viour; and this part of the prophecy was exactly fulfilled by it.

The whole, therefore, of this second part or branch of the prophecy is thus: the seventy weeks being divided into three periods, that is, into seven weeks, sixty-two weeks, and one week; the first reacheth from the time of the going forth of the commandment to Ezra, for the restoring of the church and state of the Jews, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes Longimanus, to the finishing of that work by Nehemiah, forty-nine years after; the second, from the end of that period, to the coming of the Messiah, four hundred and thirty-four years after; and the last from that his coming, to his cutting off by his death on the cross; which was one week or seven years after. And all these put together fully make up the seventy weeks, or the four hundred and ninety years of this prophecy; and according to this computation every particular of it hath been fully verified in the completion exactly agreeable thereto, and the whole number of years pointed out thereby exactly answered to a month for as the going out of the commandment to Ezra, from whence they began, was in the month of Nisan, so the crucifixion of Christ was also in the same month, just four hundred and ninety years after.

III. After what is predicted of these three periods, follows the third branch, or part of the prophecy which is contained in the latter end of the twenty-sixth, and latter end of the twenty-seventh verses, and foretels events to be brought to pass, after the expiration of the said seventy weeks, in the times immediately following thereupon, that is, the destruction of the city and sanctuary by the people of the prince that was to come, who, with their armies, and desolating abominations, should invade Judea, as with a flood, and by a terrible and consuming war, bring utter ruin and desolation upon it, and all the people of the Jews that should dwell therein, and consummate the same upon them in an absolute destruction. All which accordingly came to pass, and did, of a very signal manner, verify the prophecy in a full completion in every particular hereof. For on the end of these seventy

weeks which were determined upon that people, and their holy city, they having slain the Lord of life, they were thereon cast off by God from being his peculiar people, and the Gentiles were called in their stead; so that thenceforth they were no more his people, nor their city Jerusalem any longer holy unte him, but both were given up and destined to utter ruin and destruction: for, immediately on their having executed the sentence of death upon Christ our Lord, this sentence of condemnation passed upon them; and from that time all second causes operated towards the hastening the execution of it, till at length the Roman armies, the people that were to come, under the command of Titus their prince, invaded them as with a torrent, and begirt Jerusalem with their ensigns, the abomination of desolatian," which our Saviour from this prophecy, forewarns his disciples of. For they were idolatrous images, abominated by the Jews, under which those people marched against them, invaded their land, besieged their holy city, and, by a most calamitous war, brought utter desolation upon both; which, according to the relations of Josephus, (who was an historian of their own nation, and present in all the actions of the war,) they executed it in the most terrible and tragical manner of destruction that was ever brought upon any nation, and consummated it to such a degree upon them, that they have never been able to recover themselves ever since even to this day, though now sixteen hundred and forty-five years have passed since these judgments were by the just hand of God thus executed upon them.

m Christ, foreknowing the wickedness, foretels that this sentence should be thereon passed upon them for it, and accordingly be executed, Matt.xiv. Mark xiii. Luke xxi.

n Matt. xxiv, 15. Mark xiii, 14.

o Vide Grotii Annotationes ad 24, c. Matt. com. 15.

P Josephus tells us, (Antiq. lib. 18, c. 7.) that when Vitellius, governour of Syria, was going to pass through Judea with a Roman army to make war against the Arabians, the chief of the Jews met him, and earnestly entreated him to lead his army another way, or they could not bear the sight of those images, which were in the ensigns under which they marched, they were so abominated by them. These ensigns, therefore, for the sake of those images in them, were abominations to the Jews; and, by reason of the desolations which were wrought under them by the Roman armies in conquered countries, they were called desolating abominations, or abominations of desolation; and they were never more so, than when under them the Roman armies besieged, took, and destroyed Jerusalem.

But, for the full clearing of all that hath hitherto been said in the explication of this prophecy, there still remains one great objection to be answered. For it is urged, that the Artaxerxes who granted the commission to Ezra in the seventh year of his reign, from whence we begin the computation of the seventy weeks, was the same Artaxerxes, who, in the twentieth year of his reign, granted another commission to Nehemiah; for the Scriptures making Ezra and Nehemiah contemporary, render this beyond dispute. But that this Artaxerxes should be Artaxerxes Longimanus, the age which Nehemiah and Sanballat must then have lived to, makes it, they say, wholly improbable: for Nehemiah, in the book of holy Scripture called by his name (which all acknowledge to have been written by him,) speaking of the reign of Darius Codomannus king of Persia, and of the days of Jaddua the high priest of the Jews, as of times past, he must have been alive after the death of both of them; but Jaddua not dyings till two years after the death of Alexander the Great, in the year of the Julian period 4392, from the twentieth year of Artaxerxes Longimanus to that time had passed one hundred and twenty-three years; to which, if we add thirty years more for the age of Nehemiah, when he came to be governour of Judea, (which is the least that can be allowed to qualify him for such a trust,) he must have been at the least one hundred and fifty-three years old when he wrote that book, if the Artaxerxes from whom he had his commission, were Artaxerxes Longimanus. And though we suppose the writing of this book to have been while Darius Codomannus and Jaddua were both alive, and put it up as high as we can, that is, in the first year of the reign of that Darius, yet this will not much mend the matter: for, on this supposition, Nehemiah must have been one hundred and forty years old when he wrote that book; which is still a very improbable age in those times, and consequently infers the supposal on which it is built, (that is, that it was Artaxerxes Longimanus from whom he had his commission) to be very im

q Nehemiah viii.

r Nehemiah xii, 22. Josephus Antiq. lib. 11, c. 8. Chronicon Alexand.

t

probable also. And the age of Sanballat, upon the same supposal, will not only be as improbable, but also much more so; for when Nehemiah came into Judea, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, he found him governour of Samaria, under the king of Persia, and he was alive, as Josephus tells us," till the besieging of Gaza, by Alexander the Great, in the fourth year of Darius Codomannus, at which time he died. And therefore, if that Artaxerxes were Artaxerxes Longimanus, Sanballat, at the time of that siege, could not be less than one hundred and forty-eight years old. For from the twentieth of Artaxerxes Longimanus, to the fourth of Darius Codomannus, according to Ptolemy's canon, were one hundred and thirteen years; and when Nehemiah came to Jerusalem, Sanballat having been for some time, perchance for several years, fixed in the government of Samaria, he cannot be well supposed to have been less than thirty-five years old at that time; and, putting both these numbers together, they make one hundred and forty-eight years: and both these ages, that is, that of Nehemiah, and this of Sanballat, it must be acknowledged, seem very improbable, and more especially that of the latter: for as to Nehemiah, an extraordinary blessing upon that good man may be alleged for such an extraordinary age in him; but this cannot be said of the other. Each of these instances apart look very improbable; but com→ ing both together are much more so. And therefore, as we have argued above, that the Darius who granted the decree for the finishing of the temple, could not be Darius Nothus, because of the great and improbable age which Joshua and Zerubbabel must have been of at the executing of that decree: so it is argued here, in the same manner, that the Artaxerxes, from whom Ezra and Nehemiah had their commissions, could not be Artaxerxes Longimanus, because of the great and improbable age which Nehemiah and Sanballat must then have been of at the time of their death: and therefore, as we have said of the former difficulty, that it can be no otherwise solved, but by making the Darius

Nehemiah iv, 2.

u Josephus Antiq. lib. 11, c. 8.

who granted the decree for the finishing of the temple to be another Darius, that is, Darius Hystaspes, who reigned ninety-eight years before that Darius who was called Nothus; so, in like manner, it is said of this latter difficulty, that it can be no otherwise cleared, but by making the Artaxerxes, who in the seventh, and in the twentieth years of his reign granted his commissions to Ezra and Nehemiah, to have been another Artaxerxes, that is, Artaxerxes Mnemon, whose seventh year, and whose twentieth year of his reign were just sixty years after the seventh year, and the twentieth year of the reign of the other Artaxerxes that was called Longimanus. Thus far the objection; and, if it holds good, I must acknowledge, it overthrows the computation on which hath been built, all which I have hitherto said for the explication of this prophecy.

In answer hereto, it hath been said by some, 1st. As to Nehemiah, that in that passage of his book, (ch. xii, 22,) where the reign of Darius the Persian, and the days of Jaddua the high priest of the Jews, are mentioned, that reign of Darius was the reign of Darius Nothus, and those days of Jaddua were his days from his birth; which might very well have happened in the reign of the said Darius Nothus; and, 2dly. As to Sanballat, thaty there were two of that name, the first of which was the Sanballat spoken of by Nehemiah, and the second the Sanballat spoken of by Josephus. But neither of these answers can possibly hold good. For,

1st. It is manifest, that the text of Nehemiah (ch. xii, 22,) where the Levites are spoken of that were in the days of Eliashib, Joiada, Johanan, and Jaddua, cannot be understood to mean any other days than those wherein they were high priests. For the high priest among the Jews was the head of the priests and Levites; and after the captivity, when there was no king in Judah, he had the absolute supremacy over them in all affairs relating to their office. And therefore it was then as proper for them to reckon all such affairs by the times of their high priests, as it is now

x Usserius in Annalibus sub anno Julianæ periodi, 4298. y Isaacus Vossius in Chronologia sacra, p. 149.