DISSERTATION, &c. CHAPTER I. Concerning the proper mode of computing the seventy weeks. IN an attempt to elucidate the prophecy of the seventy weeks, as the prediction contained in the latter end of the ninth chapter of Daniel is usually denominated, the first point necessary to be ascertained is the proper mode of computing those weeks. That they are weeks, of which each day is to be estimated as a year, is almost universally allowed*: but * Mr. Wintle mentions an anonymous writer on this prophecy, who has confined the weeks altogether to weeks of days (Trans. of Dan. in loc.): and some of the Jewish Rabbies, to evade the but there has been a considerable discrepance of opinion respecting the kind of year which may be supposed to have been used by Daniel-Several commentators have maintained, that the prophet reckons by solar years; or, what amounts to the same thing, that the 490 years of the seventy weeks are, according to the Jewish mode of computation, collectively equal to 490 solar years. Among these we find the names of Usher, Petavius, Scaliger, Mede, Prideaux, Sir Isaac Newton, Cornelius a Lapide, Lancaster, and Blayney-Others have maintained, that he reckons by lunar years collectively, no less than singularly: which makes the 490 years fall considerably short of 490 solar years. This opinion was first advanced by Africanus, who flourished in the beginning of the third century: and he has been followed by Theodoret, Bede, Zonaras, Rupertus, and most of the Romish expositors-But those, who agree in adopting the computation by lunar years, differ argument which Christians draw from it in favour of the Messiahship of Jesus, pretend, that each week is a jubilee or 49 years, and consequently that the whole seventy weeks are equivalent to 3430 years (Cornel. a Lap. Comment. in Dan. ix. 24.), But such systems as these have ever been short-lived. As for the Talmud, it acknowledges the seventy weeks to be 490 years (Ibid.). The same opinion is likewise maintained by Menasseh Ben Israel, R. Isaac Abarbanel, R. Jos. Jacchias, R. Aben Ezra, and others. Marshall on the seventy weeks, Introduct. P. 10. among among themselves respecting the length of the lunar year which they suppose Daniel to have used. Africanus and his immediate followers contend, that we ought to reckon by the true astronomical lunar year of about 354 days: Bp. Lloyd, Mr. Marshall, Mr. Wintle, and Mr. Butt, prefer the false lunar year of 360 days. I. I know not, that any argument has been adduced in favour of the first mode of lunar computa→ tion, except one, which is in fact a general argument, tending to prove that the prophet does not use natural solar years, but abbreviated lunar years of some description. It is built upon an expression in the exordium of the prediction. What is rendered in our common English translation Seventy weeks are determined, is rendered in the Vulgate Seventy weeks are abbreviated, and in the Greek version of Theodotion Seventy weeks have been cut short*. Hence it has been inferred, that a method of shorter reckoning is to be adopted, and that a continued series of lunar years is that employed by Daniel. It is manifest, that this argument rests wholly on a translation: and the translation is such, that its propriety may very well be questioned. The word * Εβδομηκοντα ἑβδομαδες συνετμήθησαν. The Greek version of Daniel, which generally bears the name of the LXX, appears in reality to have been the work of Theodotion. תתר nn does not occur elsewhere in the whole Bible, either in its primitive form or in that of one of its derivatives but in the writings of the Rabbies it is frequently to be met with. The signification, which they ascribe to it, is that of cutting: nor is there any reason to pronounce them mistaken in supposing that such is the primary import of the word. The ques➡ tion therefore is, in what sense of cutting we are to understand it in the passage now under discussion: for it is obvious, that to cut short or to abbreviate is only one of the many complex ideas which spring alike from the original simple idea to cut. That we are no way bound to understand it in the sense of abbreviating, the sense required by the argument is manifest from the Chaldee Paraphrase on Esther *, in which the word itself occurs. A man is there said to be called nn, because by him all the affairs of the kingdom nn, which the Latin interpreter renders were decided or determined. Here, though the sense of cutting is involved, because, when a matter is decided, it is cut off from other matters which have not yet been brought to a legal investigation, we have nothing that conveys the idea of abbreviation. It must therefore be mere unsupported conjecture to suppose, that in this word any hint is * Chap. iv. 5. |