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the Jewish state by the Romans. But this is not the case. Josephus and his contemporaries could find such a prophecy in that of the great enemy (Dan 7:25) who would arise out of the fourth or Roman world-kingdom, and would persecute and destroy the saints of the Most High. What Josephus adduces as the contents of the παλαιὸς λόγος ἀνδρῶν, namely, τότε τῆν πόλιν ἁλώσεσθαι καὶ καταφλεγήσεσθαι τὰ ἅγια νόμῳ πολέμου, occurs neither in Daniel 9 nor in any other part of the book of Daniel, and was not so defined till after the historical fulfilment. Wieseler, indeed, thinks (p. 154) that the words τὴν πόλιν καταφλεγήσεσθαι κ.τ.λ., perfectly correspond with the words of Daniel, ישׁחית והקּדשׁ והעיר, Dan 9:26 (shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, E. V.); but he also concedes that Josephus interpreted the kind of desolation, perhaps with reference to Dan 11:33 (? 31), after the result, as a total desolation. It is thus granted that not only in Daniel 9, but also in Daniel 11, Daniel predicted a desolation of the city and the sanctuary which could be interpreted of their destruction by the Romans, and the opinion, that besides Daniel 9, no other part of Daniel can be found, is abandoned as incorrect. But the other circumstances which Josephus brings forward in the passage quoted, particularly that the Zealots by the desecration of the temple contributed to the fulfilling of that παλαιὸς λόγος, are much more distinctly contained in Dan 11:31 than in Dan 9:26, where we must first introduce this sense in the words (Dan 9:27) כּ נף שׁקּוּצים משׁמם על (on the wing of abominations one causing desolation). Similarly the other passages are constituted in which Josephus speaks of ancient prophecies which have been fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. No one specially points to Daniel 9.
But if the proof from Josephus could be made more valid than has yet been done, that the Jews of his time referred Daniel 9 to the overthrow of the Jewish commonwealth by the Romans, yet thereby it would not be proved that Christ also shared this Jewish opinion, and set it forth in His discourse, Matt 24, as an undoubted truth. In favour of this view it has indeed been argued, “that the ἐν τόπῳ ἁγίῳ fully corresponds to ἐπὶ τὸ ἱερὸν βδέλυγμα τῶν ἐρημώσεων ἔσται (lxx, Dan 9:27):” Hengstenberg, Christol. p. 117. But it is still more inconsistent with the proof from the Alexandrian translation of the verses before us than it is with that from Josephus. In the form of the lxx text that has come down to us there are undoubtedly two different