched the clouds;" then the comment is
added, “thou hast been lifted up above all men who are on the face
of all the earth; thy heart has been lifted up with pride and might
over the things towards the Holy One and His angels; thy works
have been seen, according as thou hast utterly desolated the house
of the living God, for the sins of the sanctified people." 21. (24,25.)
"This vision that thou hast seen, that an angel was sent in might from
the Lord, and that he said, 'Take away the tree and cut it down,' the
judgment of the great God cometh upon thee; and the Highest and
His angels shall assail thee; they shall lead thee away to prison, and
shall send thee to a desert place;" 23. (26.) “And the root of the tree
which was left that it was not uprooted, the place of thy throne shall ·
be kept for thee for a time and an hour. Behold they are prepared
against thee, and shall scourge thee and bring all that is adjudged
against thee." 24. (27.) "Beseech Him for thy sins," for, "Where-
ss 2
628
Additions or alterations made
fore-let my counsel be acceptable to thee:" "that gentle dealing
may be given thee, and thou mayest be for many days on the throne
of thy kingdom and He may not destroy thee," for "thine iniquities—
tranquillity;" 25. "Cherish these sayings; for my word is accurate,
and thy time full. And at the end of the words, Neb. when he
heard the interpretation of the vision, kept the sayings in his heart,"
instead of 28. Eng. 26. (29.) "the king was walking on the wall of
the city with all his glory and was going through upon its towers,"
for, "on the palace of the kingdom of Babylon." 28. (31.) added,
"at the end of his speech he heard a voice," and, "the kingdom of
Babylon is taken from thee, and is given to another the most abject
man in thy house. (suggested by iv. 17. [20]) It then adds, "Lo I set
him over thy kingdom, and he shall receive thy power and thy glory
and thy luxury, that thou mayest know, &c." (from 32.) Then," to the
sunrising another king shall rejoice in thy house, and shall possess
thy glory and thy might and thy power." 29. (32.) " And the Angels
shall drive thee for seven years, and thou shalt not be seen nor
shalt speak with any man; they shall feed thee with grass as an ox,
and of the tender grass of the field shall thy pasture be; (from iv.
23.) then, "Lo! for thy glory they shall bind thee, and the house
of thy luxury and of thy kingdom shall another have." 30. (33.)
“Till the morning, all these things shall be fulfilled upon thee, Ne-
buchadnezzar king of Babylon, and nothing of all these things shall be
wanting. I Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon was bound with chains
for seven years. They fed me with grass as an ox, and I ate of the herb
of the earth." 31.(34.) "And after seven years I gave my soul unto pray-
er, and I entreated for my sins before the Lord God of heaven, and for
my ignorances I besought the great God of gods." from 30,(33. related
by, not of, Nebuchadnezzar. "And my hairs became as eagle's wings,
my nails as a lion's, my flesh and my heart was deranged. I walked
naked with the beasts of the field." Then follows seemingly a hint
that some of this passed in a dream, (which was perhaps hinted also
by the "Till the morning" os πршi 36,) 32, “I saw a dream, and
conjectures seized me and, during a time, much sleep seized me, and
deep slumber fell upon me. And at the end of 7 years, the time of
my redemption came, and my sins and my ignorances were filled up
before the God of heaven, and I besought the great God of gods for
my ignorances. And lo, an angel called me from heaven, saying N.,
serve the Holy God of heaven, and give glory to the most Highest ;
the kingdom of thy nation is given back to thee." 34. (37.) "The
by the Septuagint translator of Daniel.
629
king of heaven," is explained" who created the heaven and the earth
and the seas and the rivers and all things in them;" then, instead of,
"all Whose works are truth and His ways judgment," follows the
addition, “because He is God of gods, and Lord of lords and King
of kings; for He doth signs and wonders, and changes times and
seasons, taking away the kingdom of kings, and setting others in
their stead. Henceforth I will serve Him; and from fear of Him
Henceforth
trembling hath seized me, and I praise all His saints. For the gods
of the heathen have not power in themselves to remove the kingdom
of a king to another king, and to slay and make alive, and to do
signs and wonders, great and terrible, and to change things exceed-
ing great, as the God of heaven did in me, and changed great things
upon me.
I, all the days that I am king, will offer sacrifices to the
Most High for my soul, a sweet savour unto the Lord, and will do
what is pleasing in His sight, I and my people, my nation, and my
countries which are in my power. And as many as have spoken
against the God of heaven, or shall be found speaking anything, these
will I condemn to death. King Nebuchadnezzar wrote an encyclical
epistle to all the nations and countries, and all tongues which dwell
in all the countries to generations and generations. 'Praise ye the
Lord, the God of heaven, and offer to Him sacrifice and oblation
gloriously. I, king of kings, confess to Him gloriously, because He
dealt thus with me. In that same day He seated me on my throne,
and my might and my kingdom; I prevailed in my people, and my
greatness was restored to me.’ Nebuchadnezzar the king to all na-
tions and to all countries and to all who dwell in them. Peace be
multiplied to you at all times. And now I will shew you the deeds,
which the great God has done with me. But it seemed good to me
to shew you and your sophists, that there is a God and that His won-
ders are great; His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, His power
from generation to generation.' And he sent letters concerning all
things which befel him in his kingdom, to all the nations which were
under his rule.”
ch. v. Of ch. v. 1, 4, 5, there is a double translation, but neither quite
complete. In the one, the translator counts the thousand guests, twice
mentioned, as 2000; says that the feast was on the day of the dedi-
cation of his kingdoms," joins the beginning of v. 2. to v. 4, "Bel-
shazzar elevated by the wine, and boasting, praised all the gods of
the heathen, molten and graven, in his place,” and adds from v. 23,
"and to God most High he did not give praise." In v. 5. the words
630 Additions in the historical, alterations in prophetic,
written on the wall are added, from v. 25, and an interpretation,
"Mane, it is numbered, Phares, it is taken away, Thekel, it is weigh-
ed." The 2nd translation is closer. But it omits the number of the
guests in both places in v. 1. and the mention of " the wives and con-
cubines," v. 3. 3,4, are abridged; "And they (the vessels) were
brought, and they drank out of them and praised their idols made
with hands," and added to, "And the God of the world, who had
power over their breath, they praised not." 5. "over against king
Belshazzar," for, "the wall of the king's palace." 6. "the king then
hastened and arose and saw that writing, and his companions around
him boasted;" instead of " the joints-against another." 7, 8. "to
tell the interpretation of the writing; and they (the wise men) en-
tered to behold, to see the writing," added; “and they could not ex-
plain to the king the interpretation of the writing," "and no one could
explain the interpretation of the writing," is repeated. "There shall
be given him power of the third part of the kingdom," for, "shall be
third ruler in, &c. So also in v. 16 and 29. 9. "Then the king
called the queen concerning this sign and shewed her that it was
great, and that no man can shew the king the interpretation of the
writing." 10. "Then the queen mentioned to him concerning Da-
niel who was of the captivity of Judæa." (instead of v. 10.) 11,
12. "There is a man of knowledge and wisdom, and surpassing all
the wise of Babylon, and a holy spirit is in him, and, in the days of the
king thy father, he shewed exceeding great interpretations to Nebu-
chadnezzar thy father." 13-16. "art thou that Daniel-canst dis-
solve doubts," omitted. The speech begins v. 16, “ O Daniel, canst
thou shew me the interpretation, &c. 17. "Then Daniel stood over
against the writing, and read, and thus answered the king, this is the
writing, it is numbered, it is completed, it is taken away,' and the
hand which wrote, stayed; and this is its interpretation." Then he
omits "Let thy gifts-to another," v. 17, and the account of God's
dealings with Nebuchadnezzar, v. 18-22, and he substitutes for 22-28,
the account, as he had given it before, "O king, thou madest a feast
to thy friends, and drankest wine, and the vessels of the house of the
living God were brought to thee, and ye drank wine, thou and thy
nobles," [the "wives and concubines," again omitted] "and ye
praised,” [for "thou didst praise,"] all the idols of men made with
hands, [for “the gods of silver-nor know ;"] and the Living God—
and He gave thee thy kingdom," (for, "whose are all thy ways,")
thou didst not bless nor praise." 25-28. "This is the interpretation
6
parts of Daniel, made by Septuagint translator. 631
of the writing. Is numbered, the time of thy kingdom; thy king-
dom ceaseth, is cut short, and accomplished; thy kingdom is given
to the Medes and Persians." For 30, 31, "And this interpretation
came upon king B. and the kingdom was taken from the Chaldees,
and was given to the Medes and Persians. And Artaxerxes of the
Medes received the kingdom, and Darius full of days and glorious in
old age."
For they knew that Da-
vi. 1. "
an hundred and twenty and seven Satraps," from Esther.
(repeated v. 4.) 2-9." And Daniel was one of the three men, having
power above all in the kingdom; and Daniel was clad in purple, and
was great and glorious before Darius the king, because he was glo-
rious and of knowledge and understanding, and a holy spirit was in
him, and he was prosperous in the affairs of the king which he did.
Then the king purposed to set over his whole kingdom Daniel, and the
two men whom he set with him, and 127 Satraps. But when the king
purposed to set Daniel over his whole kingdom, then the two youths
counselled together saying, (because they found no sin or ignorance
against Daniel for which to accuse him to the king,) and said, come
let us make a decree against ourselves, that no man shall make a re-
quest, or pray a prayer of any god for 30 days, except of Darius the
king; else, he shall die; that they might defeat Daniel before the
king and he be cast into the den of lions.
niel prayed and besought the Lord his God thrice a day. Then these
men came and said before the king; we have made a decree and a
statute that any man, who shall pray a prayer or ask a request of any
god for 30 days, save of Darius the king, shall be cast into the den
of lions."" ["And they persuaded the king to constitute this law, and
not change it, because they knew that Daniel prayed thrice a day,
that he might be made guilty before the king, and be cast into the
den of lions." added in Syriac Tetrapl. pp. 64, 5.] 10, 11." But when
Daniel knew the decree, which he made against him, he opened the
windows in his hyperöon toward Jerusalem, and fell on his face thrice
in the day, as he did before, and prayed. And they observed Daniel
and found him praying three times a day every day." 13, 14. "And
they said to him, [the king,] we adjure thee by the decrees of the
Medes and Persians, that thou change not the command, nor accept
persons, nor lessen ought thou hast said, but rather punish the man
who abode not by this decree, And he said, I will do as ye say, and
this stands with me. And they said, Behold we found Daniel thy
friend praying and beseeching the face of his God thrice a day. And
632
Intentional alterations of the text of Daniel
the king, grieved, said that Daniel should be cast into the lion's den
according to the decree which he made against him. Then the king
was greatly grieved for Daniel and succoured to deliver him, until sun-
set, from the hand of the Satraps, and he could not deliver him from
them. Darius the king cried out and said to Daniel, thy God whom
thou servest continually thrice a day, He will deliver thee from the
hand of the lions; until the morning, be of good courage." 17."Then
Daniel was cast into the den of lions, and a stone, &c.,-that Daniel
might not be taken away of them, nor the king take him up out of
the den," for," that the purpose might not be changed concerning
Daniel." 18. 17. " And he was grieved for Daniel," for "neither were
instruments, &c.-sleep went from him." "Then the God of Daniel,
having thought of him, shut the mouths of the lions and they troubled
not Daniel,” added. 19. Darius "took with him the Satraps," added.
20. “O Daniel, art thou then alive, and hath thy God [not, “is He
able?"] saved thee from the lions and they have not disabled thee?
21. “Then Daniel shouted with a loud voice and said, 22. O king,
I am alive and God hath saved me from the lions" ("sent His angel
omitted)" but thou hast listened to men who mislead kings, and
hast cast me into the den of lions for destruction," added. 23. "Then
all the authorities were collected and saw Daniel, that the lions had
not troubled him." 24. "Then those two men, who witnessed against
Daniel," &c. omitting "or ever they came to the bottom of the den."
26. omits," and his kingdom-unto the end." 27. "I Darius will be a
worshipper of Him, and serve Him all my days; for the idols made
with hands cannot save, as the God of Daniel has redeemed Daniel.
28. And king Darius was added to his race, and Daniel was set over
the kingdom of Darius, and Cyrus the Persian received his kingdom.”
vii. 7. “It had ten horns and many counsels in its horns.” 8.“And
three of the first horns were dried up by it." "And it made war with
the saints," added. 12. "And those around it He removed from their
power." 13. "And as the Ancient of days was present, and they who
stood by were present with Him.” 17. "four kingdoms, which shall
perish from the earth," for, "which shall arise." 24." and he in evils
shall be diverse above the first." 26." and they shall destroy" [not
his "]"power, and they shall will to defile and destroy."
66
viii. 2. “at the gate Ælam," for, "at the river Ulai” (“gate" for
"river" in v. 6 also). 3." and the higher ascended, but after this," for
'went up last; " missing the relation of the Persian to the Median
empire. 9."one strong horn" (for," a little horn,")" and prevailed
“a
made by the Septuagint translator.
633
and smote;" then, "and to the North" for "the pleasant land." 11.
“Until the chief captain shall deliver the captivity, and for him the
everlasting mountains were broken, and their place was taken away,
and sacrifice; and he set it down to the ground, upon the earth, and
they prospered, and it was, and the holy place shall be desolated. And
the sins were in the sacrifice; and righteousness was cast to the ground.”
16. It adds, "And the man crying aloud said, the vision is as to that
commandment." 19. "at the end of the indignation to the sons of the
people," added; "for it shall still abide unto the time, &c." 23."And at
the end of their kingdom, when their sins are fulfilled.” 25. "And
his purpose shall be against the saints," for "And his policy ; " "for
the destruction of men and shall make a gathering of hand and shall
repay,” for, “against the Prince of princes, and he shall be broken
without hand.”
ix. 1. " Darius the son of Xerxes, of the Median race who reigned,"
[plural] &c. 10.“ to obey Thy law, which Thou gavest before Moses
and us through Thy servants the prophets," for, " to walk in His laws
which He set before us by, &c," 12. "whatever Thou hast judged to
bring,” for, “that judged us.” 17. "upon Thy holy mountain," for
Thy sanctuary." 19. " upon Thy city Sion and Thy people Israel.”
21. "in my sleep," for "in the vision;""approached me," for "touch-
ed me." On the grave alterations in the prophecy of the 70 weeks,
see above p. 381, 82.
x. 1.
5." and from
"In the first year of Cyrus," for, "the third."
the midst of him was light," for, "fine gold of Uphaz." 9. "And I
heard not the voice of his speech." 13. “The General of the king of
Persians,” for, “the prince of the kingdom of Persia." "And I left
him there with the General of the king of Persians," for, "And I
remained there with the kings of Persia." 16. "like the similitude of
the hand of man," for, "of the sons of men." 20. "to fight with the
General of the king of the Persians, and I went forth, and lo the
General of the Greeks came in." 21. "except Michael the Angel,"
for, your prince."
xi. 1. “And in the first year of Cyrus the king, he said to me, be
strong, and be of good courage, and now I have come to shew you,
&c." for, "And I, in the first year of Darius the Mede, I stood to
confirm and strengthen him, and now I will shew you, &c." 2."3 kings
have resisted," for, "are standing up; “he shall rise up against
every king of Greece," for, "stir up all against the kingdom of
Greece.” 4. “not according to his strength," for, “not to his pos-
634
Intentional alterations of the text of Daniel
""
terity; "" and he shall teach to others these things," for, "and to
others besides these." for a 5. &c. "kingdom of Egypt " for,
"king of the South," " and he shall strengthen the kingdom of Egypt,'
for," and the King of the South shall be strong." 6." He shall bring
them, and the King of Egypt shall enter the kingdom of the North
to make treaties," for, "they shall associate themselves and the
daughter of the King of the South shall come to the King of the
North to make (i. e. produce) agreements ;
"" and his arm shall be
paralysed and of those who go with him, and shall not prevail, for
his arm shall not establish strength and shall abide for a time," for,
"and she shall not retain the power of the arm, and he shall not stand,
nor his arm, and she shall be given up and those who brought her
and he that begat her and he that strengtheneth her, in the times."
7. "And the King of the North shall come to his power (army) in
his might and shall make a tumult," for, "and he shall come to his
army and shall enter the fortress of the King of the North and shall
do against them." 8. "And their gods shall he overthrow with their
molten images, and their crowds with their desirable vessels the sil-
ver and the gold, shall he lead into captivity to Egypt," for, "and
their gods also with their molten images, with their desirable, &c.
(missing the fact in which it was fulfilled; see ab. p. 447.) " and there
shall be a year to the King of North," for, "and he shall stand years
more than the King of North." 9. "And the King of Egypt shall
enter a kingdom days," for, "And he shall enter the kingdom of the
King of the South and shall return to his land.” 10. "And his son,
[i. e. the son of the King of the South, in both cases giving the victory
to Egypt,] and shall be irritated and shall gather a gathering of a great
multitude and shall enter with it sweeping, (So Syr. kaтασúpwv for the
Kaτà Zúρwv of the Edd.) pass through and return and shall be exas-
perated greatly," for, "and his sons shall arouse themselves, and
shall gather a multitude of many forces, and one coming shall come,
and shall flood and pass through and return, &c. and they shall strive
together even to his fortress." 12. "and shall trouble many and shall
not fear," for, "and shall cast down ten thousands and shall not be
strong." 13. " and shall gather a gathering of a city," added: "in
the completion of the time of a year," for, "at the end of the times,
years." 14. "Thoughts shall arise against the King of Egypt and he
shall rebuild what is fallen of thy nation, and he shall arise to raisc
up the prophecy, and they shall stumble; " for, "and in those times.
many shall stand against the King of the South, and the sons of the
Κι
made by Septuagint translator.
» .21 (בְּאַחֲרִית הַיָּמִים
<<
635
robbers of thy people shall lift themselves up to establish a vision, and
shall stumble." 15. "and shall turn his spears," for," and shall cast
up a mount," "and take the [for "a"] strong city; and the arms of
the King of Egypt shall stand, with his princes, and he shall have no
power to resist him,” for, “and the arms of the South shall not stand,
nor his chosen people, and there shall be no power to stand." 16. “And
he shall stand in the land," omitting "of desire," which marks it to
be Judæa; "and all things which are in his hand shall be accom-
plished," for, "it shall be consumed by his hand." 17. "and shall
not persuade and shall not be," for, "and she shall not stand and
shall not be for him." 18. "and he shall turn his face to the sea
and shall take many persons," for, "to the islands and shall take
many; ” “and shall turn the anger of their reproach in an oath ac-
cording to his reproach," for, "and a ruler shall make to cease his
reproach to him, besides that he shall turn back his reproach to
him.” 20. “And there shall arise from his root, a plant of a king-
dom for rising up, a man striking the glory of a king, and in the
last days," for, "in some days" (on for on, as though it had been
21. “a king shall be strong in his lot," for, “ obtain the
kingdom by flatteries." 22. and the arms which are broken, he
shall break before him," for, "And with the arms of a flood." 23.
"And with the covenant and the people banded with him he shall
do falsehood, and against a strong nation with a very small nation;
for, “And also a prince of covenant; and from the binding unto him
he shall do treachery and shall go up and be strong with a small peo-
ple." 24. "Suddenly he shall desolate a city," for, "in security and
on the rich places of a province shall he enter; "and against the
strong city shall he devise, and his thoughts shall be in vain,” for,
“and against fortresses shall he devise his devices, and even to the
time." 26. "And his cares shall consume him, and they shall turn
him away, and shall pass by and he shall hiss at, and many shall fall
wounded," for, “And they who eat of his royal meat [pathbag] shall
break him, and his army shall overflow and many, &c." 30. “And
Romans shall come and shall expel him, and shall rebuke him an-
grily," [Popilius] for, "And ships of Chittim shall come against
him, and he shall be grieved and return and shall be wroth;” “and
shall devise against them, because they have forsaken the covenant of
the Holy One," for, “and shall observe those who forsake, &c.” 31.
"the holy place of fear," for, “the sanctuary, the fortress." 32.
"And in sins of the covenant they shall defile in a hard nation and
""
636 Dr Stanley's parallels of supposed human prophecy
the people who knoweth these things," (abs for b) &c. for, "And
they who do wickedly against the covenant he shall corrupt with
flatteries, and the people who knoweth their God, &c." 33. "and
shall be worn away in it," for "and by the flame," (dividing manbai
into л but neglecting the plur.) " and in foray of days they shall
be defiled." 34. "and shall be gathered to them many in a city,
and many as if appointed by lot," for," and there shall cleave many
to them in flatteries." 35. "And of those who understand, there
shall think with view to purify themselves and to be elected,” &c.
for,“And of those who understand, there shall stumble,to purify among
them and to cleanse, &c." 36. " for the end is towards him," for, "for
that which is determined shall be done." 37. omits " nor regard any
god." 38. " and mighty nations shall be subjected to him, to his place
he shall move," for, "and the god of forces on his place he shall ho
nour." 39. "And in the objects of desire of cities he shall do, and
to a strong fortress he shall come with a strange god, whom when
he shall recognise, he shall multiply glory and shall lord it over him
much, and shall partition country as a gift," for, (38) " and with
things desired; (39,) and he shall do to the fortresses of strong [places]
with a strange god whom he shall acknowledge, shall enlarge it with
glory, and he shall make them rule over many, and shall divide land
for a price." 40. " and shall come into the land of Egypt " for "into
the lands, and shall overflow and pass over." 41. "And he shall in-
vade My land," for "the pleasant land." 43. "the place of gold and
the place of silver," for, "the hidden treasures of gold and silver,"
rendering as if pipp. 45. " he shall place his tent there, (as if it
were and omitting 758,) between the seas and the mountain of
the will (as for %) of the Holy One and the hour (ny for ¬y) of his
end shall come."
"all the peo-
xii. 1. 66
Michael, the great angel," for, "prince;
ple shall be exalted who shall be found, &c." for, “shall be delivered.”
2. “in the breadth," [for, “the dust,"] "of the earth shall arise, some
to everlasting life, and some to reproach and some to dispersion and
everlasting shame." 3. "they who confirm my words," for, "who
turn many to righteousness." 4. "until the many rave out their
madness, ảoµavŵow,” (“are mad" Syr.) "and the earth be filled
with iniquity," for, many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall
be increased." 6." when shall be the end of the wonders, which thou
66
hast spoken to me, and the purifying of these?
and the purifying of these?" added. 7.“I heard
the man." 8. "I understood not at that time," added. "and whose
with Divine, as to exactness of fulfilment.
are these parables," added.
in thy lot."
637
10. " and rise to thy glory," for," stand
Note F.
On the secular predictions which Dr Stanley parallels in regard
to exactness of fulfilment with those of the Old Testament.
Dr Stanley produces a certain number of alleged predictions in
secular history, as counterparts of "the predictions of the political
events of their own and the surrounding nations" in the Hebrew pro-
phets, i. e. (in religious language) "of God's judgments upon both
for their sins against Himself and their fellow-men." He says, “every
one knows instances, both in ancient and modern times, of predictions
which have been uttered and fulfilled in regard to events of this kind.
Sometimes such predictions have been the result of political foresight.
Many instances will occur to students of history. Even within our
own memory the great catastrophe of the disruption of the United
States of America was foretold, even with the exact date, several
years beforehand. Sometimes there has been an anticipation of
some future epoch in the pregnant sayings of eminent philosophers
or poets; as, for example, the intimation of the discovery of America
by Seneca; or of Shakspere by Plato, or the Reformation by Dante.
Sometimes the same result has been produced by the power of
divination, granted, in some inexplicable manner, to ordinary men.
Of such a kind were many of the ancient oracles, the fulfilment of
which, according to Cicero, could not be denied without a perversion
of all history. Such was the foreshadowing of the twelve centuries
of Roman dominion by the legend of the apparition of the twelve
vultures to Romulus, which was so understood 400 years before its
actual accomplishment. Such, but with less certainty, was the tra-
ditional prediction of the conquest of Constantinople by the Mussul-
mans; the alleged predictions by ABp. Malachi, whether composed
in the 11th or the 16th century, of the series of Popes down to the
present time; not to speak of the well-known instances which are
recorded both in French and English history. But there are several
points, which at once place the Prophetic predictions on a different
level from any of these. It is not, that they are more exact in par-
ticulars of time and place; none can be more so than that of the
twelve centuries of the Roman Empire; and our Lord Himself has
excluded the precise knowledge of times and seasons from the widest
638
American war, ABp. Malachi,
and highest range of the prophetic vision." (Jewish Church, pp.
463, 4. The Bible, its Form and Substance, pp. 80-82.)
It might safely be admitted, that the outward prediction of time
and place are of the body rather than of the soul of prophecy; yet
as indications that He revealed Himself, Who Alone could know
long before what He willed to bring to pass in His Providence, the
predictions by the Hebrew prophets are not to be paralleled by any
human history.
Definite predictions of the Hebrew prophets have been instanced
above. Dr Stanley's instances of secular fulfilment are unhappy.
1) Sterling, as quoted by Mr Spence, so far from predicting "the
great catastrophe of the disruption of the United States" at the end
of the four years, says, that no wise man would predict any thing even
within those four years. "It appears to me, that amid so many ele-
ments of uncertainty as to the future, both from the excited state of
men's minds in the States themselves, and the complication of sur-
rounding circumstances, no wise man would venture to foretell the
probable issue of American affairs during the next four years." (On
the American Union, p. 14.) And this was written amid all the heav-
ings, which preceded the bursting of the volcano. It followed, after
statesmen had, one after another, seen the elements of that disruption.
The probability of the severance of the North and South has been a
speculation to which the older of us have been long familiar. And
now [1864] who would venture to predict the time of the close of that
sad war? [Ed. i.] Now [1865] that it has come to an end, Americans
taunt Europeans with their want of foresight in their anticipations as
to its issue. The Times correspondent retorts as to false anticipa-
tions of Americans; 1) that the issue would not interfere with slavery;
2) that there would be "separation without bloodshed;" 3) that the
war would last only some 90 days; 4) that the United States would
break up to fragments (Northern); 5) They contemplated that the
interests of trade would suffice for the harmony of North and South
when separated, &c. &c. (June 6, 1865). Europeans almost universally
anticipated the success of the South. So little did the human saga-
city of men really sagacious, with intimate knowledge of the strength
of the different parties, their numbers, resources, and all the calcu-
lations as to modern warfare, enable them to anticipate within half a
year the result of a war, which, through the vivid description of it
and clear knowledge, was, as it were, carried on almost under their
eyes.
And then men would have us suppose, that Hebrew prophets
Alleged prophecy of Mohammed.
639
living in the centre of a small people, could, with mere human
knowledge, foretell with absolute certainty the overthrow of flourish-
ing empires, when at the acmé of their power! See e. g. my In-
troduction to Nahum. ed. 2.]
6
2) The so-called prophecies of S. Malachi have long been recog-
nised to be a forgery, unmeaning except for the immediate purpose
for which they were "forged by the partizans of the Card. Simoncelli,
one of the candidates for the tiara, who was designated by the words 'de
antiquitate orbis,' because he was of Orvietto, in Latin, 'urbs vetus.'
(Biogr. univ. v. Wion.) "Menestrier published a refutation of the
pretended prophecies of S. Malachi,' Paris, 1689, written with much
solidity. Don Feijoo also refuted those pretended prophecies in his
Teatro critico." (Ib. v. Malachie.) The Nouveau Dictionnaire
Historique by MM. Chaudon and Delandine speaks of "the errors
and anachronisms with which this impertinent list swarms.
"The
forgetfulness of common sense makes itself felt in a few pages.
Those who have set themselves to explain those too-noted insipidi-
ties, always find some allusion, forced or probable, in the country,
name, arms, birth, talents of the Popes, the Cardinalate or dignities
which they had borne ; &c. e. g. the prophecy which related to Urban
viii. was Lilium et Rosæ. 'It was fulfilled to the letter, (say these
absurd interpreters,) for that Pope had, in his coat of arms, bees,
which suck lilies and roses!"" (art. Malachie and Wion.)
وو
3) "In the Mosque of Sultan Mahommed II." says v. Hammer,
"which was finished A. D. 874. (1469.) there stands, to the right of
the main door, on a marble slab on azure field in gold raised charac-
ters the tradition of the prophet relating to Constantinople; they
will conquer Constantinople; and blessed the prince, blessed the
army, which shall fulfil this ;'" (Constant. u. d. Bosporos, i. 393,) or
(as he renders more exactly in Gesch. d. Osm. Reich. p. 523.), “the
best prince is he who conquers it, and the best army, his army."
This tradition being above 8 centuries after Mohammed, has, of
course, no value. It reappears in a different form in Ockley, the
conquest being presupposed rather than prophesied ; " Mahomet ha-
ving said," says Ockley, The sins of the first army that takes the
city of Cæsar are forgiven.'" (Hist. of Sarac. ii. 128.) Ockley refer-
ring only vaguely to Bokhari, who, early in the 3rd. cent. after Mo-
hammed, selected 7000 traditions which he held to be genuine
only of some 267,000, I applied to my friend M. Reinaud, Prof. of
Arabic at Paris, and Member of the Institute, &c., not doubting that
640 Mohammed prophesied no taking of Constantinople ;
with his large knowledge, he would be able to point out to me the
passage in the Sahih. This, with his well-known kindness, which
I have before experienced, he has done, amid his many labours. It
puts an end to all question about prophecy. The passage is this;
"Omm-Heram has related to us that she heard the prophet say,
the first army of my people which shall war by sea, will acquire
merits (with God.') Omm-Heram said, 'I said, o apostle of God, I
will be among them.' He said, 'thou shalt be among them.' Then
the prophet said, 'The first army of my people which shall attack
the city of Cæsar, their sins are forgiven them.' Then I said, 'I
will be with them, o Apostle of God.' He said, 'no !' " M. Rei-
naud adds, "There is no question but that Mahomet conceived the
idea of an invasion of the Roman empire and of the kingdom of Per-
sia by his disciples. He himself, shortly before his death, tried his
strength against the Roman forces in Syria. But the passage does
not say what Ockley makes him say. It does not say that Constan-
tinople would be taken. I will only add that in the Sahih what
relates to the Jews and Turks, consists of some puerilities, and that
nothing there resembles a prophecy. The passages cited by M. de
Hammer in his history of the Ottoman empire are somewhat singu-
lar. I regret that I have been unable to read them in the works
themselves, from which M. de Hammer has derived them. I explain
them thus. The Seljucida, and subsequently the Ottoman Turks,
subdued successively the whole of Asia Minor, and presented them-
selves before Constantinople. Afterwards the Ottomans invaded
Thrace, and gradually the Greek empire found itself reduced to the
Capital. It then became evident that, considering the political con-
dition of Christian Europe, Constantinople would fall, like all the
Prophecies might be made without fear of failure.
rest.
“Ibn Khaldoun has given a paragraph of his prolegomena to the
prophetic character of Mahomet. As he flourished before the end
of the 14th cent. and so, more than 60 years before the capture of
Constantinople, his testimony would have had some value; but he
says not a word of it. (See his text in the Notices et Extraits, T. xvi.
p. 160, and the French translation, Ib. xix. p. 205.)”
[The Sahih having now been published by M. Krehl, M. Reinaud
has kindly informed me that the original of the passage occurs in
T. ii. p. 229. ed. 2.]
The two prophecies given by v. Hammer in his Gesch. d. Osmann.
Reiches, L. xii. T. i. 522, 3, are, the one that already cited, and
fanatic prophecy of its capture falsified.
641
which seems to be a false colouring of the tradition given in the Sahih;
the other is indeed remarkable, in that it is stated to rest on un-
doubted authority, but is a fanatic prophecy, misapplied to the Otto-
man capture.
"Have you heard of a city, of which one side is land, the two
others sea ?' They said, 'Yea, o Apostle of God.' He said, 'The
last hour will not come, without its being conquered by 70,000 sons
of Isaac. When they come to it, they will not fight against it with
weapons and engines of war, but with the word, 'There is no God
but God, and God is great.' Then will one side of the sea-walls fall;
and at the second time, the second; and at the third time, the wall
on the land side; and they will enter in with gladness.
The fra-
mer of this prophecy expected the walls of Constantinople to fall,
like those of Jericho, which he must have had in his mind.
He ex-
pected it to fall before Arabs, "sons of Isaac," not before Turks.
Von Hammer says of it, "Ali and Edris guarantee the genuine-
ness of this tradition through the first accreditors of the Hadith.
The false application of it to the Ottomans has misled some his-
torians, as the old Neshri, to derive the Turks from Esau, the son
of Isaac, which however Ali (f. 7.) contradicts as a shameful error.”
(Ib. p. 668.) Yet, contrary to the expectation and the prophecy, it
did fall before Turks, having been besieged seven times by the Arabs
between A.D. 654 (Hejra 34.)and 798(Hej. 182); and, between A.D.
1396 (Hej. 797.) and A.D. 1422, (H. 826.) four times by the Turks,
by whom it was taken A.D. 1453. (H. 857.) V. Hammer, Ib. p. 669.
The Arabs are, in part, sons of Isaac through Esau. The framers of
the prediction anticipated that the representatives of the followers of
the prophet would be Arabs to some indefinite period, near the last
hour;" he expected a miraculous destruction of Constantinople; it was
besieged 7 times by those, before whose war-cry he expected it mi-
raculously to fall. It did not fall before those before whom he said
that it would fall; it fell in an ordinary way, not in that predicted; it
was besieged in the way in which he said that it would not be be-
sieged; lastly it fell, but its walls fell not. Every detail of the pre-
diction is directly contrary to the fact. As for the mere capture,
it befalls all great cities in turn; so that a prediction of the capture
of any city "before the end of the world" would be the safest of all
prophecies. But the prediction did not anticipate, what is now cer-
tain, that, as soon as Christian jealousies permit, "before the end of
the world," it will be wrested from its captors.
Tt
642
Duration of Roman Empire not foretold.
4) The "legend of the apparition of the 12 vultures to Romulus,"
is quoted by Censorinus (de Die Natali, c. 17. fin.) A.D. 238, from
Varro who died 28 B.C. Varro stated (Antiq. L. xviii.) that "he
had heard Vettius, no common augur, of great genius, in disputing a
match with any the most learned, say, 'If it was so, as the historians
related, as to the auguries of the founding of the city of Romulus
and the 12 vultures, since the Roman people had passed 120 years
safe, it would reach 1200."" A conjectural inference from a hypo-
thetical fact!" If it was so as they relate." 1) The 12 vultures, if there
were such, (and the vulture apparently was not then a bird of Italy)
were to signify that people should be safe during a period of years,
which was to be a decuple of their own number, and this, since the
event had shewn it to be more than 10, was to be 100. But 2)
there is nothing as to Roman dominion. Varro speaks not of do-
minion, but of “safety." The vulture too is not a ravening, but a
gentle bird, which preys only on carcases. 3) Then, as to time,
while it was held as certain that Rome was founded 753 B.C., the ex-
tinction of the Western empire, A.D. 476, or 479, furnished a term,
not much in excess of 1200 years from its supposed foundation. But
now, when, by common consent, it is agreed, that the early traditions
as to Rome are uncertain; that it was doubtless never founded" at
all, but gradually "grew ;" that, consequently, the era “ab Urbe con-
dita," "from the foundation of Rome," is a convenient measure of time,
but is itself a fiction; that, within this period, the 240 years, assigned
to its 7 supposed kings, are an artificial calculation, based on the sup-
position that 3 generations went to a century, whence 7 kings would
yield 2331 years, which were probably rounded into 240, as the dou-
ble of the 120 years, assigned to the consuls down to the burning of
the city by the Gauls (Mommsen d. Röm. Chronol. p. 133); it would
be monstrous to speak of the 1200 years'duration of "Roman empire,"
as the fulfilment of prophecy, since there is no certain date, within a
century, from which to begin. Whatever may have been the antici-
pations of a decaying people, amid a false chronology, as seen in Si-
donius or Claudian, (who expected the destruction of Rome even be-
before the 12 centuries had expired), the conjectural interpretation
was in no sense fulfilled; 1200 years were not meant as any term of
its duration. Since it had survived for 120 years, it was to survive
1200; but, on that same principle, if it survived the 1200, it might
be inferred that it would survive 12000. There is no hint that it
should perish then. Had it perished before, Vettius' interpretation
The discovery of America not foreseen.
643
would have failed. But Vettius did not anticipate any change at the
end of the 1200 years. Nor was there any real change as to Rome
itself. The change of dynasty did not worsen, it improved the con-
dition of the people: Rome is still "the eternal city." Even as to
empire, its throne still remained, set up in "New Rome," for nearly
twice the 1200 years; and now too the empire of Rome is diffused
over many millions more than its temporal sway ever held controlled.
·
5) The one expression in Seneca's words, which has suggested the
thought that they were a prophetic anticipation of the discovery of
America is the mention of "annis seris." People forgetting, or not
knowing, that the words are in the mouth of supposed contemporaries
of Medea (the Chorus), and are ascribed to the fabulous times of
Greece, have projected on those "late years" from the date of Seneca.
In this way, the "late ages," which really fitted in with the times of
Seneca himself, were thought marvellously to correspond with the 14
centuries between Seneca and Columbus. Else, there is nothing re-
markable in the words. They do but express Seneca's belief of the
old traditions about the land beyond the seas. Whatever be the source
of the story which Plato ascribes to the Egyptian priests, and which
he himself asserted to be "strange but altogether true," (Tim. p. 20.
D.) the description does correspond to the situation of America, a large
continent with intervening islands. The words are;
the writings
state, how great a might, coming aggressively against all Europe and
Asia, invading from without from the Atlantic, your city checked.
For at that time the sea there was navigable. For it had, before the
mouth which ye call the pillars of Hercules, an island, larger than
Africa and Asia together, from which there was access to the other
islands, and from the islands to the whole opposite continent, which
encircled that real ocean. For all this, which is within that mouth
of which we speak, [the Mediterranean,] seems a harbour with a nar-
row entrance; but that may indeed be called ocean, and the land
which encircleth it may, correctly and in truth, be called a continent.
And in this island Atlantis there was a great and wondrous power of
kings which held the whole island and many other islands and parts
of the continent; and moreover they ruled these interior parts of
Africa, as far as Egypt, and Europe as far as Tyrrhenia." (Ib. 24.
E-25. B.) He further states that the island Atlantis, (not, the yet
further encircling continent,) "was submerged, so that the ocean there
was difficult to explore, on account of the shallowness and the mud
left when the island settled down." Strabo says, that the account of
Tt 2
644
The discovery of America not foreseen.
"The
And
the submersion of Atlantis "admitted of not being a fiction," and that
it was thought probable by Posidonius (a Stoic as well as Seneca). ii.
p.102.B.C. Proclus also adduced from Marcellus, in his Ethiopica,
traditions of the existence of a "most exceeding large island Atlan-
tis which was indeed there," among the inhabitants of an island, 125
miles in size, in the Atlantic. (on the Tim. p. 54. F.) Ammianus
Marcellinus (xvii. 6. 13.) speaks of it, as not doubting of its truth;
Diodorus alludes to it. (iii. 54.) Aristotle distinctly held it to be
probable, that there was such a continent and such islands.
common account divides the world into continents and islands, not
knowing that the whole is one island, encircled by the Atlantic.
it is probable that afar there are many others, in the parts opposite
to these, some larger, some less; but all, save this, invisible to us.
For as our islands are to these seas, so is this our continent to the
Atlantic; and many other continents to the whole sea; for these too
are in a way large islands, washed on all sides by some great seas."
(de Mundo c. 3.) Plutarch relates that Sertorius met some sailors,
who had recently come by sea from the Atlantic, the Fortunate
islands, 10,000 stadia, [1250 miles] from Libya. (vit. Sertorii, c. 8.) In
the immediate context in Seneca the Chorus is speaking of bold na-
vigations. "Every bound removed, and cities placed their walls in
new lands. The Indian drinks the cold Araxes; the Persians the
Elbe and the Rhine." What marvel then, that he should imagine that
Plato's conception or tradition should be realised, and that the mud-
dy sea, which must in his time have ceased to be believed, since Bri-
tain was laid open, yielding no hindrance, Plato's vast encircling con-
tinent, his own "ingens tellus," should be at length discovered? When
the spherical form of the earth was known, as it was in the days of Se-
neca, the existence of another Continent, corresponding to our's, became
even more probable, than that all should be one expanse of sea. It
has been pointed out to me, that the Stoic philosophy, in other ways,
carried men's minds beyond the Roman "world." Horsley pointed
out, in answer to Collins' taunt in regard to these words of Seneca,
that there is nothing definite in his description. Seneca says not, across
what sea the discovery would be made. The anticipation is realised
in Australasia, as much as in America; and the only definite state-
ment, that "Thule should not be the utmost land," if pressed, would
be incorrect," as it points precisely to that quarter of the globe where
discovery has ever been at a stand, where the ocean, to this hour,
opposes his eternal barrier of impervious unnavigable ice.” (Serm.
Heathen Oracles, Plato & Dante alleged on no grounds. 645
17 on 2 Pet. i. 20, 21.) The argument, however, is superfluous, for
Seneca's words relate only to an existing belief, that there was such
a continent, and that this belief would prove true. It is not, like
prophecies of Holy Scripture, a foreannouncement of events, whose
causes lay hid in the mind of God.
6) With regard to the heathen oracles, Cicero states the two sides
in the two books on Divination; in the first book, in their favour, in the
name of his brother Quintus; in the second in his own, as one uncer-
tain. (de Div. ii. 3.) There he gives his opinion that the oracles of
Apollo were "partly false; partly true by accident, as happens very
often in all language; partly involved and obscure, partly ambiguous,"
as those stated by Herodotus and Ennius to have been given to Crœ-
sus and Pyrrhus. (Ib. 56.) For myself, I see no evidence of any
well-authenticated oracle, involving supernatural knowledge of the fu-
ture. If Herodotus' story be true, that the Pythian answered right,
as to what Croesus was at that moment doing, this related to the pre-
sent not to the future, and is no more than mesmerists of this day
claim. On the other hand, even according to the story, it alone of all
the oracles was right thus far, so that Croesus pronounced it to be
"the only oracle" (Herod. i. 48.); and it, with another oracle which
he thought somehow to have spoken the truth, are related to have
given him the well-known ambiguous answer about "destroying a
mighty empire," encouraging his wishes, but providing an escape
from the charge of falsehood in case of his failure. (Ib. 53.) And
this in a prophecy as to the immediate future, and the issue of a war
which they encouraged.
7) [The "anticipation of Shakspere by Plato" amounts to this,
that he makes Socrates compel his friends to admit, that “it be-
longs to the same man to know how to compose comedy and trage-
dy, and that he who is by skill a composer of tragedies is also a
composer of comedies" (Sympos. fin.). How Socrates arrived at
this result, Plato furnishes no hint. My friend, the Rev. J. Riddell
suggests the maxim in the Phædo (97.D), that the knowledge of con-
traries is one and the same; that both are mimetic; that Homer
unites what is comic with tragedy e. g. in the character of Thersites,
and the exhibition of the gods, Odyss. viii. 266 sqq. and that Plato
himself exhibits a talent kindred to it in the very dialogue, as in
Alcibiades' description of Socrates, and Plato's own handling of Aristo-
phanes. But it is mere confusion to speak of this as "anticipation."
Plato does not say that there would be any greater combination of
646
Connection of Hebrew and Greek words,
the two talents than there had been: he does not even say that the
highest excellence in the one would involve excellence in the other;
he simply says that the two faculties belonged to the same mind.
According to his maxim, if true, it would rather be marvellous, that
they were not more frequently combined, than that they were re-
markably in one mind. ed. 2.]
[The passage of Plato was kindly pointed out to me by the Rev. J. H.
Walker, of Harpford [Balliol] who informed me also that Coleridge
had drawn attention to the fact, Remains ii. 12. Lect. on Shaksp.]
8) Those best read in Dante are at a loss to find in him any trace
of a prediction of the Reformation. Dante, with his firm faith in all
Roman doctrine, could not have imagined or anticipated such a dis-
ruption as Luther's. I can find nothing which bears a semblance
to it.
Dean Stanley corrects an unimportant misprint or two in the second
edition of his book, on the ground of the above statements.
He
does not even attempt to supply a passage from Dante, which should
bear out his statement. I have looked through Dante in vain, to
find one. Ed. 2.
In denying that there is any proof as to these prophecies or the
genuineness of that set attributed to ABp. Malachi, I do not, of course,
deny Christian prophecy after the Apostolic age, such as I have my-
self pointed out, as having been vouchsafed to St. Cyprian, along the
whole course of his Episcopate. (Pref. to S. Cyprian's Epist. p. xxi.
See also references to other prophecies, S. Cypr. Ep. ix. pp. 27,8, n. k.)
Prophecy, in the Christian Church, is but a fulfilment of the pro-
phecy of Joel, vouchsafed or intermitted, as well as the gift of mira-
cles, as God sees best. In both cases, the whole question is one of
evidence.
Note G, on pp. 26, 27. Connection of Hebrew and Greek words,
indicative of early Commerce.
The instances of early intercourse between Greece and Phoenicia,
as evidenced by Hebrew names of articles connected with commerce,
may be thus filled up. (I have added the places where they first
happen to occur in Holy Scripture.)
Vegetable productions. To 1) "cinnamon," kiváμwμov, jap
(Exod.), (It came to Greece through Phoenicia. Her. iii. 111.)
2) "myrrh," uúppa, (Ib.); 3) "cassia," kaσía, п (Ps. xlv.),
“5
add 4) "cane," кávvη, л (Ex.); 5) "frankincense," Aíßavos, nas
kávun, ¬ir
nyy?
M
which passed from Phoenicia to Greece.
647
(Ex.) (Bavwròs is probably from the Syriac form shah); 6)
'hyssop," vσowmos, y (Ex.); 7) "galbanum,” xaλBárn, naby
(Ex.), Syr. нnan. The Syr. x, “milk," is used of compounds of
gumarabic, balsam, opium &c. See Cast. Lex. 8)" manna," µávva, j?
(Ex.); 9) "cummin," kúμuvov, jb (Isaiah); 10) olvos, : (Gen.);
11) λndov, vis, carried by Ishmaelite merchants to Egypt, (Gen.
xxxvii. 25.) 12) np (Ex.) kitTÒ Diosc. i. 12. 13) vápdos probably
came through the Heb. 773 (Cant.), because in both the r is substituted
for the 7 of ["the Sanskrit word nalada. Nalada occurs early as the
name of an ointment. Of the two words quoted in Ges. neither
narda, nor nartaka, in Sanskrit, mean "nard." Narda signifies
'roaring,' nartaka'dancer.' There is a perfume called nartakî,
the fem. of nartaka, 'parfum de la danseuse.'" Max Müller.] But
14) Bevos, D, "planks of ebony," (Ezek. xxvii. 13), the Greeks
probably knew by the later commerce. 15) The shrub кúжрos, ¬5ª,
(Cant.) and 16) the tree ovкápivos, nppy, also belong probably to
later times, though at Aristotle's date the "sycamine" must have
been for some time a common Grecian tree, to furnish a sort of
proverb. (Rhet. iii. 11. 15.)
C6
Of other names, 1) Báλoaµov is from a Hebrew word ? (Cant.)
(comp. in Ex. too ay); but Tyre must have received it through Ara-
bian merchants, for the 7 is interpolated in Arabic only, balsâm or
balasân; 2) véтwπоν, “oil of bitter almonds," (L. & Scott) seems
only accidentally connected with 793 (Ex.) whence the proper name
Netopha," and the Ch. 5, ɑ) “drop,” b) “stacte." 3) кρÓKOS
is not from Heb. 7 (Cant. iv. 14), which itself has no Semitic
etymology. The uniform retention of the m in Heb. Arab. Ch. Syr.
and Armenian also, and its absence in Greek, seems to imply that, if
the Greek came from the Indian kunkuma, it came through some
other channel. [“Kunkuma is Sanskrit for saffron, but it has no
etymology in Sanskrit either." Max Müller.] 4) It is possible that the
later Greek aλóŋ may be a softening of the Heb. D'as. But if so, the
Greeks may have learned the name later, on the spot. For Dioscorides
(A.D. 60), who first, I believe, mentions the "aloe," speaks of it as
"growing in Asia and Arabia, and in some maritime spots and islands
(as Andros)" while" the most and richest grows in India, and from
it the juice is imported” (iii. 25). But it is precarious to connect the
Hebrew with the Indian name. Prof. Max Müller tells me;
"The
agallochum' is called aguru or agaru in Sanskrit ; it is mentioned as
material for incense in the Râmâyana; aguru means not heavy,' and
648
Connection of Hebrew and Greek words,
as the incense is made out of the decayed roots of the tree (aquilaria
agallocha), the Sanscrit name might seem applicable. Another name,
however, of the Agallochum, in Sanskrit, is an-ârya-ja' 'produced
among non-Aryans,' i.e. barbarians, and, I believe, the wood is chiefly
brought from Cochin China and Siam. In that case, aguru may be
only an approximation to some foreign word, and an attempt to give
to that foreign word a meaning in Sanskrit." With regard to Aghil,
which Gesenius (Thes. p. 33) supposed to have been the common
source of the Greek åɣáλλoɣov and the Heb. 'x, Prof. Müller in-
forms me, that it is a modern form, which Paul. à S. Bartholomæo
in the passage quoted (Vyacarana p. 205) uses as the pronunciation of
aguru. Prof. Müller says that the r is retained also in Bengali (aguru
and agora), Hindustani (aguru and agar), Canarese (aguru). “ Even
as late as the time of Alexander, aguru, not aghil, would have been
the word used.” "Mr Sanderson, an eminent Canarese scholar, says,
The only variation I have met with in Canarese, and that but
once, is agilu, a mere tadblava,' the name given to Sanscrit words,
when pronounced according to the vulgar pronunciation."
is haloha (which Ges. also quotes from Barth.) a Sanskrit name of
aloe." Max Müller. The perfume occurs in Solomon's time, 'b
Prov. vii. 17, mbas Ps. xlv. 9. The tree, 8, is mentioned by Ba-
laam, (Nu. xxiv. 6) and so may have belonged to his own country.
Else it only occurs in what is evidently an ideal picture, mлs, Cant.
iv. 14. The Sanskrit etymology of x is possible, the g passing
into the h, and the into the 7. But there is as yet no adequate
evidence for it.
'
Mineral, "nitre," vírpov, n. (Prov.)
"Nor
Its ety-
Dress, Búooos, pra, a Syrian article of trade, Ez. xxvii. 16.
mology is Semitic, "white," i. e. bleached. The older name in He-
brew, wg, is, in conformity to the history, Egyptian Hebraised.
The following probably do not come through the Hebrew;
1) xírwv, nima, ning, (Pent.) has a Semitic etymology, but only in
Æthiopic. (See Ges.) But it seems improbable that pp, Syr. sing, Ar.
¡“linen," should (as Ges. thinks) be derived from "covering,"
and for these, with the Arab. p, ibp, there is no Semitic etymology.
2) σívdwv is only accidentally connected with the Heb. 177, a “wide
garment " (Judges). Sindhu (which Gesenius quotes,) "is not a name
for fine linen in Sanskrit; oívdwv, however, may have been a name
given to some woven material exported from India; for the old name
for India was sindhu ('the river') or sapta-sindavah ‘the seven
indicative of early commerce.
649
rivers.' The history of this word is very complicated. The Egyp-
tian name is shenti." Max Müller. Between the Hebrew and Greek
there are only the two radicals s and d in common; the final n in
the Heb. Sadin being radical; in Greek, a termination only.
3) κάρжασоs came direct from the Sanskr. kárpása, whence also it
came doubtless, through the Persian, to the author of the Book of
Esther, Esth. i. 6.
4) pûkos, “dye," used for the cheeks by Grecian women, and 9,
used in Heb. for the stibium, wherewith Eastern women dyed their eye-
lids, are not likely to have been derived one from the other, being used
for different objects, and formed from different substances. They
could not be articles of commerce. The Greek dye also, though not
gained from the sea-weed, was obtained from a plant of the same name
(Diosc. iv. 100), probably as being like it. But has no satisfactory
Semitic etymology. The Arab had apparently the meaning of
“cracking, parting, detaching," not "reducing to powder." So also the
Syr., in the passage quoted, Jud. v. 26, stands for the Heb. ¡ ;
in Jer. xxiii. 29 marg. it represents Aquila's rendering of p,“ the
hammer which breaketh in pieces the rock; en in Is. xxvii. 9,
represents, of chalk-stones "crushed," and (which is nearest)
Prof. P. Smith tells me, that in the Geoponica 7, 30 there occurs
NM’JJDMD NvIn “earth broken small," clods "crushed," but only as an
agricultural process. But this is very far from establishing that
signifies "powder,” and that, the special powder, “stibium,” of
which the paste was made. On the other hand, in regard to a
Sanskrit root, which has been compared but abandoned, Prof. Max
Müller informs me, “Pinj is one of those many Sanskrit roots, which
never occur in the actual language. I have never met with it as a verb.
Sanskrit grammarians say, it means to colour.' If it ever existed,
except in the imagination of grammarians, it was a dialectic form of
pię, from which peça, 'form, beauty,' the Greek Toɩ-íλos, ‘varie-
gated,' also Lat. pingo, which, however, is quite different from fingo.
From the various employments of the root pic, and its derivatives,
I should say that something like tattooing was the original meaning
of the root." piç certainly seems to me the most probable etymolo
gy; but the dye must have been in familiar use in the time of
Job, one of whose daughters, 720 172, had her name from it; Job
xlii. 14.
To the musical instruments, kwúpa, ri³p, (Gen.), váßλa, ba (2 Sam.
Ps.), avλós, n (1 Kings), σaµẞúкη, 퇇p (Dan.), [a Syriac invention,"
Juba in Ath. iv. p. 175. d.] µáyadis (doubtless, as Hamaker sug-
U u
650
Connection of Hebrew and Greek words,
Ꮴ
gested, from p, contracted from л, etym. ¡), perhaps should
be added τúμπavov from (Gen. Ex.), whence Arab. 77, Span.
Adufe; the m replacing, as in other cases, the second p, which appears
in the plural o'n, and being omitted in the form rúnavov, in order
to connect the word with their own τύπτω.
Precious stones, láomis, nay;, (Ex.); σáπPeipos, ¬'99. (Ex.)
The animal, Taûpos, being unquestionably, (in Phœnician, Owp
Plut. Syll. c. 17.) and káp (77 Is.) being, according to Hesychius,
an Ionic name for "sheep," it seems to me probable that aierós (Ion.)
is i. q. vy, a bird of prey (Gen.). The Greeks may have transferred
the generic name, which they may have learnt in Cyprus, to the
eagle. The Greek etymology aw is so utterly unsatisfactory. káµŋλos,
01, (Gen.) does not belong here: as the later Greeks came to
know it through war or Eastern travels.
Of manufactured articles, besides aprη, probably (Num.),
λaμrás,ádos seems to be connected with ¬, the mp replacing the pp
of the Hebrew word, as in Syr. Top, Targ. ?; but the imagined
Phon. word, 19, seems to be an invention of Fürst's.
2) kádos is identical with 75 (Jud.); but, in the absence of any Se-
mitic etymology, also probably came from the Sansk. ghada.
3) Kλwẞós, "birdcage," abp (Jerem.), is probably Semitic.
4) σákkos, py. (Gen.)
5) μáλon, php, Jer. xliii. 9.
As to commerce generally, åppaßóv is a remarkable instance of a
technical commercial term derived from the Phoenician; the cor-
responding Heb. i," pledge," (Gen.) having its well-known
Semitic etymology.
μíoyw, 700, Ps. Such an operation might often occur in commerce.
μvâ, л, (1 Kings) was the only weight transferred early.
The connection of charuts, pan, with xpúoos has this difficulty,
that in Hebrew, pn “dug,” (like our now familiar " diggings”) oc-
curs only in poetic books from the time of David, Ps. Ixviii. 14, Pro-
verbs (4 times) Zech. ix. 3, and the common (though in itself
equally poetic) word " Yellow," am, is, with slightly varying pronun-
ciations, the ordinary Semitic word for "gold." Not only is it the
word in the Pentateuch, but it furnished the name of a place, where
gold was found, a Deut. i. 1. On the other hand, there is no
Greek etymology for xpúoos, and may have furnished a Pho-
nician name for gold, “dug.” It is, however, conjecture only.
The most remarkable correspondence, historically, is that of pi-
:
indicative of early commerce.
651
legesh and ráλλag, originally " maiden" (coll. Haλλás), then maidens
exported as slaves, and then the concubine, who had an admitted
position, subordinate to the wife, even in the time of the Patriarchs.
The Greek name falls in with the piracies, which Herodotus ascribes
to the earliest times of Greece. The Greeks must have sold to the
Phoenicians the maidens so stolen ; as the Phoenicians at a later time,
exported Jewish captives. (On this see on Joel, pp. 134, 5.) Pi-
legesh or pillegesh is manifestly a non-Semitic name. Gesenius' only
ground for hesitating to accept the Greek etymology, was that the
Hebrew word occurred so early.
Most of the above instances were collected by Gesenius above 50
years ago, in his Geschichte der Hebräischen Sprache und Schrift,
Leipz. 1815. Some he added in his Thesaurus.
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I. II.
PUSEY'S COMMENTARY ON THE MINOR PROPHETS
The entire work in two instead of three volumes, and an additional
volume by same author on "Daniel."
This colossal work is justly regarded by scholars as the best commentary extant
in the English language on the Minor Prophets. The author, in the preface, says: "In
regard to the literal meaning of the sacred text, I have given that which, after a matured
study spread over thirty years, I believe to be true, or in some cases the more probable
only. In so doing I have purposely avoided all show of learning or embarrassing discussion,
which belong to the dictionary or grammar rather than a commentary on Holy Scripture."
This commentary is free from those peculiar doctrines with which Pusey's name
became associated.
Read what is thought of it by some of the leading scholars in our own land. It in-
dicates the estimation in which this work is held :
Prof. W. HENRY GREEN, D.D., LL.D., Princeton Seminary, N. J., says:
"I am gratified to learn that you intend to bring out an American reprint of Pusey's Minor Prophets, which
is the most learned, able and instructive commentary on that portion of Scripture, that has been produced in Great
Britian.'
MORGAN DIX, D.D., Trinity Church New York, says:
"I consider Dr. Pusey's Commentary on the Minor Prophets to be a most valuable work; I have studied it
with great profit and much pleasure and benefit, and I am most happy to hear that an American edition is about
to be published."
Bishop A. CLEVELAND COXE, Buffalo, says:
*
"It gives me a heartfelt joy to learn of your design to republish Dr. Pusey's Minor Prophets. If ever there
was profound learning combined with the spirit of the little child,' enlisted in the task of old Testament exposi-
tion, we see it here. I cannot always accept the Doctor's solution of knotty points, but I tremble to compare my
own questionings with his entire self-surrender to what seems to him the mind of the Spirit. Such critical skill
and such humanity are rarely combined. In our day who does not feel the loss of that devout unquestioning
disposition which makes learning the handmaid and not the mistress in works of this class? Let the student learn
of this expositor what St. Paul means by casting down imaginations and bringing every thought into captivity
to the obedience of Christ.'
4
WILLIAM M. TAYLOR, D.D, New York, says
"I am glad to hear that you propose to republish on this side of the Atlantic. Pusey's Commentary on the
Minor Prophets. It is the best exposition known to me of that section of the Sacred Scriptures. Pusey's Hebrew
scholarship was undoubted; his learning was extensive; his acquaintance, particularly with patristic literature
was very large, and his heart was especially devout. His well-known church views do not obtrude themselves,
and alike in his comments on Daniel and in the Minor Prophets he seems to me to be on his knees as he studies
seeking only to know God's meaning and desiring only to do God's will. I have gone through his Daniel chap-
ter by chapter-wondering even more at the reverence than at the learning of the expositor.
PHILLIPS BROOKS, D.D., Boston, says:
"Dr. Pusey's 'Commentary on the Minor Prophets' will certainly be an interesting and valuable addition to
your list of publications."
"
Bishop F. D. HUNTINGTON, of Central New York, says:
"The republication of Dr. Pusey's Commentary on the Minor Prophets is much to be desired. A work of
such rare scholarship, judgment and devotional spirit ought to be far more widely known in this country. I am
glad to hear that a New York house has undertaken the reprint."
THOMAS ARMITAGE, D.D., New York, says:
"You could do no better service for the thorough student of the Minor Prophets, than to republish Pusey's
scholarly work thereon. He has few equals and no superiors in this department of criticism."
HOWARD CROSBY, D.D., LL.D., New York, says:
"I have always considered Pusey the best commentator on the Minor Prophets, both for his thorough Hebrew
scholarship and for his devout spirit.
CHAS. H. HALL, D.D., Brooklyn, says:
“No one familiar with the facts can doubt the immense learning and labor of the late Dr. Pusey, or his in-
dustry and fearlessness in pursuing the truth as he saw it. His work on the Minor Prophets stands somewhat
alone, and has great value for those who desire to reach the meaning of these ancient servants of Israel, who
likewise were men solitary and apart.'
Prof. H. E. JACOBS, Lutheran Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, Pa., says:
Whatever may be the differences of opinion with which the ecclesiastical and sacramental views of the late
Dr. Pusey have been received, there is no controversy whatever concerning his eminent attainments as a Hebraist,
and the importance and value of his 'Commentary on the Minor Prophets.' It holds a place belonging to no other
work springing from English or American soil. The republication of this Commentary should be most heartily
welcomed by all ministers of scholarly attainments."
PHILIP SCHAFF, D.P., New York, says:
4
"Dr. Pusey's Minor Prophets' is one of the best Commentaries of the orthodox school on that portion of the
Old Testament. It is practical and devotional as well as learned and able."
GEO. L. PRENTISS, D.D., New York, says:
Pusey's Minor Prophets' has long been known to me by reputation as a work of the highest value."

numerous and various writings I have
no room to speak. He wrote Nos. 18,
66, 67, and 69 of the "Tracts for the
Times," and besides his several volumes
he wrote frequently for the Times news-
paper. As an instance of his unpopu-
larity, there is only one known portrait
of him to which the public has access,
and that represents him in old age with
his velvet skull-cap on. His funeral
was an impressive ceremonial; his body
was laid to rest in the center aisle of
Christ church cathedral, Mr. Gladstone
and six or more of the most learned men
in England being pall-bearers. /582,
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
D. S. GREGORY, D.D., Pres. Lake Forest University, Ills., says:
3 9015 06925 5191
"I am glad to learn that you are about to publish Dr. Pusey's Commentary on the Minor Prophets.' Apart
from his peculiar ecclesiastical views, Dr. Pusey held the highest position in public esteem as one of the ablest and
most scholarly men in the Church of England. His work had the benefit of repeated revisions, bringing it down
almost to the close of the last decade. No other English mind of equal ability and scholarship has attempted the
difficult task of expounding the Minor Prophets, while his thorough acquaintance with the results of late re earch
and his eminent conservatism, as shown in his defense of the Prophecies of Daniel, will commend him as a safe
leader to those who truly reverence the Word of God."
HENRY VAN DYKE, D.D., Brooklyn, says:
His work on the Minor
'Dr. Pusey was a man cf profound learning and thorough convictions of the truth.
Prophets is a standard. You will confer a benefit on the church at large by publishing it in a cheap form and
bringing it within the reach of all Biblical students."
HE
M. & E. BELLAMY,
MINDERS,
OXFORD.
1075
Jrr E. Calourth,
Jonia, Mils,
1883,

LECTURES
ON
DANIEL
PROPHET
BY THE
REV.E. PUSEY, D.D.
BS
1555
.P98
1868
J113