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quence of their conversion to Christianity. And as the Scriptures abound with prophecies respecting the prosperity of the Jews in the latter days; and their reinstatement in the land of promise, it is very probable that what is meant by the Othmans standing up against the Prince of princes is, their opposition to the will of God in the return of the Jews to their

own land. What makes this opinion extremely probable is, that the land of promise forms now an integral part of the Othman empire; and, consequently, the Jews can never come again into the possession of Judea till the Turks be previously dispossessed of it. But all human power, however well organized, must fail when it acts against the will of Christ, who is the Prince of princes; therefore it is no wonder the horn will be broken, or the Othman empire subverted. But the horn is to "be broken without hand." That is, " he shall not die the common death of empires by the hands of men, but shall be destroyed by a sudden stroke from heaHe lifts up his hand against the Prince of princes; therefore by the Prince of princes, shall he be consumed, without the instrumentality of human power.

ven."

*The standing up of the horn against the Prince of princes may possibly be the same with the armament of Gog and Magog, an account of which is given in the 38th and 39th chapters of Ezekiel. That both prophecies remain yet to be accomplished there can be no reasonable doubt. Bishop Newton, Dr. Gill, and other eminent divines, suppose the Turks to be intended by Gog and Magog; and it is evident that the invasion of Gog will

After Daniel had seen the vision of the ram, hegoat, and little horn, he is informed of the 2300 days. "Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint which spake, How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot? And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed." It has been already shewn that the sanctuary was cast down by the Othmans;

not take place till after the return of the Jews into Palestine, as appears in the following verse: "After many days thou shalt be visited IN THE LATTER YEARS thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them." That the invasion of Gog can refer to no event prior to the Christian dispensation, is manifest from the following interrogation of Jehovah, "Art thou he of whom I have spoken IN OLD TIME by my servants the prophets of Israel, which prophesied in those days MANY YEARS, that I would bring thee against them?" The end of Gog, as well as of the horn, or Othman empire, will be by a miraculous dispensation of Divine vengeance: "And I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains, saith the Lord God: every man's sword shall be against his brother. And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire and brimstone. Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations; and they shall know that I am the Lord." chap. xxxviii. 21–23.

and as their empire still exists, the sanctuary is not yet cleansed, that is to say, the Mohammedan superstition still pollutes the eastern world, where the religion of Christ once flourished. It necessárily follows, from what has been said, that the 2300 days are not yet terminated; for the angel expressly says, that at their conclusion the sanctuary shall be cleansed. The great difficulty of this passage is to determine the point of time when the 2300 days commenced. Bishop Newton considers the common English translation erroneous. He says that "in the original there is no such word as concerning; and Mr. Lowth (he adds) rightly observes, that the words may be rendered more agreeably to the Hebrew thus: For how long a time shall the vision last, the daily sacrifice be taken away, and the transgression of desolation continue, &c.?' After the same manner the question is translated by the Seventy, and in the Arabic version, and in the Vulgar Latin."* But I totally dissent from the Bishop in this opinion, and con

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* The Septuagint translation is as follows: "Ews TáTE ý opaσIS ζήσεται ἡ θυσία ἡ ἀρθεῖσα, καὶ ἡ ἁμαρτία ἐρημώσεως ἡ δοθεῖσα, καὶ τὸ ἅγιον καὶ ἡ δύναμις συμπατηθήσεται. “ How long shall the vision stand, the sacrifice be taken away, the transgression of desolation continue, and the sanctuary and host be trodden under foot." The Vulgate is Usquequo visio et juge sacrificium, et peccatum desolationis quæ facta est, et sanctuarium et fortitudo conculcabitur? "How long shall be the vision and the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of the desolation which was made, that both the sanctuary and the host shall be trodden under foot?"

sider the common translation much more correct than the Septuagint, or the Arabic and Vulgate

החזון התמיד The original words are

versions. which must mean "the vision of the daily sacrifice;" a construction which the very words demand, for the Septuagint, &c. could not be correct, unless there was a placed before 7, the English of which would then be, How long shall be the vision AND the daily sacrifice, &c. But the tautology evident in the Septuagint, Arabic, and Vulgate versions of this passage is a proof that they do not contain the sense of the Hebrew text; for the daily sacrifice, and the casting down of the sanctuary, certainly formed part of Daniel's vision; and, consequently, in the first clause, "How long shall the vision last?" must be contained all that can be implied in the latter part of the interrogation. In the Hebrew what is translated 2300 days is literally 2300 evenings and mornings; but as the evening and morning is "in Hebrew the notation of time for a day," I think 2300+ days must be meant,

*

ער ערב בקר אלפים So I would translate the Hebrew words *

s which is literally two thousand and three hundred evening-morning, the Hebrew numeral words being joined with nouns in the singular number. These words are also in the singular number in the 26th verse, where it is said by the angel, that "the vision of the evening and the morning, which was told, is true."

+ Several copies of the Septuagint read 2400 days (μepal δισχιλιαὶ καὶ τετρακόσιαι;) but this reading is evidently spurious,

which signify as many years,* according to the mode of interpretation already adopted in the explanation of the 1260 days of the Woman's residence in the wilderness, and of the forty-two months of the Beast's continuance. From this it follows that the vision of the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot, must continue 2300 years. If this be a correct view of the prophecy, it is, hence, evident that the commencement of the 2300 days cannot be so early as the time of the vision, as more than these years have already elapsed since the third year of the reign of Belshazzar. There is also considerable evidence in the supposition that the 2300 years did not commence before the time of Alexander the Great; for in the account of the ram with two horns there is nothing

as several of the best and oldest manuscripts of the Septuagint have τριακόσιαι instead of τετρακόσιαι. One of the manuscripts alluded to is the Codex Alexandrinus, supposed to have been written so early as the fourth or fifth century. In the Complutensian Polyglott printed at Alcala in 1517, and in the Antwerp Polyglott printed in 1570, it is plaxácial. Theodoret, "who flourished in the fourth century, read so in his copy of the Septuagint. The various reading of 2200 days, which Jerome says existed in some manuscripts in his time, merits no attention as only two of these manuscripts have come down to us. There is no various reading of this passage in the Hebrew text, which appears to me decisive in favour of the common reading.

* See Bishop Newton's Dissertation on the Prophecies in

loc.

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