Daniel 9:25

Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and three score and two weeks; the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. The version of the LXX . is widely different from this, "And thou shalt know and shalt understand and shalt discover that the commandments are determined, and thou shalt build Jerusalem a city of the Lord." The change in the first clause is due to a doublet reading —tishmah being also read as well as tishkayl , which may have become confluent in the Hebrew text before the Septuagint translator wrote. Instead of minmotza , he must have read v ' timtza , deriving this, not from יָצָא ( yatza ), "to go forth," but from מָצָא ( matza ), "to find"—a reading that is opposed by the fact that many manuscripts write the word plerum , מוצָא . Dabar must have been in the plural, and some such word as neherotzeem must have been supplied instead of hasheeb. The fact, however, that the same change occurs in Theodotion might render it at least possible that this was the word in the text, but Paulus Tellensis must have had a different reading, "Thou shalt find the precepts for answering;" a marginal reading adds, "and for the understanding the weeks." In the next clause, וּבָנִיתָ ( oovaneetha ) instead of לִבְנוֹת ( libenoth ), and instead of עַד ( ‛adh ) עִר ( ‛eer ), must have been read, and "Messiah the Prince" has been par, phrased into κυρίῳ . The last clause may be regarded as omitted. Not impossibly this may have resulted from the end of the one verse being so like the beginning of the next. Theodotion's rendering is much more in agreement with the received text, "And thou shalt know and understand, from the going forth of the word to determine and build Jerusalem, until the anointed leader, is seven weeks and sixty-two weeks, and he shall return, and the broad places and the wall shall be built, and the times shall be distressful." As above remarked, harootz is read instead of hasheeb. The Peshitta differs considerably from the received text, "Thou shalt know and understand from the decreeing of the word to restore and build Jerusalem, to the coming of the anointed king, is seven weeks and sixty-two weeks, to restore and build Jerusalem, its wall, and its palaces, at the end of the time." The rendering of the Vetus, as preserved to us in Tertuliian, runs thus, "And thou shalt know and perceive and understand from the going forth of the speech ( sermo ) for the restoring and rebuilding of Jerusalem, even to Christ the Leader, are sixty-two weeks and a half; and he shall return and build in joy, and the wall ( convollationem ), and times shall be renewed." Jerome's rendering is," Know and understand from the going forth of the word that Jerusalem should be again built, even to Christ the Leader, shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks, and the squares shall be again built and the walls in hard times." What cannot fail to impress one is the confusion that exists as to the original text. Of necessity conjectural emendations have been resorted to, with not much advantage. The most plausible is the suggestion of Professor Bevan to read lehosheeh , "to repeople," instead of lehasheeb , "to restore;" but there is no sign in the versions of such a reading being accepted. On the whole, a reading not far removed from the received has probability in its favour. Going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem. To what does this refer? Hengstenberg ('Christology,' 3:128) says, "There can be no doubt that motza dabar signifies the issue of the decree." This view has the advantage that in Daniel 9:23 we have the same combination, יצא דבר ( yatza dabar ), "a command went forth." The probability is always in favour of holding a word not to change its meaning in contiguous verses, unless there is some indication that a change has taken place. Other commentators assume as strongly that the word must be the word of the Lord to Jeremiah; hence Bevan renders dabar , "promise," without so much as a hint that there can be any doubt in the matter. Behrmaun takes the לְ , the sign of the infinitive, as being equivalent to ut, and that hence this is a case of indirect speech—a usage gravely to be suspected, as certainly unexampled elsewhere in Biblical Hebrew. He refers to Ewald's 'Grammar,' but at his reference Ewald says that yKi is the sign of the semi-oblique narrative used in Hebrew. In a note Ewald refers to לאמר as introducing speeches; but that is not in point here. If dabar had meant "promise" or "prophecy" here, it would have been followed with the words in which the prophecy was announced. If, on the other hand, dabar is taken as" a decree," the infinitive is natural. The question, then, arises, "Whose decree is it that is here referred to?" Daniel was hoping for a decree being issued by Cyrus; of this he would naturally think, but what he thought is not to be taken as necessarily true. The prophets did not always know the meaning of their own prophecies. We must examine the record, and see what decree suits best with the words of our text. Many commentators think the reference here is to a Divine decree (Hengstenberg, Wolf. etc.). The difficulty of this view is that there is in appearance a definite starting-point given for the period named to begin. Now, a decree of God has no visible time-relation. This view, when maintained by those who hold that the prophecy of Jeremiah is referred to, may have some justification, only that a prophecy is never regarded as a decree, rendering certain its fulfilment. It must be, then, a human decree. The decree of Cyrus did not involve any rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem. The altar was set up—that was all; the temple, even, was not built. The terms of the decree of Cyrus, as we have it in Ezra 1:2 , are, "The Lord God of heaven … hath charged me to build him an house in Jerusalem." This clearly is not the decree intended. When Darius Hystaspis founded his permission to build the temple on the decree of Cyrus, there was no word of permitting them to rebuild the city walls. When, in the seventh year of Arta-xerxes, Ezra and his companions left Babylon and came to Jerusalem, still, though there was no command given to build again the walls of Jerusalem, there is more nearly implied a restoration of Jerusalem as a city. We may, then, start from b.c. 458. To Nehemiah, in the twentieth year of the reign of Artaxerxes, was there a positive command given to build the wall of Jerusalem. This date brings us to b.c. 445. Starting from the first date, the end of the 490 years is a.d. 32, and the end of the 69 weeks is a.d. 25. If, again, we start from the latter of these dates, the termination of the 490 years is a.d. 45, and of the 483 years a.d. 38. No one can fail to be struck with the fact that these dates are very near the most sacred date of all history—that of the crucifixion of our Lord. We know there is considerable diversity of opinion as to the date at which that event occurred. But, further, we are not to expect that prophecy shall have the accuracy we have in astronomical ephemerides. We admit there are great difficulties. We admit, further, that seven weeks mark, with wonderful precision, the time which elapsed from the capture of Jerusalem to the accession of Cyrus to the throne of Babylon. The interval was really fifty years. We do not know the occurrences that marked the relation of the Jewish people to their Persian masters during the century and more which elapsed between this twentieth year of Artaxerxes and the overthrow of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great. The city walls and internal buildings of Jerusalem may have taken fifty years to erect—we simply cannot tell. It is, at all events, a singular thing that the date of our Lord's crucifixion so nearly coincides with the termination of the 483 years. What is the result of starting from the date at which the prophecy was given? Assuming that the writer lived in the reign of Epiphanes, and meant to indicate the date of some event near his own period by the end of the 490 or the 483 years, let us see what follows. If we take the Massoretic date of the prophecy, it was given in the year of the accession of Nebuchadnezzar, or the next year—his first year, according to Babylonian chronology, that is to say, b.c. 606 or b.c. 605. Subtract 483 from either of these, and we have the utterly inconspicuous years b.c. 122 and b.c. 123, that is to say, twelve or thirteen years after the death of Simon the Maccabee. If three years and a half are added, to reach the middle of the week, we have b.c. 119, an equally inconspicuous year. Professor Bevan, however, follows Ewald, and begins with the destruction of Jerusalem. That the statement contradicts the text, which dates "from the going forth of a promise to people and build again Jerusalem," according to Professor Bevan's own translation, not from the destruction of Jerusalem, is looked upon evidently as of no importance. Of course, the refuge is the ignorance of the author of Darnel, notwithstanding that Jeremiah ( Jeremiah 25:1 ) dates his first prophecy "the fourth year of Jehoiakim," and his letter ( Jeremiah 29:2 ), after the captivity of Jeconiah, and immediately after. Moreover, something more than ignorance is needed to explain the author of Daniel confounding the going forth of a prophecy to rebuild Jerusalem with the destruction of it. If we take the date of the destruction of Jerusalem, b.c. 588, and add 483 years, we reach b.c. 105—a year conspicuous only for the death of John Hyrcanus. This is so obvious, that many devices have been tried to square matters. Ewald drops out seventy years. Professor Bevan justly characterizes this device as fantastic. Hitzig would make the first seven years run parallel with the first seven weeks of the sixty-two. Professor Bevan rejects this as "highly artificial, and scarcely reconcilable with the text." So, again, in company with Graf and Cornill, he takes refuge in the author's ignorance. If, again, we take b.c. 164, the date the critics wish to make the terminus ad quem , which is chosen because it is the year of the purification of the temple; if four hundred and eighty-three years are added to that date, we have b.c. 647—a date that falls within the reign of Manasseh. As, however, the point of time is the anointing of a holy one, and there is reference also to an anointed prince in this verse, a more plausible date would be b.c. 153, the year when Jonathan the brother of Judas the Maccabee assumed the high priesthood (1 Macc. 10:21); to this add 483, and 636 is the result—a date during Josiah's reign. Of course, the refuge is the ignorance of our author; he didn't know any better. The difficulty is to understand, if he was so ignorant as to what was so comparatively near his own time, how he was so well informed as to Babylonian affairs. The critics cannot make the author of Daniel at once exceptionally ignorant and exceptionally well-informed. If, however, we take Mr. Galloway's reading of the LXX . Version of this verse, we have "seven and seventy weeks" or five hundred and thirty-nine years. If we reckon these years from the decree of Cyrus, b.c. 538, we reach a.d. 2. Messiah the Prince ; "the anointed prince." Both priests and kings were anointed, as a sign of consecration to their office. Very rarely are priests referred to as "anointed," and never without a distinct statement that they are priests, whereas "the Lord's anointed" always applies to kings. Priests are sometimes called "rulers," נְגִיד ( negeed ), but only in relation to the temple. Never is princedom and the anointing combined in regard to priest. These ideas are connected in regard to Solomon ( 1 Chronicles 29:22 ). We do not deny that this title would apply to the later Maccabeans, like Alexander Jannseus, who was at once high priest and king. We also note, however, that it applies to our Lord, who claimed to be anointed "to preach good tidings" ( Luke 4:18 ). The street shall be built again. Rehob , "street," is really "broad place." Instead of the heaps of confused rubbish, the city was once more to be laid off in orderly streets and squares, so that Zechariah's prophecy might be fulfilled ( Zechariah 8:5 ), "The streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing." And the wall , even in troublous times. This was certainly fulfilled in the days of Nehemiah; one has only to read the Book of Nehemiah to see that. The word harootz , translated "wall," is of somewhat doubtful significance. It means ( Isaiah 10:22 ) "a determination." In Job 41:22 (30) it is translated "a threshing-wain," whereas in Proverbs 3:14 it means "fine gold." Furst would make it mean here "a marked-off quarter of a city." Gesenius makes it mean here "a ditch "—a view that Winer also holds. Cornill says most interpreters explain harootz , from the Targumic, as "ditches." It would seem that a bettor rendering would be "a palisade;" the ruling idea of all meanings, save the last, as pointed out by Winer, is "sharpness." "A ditch" or "a wall" conveys no suggestion of sharpness, but "a palisade" does. Not impossibly, before the wall was erected, the city was protected by "a palisade," and would certainly be set up in troublous times. It is to be observed that the events referred to in these two last clauses have no distinct temporal relation to the weeks. We might surmise that it referred to the time during which the city was being rebuilt—street and palisade—but we are destitute of informatiou which might enable us either to confirm or contradict that view. This period may be during the Maccabean struggle; we cannot tell.