It is a natural supposition that the time is meant to correspond with the three years and a half ("a time, two times, and half a time") of vii. 25. But here again all certainty of detail is precluded by our ignorance as to the exact length of years by which the writer reckoned; and how he treated the month Ve-adar, a month of thirty days, which was intercalated once in every six years.
Supposing that he allowed an intercalary fifteen days for three and a half years, and took the Babylonian reckoning of twelve months of thirty days, then three and a half years gives us twelve hundred and seventy-five days, or, omitting any allowance for intercalation, twelve hundred and sixty days.
If, then, "two thousand three hundred evening-morning" means two thousand three hundred half days, we have one hundred and ten days too many for the three and a half years.
And if the phrase means two thousand three hundred full days, that gives us (counting thirty intercalary days for Ve-adar) too little for seven years by two hundred and fifty days. Some see in this a mystic intimation that the period of chastisement shall for the elect's sake be shortened.[581] Some commentators reckon seven years roughly, from the elevation of Menelaus to the high-priesthood (Kisleu, b.c. 168: 2 Macc. v. 11) to the victory of Judas Maccabæus over Nicanor at Adasa, March, b.c. 161 (1 Macc. vii. 25-50; 2 Macc. xv. 20-35).
In neither case do the calculations agree with the twelve hundred and ninety or the thirteen hundred and thirty-five days of xii. 12, 13.
Entire volumes of tedious and wholly inconclusive comment have been written on these combinations, but by no reasonable supposition can we arrive at close accuracy. Strict chronological accuracy was difficult of attainment in those days, and was never a matter about which the Jews, in particular, greatly troubled themselves. We do not know either the terminus a quo from which or the terminus ad quem to which the writer reckoned. All that can be said is that it is perfectly impossible for us to identify or exactly equiparate the three and a half years (vii. 25), the "two thousand three hundred evening-morning" (viii. 14), the seventy-two weeks (ix. 26), and the twelve hundred and ninety days (xii. 11). Yet all those dates have this point of resemblance about them, that they very roughly indicate a space of about three and a half years (more or less) as the time during which the daily sacrifice should cease, and the Temple be polluted and desolate.[582]
Turning now to the dates, we know that Judas the Maccabee cleansed[583] ("justified" or "vindicated," viii. 14) the Temple on Kisleu 25 (December 25th, b.c. 165). If we reckon back two thousand three hundred full days from this date, it brings us to b.c. 171, in which Menelaus, who bribed Antiochus to appoint him high priest, robbed the Temple of some of its treasures, and procured the murder of the high priest Onias III. In this year Antiochus sacrificed a great sow on the altar of burnt offerings, and sprinkled its broth over the sacred building. These crimes provoked the revolt of the Jews, in which they killed Lysimachus, governor of Syria, and brought on themselves a heavy retribution.[584]
If we reckon back two thousand three hundred half-days, eleven hundred and fifty whole days, we must go back three years and seventy days, but we cannot tell what exact event the writer had in mind as the starting-point of his calculations. The actual time which elapsed from the final defilement of the Temple by Apollonius, the general of Antiochus, in b.c. 168, till its repurification was roughly three years. Perhaps, however—for all is uncertain—the writer reckoned from the earliest steps taken, or contemplated, by Antiochus for the suppression of Judaism. The purification of the Temple did not end the time of persecution, which was to continue, first, for one hundred and forty days longer, and then forty-five days more (xii. 11, 12). It is clear from this that the writer reckoned the beginning and the end of troubles from different epochs which we have no longer sufficient data to discover.
It must, however, be borne in mind that no minute certainty about the exact dates is attainable. Many authorities, from Prideaux[585] down to Schürer,[586] place the desecration of the Temple towards the close of b.c. 168. Kuenen sees reason to place it a year later. Our authorities for this period of history are numerous, but they are fragmentary, abbreviated, and often inexact. Fortunately, so far as we are able to see, no very important lesson is lost by our inability to furnish an undoubted or a rigidly scientific explanation of the minuter details.
| Approximate Dates, as inferred by Cornilland Others[587] | |
| b.c. | |
| Jeremiah's prophecy in Jer. xxv. 12 | 605 |
| Jeremiah's prophecy in Jer. xxix. 10 | 594 |
| Destruction of the Temple | 586 or 588 |
| Return of the Jewish exiles | 537 |
| Decree of Artaxerxes Longimanus (Ezra vii. 1) | 458 |
| Second decree (Neh. ii. 1) | 445 |
| Accession of Antiochus Epiphanes (August, Clinton) | 175 |
| Usurpation of the high-priesthood by Jason | 175 |
| Jason displaced by Menelaus | 172(?) |
| Murder of Onias III. | (June) 171 |
| Apollonius defiles the Temple | 168 |
| War of independence | 166 |
| Purification of the Temple by Judas the Maccabee | (December) 165 |
| Death of Antiochus | 163 |