THOSE who are acquainted with the TWO CHARTS which I have published together, one of which treats of "THE SEVENTY WEEKS OF DANIEL," the other of the "CYCLE OF SEVENTY WEEKS," are aware of the order in which I have presented these subjects. In PLATE 1, I have confined myself to the ninth chapter of Daniel and other portions of scripture connected therewith; while in PLATE 2. I have endeavored to show seventy weeks to be a great dispensational cycle, with Israel in the first place, and next with man universally. Now, without attempting to add to what I have already brought out in the explanatory Key, or "COMPANION"—without indeed wishing much to vary my mode of expression, or in some cases to do more than to repeat verbatim what I have written—I purpose to take up the subject in a somewhat different order; not to speak, as before, in the first place, of the ninth chapter of Daniel, but to commence with the cycles in connection with Israel; then, in passing along, to speak of the seventy weeks of Daniel especially; and lastly, to treat of the cycle in reference to the whole course of time, from the creation down to "the end." This mode of treating the subject, I have reason to know from experience, will greatly help to show that the interpretation which I have offered of the seventy weeks of Daniel is nothing overstrained or extraordinary; but, on the contrary, that it falls in, in a most simple, easy, and natural manner, with the views held by all Christians rightly instructed in prophecy, of God's dealings with Israel, and with the world at large. I now turn to consider the Jewish arrangement of time, as presented in scripture; and on looking at Lev. 25 I find, in addition to the primeval order established by God when He created the heavens and the earth, that the law of Moses presents us with two great septenary divisions thereof: namely, first, seven years, or a week, that is, six years of labor followed by the seventh or sabbatical year; secondly, seven times seven, or forty-nine years, between every jubilee. Thus the Jewish division of time was regulated according to the sabbatical or septenary principle; namely weeks of years, in the first place, and then weeks of weeks of years in the next.
This statement prepares us for the discovery which the Lord, in His goodness, has allowed me to make with regard to the whole course of time in connection with Israel. It is this: that 490 years, or seventy of the Levitical weeks above named—which, observe, is the decimal of the forty-nine, or seven times seven years between every jubilee—formed a great dispensational probationary cycle, as it were, with regard to the Jews; and, though we never read in the Word of any such period, save in the ninth chapter of Daniel, that, reckoning from Abraham to Christ, no less than four of these septenary circles of time may be traced.
The whole Jewish nation lay hid in the loins of their forefather Abraham; so that his birth may be viewed as the birth of the nation. From this point then we start, and count our four cycles from thence; at the termination of each of which we come to a great SABBATICAL CRISIS—a point when the hand of the Lord was outstretched in behalf of His people; when an offer of blessing was made on His part, only to be slighted and lost by the nation. These four offers occurred in the days of MOSES, of SOLOMON, of NEHEMIAH, and of CHRIST: and this, let me observe, is consistent with Christ's answer to Peter (Matt. 18:21, 2221Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? 22Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven. (Matthew 18:21‑22)), showing the number in question, "seventy times seven," to be linked with the great principle of grace in the mind of the Lord. "How oft," said the apostle, "shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? till seven times?" "I say not unto thee," said the Lord, "Until seven times, but Until seventy times seven.”
Now then, starting from ABRAHAM'S BIRTH, after the lapse of the first period of seventy weeks, we reach the point when his seed, conducted by MOSES, were delivered from bondage; namely, from under the power of Pharaoh. Here then, at the time of the exodus, the first crisis occurs, the first offer of blessing is made. The question is now, Will the people be faithful? Will they trust in His love who had redeemed them from Egypt? No: their hearts were unchanged, and hence this could not be: the golden calf set up at the foot of Mount Horeb as an object of worship was a sorrowful proof that they had sadly declined from the faith of their fathers. The goodness of God being, however, unwearied, another, a second cycle begins, continues, and closes, with another, even a second such crisis as that above named in the history of Israel, namely, the dedication of the temple of God in Jerusalem. SOLOMON, the wisest of men, was at Ibis time exalted by God to the throne which hereafter will be filled by the blessed Messiah. He was a type, it is true, of Messiah; but he soon showed that he was not the Messiah himself. The glory being too much for so weak a vessel to bear, he failed, as we read; he fell into the sin of idolatry; and hence the time of Israel's blessing is deferred; and after the same lapse of time as before, at the close of the third cycle of weeks (three decrees having been previously issued by the court of Persia with regard to the temple), NEHEMIAH receives from king Artaxerxes, in the twentieth year of his reign, a commission to restore and to build the street and the wall of the city, then lying in ruins. Here then, for the third time, blessing is offered, but only to be slighted and lost as before. The Sabbath in Israel, the great sign between God and his people, is despised; while at the same time the nobles are found allying themselves, like king Solomon before them, with the children of strangers. Thus then the Lord, in His wonderful goodness, has (seeing that He is still unweariedly bent upon blessing them) to give them a fourth and last trial—to prove them once more. Reckoning, therefore, from thence down to the close of a fourth septenary cycle, we reach the great moment when CHRIST, the true Deliverer of Israel, its King, its Restorer—greater by far than either Moses, Solomon, or Nehemiah—was offered to Israel. Now then, "the Messiah the Prince" first appears on the scene. By the mouth of John the Baptist, His messenger, and next in His own blessed person, the Lord is made known to His people—made known, however, only to be despised and rejected—to end that life which He had spent in works of mercy and love, on the cross. In this way the fourth and last cycle closes with the cutting off of Messiah. And hence for a season the Jews are cast off, and a NEW WITNESS on earth, even the CHURCH OF GOD IN THIS AGE, fills up the wide space, the long and dreary blank occasioned by the rejection of Jesus, and of Israel in consequence, and their restoration hereafter to the favor of God.
And now, having come to this wonderful crisis, to the close of this cycle, the most important of all, I call my reader's attention to what I am now about to explain; showing how the prophetical period of Daniel, the only cycle of seventy weeks actually named in the word, is linked with this fourth and last period; both of them starting from one and the same point of time, though not having, as we shall presently see, the same termination.
And now, with a view to make my explanation more clear, I must quote, in the first place, the whole prophecy, divided, according to the arrangement given in PLATE 1, into eight distinct sections, under four leading heads.
FIRST HEAD
Introductory and general, presenting the WHOLE PERIOD at once, without noticing the THREEFOLD DIVISION thereof.
1. Seventy weeks are determined (or divided) upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish (or restrain) the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness (or the righteousness of ages), and to seal up the vision and prophecy
(or prophet—see margin), and to anoint the most holy (or holy of holies).
SECOND HEAD.
From the opening of the seventy weeks, of at the time Nehemiah's return, to the rejection of Christ by His people, seven years or a week AFTER" he was first presented to Israel by the mouth of John, his forerunner, at the end of the sixty-ninth week.
2. Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince, shall be SEVEN WEEKS, AND THREESCORE AND TWO WEEKS.
3. The street shall be built again, and to the wall, even in troublous times. (" In strait of times"—see margin or as translated by Wintle and Purver, "in the narrow limit of the times," meaning, according to them the seven weeks above named, as distinguished from the three- score and two weeks that follow.)
4. And after (the) threescore and two weeks (above named) shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself. (The article “the" is here introduced, being found in the original, showing that this is the period named in the foregoing verse.)
THIRD HEAD.
From the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans headed by Titus, the same people who hereafter will be subject to Antichrist, " the Prince that shall come," down to the end of the desolation thereof at the second coming of Christ.
5. And the people of the prince that shall come (i.e., the Romans in the reign of Vespasian) shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood. (This Prince is neither Vespasian nor Titus, but the last head of this same people—the little horn, or Antichrist—the beast to whom the whole revived Roman empire will in the end become subject. Rev. 17:12-17.)
6. And unto the end of the war desolations are determined.
FOURTH HEAD.
The " ONE WEEK " of Antichrist's power, the great crisis in Jewish history, ending at the second coming of Christ with that foretold at the outset— viz. the acceptable year of the Lord, the time of Israel's blessing and glory.
7. And he (the prince above named— i.e. the Antichrist) shall confirm the covenant with many for ONE WEEK.
8. And in the midst of the week he (having broken his covenant) shall cause sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, (or upon the, wing or pinnacle of abominations, i. e. idols, shall be a causer of desolation,) even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
Thus, at the close of the Babylonian captivity, the angel Gabriel addresses the prophet. Daniel had confessed the sins of the nation; he had prayed for his city and his people; and now the purpose of God is made known to His servant. Seventy weeks, he is told, is the time set apart in the counsels of God, which is to end with the forgiveness and blessing of Israel. Accordingly, reckoning from the days of Nehemiah, seventy-nine years after the Jews had returned from Babylon, when seventy weeks had nearly expired, that is, when the sixty-ninth week had ended and the seventieth week had begun, the fullness of the time" being come. (Gal. 4:44But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, (Galatians 4:4).) John the Baptist is heard as the voice in the wilderness, proclaiming the approach of the coming Deliverer, of "the Messiah the Prince." "The time is fulfilled," said the prophet, meaning "the set time," (Psa. 102:1313Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion: for the time to favor her, yea, the set time, is come. (Psalm 102:13),) when Israel through Daniel had learned to look for redemption and blessing, and for three years and a half John proclaims Him as such; after which, for another three years and a half, down to the close of the seventieth week, we read in the Gospels of the blessed Messiah Himself walking up and down through the land, from city to city, doing wonders of grace, revealing the name of the Father; till at last, having accomplished this part of His work, at the close of the week He is rejected: He ends His labors of love by laying down His life for His people, by shedding that blood which will hereafter avail for the redemption and blessing of Israel. And now, as to this week of the testimony of John and of Jesus, it will be asked whether this is the last, namely, the "ONE WEEK" of Dan. 9:2727And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate. (Daniel 9:27). In answer to which I reply, that it surely is not; inasmuch as the termination thereof will also be the close of the prophetical cycle revealed to the prophet, which is to end, not with the rejection; but on the contrary with the restoration and the full and final forgiveness and glory of Israel. Israel, it is needless to say, having cut off their Messiah, is not yet redeemed: the Jewish people are scattered, their land is a wilderness, the holy city and temple are both defiled and trodden down for the present under the foot of the Gentiles.
This being the case, it is quite a mistake to suppose that the seventy weeks of Daniel have ever yet been fulfilled. True it is, the period, historically and chronologically speaking, has reached its close, seeing that the week above named-the time of John and of Jesus, being added on to the seven and threescore and two weeks-did actually perfect the cycle. This has led some, uninstructed as to the fact of the restoration of Israel, to imagine that it has been fulfilled in a prophetical sense. But this cannot be, for the reason aforesaid. And now the question is, in the next place, What becomes of this week, if it be not that referred to in Daniel? The answer is simple, involving a principle with which we all are familiar, connected with the past sin and the future forgiveness of Israel; namely, THE TWOFOLD Fulfillment OF PROPHECY—One fulfillment at the first, another at the second advent of Christ. This principle, be it remembered, is true with regard to John the Baptist and the Elijah of Mal. 4:55Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: (Malachi 4:5),—the Elias who has come, and the Elias who hereafter is to come and restore all things, as predicted by Jesus Himself. (See Matt. 17:10,1110And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come? 11And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. (Matthew 17:10‑11).) Had Israel received their Messiah, this week would have been that which it was ostensibly destined to be, THE END OF THE AGE," the "one week" of our prophecy.
But instead of receiving they slew their Deliverer; and hence, the time being deferred, the week of grace—namely, of God's offer to Israel (followed, say, by two thousand years of dispersion and blindness)—is lost; blotted out, as it were, by the hand of the Lord from amongst the times and the seasons which were anciently linked with the annals of Israel. The week did exist, I believe; but, witnessing only the failure of Israel, it is not owned as such—not suffered to stand, as it otherwise ought to have done, as the last of the seventy. This accounts for no notice whatever being taken of this period. Full space is left, it is true, in the prophecy for the week to come in, as I shall presently show; but the week itself is not named. The Lord, from the outset, foresaw what He would be constrained, owing to the rejection of Jesus, to do—namely, to cancel this period: He leaves it therefore unnamed and unnoticed, passes it by altogether, and everything connected therewith, saving the coming of "the Messiah the Prince" at its close. There is wonderful skill displayed by the Lord with regard to this week. In order to see it, we must quote the two following parts of our prophecy, on which this reasoning is founded. In verse 25 it is written as follows: "Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem UNTO the Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks;" then, in verse 26, we read, "And AFTER (the) threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut of." Observe here the distinction between the words "UNTO" and "AFTER." This is important; seeing that the question of the true interpretation rests upon this, as I have before said. I explain it as follows: CRITICALLY, AT THE CLOSE OF the seven and threescore and two weeks, Messiah was announced by John, His forerunner. Then, AFTER the same threescore and two weeks, He was slain. Observe the force of the word "UNTO:" definite in its meaning, it shows that as soon as the sixty-ninth week had ended, then the Messiah the Prince was announced. Then, on the other hand, observe the value of the word "AFTER” in the following verse. Indefinite in its character, it leaves the question undetermined as to how soon after this period Christ was cut off. A space is thus left in the prophecy, for the week expressed in the chart (see Plate 1), though unnoticed by Daniel; namely, the canceled or last time of Messiah's rejection, which actually and historically, though not prophetically, was the seventieth week, reckoning from Nehemiah to the death of the Mediator.
And now as to the future week of our prophecy; for future it must be, seeing that the time of Israel's blessing at the close of the seventy weeks of Daniel is not yet arrived. The week of grace being thus lost, after a long interregnum (beginning to reckon from the close of the sixty-ninth week,) formed both by the canceled week and the present period of Israel's rejection from the land of their fathers, the week, as it were, will revive; its place, in a word, being supplied by a week of a very different character;-a week, not of grace, as before, but of retributive judgment, when no second offer will be made, but when the false Messiah, "the prince that shall come," (Dan. 9:2626And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. (Daniel 9:26),) will be suffered to deceive his victims at first, and then, having broken his blasphemous covenant "in the midst of the week," to oppress them. For seven years they rejected their King; first in the person of His messenger, John, and then in His own blessed person; and now, for the same space of time, they will have to rue their rejection of Him and His grace. This child of the devil, this "man of. the earth," the Antichrist " (1 John 2:1818Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. (1 John 2:18)), as he is termed in order to distinguish him, the chief and last of his kind, from all others bearing this title, will be used by the Lord as a scourge, as "the enemy and avenger" (Psa. 8:22Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. (Psalm 8:2)) on Israel, for the wrong done to the "just One," the true but rejected Heir of the vineyard.
And now, as to the two weeks above mentioned, let me observe, that there is a resemblance, a correspondence, and at the same time a marked contrast between them. In the one case we trace the actings of the true Messiah of Israel, the One whom His people have rejected and slain; in the other, those of the false Christ, who is yet to come in his own name, and will be owned and received as though he were the hope of the nation. Then again, they are divided exactly alike; namely, "in the midst of the week." As to the past week, the first half thereof was marked by deceit, the other half by violence on the part of the Jews; deceit being shown in their false-hearted reception of John, who at the very time that they were pressing in to his baptism, aware that this was merely hypocrisy, told them that they were, notwithstanding all their profession, a "generation of vipers;" while violence appears in their treatment of Jesus, whom from the outset they doomed to destruction, and whom in the end they put to death on the cross. Now mark the correspondence, and at the same time the contrast, between this past week and the last week of Daniel, with regard to the two characteristic sins of the nation. The prince or willful king, we find, will come in with flatteries, will offer himself to the Jews; then, having established himself on the throne, "in the midst of the week" he will break the covenant which he will make at the outset. At his bidding the oblation and sacrifice cease; namely, the Jewish ordinances, which he himself will revive, will be all set aside, and his image, the abomination spoken of in Dan. 9:27;11. 31, and Matt. 24:1515When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) (Matthew 24:15), will become an object of worship; and all, including both Gentiles and Jews, will be called on to bow down to the idol, or perish. Thus then we see, as in the case of the canceled week, deceit in the first place, and violence next, characterized the ways of this people: so delusion, at the outset, and then persecution, will mark the career of this mighty avenger. At the termination, however, of this time of retributive vengeance, in answer to the cry of His remnant, namely, an election out of the infidel nation who will be led by the Spirit to look for their Lord, the Deliverer will come—the true Messiah Himself will appear, to destroy their oppressor and rescue His people; thereby fulfilling the promises made of old to their fathers, to Abraham at first, and now, in the next place, to Daniel the prophet.
Now then, leaving the consideration of the seventy weeks of Daniel, I turn again to the cycles. And here I must answer a question very frequently asked with regard to this subject: it is this—Whether the four periods between the birth of Abraham, the exodus of Moses, the dedication of the temple by Solomon, the return of Nehemiah, and the death of Christ, amounted each of them precisely to four hundred and ninety years. To this I reply, that I believe they did not, but, on the contrary, that they were each of them considerably longer than this. In admitting this fact, however, I am by no means retreating from what I have already advanced, but am thereby rather confirmed than otherwise in what I have said. To make myself clear, let me observe that time in scripture is viewed in two distinct aspects; that with God there is natural, and also dispensational, time. To find an example of this, we need go no farther than the prophecy of the seventy weeks of Daniel: there the period from Nehemiah to the second coming of Christ, prophetically speaking, is only FOUR HUNDRED AND NINETY YEARS; whereas, if we reckon in the present period of Jewish dispersion, it is ABOUT TWO THOUSAND YEARS LONGER. On the very same principle it is, then, that, while dispensationally viewed, four distinct cycles occurred between Abraham and Christ, actually and historically each period was longer. And the reason is this; that during the course of each cycle (the first three at least,) there were certain periods or intervals not counted in time, but treated by the Lord as blanks; not taken into account in His reckoning just in the same way, as I have said, that now there is a pause in time, as it were a parenthetical interval, during which Jewish time is suspended. The present blank interval—what does it mark? It assuredly shows that God is estranged from His people; that the Jews are rejected. And so it was ever of old. Whenever Abraham or his seed was disobedient, time, in a sense, was suspended. Now, then, let us look at the FIRST period. This was actually five hundred and five years; but, by deducting from thence the fifteen years between the birth of Ishmael and the weaning of Isaac—the time a the bondwoman and her son, the period of Abraham's failure—it was just seventy weeks, or four hundred and ninety years. As to the SECOND period, this was actually six hundred and twenty-one years; but the seven periods of servitude in the days of the Judges and Samuel, amounting to one hundred and thirty-one years, being deducted from thence, this in like manner, is reduced to four hundred and ninety years. And this, let me observe, accounts for the difficulty which chronologists have long found with regard to the dates between Moses and Solomon. So great, that the 480 years in 1 Kings 6:11And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the Lord. (1 Kings 6:1) has by some been thought to be spurious, being introduced by the Jewish Rabbis into the text. And now with regard to the THIRD cycle, this amounted to five hundred and sixty years; but, the seventy years of the Babylonian captivity being deducted, this, as before, only amounts to the same number of years, namely four hundred and ninety. Now then we reach the FOURTH cycle; and here we find something peculiar. No break, no interruption appears in this period. No: but the canceled week, which we have considered already, comes in at the close:—observe, I say at the close, not during the course of the cycle, involving a wonderful principle, seeing that the Lord is thereby enabled, while He lets the week drop for a season, to resume it again, to bring in the last, the "one week," and so, after all, at the termination of seventy weeks, His own great dispensational period, to bestow on His people those blessings which they, when left to themselves, were wholly unable to accept or to value. And here I would first direct my reader's attention to the moral resemblance between these blank periods and the canceled week aforesaid. If he admits the truth of the former, he will be the more free to receive the latter as true. Time, in both cases, because of Israel's failure, was expunged by the hand of the Lord; not but that with regard to the week there is something especial—something that, with far deeper emphasis than in the other case, marks the indignation, and at the same time the loving-kindness, of God.
And now, before leaving this part of the subject, let it be distinctly understood that here-inasmuch as my present object is not to enter into detail, but merely to exhibit these views as a whole, leaving them to be considered in the light of their moral consistency—I do not attempt, by any reference to scripture chronology, to show that such cycles actually existed. This I have done in the "COMPANION" to my two Charts on the Seventy Weeks of Daniel, and the Cycles, where I have endeavored to prove what I have merely stated above.
Thus, having treated of the Four Jewish Cycles, in the first place, then of the Seventy Weeks of Daniel especially, I now turn to glance at the whole course of time. And what do I find? To my surprise I' discover seventy weeks to be a cycle, in connection, not with the seed of Abraham alone, but with all the children of Adam—with man universally; and that, in tracing the years from the creation down to the close of the millennial age, no less than fourteen of such cycles are found to exist. This, to my mind, appears a most interesting discovery; seeing that it links the mystical number of SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN—the number of grace, as we may term it (see again Matt. 18:21,2221Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? 22Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven. (Matthew 18:21‑22))-with the whole human family. Then again it helps to throw considerable light on other parts of the word, especially on the prophecy of Daniel-a prophecy which all who read it aright will agree is one of paramount moment, connected as it is with the hopes of the Jews, and also, though more indirectly, with those of the Church. Now, then, I turn to prove by two methods what I have just said of the universal character of the great cycle in question. First, the whole course of time, it will be allowed, is a grand septenary cycle, a great week of millenaries as it were, from the creation down to the close of the millennial age of Messiah, the sabbatical thousand being the last of the seven, as foreshown by the Sabbath day, the sabbatical year, and the Jubilee. Now, if I can show that seventy weeks, in a sense, is equal to five hundred years, then I shall have succeeded in proving that this also is a universal cyclical period, as well as the millenary of which it forms the half. And here, as the proof of this question depends on the peculiar manner in which the YEAR OF JUBILEE, the great type, as we know, of the times of restitution of all things, was formed, and connected with the Mosaic order of time, let us turn to Lev. 25:8-108And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. 9Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. 10And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. (Leviticus 25:8‑10), where we find it spoken of in the following terms: "And thou shalt number seven Sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven Sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of THE SEVENTH MONTH, [of the FORTY-NINTH YEAR, observe,] in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land: and ye shall hallow THE FIFTIETH YEAR, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof,"&o., &c. Thus we see that the year of jubilee was a year altogether peculiar: it was, as shown in Plate 2, figures 4 and 6, made up of the last half of one sacred year, and the first half of the following—a species of composite year as it were. It was, we may truly say, a year of its own kind, independent altogether of the Jewish order of time, which rolled in due course, as though such a year had no existence whatever. And now, in connection with this, let us turn to the period of seventy weeks, as illustrated in Plate 2, figure 5. Within the compass of this we find just ten years of jubilee, which, if time be regarded in the usual way according to the Levitical reckoning, are made no account of as forming an integral part of the four hundred and ninety years. But if, on the other hand, we view it in a mystical light, as I feel assured in the present case to be the mind of the Lord, taking these ten years into account; then what is ACTUALLY ONLY FOUR HUNDRED AND NINETY becomes MYSTICALLY FIVE HUNDRED YEARS. The jubilee, observe, is termed in scripture" the fiftieth year;" which to me seems a clear intimation that the Lord would have us consider the whole cycle, of which the space between every jubilee is the tenth part, as five hundred years. And now, to return to the argument used at the outset,— What is five hundred years? It is the half of a millenary. And again, Into how many millenaries do we by universal consent allow the whole course of time to be divided? Into seven, all will allow, as foreshown by the week of creation, as also by the septenary divisions of time under the law, as expressed in these charts. What then do we deduce from all this? Simply this: that when the Lord, at the outset, divided the whole course of time, He did so in two distinct ways: first, He divided it into SEVEN MILLENARIES, on the one hand; secondly, into double that number of the lesser cycles—namely, into FOURTEEN PERIODS OF SEVENTY WEEKS, on the other. All this is expressed in Plate 2, figure 7, where, on one side of the column, the millennial, and on the other the septenary, order of time is presented.
And now, secondly, as to the other mode of proving this fact, be it remembered that the past annals of Israel formed a part, the most important and prominent part too, of this world's history, as given in scripture. What were they, in fact, but the annals of God's elect nation, the only nation on earth that was ever called by His name? Now then, in connection with this, let us remember—what we already have seen—how the whole period from Abraham to Christ was broken into four distinct cycles, each marked at the close by an offer of blessing on the part of the Lord to His people. Next, in connection with this, let us consider the ages before Moses, as well as those after Christ; and does it not seem to be quite according to the usual way of the Lord, which ever exhibits the most beautiful order, the most perfect consistency, that the arrangement of time, both previous and subsequent to the existence of Israel as a people, must have been divided by Him, when in secret He ordered the ages, according to the very same principle? The four periods above named, what were they but four links in the great chain of time? and though only these four, as it were, meet our eye, may we not, from analogy, judge that the rest of the chain, though kept out of sight, is exactly the same as that part which is visible? True it is, before Moses, no law was enacted, such as we find in Lev. 25, as to the division of time; neither is there any such law in existence at present: still, for the simple reason here given, I for my part cannot escape the conclusion that seventy weeks must have been from the outset, and must still be (in secret of course, seeing that time now is not reckoned), as much a dispensational cycle with God in his dealings with the world at large, as it was during the days of Israel's history.
Such, then, are my views on this subject. Many a difficulty, I doubt not, will occur to my reader, which here I have neither touched on nor solved. I beg, therefore, to refer him to the "COMPANION" aforesaid, of which this paper is merely an abstract: there, it is probable, he may find what it is impossible to give in so brief a sketch as the present; and thankful, let me say, I shall be, if he has the patience to travel with me through the mazes of this interesting question, to which the foregoing pages are designed as a clue.