[636] In Clem. Alex., Strom., i. 21.
[637] Cornill, p. 14; Bevan, p. 54.
[638] Schürer, Hist. of Jewish People, iii. 53, 54 (E. Tr.). This is also the view of Graf, Nöldeke, Cornill, and many others. In any case we must not be misled into an impossible style of exegesis of which Bleck says that "bei ihr alles möglich ist und alles für erlaubt gilt."
[639] The LXX. date it in "the first year of Cyrus," perhaps an intentional alteration (i. 21). We see from Ezra, Nehemiah, and the latest of the Minor Prophets that there was scarcely even an attempt to restore the ruined walls of Jerusalem before b.c. 444.
[640] Lit. "great warfare." It will be seen that the A.V. and R.V. and other renderings vary widely from this; but nothing very important depends on the variations. Instead of taking the verbs as imperatives addressed to the reader, Hitzig renders, "He heeded the word, and gave heed to the vision."
[641] Lit. "weeks of days" (Gen. xli. 1; Deut. xxi. 13: "years of days").
[642] "Bread of desires" is the opposite of "bread of affliction" in Deut. xvi. 3. Comp. Gen. xxvii. 25; Isa. xxii. 13, etc.
[643] Comp. Amos vi. 6; Ruth iii. 3; 2 Sam. xii. 20, xiv. 2.
[644] He fasted from Abib 3 to 24. The festival of the New Moon might prevent him from fasting on Abib 1, 2.
[645] Hiddekel ("the rushing") occurs only in Gen. ii. 14. It is the Assyrian idiglat.