APPENDIX.

SUPPLEMENT TO DISSERTATION XII.

Further consideration of Daniel x. 13.

THERE is one construction of Daniel x. 13, not noticed in the preceding Dissertation, which, if admitted to be true, would deprive that text of all value as supplying a chronological argument, to determine the interval between the death of Evil-merodach and the accession of Darius; and that is, to understand the one and twenty days, there mentioned, of the three "weeks of days," or "full weeks," alluded to x. 2 previously; for which Daniel was mourning and fasting, before he had the vision recorded in this and the following chapters.

It must be acknowledged that most of the commentators on the Book of Daniel, both ancient and modern, have understood the note of time at verse 13, with this reference to verse 2 of the tenth chapter in question: and it must also be admitted, that if we look only at the interval of time, specified in each instance, there would seem to be some reason for it; for three full weeks of days, and twenty-one days literally understood, amount to the same thing. Add to which, that Daniel was mourning and fasting for that length of time; and this may seem to be the same thing with that "setting his heart to understand," and that "chastening himself before his God," which are alluded to at verse 12: from the first day of his doing which also he was there told by the Angel, that "his words had been heard," and that "he was come for his words."

It would seem a natural inference from this allusion also, that the first day in question is to be understood of the first of the one and twenty days' fasting and mourning; and, consequently, when the Angel proceeds to observe, "But the Prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days;" it seems equally reasonable to conclude that, but for the opposition of the Prince of the kingdom of Persia, the Angel, who came for the words of Daniel at the end of his three weeks' fast, would have come for the same reason at the beginning of it; and therefore that the one and twenty days, between the first hearing of the words of Daniel, and the actual coming of the Angel, and the one and twenty days' opposition of the Prince of the kingdom of Persia, denote the same interval of time in each instance.

In answer to this objection, which after all is more specious than true, it may be replied, first, that if it was the case, as the Angel declared to Daniel, that from the first day that "he set his heart to understand and to chasten himself before his God, his words had been heard; and he was come for his words;" the most natural and obvious construction of this declaration would be to refer it to Daniel ix. 1, and the following verses; especially as Daniel is there represented to be doing, before the appearance of the Angel on that occasion, the very thing which is here implied by setting his heart to understand, and chastening himself before his God: see ver. 2, 3, 4-19: and his being so employed is also represented as the moving cause why the Angel was sent to him, to reveal the subject-matter of the prophecy there recorded; and the last of these things so critically the effect of the former, that the command to the Angel to go forth was issued at the very beginning of the supplications of Daniel which led to it see ver. 20-23.

On this principle, the first day alluded to x. 13, as the day from which the words of Daniel had been heard, would have no more right to be referred to the third of Cyrus, x. 1, 2, than to the first of Darius, ix. 1, 2: in which case the one and twenty days' opposition of the Prince of the kingdom of Persia, if that was the reason why they had not been answered sooner, could have nothing to do with Daniel's three weeks' fast; for between the first of Darius and the third of Cyrus, the interval far exceeded the duration of this three weeks' fast.

In the next place, an opposition of one and twenty days, if literally understood of a three weeks' duration only, would seem to be much too insignificant a circumstance to be specially mentioned and insisted upon, in an account of an interview between Daniel and the angel Gabriel, so remarkable as this, and ushered in by a vision of so glorious a character as the manifestation of the second Person in the Trinity to the eyes of the prophet Daniel, under the same form and with the same attributes of dignity and majesty, externally, in which he afterwards appeared to St. John in the Apocalypse, (i. 13-16): for that the person who appears, and is described as appearing to Daniel, at x. 5, 6, is our Lord Jesus Christ, or God Incarnate, the second Person of the Holy Trinity in an human but glorified form; there can be no question: especially, when this one and twenty days' opposition, so understood, is assigned as the reason why the words of Daniel should not have been sooner heard; in other words, why a vision of so sublime a nature should not have been sooner vouchsafed to him: especially too, when the nature of the parties concerned in the opposition on both sides is considered-the Prince of the kingdom of Persia, if not likewise the Prince of the kingdom of

Grecia, on the one hand, and the angel Gabriel, and Michael, one of the chief, or one of the first Princes, and the Prince of Daniel and of his people in particular, on the other: for that these are designations of real beings, and of beings superior to human, on the one side, and therefore in all probability on the other too, can scarcely admit of a doubt. Now between opposing parties of this mysterious but exalted description-the angelic being, Gabriel, and the super-angelic being, Michael, one of the first or chief Princes, that is, one of the three Persons of the undivided Trinity itself, on the one side, and the corresponding antagonist principles of powers and potentates like these, the Prince of Persia and the Prince of Grecia, on the other; an opposition and a contest of three weeks' duration, and directed to no other purpose, than whether the answer to the words of Daniel should take place three weeks of days sooner, or three weeks of days later; (with submission and reverence be it spoken ;) does appear incongruous to the spirit of the whole description, disproportionate to the greatness and solemnity of the occasion, and disparaging to the dignity of the parties concerned in it on both sides.

In the third place, no one, perhaps, would have imagined the fact of a reference at x. 13, 14, to the fasting and mourning alluded to x. 2, 3, but for the turn which the English version has given to the original, in rendering the latter part of verse 12: “And I am come for thy words," and in introducing the next verse by the adversative particle, "But." One could scarce help concluding from the first of these versions, that the Angel was just come in consequence of Daniel's words; and from the other, that he would have come sooner, but for the opposition of the Prince of Persia. The original, however, does not necessarily sanction