dom of the God of Heaven," which he was destined to establish upon earth, over" all nations, peoples and languages;" and to be transferred, when time shall be no more, intó eternity, Dan. vii. 13, 14. —And, 3. "To feal up vifion and prophecy, when the grand period of the Patriarchal, Mofaical, and Evangelical Difpenfations fhould be fufficiently unfolded to mankind by CHRIST and his Apoftles, before the end of the seventy weeks, or 490 years, A. D. 70.-And, 4. "To anoint THE SAINT OF SAINTS, or "inveft him with all authority in Heaven and Earth," as "the PRINCE OF PRINCES." Dan.

viii. 25.

25. Sixty-nine weeks (= 7+ 62, or 483 years,) were to elapfe from "the iffuing forth of the Oracle," &c. until THE ANOINTED LEADER fhould "come

in judgment -"to deftroy the City and the Sanctuary" of the Jewish People, no longer “his”—for their apoftacy, -- by "a people" whom he made the inftru

"

ments of his vengeance-when he "came according to the awful and concluding denunciation which clofes the Old Teftament" to fmite the land with a "to curfe -by the Roman armies, which are called "his armies, fent forth to deftroy those murderers "" who killed the HOLY ONE AND THE JUST,"-and to burn their city," Matt. xxii. 7-as the unbelieving Jews themselves dreaded-" left the Romans should come and take away our [holy] place, and nation," John xii. 48.—And accordingly the Jewish war broke out in the middle of the feventieth week, A. D. 66, during the administration of Florus; and the city and fanctuary were destroyed by Titus, A. D. 70, exactly 490 years from the affumed commencement of the 70 weeks, and alfo of the grand prophetic period of 2300 days, B. C. 420.the people were returned, and the city rebuilt, and the wall repaired, and the Jewish polity compleatly reftored by Nehemiah's laft reform of abuses." For, after

"when

his death, Judea was governed by its own high-prieft and council, for the remainder of the Perfian dynasty.

26. And after the fixty and two weeks, before specified, as the largeft divifion of the 70, was THE ANOINTED [LEADER]

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cut off" judicially, by an iniquitous fentence, in the midst of the one week, which formed the third and laft divifion, and began with our Lord's Baptism, about A. D. 27.—“ when he was beginning to be thirty years of age," and commenced his miffion, which lafted three years and half until his crucifixion, about A. D. 31.

27. During this one week, which ended about A. D. 34, (about the martyrdom of Stephen,) a new covenant was established with many of the Jews, of every class; in the midst of which the Temple facrifice was virtually abrogated by the all-fufficient facrifice of the Lamb of God that taketh away the fins of the [repentant and believing] world."

But THE CHRIST was not cut off immediately after the fixty-two weeks; which

expired, A. D. 14.-The vacancy therefore between them and the Paffion Week, may conveniently be filled up by two of the feven weeks, (or third divifion,) making 14 years; and the remaining five weeks, or 35 years, if put after the Paffion Week, will complete the 70 weeks, without a

gap.

This will, I truft, be found a simple, natural, and confiftent folution of the chronological difficulties of this famous prophecy (k).

XI. By a deplorable want of taste for the genuine fublime and beautiful, Eichborn

(k) Although I do not concur with him throughout, I am happy to adduce a learned Jew, David Levi, the fhrewd antagonist of that "man of war from his youth” Doctor Priestley-to vouch the principal points in my translation and interpretation of this famous prophecy.

1. He justly counts by weeks of years, with all the ancient verfions. "Thefe feventy weeks are without doubt 490 years," and he correctly fuppofes that they end with "the deftruction of the Second Temple," though he incorrectly dates their commencement from "the deftruction of the firft." For B. C. 588 + A. D. 70 658 years..

=

horn cannot relish the nine firfl chapters of

Ifaiah.

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They have," fays he, "the common character of the poetry of his country about that time; they are fuch as might

2. He understands the parenthetical prediction, verfe 25," Thou shalt return," &c. of "the continual troubles and alarms from their enemies, during the building of the Temple, and repairing the wall,”—as mentioned in Ezra iv. 1—12. and in Nehem. iv. 16.

3. The three claufes of the magnificent exordium of the prophecy" To finish the tranfgreffion, i. e. IDOLATRY; to make an accomplishment for fin-(or to accomplish their fin,)-i. e. WHOREDOM;—and to make an atonement for iniquity, i. e. MURDER," — fhews what this learned Jew confiders as the crying fins of his nation-" which they added to their former fins, instead of repenting, during the time of the Second Temple."-And he confiders the long Jewish Captivity as destined to bring in everlafling righteousness,”or, "by means of the restoration of the Jews, to bring all nations to the knowledge of the ONE TRUE GOD," according to prophecy, Ifa. ii. 2, 3. and xviii. 3. and Zephan. iii. 9.

4. "To anoint the Holy of Holies"- he underftands, with fome Christian divines, Prideaux, &c. of the confecration of the New Temple.-But that the application is perfonal-" To anoint or inaugurate the Saint of faints"-is evident not only from the context