CHAPTER IV. SECTION V. The Interpretation and Accomplishment of the Prediction concerning the supplemental Week, or that of the Covenant confirmed, and its two Divisions. THE twenty seventh verse consists of four clauses. In the first we have an account of a certain week of the seventy; in the second we find a remarkable division of that week into two equal parts; in the third we are made acquainted with a particular fact in the conduct of the desolator at the siege of Jerusalem; in the fourth we are informed, that the desolator himself will at length be brought to utter ruin, and that the judgments of desolations on Jerusalem and the Jewish people have an appointed period in the divine foreknowledge and decree. But the two latter clauses do not fall within this section. 27. YET WILL HE CONFIRM THE COVENANT UNTO MANY ONE WEEK; BUT IN THE The Jewish people are the only direct and proper subjects of the prophecy, and indeed the only people mentioned or noticed therein. The covenant then here described to be made firm is a covenant with them, though it is to be confirmed, or secured, not to all, but only a part of them, to many. Now in the last verse it is predicted, that Messiah shall be cut off; and that so entirely with the approbation, at least with the tacit acquiescence, and probably by the act, of his own people, that there would not be any one to stand on his side in the hour of his peril and excision. It therefore seems extremely unlikely, that he would confer any mark of favour on such a disloyal, ungrateful, and rebellious people; and consequently, when it is declared, that he will confirm, or make firm, the covenant unto them, it is properly introduced to the reader by rendering the Hebrew connective particle by our adversative conjunction, yet. The Hebrew words have been shewn in the second chapter* to signify, not the making of a new and firm covenant, but the confirma * Page 96. tion*, that is to say, the ratification or carrying into full effect of one already existing, at least of one promised before. The covenant is that originally promised to the patriarchs, begun under the Law, repeated, expanded, and explained by the Prophets, and brought to perfection under the Gospel. The substance of it was, that “Israel should be the people of Jehovah, and that he would be their God." The express words indeed of the covenant with Abraham, as stated in the seventeenth chapter of Genesis, comprise only the latter, as being to the people the more important and blessed part of it; but the former part is plainly implied and indeed necessarily understood. In other passages of scripturet it is expressed; but there can be no need to cite those passages at length, in order to shew, that such was the main substance and real essence of the covenant between God and his people in all ages. The terms themselves are of such general and comprehensive import, that they are calculated to include the whole scheme of salvation, by which the people of God are delivered from So Clarius has well observed "adimplebit Christus in ultima hac hebdomada fœdus quod iniit cum patribus. Ideo non dixit faciet, sed confirmabit, quod jam antea patribus promiserat;" de quo Jer. 31. Clarius in loc. Leviticus, xxvi. 12, Deuteronomy, xxvi. 17, 18, 2 Samuel, vii. 24, Jeremiah, xxiv. 7, xxx. 22, xxxi. 33, Ezekiel, xi. 20, xxxvii. 23, 27, Zechariah, viii. 8. the guilt, the bondage, and the punishment of sin, entirely restored to the divine favour, and qualified to receive, as well as encouraged to expect, those blessings of spiritual illumination, direction, and comfort, which gradually train them up and lead them on to the more perfect knowledge of God, and of their relation and duty to Him and one another, to a renewed and sanctified disposition of mind and heart, to a more willing obedience, a more hearty trust, a more cheerful resignation, and more exalted hope of that immortal joy and felicity which await his elect in the life to come. Such, and many more, if drawn out at full length, were the items of the covenant involved in those general terms, by which "Jehovah avouched himself to be the God of Israel and the Israelites avouched themselves to be his people*;" and consisting of such,. the Lord Jesus Christ, in exercising the office of leader to God's people, confirmed† it to the Jews, according to that prediction of Moses; "the Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearkent." Wherefore he is called by Malachi, "the messen * Deuteronomy, xxvi. 17, 18. See the twelfth position in the third chapter, p. 174. ger of the covenant*.' It would be easy, were it many and long passanecessary, to transcribe ges of the new testament in proof, that Jesus fulfilled this prediction, when after his baptism by John he fully entered upon the arduous functions of his leadership, and the administration of his spiritual kingdom; and it would be the duty of the author so to do, if he were writing for the use of readers, to whom the history of the life, the acts, and discourses of our Lord were a new or an unusual theme. But at this time and in this country no reader of his inspired volume can need such information. It must not however be forgotten, that according to the twelfth and thirteenth preliminary positions Messiah would not take upon him the complete discharge of the high and holy duties of his office, immediately upon his first appearance as leader; that on the contrary a considerable interval might be expected; and that to point out this fact is one reason for placing the week of the covenant confirmed, out of its regular order, in a supplement. This was actually the case with our Lord's ministry, which did not take place in real force and efficacy until nineteen years after his first appearance in the temple as leader of his people. * Malachi, iii. 1. |