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end of the period consisting of 70 such weeks, and the following 62 + 1 in the time reaching from the beginning of the Chaldean supremacy in the year 605 to the death of Antiochus Epiphanes in the year 164, which makes 441 years = 63 year-weeks; according to which, not only the end of the 62 + 1 weeks does not coincide with the end of the 70 weeks, but also the 7 + 62 + 1 are to be regarded neither as identical with the 70 nor as following one another continuously in their order, - much more between the 63 and the 7 weeks a wide blank space, which before the coming of the end cannot be measured, must lie, which is not even properly covered up, much less filled up, by the remark that “the unfolding of the 70 proceeds backwards.” For by this reckoning 7 + 62 + 1 are not an unfolding of the 70, and are not equal to 70, but would be equal to 62 + 1 + some unknown intervening period + 7 weeks. This were an impossibility which the representatives of this interpretation of the angel's communication do not, it is true, accept, but seek to set aside, by explaining the 7 weeks as periods formed of 7 times 7, or jubilee-year periods, and, on the contrary, the 62 + 1 of seven-year times of Sabbath-periods.
This strange interpretation of the angel's words, according to which not only must the succession of the periods given in the text be transposed, the first 7 weeks being placed last, but also the word שׁבעים in the passages immediately following one another must first denote jubilee (49 year) periods, then also Sabbath-year (7 year) periods, is not made plain by saying that “the end of the 62 + 1 week is the judgment of wrath against the persecutor, thus only the remote making possible the salvation; but the end of the 70 weeks is, according to Dan 9:24, the final salvation, and fulfilling of the prophecy and consecration of the Most Holy - thus the end of the 62 + 1 and of the 70 does not take place at the same time;” and - ”if the end of the two took place at the same time, what kind of miserable consolation would this be for Daniel, in answer to his prayer, to be told that Jerusalem within the 70 weeks would in troublous times again arise, thus only arise amid destitution!”' (Del. p. 284). For the prophecy would furnish but miserable consolation only in this case, if it consisted merely of the contents of Dan 9:25, Dan 9:26, and Dan 9:27, - if it said nothing more than this, that Jerusalem should be built again within the 70 weeks in troublous times, and then finally would again be laid waste. But the other remark, that the judgment of wrath against the destroyer forms only the remote making possible of the salvation, and is separated from the final