The prophecy in the eleventh chapter, down to the conclusion of the thirtieth verse, is allowed, almost universally, as we have just seen, to have a continuous reference to closely-successive events, in the histories of the Persian, Macedonian, Syrian, and Egyptian Kings, down to the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. According to Bishop Newton, the thirtieth and several preceding verses refer to that tyrant.* In this part of the prophecy and its fulfilment, there is no remarkable void; there is no great series of events, affecting the Jewish people, whose condition was deeply influenced by the transactions of these kings, passed over by the Prophet in silence. The leading outlines of the wars, conquests, and revolutions of the Persian, Macedonian, Græco-Syrian, and Græco-Egyptian kingdoms, as involving the fate of the Jews, are laid down continuously by Daniel, without any great breach in them. But, according to the above scheme of interpretation of Bishop Newton, the Prophet, after giving a circumstantial prediction of part of the acts of Antiochus Epiphanes, makes a great leap away to the Romans, and comes suddenly to the time of Vespasian and Titus ;thus entirely passing over many great and deeply-interesting events in history, both sacred and profane. admitting this great breach in the continuity of the events, to which he explains Daniel as referring, Bishop Newton adopts, and rests his explanations upon, some criticisms and translations of Daniel's text, by Sir Isaac Newton, which, we shall afterwards shew, are erroneous; being

In

* Dissert. XVI.

rendered inadmissible by the grammatical structure of the text itself; and, more especially, being rendered inadmissible, because they are at variance with our Saviour's express reference to, and illustration of, the concluding part of this last vision and prophecy of Daniel. The reference to this prophecy, and illustration of the concluding part of it, by our Saviour, have been, since the time of Jerome at least, very strangely overlooked; and some remarkable terms in the prophecy itself, which obviously limit and circumscribe the time within which we are to look for its complete fulfilment, have been equally unattended to. We trust to be able to demonstrate, that the illustration of Christ, and the plain terms of Daniel, by so limiting the time for the fulfilment, furnish us with a key for the opening up of every thing that has hitherto been deemed mysterious in the prophecy, and has afforded room for such a variety of conflicting opinions.

We propose to shew, in what follows, that the part of the prophecy, from the thirty-first to the thirty-fifth verse of the eleventh chapter, both inclusive, was fulfilled in Antiochus Epiphanes, the Maccabees, and the Asmonean Priests and Kings who succeeded them; and thus, here to restore, in part, the interpretation of Porphyry and Grotius;—that the part, from the beginning of the thirty-sixth verse to the end of the eleventh chapter, was fulfilled in Herod the Great, and in the wars between Mark Antony and Cleopatra, on the one hand, and Augustus Cæsar, on the other, which took place during that tyrant's reign in Judea, and which the Prophet introduces parenthetically, in the prediction of his most singular history and actions ;-and that the part in the twelfth

chapter was fulfilled in the Advent of Christ,-in the atonement he made for the sins of men,-in his Apostles enlightening the world with the most sublime and cheering doctrines, both by their preaching and writings, and disseminating Divine knowledge and the good tidings of salvation, among all nations,--in the wilful ignorance and irreclaimable wickedness of the unbelieving and impenitent Jews,-in the warning that Christ gave to his disciples of the approaching destruction of that sinful nation, by which they were enabled to observe the signs that preceded it,— and, lastly, in the capture and demolition of the city Jerusalem, after a war of forty-four and a half months' duration, from the time of its first breaking out, and in the utter overthrow of the national power of the Jews, and their complete dispersion, by the Roman army under Titus.

In this train of history, we believe, we shall be able to prove, that all the events and circumstances predicted by the Prophet, which are very numerous, and crowded upon each other, and, at the same time, all of a momentous kind, actually took place in exact agreement with his terms. It will be seen at first view, by every reader, that one high probability of the correctness of this whole scheme of interpretation exists in this,-that, by adopting it, we go on continuously with the acknowledged order of history, and follow its unbroken stream of events, in illustrating the latter portion of the prophecy, as all the commentators do, in illustrating the earlier portion of it, down to the time of Epiphanes. This circumstance will, we have little doubt, excite attention to the following details of an illustration, the justness of which is thus per

ceived to possess a high probability, upon the first announcement of its purpose.

In the part of the prophecy under consideration, there occur, in the original, some difficult terms, that have been the subject of criticism, into the true meaning of which it is necessary we should inquire. We think our common English translation does not, in several instances, give the right meaning; and there runs through it, from the beginning to the end of the passage, an inconsistency with itself, in translating the Hebrew connective particle especially, and also some of the prepositions, that obscures the simplicity of the text, and, instead of presenting to us the clauses of the Prophet's language as merely successive to each other, exhibits the sense expressed in many of them, as conditional on, or exceptive of, what goes immediately before; while no condition or exception of the kind is necessarily implied in the connective term, or urged upon us by the sense of the conjoined clauses. To relieve the passage from the confusion introduced into our common translation by this inconsistency, we shall first set down, in parallel columns, the common English version and the translation we approve of; and afterwards shew the critical reasons for the changes we propose.

DANIEL XI. 31.

COMMON TRANSLATION. 31. And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate.

DANIEL XI, 31.

PROPOSED TRANSLATION.

31. And arms, from him, shall stand, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and they shall cause the daily sacrifice to be taken away, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate.