Dr. Maitland’s famous objection, that in Ezekiel the case is one of representing, whereas in Daniel and the Apocalypse it is one of interpreting, has already been met in a previous part of this Preface. The objection of Bishop Horsley is not very grave—namely, that because the day of temptation in the wilderness was forty years, and one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day, we might as well conclude that a day is forty years or a thousand years, as that it represents but one year. So might we, indeed, if a number of passages could be produced in which a day has such significancy, and another set of passages could be produced to which the first set furnish a key that seems exactly to answer. In the meantime, we must recognize the difference between what is merely figurative language, and therefore loose and shifting, and the language of symbol.
But the case of Isaiah[32] has been supposed to neutralize any argument built upon that of Ezekiel: “The Lord spake by Isaiah, go and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and put off thy shoe from thy foot. And he did so, walking naked and barefoot. And the Lord said, Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three years, for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia, so shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners.” Now, it is argued that here “three years correspond to three years, not three days to three years. It is arbitrary to suppose with Lowth that the original reading was three days, or to supply three days, with Vitringa.The text must stand as it is.”[33] But the interpretation of Lowth and Vitringa is not the only mode in which we may escape from the difficulty, as this learned writer seems to hint. We are not shut up to conjectural emendations. The “three years” in the third verse may be connected with what follows, as well as with what goes before; then the verse will run, “Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot; a three years’ sign and wonder,” which relieves us entirely from the supposition that Isaiah walked three years barefoot, and, by consequence, from the objection that is founded on it. All that is intimated is, that in some way or other (the passage does not say how) the prophet was a three years’ sign—a sign, that is, of a calamity that would last during that time, or commence from that time.In proof of the justice of this arrangement, it may be noticed that the Masoretic interpunction throws the three years into the second clause; that the Septuagint gives both solutions, by repeating τρία ἔτη;[34] and that in a period of such alarm, when Ashdod was taken and the Assyrian pressing on them, it is not likely the symbolical representation would be continued so long.Indeed, this opinion seems to meet with little or no countenance.[35] The opinion that seems generally to prevail is, that Isaiah indicated the three years’ captivity either by exhibiting himself in the manner described in the text for three days, which would intimate three years, or by appearing in this manner once only, and at the same time verbally declaring his design in so doing.
We come next to what is confessedly a main pillar of the Year-day theory, the prophecy of the seventy weeks in Daniel.[36] “Seventy weeks are determinedupon thy people, and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy. Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto Messiah the prince, &c.” Now, the all but universal agreement that this prophecy was fulfilled in a period of 490 years, usually reckoned from the 7th of Artaxerxes, and extending to A.D. 33, the year in which Christ died, seems at once to settle the question regarding the mode of computation.There are, indeed, those[37] who maintain that this prediction has yet to be fulfilled, and they profess to look for its fulfilment in seventy weeks of days; but the number holding this opinion is exceedingly small. The great mass of writers, even of those who contend for literal times, reject it as quite untenable. This mode of cutting the knot, however, indicates the difficulty that is felt by some “Day-dayists” in reconciling the passage with their theory, and their dissatisfaction with the more usual method of reconciliation. That method adopts a new rendering. The words, it is said, ought to be translated seventy sevens; and these are assumed to be sevens of years, because in the early part of the chapter Daniel had been meditating on Jeremiah’s prophecy regarding the seventy years’ captivity. By thus understanding the sevens at once of years, without the intervention of symbolic days or weeks, the argument for the Year-day principle, it will be seen, is entirely destroyed.
It would be difficult and tedious to trace the course of discussion fully to which the passage has given rise. A very general outline must suffice.It had been maintained by some who contended for “sevens of years,” that the word translated weeks (שָׁבֻעִים shabuim) was the regular masculine plural of שֶׁבַע (sheba), seven, and ought, therefore, to be translated sevens.[38] But שָׁבֻעִים (shabuim), as was alleged in reply, “is not the normal plural of the Hebrew term for seven.”The normal plural is שִׁבְעִים (shibim); but that is the term for seventy, and cannot mean sevens.[39]It seems now admitted on all hands, that both שָׁבֻעִים (shabuim) and the feminine form שָׁבֻעוֹת (shabpuoth) are plural forms of שָׁבוּעַ (shabua), which, according to the etymology of the word, signifies a hebdomad or septemized period.[40] The only question that remains, therefore, regards the use of the word. What is its use? So that after much controversy, the matter stands very much as Mede left it. “The question,” says he, “lies not in the etymology, but in the use, wherein שָׁבוּעַ (shabua) always signifies sevens of days, and never sevens of years.Wheresoever it is absolutely put, it means of days; it is nowhere thus used of years.”[41]Besides the places in Daniel, the word occurs absolutely elsewhere, in some one or other of its forms, eleven times, and in every one of these cases with the sense of weeks of days.[42] It is true that if we except the places in Daniel, there is no instance in Scripture where the masculine plural שָׁבֻעִים (shabuim) is used to denote weeks. The word elsewhere used for that purpose is uniformly שָׁבֻעוֹת (shabpuoth) in the feminine. But we confess ourselves at a loss to understandwhy so much should be made of this.The word which Daniel uses is confessedly the masculine plural[43] of the same word, which in the singular is translated “week,” and in the feminine plural “weeks;” and although there are instances in various languages of the masculine and feminine plurals having different significations, yet, in the absence of anything like proof that such is the case here, we must be guided by the use of the word in its other forms throughout the Scripture, when we come to interpret the peculiar form that occurs in Daniel. What good reason can be given for departing from the analogy of the other forms? This, it must be confessed, is entirely on the side of the Year-day principle; and the objection resolves itself into nothing more than this, that it is a peculiar form of the word which Daniel uses.
As to what is said of the qualifying word יָמִים, yamim (days), twice occurring in chap. x. 2, 3,[44] in connection with שָׁבֻעִים (shabuim), giving the literal sense three weeks, days, or three weeks as to days, we cannot see that it furnishes any grave objection to our argument. It seems rather to strengthen it. For here we have two places in which the word in question, and the form of it in question, are declared to mean weeks of days. Does not this intimate that such is the ordinary and primary sense? Are we not as much entitled to draw this conclusion, as other parties to conclude that the qualifying word is added because the usual sense is sevens of years? Let us only suppose that the qualifying word had been years instead of days (sevens as to years), would it not very readily have been said in that case, Here is a plain declaration that sevens of years are to be understood; and certainly the places where no qualifying word occurs must be ruled by this? Gesenius supposes the addition of יָמִים (days) is merely pleonastic; but if any other reason must be found for it, that of Bush seems as satisfactory as any, which regards it as an intimation that the primary sense is the only admissible one in the circumstances.
4. We entitle our next head of evidence, Exigency of the passages in which the prophetic times occur. The very best plan of arriving at the truth in the question, whether the shorter or longer reckoning be the right one, is to test both by application to the disputed passages. Try the two keys, and see which best suits the lock. One section of the literal dayists have here, however, a great advantage over their opponents, inasmuch as their plan of placing the Apocalyptic fulfilments entirely in the future (with the exception, on the part of some of them, of the epistles to the seven churches), relieves them from every embarrassment that might arise from any specific historical application. Of course it is impossible to argue with men of this school, that their literal times do not answer to their historical events, for historical events they have none, and we cannot prove that their ideal fulfilments may not be realized.
To discuss fully this part of our subject, however, would require a volume embracing an exposition of nearly all the more important passages in Daniel and the Apocalypse. We intend only to offer a few passing remarks on one or two of these, referring such as wish to prosecute the subject, to the “Notes” in this volume.
Let us take first the Saracenic woe.[45] We say not, in the meantime, that the interpretation which has given rise to this name is necessarily the right one. We merely wish to institute a comparison between it and another interpretation,which proceeds on the principle of the shorter dates. If the reader will turn to our author’s exposition, and attentively study it, he will, we think, be disposed to acquiesce in the justice of his closing remark, that, on the supposition that it was the design of John to symbolize these events (the Arabian conquests), the symbol has been chosen which of all others is best adapted to the end. Moreover, it will be seen that the Arabian history, according to the requirements of the passage, on the Year-day principle, furnishes a period of five months, or 150 years of intense stinging oppression, and immediately thereafter exhibits a gradual decline in power, along with a disinclination to persecute. Now what have we to oppose to this view on the part of those who advocate literal times? We turn to Professor Stuart. He tells us he can find no event in history that, with any good degree of probability, will correspond to a period of 150 years. “And,” adds he, “if we count five literal months, we are still involved in the same difficulty. Hence the tropical use of the expression five months, seems to be most probable and facile.” His conclusion is that “the meaning must be a short period.” We cannot think that this “tropical use” is very “probable;” it is however abundantly “facile;” and we know not how to argue with those who, when events will not correspond with their literal times, immediately take refuge in tropes. When Professor Stuart can find events that suit, his times are literal, as we shall immediately see; when he cannot find such events, his times are tropical. But a principle so “facile,” however it may suit his convenience, is not fitted to guide us in an inquiry into the prophetic periods. “The proper laws of interpretation,” our author has justly observed in his exposition of the place, “demand that one or the other of these periods should be found, either that of five months literally, or that of a hundred and fifty years.”
Take next the Turkish woe.[46] We refer the reader again to the author’s exposition, that he may see how “the hour, day, month, and year” of this prediction—that is, the 391 years, and a 12th or 24th of a year—find their fulfilment in the history of the Turkish empire. But on the supposition that the times are literal, what events can be fixed on as occupying this period of little more than a year? or how, in transactions so great, should a single hour be mentioned? These questions are evaded by assigning a new sense to the clause εἰς τὴν ὥραν καὶ ἡμέραν, &c. It is said to mean only, “that at the destined hour, and destined day, and destined month, and destined year,” the calamity should happen; that is to say, it should occur simply at the appointed time. We venture to say that such a periphrasis for an idea so simple has no parallel elsewhere. For the criticism of the passage, we refer to Barnes and Elliott, who have successfully contended that the words completely reject this sense.The latter appeals also to the parallel passage in Dan. xii. 7, where “for a time, times, and half a time” is universally understood of the aggregate period of three years and a half.[47]
The forty-two months of the Gentiles is another and remarkable Apocalyptic period.[48] If we do not, with our author, apply the passage in which this notation of time occurs, to the trampling down of the church by the Papacy during her long and oppressive reign of 1260 years, but seek an explanation from those who deny the Year-day principle, shall we find events that will better answer on the principle of literal times? Let us try. Professor Stuart, in this place, abandons the idea he sometimes resorts to, of supposing the periods“figurative modes of expressing a short time.” He thinks a “literal and definite period” is here meant; and he even condescends, in spite of all his hatred of historical comments, on historical events answering to this definite period. “It is certain,” says he, “that the invasion of the Romans lasted just about the length of the period named until Jerusalem was taken.” And again, in his Excursus on Designations of Time, he says that in the spring of A.D. 67, Vespasian was sent by Nero to subdue Palestine; and that on the 10th of August, A.D. 70, Jerusalem was taken and destroyed by Titus. Thus he makes out the literal period of forty-two months or three and a half years. He is, however, compelled to admit that the war actually began some time before Vespasian’s mission. But allowing all this to be correct, there was, as Mr. Barnes remarks, “no precise period of three years and a half, in respect to which the language here used would be applicable to the literal Jerusalem. Judea was held in subjection, and trodden down by the Romans for centuries, and never, in fact, gained its independence.” It is trodden down still. And yet we are told, in a laboured article written on purpose to set aside the Year-day principle, that there can scarcely be a doubt that the period in question (the forty-two months) is designed to mark the time during which the conquest of Palestine and of the Holy City was going on.