at the time, himself a chief minister of the state, and whose celebrity, even when much younger, was so great, that his elder contemporary, Ezekiel, ranked him with Noah and Job. He might then have seemed more to resemble Joseph, having been raised from captivity to dignity and authority, by interpreting a dream of the king; but Daniel's predictions were not (like Joseph's) limited to the political economy of a single nation. From the first he foretold the revolutions of successive empires; and he so accurately predicted their progress, that ancient opponents of divine revelation had no other refuge from conviction, than an assumption that the visions of Daniel must have been written after the events which they described had transpired. Any body, of course, can say this; but, unless historical proof can be adduced, that the books were written so much later than their internal and external evidence admit them to have been, the objector only démonstrates that he has nothing else to say..

The vision, however, which Daniel dates at the commencement of Darius's reign, having usually been understood by Jews and Christians to refer to the expected kingdom of the Messiah, precluded in that view the supposition of its being written after the event. Christ himself quoted the prophecy, and it is otherwise well known to have formed part of the sacred writings of the Jews in his time. According to Josephus's statement, the book of Daniel must then have constituted one of the thirteen books which they called the Prophets; although the Jews have since shifted it to the third class, called Scriptures, or Writings, and with it several other books, seemingly as an excuse for their degradation of this. They have even deprived Daniel of the title of prophet, on the plea that he resided in a royal palace. Should it be found that in some respects they have probably also mutilated his writings, it would certainly not be difficult to assign motives for such misconduct. To no Scripture prophecy have Christian commentators seemed to feel themselves necessitated to give such forced interpretations, as to that of the period that was to intervene "from the going forth of the commandment to restore (or return) and to build Jerusalem," to "the sacrifice and oblation ceasing," and "the overspreading of abominations making desolate." Daniel ix. 25, 27. The last expressions were cited by our Lord as predictive of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans (Matt. xxiv. 15; Mark xiii. 14); and the Evangelists copy the very words of the Septuagint translation of Daniel, adding also an emphatical call upon the attention of their readers. No one would probably ever have doubted that the prophetical term began with Cyrus's proclamation to the captive Jews, and ended with the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, but that it was evidently impossible to reduce

the interval to seventy weeks, or 490 years; Cyrus's proclamation having preceded the Christian era 536 years, and Jerusalem being destroyed 70 years later. The whole period, therefore, evidently comprizes 605 years, or 115 above seventy weeks of years.

This discrepancy probably disinclined both Bishop Newton and Sir Isaac from touching on this prophecy. Less cautious, or less scrupulous interpreters, have endeavoured to accommodate its commencement to the commission which was given to Ezra, B. C. 458, and its close to the crucifixion of Christ, which has commonly (but erroneously) been dated A. D. 33. Sir John Marsham, with no better judgment, but with greater ingenuity, attempted to identify the close of the prophecy with the profanation of the temple by Antiochus Epiphanes, B. Č. 168, sixty-two weeks and a half from the commencement of the captivity; the first seven weeks being separately computed by him backward from the close of the captivity to a juncture which the author failed either to establish, or (we think) clearly to define. Such an interpretation, however, had it been embarrassed with much greater difficulties, would still have been eagerly seized by infidels, for a pretence to assert that this prophecy also was fabricated subsequent to the predicted events.

The late Bishop Watson, in his candid and masterly reply to Paine's Age of Reason, laid a greater stress on Daniel's prophecy of weeks, than the discordant modes in which it had been interpreted could bear. An avowed atheist, calling himself Samuel Francis, M. D., professed to refute the Bishop; but appears to have mostly relied upon the efficacy of impiety, insolence, ribaldry, and groundless assertions. He was evidently very ignorant of Scripture; but happening to have met with Sir John Marsham's interpretation of this prophecy (which at the same time he did not comprehend), he brought it triumphantly forward, in answer to a challenge which the Bishop had too confidently given, and had too strongly expressed. Marsham's hypothesis, indeed, is no more tenable than any of those which it was designed to subvert: but the cause of truth is dishonoured when arguments for its support are no stronger than those which are brought against it.

Mr. Overton has copied the whole of Dr. Francis's blasphemous declamation on this subject, for what purpose we cannot easily conceive. He seems to concur in Marsham's interpretation; but instead of admitting, as he did, a competition between Cyrus and Zerubbabel for the honours of the Messiahship, he claims these wholly for the latter, who is, indeed, universally the hero of his tale. Averse from leaving the discussion in such hands, and under such circumstances, yet hopeless of doing jus

tice to it in an Article already so much protracted, we shall briefly submit to the consideration of our readers such remarks as may tend to assist their mature decision. Daniel's anxiety about the term of the captivity at Babylon, was probably excited by the unexpected revolution in its government that had recently occurred. Cyrus commanded the Median and Persian army; and Daniel knew that a person of that name was predicted to be the liberator of the Jews; but he also knew that seventy years had been appointed for their captivity, of which but forty-five had then elapsed. In answer to his prayers, it was ascertained not only that the promised decree would go forth at its season for rebuilding Jerusalem, but that the holy city should also be preserved to a great extent of time, and not be destroyed again till the expected Messiah should have come to establish his everlasting kingdom, according to other prophecies of Daniel. It was unnecessary, and would have been improper, that the precise dates of these events should be clearly understood previous to their accomplishment. Ambiguity in the manner of predicting them might, for obvious reasons, be indispensable. The Hebrew numbers, as they now stand, admit of widely different constructions.-The original term, for weeks, is "sevens;" and it likewise denotes "seventy." seventy." Hence " seven weeks and three score and two weeks" (verse 25), may be literally translated, seven and seventy sevens, sixty and two." Seventy-seven weeks of years, or 539, extended from the date of Cyrus's decree for rebuilding Jerusalem, to the third year of the Christian era; so that our Lord was born within the last of the seventy-seven weeks; and to have previously indicated the date of his birth with more precision, must evidently have augmented the dangers of his infancy. This sufficiently accounts for the computation of that interval by sevens, instead of single years. It is evident that an expectation of the Messiah's birth nearly at that juncture extensively prevailed and unless it arose from such an interpretation of this prophecy, it can only be accounted for, as in Simeon's case, by immediate revelation; for the common mode of interpretation has no reference whatever to the date of the birth of Christ. The vulgar translation of verse 26, "and after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off," &c., is neither literal nor reconcileable with fact; our Lord having assigned the destruction of Jerusalem (not his own death) to the middle of a week following the sixty-two. The Hebrew is verbatim, "and after the sevens, sixty and two," &c. The definite article before "sevens" (which our translators have improperly suppressed) refers to the former term that had been reckoned by vens," in distinction from the latter term, which is not so computed (no occasion then remaining to reckon by sevens ;)

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but by integral numbers. From the third year of our era, to the beginning of the Jewish war, was sixty-two years; the war occupied full seven years, about the middle of which our Lord's prediction was fulfilled, by the desolation of Jerusalem; and till then the daily oblation and sacrifice never ceased to be offered. The prophetical numbers thus translated, precisely fill up the interval to that catastrophe, from the date of Cyrus's decree, or 605 full years: for 539 +62 + 4 = 605. The only material objection to this interpretation, of which we are aware, may arise from verse 24, where " seventy weeks” (or seven sevens," or "seventy seventy") have been commonly supposed to denote the whole period; and that this was afterwards distributed into three subdivisions of seven weeks, sixty-two weeks, and one week. But all that is connected with the " seventy sevens" may be understood of the Messiah's advent; and if the words were originally "seventy and seven sevens, so as to extend to that epoch, an omission of the word seven," in transcribing it three times together, might easily be accounted for, whether inadvertently or intentionally. A copyist who construed the numbers in verse 25 in the customary manner, might omit "and seven," verse 24, as seeming to be a necessary correction: neither does it appear to us unlikely that a Jewish transcriber, after the destruction of Jerusalem, might do the same purposely, to deprive the Gospel of so clear a testimony to its truth. If the text had not in some measure, and by some means, been corrupted, it seems inconceivable that it should to this time have remained a matter of controversy. Its present equivocal state precludes us from hoping that it will be effectual to the conviction of infidels; but if the solution that we have suggested affords satisfaction to impartial inquirers after truth, our aim and expectation will be attained.

This transient and desultory survey, which alone it has been practicable for us to take of the general subject, may suffice, perhaps, to assure the Christian reader that he needs not to be alarmed at any attempt of infidels to discredit the chronology of the Bible. They appear, indeed, themselves to have regarded the experiment as a forlorn hope; and although conducted by their veteran champion, who, from a life almost wholly occupied with historical discussion, and in visiting oriental countries, ought to have acquired incomparably better information than he has displayed in the volumes before us, it has egregiously and utterly failed. Amidst all his slander of the Bible, and his labour to derange and perplex its dates, he was repeatedly constrained to refer to them, as to those alone, in the periods under his investigation, on which any rational reliance could be placed. He began with heavy complaints, that only believers in Chris

tianity, and mostly ecclesiastics, had written on ancient chronology: but if so, what was most naturally to be inferred, but that Christians knew it to be vantage ground, and that their adversaries also were conscious of its being so. If the fact needed further demonstration, Volney's complete failure has supplied it. It appears even doubtful whether ecclesiastical and Christian chronologers, with few exceptions beside Sir Isaac Newton, have not generally erred in paying undue deference to existing obscure and questionable fragments of profane history. Hence some of them have been tempted, with hardly a shadow of argument, to prefer the systematic exaggerations of the Septuagint to the simplicity of the Hebrew Bible. Dr. Hales's learned and laborious Analysis of Chronology has suffered greatly from such a prepossession. He does not seem, when he entered on his voluminous work, to have been aware how much he was sacrificing, and how little it was possible for him to gain.

From creation to the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, the Bible affords an unbroken chain of chronology, either by the series of successive dates, by the totals of intervals, or by prophetical periods, and sometimes by all these conjointly; at times so checked or guarded as nearly to preclude the possibility of irretrievable error; at other times so open to correction from unexceptionable testimony, as to render only a moderate dis"crimination requisite to entire satisfaction. Amidst the dates of above 4000 years, not more than three or four that affect the chain of chronology, remain questionable. How is this to be accounted for? No other known nation of antiquity has transmitted a satisfactory chronological series even so high as eight centuries before our era. Whatever broken parts of earlier periods of apparent authenticity remain, they can only be adjusted by assistance of the Hebrew chronology. We do not ask oppugners of the Bible to admit this to be miraculous:

Nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus:

but ought they to withhold the character of truth from that which has thus stood the test of all past revolutions and lapses of time? Volney himself could not deny it in the main. He meanly resorted to a gratuitous assumption that the Pentateuch, instead of being discovered by Hilkiah, in Josiah's reign, when it had been concealed (probably from the time of Manasseh's apostacy), was then first compiled by him: yet he was constrained to admit that, if so, Hilkiah must have compiled it from earlier documents. The pretence is destitute of all colour of proof, and is ridiculous to an extreme; but were it credible, it would not affect the authenticity of the original documents, whether com