TO THE ANCIENT PEOPLE OF GOD,

THE DISPERSION OF THE HOUSE OF JUDAH,

A NATION FROM AGE TO AGE EXPECTING THE PROMISED MESSIAH,

THIS DISSERTATION

ON

A REMARKABLE PROPHECY,

WHICH NOT ONLY FORETELLS HIS ADVENT,

BUT WITH

NUMERICAL PRECISION DETERMINES EVEN THE PRECISE EPOCH

OF IT,

IS INSCRIBED AND DEDICATED

BY THEIR

SINCERE FRIEND AND WELL WISHER,

THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

THERE are few predictions that have been more repeatedly discussed than that which usually bears the name of the prophecy of the seventy weeks. Its acknowledged importance has excited universal attention: yet the very number of its discordant expositors seems to show, that no interpretation has hitherto been produced which is in all points unobjectionable. Such is certainly the impression left upon my own mind by the perusal of various com mentaries on the prophecy in question. Most of them contain something good: but it has never yet been my fate to meet with any one, which is altogether satisfactory. This appeared to me to be a matter worthy of very serious consideration. For, if a Christian felt and acknowledged the difficulty of making this prophecy quadrate exactly with the times of him whom he receives as the Messiah; he

could

3

could not but be conscious, that every intelligent Jew must equally feel the difficulty, which to him would doubtless be a matter of triumph. The advocate for the divine mission of Jesus might perhaps perplex his Hebrew opponent by urging, that the desolation of Jerusalem is represented in the prophecy as succeeding the times of the Messiah, that Jerusalem has long been desolate, and therefore that the times of the Messiah must be past: but possibly he might himself be little less perplexed, if his antagonist demanded an unobjectionable explanation of the prophecy as applied to Jesus; and if he urged, that, were Jesus really the Messiah, such an explanation surely might be produced and certainly ought to be expected. The matter, worthy as it is of consideration in all ages, further appeared to me to require a peculiar degree of attention in times like the present. Whatever be the precise date of the 1260 years, we cannot be very far removed from their termination; and, whenever their termination shall arrive, we may expect to see the restoration of the Jews commence. Such being the case, it is surely a point of no small

importance,

importance, that one of the most remarkable prophecies relative to the Messiah should be clearly shewn to have been accomplished in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, or at least that all that part of it which relates to the Messiah should be shewn to have been thus accomplished. If this can be done, when the almost mathematical evidence of an accomplished numerical prophecy is considered, it may be hoped that at least one stumbling block in the of the conversion of the Jews may be reway moved.

1. In order that the subject may be thoroughly discussed, it will be necessary first to inquire into ' the proper mode of computing the seventy weeks. This must plainly be ascertained, before any satisfactory attempt can be made at explanation.

2. The second point of inquiry will be the true dates of the different edicts of the kings of Persia in favour of the Jews; because from some one or other of these the seventy weeks must, by the express declaration of the prophecy, be reckoned.

3. It will in the third place be expedient to examine the different interpretations which have hitherto