xxxi. 20, where "a pleasant child" is "a son of caresses"; and the

"_amor et deliciæ generis humani_" applied to Titus; and the names David, Jedidiah, "beloved of Jehovah." The LXX. render the word ἐλεεινός, "an object of pity."

[604] Daniel used _Shabuîm_ for weeks, not _Shabuôth_.

[605] In ver. 24 the _Q'rî_ and _Kethîbh_ vary, as do also the versions.

[606] For _charoots_, "moat" (Ewald), the A.V. has "wall," and in the marg. "breach" or "ditch." The word occurs for "ditches" in the Talmud. The text of the verse is uncertain.

[607] Perhaps because neither Jason nor Menelaus (being apostate) were regarded as genuine successors of Onias III.

[608] Numb. xiv. 34; Lev. xxvi. 34; Ezek. iv. 6.

[609] Comp. Jer. xxxii. 11, 44.

[610] See Isa. xlvi. 3, li. 5, liii. 11; Jer. xxiii. 6, etc.

[611] For the _anointing_ of the altar see Exod. xxix. 36, xl. 10; Lev. viii. 11; Numb. vii. 1. It would make no difference in the _usus loquendi_ if neither Zerubbabel's nor Judas's altar was _actually_ anointed.

[612] It is only used thirteen times of the _Debhîr_, or Holiest Place.

[613] 1 Macc. iv. 54.

[614] Theodot., ἕως χριστοῦ ἡγουμένου.

[615] Saadia the Gaon, Rashi, Von Lengerke, Hitzig, Schürer, Cornill.

[616] Hag. i. 1; Zech. iii. 1; Ezra iii. 2. Comp. Ecclus. xlv. 24; Jos., _Antt._, XII. iv. 2, προστάτης; and see Bevan, p. 156.

[617] We see from Zech. i. 12, ii. 4, that even in the second year of Darius Hystaspis Jerusalem had neither walls nor gates; and even in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the wall was still broken down and the gates burnt (Neh. i. 3).

[618] LXX., ἀποσταθήσεται χρίσμα καὶ οὐκ ἔσται; Theodot., ἐξολεθρευθήσεται χρίσμα καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν αὐτῷ; Aquil., ἐξ. ἠλειμμένος καὶ οὐχ ὑπάρξει αὐτῷ.

[619] See xi. 22. Von Lengerke, however, and others refer it to Seleucus Philopator, murdered by Heliodorus (B.C. 175).

[620] Syr. Aquil., οὐχ ὑπάρξει αὐτῷ; Theodot., καὶ οὔκ ἐστιν ἐν αῦτῳ; LXX., καὶ οὐκ ἔσται; Vulg., "Et non erit ejus populus qui eum negaturus est." The A.V. "and not for himself" is untenable. It would have been לוֹ וְלֹא. See Pusey, p. 182, _n._

[621] Steudel, Hofmann. So too Cornill, p. 10: "Ein frommer Jude das Hoher Priesterthum mit Onias für erloschen ansah."

[622] Comp. לו ואין and חניו (Joël, _Notizen_, p. 21).

[623] Jos., _Antt._, XII. v. 4; 1 Macc. i. 29-40.

[624] Here again the meaning is uncertain; and Grätz, altering the reading, thinks that it should be, "He shall abolish the covenant [with God] for the many"; or, "shall cause the many to transgress the covenant."

[625] Dan. ix. 27. Heb., _Zebach oo-minchah_, "the bloody and unbloody offering."

[626] The special allusion, whatever it may precisely mean, is found under three different designations: (i) In viii. 13 it is called _happeshang shomeem_; Gk., ἡ ἁμαρτία ἐρημώσεως; Vulg., _peccatum desolationis_. (ii) In ix. 27 (comp. ix. 31) it is _shiqqootsîm m'shomeem_; Gk., βδέλυγμα τῆς ἐρημώσεως; Vulg., _abominatio desolationis_. (iii) In xii. 11 it is _shiqqoots shomeem_; Gk., τὸ βδέλυγμα ἐρημώσεως; Vulg., _abominatio in desolationem_. Some traditional fact must (as Dr. Joël says) have underlain the rendering "_of desolation_" for "_of the desolator_." In xi. 31 Theodotion has ἠφανισμένων, "of things done away with," for ἐρημωσέων. The expression with which the New Testament has made us so familiar is found also in 1 Macc. i. 51 (comp. 1 Macc. vi. 7): "they built _the abomination of desolation_ upon the altar." There "the abomination" seems clearly to mean a smaller altar for heathen sacrifice to Zeus, built on the great altar of burnt offering. Perhaps the writer of Daniel took the word _shomeem_, "desolation," as a further definition of _shiqqoots_, "abomination," from popular speech; and it may have involved a reference to Lev. xxvi. 15-31: "If ye shall despise My statutes ... I will even appoint over you terror ... and I will make your cities waste, _and appoint your sanctuaries unto desolation_." The old Jewish exegetes referred the prophecy to Antiochus Epiphanes; Josephus and later writers applied it to the Romans. Old Christian expositors regarded it as Messianic; but even Jerome records _nine_ different views of commentators, many of them involving the grossest historic errors and absurdities. Of Post-Reformation expositors down to the present century scarcely two agree in their interpretations. At the present day modern critics of any weight almost unanimously regard these chapters, in their primary significance, as _vaticinia ex eventu_, as some older Jewish and Christian exegetes had already done. Hitzig sarcastically says that the exegetes have here fallen into all sorts of _shiqqootsîm_ themselves.

[627] Comp. πτερύγιον (Matt. iv. 5).

[628] Kuenen, _Hist. Crit. Onderzook._, ii. 472.

[629] Any one who thinks the inquiry likely to lead to any better results than those here indicated has only to wade through Zöckler's comment in Lange's _Bibelwerk_ ("Ezekiel and Daniel," i. 186-221). It is hard to conceive any reading more intolerably wearisome; and at the close it leaves the reader in a state of more hopeless confusion than before. The discussion also occupies many pages of Pusey (pp. 162-231); but neither in his hypothesis nor any other are the dates exact. He can only say, "It were not of any account if we could not interpret these minor details. _De minimis non curat lex._" On the view that the seventy weeks were to end with the advent of Christ we ask: (1) Why do no two Christian interpreters agree about the interpretation? (2) Why did not the Apostles and Evangelists refer to so decisive an evidence?

[630] On this, however, we may remark with Cornill, "Eine Apokalypse, deren ἀποκαλύψεις unenthülbar sind, wäre ein _nonsens_, eine _contradictio in adjecto_" (_Die Siebzig Jahrwochen_, p. 3). The indication was obviously _meant_ to be understood, and to the contemporaries of the writer, familiar with the minuter facts of the day, it probably was perfectly clear.

[631] Luke ii. 25, 26, 38; Matt. xxiv. 15. Comp. 2 Thess. ii.; Jos., _Antt._, X. xxii. 7.

[632] "Scio de hac quæstione ab eruditissimis viris varie disputatum _et unumquemque pro captu ingenii sui dixisse quod senserat_" (Jer. _in Dan._, ix.). In other words, there was not only no received interpretation in St. Jerome's day, but the comments of the Fathers were even then a chaos of arbitrary guesses.

[633] Pusey makes out a table of the divergent interpretation of the commentators, whom, in his usual ecclesiastical fashion, he charitably classes together as "unbelievers," from Corrodi and Eichhorn down to Herzfeld. But quite as striking a table of divergencies might be drawn up of "orthodox" commentators.

[634] Thus Eusebius, without a shadow of any pretence at argument makes the _last week_ mean _seventy years_! (_Dem. Evan._, viii.).

[635] Jost (_Gesch. d. Judenthums_, i. 99) contents himself with speaking of "die Liebe zu prophetischer Auffassung der Vergangenheit, mit möglichst genauen Zahlenagaben, befriedigt, _die uns leider nicht mehr verständlich erscheinen_."

[636] In Clem. Alex., _Strom._, i. 21.

[637] Cornill, p. 14; Bevan, p. 54.

[638] Schürer, _Hist. of Jewish People_, iii. 53, 54 (E. Tr.). This is also the view of Graf, Nöldeke, Cornill, and many others. In any case we must not be misled into an impossible style of exegesis of which Bleck says that "bei ihr alles möglich ist und alles für erlaubt gilt."