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An explanation may readily be suggested in the popular maxim of prophetic interpretation that "a day stands for a year." But in opposition to this we venture to affirm that there cannot be found in the word of God a single passage in which a day stands for a year, in any reckoning of time, either historical or prophetical. It would, indeed, appear a strange departure from the simplicity of Scripture, and useless as strange, if the Spirit of God should arbitrarily use the word "day" when in reality "year" was intended. What, for example, would be gained in the case before us by saying four hundred and ninety days, when "four hundred and ninety years" is meant. The truth is, that the word which our translators have chosen to render weeks, means simply an aggregate of seven, and would be properly represented by the word "heptade," just as we use the word "decade," to signify an aggregate of ten when we say, "The census shows the increase of population in each decade," that is, in each succeeding period of ten years. The angel does not say "seventy weeks" according to our use of the word weeks, but "seventy heptades," or periods of seven years; that is, "four hundred and ninety years "" 66 are determined upon thy people and thy holy city." And now the question remains, has all that was included in that prophecy been accomplished, and was it all accomplished in four hundred and ninety years from the going forth of the commandment to rebuild Jerusalem? Both of these questions we are prepared to answer in the negative, for a negative answer to the first includes the second. The present condition of Daniel's people and his holy city is in itself a most emphatic negative, and we are left to conclude that the seventy heptades have not yet expired.

The event from which the commencement of this cycle of 490 years is to be reckoned is very definitely described,

"from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem." Yet the opinions of commentators have been divided on this point also. In the book of Ezra vii. 12, we find a decree of Artaxerxes authorizing Ezra, the priest, and all the Israelites who chose to accompany him, to go up to Jerusalem. Ezra is authorized to take all silver and gold, the free-will offerings of king and people, and to call upon the provincial treasurers for all that may be necessary to restore the worship of God in the temple, and to procure all needed sacrifices. Ezra was also invested with all authority to establish and enforce the laws of God in Judea. The design of Artaxerxes was to propitiate the favor of Jehovah, for he asks: "Why should there be wrath against the realm of the king and his sons ?" In all this decree there is not a word about rebuilding Jerusalem, and Ezra, in his grateful acknowledgment of it, says: "Blessed be the Lord. God of our fathers, which hath put such a thing as this into the king's heart, to beautify the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem."

This decree regarding the temple was issued in the seventh year of Artaxerxes, and had no reference to the restoration of the city. For we find Nehemiah mourning because the city and the place of his fathers' sepulchres were lying waste; and, in accordance with his request to be permitted to go and build Jerusalem, Artaxerxes issued another decree in the twentieth year of his reign, requiring all governors of provinces to protect Nehemiah, and directing the keeper of the King's forest to furnish materials for the public buildings.

Dr. Prideaux, in his "Connection of the History of the Old and New Testament," argues that the seventy weeks were accomplished at the death of Christ. "After which," he says, "the Jews were no more to be the peculiar people of God, nor Jerusalem His holy city." Having assumed this,

he counts backward four hundred and ninety years, and says: "The beginning, therefore, of the seventy weeks, or four hundred and ninety years of this prophecy, was in the month Nisan of the Jewish year, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes Longimanus, when Ezra had his commission." This is a striking example of the manner in which prophecy may be accommodated to a preconceived conclusion, in the face of its own most explicit language. And this is the explanation of the seventy weeks, which the greater number of subsequent expositors have adopted. Without discussing the matter at large, it is enough for us to know from the word of God that Ezra's commission, as fitted his office of priest, related to the restoration of the temple and its worship; while Nehemiah's commission, as fitted his office of governor, related to the rebuilding of the city. Knowing this, we must reckon the seventy weeks from the date of Nehemiah's commission to whatever conclusion this may lead us; in other words, the seventy weeks began in the twentieth year of the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus, as is noted in the margin of our common English Bible.

After a general statement in verse 24 that the purpose of God concerning Israel should be consummated in seventy weeks, the angel proceeds to divide the seventy weeks into three distinct periods, and to inform Daniel of the events which should transpire in each of them. "Know, therefore, and understand that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to rebuild Jerusalem unto Messiah, the Prince, shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks," leaving, it will be observed, a third period of one week to make up the seventy. We have, then, 1st, seven heptades, or forty-nine years; 2d, sixty-two heptades, or four hundred and thirty-four years; 3d, one heptade, or seven years-making up four hundred and ninety years.

Of the first period of seven heptades, Daniel is informed, "the street shall be built and the wall, even in troublous times." In the margin, instead of troublous times, we have "in strait of times;" and this has been explained as meaning the shorter of the two periods just mentioned66 seven weeks and threescore and two weeks;" that is to say, the street shall be built and the wall within the first jubilee from the issuing of the decree of Artaxerxes to restore and to build Jerusalem. Sir E. Denny points out that this period-the strait of times-is a septenary period, seven heptades; so also is the great period of which it forms an integral part, seventy heptades; and suggests that the restoration of the city in the former period is designed to be a pledge of the greater blessing to be accomplished at the close of the greater period, when Jerusalem shall be established for ever, as the scene of the Redeemer's earthly glory, never again to be trodden down by the Gentiles.

To this period of seven heptades, or forty-nine years, we add threescore and two heptades, or four hundred and thirty-four years, making in all four hundred and eightythree years from the decree to rebuild the city; and this brings us to the ministry of John the Baptist, by whom the Messiah was officially presented to Israel. After this we are told "Messiah shall be cut off, but not for himself," or, as we have it in the margin, "Messiah shall be cut off, and shall have nothing." He came claiming the throne of David, and the allegiance of his people, and instead of receiving at their hands a joyful welcome to his rightful claim, he was crucified between two malefactors. Then follows a prediction of the desolation of Jerusalem, and the dispersion of the stiff-necked and rebellious people, who crowned all their apostasies by crucifying their king; and the terms in which the prediction is expressed demand special attention.

"And the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined." If we ask who are here pointed out as the destroyers of the city, the common answer would be: "Titus and the Roman army." But it will be observed that the language is not "the prince and the people." Nothing is said of the prince having any part in the destruction of the city, but the people who destroy it are described as "the people of the prince that shall come;" not the prince who shall lead them to the siege, but the prince whose coming shall be then in the future, whose coming is subsequent to the destruction and the wars and the desolations, and whose course, when he comes, is described in the twenty-seventh verse. In other words, the prince whose course is described in that verse, is a future head of the people who destroyed Jerusalem; that is, of the Roman Empire.

Thus far the prophecy has long ago been fulfilled. After the lapse of the sixty-nine predicted weeks Messiah has been cut off; the Roman armies have destroyed the city and the temple; every thing has been swept away by the flood of wrath, and the determined desolation yet rests upon that once-favored spot. As Jesus predicted the same things before his crucifixion, "there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people; and they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations, and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled;" even so it has come to pass, and thus it is at this day. And yet it must be observed there is one week of the seventy to be accounted for, since we have as yet spoken only of the first period of seven weeks, and the second period of threescore and two weeks, which together make sixty-nine weeks.