606 b.c., and continued till the liberation of the Jews from Babylonian bondage by Cyrus in the first year of his reign, in the year 536 b.c., and thus after seventy years were fully accomplished. Jeremiah's chronologically definite prophecy is thus accurately fulfilled; but Daniel's prophecy of the seventy weeks is neither chronologically defined by years, nor has it been altogether so fulfilled as that the 70, 7, 52, and 1 week can be reckoned by year-weeks.
The New Testament also does not necessitate our seeking the end of the seventy weeks in the judgment the Romans were the means of executing against the ancient Jerusalem, which had rejected and crucified the Saviour. Nowhere in the N.T. is this prophecy, particularly the משׁיח יכּרת, referred to the crucifixion of our Lord; nor has Christ or the apostles interpreted these verses, 26, 27 of this chapter, of the desolation and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. However general the opinion may be that Christ, in speaking of His παρουσία, Matt 24; Mar 13:1, and Luke 21, in the words ὅταν ἴδητε τὸ βδέλυγμα τῆς ἐρημώσεως τὸ ῥηθὲν Δανιὴλ τοῦ προφήτου κ.τ.λ. (Mat 24:15, cf. Mar 13:14), had before His eyes this prophecy (Dan 9:26-27), yet that opinion is without foundation, and is not established by the arguments which Hävernick (Daniel p. 383f.), Wieseler (die 70 Wochen, p. 173ff.), Hengstenberg (Beitr. i. p. 258f., and Christol. iii. 1, p. 113f.), and Auberlen (Daniel p. 120f.) have brought forward for that purpose. We have already, in explaining the words שׁקּוּצים כּנף על, Dan 9:27, shown that the βδέλυγμα τῆς ἐρημώσεως, found in the discourse of Christ, is not derived from Dan 9:27, but from Dan 11:31 or Dan 12:11, where the lxx have rendered משׁמם שׁקּוּץ by τὸ βδέλυγμα τῆς ἐρημώσεως. For the further confirmation of the arguments in behalf of this view there presented, we wish to add the following considerations. The appeal to the fact that Josephus, in the words (Antt. x. 11. 7) Δανιῆλος καὶ περὶ τὴς τῶν ̔Ρηωμαίων ἡγεμονίας ἀνέγραψε καὶ ὅτι ὑπ ̓αὐτῶν ἐρημωθήσεται, referred to the prophecy Daniel 9, and gave this interpretation not only as a private view of his own, but as (cf. De Bell. Jud. iv. 6. 3) παλαιὸς λόγος ἀνδρῶν, i.e., represented the view of his people, as commonly received, even by the Zealots, - this would form a valid proof that Daniel 9 was at that time commonly referred to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, only, however, if besides this no other prophecy of the book of Daniel could be apparently referred to the destruction of
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