W. S. Auchincloss

“ In view of this marvellous fulfilment of prophecy, how frivolous do seem the charges of those who claim that the Book of Daniel is—“a bundle of loose leaves”—“a consolatory political pamphlet”—and “written as historic fiction in 168-165 B.C.” Pretty good fiction, is it not? for one writing in B.C. 168 to make declaration that a certain event, figured from a given starting point, would positively take place at the end of 490 years! We have many writers of historic fiction in our own day, but none so venturesome as “the chief of the governors over all the wise men of Babylon.” ”

“ Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces.
35. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth. ”

“ Whenever we send a telegram and wish to conceal our meaning from the public we employ single words to express conditions and quantities. Twice, Daniel was told by his heavenly visitor:—“shut thou up the vision,” it is therefore proper to infer that the word TIME was used to express a certain number of years and TIMES to express a greater number of years. But what heavenly measure of time do we find in the Bible, associated with the punishment of nations, that can be taken as the unit period for measuring seasons of God’s displeasure? ”

“ He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him.
23. I thank thee, and praise thee, O thou God of my fathers, who hast given me wisdom and might 26 and hast made known unto me now what we desired of thee: for thou hast now made known unto us the king’s matter.
24. Therefore Daniel went in unto Arioch, whom the king had ordained to destroy the wise men of Babylon: he went and said thus unto him; Destroy not the wise men of Babylon: bring me in before the king, and I will shew unto the king the interpretation. ”

“ And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes:
4. And I prayed unto the Lord my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments;
5. We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments:
6. ”

“ Seventy weeks are determined upon 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. ”

“ There is a man in thy kingdom, in whom is the spirit of the holy gods; and in the days of thy father light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, was found in him; whom the king Nebuchadnezzar thy father, the king, I say, thy father, made master of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers ”

“ The angel 29 Gabriel declared, thou “shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David; and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.”—Luke I. 31.—The right of taxation is the prerogative of sovereign power. When therefore Augustus Caesar began to enroll the Jews for purposes of taxation in B.C. 2 the power of the holy people was at an end and the full time of prophecy had arrived. It was then that Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea. ”

“ And some of them of understanding shall fall, to try them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end: because it is yet for a time appointed.
36. And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that, that is determined shall be done. ”

“ After Cyrus entered Babylon and pacified its inhabitants he started on other expeditions and temporarily placed on the throne his uncle Cyaxares, king of the Medes, who was known as Darius among his new subjects, a name less liable to be confused with that of his illustrious nephew. It is a well known fact, that expediency often determines the choice of an official name for the sovereign. ”

“ And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever. ”

“ Read aright, Daniel’s words have no uncertain sound, they are definite and exact like the forecast of an astronomer.
Viewed from every standpoint the grand old 11 President of the Chaldean Court had a character of rare beauty and symmetry, that will continue to shine throughout the ages. He will stand in his lot to the end of the days; the noblest example of human courage coupled with unquestioning faith, the typical companion, the nobleman, courtier, seer and Prophet;—A MAN GREATLY BELOVED! ”

“ The years run as below:
We pause at the beginning of the 171st year because it was a year of great moment in the life of the Jewish nation. The deepest interest is focussed on “the 23rd day of the 2nd month” when Simon, brother of Judas Maccabeus, “destroyed a great enemy out of Israel,” and CLEANSED the Temple of 92 its abominations. He also ordained, that the day should be observed ever after, as a National holiday.—I Macc. XIII. 51.
We note that the 171st year, like all others of the Seleucidæ, began with the month of October, which was the first month of the Macedonian calendar. ”

“ Belshazzar’s mother was a daughter of Nebuchadnezzar and the word Father is used in the sense of grandfather, exactly as in II Samuel 19. 24. Mephibosheth is spoken of as the son of Saul, when in fact he was the grandson of Saul.
3. Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem; and the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, drank in them.
44 4. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone. ”

“ We might also add that from the time when the Jews first worshipped in Babylon as captives in B.C. 585, to the time when they worshipped in Zerubbabel’s temple as free men in B.C. 515 was another instance of a period 70 years long. This frequent recurrence of 70-year periods shows that as a numeral 70 may justly be regarded as one of the units of TIME in the dispensation of God’s providence, and therefore to be reckoned with in the study of prophecy. ”

“ The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia.
21. And the rough goat is the king of Grecia: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king.
Alexander the Great who united Greece and Macedon (verse 8) .
63 22. Now that being broken, whereas four stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power.
23. And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full,
the Jewish people
a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences shall stand up. ”

“ The prophecy therefore gives us the year, and we shall find that the 12th verse of the 12th chapter supplies the day when “all these things” were finished. The apostle Peter in describing the events of that day said:—“Forasmuch then as God gave them (the Gentiles) the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, what was I, that I could withstand God? When they heard these things they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also on the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.” ”

“ But towering over all, we have brought God’s own standard of time, viz: the sidereal year, which the greatest of modern astronomers Laplace and Herschel tell us has not varied the 1/100 part of a second of time in the last 2000 years. ”

“ His reign was of short duration, but it came at a critical period in the history of the Jews. Only two years remained to complete the Babylonian captivity and Divine influences were at work for the return of the chosen people. [Daniel X. 13.] More than a century previous to that time the Scriptures had named Cyrus as the “shepherd,” [Isaiah XLV. 1, 3.] and when Cyrus placed his uncle temporarily on the throne of Babylon, a heavenly messenger was sent to Darius who “stood to confirm and strengthen him.” [Daniel XI. 1.] ”

“ Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honour the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and his ways judgment: and those that walk in pride he is able to abase.
43 CHAPTER V. [Syriac.]
B.C. 538.
1. Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand.
According to the Almagesta of Ptolemy, Nabonadios the father of Belshazzar ruled Babylon for 17 years. During the last 3 years of his reign the court and the army were under the control of his son who became acting king. ”

“ So we find, “after Gobryas the governor of the country of Ararat and the soldiers of Cyrus, without fighting entered Babylon,” the country became submissive and attention could be directed elsewhere; that “when in the course of their march they arrived in the Median territory Cyrus turned off to visit Cyaxares; and after they had embraced each other, Cyrus first told Cyaxares that there were domestics and palaces set apart for him in Babylon, that when he came thither he might have what was his own to come to.” ”

“ And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength,
the Temple
and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate.
Antiochus Epiphanes established idol-altars in every town and village of Palestine, and ordered a daily sacrifice of swine on the altars.
32. And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries: but the people that do know their God shall be strong and do exploits. ”

“ And shall also carry captives into Egypt their gods, with their princes, and with their precious vessels of silver and of gold
the booty was immense, 2500 idols, 4000 talents of gold, etc.
and he shall continue more years than the king of the north.
79 9. So the king of the south shall come into his kingdom, and shall return into his own land.
10. But his sons
Seleucus III and Antiochus III, the Great
shall be stirred up and shall assemble a multitude of great forces: and one shall certainly come, and overflow, and pass through; then shall he return, and be stirred up, even to his fortress. ”

“ I. 12th and we read:—“Then the angel of the Lord answered and said, O Lord of hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah against which thou hast had indignation these threescore 100 and ten years.” For other examples, see Note D. If then the word TIME was inserted in the heavenly message as a symbol for 70 years, and the numeral 7 conveyed to the Jewish mind the idea of a perfect quantity, then a week of TIME, or 7 times 70 might very naturally be symbolized by the word TIMES. We find in Gen. ”

“ In our day the standard measure is one year. We must therefore lay aside our ordinary line of thought and in reading the next 4 verses we must accustom ourselves to thinking in PERIODS OF 7 YEARS EACH and remember that whenever an event took place it happened in some period 7 years in length. ”

“ This gave the Jews a friend at court who paved the way for that celebrated emancipation proclamation which Cyrus issued on his 97 return to Babylon. Naturally such a document belonged among the state papers and should have been found “in the house of the rolls where the treasures were laid up in Babylon,” but diligent search proved of no avail. [Ezra VI. 1.] However, as the document was dated in the time of Darius the Mede, official attention was next directed to “the palace that is in the province of the Medes,” where a careful search proved successful. [Ezra VI. 2.] ”

“ The day of one’s death is the natural dividing line between reigns, and as Augustus Caesar died on the 19th day of August, A.D. 14 Tiberius Caesar began to reign on the same day. Besides, to admit a joint-rule would hopelessly add another 3 years to Josephus’ error and put him in the light of having carried his process for STRETCHING FIGURES 6 points instead of 3 points. ”

“ Battles of Granicus and Issus.
and he was moved with choler against him, and smote the ram, and brake his two horns, and there was no power in the ram to stand before him;
Alexander was greatly pleased when shown this prophecy—Josephus 11. 8. 5.
but he cast him down to the ground and stamped upon him, and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand.
B.C. 331 Alexander defeated the Persians on the plain of Babylon. He then pushed on to India and conquered the Punjaub, land of the five rivers. ”

“ XX. 3] . The indignation lasted just 70 years [Zech. I. 12] and ended by a promise of pardon made in the eighth month, which according to the calendar of Rabbi Hillel II. (Idan Olamim of J. L. Sossnitz) began October 25th B.C. 520 [Zech. I. 1 and 3] . We 108 note in passing that although Cyrus put an end to the Babylonian captivity in B.C. 536 and the people returned to the land of Judea, yet they encountered insuperable obstacles which held up their work [Ezra V. 3] until the year B.C. 520, which was the end of 70 years’ indignation. ”