believe, in the sequel, that some 30 days more than exactly 3 prophetic years were occupied by the disastrous occurrences under the reign of Antiochus; for in another passage, where the exact period is probably intended to be marked, the number of days is specifically given.

As this exact period stands particularly related to the general designation of 3 years, which we have already considered, it will facilitate our inquiries to take the exact designation next into consideration. In Dan. 12: 11 it is said: "From the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.” This period exceeds the 1260 days by one month or thirty days.

1

That the same persecuting power is adverted to here, as in Dan. 7:25. 11: 30-35, and 12: 7, no one, I apprehend, will doubt, who well considers the language. Antiochus "took away the daily sacrifice," as is here declared. This was in the latter part of May, B. C. 168. Profane history does not indeed give us the day; but it designates the year and the season. As we have already seen, about 3 years elapsed, after the temple worship was entirely broken up, before Judas Maccabaeus expurgated the temple and restored its rites. This terminus ad quem is not mentioned in the verse now before us; but still, it is plainly implied. The end of the 1290 days must of course be marked by some signal event, just as the commencement of them is so marked. And as the suppression of the temple-rites constitutes the definitive mark of the commencement, so it would seem plain, that the restoration of the same rites must mark the conclusion of the period which is designated. The "time of the end," i. e. the period at the close of which the persecutions of Antiochus would cease, is distinctly adverted to in 7:25. 11: 30-35, and 12: 7

The nature of the case, in the verse before us, shows that the same period is tacitly referred to in the words of the speaker,

It is needless, therefore, to repeat here what has already been set before the reader, viz. the history of the invasion and profanation of the temple by Antiochus. No doubt remains, that his march from Antioch to Egypt, for hostile purposes, was in the Spring of the year 168 B. C. He was delayed for some time on this march, by ambassadors from Egypt who met him in Cœlo-syria. Very naturally therefore we may conclude, that he arrived opposite Jerusalem in the latter part of May, and that there and then he commissioned Apollonius to rifle and profane the temple. The exact time from the period when this was done, down to the time of expurgation, seems to have been, and is designated as being, 1290 days. In other words; here is an exact specification of what was before designated in general terms, in Dan. 7: 25 and 12: 7, i. e. by the words "time, times, and an half."

Immediately connected with the passage last examined, and standing in immediate succession, is another passage in Dan. 12: 12, which runs thus: "Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the one thousand three hundred and thirtyfive days." The place which this passage occupies, shows that the terminus a quo, or period from which the days designated are to be reckoned, is the same as that to which reference is made in the preceding verse. This, as we have already seen, is the period when Antiochus, by his military agent Apollonius, took possession of Jerusalem and put a stop to the temple-worship there. The author of the first book of Maccabees, who is allowed by all to deserve credit as a historian, after describing the capture of Jerusalem by the agent of Antiochus, (in the year 145 of the era of the Seleucidae=168 B. C.), and setting be

fore the reader the wide-spread devastation which ensued, adds, respecting the invaders: "They shed innocent blood around the sanctuary, and defiled the holy place; and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fled away; .... the sanctuary thereof was made desolate; her feasts were turned into mourning, her sabbaths into a reproach, and her honour into disgrace;" 1 Macc. 1: 37-39. To the period when this state of things commenced we must look, then, in order to find the date from which the 1335 days are to be reckoned. Supposing now that Apollonius captured Jerusalem in the latter part of May, B. C. 168, the 1335 days would expire about the middle of Feb. in the year B. C. 164. Did any event take place at this period, which would naturally call forth the congratulations of the prophet, as addressed in the text before us to the Jewish people?

History enables us readily to answer this question. Late in the year 165 B. C., or at least very early in the year 164 B. C., Antiochus Epiphanes, learning that there were insurrections and great disturbances in Armenia and Persia, hastened thither with a portion of his armies, while the other portion was commissioned against Palestine. He was victorious for a time; but being led by cupidity to seek for the treasures that were laid up in the temple of the Persian Diana at Elymais, he undertook to rifle them. The inhabitants of the place, however, rose en masse and drove him out of the city; after which he fled to Ecbatana. There he heard of the total discomfiture by Judas Maccabaeus of his troops in Palestine, which were led on by Nicanor and Timotheus. In the rage occasioned by this disappointment, he uttered the most horrid blasphemies against the God of the Jews, and threatened to make Jerusalem the burying-place of the nation. Immediately he directed his course toward Judea; and designing to pass through Babylon, he made all possible haste in his

journey. In the mean time he had a fall from his chariot, which injured him; and soon after, being seized with a mortal sickness in his bowels, (probably the cholera), he died at Tabae, in the mountainous country, near the confines of Babylonia and Persia. Report stated, even in ancient times, that Antiochus was greatly distressed on his death-bed by the sacrileges which he had committed.

Thus perished the most bitter and bloody enemy which ever rose up against the Jewish nation and their worship. By following the series of events it is easy to see, that his death took place sometime in February of the year 16 B. C. Assuming that the commencement or terminus a quo of the 1335 days is the same as that of the 1290 days (noted on p. 89 et seq.), it is plain that they terminate at the period when the death of Antiochus is said to have taken place. "It was long before the commencement of the Spring," says Froelich in his excellent work before quoted, "that Antiochus passed the Euphrates and made his attack upon Elymais” (p. 52); so that no more probable time can be fixed upon for his death than at the expiration of the 1335 days, i. e. some time in February of 164 B. C. No wonder that the angel pronounced those of the pious and believing Jews to be blessed, who lived to see such a day of deliverance. The great enemy of their nation and their God had fallen; Judas Maccabaeus had become every where victorious; the sanctuary was now cleansed of its pollution, and pure worship was restored; the Hebrews, moreover, had every prospect of independence and happiness. In fact, their own kings reigned over them for a long time after this; so that the death of Antiochus was a most important means of securing both civil and religious liberty.

How perfectly natural such an explanation is, and how consonant with the spirit of the Hebrews, on like occa

sions, any one may see who will consult Isaiah and John. When the king of Babylon, the great enemy of the Jews, falls, "the whole earth breaks forth into singing, the fir trees and the cedars of Lebanon exult over him, Is. 14: 7, 8. When spiritual Babylon, i. e. persecuting Rome, falls, John calls upon "heaven and holy apostles and prophets to rejoice over her, because God has avenged them on her," Rev. 19: 20. Can it be any matter of wonder, then, that Daniel congratulates those who should survive Antiochus Epiphanes, and calls them blessed, i. e. happy, when they shall have lived to see the day in which liberty and peace, civil and religious, are once more secure from the assaults of such an unrelenting tyrant?

One, and only one, more period in the book of Daniel claims our present attention. This is in chap. VIII. 14. In the vision seen by Daniel, as related in this chapter, one angel inquires of another, 'How long the sanctuary and the host are given to be trodden under foot,' v. 13. The answer is: "To two thousand three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed," v. 14.

The time itself here designated has been matter of controversy; and consequently, the subject needs some remarks.

The words in our version: Unto two thousand and three hundred days, are, in the original Hebrew, expressed in this manner : "Unto evening-morning two thousand three hundred." The doubt has fallen upon evening

morning; for some have understood it as meaning the evening and morning, i. e. the constant sacrifice offered morning and evening, in such a way that each of these is to be separately included in the number 2300; so that, in fact, only 1150 days are in reality designated. What increases the difficulty of deciding is, that exactly such a phraseology no where else occurs in the holy Scrip