bound to follow at all events the rule concerning patronymics, by which the official addition is taken away from the second Eliashib, Nehemiah must be deemed liable to that reproach; except it be considered less offensive to charge him with ignorance of his own language, as not knowing, that its "idiom would not admit of such a construction as that, which would place the word high-priest in apposition with Eliashib." If then we would clear Nehemiah of all reproach on account of either wilful obscurity, or ignorance of Hebrew, we must give up the universality of Prideaux's rule and admit, that Nehemiah intended to distinguish the second Eliashib by his official addition of high-priest, in opposition to the first Eliashib, who has no higher title allowed him than priest.

And now, it has appeared; 1. That the rule in question is in fact so far from being universal, that the exceptions are little, if at all less numerous than the examples; 2. That if it were, it would operate to make the grandson of Eliashib, whom Josephus names Manasseh, highpriest; 3. That the time, which Nehemiah speaks of in the twenty eighth verse, where he introduces the mention of the young man's crime, is the time of his return from Persia; And lastly, that the operation of the rule would in this

instance produce an absurd consequence, and would convict Nehemiah either of wilful obscurity or of ignorance of Hebrew. These are reasons amply sufficient to justify us in rejecting the operation of the proposed rule, even if it stood on broader foundations than it has appeared to do, in the present instance; and that being abandoned, no reasonable argument is left for fixing the date of the completion of Nehemiah's second reform at a later period than B. c. 420. It has appeared also, that the crowning event of Nehemiah's labours can be dated little, if at all before; and farther, it has been proved, that the civil and ecclesiastical polity of the Jews, and consequently the figurative city of Jerusalem, cannot be considered as fully restored and finally settled previously thereto. Therefore we conclude, that the year B. c. 420 is the very best point that can be assumed, from which we may reckon the seventy weeks of Daniel in a forward direction. But it is also the point, at which we arrive by a retrograde calculation; whence it follows, with almost unerring certainty, that it is the real point fixed by the omniscient spirit of prophecy for the commencement of that important term. "It is observable," says Prideaux*, "that at the same juncture of time, when the restoration of * Connexion, part 1, b. 5, p. 417.

the Jewish church and state ended, there the holy scriptures of the old testament do end also. For this last reformation of Nehemiah, is the last act that is recorded therein, and therefore this ending of the period is of sufficient remark for this reason, as well as the other, to be taken notice of in the prophecy."

CHAPTER IV.

SECTION II.

The six Particulars.

AND

TO PUT A STOP TO THE TRANSGRESSION,
AND TO SEAL THE SIN-OFFERINGS,
TO MAKE RECONCILIATION FOR INIQUITY,
AND TO BRING IN THE RIGHTEOUSNESS
OF THE AGES, AND TO SEAL VISION AND
PROPHET, AND TO ANOINT AN HOLY OF
HOLIES.

The term of seventy weeks, or four hundred and ninety years, being predicted by the angel, as a period decisively fixed in the divine wisdom and goodness, for the continuance of the Jewish people and of Jerusalem in a state of restoration and reestablishment, a period exactly equal to seven times the duration of their preceding exile and desolation, but the statement evidently implying, that the people and city would at the close of it come to an end, a fact, of which the

foresight might have tended to damp the expectations and depress the spirits of the prophet, he is reassured and comforted by the annunciation of the joyful tidings, that before the end of the appointed weeks the great and blessed purposes of the Most High, in taking the Jews for his peculiar people and Jerusalem for his holy city, will be put into a state of actual performance, and even of incipient perfection, and will be carried on continually with energy, decision, and success, toward their final completion, though it may be long before they attain it. These are expressed in six particulars, all of which, according to the third position in the last preceding chapter, are glad tidings of good things, and must, according to the fifth position, be brought to pass within the last nine weeks or sixty three years of the term. The first of these is,

I. TO PUT A STOP TO THE TRANSGRESSION.

It has been remarked in its proper place, that the other reading of the verb, which is followed in our English version and is there rendered to finish, affords a meaning almost the same, as that of the printed Hebrew text, which is followed above; yet certainly not that meaning, which Mr. Faber has drawn from it. For who does not perceive, that it would have been a strange mode of administering consolation to the prophet,